_Antonello da Messina_ (Venetian: 1444-1493)
A picture of special interest as being the earliest known
work (it is dated 1465) of Antonello, of Messina in Sicily,
who is famous as the man by whom the art of painting in oils,
as perfected by the Van Eycks (see 186), was introduced into
Venice. Vasari's story is that Antonello saw, on a visit to
Naples, a picture by John Van Eyck, in which the brilliancy
and fine fusion of the tints so struck him that he forthwith
set out for Flanders, ingratiated himself with Van Eyck, and
learnt from him the secret of his method. But the dates do
not agree with this story. For Van Eyck died in 1440, and
Antonello must therefore have been born early in the century,
whereas, on the contrary, Vasari expressly states that he died
in 1493, aged forty-nine. More probably Antonello learnt the
Flemish technique from the painters of that school who are
known to have been at Naples in the middle of the fifteenth
century. In his native town, in the church of S. Gregorio,
is a triptych by him, dated 1473. In the same year he was at
Venice, where he remained until his death. "His practical
mastery of the new method, still unknown in the city of the
Lagoons, of glazing in oil colours a ground laid in tempera,
must have given Antonello a higher status at Venice than
his intrinsic merits as an artist would have warranted. We
see that he is at once honoured with a commission from the
wardens of S. Cassiano. Unhappily the altar-piece there, so
highly praised by Matteo Collaccio and Sabellico, and signed
with the year 1473, has long since disappeared. And not only
did the church dignitaries of Venice patronise him, but the
patricians were eager to have their likenesses taken on the
new principle practised by Antonello; and, to judge by the
number of portraits he turned out in those years, he must for
a time have been the most popular portrait painter in Venice"
(Morelli). Of his portraits there is a good example in our
Gallery (1141). The splendid portrait in the Louvre is dated
1475; that in the Berlin Gallery, 1478. The "Crucifixion" in
our Gallery is dated 1477. "It is evident to me," says Morelli,
"that Antonello gradually formed himself by studying the works
and seeking the society of the great Venetian masters, till he
reached that degree of perfection which we miss in his early
Ecce Homos and admire in his portraits of 1475-78. His Italian
nature gradually works its way through the Flemish shell in
which his first master had encased his hand as well as mind. In
this transformation of Antonello as an artist Giovanni Bellini
had obviously the greatest share. Whoever visits the churches
of Messina, and of the towns and villages along that eastern
coast of Sicily as far as Syracuse, will still find in many
of them Madonnas, whether in colour or in marble, that remind
him of Antonello and Giambellino. And not only did Antonello
act powerfully on his own Sicilian countrymen; we also discern
his influence in several portraits by painters of Upper
Italy--for instance, those of Solario." No. 923, for example,
the portrait of a Venetian Senator, by that master, is strongly
reminiscent of Antonello's style. In fact, as Sir F. Burton
says, "to Antonello and his Flemish education is due that type
of portraiture which we find among the Venetian and North
Italian painters of his time, and which, under a southern sun,
and in the hands of a Titian, expanded itself in the noblest
form." (The above account of Antonello follows Morelli: see his
_Italian Masters in German Galleries_, pp. 376-390).
Christ as the "Saviour of the World," stands with his finger on the
edge of a parapet, giving the blessing and gazing into eternity. The
picture, being dated 1465,[164] must have been painted by Antonello in
his twenty-first year. Both in conception and in the ruddy complexion
peculiar to the school of Van Eyck (see 222 and 290) it suggests a
Flemish influence. Notice also the _pentimenti_ (or corrections):
the right hand and border of the tunic were originally higher, and
their forms, obliterated by the painter, have now in course of time
disappeared. This again shows the hand of an experienced artist.