[38] It is worth noting that a similar incident (which in this picture
has greatly shocked some of the critics) is introduced in Orcagna's
great fresco of the Triumph of Death. "The three kings of the German
legend are represented looking at the three coffins containing
three bodies of kings, such as themselves, in the last stage of
corruption.... Orcagna disdains both poetry and taste; he wants the
_facts_ only; he wishes to give the spectator the same lesson that
the kings had, and, therefore, instead of concealing the dead bodies,
he paints them with the most fearful detail. And then, he does not
consider what the three kings might most gracefully do. He considers
only what they actually, in all probability, _would have done_. He
makes them looking at the coffins with a startled stare, and one
holding his nose" (_Lectures on Architecture and Painting_, pp. 209,
210).
A comparison of the various opinions expressed on this picture would
form a diverting chapter in the history of art criticism. Thus in
Kugler's _Handbook_ we are told that it is "in many respects one of the
noblest pictures existing"; Sir Henry Cole ("Felix Summerly") called
it "doubtless the greatest Italian painting in this country"; Hazlitt
said it was "one of the best pictures on so large a scale that he
was acquainted with"; Waagen pronounced it to be "the most important
specimen of Italian art in England"; Solly called it "the second
picture in the world"; and Mrs. Jameson saw in it a combination of "the
characteristic power and beauty of the finest school of design and the
finest school of colouring in the world." For an equally uncompromising
condemnation see Landseer's _Catalogue_, pp. 92-119. It is interesting
to note that in some cases the admiration excited by the picture was
due to the dirt with which by long neglect and lapse in time it had
come to be discoloured. Thus Hazlitt says that "the figure of Lazarus
is very fine and bold. The flesh is _well-baked_, _dingy_, and ready to
crumble from the touch, when it is liberated from its dread confinement
to have life and motion impressed on it again" (_Criticisms on Art_,
1843, p. 9). Thus it was inferred that Sebastiano stooped to the
trivial artifice of imparting an appearance of half putrefaction to
the exhumed corpse. The absurdity of this criticism is well exposed by
Henry Merritt, the famous picture restorer, in his essay on "Dirt and
Pictures Separated" (_Art Criticism and Romance_, i. 69). The fact is
that the whole picture was sadly darkened with time, and that it had
become "embedded beneath a thick covering, compounded of half opaque
varnish, patches of modern paint, and dirt." It has only been found
possible partly to remove this covering. It may not be uninteresting to
add that the picture was a favourite with Charles Darwin. "Many of the
pictures in the National Gallery," he wrote, "gave me much pleasure;
that of Sebastian del Piombo exciting in me a sense of sublimity"
(_Life_, i. 49).
The poet Tennyson was another great admirer of the picture. His
son, describing visits with the poet to the National Gallery, says,
"he always led the way first of all to the "Raising of Lazarus," by
Sebastian del Piombo, and to Titian's "Bacchus and Ariadne."" "The
Christ I call Christlike," said Tennyson on one occasion to Carlyle,
"is Sebastian del Piombo's in the National Gallery" (_Memoir_, ii.
235). It is possible that the poet may have written the stanzas cited
above with his eye on Sebastiano's picture.
[39] "When they went to nature, which I believe to have been a very
much rarer practice with them than their biographers would have us
suppose, they copied her like children, drawing what they knew to be
there, but not what they saw there" (_Modern Painters_, vol. i. pt. ii.
sec. ii. ch. iii. § 7).
[40] The "Claude Lorraine glass"--a convex dark, or coloured
hand-mirror used to concentrate the features of a landscape in a
subdued tone--"gives the objects of nature," says an old writer, "a
soft mellow tinge like the colouring of that master."
[41] But Ruskin does not quite keep his promise. "If Claude had been a
great man he would not have been so steadfastly set on painting effects
of sun; he would have looked at all nature, and at all art, and would
have painted sun effects somewhat worse, and nature universally much
better" (_Modern Painters_, vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. xviii. § 23).
[42] The passages quoted from Sir F. Burton are to be found in his
edition of the Official Catalogue (unabridged) of the Foreign Schools.
That work, which occupied the late Director's leisure for many years,
is a worthy monument of his wide learning and fastidious taste. A
large-paper edition was issued by the Stationery Office in 1892.
[43] See, however, the sunset picture of his predecessor, Bellini
(726). Connoisseurs should note that this picture is referred to by
Richter as bearing on the vexed question of Palma Vecchio's relation
with Titian, and showing that the latter imitated the former rather
than _vice versâ_ (_Italian Art in the National Gallery_, p. 85. See
also Morelli's _German Galleries_, p. 25).
[44] Called also "Sinon before Priam" (_Æneid_, ii. 79).
[45] The two pictures were bought by the nation in 1834 for £11,550.
The sum was then thought a very large one, and the trustees fortified
themselves with the opinion of experts. Amongst these Sir David Wilkie,
R.A., wrote, "It is certainly a large sum for two pictures; but giving
this difficulty its due weight, I would decidedly concur in giving this
sum rather than let them go out of the country, considering the rarity
of such specimens even in foreign countries, and their excellence as
examples of the high school to which they belong, to which it must be
the aim of every other school to approach."
[46] The picture is inscribed "Mariage d'Isaac avec Rebecca," but it is
a repetition with some variations in detail of the Claude known as _Il
Molino_ (The Mill) in the Doria palace at Rome. Ruskin characterises
this version of the subject as a "villainous and unpalliated copy."
"There is not," he adds, "one touch or line of even decent painting in
the whole picture; but as connoisseurs have considered it a Claude, as
it has been put in our Gallery for a Claude, and as people admire it
every day for a Claude, I may at least presume it has those qualities
of Claude in it which are wont to excite the public admiration, though
it possesses none of those which sometimes give him claim to it; and I
have so reasoned, and shall continue to reason upon it, especially with
respect to facts of form, which cannot have been much altered by the
copyist" (_Modern Painters_, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. iii. ch. i. § 9, sec.
iv. ch. ii. § 8).
[47] The following is the text of this portion of Turner's will: "I
give and bequeath unto the Trustees and Directors for the time being
of a certain Society or Institution, called the 'National Gallery'
or Society, the following pictures or paintings by myself, namely
Dido Building Carthage, and the picture formerly in the De Tabley
collection. To hold the said pictures or paintings unto the said
Trustees and Directors of this said Society for the time being,
in trust for the said Institution or Society for ever, subject,
nevertheless, to, for, and upon the following reservations and
restrictions only; that is to say, I direct that the said pictures
or paintings shall be hung, kept, and placed, that is to say, always
between the two pictures painted by Claude, The Seaport and Mill."
The "picture formerly in the De Tabley collection" is the "Sun rising
in a Mist," 479. Turner bought it back at Lord de Tabley's sale at
Christie's in 1827 for £514: 10s., and ever afterwards refused to part
with it. The other picture, the Carthage (498), was returned unsold
from the Academy, and Turner always kept it in his gallery. His friend
Chantrey used to make him offers for it, but each time its price rose
higher. "Why, what in the world, Turner, are you going to do with the
picture?" he asked. "Be buried in it," Turner replied--a remark he
often made to other friends.
[48] "So in N. Poussin's 'Phocion' (40) the shadow of the stick on the
stone in the right-hand corner, is shaded off and lost, while you see
the stick plainly all the way. In nature's sunlight it would have been
the direct reverse: you would have seen the shadow black and sharp all
the way down; but you would have had to look for the stick, which in
all probability would in several places have been confused with the
stone behind it" (_ibid._).
[49] Compare on this point G. Poussin's "Abraham and Isaac" (31).
[50] One may compare with Ruskin's description the similar one by
Tennyson of a distant view of Monte Rosa--
How faintly-flush'd, how phantom-fair,
Was Monte Rosa, hanging there
A thousand shadowy-pencill'd valleys
And snowy dells in a golden air.
_The Daisy._
[51] "In some of the convents (in Mexico) there still exist, buried
alive like the inmates, various fine old paintings ... brought there by
the monks" (Dublin National Gallery Catalogue). The Spanish influence
gave birth, moreover, to a native Mexican School of painting, said to
be of considerable merit.
[52] "Murillo, of all true painters the narrowest, feeblest, and most
superficial, for those reasons the most popular" (_Two Paths_, § 57
_n._)--"The delight of vulgar painters (as Murillo) in coarse and
slurred painting merely for the sake of its coarseness, opposed to the
divine finish which the greatest and mightiest of men disdained not"
(_Modern Painters_, vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. i. ch. x. § 3).
[53] The French partiality for Murillo is traditional, dating back to
Marshal Soult's time, from whose collection the "Immaculate Conception"
was bought. Murillos were his favourite spoils from the Peninsular War.
"One day, showing General G---- his gallery in Paris, Soult stopped
opposite a Murillo, and said, 'I very much value _that_, as it saved
the lives of two estimable persons.' An Aide-de-camp whispered, 'He
threatened to have both shot on the spot unless they _gave_ up the
picture'" (Ford's _Handbook_).
[54] "He was not a _bad_ painter," continued Ruskin, "but he exercises
a most fatal influence on the English School, and therefore I owe
him an especial grudge. I have never entered the Dulwich Gallery for
fourteen years without seeing at least three copyists before the
Murillos. I _never_ have seen _one_ before the Paul Veronese....
I intend some time in my life to have a general conflagration of
Murillos." Ruskin would have been relieved to know that of late
years at the National Gallery Paul Veronese--and especially his St.
Helena--has been very frequently copied.
[55] Amongst the curiosities of criticisms are the differences
between experts as to whether this is a morning or an evening effect.
Contradictory opinions on the point were submitted to the Select
Committee of 1853, but as the picture had been "restored," each side
was able to impute the difficulty of deciding to the "ruinous" nature
of that operation.
[56] It may be interesting to note on the other side that Dr. Waagen
(whose experience of the sea is given under No. 149) finds the waves in
this picture to "run high," and to be "extraordinarily deep and full."
[57] Compare for equally defective perspective the covered portico in
30.
[58] Visitors to Venice may like to be reminded that most of Ruskin's
criticism upon Tintoret's works there is now easily accessible in (1)
_The Relation between Michael Angelo and Tintoret_, (2) _The Stones of
Venice_, travellers' edition, and (3) the reissue of the second volume
of _Modern Painters_. Mr. Ruskin always accounted his "discovery" of
Tintoret as one of the chief works of his life. "I have supplied," he
wrote in _Stones of Venice_ (1853), "somewhat copious notices of the
pictures of Tintoret, because they are much injured, difficult to read,
and entirely neglected by other writers on art." "I say with pride,"
he wrote in the epilogue to the second volume of _Modern Painters_
(1883), "what it has become my duty to express openly, that it was
left to me, and to me alone, first to discern, and then to teach, so
far as in this hurried century any such thing _can_ be taught, the
excellency and supremacy of five great painters, despised until I
spoke of them;--Turner, Tintoret, Luini, Botticelli, and Carpaccio.
Despised,--nay, scarcely in any true sense of the word, known." For
the Pre-Ruskinian view of Tintoret, the reader may consult Kugler's
_Handbook of Painting_.
[59] For an exhaustive and interesting history of the legend see Mr. J.
R. Anderson's Supplement to _St. Mark's Rest_. One account, it seems,
places both Perseus and St. George in the Nile Delta. Politicians who
say that England has gone to Egypt to save that country from itself may
perhaps see some significance in this. The superstitious in such things
will not forget either that one of Gordon's names was George.
[60] It is proper to mention that most of the critics dispute the
genuineness of this picture, and consider it a copy by some scholar
or imitator. "It is but a school repetition of a signed picture in
The Hermitage, with the omission, however, of a charming figure of
St. Catherine." In connection with this disputed point, it may not
be out of place to recall the famous forgery in which Andrea himself
played the chief part. The Duke of Mantua coveted Raphael's portrait of
Leo X., and obtained permission from the Pope to appropriate it. The
owner determined to meet force by fraud, and employed Andrea to make
a copy which was sent to the Duke as the original. The copy, when at
Mantua, deceived even Giulio Romano, who had himself taken part in the
execution of the original--a fact which might well induce some modesty
of judgment in connoisseurs.
[61] The title usually given to this picture, "Christ Disputing with
the Doctors," cannot be correct, for the figure of Christ is too old
for an incident which occurred when he was twelve years old.
[62] In the little-known collection in the library of Christ Church,
Oxford, there is a powerful but unpleasantly realistic picture of a
group in a butcher's shop, by one of the Carracci, which is perhaps a
family portrait.
[63] See Blake's _Auguries of Innocence_.
[64] Gaspard was particularly unfaithful to the variety of nature in
his representation of leaves (see 98). It is interesting therefore,
as showing how long it passed for truth, to note that Lanzi (i. 481)
singles out this point for special praise: "Everything that Gaspard
expresses is founded in nature; in his leaves he is as various as the
trees themselves."
[65] Compare on this point Claude's "Isaac and Rebecca," No. 12.
[66] This anecdote is a modern counterpart of that of Protogenes, the
rival of Apelles, who worked continuously, we are told, during the
siege of Rhodes by Demetrius Poliorcetes, notwithstanding that the
garden in which he painted was in the middle of the enemy's camp.
Demetrius, unsolicited, took measures for the painter's safety, and
when he was told that one of the masterpieces by Protogenes was in a
part of the town exposed to assault, he changed his plan of operations.
[67] "If you live in London you may test your progress _accurately_ by
the degree of admiration you feel for the leaves of vine round the head
of the Bacchus in Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne" (_Elements of Drawing_,
p. 82). Another technical beauty referred to in the same book (p. 77
_n._) is "the points of light on the white flower in the wreath of the
dancing child-faun." Similarly, "the wing of the cupid in Correggio's
picture (10) is focused to two little grains of white at the top of
it." Elsewhere Ruskin calls attention to "the leaves which crown the
Bacchus, and the little dancing faun: every turn of the most subtle
perspective, and every gradation of colour, is given with the colossal
ease and power of the consummate master" (_Academy Notes_, 1855, p. 22).
[68] Ruskin's analysis of Rubens's technical method, which is here
omitted as foreign to the scope of this handbook, will be found in his
review of Eastlake's _History of Oil Painting_, now reprinted in _On
the Old Road_, i. §§ 98-136.
[69] "The conditions of art in Flanders--wealthy, _bourgeois_, proud,
free,--were not dissimilar to those of art in Venice. The misty flats
of Belgium have some of the atmospheric qualities of Venice. As Van
Eyck is to the Vivarini, so is Rubens to Paolo Veronese. This expresses
the amount of likeness and difference" (Symonds: _Renaissance_, iii.
265 _n_).
[70] See, for a further instance of this, what is said of Rubens's
landscapes below, under 66.
[71] Dr. Elisabeth Denio, in her monograph on Poussin (1899), adduces
good reason for altering the commonly accepted date 1594 to 1593.
[72] See _Lanzi_, i. 477, and a paper by Mr. R. Heath in the _Magazine
of Art_ for September 1877, where Poussin's theory is illustrated
from his pictures in the Louvre. English readers may be reminded that
Poussin is particularly well represented in the Dulwich Gallery.
[73] Elsewhere Ruskin says of Poussin, "Whatever he has done has been
done better by Titian." Also, "the landscape of Nicolo Poussin shows
much power, and is usually composed and elaborated on right principles,
but I am aware of nothing that it has attained of new or peculiar
excellence; it is a graceful mixture of qualities to be found in other
masters in higher degrees. In finish it is inferior to Leonardo's, in
invention to Giorgione's, in truth to Titian's, in grace to Raphael's"
(_Modern Painters_, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. i. ch. vii. § 14).
[74] "He feared the fascinations of colour, and once wrote from Venice
that he must flee from a place where they lured him too much. He did
not know how needless was the alarm" (Sir F. Burton).
[75] Constable, who made some studies from this picture, was of the
same opinion. In a letter to Fisher he describes it as "a noble
Poussin: a solemn, deep, still summer's noon, with large umbrageous
trees, and a man washing his feet at a fountain near them. Through the
breaks in the trees are mountains, and the clouds collecting about them
with the most enchanting effects possible. It cannot be too much to say
that this landscape is full of religious and moral feeling" (Leslie's
_Life of Constable_, p. 90).
[76] "Hang these pictures in a very strong light," said Rembrandt of
his early work. "The smell of paint is not good for the health," he
said many years afterwards, when a visitor came close up to one of his
later pictures.
[77] Baldwin Brown's _The Fine Arts_, p. 298, where Mr. Whistler's
beautiful description of a "nocturne" on the Thames is cited as being
in direct artistic descent from Rembrandt. "To Rembrandt," said the
late Mr. Wornum (_Epochs of Painting_, 1864, p. 421), "belongs the
glory of having first embodied in art and perpetuated [such] rare
and beautiful effects of nature" as are referred to above. Ruskin
took up the sentence, and replied with characteristic emphasis: "Such
effects are indeed rare in nature; but they are not rare, absolutely.
The sky, with the sun in it, does not usually give the impression
of being dimly lighted through a circular hole; but you may observe
a very similar effect any day in your coal-cellar. The light is not
Rembrandtesque on the current, or banks, of a river; but it is on
those of a drain. Colour is not Rembrandtesque, usually, in a clean
house; but is presently obtainable of that quality in a dirty one. And
without denying the pleasantness of the mode of progression, which Mr.
Hazlitt, perhaps too enthusiastically, describes (in a criticism upon
the present picture) as obtainable in a background of Rembrandt's, 'you
stagger from one abyss of obscurity to another,' I cannot feel it an
entirely glorious speciality to be distinguished, as Rembrandt was,
from other great painters, chiefly by the liveliness of his darkness,
and the dulness of his light. Glorious or inglorious, the speciality
itself is easily and accurately definable. It is the aim of the best
painters to paint the noblest things they can see by sunlight. It was
the aim of Rembrandt to paint the foulest things he could see--by
rushlight,"--a statement from which, of course, deduction must be made,
in forming a general idea of Ruskin's estimate, for his appreciation of
Rembrandt's portraits. _See_, _e.g._ under 51.
[78] To further understand Rembrandt's principle of choice, contrast
that of Veronese. See the passage quoted under No. 26.
[79] Yet Rembrandt's pictures are often more deceptive--look more like
reality--than others which are really more true. Why? It is because
"people are so much more easily and instinctively impressed by force of
light than truth of colour.... Give them the true contrast of light,
and they will not observe the false local colour." The references to
Ruskin are _Modern Painters_, vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. iii. § 16; vol.
iv. pt. v. ch. ii. §§ 11-19; vol. v. pt. ix. ch. vi. § 10; _On the Old
Road_, i. 498-505.
[80] Ruskin, writing to the _Times_ in 1847, said of the then condition
of the picture: "I have no hesitation in asserting that for the present
it is utterly, and for ever partially, destroyed. I am not disposed
lightly to impugn the judgment of Mr. Eastlake (that is, the then
Keeper and subsequent Director, the late Sir C. L. Eastlake), but this
was indisputably of all the pictures in the Gallery that which least
required, and least could endure, the process of cleaning. It was in
the most advantageous condition under which a work of Rubens can be
seen; mellowed by time into more perfect harmony than when it left the
easel, enriched and warmed, without losing any of its freshness or
energy. The execution of the master is always so bold and frank as to
be completely, perhaps even most agreeably, seen under circumstances of
obscurity, which would be injurious to pictures of greater refinement;
and though this was, indeed, one of his most highly-finished and
careful works (to my mind, before it suffered this recent injury, far
superior to everything at Antwerp, Malines, or Cologne), this was a
more weighty reason for caution than for interference. Some portions of
colour have been exhibited which were formerly untraceable; but even
these have lost in power what they have gained in definitiveness,--the
majesty and preciousness of all the tones are departed, the balance of
distances lost. Time may, perhaps, restore something of the glow, but
never the subordination; and the more delicate portions of flesh tint,
especially the back of the female figure on the left, and of the boy in
the centre, are destroyed for ever" (_Arrows of the Chace_, i, 56, 57).
[81] The magnificent portrait No. 52 is by some critics ascribed to
Rubens. Van Dyck hardly ever signed his pictures.
[82] Not all artists have learnt from this great work gladly. It was
exhibited at the first exhibition of "Old Masters" at the British
Institution in 1815, and B. R. Haydon tells the following story:
"Lawrence was looking at the Gevartius when I was there, and as he
turned round, to my wonder, his face was boiling with rage as he grated
out between his teeth, 'I suppose they think we want teaching!'"
(_Autobiography_, i. 292).
[83] Such is the tradition. By many modern critics the picture is, on
internal evidence, taken away from Van Dyck and given to Rubens. Mr.
Watts in the article cited above says: "Attributed to Van Dyck, but
hardly, I think, suggesting his work, though it would be difficult to
attribute it to any other painter, unless, perhaps, on some occasion
Rubens might have been inspired with so fervent a love for art that he
forgot his satisfaction in scattering his over-ripe dexterity."
[84] The statement found in many biographies of the painter that he was
a brewer is a mistake. It arose from the fact that his daughter married
a brewer, and that the painter himself was buried from his son-in-law's
brewery.
[85] See _Modern Painters_, vol. v. pt. vii. ch. iv. § 13.
[86] Ruskin (_ibid._, vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. ii. ch. iv. § 16) notices
this treatment of Apollo under the head of "Imagination Contemplative,"
as an instance of an imaginative abstraction "in which the form of one
thing is fancifully indicated in the matter of another; as in phantoms
and cloud shapes, the use of which, in mighty hands, is often most
impressive, as in the cloudy-charioted Apollo of Nicolo Poussin in our
own Gallery, which the reader may oppose to the substantial Apollo in
Wilson's Niobe," see No. 110.
[87] This figure is specially good. It was to rival this great
landscape that James Ward (see 688), as he avows in his autobiography,
painted his "Fighting Bulls," now in the South Kensington Museum. "How
full of lithe natural movement," says Mr. J. T. Nettleship, "is the
man in the foreground, in heavy boots and feathered hat, stooping and
creeping towards the covey of partridges under cover of bramble and
bush, compared with the clumsy anatomical bulls in Ward's picture"
(_George Morland_, p. 54).
[88] Ruskin is here speaking of the somewhat similar "St. George"
picture in the Church of St. James at Antwerp.
[89] See also No. 98, in which the tree is said by Ruskin to be "a mere
jest" compared to this.
[90] No. 78 was formerly Sir Joshua Reynolds's "Holy Family," on which
notes will be found in Volume II. of this Handbook. The picture has now
been withdrawn from exhibition and little remains of it, for owing to
the excessive use of asphaltum the pigments have disappeared.
[91] "Garofano" is the Italian for "gillyflower" (or clove-pink),
and Tisio sometimes painted this flower as his sign-manual (like Mr.
Whistler's butterfly).
[92] Authorities differ between this title and "Pan teaching Apollo to
play on the pipes." Certainly there is the "Pan's pipe," but then if
it is Pan he ought to have goat's legs and horns. The fact that the
picture is a companion to "Silenus gathering Grapes" makes also in
favour of the description given in the text above.
[93] See also Ruskin's remarks on the companion storm piece, No. 36.
[94] It should be noted that this, as well as very many other pictures,
has of late years been cleaned. Thus 98 and 68 (in 1880), 36 and 40 (in
1868), have been "cleaned and varnished." 31 was "relined, repaired,
and varnished" in 1878; 161 was "cleaned and repaired" in 1868.
[95] The diminutive title "Il Canaletto" was originally applied
to Antonio's nephew and pupil, Bernardo Bellotto, but came to be
transferred to Antonio Canale himself. The two Canaletti painted so
much alike that their works are not easily distinguished.
[96] Ruskin, on one of his latest visits to the National Gallery
(1887), confessed that he had found himself admiring Canaletto. "After
all," he said to me, "he was a good workman in oils, whereas so much
of Turner's work is going to rack and ruin." Ruskin had made a similar
concession long before to Claude. Writing to Mr. Fawkes on the death
of Turner, he mentions a rumour that the artist had left only his
finished pictures to the nation. "Alas! these are finished in a double
sense--nothing but chilled fragments of paint on rotten canvas. The
Claudites will have a triumph when they get into the National Gallery"
(quoted in _The Nineteenth Century_, April 1900).
[97] An amusing instance of the naïve ignorance of the sea which
underlay much of the excessive admiration of Vandevelde is afforded by
Dr. Waagen, for many years director of the Berlin Gallery, and author
of _Treasures of Art in England_. At the end of a passage describing
his "first attempt to navigate the watery paths," he says: "For the
first time I understood the truth of these pictures (Bakhuizen's and
Vandevelde's), and the refined art with which, by intervening dashes
of sunshine, near or at a distance, and _ships to animate the scene_,
they produce such a charming variety on the surface of the sea." "For
the first time!" exclaims Ruskin (_Arrows of the Chace_, i. 16, 17),
"and yet this gallery-bred judge, this discriminator of coloured
shreds and canvas patches, who has no idea how ships animate the sea
until--charged with the fates of the Royal Academy--he ventures his
invaluable person from Rotterdam to Greenwich, will walk up to the work
of a man whose brow is hard with the spray of a hundred storms, and
characterise it as 'wanting in truth of clouds and waves.'" Dr. Waagen,
it should be explained, had, on the strength of his first "navigation
of the watery ways" pronounced Turner's works inferior in such truth to
Vandevelde. Clearly Dr. Waagen, more fortunate than most of our foreign
visitors, had a calm crossing.
[98] It is interesting that another contemporary man of letters, the
late Matthew Arnold, singled out these same lines for special praise:
"No passage in poetry," he said, "has moved and pleased me more"
(_Fortnightly Review_, August 1887, p. 299).
[99] In this town were born two other painters, who are sometimes known
by its name. Curiously enough, all three were originally masons.
[100] Ruskin speaks of "the ruffian Caravaggio, distinguished only by
his preference of candle-light and black shadows for the illustration
and reinforcement of villainy" (_On the Old Road_, i. § 48).
[101] According to Morelli (_Italian Masters in German Galleries_,
p. 56 _n._), this familiar tale is legendary, Francia being merely
an abbreviation of his Christian name, Francesco. But the painter
sometimes signed his name Franciscus Francia, a form which on Morelli's
hypothesis would be tautological.
[102] Francia's friendship with Raphael, on which art historians
have based many theories and spun many interesting tales, is now
discredited, the documents in question being comparatively modern
forgeries (see p. 366 of Kugler's _Italian Schools of Painting_, 5th
edition, revised by Sir A. H. Layard, 1887, elsewhere referred to as
_Layard_).
[103] Vasari's story that Francia died of chagrin on seeing how far the
whole work of his own life was transcended by Raphael's picture of St.
Cecilia, which was sent to its destination at Bologna about 1516, is
hardly credible.
[104] Ruskin said of this picture in 1847: "The attribution to him of
the wretched panel which now bears his name is a mere insult" (_Arrows
of the Chace_, i. 64). "Petrus Peruginus" is inscribed in gold on the
base of the mantle of the Virgin, but the picture may be the work of
his disciple, Lo Spagna (see 1032).
[105] Up to the time of the Van Eycks the general process of artistic
painting for detached pictures was tempera. In this method the colours,
after being ground with chalk, were laid on with a medium of water,
white of eggs, juice of unripe figs, or some similar substance. Some
kind of oil varnish was, however, often laid on afterwards, and a few
Italian artists sometimes tried to mix their colours with oil in the
first instance; but the results cannot have been satisfactory, for even
Crivelli, who died in 1495, was still exclusively a painter in tempera.
The objection to tempera, so far at any rate as northern countries
were concerned, was that it suffered from the damp. Thus in an old
retable in Westminster Abbey, so painted, the painting has flaked off.
The objection to the early attempts at using oil as a medium was that
it took a long time to dry. This caused Van Eyck incessant annoyance;
his knowledge of chemistry led him to make experiments, and at last he
obtained a medium which hastened the drying without the necessity of
exposure to the sun. This medium was probably a mixture of linseed and
nut oils. This method is different from that now called oil-painting.
Now the colours are laid on by an oily medium, and when the picture is
finished the whole surface is protected by a transparent varnish. Then
the varnish was incorporated with the surface colours (see Conway's
_Early Flemish Artists_, p. 119; and Wauters's _Flemish School of
Painting_, p. 35).
[106] _Arrows of the Chace_, i. 66. "John Bellini is the only artist
who appears to me to have united, in equal and magnificent measures,
justness of drawing, nobleness of colouring, and perfect manliness
of treatment, with the purest religious feeling. He did, as far as
it is possible to do it, instinctively and unaffectedly, what the
Carracci only pretended to do. Titian colours better, but has not his
piety; Leonardo draws better, but has not his colour; Angelico is
more heavenly, but has not his manliness, far less his powers of art"
(_Stones of Venice_, Venetian Index). Morelli's estimate is the same;
see _German Galleries_, p. 361.
[107] This letter of Dürer's gives an interesting glimpse into the art
life of the time. "I have many good friends among the Italians, who
warn me not to eat and drink with their painters. Many also of them
are my enemies; they copy my things for the churches, picking them
up whenever they can. Yet they abuse my style, saying that it is not
antique art, and that therefore it is not good. But Giambellini has
praised me much before many gentlemen; he wishes to have something of
mine; he came to me and begged me to do something for him, and is quite
willing to pay for it. And every one gives him such a good character
that I feel an affection for him. He is very old, and is yet the best
in painting; and the thing which pleased me so well eleven years ago
has now no attractions for me" (_Catalogue of Standard Series in the
Ruskin Drawing School_, P. 7).
[108] See _Report of Select Committee on the National Gallery_, 1853,
p. 432, where the whole story will be found very frankly told in Sir C.
Eastlake's evidence.
[109] Similarly Raphael Mengs, a later Spanish painter, said of
Velazquez that he appeared to have painted with his will only, without
the aid of his hand.
[110] I read the other day in an otherwise intelligent memoir of
Ruskin that "a generation which admired Velazquez had outlived the art
criticism of Ruskin." Not outlived, but absorbed, and so forgotten.
It was Ruskin who, half a century before, proclaimed the consummate
excellence of Velazquez--the "greatest artist of Spain," and "one of
the great artists of the world"; the master to all schools in his
"consummate ease"; the man who was "never wrong." In his admiration of
Velazquez Ruskin never wavered. The citations above given are from his
earlier books. In his later period, a picture by Velazquez was included
among the "Four Lesson Photographs" as "an example of the highest reach
of technical perfection yet reached in art; all effort and labour
seeming to cease in the radiant peace and simplicity of consummated
human power" (_Fors Clavigera_, 1876, p. 188).
[111] This was written in 1846. In 1853 some "horrible revelations"
were made about the picture before the Select Committee on the National
Gallery. Ruskin turned out to be curiously wrong, but also curiously
right. He was wrong; for so far from the picture being "in genuine and
perfect condition," a considerable portion of the canvas, as we now
see it, turned out to be not by Velazquez's hand at all. Lord Cowley,
its former owner, had sent it to a Mr. Thane, a picture dealer, to be
relined. A too hot iron was used, and a portion of the paint entirely
disappeared. Thane was in despair. The picture haunted him at nights.
He saw the figure of it in his dreams becoming more and more attenuated
until it appeared at length a skeleton. He was near going mad over
it, when a good angel came to his rescue in the shape of Lance, the
flower and fruit painter, who offered to restore the missing parts
out of his head. So far Ruskin was decidedly wrong. But he was also
right. The parts which Lance painted in "out of his head" were the
groups on the left of the foreground, and some of the middle distance.
"I endeavoured," he says, "to fill up the canvas, such as I supposed
Velazquez would have done; and I had great facility in doing that,
because if there was a man without a horse here, there was a horse
without a man there, so I could easily take his execution as nearly
as possible, and my own style of painting enabled me to keep pretty
near the mark"(!). But the high lights of the sky, he particularly
added, were untouched by him. So that there Ruskin was right. The
picture, when restored to its owner, gave complete satisfaction,
and Lance's share in it was kept a secret. A year or two later he
must have felt a proud man. The picture was being exhibited at the
British Gallery. In front of it Lance met two _cognoscenti_ of his
acquaintance. "It looks to me," he said, testing them, "as if it had
been a good deal repainted."--"No! you're wrong there," they said; "it
is remarkably free from repaints." It should be added that soon after
the Parliamentary inquiry referred to above, a tracing of Goya's copy,
procured from Madrid, showed in fact that the restored work differed
but slightly from the copy, and Lance's work was probably far less
important and extensive than he asserted. An idea of the original
condition of the picture may be had from a reduced replica, or first
sketch, now in the Wallace Collection.
[112] The view Diderot thus took of Greuze's art suggests the
importance of historical perspective in criticism. Pictures, like
everything else, should be judged with reference to contemporary
circumstances, as well as by the standard of abstract principle. From
the former point of view Greuze, as we have seen, is a moralist in
painting. From the latter Ruskin suggests the consideration "how far
the value of a girl's head by Greuze would be lowered in the market if
the dress, which now leaves the bosom bare, were raised to the neck"
(_Modern Painters_, vol. iii. pt. iv. chap. v. § 7).
[113] Another instance of this intimate union of art with business may
be seen in the number of Dutch artists of the period who themselves
held municipal office. See, for instance, Terburg (864) and Delen
(1010). Many of the Italian painters also were men of business and of
official standing. Thus Titian was a timber merchant; whilst Manni,
Perugino, and Pinturicchio were all magistrates.
[114] "The bit of bluish ribbed paper on which he made his design
in light and dark strokes, now gone brown, and which he had pricked
through for the purpose of tracing the design on the panel, is framed
beside it. He left it about, not thinking that in 350 years it would
be under glass in the distant city of London, stared at by English
roughs, who would say, "Sithee Bill, he's pricked it a' through with
a pin, and spilt th' ile on it!" for there are two or three of these
amber-coloured blurs which come from a sketch being inadvertently put
down on a palette knife" (_Letters of James Smetham_, p. 168).
[115] These pictures, like the other Florentine works here exhibited,
except 564 (which is on linen cloth attached to wood) and 276 (which is
in fresco), are painted in tempera on wood. _Tempera_ (or distemper)
painting is a generic term for the various methods in which some
other substance than oil was the medium. Various substances were thus
used--such as gum, glue or size, flour-paste, white of egg, milk of
figs. Cennino Cennini, who wrote a treatise on painting at the end of
the fourteenth century, professes to give the exact method of Giotto.
Egg beaten up with water was preferred by him, except where the
yellowness of the mixture injured the purity of the colour. The colours
thus mixed were laid on to a panel (or on to a cloth stretched over the
panel) previously prepared with a smooth white ground of plaster. And
finally oil or albumen was used to go over the whole surface. This was
the practice in general use for all detached pictures until the middle
of the fifteenth century, when what is known as "the Van Eyck method"
came into vogue (see under 186).
=Fresco= painting is painting upon walls of wet plaster with earths of
different colours diluted with water. It is so called from the colour
being applied to the _fresh_ wet surface of lime, but it is of two
kinds: (1) _fresco secco_, when the plaster of lime has been allowed
to _dry_ on the wall and is then saturated with water before painting;
this was the method in use till after Giotto's time; (2) _buon fresco_,
when the colours are laid on to the fresh plaster before it is yet dry.
(The fullest account of these various technical processes and their
history is Sir C. Eastlake's "Materials for a History of Oil Painting,"
a review of which by Ruskin appeared in the _Quarterly Review_, and is
reprinted in _On the Old Road_, vol. i.).
[116] The note in the Official Catalogue says that the picture does not
correspond in the scheme of colour to the works of Velazquez's early
period. On the other hand, "it shows so decided an affinity with the
fine picture by Zurbaran, in the Palace of San Telmo, at Seville, not
only in colouring but in every detail of the treatment, that there
can be no doubt that the attribution to Velazquez was an error, and
that Zurbaran is the true painter of this beautiful work, which may
be considered the best picture he ever painted." But "we would fain
see proof," says another critic, "that Zurbaran ever painted a head
like that of the Divine Child. The rest of the picture recalls the
early Seville manner of Velazquez in the style of Ribera" (_Quarterly
Review_, April 1899).
[117] This picture, when first purchased for the National Gallery in
1853, was ascribed to Giorgione. For many years it was given to the
"School of Bellini." In 1883 it was identified by Messrs. Crowe and
Cavalcaselle as a work by Catena. Signor Morelli and other critics
of his school supported this view, which in 1898 was adopted by the
authorities of the Gallery. No. 694 has also been so attributed to him
in the Catalogue. Other pictures which have at one time or another been
connected with Catena are 599, 812, and 1160.
[118] "The roguish little terrier pretends not to see what is going
on. But what are the partridges doing behind the chair of the Blessed
Virgin? Was the Knight a worldling, given to sport, but arrested in
the pursuit of pleasure by some inward voice or vision; and so, taking
the result of the day's work, he lays it at the feet of the Divine
Child and His Mother? Or was worship simply the pious Knight's godly
commencement of the day? Why, too, is the dog so sly looking? Is that
little mass of curly white wool a sceptic, doubting his master's good
resolutions?" (Sophia Beale in _Good Words_, July 1895).
[119] Ruskin, in his classification of artists from this point of view,
calls them "sensualists," reserving the traditional title "naturalists"
to the greatest men, whose "subject is infinite as nature, their colour
equally balanced splendour and sadness, reaching occasionally the
highest degrees of both, and their chiaroscuro equally balanced between
light and shade." This class represents the proper mean. In excess on
one side are the "purists" (Angelico, Perugino, Memlinc, Stothard), who
take the good and leave the evil. "The faces of their figures express
no evil passions; the skies of their landscapes are without storm;
the prevalent character of their colour is brightness, and of their
chiaroscuro fulness of light." Then in excess on the other side are
the "sensualists" (Salvator Rosa, Caravaggio, Ribera), who "perceive
and imitate evil only. They cannot draw the trunk of a tree without
blasting and shattering it, nor a sky except covered with stormy
clouds; they delight in the beggary and brutality of the human race;
their colour is for the most part subdued or lurid, and the greatest
spaces of their pictures are occupied by darkness" (_Stones of Venice_,
vol. ii. ch. vi.). Elsewhere, Ruskin speaks of Caravaggio and Ribera as
"the black slaves of painting" (_Elements of Drawing_, p. 317).
[120] This is the story told by Dominici, the Neapolitan historian.
According to Cean Bermudez, following Palomino (the Spanish historian),
Ribera died at Naples honoured and rich.
[121] The tradition that he was a natural son of the Barbarella family,
and in consequence called Barbarelli, appears to be unfounded.
[122] "Two figures of Giorgione's are still traceable, one of them
(wrote Ruskin in 1846), singularly uninjured, is seen from far above
and below the Rialto, flaming like the reflection of a sunset" (_Modern
Painters_ vol. i. ed. 3 pt. ii. sec. i. ch. vii. § 30). This beautiful
figure was engraved by Ruskin for his fifth volume; he called her from
her glowing colour "the Hesperid Aeglé."
[123] Ruskin's seven are Giorgione, Titian, Veronese, Tintoret,
Correggio, Reynolds, and Turner (_Modern Painters_, vol. v. pt. ix. ch.
xi, § 8, _n_).
[124] A reaction in this respect is observable in the latest writer on
Giorgione (Mr. Herbert Cook in the "Great Masters" Series), who shows
good cause for restoring many pictures to the master. The National
Gallery, he says (p. 95), affords unrivalled opportunity for studying
the various phases of Giorgione at different stages of his career. Nos.
1160 and 1173 represent his earliest style; No. 1123, his later; Nos.
269 and 636 are intermediate.
[125] A contemporary document, recently discovered, proves that
the artist died of the plague. (See appendix to Mr. Herbert Cook's
_Giorgione_, 1900).
[126] Lecture at Oxford 1884 (reported in Cook's _Studies in Ruskin_,
p. 251). See also the "Traveller's edition" of the _Stones of Venice_,
vol. ii. ch. vi., where the picture is described as "one which unites
every artistic quality for which the painting of Venice has become
renowned with a depth of symbolism and nobleness of manner exemplary of
all that in any age of art has characterised its highest masters." A
copy of this masterpiece is in the collection of the Arundel Society,
now to be seen in the National Gallery.
[127] In an interesting discussion with Sir J. E. Millais, R.A., Mr.
Watts, R.A., refers to the colours in this picture. Sir J. Millais
had said that time and age are the greatest old masters, and that old
Venetian colours were crude. Mr. Watts replied: "The colour of the
best-preserved pictures by Titian shows a marked distinction between
light flesh tones and white drapery. This is most distinctly seen in
the small 'Noli me Tangere' in our National Gallery, in the so-called
'Venus' of the Tribune, and in the 'Flora' of the Uffizi, both in
Florence, and in Bronzino's 'All is Vanity,' also in the National
Gallery (651). In the last-named picture, for example, the colour is
as crude and the surface as bare of mystery as if it had been painted
yesterday. As a matter of fact, white unquestionably tones down, but
never becomes colour; indeed, under favourable conditions, and having
due regard to what is underneath, it changes very little. In the 'Noli
me Tangere,' to which I have referred, the white sleeve of the Magdalen
is still a beautiful white, quite different from the white of the
fairest of Titian's flesh--proving that Titian never painted his flesh
white" (_Magazine of Art_, January 1889).
[128] Or possibly at Vicenza. See _Layard_, i. 283 n. The words in the
document relied upon to establish his birth at Vicenza are ambiguous,
and may refer to his father.
[129] Its ascription to Botticelli's own hand is, however, questioned
by many critics. Thus Dr. Richter says, "I know of no authentic picture
by Botticelli in which the drawing of the hands and feet is so poor
and coarse as are here, for instance, those of the Infant Saviour; the
type of the child is positively repulsive, whereas in Botticelli's own
works it is pre-eminently in the representation of the Infant Christ
that his great merits are strikingly apparent" (_Lectures on the
National Gallery_, p. 62). The child, whether painted by Botticelli or
by another hand, is undeniably ugly; but the expression of the Madonna,
and the figures of the Baptist and the Angel seem to me to show
certainly the work of the master himself. Moreover, the critics who
dispute the authenticity of this picture admit that of No. 915. Yet,
as "D. S. M." says, "the mother here is the same person as the Venus,
looking out of the picture with the same effect of gentle detachment,
circumscribed with the same draughtsman's lines; the infant, whose type
Dr. Richter finds 'positively repulsive,' is the same infant as the
Satyrs of the other picture, and so all through" (_Saturday Review_,
Feb. 18, 1899). On the back of the panel is written in the style of
the 16th century the name of Giuliano da San Gallo, the celebrated
architect, who was also a painter. There are drawings from his hand in
the British Museum, which show that he came from Botticelli's school.
His name on the back of this picture proves, it is argued, that it is
by him. It may, however, very probably only signify that the picture
formerly belonged to him.
[130] Mr. Pater, in a well-known passage, gives a different explanation
of the peculiar sentiment in Botticelli's Madonnas. "Perhaps you have
sometimes wondered why they attract you more and more, and often
come--although conformed to no obvious type of beauty--back to you when
the Madonnas of Raphael and the Virgins of Fra Angelico are forgotten.
At first, contrasting them with those, you may have thought that there
was something even mean or abject in them, for the lines of the face
have little nobleness, and the colour is wan. For with Botticelli she
too, though she holds in her hands the 'Desire of all Nations,' is one
of those who are neither for God nor for his enemies (see under III.
1126), and her choice is on her face. She shrinks from the presence of
the Divine Child, and pleads in unmistakable undertones for a warmer,
lower humanity" (W. H. Pater: _Studies of the Renaissance_).
You promise heavens free from strife,
Pure truth and perfect change of will;
But sweet, sweet is this human life,
So sweet I fain would breathe it still.
Your chilly stars I can forgo:
This warm, kind world is all I know.
IONICA: _Mimnermus in Church_.
[131]
The moon of Rome, chaste as the icicle
That's curdied by the frost from purest snow
And hangs on Dian's temple.
[132] The doors of the temple of "two-headed Janus" at Rome were always
thrown open when the State was at war, and only closed in time of peace.
[133] The whole, or part, of this picture was at one time freely
ascribed to Raphael; but Morelli has effectually disposed of the
superstition by showing, amongst other arguments, that the drawings
for Tobias and the Angel (in the Oxford University Gallery and in
the British Museum) are undoubtedly by Perugino (_Italian Art in the
German Galleries_, 1883, p. 289). The Oxford drawing is described
and discussed, on the assumption that it is by Raphael, in Sir J. C.
Robinson's _Drawings by Michael Angelo and Raffaello_, p. 129.
[134] For a record of his movements the reader may refer to Morelli's
_Italian Masters in German Galleries_, 1883, pp. 285-291.
[135] Vasari's bias against the Umbrian master is too marked for any of
his attacks to be accepted without corroboration.
[136] In a critique of F. Walker's "Fishmongers' Stalls," Ruskin says:
"If the reader will waste five minutes of his season in London in the
National Gallery, he may see in the hand of Perugino's Tobias a fish
worth all these on the boards together" (_Arrows of the Chace_, i. 177).
[137] With regard to the "purist ideal" it should be noticed that
"these fantasies of the earlier painters, though they darkened faith,
never hardened _feeling_; on the contrary, the frankness of their
unlikelihood proceeded mainly from the endeavour on the part of the
painter to express, not the actual fact, but the enthusiastic state
of his own feelings about the fact; he covers the Virgin's dress with
gold, not with any idea of representing the Virgin as she ever was,
or ever will be seen, but with a burning desire to show what his love
and reverence would think fittest for her. He erects for the stable
a Lombardic portico, not because he supposes the Lombardi to have
built stables in Palestine in the days of Tiberius, but to show that
the manger in which Christ was laid is, in his eyes, nobler than the
grandest architecture in the world. He fills his landscape with church
spires and silver streams, not because he supposes that either were in
sight at Bethlehem, but to remind the beholder of the peaceful course
and succeeding power of Christianity" (_Modern Painters_, vol. iii. pt.
iv. ch. iv. § 10). For a different kind of feeling in "naturalistic"
art, see under 744.
[138] Visitors who are interested in such points of connoisseurship
may be glad of this summary with regard to the works ascribed in the
Official Catalogue to the associated painters, Fra Filippo Lippi,
Filippino Lippi, and Botticelli. The _undisputed_ pictures of Fra
Filippo are 248, 666, and 667; of Filippino, 293 and 927. The pictures
592 and 1033 have marked resemblances both to Fra Filippo, Filippino,
and to Botticelli, and are ascribed by different critics to one or
other of those masters or pupils. 598 and 1124 are often ascribed
to a pupil of Filippino; the pictures 586 and 589 to a pupil of Fra
Filippo. The _undisputed_ pictures of Botticelli are 1034 and 1126. The
pictures 226, 275, 782, 915, and 916, are all ascribed by some critics
to a pupil of his only, whilst to Botticelli himself has now been
ascribed the portrait 626, formerly classed as "Unknown." To a supposed
painter, christened by the critics "Amico di Sandro," 1124 and 1412 are
attributed.
[139] _Layard_, ii. 621. Similarly Ruskin says: "The possession of
the Pisani Veronese will happily enable the English public and the
English artist to convince themselves how sincerity and simplicity
in statements of fact, power of draughtsmanship, and joy in colour,
were associated in a perfect balance in the great workmen in Venice"
(_Catalogue of the Turner Sketches and Drawings_, 1858, p. 10). As
an instance of Veronese's "economical work"--a sure sign of a great
painter--Ruskin refers to "the painting of the pearls on the breast of
the nearer princess, in our best Paul Veronese. The lowest is about
the size of a small hazel nut, and falls on her rose-red dress. Any
other but a Venetian would have put a complete piece of white paint
over the dress, for the whole pearl, and painted that into the colours
of the stone. But Veronese knows beforehand that all the dark side of
the pearl will reflect the red of the dress. He will not put white over
the red, only to put red over the white again. He leaves the actual
dress for the dark side of the pearl, and with two small separate
touches, one white, another brown, places its high light and shadow.
This he does with perfect care and calm: but in two decisive seconds.
There is no dash nor display, nor hurry, nor error. The exactly right
thing is done in the exactly right place, and not one atom of colour,
nor moment of time spent vainly. Look close at the two touches,--you
wonder what they mean. Retire six feet from the picture--the pearl is
there!" (_Modern Painters_, vol. v. pt. viii. ch. iv. § 18). "One of
the chief delights which any one who really enjoys painting finds in
that art as distinct from sculpture, is in the exquisite inlaying or
joiner's work of it, the fitting of edge to edge with a manual skill,
precisely correspondent to the close application of crowded notes
without the least slur, in fine harp or piano-playing. In many of the
finest works of colour on a large scale, there is even some admission
of the quality given to a painted window by the dark lead bars between
the pieces of glass. Both Tintoret and Veronese, when they paint on
dark grounds, continually stop short with their tints just before they
touch others, leaving the dark ground showing between in a narrow bar.
In the Paul Veronese in the National Gallery, you will find every here
and there pieces of outline which you would suppose were drawn with
a brown pencil. But no! look close, and you will find that they are
the dark ground _left_ between two tints, brought close to each other
without touching" (_Lectures on Landscape_, § 68). Elsewhere, Ruskin
calls special attention to the painting of "the drooped left hand of
the princess, holding her crown" (_Academy Notes_, 1858, p. 46).
[140] An even more striking instance is to be found in Veronese's
picture of the Last Supper, now in the Academy of Venice. Here
too he introduced his favourite dog, as well as dwarfs and armed
retainers. He was summoned before the Inquisition for such irreverent
anachronisms; and the account of his cross-examination is most amusing
and instructive reading. A translation will be found in the appendix to
Ruskin's _Guide to the Academy at Venice_.
[141] Some readers may like to be referred to the passages in which
Ruskin discusses the place of the dog in art, with special reference
to Veronese. They are, _Modern Painters_, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. vi., and
_The Eagle's Nest_, i. ch. viii.
[142] Richter (_Italian Art in the National Gallery_, p. 74) disputes
this. The kneeling girls are, he believes, the artist's daughters, whom
he has also introduced into a picture in the Louvre, and the courtier
presenting them is Veronese himself.
[143] The pattern of the Madonna's robe in this picture is worth
notice--"a good specimen of the treatment, probably taken from Persian
examples, of a ground sprinkled with conventional sprays of flowers
spaced regularly" (Vacher).
[144] The three portraits, 1022, 1023, and 1025, formerly in the Casa
Fenaroli at Brescia, were there all attributed to Moretto. Signor
Morelli was the first to recognise in the two former the hand and mind
of Moroni, under whose name they were sold to the National Gallery.
[145] Mr. Dickes's ingenious and interesting explanation is now
accepted by the authorities, and there can be little doubt of its
correctness. The motto had previously been misread as του λιαν ποθω
which was interpreted "by the desire of the extreme." The picture was
for many years in the possession of the Martinengo Cesaresco family,
and passed for a portrait of their ancestor Count Sciarra. The motto
was interpreted as referring to the Count's desire to avenge the death
of his father, who had been assassinated. The desire of the extreme,
the activity of a restless spirit, was with the Count to the end, and
he died fighting in France in the campaign which ended in a defeat of
the Huguenots at the battle of Moncontour, October 3, 1569. But the
Count Sciarra was a soldier-adventurer, showing no characteristics
accordant with the nobleman before us other than that, according to a
Brescian historian, "his eyes gleamed with an unconquerable desire."
But the inscription is undoubtedly as given in the text, the accents
being all clearly marked. The portrait is clearly not of a restless man
of action, so much as of a dilettante. The dates of the Count Sciarra's
career are also inconsistent with his being painted in this picture
of Moretto's best period. The statements on behalf of the traditional
identification made by the Contessa Evelyn Martinengo Cesaresco
(_Athenæum_, Aug. 12, 1893) do not touch the points.
[146] The feeling which one may thus find in these paintings of
four centuries ago still lingers amongst the Italian peasantry, as
readers of Miss Alexander's _Roadside Songs_ and _Christ's Folk in the
Apennine_ (both edited by Mr. Ruskin) will know.
[147] It may be worth noting that, according to the son of Turner's
friend, Trimmer, this picture "had an entire new sky painted at the
desire of Lawrence and other brother artists, who, when he had altered
it, said the picture was ruined" (Thornbury's _Life of Turner_, i. 175).
[148] Dr. Richter, in laying down the law to the contrary, gives
too narrow an interpretation to Vasari's words. The Margaritone is
certainly inferior to the best Byzantine work, but it adheres to the
characteristics noticed above. Dr. Richter says: "This curious, if
uninteresting painter, in all probability would never have emerged
from his modest sphere of awkward provincialism into the full light of
history but for the special praise bestowed upon him by his obliging
countryman, Vasari. The latter states definitely, among other things,
that Margaritone painted in the _maniera greca_; nevertheless, a single
glance at the picture in the National Gallery is sufficient to convince
the beholder that in reality this is not the case. Margaritone's
pictures appear to me to be drawn in the wild and grotesque style
prevalent in Italy during the early middle ages" (_Lectures on the
National Gallery_, p. 11).
[149] Dr. Richter ascribes all these pictures to the School of Duccio
(see _Lectures on the National Gallery_, pp. 4-10.).
[150] So described in the Official Catalogue. But "is the female
saint on the right wing of the triptych really St. Catherine of
Alexandria? Only the beginning of the inscription on either side of
the figure containing the name can here still be deciphered. It runs
thus: SCA (Saint) AL. The reading 'Catherine' thus apparently becomes
inadmissible. Besides, the emblems of this female saint are decidedly
not those of Catherine of Alexandria, who is always represented with a
wheel as the emblem of her martyrdom, while the saint in the picture
before us holds in her right hand a palm branch (?) and in her left a
small cross, the emblem of confessors" (Richter's _Italian Art in the
National Gallery_, p. 9).
[151] This head is said to bear a marked resemblance to Mr. Swinburne
as a young man (see W. B. Scott's _Autobiographical Notes_, ii. 18).
[152] It was a practice at Italian weddings that the bride should be
presented, as part of her dowry, with a coffer, which was intended
to hold her trousseau and wedding presents. Some very fine specimens
of these _cassoni_ may be seen in the South Kensington Museum. They
belong principally to the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries. The typical
_cassone_ measured about six feet in length by two in height and two in
breadth. The front and ends were decorated with paintings or carvings.
The subjects depicted are either marriage scenes or stories borrowed
from the Scriptures, from the classics, or from Petrarch. Many of the
panel pictures in the National Gallery once adorned these _cassoni_.
See, for instance, Nos. 1218 and 1219. A favourite subject was the
allegory entitled "The Triumph of Love, Chastity, and Death," of which
an excellent example is at South Kensington. The panel in this Gallery,
No. 1196, has a similar subject.
[153] This picture and the _tondo_ of the same subject (1033) are by
many critics ascribed to Botticelli. "In my opinion," says Morelli,
"the two excellent but somewhat defaced pictures in the National
Gallery, 592 and 1033, are works not of Filippino, but of Botticelli,
whose dramatic powers are well displayed here" (_Italian Masters in
German Galleries_, p. 236). For a full discussion leading to the same
conclusion, see Monkhouse's _In the National Gallery_, p. 73.
[154] Miss Betham-Edwards, on a visit to the painter at By, was shown
some sketches for "The Horse Fair." "'There you have a Boulonnais,' I
observed, as we contemplated the study of a fine black cart-horse. This
remark gratified her. 'I am glad to find a stranger so much interested
in our cart-horses'" (_Anglo-French Reminiscences_, ch. xxv.). Rosa
Bonheur's knowledge of the animal world of France was very wide and
precise.
[155] This was Rosa Bonheur's own faith. "I believe," she once said,
"in a just God, and a Paradise of the just. But religion (_i.e._ the
religion of Rome) does not altogether satisfy me. I hold it monstrous
that animals are supposed to be without souls. My poor lioness loved
me. Thus she had more soul than certain human beings who do not know
what it is to love anything."
[156] "Giulio Romano did a little of everything for the Dukes of
Mantua,--from painting the most delicate and improper little fresco
for a bedchamber, to restraining the Po and Mincio with immense dykes,
restoring ancient edifices and building new ones, draining swamps and
demolishing and reconstructing whole streets, painting palaces and
churches, and designing the city slaughter-house" (W. D. Howells's
_Italian Journeys_, "Ducal Mantua"). Giulio's departure from Rome to
Mantua was due to the scandal caused by the publication of some obscene
designs of his (see _Symonds_, v. 341).
[157] "The piece of St. Catherine's dress over her shoulders is painted
on the under dress, after that was dry. All its value would have been
lost, had the slightest tint or trace of it been given previously. This
picture, I think, and certainly many of Tintoret's, are painted on dark
grounds; but this is to save time, and with some loss to the future
brightness of the colour" (_Modern Painters_, vol. v. pt. viii. ch. iv.
§ 17 _n._).
[158] Robert Browning, however, notes "the _bonne bourgeoisie_ of his
pictures; the dear common folk of his crowds, divinely pure they all
are, but fresh from the streets and market-place" (_Letters of Robert
and E. B. Browning_, i. 197). Mr. Langton Douglas in an illustrated
monograph on _Fra Angelico_ (1900) lays stress on the painter's
"strength and freedom" as shown in the "Adoration of the Magi" at San
Marco, or the "San Lorenzo giving alms" in the studio of Pope Nicholas;
illustrates the influence of contemporary architecture and sculpture on
his work; and characterises him not as "a saint with a happy knack of
illustration," but as "an artist who happened to be a saint."
[159] "This," says Mr. Hipkins of the present picture, "is the grandest
and most extended mediæval band on record, worthy of the heavenly Host,
to declare the praises of the Blessed Trinity." Mr. Hipkins gives an
interesting identification and description of the instruments employed.
To the left of the centre compartment we may find a viol, a rebec, a
clarion, trumpets, harp, cither, double flute, and psaltery--also a
tambourine, beaten with the hand, a tabor, and a portable organ. In
the centre, under Christ, are two organs. The player on the pipe and
tabor, left of the Redeemer, blows what seems to be a short French
whistle. "Next to this musician is a cymbal player. The time beater is
apparently no less required where time exists no more than he is in our
terrestrial world; such discipline of rhythm is hereby sanctified." "In
the upper rows, on the left hand of the Redeemer, we see one of those
large guitar-viols which were used by the troubadours" (see further
_The Hobby Horse_, No. 1, 1893, pp. 14-16).
[160] "The many small figures which are seen here surrounded by a
celestial glory are so beautiful," says Vasari of this picture, "that
they appear to be truly beings of paradise; nor can he who approaches
them be ever weary of regarding their beauty."
[161] Now ascribed by many critics to Bouts (see 783).
[162] Or more correctly, Piero dei' Franceschi, after the family name
of his mother. Her Christian name was Romana, and Piero's father, it
has now been ascertained, continued living during many years of his
son's career. The year of Piero's birth is unknown.
[163] This is a more charitable judgment than contemporary documents
would suggest. In 1450 Fra Filippo was thrown into prison for a debt
which he denied, and under torture confessed that he had forged the
receipt. He was deprived of his rectory, and appealed to the Pope, who,
however, confirmed the sentence, in a brief in which the painter is
accused of "numerous and abominable wickednesses."
[164] It is interesting to note the cartellino, or little card at the
foot of the picture, on which Antonello inscribes his name and the
date. This cartellino was taken as a model by Giovanni Bellini and
subsequent Venetian artists (see _e.g._ 189 and 280).
[165] Comparing him with Italian painters, his period of activity is
seen to be coincident with the earlier work of Carpaccio and Perugino;
he died while Raphael was still a boy. Crowe and Cavalcaselle have
shown that Memlinc's work was well known and appreciated among Italian
connoisseurs of the time.
[166] I venture to retain this title, though the Official Catalogue
assures us that it is but "a pleasing illusion," as "the features and
the general form of head have little or no resemblance to the quite
authentic portraits of Andrea" at Florence, "or to that engraved by
Vasari, who was personally acquainted with the painter. If (adds the
catalogue) the object in the hands represents, as it well may, a
piece of modelling-clay, the subject of the portrait was probably a
Florentine sculptor." In that case we may perhaps save our "pleasing
illusion" by supposing that Andrea interpreted the expression of a
fellow-artist by his own experience. But the case is by no means clear.
The earlier portrait in the Uffizi is not very unlike ours. In the
later some resemblance remains, though the face has coarsened. But this
is a matter on which every one must see resemblances or otherwise for
himself. (Reproductions will be found in the monograph on the painter
in the "Great Masters" series. The author, H. Guinness, considers the
authenticity of our portrait to be "beyond question," p. 23).
[167] Lucrezia's character has, however, been whitewashed of late
years: see _Gazette des Beaux Arts_, December 1876 and three following
months.
[168] This delightful picture, which has hitherto been ascribed to
Bellini himself, is now (1898) attributed in the official catalogue to
Catena (see 234).
[169] "The pet portrait of the lecturer was Moroni's 'Tailor.' Luckily
the original painting was in the National Gallery, and all interested
could judge for themselves whether, for simplicity, expression,
drawing, colour, and above all, soul, the portrait had a rival" (Report
of a lecture on "Portraiture" by Mr. Harry Furniss).
[170] In a red-figured vase in the British Museum (E 477 in the Third
Vase Room) there is a picture of this same subject. "The drawing,"
says Miss Harrison, "is somewhat coarse, and the painter seems to
be struggling with a subject that is expressively too much for him.
Procris sinks in death in an odd, ill-drawn attitude; her soul escapes
in the form of a bird, Kephalos smites his head in despair, the dog
Lailaps watches concerned. Erechtheus, the old king-father, is at hand
to sympathise; the curt archaic symbolism of attitude, the utterance
of mere gesture, is at fault here. The story was pregnant with modern
suggestion. It had to wait, so to speak, for the delicate imagination
of the Renaissance painter, Piero di Cosimo, to make us feel the
contrast between the dead woman, over-sentient, passion-slain, and the
shaggy faun, kindly perplexed, and the dumb, faithful dog; between the
soft slack peace of the woodland and the terrible tension of humanity"
(_Magazine of Art_, 1894, p. 61).
[171] Formerly ascribed to Margaret van Eyck.
[172] Formerly ascribed to Van der Goes.
[173]
The clouds that gather round the setting sun
Do take a sober colouring from an eye
That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality.