FALLEN as was every liberal pursuit during those ages, since
emphatically called dark, painting was yet never unpractised in Europe.
In the ecclesiastical records of that period, evidence is found that,
in Italy, churches were in every century decorated with paintings and
mosaics by native or Greek artists. A kind of competition, indeed,
appears to have been carried on between the successive pontiffs,
imitated by their inferior suffragans, who should thus load some
favorite cathedral with the greatest quantity of barbarous finery.
These gentlemen, as even the Abbate Tiraboschi has ventured to
disclose, being rarely ornamental to the church in their own proper
persons, endeavored to make up the deficiency in the best way possible
by proxy. From monuments still remaining in Germany, it is evident,
that neither was some degree of skill wanting in that quarter. In
France, as in our country, similar research would probably be rewarded
with the same discovery. Though darkened, the human spirit was still
at work; and when at length its energies were restored to comparative
activity by the slow operation of causes, imperceptible in themselves,
mighty in their results, the arts, as already seen, shone forth among
the morning stars in the dawn of freedom. This light first arose upon
Italy; and, from the circumstances of her situation, Florence soonest
established a school of painting. Cimabue, her citizen, early in the
thirteenth century, caught the inspiration from certain Greek painters,
employed by order of the magistracy. Equalling his masters, he was
himself surpassed by Giotto, once a shepherd boy; in turn excelled
by Memmi, Orgagna, Ucello, Massolino, to the middle of the fifteenth
century, when all former names were forgotten in the merits of
Massaccio. Dying at the age of twentyfour, he gave to painting truth,
expression, light, and shade; thus creating the first era in its
history. The chapel which still contains his frescoes, the early school
of Da Vinci and Buonarotti--the scene, too, of the latter's misfortune,
will long be visited with interest by the pilgrims of art. About the
same time, the invention of oil painting, ascribed to Van Eyck of
Bruges; and, not long after, the illusion of aerial perspective added
by Ghirlandajo, gave to modern art all the means of perfection. These
did not remain unimproved in the hands of such men as Verrocchio, first
excelling in perspective, Lippi, Signorelli, in whose works evidence
of selection is apparent, and many others, who, in different cities in
Italy, were now laying the foundation of schools, soon to become as
distinct in manner as the masters of one and the same art can well be
conceived.
But though much had been accomplished before the close of the fifteenth
century, as respects the higher qualities of imitative art, painting
was still in infancy. Leonardo da Vinci, born in 1452, reared it
to high maturity. The genius of this extraordinary man seemed as a
mirror, receiving and reflecting, in added brightness, every ray of
intellectual light which had yet beamed upon the age. Philosopher,
poet, artist, he anticipated the march of three centuries; proving,
in his own instance, what the unshackled energies of man would then
accomplish. Yet--and that, too, by a living historian of most deserved
reputation--has Leonardo been represented as a dabbler in various
knowledge, a proficient in none--a laborious idler, wasting time and
talent in useless multiplicity of pursuit. This apparently has been
done to exalt his great contemporary and successor; but history ought
not to be written as a picture is painted, touching in under-tones
what are deemed secondaries, that the light may be more conspicuously
directed to a principal figure. At the shrine of art, the devotion
of Da Vinci was neither devoid of fervor nor unfruitful; albeit he
courted, and not unsuccessfully, the favors of science, then new and
dear to the aspiring mind. His true rank is not only among the fathers,
but the masters of the art; he is one who not merely preceded, but
excelled. His cartoon of horsemen in the battle of Pisa formed a
favorite study of the greatest masters; and, in competition, Michael
Angelo produced another of soldiers arming in haste, after bathing;
which even his admirers say he scarcely ever afterwards equalled. Yet
was Leonardo not vanquished. The Last Supper, painted in fresco, at
Milan, exhibited a dignity and propriety of expression, a correctness
of drawing, then unequalled; and, if seen as originally finished,
probably still unsurpassed. The story of the head of the principal
personage having been left incomplete is a vulgar error, as might be
easily proved by reference to the early literature of Italian art.
The well-known portrait of Mona Lisa, in purity of drawing, sweetness
of simple and natural expression, has an equal only in the works of
Raphael. But the influence of this master extended much more widely
than the sphere of individual examples: he first united the science of
anatomy with that of painting, and both with nature; and thus may truly
be said to have prepared the art for the coming greatness.
To the majesty of Michael Angelo's genius the reader has already done
homage. If in sculpture the grandeur of his conceptions was admired,
in painting this greatness is still more wonderful, but unfortunately,
not less singular and remote from nature. Yet, than the painting
of Buonarotti there is perhaps no instance of intellectual power
more truly grand in the entire history of mind. Previous to leaving
his native Florence, where he was born, of a noble family, in 1474;
and whence he fled, when his country became false to herself and to
freedom, architecture and sculpture had formed his principal studies.
Design he had pursued little farther than as indispensably connected
with these: of painting, as a separate science, he was of course
comparatively ignorant. In this state of knowledge, he received orders
to complete the paintings in the Sistine Chapel, upon which several of
the artists, already mentioned, had before been engaged. Yet, at this
time, Michael Angelo was unacquainted with the mechanical processes of
fresco. To produce the designs was to him a labour of ease; and these
he endeavored to have executed by artists brought from Florence; but
on trial, dismissed them in all save utter hopelessness. Rising in
the strength and perseverance of indomitable genius, he resolved to
begin art anew, and to depend henceforth solely on his own resources.
Shutting himself up in the fated chapel, preparing the materials with
his own hands, after many trials and failures,--after beholding the
first piece finished to his satisfaction, moulder and mildew almost
before his admiring eye--he at length triumphed, achieving in the
course of years the most adventurous undertaking in modern art, under
circumstances, too, that while they encourage all, leave to none who
aspires to the moral dignity of talent even the shadow of an apology
for irresolution or indolence.
The walls and ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, with the picture of the
Last Judgment, executed thirty years afterwards, form the principal,
almost the sole, works of Michael Angelo in painting. The latter is
the greatest work of modern art, being fifty feet high by forty wide,
and containing upwards of 300 figures, many of which are larger than
life. Here the human form appears under every variety of position,
and agitated by every gradation of feeling; and over the whole is
diffused a living ease--a science--a magic power--a fascination,
which constrains us to gaze with wonder, astonishment, admiration,
but not with interest or sympathy. Similar are our feelings in every
other example; nor can this be exactly charged as a defect. Michael
Angelo formed a system for himself--he stands alone in his art--an
ideal abstraction of mind was the object of his imitation, to which
all of living nature, elevated into gigantic forms and energetic
modes, was to be moulded in subserviency. His art was creative, not
imitative--standing forth, in its own independence of aim.
Hence, there are two relations in which the works in painting of
Michael Angelo are to be examined, and according to which his merits
will be very differently estimated. Viewed in themselves, the frescos
of the Vatican present astonishing evidences of human power. Every
thought is grandeur and strength; and the rapid, fervent execution arms
the pencil with an omnipotence of art equal to all the modifications
of form. Here the whole is perfect, inimitable; within this his own
walk, Buonarotti has no compeer,--'second to none, with nothing like
to him.' But when the same works are considered in reference to the
general principles of imitation, and as deriving value according as
they reflect the archetypes of elevated nature, those very qualities
which formerly constrained our approbation, become startling blemishes.
The ideal is found to consist solely in the imaginative; sublimity is
sought too exclusively in the vehement to be always dignified. All is
action,--all participates of an unquiet and too aspiring character of
composition: every form, every muscle, every attitude, exhibits the
very gladiatorship of art,--for each is displayed, exerted, involved,
to the utmost. Even repose is anything save rest. Yet, in difficulty
apparently insurmountable, constraint is not perceived; the execution,
wonderfully facile, though too prominent in general effect, gives to
each giant limb of the awful and gloomy shapes, the very effect of life
and movement. But to this display of capabilities--to the exhibition of
science, and the sporting with difficulty, truth, simplicity, feeling,
and real beauty, have been sacrificed. In this nothing seems peculiar
to painting as distinguished from sculpture; nor, indeed, is there
any discrimination: color, tone, light, shadow--all is systematic
and ideal, but all mighty and overpowering in the whole. Again, when
the influence of such a style upon the progress of improvement is
considered, it appears that such influence could be favorable neither
to future improvement nor to stationary excellence. The greatness
of Michael Angelo, then, is his own--not the grandeur of art. Both
sculpture and painting he made subservient to the loftiest aims, and
the most splendid fame any artist ever did, perhaps can, pursue or
attain: yet each was but a slave, ministering to a glory in which
neither intrinsically participated.
Contemporary with the 'mighty Florentine,' but most unlike in all the
characteristics of genius, save the sublimity of the final result, was
Raphael, the founder and master of the Roman school. Born at Urbino,
1483, he arrived in Rome upon the invitation of his relation, Bramante,
the architect, about 1508, nearly at the same time with his great
rival. Dying on his thirtyseventh birthday, he has, in a short life,
bequeathed to posterity works almost equally numerous, and certainly
displaying more of the profound excellences and beautiful sentiment of
art, than those of any name since the revival of painting. Of these
inestimable productions there remain to us easel pictures in oil,
cartoons, and frescos, exhibiting, also, three different manners. The
first dry, little, and tedious, but not without truth--often great
beauty of finishing. This was derived from his instructer, Pietro
Perugino; and though observable as a general characteristic only in his
early easel pictures, and some frescos at Sienna, may yet occasionally
be detected in the careful pencilling even of his frescos, and in the
making out of his accompaniments. The pictures which display this style
are those painted after he left his master in 1493, and before his
return to Urbino about 1504. The finest of these was executed in his
seventeenth year, representing a Holy Family,--the Virgin raising a
veil from the Infant, who sleeps. Except in the works of Da Vinci, so
much sweetness of expression and beauty of design had not yet appeared
in the art, as is found even in this youthful production. The second
manner is an intermediate step--an attempt to escape from a minuteness
which he soon discovered to be unsuitable both to his own fervor and
the dignity of art. The change is perceptible immediately after he
had studied the works of the Florentine masters, whose improvements,
and the vigor of their enlarged style, he would at sight appreciate
as movements evidently in advance, but with which he had hitherto
remained unacquainted. As a separate manner, it can scarcely be said
to exist; for at most it was but a new instrument in the possession of
a mind which has made everything its own. All that is apparent amounts
merely to a progressive melioration, extending through three or four
years, of which space he resided nearly two in Florence, studying
the performances of art in that city, but receiving no personal
instructions, excepting a reciprocal interchange of knowledge with Fra
Bartolomeo. The most celebrated pictures produced by him during this
interval are the Virgin, Infant, and St John, in the ducal gallery,
and the entombing of Christ, now at Rome. These, more strikingly when
viewed in comparison with the style of contemporary works, exhibit
beauties of so opposite a character to the compositions of Michael
Angelo, that it is impossible to perceive any grounds on which the
obligations said to be owing by their author to the latter can be
rested. Buonarotti, in fact, could not, or at least never did, paint
in a taste of such simplicity as these exhibit. The third manner is
solely and exclusively individual, neither derived nor--we grieve
to say--inherited; full, harmonious, sweet, and flowing--yet bold,
learned, and sustained,--composed of such an union of natural grace and
antique correctness, as meet only in the creations of Raphael's pencil.
To this style his most important works belong, having been formed after
his arrival in Rome, and when he had there become deeply impressed
with the sublimities of ancient art. In the space of only twelve
years--for he united exquisite finish with wonderful expedition--he
completed the frescos of the Vatican and the Farnesina, besides others,
amounting to many hundred figures--designed the Cartoons--cultivating,
at the same time, architecture (of which he was a master), poetry,
and sculpture. During the same laborious period were produced those
exquisite paintings in oil, which have chiefly contributed to spread
his fame beyond Italy. Of these the best, the most wonderful, though in
slight respects not the most perfect, is the Transfiguration--the last
bequeathment of his genius to the arts and to posterity, for he died
within a few days after it was completed.
As Raphael in these works, no painter has ever done so much for the
real excellence of the art, nor, in the principles upon which they are
conducted, has placed improvement on precepts so pure, so unerring. All
that imagination could lend to a strictly imitative art he has added,
yet has infused into its creations the warmest sensibilities of life;
to nature he has given all that grace and fancy can bestow, consistent
with the sweetest of all charms--leaving her nature still. On this
account is Raphael, of all great names in art, the safest to adopt as
the guide of taste and practice. For were the most decided admirer of
system merely to copy, he would quickly find himself constrained to
become the disciple of reality. True, we discover no mixed modes of
nature, such as impede her energies and cloud her beauties in ordinary
life; yet the tranquil loveliness--the sinless beauty--the noble
feeling of the representation--has nothing of the cold and merely
imaginative. This, indeed, constitutes the great charm of Raphael's
grace, that neither in form nor expression is it abstract; its power
of moving is acquired directly from human sympathy. In gazing upon
his dramatic scenes and breathing figures, who has not experienced
this truth in a gradual melting of the heart, in unison with every
pure and holy remembrance that connects man with the species? See
the Madona--how mildly, simply beautiful! In that bosom not one
rude passion has a resting place; yet feels not each spectator now
called-up dear though distant recollections of a parent's--a mother's
tenderness, with all the reverential charities of life's spring? Behold
the Magdalen--how changed the sensibilities! still how respectable!
One overmastering, absorbing affection. No meretricious display--every
movement is that of passion, but of sentiment too. Or view that youth
so intent upon instruction; he hangs upon the very words of his
aged guide. How powerfully do we conceive the mature resolves that
irradiate the ingenuous countenance! Or turn your attention to the
child who is playing in the lap of the mother--how innocently happy!
how unconsciously beautiful! Yet look again;--even here is passion,
sentiment, futurity. The imagination involuntarily shapes out the
fortunes of that disposition so legibly expressed in the speaking
countenance. But in the deep meaning of the mild full eye, in the holy
expression which beams in every lineament, in the spotless form, has
not genius made the nearest approaches to our unbreathed conceptions of
an infant Saviour! Regard that prophet--how glorious, yet how good, he
seems! No spirit insensible to human woe, unpitying of human frailty,
lives there. The errors and backslidings of his race have given a fixed
though placid sorrow to the eye, but the closing sunshine of his own
pure life hath settled on the majestic brow.
Such are all the works of Raphael, full to overflowing of human
sentiment and of interest. In their very highest ideal, they are but
the primeval dignity and sacredness of our nature. How then can these
facts be reconciled with the opinion so boldly and so long asserted,
that they do not strike at first sight--that the heart as well as the
judgment must be gradually prepared to relish their beauties? We shall
not attempt to reconcile--we deny the conclusion. Where these works
have not been from the first felt, and admired, and loved in their
truth and in their simplicity, they have been viewed through the mists
of false theory, or compared with erroneous standards of excellence. We
discard all consideration of the theories of the French professional
critics on this subject; but it has often been matter of great surprise
to find Sir Joshua Reynolds maintaining the same system. 'I remember
very well,' says the English artist, 'my own disappointment when I
first visited the Vatican; but on confessing my feelings to a brother
student, of whose ingenuousness I had a high opinion, he acknowledged
that the works of Raphael had the same effect upon him--or rather,
that they did not produce the effect which he expected. This was a
great relief to my mind; and on inquiring further of other students,
I found that those persons only, who, from natural imbecility,
appeared incapable of ever relishing those divine performances, made
pretensions to instantaneous raptures on first beholding them. I found
myself in the midst of works executed upon principles with which I was
unacquainted; I felt my ignorance, and stood abashed. I viewed them
again and again; I even affected to admire them more than I really did.
In a short time a new taste and a new perception began to dawn upon me,
and I was convinced that I had originally formed a false opinion of the
perfection of the art, and that this great painter was well entitled
to the high rank which he holds in the estimation of the world. But
let it always be remembered that the excellence of his style is not on
the surface, but lies deep, and at first view is seen but mistily. It
is the florid style which strikes at once, and captivates the eye for
a time, without ever satisfying the judgment.' We admire this candor,
and can at once admit the justness of these remarks in general, when
applied to the works of Michael Angelo, on whose principles it is
well known that Sir Joshua formed his theory of ideal beauty. But in
reference to Raphael, conclusions the very opposite would be nearer
the truth. Drawn immediately from nature, as are all his ideas, they
interest the heart at once; and as we study the exquisite mechanism,
the perfection of the details, the propriety of the composition, the
judgment confirms yet more the impressions which the heart first
entertained.
These observations lead to, while they are confirmed by, another view,
which yet remains to be taken of the genius of Raphael. It is only in
the individuality and profoundness of expression, that he reaches the
sublimities of art. In the abstract conception of form he is inferior;
hence, in the representations of mythological existences, he becomes
feeble in proportion as he generalizes. It is this that discriminates
between the Roman and the Florentine. The former is the painter of
men as they live, and feel, and act; the latter delineates man in the
abstract. The one embodies sentiment--feeling--passion; the other
pourtrays the capacities, energies, and idealities of form. Raphael
excels in resemblance; he walks the earth, but with dignity, and is
seen to most advantage in relations of human fellowship. Michael Angelo
can be viewed only in his own world; with ours he holds no farther
communion than is necessary to obtain a common medium of intelligence.
In the grand, the venerable, the touching realities of life, the
first is unrivalled; his fair, and seeming true, creations cause us
to reverence humanity and ourselves. Over the awful and the sublime
of fiction, the second extends a terrible sway; he calls spirits from
their shadowy realms, and they come at his bidding, in giant shapes, to
frown upon the impotency of man.
To contend here for superiority is futile--each has his own independent
sphere. The style of Raphael has justly been characterised as
the dramatic, that of Michael Angelo as the epic, of painting.
The distinction is accurate, in as far as the former has made to
pass before us character in conflict with passion--in all its
individualities of mode; while the latter represented and generalized
both character and passion. The first leads us from natural beauty to
divine--the second elevates us at once into regions which his own lofty
imaginations have peopled. Hence, than Michael Angelo's prophets, and
other beings that just hover on the confines of human and spiritual
existence, the whole range of art and poetry never has, and never
will, produce more magnificent and adventurous creations. This is his
true power--here he reigns alone, investing art with a mightiness
unapproachable by any other pencil. But when the interest is to be
derived from known forms, and natural combinations, he fails almost
utterly; never can his line want grandeur--but grandeur so frequently
substituted for feeling, and when the subject cannot sustain it,
presents only gorgeous caricature. Human affection mingles in every
touch of Raphael, and he carries our nature to its highest moral,
if not physical, elevation. Hence, his supernatural forms may want
abstract majesty and overawing expression; but they display a community
in this world's feelings, without its weaknesses or imperfections, by
which the heart is perhaps even more subdued.
If this be a true estimate of the powers of these great men, and
we have drawn our inferences from impressions often felt, and long
studied, no comparison can be more unjust, nor less apt, than the one
so frequently repeated, that Michael Angelo is the Homer, Raphael
the Virgil, of modern painting. The Florentine may justly take his
place by the side of the Greek. Not so the Roman and the Mantuan.
The copyist of Homer, nay, frequently his translator, whose nature
is taken at second-hand--whose characters, in the mass, have about
as much individuality as the soldiers of a platoon, and little more
intellectual discrimination than brave, braver, and bravest, must
occupy a lower seat at the banquet of genius than the original, the
ever varied, and graphic artist. The great error in estimating the
merits of these masters appears to have arisen from not considering
them separately, and as independent minds. Michael Angelo, indeed,
created, while Raphael may be said to have composed; but he discovered
and collected--he did not derive his materials. Michael Angelo found
the art poor in means, undignified and powerless in composition; he
assumed it in feebleness, and bore it at once to maturity of strength.
Of these improvements Raphael profited by novel application; but the
advantage was nothing more than necessarily occurs in the spread of
intelligence. Massaccio had, in like manner, prepared the previous
change; Da Vinci first, then Buonarotti, took it up. The pupil of
Perugino made availment of this new path to a commanding height,
whence the whole prospect of the empire of art might be surveyed, but
over this his genius soared in guideless, independent flight. Than
the invention, and at such a time, of Michael Angelo's mighty system,
there is to be found no greater evidence of talent, nor of greater
talent; but from the mind that could conceive that system, scarcely an
exertion was demanded to maintain supremacy therein, guarded as were
its claims against all rivalry by the very novelty and peculiarity of
the style, where each adopter would be degraded into an imitator. On
the other hand, if the perfection of Raphael's manner appear to be more
in the ordinary course of genius, it is to be remembered, that its very
perfectness depends upon those qualities of mind which most rarely
assemble in the constitution of inventive genius--exquisite taste,
sound judgment, patient study, and profound knowledge of the human
heart. Be it also recollected, that to support the mastery here, in a
style founded on no peculiar habitudes of intellect, but embracing the
general and intrinsic principles of art, where all good artists would
consequently be rivals, without incurring the imputation of copying,
required unabating effort, diligence, and originality,--more liberal
and varied excellence, than in the preceding system. Here we at length
discover the real and abiding superiority of Raphael. It is not that
he pre-eminently surpasses in one of the faculties of genius, but he
has embodied in his labours more of the requisites of perfection than
any other of the modern masters. In grandeur of invention and form,
he is inferior to Michael Angelo. Titian surpasses him in coloring,
Corregio in gradation of tone. This superiority, however, becomes
visible only where each of the qualities becomes the ruling sentiment
of the work. For when we view in itself a composition of Raphael, where
the style of design so exquisitely accords with the forms, the coloring
corresponding with each, the chiar' oscuro just adequate to the degree
of perception meditated; the whole harmonized by innate and unerring
propriety, animated with his own peculiar grace and sentiment, while
each separate quality becomes yet more perfect in the combination,--the
pencil seems justly to have attained its unrivalled utmost.
With their respective founders, the schools of Rome and Florence may be
said to have terminated; at least the mantle of their teacher rested
with very unequal inspiration upon the disciples of both. The death of
Raphael, in 1520, proved an irremediable loss to the arts, the extent
of which never can indeed be known. His pure and natural style, had
it been more firmly engrafted by longer life, would probably have
delayed, perhaps prevented, the sudden extravagance and mannerism which
overspread the united schools of Tuscany and Rome, at the head of which
Michael Angelo survived upwards of forty years.
Among the various pursuits of taste, painting alone exhibits this
singular fortune, that the noblest and most intellectual of its
principles, as also those which speak most directly to sense, and are
merely alluring, were invented at the same time, but in different
places, and separately practised. It is worthy of remark, also, that
in each respect the first inventors remained the most accomplished
professors of their own discoveries. While in Rome and Florence,
design and expression were receiving their perfection, forming the
almost exclusive subjects of study, in Venice, the seductions of
coloring, in Lombardy, the illusions of light and shadow, were adding
unknown pomp and magic to the art.
The school of Venice, though one of the earliest in Europe to cherish
reviving arts, has added little of intellectual or noble to their
progressive culture. Here they have never flourished in the genial
soil of popular institutions. A haughty and jealous, yet luxurious and
unpatriotic aristocracy, converted the arts into instruments of private
gratification--instead of turning them to national ornament. Hence
sculpture has been little cultivated, architecture more, though in
peculiar style, and painting most of all. But while the sacredness of
religion, or the manliness of history, has occupied the Italian pencil
generally, of the older masters especially, Venice has sent forth
her lordly senators, splendid banquets, and naked beauties. From the
twelfth century, we have already seen, a movement might be discerned
in the arts of Venice. Her school of painting begins to attract notice
under Antonello da Messina, who introduced oil colors. The Bellinis
carried out his improvements; and as pupils of the youngest, we
discover Giorgione and Titian, who, with Tintoretto, Paul Veronese,
Sebastian del Piombo, Schiavone, and Bassano, were the chief masters of
this school.
But of Venetian painting the great ornament is Titian, whose name is
synonymous with the characteristic of the native school--fine coloring.
From this, however, we are not to suppose, as is too frequently done,
that he was wanting in the higher principles of his profession. The
alleged imperfection of his design will not often be detected, and only
in momentary action of the parts; for in the more common modifications
of form, it is faultless, and of inanimate nature the drawing and
painting of his landscapes is unrivalled. In expression he is the most
historical of all painters, his portraits being second only to those
of Raphael. In careful imitation of natural effect, he is equal to the
most pains-taking of the Dutch school; yet, with such grandeur and
breadth in the masses, that, as has been justly remarked, the most
imperfect sketch in which the original disposition in this respect
is preserved, will present a character of high art. The chief defect
of Titian was in composition and poetical fancy; he penetrated the
very secrets of nature in all her varied effects and minutest shades
of tone and hue--but he neither made selections of her forms, nor
possessed the power of correcting her defects, by an ideal standard.
In this mastery of coloring, three principles may be remarked; first,
the interposing medium between the eye and the object is supposed to
be a mellow golden light; secondly, the most glowing and gorgeous
lights are produced, not so much by rich local tints as by the general
conduct of the whole piece, in which the gradations of tone are almost
evanescent, yet in their strongest hues powerfully contrasted. Hence
the final splendor is effected rather by painting in under-tones, than
by lavishing on particular spots the whole riches of the palette.
The shadows and under-tones, also, are enlivened by a thousand local
hues and flickering lights, and his masses by innumerable varieties
and play of parts; yet all softened, and blended, and combined by an
undefinable harmony. Hence, nothing more easy than apparently to copy
Titian--nothing more difficult than really to imitate his faithfulness
and splendor. The third principle refers to his practice; the colors
are laid on pure, without mixing, in tints by reiterated application,
and apparently with the point of the pencil.
Titian died in 1576, at the venerable age of 96 or 99, having survived
the glory of the Venetian school, the last disciple of decided
eminence being Tintoretto, called the lightning of the pencil, from
his miraculous despatch. The Bassans are powerful colorists, and
wonderfully true to nature. Paul Veronese wantons in all the luxuriance
of fresh and magnificent coloring, but is correct neither in taste nor
drawing. Giorgione, of all the early Venetian masters, gave greatest
promise of uniting purity with splendor, but died in 1511, at the
age of 33;--thus leaving Titian, to whom he had in some measure been
instructer, to reap an undivided harvest of fame.
In the annals of genius, no name bears more strongly on the popular
sense attached to the term of a heaven-born inspiration, superior
to circumstances and independent of tuition, than that of Antonio
Leti--better known as Corregio. This artist, who was born about 1494,
and died at the age of 40, is the model rather than the founder of the
Lombard school. From the bosom of poverty, without master, without
patron, without even the commonest appliances of his art, he bursts
at once upon the view in all the blaze of original talent--unpraised,
unknown--in an age of knowledge, to sink unmarked like the meteor of
the desert, leaving but the memorials of his graceful pencil--in his
own phrase, 'anch' io son pittore'--to cry aloud that he also was
a painter,--that such a man, contemporary with Raphael and Michael
Angelo, and their nearest compeer, should have lived in ignorance
of them, of Rome, of the antique, of all but nature--to die at last
unrewarded in Parma--is utterly inexplicable. The principal works of
this master are the two noble cupolas of the cathedral churches of
Parma, painted in fresco--one subject the Assumption of the Virgin,
the other the Ascension of the Saviour. Of his easel paintings, the
most precious, representing a Holy Family, and called the 'Night,'
is in the Dresden gallery. The beauties of Corregio are grace and
exquisite management of light and color, united with inexpressible
harmony,--'thus was completed the round of art.' 'Everything I see,'
says Annibale Caracci, on beholding fifty years afterwards these works
of Corregio,'astonishes me, particularly the coloring and beauty of
the children, who live, breathe, and smile, with so much sweetness and
vivacity, that we are constrained to sympathize in their enjoyment.'
The clearness and relief, the sweetness and freedom of pencil, in the
works before us, have indeed never been exceeded, but correctness is
not one of their elements. Neither the most beautiful forms, nor the
most pleasing groupings, are preferred to the most ungraceful upon any
principle of abstract elegance, but the whole composed and selected
in obedience to the distribution of light and the gradation of tone.
In expression, the same system is pursued; for here Corregio has
endeavored habitually to impress the soft hues and undulating lines
which rapture and joy leave on the countenance. Beyond these, of ideal,
he appears to have had no conception. Every form wears the stamp of
living nature, and his coloring is the very reflection of natural
bloom. He wanted force, which, with the defect of elevation, renders
the whole effect, though delightfully soft and graceful, sometimes
effeminate and monotonous. Yet Raphael alone united a greater variety
of different excellences.
We have now surveyed the labours and merits of the old masters--the
patriarchs of modern art. The establishment of the four primitive
schools embraces likewise the golden age of painting. How brief was
the reign of lofty genius! The same individual might have lived
with all the masters now enumerated,--he might have survived them
all,--beholding the art in its infancy, and in its manhood, he might
have witnessed also its decline, and yet have viewed all this within
the ordinary span of existence. The same brevity in the duration
of excellence we also remarked in the arts of Greece. Is it, then,
the fate of the human spirit, like human institutions, to fall away
immediately on attaining a degree of perfection? or rather, is not this
evidence of powers which shall hereafter expand, grow, and unfold their
activities,--here on earth chilled, and cramped, and broken?
Among the minor fathers of the art who not unworthily supported the
glory of the sixteenth century, and who continue the history of
painting in the Roman and Florentine schools through the remainder of
that period, the chief were the immediate disciples of Raphael and
Michael Angelo. The favorite pupil of the former, Julio Romano, was an
artist of highly poetic imagination, but less informed with pure taste
than his master; his ambition appears to have aimed at uniting the
grace of his instructer with the science and energy of Florence. Penni,
Perin del Vaga, Polidore Caravaggio, and Maturino, not unsuccessfully
studied in the same school; but we find a gradual disappearance of
the more simple style of Raphael, and long before the middle of the
century, the two schools may almost be said to have merged in the
overwhelming despotism of the principles of Michael Angelo. Even the
names now mentioned, though at first following the Roman in their
later works, are scarcely to be distinguished from the disciples
of the Florentine school. Of those who were truly disciples of the
latter, and who derived their science immediately from the founder,
was Daniel de Volterra, who survived till 1566. The designs of this
latter have frequently been assigned to his master; and in the opinion
of Poussin, his Descent from the Cross, in fresco, in the church of
Trinita del Monte at Rome, is--or rather was, for it perished under
French experiment,--one of the three best pictures in the world. Andrea
del Sarto was more an independent master, who held between the two
styles, and added better coloring than either. Mazzuoli, better known
as Parmegiano, though by birth and early study belonging to the school
of Corregio, his better taste was formed at Rome; his style of design
is noble, coloring forcible, and general effect sweet and gracious. He
died in 1540, ten years after the preceding. But of all the followers
of Michael Angelo, Tibaldi approached nearest to the sublimity, without
the extravagance, of his model. It soon becomes difficult, indeed
impossible, to follow decidedly the division of the ancient schools.
In the progress of the century, their principles become united in the
works of the minor painters, who are henceforth to be distinguished by
the place of their birth, rather than by their style. The design of
Michael Angelo prevailed; but to this were added, in proportion to the
abilities of the artist, the various discoveries of the other masters.
The art however, was in rapid retrogression. A style which suited
only the most transcendent genius, which only under such inspiration
could be at all pleasing, and from whose sublimity one step led into
the turgid and the false, became a most dangerous instrument of ill
in the hands of mere imitators. The ingrafting, also, upon its severe
simplicity, the more luxurious modes of Venice and Lombardy, tended
still more effectually to extinguish character and truth of distinctive
representation.
Towards the close of the sixteenth and early part of the seventeenth
century, the progress of decline was stayed for a time by the
establishment of a new school. This was the Bolognese or Eclectic,
founded by the Caracci, and which, in some measure, was the
concentration of all the Lombard artists, who, separately following,
in a great measure, the style of Corregio, had yet never united into
a seminary of which that master could be called the head. The grand
principle of this new academy, and thence deriving the appellation
of Eclectic, was to select what was most excellent in the primitive
schools; design from the Florentine, and grace from the Roman, from
the Venetian color, from the Lombard light and shade, uniting all
in due proportion and harmonious effect. The plan was arduous and
aspiring, but the idea was good; the failure which ensued, for, abating
the success of individual talent, the final result disappointed
expectation, arose not from the intention pursued, but from the means
employed. The Bolognese masters sought to effect the combination
of these elements by rules of art, instead of taking nature as the
connecting and vivifying principle. In the study of her effects they
would have found the very union they contemplated--the previous
separation, in fact, of pictorial excellence into departments, had been
occasioned by partial or peculiar views of nature. Still the success of
the attempt was great, and threw the last rays of glory over the native
seat of modern art.
The founders and great ornaments of this school were the three Caracci;
Ludovico the eldest, born in 1555, died in 1619, was the instructer
of his two cousins--Agostino, three years younger, and Annibale, born
in 1560, both of whom Ludovico survived. The association formed by
these relatives was, in the strictest sense of the term, a _school_
of design, and conducted upon an admirable plan; students being
instructed in anatomy, in drawing, in painting, and in the principles
of composition, by actual superintendence and personal instruction.
The unaffected breadth, solemnity, yet grace of effect--the simplicity
of character, which distinguish the works of Ludovico, are justly
admired. Augustino excelled more in the theory than the practice of his
art; but one of the best pictures of this school, the St Jerome of the
Certosa, is his. Engravings by him are numerous and valuable. Of all
the Caracci, Annibale is the most magnificent in his compositions, and
may be taken as the true representative of the school; bold, splendid,
broad, his pencil deals its touches with firm, almost unerring
certainty, to its aim--but too frequently that aim is style in art,
rather than truth in feeling.
Of the immediate pupils of the Bolognese academy, the first undoubtedly
is the modest and tender Domenichino. Though participating in the
common fault of his school, loaded design, yet his heads have a feeling
and expression approaching to the sublime in sentiment. The Communion
of St Jerome is pronounced by Poussin to be one of the three best
pictures in the world--the Transfiguration of Raphael, and Volterra's
Descent from the Cross, completing the number. We shall not easily
forget our impressions on beholding the Transfiguration and the
Communion side by side in the Vatican. Guido's name instantly calls up
all our associations of the graceful and the benign; but his expression
is too often artificial: perhaps in his works we first decidedly mark
those academic abstractions and refinements of precept, which, formed
independently of nature, hastened the downfall of art in this its last
resting place. Guercino wants power and individual character; Albani
is agreeable and poetic, the painter of the Loves and Graces. Carlo
Dolci, a Florentine, imitates Guido. Lanfranco is bold, but incorrect
in his design; as are likewise Pietro Cortona, and Luca Giordano,
mannerists in whom is lost every distinction of character. Contemporary
with the Carracci, but self-taught, and belonging to no school, was
Caravaggio, strong but ungraceful in design, harsh in the disposition
of his lights, but of undoubted genius:--his pupil was Spagnoletto. The
history of painting in Italy, at least of painting animated by genius,
may be closed with the name of Salvator Rosa, who died in 1673, the
only native landscape painter which that delightful and picturesque
country has produced. The old masters, indeed, have left the grandest
and most perfect landscape compositions--but these are subservient to
the figures. Rosa succeeded in both, and stands nobly, but peculiarly,
original in an age of decay and mannerism.
The eighteenth century opens under the auspices of Carlo Maratti,
an affected mannerist, but not altogether devoid of talent. After
his death, in 1713, his rivals, Garzi and Cignani, sustained for a
little the expiring reputation of the Roman school. But it is quite
unnecessary to continue the narrative; the state of the arts during the
early part of this century has already been noticed, and the names of
Bianchi, Costanzi, Manchini, the early contemporaries of Canova, and of
the revival, are now forgotten. The only artists of those times still
regarded with some respect, are, Solemena, who died in 1747; Sebastian
Conca, in 1764; and Pompeo Battoni, who brings down the history of the
art to 1787; Mengs belongs to Germany.
Over the living art of Italy, Camuccini at Rome, and Benvenuti at
Florence, preside. The former is perhaps the best draughtsman in
Europe, but is inferior as a colorist; he wants depth, harmony,
and force; his grouping also is defective in richness and variety,
approaching too nearly to the linear as in relievo. His expression,
though noble, is cold--deficient in that warm gush of sentiment,
which, in the ancient masters, seemed to 'create a soul under the ribs
of death.' Benvenuti excels his contemporary as a colorist, in the
disposition of his group, and in the force of _chiar' oscuro_; but in
purity of drawing, in classical taste, and in the selection of form,
he is inferior. Each has chosen his subjects principally from profane
history. Camuccini's best performance is the Departure of Regulus;
Benvenuti's a scene in the recent history of Saxony. Rome possesses
several other good painters, but few natives--for, to the artist as to
the poet of every nation, she has become
'----His country--city of the soul.'