Frescoes of the Scuola del Santo--The "Herodias" type of picture--Holy
Families and Sacred Conversations--Date of the "Cristo della Moneta" Is
the "Concert" of the Pitti by Titian?--The "Bacchanal" of Alnwick
Castle.
It has been pointed out by Titian's biographers that the wars which
followed upon the League of Cambrai had the effect of dispersing all
over North Italy the chief Venetian artists of the younger generation.
It was not long after this--on the death of his master Giorgione--that
Sebastiano Luciani migrated to Rome and, so far as he could, shook off
his allegiance to the new Venetian art; it was then that Titian
temporarily left the city of his adoption to do work in fresco at Padua
and Vicenza. If the date 1508, given by Vasari for the great frieze-like
wood-engraving, _The Triumph of Faith_, be accepted, it must be held
that it was executed before the journey to Padua. Ridolfi[23] cites
painted compositions of the _Triumph_ as either the originals or the
repetitions of the wood-engravings, for which Titian himself drew the
blocks. The frescoes themselves, if indeed Titian carried them out on
the walls of his house at Padua, as has been suggested, have perished;
but that they ever came into existence there would not appear to be any
direct evidence. The types, though broadened and coarsened in the
process of translation into wood-engraving, are not materially at
variance with those in the frescoes of the Scuola del Santo. But the
movement, the spirit of the whole is essentially different. This mighty,
onward-sweeping procession, with Adam and Eve, the Patriarchs, the
Prophets and Sibyls, the martyred Innocents, the great chariot with
Christ enthroned, drawn by the four Doctors of the Church and impelled
forward by the Emblems of the four Evangelists, with a great company of
Apostles and Martyrs following, has all the vigour and elasticity, all
the decorative amplitude that is wanting in the frescoes of the Santo.
It is obvious that inspiration was derived from the _Triumphs_ of
Mantegna, then already so widely popularised by numerous engravings.
Titian and those under whose inspiration he worked here obviously
intended an antithesis to the great series of canvases presenting the
apotheosis of Julius Caesar, which were then to be seen in the not far
distant Mantua. Have we here another pictorial commentary, like the
famous _Cristo detta Moneta,_ with which we shall have to deal
presently, on the "Quod est Caesaris Caesari, quod est Dei Deo," which
was the favourite device of Alfonso of Ferrara and the legend round his
gold coins? The whole question is interesting, and deserves more careful
consideration than can be accorded to it on the present occasion. Hardly
again, until he reached extreme old age, did such an impulse of sacred
passion colour the art of the painter of Cadore as here. In the earlier
section of his life-work the _Triumph of Faith_ constitutes a striking
exception.
[Illustration: _St. Anthony of Padua causing a new-born Infant to speak.
Fresco in the Scuola del Santo, Padua. From a Photograph by Alinari_.]
Passing over, as relatively unimportant, Titian's share in the
much-defaced fresco decorations of the Scuola del Carmine, we come now
to those more celebrated ones in the Scuola del Santo. Out of the
sixteen frescoes executed in 1510-11 by Titian, in concert with Domenico
Campagnola and other assistants of less fame, the following three are
from the brush of the master himself:--_St. Anthony causes a new-born
Infant to speak, testifying to the innocence of its Mother; St. Anthony
heals the leg of a Youth; A jealous Husband puts to death his Wife, whom
the Saint afterwards restores to life._ Here the figures, the
composition, the beautiful landscape backgrounds bear unmistakably the
trace of Giorgione's influence. The composition has just the timidity,
the lack of rhythm and variety, that to the last marks that of
Barbarelli. The figures have his naïve truth, his warmth and splendour
of life, but not his gilding touch of spirituality to lift the
uninspiring subjects a little above the actual. The _Nobleman putting to
death his Wife_ is dramatic, almost terrible in its fierce, awkward
realism, yet it does not rise much higher in interpretation than what
our neighbours would to-day call the _drame passionel._ The interest is
much the same that is aroused in a student of Elizabethan literature by
that study of murder, _Arden of Feversham_, not that higher attraction
that he feels--horrors notwithstanding--for _The Maid's Tragedy_ of
Beaumont and Fletcher, or _The Duchess of Malfi_ of Webster.[24]
[Illustration: _"Noli me tangere." National Gallery. From a Photograph
published by the Autotype Company._]
A convenient date for the magnificent _St. Mark enthroned, with SS.
Sebastian, Roch, Cosmas, and Damianus_, is 1512, when Titian, having
completed his share of the work at the Scuola del Santo, returned to
Venice. True, it is still thoroughly Giorgionesque, except in the
truculent _St. Mark_; but, then, as essentially so were the frescoes
just terminated. The noble altar-piece[25] symbolises, or rather
commemorates, the steadfastness of the State face to face with the
terrors of the League of Cambrai:--on the one side St. Sebastian,
standing, perhaps, for martyrdom by superior force of arms, St. Roch for
plague (the plague of Venice in 1510); on the other, SS. Cosmas and
Damianus, suggesting the healing of these evils. The colour is
Giorgionesque in that truer sense in which Barbarelli's own is so to be
described. Especially does it show points of contact with that of the
so-called _Three Philosophers_, which, on the authority of Marcantonio
Michiel (the _Anonimo_), is rightly or wrongly held to be one of the
last works of the Castelfranco master. That is to say, it is both
sumptuous and boldly contrasted in the local hues, the sovereign unity
of general tone not being attained by any sacrifice or attenuation, by
any undue fusion of these, as in some of the second-rate Giorgionesques.
Common to both is the use of a brilliant scarlet, which Giorgione
successfully employs in the robe of the Trojan Aeneas, and Titian on a
more extensive scale in that of one of the healing saints. These last
are among the most admirable portrait-figures in the life-work of
Titian. In them a simplicity, a concentration akin to that of Giovanni
Bellini and Bartolommeo Montagna is combined with the suavity and
flexibility of Barbarelli. The St. Sebastian is the most beautiful among
the youthful male figures, as the _Venus_ of Giorgione and the Venus of
the _Sacred and Profane Love_ are the most beautiful among the female
figures to be found in the Venetian art of a century in which such
presentments of youth in its flower abounded. There is something
androgynous, in the true sense of the word, in the union of the strength
and pride of lusty youth with a grace which is almost feminine in its
suavity, yet not offensively effeminate. It should be noted that a
delight in portraying the fresh comeliness, the elastic beauty of form
proper to the youth just passing into the man was common to many
Venetian painters at this stage, and coloured their art as it had
coloured the whole art of Greece.
Hereabouts the writer would like to place the singularly attractive, yet
a little puzzling, _Madonna and Child with St. Joseph and a Shepherd_,
which is No. 4 in the National Gallery. The type of the landscape is
early, and even for that time the execution in this particular is, for
Titian, curiously small and wanting in breadth. Especially the
projecting rock, with its fringe of half-bare shrubs profiled against
the sky, recalls the backgrounds of the Scuola del Santo frescoes. The
noble type and the stilted attitude of the _St. Joseph_ suggest the _St.
Mark_ of the Salute. The frank note of bright scarlet in the jacket of
the thick-set young shepherd, who calls up rather the downrightness of
Palma than the idyllic charm of Giorgione, is to be found again in the
Salute picture. The unusually pensive Madonna reminds the spectator, by
a certain fleshiness and matronly amplitude of proportion, though by no
means in sentiment, of the sumptuous dames who look on so unconcernedly
in the _St. Anthony causing a new-born Infant to speak_, of the Scuola.
Her draperies show, too, the jagged breaks and close parallel folds of
the early time before complete freedom of design was attained.
[Illustration: _St. Mark enthroned, with four Saints. S. Maria della
Salute, Venice. From a Photograph by Anderson_.]
[Illustration: _The Madonna with the Cherries. Imperial Gallery, Vienna.
From a Photograph by Löwy_.]
The splendidly beautiful _Herodias with the head of St. John the
Baptist_, in the Doria Gallery, formerly attributed to Pordenone, but by
Morelli definitively placed among the Giorgionesque works of Titian,
belongs to about the same time as the _Sacred and Profane Love_, and
would therefore come in rather before than after the sojourn at Padua
and Vicenza. The intention has been not so much to emphasise the tragic
character of the motive as to exhibit to the highest advantage the
voluptuous charm, the languid indifference of a Venetian beauty posing
for Herod's baleful consort. Repetitions of this _Herodias_ exist in the
Northbrook Collection and in that of Mr. R.H. Benson. The latter, which
is presumably from the workshop of the master, and shows variations in
one or two unimportant particulars from the Doria picture, is here,
failing the original, reproduced with the kind permission of the owner.
A conception traceable back to Giorgione would appear to underlie, not
only this Doria picture, but that _Herodias_ which at Dorchester House
is, for not obvious reasons, attributed to Pordenone, and another
similar one by Palma Vecchio, of which a late copy exists in the
collection of the Earl of Chichester. Especially is this community of
origin noticeable in the head of St. John on the charger, as it appears
in each of these works. All of them again show a family resemblance in
this particular respect to the interesting full-length _Judith_ at the
Hermitage, now ascribed to Giorgione, to the over-painted half-length
_Judith_ in the Querini-Stampalia Collection at Venice, and to Hollar's
print after a picture supposed by the engraver to give the portrait of
Giorgione himself in the character of David, the slayer of Goliath.[26]
The sumptuous but much-injured _Vanitas_, which is No. 1110 in the Alte
Pinakothek of Munich--a beautiful woman of the same opulent type as the
_Herodias_, holding a mirror which reflects jewels and other symbols of
earthly vanity--may be classed with the last-named work. Again we owe it
to Morelli[27] that this painting, ascribed by Crowe and
Cavalcaselle--as the _Herodias_ was ascribed--to Pordenone, has been
with general acceptance classed among the early works of Titian. The
popular _Flora_ of the Uffizi, a beautiful thing still, though all the
bloom of its beauty has been effaced, must be placed rather later in
this section of Titian's life-work, displaying as it does a technique
more facile and accomplished, and a conception of a somewhat higher
individuality. The model is surely the same as that which has served for
the Venus of the _Sacred and Profane Love_, though the picture comes
some years after that piece. Later still comes the so-called _Alfonso
d'Este and Laura Dianti_, as to which something will be said farther on.
Another puzzle is provided by the beautiful "_Noli me tangere_" of the
National Gallery, which must necessarily have its place somewhere here
among the early works. Giorgionesque the picture still is, and most
markedly so in the character of the beautiful landscape; yet the
execution shows an altogether unusual freedom and mastery for that
period. The _Magdalen_ is, appropriately enough, of the same type as the
exquisite, golden blond courtezans--or, if you will, models--who
constantly appear and reappear in this period of Venetian art. Hardly
anywhere has the painter exhibited a more wonderful freedom and subtlety
of brush than in the figure of the Christ, in which glowing flesh is so
finely set off by the white of fluttering, half-transparent draperies.
The canvas has exquisite colour, almost without colours; the only local
tint of any very defined character being the dark red of the Magdalen's
robe. Yet a certain affectation, a certain exaggeration of fluttering
movement and strained attitude repel the beholder a little at first, and
neutralise for him the rare beauties of the canvas. It is as if a wave
of some strange transient influence had passed over Titian at this
moment, then again to be dissipated.
[Illustration: _Madonna and Child, with St. John and St. Anthony Abbot.
Uffizi Gallery, Florence. From a Photograph by Brogi._]
But to turn now once more to the series of our master's Holy Families
and Sacred Conversations which began with _La Zingarella_, and was
continued with the _Virgin and Child with SS. Ulfo and Brigida_ of
Madrid. The most popular of all those belonging to this still early time
is the _Virgin with the Cherries_ in the Vienna Gallery. Here the
painter is already completely himself. He will go much farther in
breadth if not in polish, in transparency, in forcefulness, if not in
attractiveness of colour; but he is now, in sacred art at any rate,
practically free from outside influences. For the pensive girl-Madonna
of Giorgione we now have the radiant young matron of Titian, joyous yet
calm in her play with the infant Christ, while the Madonna of his master
and friend was unrestful and full of tender foreboding even in seeming
repose. Pretty close on this must have followed the _Madonna and Child
with St. Stephen, St. Ambrose and St. Maurice_, No 439 in the Louvre, in
which the rich colour-harmonies strike a somewhat deeper note. An
atelier repetition of this fine original is No. 166 in the Vienna
Gallery; the only material variation traceable in this last-named
example being that in lieu of St. Ambrose, wearing a kind of biretta, we
have St. Jerome bareheaded.
Very near in time and style to this particular series, with which it may
safely be grouped, is the beautiful and finely preserved _Holy Family_
in the Bridgewater Gallery, where it is still erroneously attributed to
Palma Vecchio. It is to be found in the same private apartment on the
groundfloor of Bridgewater House, that contains the _Three Ages_. Deep
glowing richness of colour and smooth perfection without smallness of
finish make this picture remarkable, notwithstanding its lack of any
deeper significance. Nor must there be forgotten in an enumeration of
the early Holy Families, one of the loveliest of all, the _Madonna and
Child with the infant St. John and St. Anthony Abbot_, which adorns the
Venetian section of the Uffizi Gallery. Here the relationship to
Giorgione is more clearly shown than in any of these Holy Families of
the first period, and in so far the painting, which cannot be placed
very early among them, constitutes a partial exception in the series.
The Virgin is of a more refined and pensive type than in the _Madonna
with the Cherries_ of Vienna, or the _Madonna with Saints_, No. 439 in
the Louvre, and the divine Bambino less robust in build and aspect. The
magnificent St. Anthony is quite Giorgionesque in the serenity tinged
with sadness of his contemplative mood.
[Illustration: From a photograph by Braün-Clement & Cie. Virgin and
Child with Saints.]
Last of all in this particular group--another work in respect of which
Morelli has played the rescuer--is the _Madonna and Child with four
Saints_, No. 168 in the Dresden Gallery, a much-injured but eminently
Titianesque work, which may be said to bring this particular series to
within a couple of years or so of the _Assunta_--that great landmark of
the first period of maturity. The type of the Madonna here is still very
similar to that in the _Madonna with the Cherries_.
[Illustration: _St. Eustace (or St. Hubert) with the Miracle of the
Stag. From a Drawing by Titian in the British Museum._]
Apart from all these sacred works, and in every respect an exceptional
production, is the world-famous _Cristo della Moneta_ of the Dresden
Gallery. As to the exact date to be assigned to this panel among the
early works of Titian considerable difficulty exists. For once agreeing
with Crowe and Cavalcaselle, Morelli is inclined to disregard the
testimony of Vasari, from whose text it would result that it was painted
in or after the year 1514, and to place it as far back as 1508.
Notwithstanding this weight of authority the writer is strongly
inclined, following Vasari in this instance, and trusting to certain
indications furnished by the picture itself, to return to the date 1514
or thereabouts. There is no valid reason to doubt that the _Christ of
the Tribute-Money_ was painted for Alfonso I. of Ferrara, and the less
so, seeing that it so aptly illustrates the already quoted legend on his
coins: "Quod est Caesaris Caesari, quod est Dei Deo." According to
Vasari, it was painted _nella porta d'un armario_--that is to say, in
the door of a press or wardrobe. But this statement need not be taken in
its most literal sense. If it were to be assumed from this passage that
the picture was painted on the spot, its date must be advanced to 1516,
since Titian did not pay his first visit to Ferrara before that year.
There is no sufficient ground, however, for assuming that he did not
execute his wonderful panel in the usual fashion--that is to say, at
home in Venice. The last finishing touches might, perhaps, have been
given to it _in situ_, as they were to Bellini's _Bacchanal_, done also
for the Duke of Ferrara. The extraordinary finish of the painting, which
is hardly to be paralleled in this respect in the life-work of the
artist, may have been due to his desire to "show his hand" to his new
patron in a subject which touched him so nearly. And then the finish is
not of the Quattrocento type, not such as we find, for instance, in the
_Leonardo Loredano_ of Giovanni Bellini, the finest panels of Cima, or
the early _Christ bearing the Cross_ of Giorgione. In it exquisite
polish of surface and consummate rendering of detail are combined with
the utmost breadth and majesty of composition, with a now perfect
freedom in the casting of the draperies. It is difficult, indeed, to
imagine that this masterpiece--so eminently a work of the Cinquecento,
and one, too, in which the master of Cadore rose superior to all
influences, even to that of Giorgione--could have been painted in 1508,
that is some two years before Bellini's _Baptism of Christ_ in S.
Corona, and in all probability before the _Three Philosophers_ of
Giorgione himself. The one of Titian's own early pictures with which it
appears to the writer to have most in common--not so much in technique,
indeed, as in general style--is the _St. Mark_ of the Salute, and than
this it is very much less Giorgionesque. To praise the _Cristo della
Moneta_ anew after it has been so incomparably well praised seems almost
an impertinence. The soft radiance of the colour so well matches the
tempered majesty, the infinite mansuetude of the conception; the
spirituality, which is of the essence of the august subject, is so
happily expressed, without any sensible diminution of the splendour of
Renaissance art approaching its highest. And yet nothing could well be
simpler than the scheme of colour as compared with the complex harmonies
which Venetian art in a somewhat later phase affected. Frank contrasts
are established between the tender, glowing flesh of the Christ, seen in
all the glory of achieved manhood, and the coarse, brown skin of the son
of the people who appears as the Pharisee; between the bright yet
tempered red of His robe and the deep blue of His mantle. But the golden
glow, which is Titian's own, envelops the contrasting figures and the
contrasting hues in its harmonising atmosphere, and gives unity to the
whole.[28]
[Illustration: _The "Cristo della Moneta." Dresden Gallery. From a
Photograph by Hanfstängl._]
A small group of early portraits--all of them somewhat difficult to
place--call for attention before we proceed. Probably the earliest
portrait among those as yet recognised as from the hand of our
painter--leaving out of the question the _Baffo_ and the
portrait-figures in the great _St. Mark_ of the Salute--is the
magnificent _Ariosto_ in the Earl of Darnley's Collection at Cobham
Hall.[29] There is very considerable doubt, to say the least, as to
whether this half-length really represents the court poet of Ferrara,
but the point requires more elaborate discussion than can be here
conceded to it. Thoroughly Giorgionesque is the soberly tinted yet
sumptuous picture in its general arrangement, as in its general tone,
and in this respect it is the fitting companion and the descendant of
Giorgione's _Antonio Broccardo_ at Buda-Pesth, of his _Knight of Malta_
at the Uffizi. Its resemblance, moreover, is, as regards the general
lines of the composition, a very striking one to the celebrated Sciarra
_Violin-Player_ by Sebastiano del Piombo, now in the gallery of Baron
Alphonse Rothschild at Paris, where it is as heretofore given to
Raphael.[30] The handsome, manly head has lost both subtlety and
character through some too severe process of cleaning, but Venetian art
has hardly anything more magnificent to show than the costume, with the
quilted sleeve of steely, blue-grey satin which occupies so prominent a
place in the picture.
[Illustration: _Madonna and Child, with four Saints. Dresden Gallery.
From a Photograph by Hanfstängl_.]
The so-called _Concert_ of the Pitti Palace, which depicts a young
Augustinian monk as he plays on a keyed instrument, having on one side
of him a youthful cavalier in a plumed hat, on the other a bareheaded
clerk holding a bass-viol, was, until Morelli arose, almost universally
looked upon as one of the most typical Giorgiones.[31] The most gifted
of the purely aesthetic critics who have approached the Italian
Renaissance, Walter Pater, actually built round this _Concert_ his
exquisite study on the School of Giorgione. There can be little doubt,
notwithstanding, that Morelli was right in denying the authorship of
Barbarelli, and tentatively, for he does no more, assigning the so
subtly attractive and pathetic _Concert_ to the early time of Titian. To
express a definitive opinion on the latter point in the present state of
the picture would be somewhat hazardous. The portrait of the modish
young cavalier and that of the staid elderly clerk, whose baldness
renders tonsure impossible--that is just those portions of the canvas
which are least well preserved--are also those that least conclusively
suggest our master. The passion-worn, ultra-sensitive physiognomy of the
young Augustinian is, undoubtedly, in its very essence a Giorgionesque
creation, for the fellows of which we must turn to the Castelfranco
master's just now cited _Antonio Broccardo_, to his male portraits in
Berlin and at the Uffizi, to his figure of the youthful Pallas, son of
Evander, in the _Three Philosophers_. Closer to it, all the same, are
the _Raffo_ and the two portraits in the _St. Mark_ of the Salute, and
closer still is the supremely fine _Jeune Homme au Gant_ of the Salon
Carré, that later production of Vecelli's early time. The _Concert_ of
the Pitti, so far as it can be judged through the retouches that cover
it, displays an art certainly not finer or more delicate, but yet in its
technical processes broader, swifter, and more synthetic than anything
that we can with certainty point to in the life-work of Barbarelli. The
large but handsome and flexible hands of the player are much nearer in
type and treatment to Titian than they are to his master. The beautiful
motive--music for one happy moment uniting by invisible bonds of
sympathy three human beings--is akin to that in the _Three Ages_, though
there love steps in as the beautifier of rustic harmony. It is to be
found also in Giorgione's _Concert Champêtre_, in the Louvre, in which
the thrumming of the lute is, however, one among many delights appealing
to the senses. This smouldering heat, this tragic passion in which youth
revels, looking back already with discontent, yet forward also with
unquenchable yearning, is the keynote of the Giorgionesque and the early
Titianesque male portraiture. It is summed up by the _Antonio Broccardo_
of the first, by the _Jeune Homme au Gant_ of the second. Altogether
other, and less due to a reaction from physical ardour, is the exquisite
sensitiveness of Lorenzo Lotto, who sees most willingly in his sitters
those qualities that are in the closest sympathy with his own
highly-strung nature, and loves to present them as some secret,
indefinable woe tears at their heart-strings. A strong element of the
Giorgionesque pathos informs still and gives charm to the Sciarra
_Violin-Player_ of Sebastiano del Piombo; only that there it is already
tempered by the haughty self-restraint more proper to Florentine and
Roman portraiture. There is little or nothing to add after this as to
the _Jeune Homme au Gant_, except that as a representation of
aristocratic youth it has hardly a parallel among the master's works
except, perhaps, a later and equally admirable, though less
distinguished, portrait in the Pitti.
[Illustration: From a Photograph by Braün Clement & Cie. Walter L.
Colls. ph. sc.
Jeune Homme au gant]
[Illustration: _A Concert. Probably by Titian. Pitti Palace, Florence.
From a Photograph by Alinari_.]
Not until Van Dyck, refining upon Rubens under the example of the
Venetians, painted in the _pensieroso_ mood his portraits of high-bred
English cavaliers in all the pride of adolescence or earliest manhood,
was this particular aspect of youth in its flower again depicted with
the same felicity.[32]
To Crowe and Cavalcaselle's pages the reader must be referred for a
detailed and interesting account of Titian's intrigues against the
venerable Giovanni Bellini in connection with the Senseria, or office of
broker, to the merchants of the Fondaco de' Tedeschi. We see there how,
on the death of the martial pontiff, Julius the Second, Pietro Bembo
proposed to Titian to take service with the new Medici Pope, Leo the
Tenth (Giovanni de' Medici), and how Navagero dissuaded him from such a
step. Titian, making the most of his own magnanimity, proceeds to
petition the Doge and Signori for the first vacant broker's patent for
life, on the same conditions and with the same charges and exemptions as
are conceded to Giovanni Bellini. The petition is presented on the 31st
of May 1513, and the Council of Ten on that day moves and carries a
resolution accepting Titian's offer with all the conditions attached.
Though he has arrived at the extreme limit of his splendid career, old
Gian Bellino, who has just given new proof of his still transcendent
power in the great altar-piece of S. Giovanni Crisostomo (1513), which
is in some respects the finest of all his works, declines to sit still
under the encroachments of his dangerous competitor, younger than
himself by half a century. On the 24th of March 1514 the Council of Ten
revokes its decree of the previous May, and formally declares that
Titian is not to receive his broker's patent on the first vacancy, but
must wait his turn. Seemingly nothing daunted, Titian petitions again,
asking for the reversion of the particular broker's patent which will
become vacant on the death of Giovanni Bellini; and this new offer,
which stipulates for certain special payments and provisions, is
accepted by the Council. Titian, like most other holders of the
much-coveted office, shows himself subsequently much more eager to
receive its not inconsiderable emoluments than to finish the pictures,
the painting of which is the one essential duty attached to the office.
Some further bargaining takes place with the Council on the 18th of
January 1516, but, a few days after the death of Giovanni Bellini at the
end of November in the same year, fresh resolutions are passed
postponing the grant to Titian of Bellini's patent; notwithstanding
which, there is conclusive evidence of a later date to show that he is
allowed the full enjoyment of his "Senseria in Fontego di Tedeschi"
(_sic_), with all its privileges and immunities, before the close of
this same year, 1516.
[Illustration: _Portrait of a Man. Alte Pinakothek, Munich. From a
Photograph by Hanfstängl_.]
It is in this year that Titian paid his first visit to Ferrara, and
entered into relations with Alfonso I., which were to become more
intimate as the position of the master became greater and more
universally recognised in Italy. It was here, as we may safely assume,
that he completed, or, it may be, repaired, Giovanni Bellini's last
picture, the great _Bacchanal_ or _Feast of the Gods on Earth_, now at
Alnwick Castle. It is there that he obtained the commission for two
famous works, the _Worship of Venus_ and the _Bacchanal_, designed, in
continuation of the series commenced with Bellini's _Feast of the Gods_,
to adorn a favourite apartment in Alfonso's castle of Ferrara; the
series being completed a little later on by that crown and climax of the
whole set, the _Bacchus and Ariadne_ of the National Gallery.
Bellini appears in an unfamiliar phase in this final production of his
magnificent old age, on which the signature, together with the date,
1514, so carefully noted by Vasari, is still most distinctly to be read.
Much less Giorgionesque--if the term be in this case permissible--and
more Quattrocentist in style than in the immediately preceding
altar-piece of S. Giovanni Crisostomo, he is here hardly less
interesting. All admirers of his art are familiar with the four
beautiful _Allegories_ of the Accademia delle Belle Arti at Venice,
which constitute, besides the present picture, almost his sole excursion
into the regions of pagan mythology and symbolism. These belong,
however, to a considerably earlier period of his maturity, and show a
fire which in the _Bacchanal_ has died out.[33] Vasari describes this
_Bacchanal_ as "one of the most beautiful works ever executed by Gian
Bellino," and goes on to remark that it has in the draperies "a certain
angular (or cutting) quality in accordance with the German style." He
strangely attributes this to an imitation of Dürer's _Rosenkranzfest_,
painted some eight years previously for the Church of San Bartolommeo,
adjacent to the Fondaco de' Tedeschi. This particularity, noted by the
author of the _Vite_, and, in some passages, a certain hardness and
opacity of colour, give rise to the surmise that, even in the parts of
the picture which belong to Bellini, the co-operation of Basaiti may be
traced. It was he who most probably painted the background and the
figure of St. Jerome in the master's altar-piece finished in the
preceding year for S. Giovanni Crisostomo; it was he, too, who to a
great extent executed, though he cannot have wholly devised, the
Bellinesque _Madonna in Glory with Eight Saints_ in the Church of San
Pietro Martire at Murano, which belongs to this exact period. Even in
the _Madonna_ of the Brera Gallery (1510), which shows Gian Bellino's
finest landscape of the late time, certain hardnesses of colour in the
main group suggest the possibility of a minor co-operation by Basaiti.
Some passages of the _Bacchanal_, however--especially the figures of the
two blond, fair-breasted goddesses or nymphs who, in a break in the
trees, stand relieved against the yellow bands of a sunset sky--are as
beautiful as anything that Venetian art in its Bellinesque phase has
produced up to the date of the picture's appearance. Very suggestive of
Bellini is the way in which the hair of some of the personages is
dressed in heavy formal locks, such as can only be produced by
artificial means. These are to be found, no doubt, chiefly in his
earliest or Paduan period, when they are much more defined and rigid.
Still this coiffure--for as such it must be designated--is to be found
more or less throughout the master's career. It is very noticeable in
the _Allegories_ just mentioned.
[Illustration: _Alessandro de' Medici (so called). Hampton Court. From a
Photograph by Spooner & Co._]
Infinitely pathetic is the old master's vain attempt to infuse into the
chosen subject the measure of Dionysiac vehemence that it requires. An
atmosphere of unruffled peace, a grand serenity, unconsciously betraying
life-weariness, replaces the amorous unrest that courses like fire
through the veins of his artistic offspring, Giorgione and Titian. The
audacious gestures and movements naturally belonging to this rustic
festival, in which the gods unbend and, after the homelier fashion of
mortals, rejoice, are indicated; but they are here gone through, it
would seem, only _pour la forme_. A careful examination of the picture
substantially confirms Vasari's story that the _Feast of the Gods_ was
painted upon by Titian, or to put it otherwise, suggests in many
passages a Titianesque hand. It may well be, at the same time, that
Crowe and Cavalcaselle are right in their conjecture that what the
younger master did was rather to repair injury to the last work of the
elder and supplement it by his own than to complete a picture left
unfinished by him. The whole conception, the _charpente_, the contours
of even the landscape are attributable to Bellini. His are the
carefully-defined, naked tree-trunks to the right, with above in the
branches a pheasant, and on a twig, in the immediate foreground of the
picture, a woodpecker; his is the rocky formation of the foreground with
its small pebbles.[34] Even the tall, beetling crag, crowned with a
castle sunset-lit--so confidently identified with the rock of Cadore and
its castle--is Bellinesque in conception, though not in execution. By
Titian, and brushed in with a loose breadth that might be taken to
betray a certain impatience and lack of interest, are the rocks, the
cloud-flecked blue sky, the uplands and forest-growth to the left, the
upper part of the foliage that caps the hard, round tree-trunks to the
right. If it is Titian that we have here, as certainly appears most
probable, he cannot be deemed to have exerted his full powers in
completing or developing the Bellinesque landscape. The task may well,
indeed, have presented itself to him as an uninviting one. There is
nothing to remind the beholder, in conception or execution, of the
exquisite Giorgionesque landscapes in the _Three Ages_ and the _Sacred
and Profane Love_, while the broader handling suggests rather the
technical style, but in no way the beauty of the sublime prospect which
opens out in the _Bacchus and Ariadne_.