strength, which cannot be wounded by neglect, and is only to be thwarted
by time and space. He knows precisely all that art can accomplish under
given conditions; determines absolutely how much of what can be done he
will himself for the moment choose to do; and fulfills his purpose with
as much ease as if, through his human body, were working the great
forces of nature. Not that he is ever satisfied with what he has done,
as vulgar and feeble artists are satisfied. He falls short of his ideal,
more than any other man; but not more than is necessary; and is content
to fall short of it to that degree, as he is content that his figures,
however well painted, do not move nor speak. He is also entirely
unconcerned respecting the satisfaction of the public. He neither cares
to display his strength to them, nor convey his ideas to them; when he
finishes his work, it is because he is in the humor to do so; and the
sketch which a meaner painter would have left incomplete to show how
cleverly it was begun, Tintoret simply leaves because he has done as
much of it as he likes.
224. Both Raphael and Michael Angelo are thus, in the most vital of all
points, separate from the great Venetian. They are always in dramatic
attitudes, and always appealing to the public for praise. They are the
leading athletes in the gymnasium of the arts; and the crowd of the
circus cannot take its eyes away from them, while the Venetian walks or
rests with the simplicity of a wild animal; is scarcely noticed in his
occasionally swifter motion; when he springs, it is to please himself;
and so calmly, that no one thinks of estimating the distance covered.
I do not praise him wholly in this. I praise him only for the
well-founded pride, infinitely nobler than Michael Angelo's. You do not
hear of Tintoret's putting any one into hell because they had found
fault with his work. Tintoret would as soon have thought of putting a
dog into hell for laying his paws on it. But he is to be blamed in
this--that he thinks as little of the pleasure of the public, as of
their opinion. A great painter's business is to do what the public ask
of him, in the way that shall be helpful and instructive to them. His
relation to them is exactly that of a tutor to a child; he is not to
defer to their judgment, but he is carefully to form it;--not to consult
their pleasure for his own sake, but to consult it much for theirs. It
was scarcely, however, possible that this should be the case between
Tintoret and his Venetians; he could not paint for the people, and in
some respects he was happily protected by his subordination to the
Senate. Raphael and Michael Angelo lived in a world of court intrigue,
in which it was impossible to escape petty irritation, or refuse
themselves the pleasure of mean victory. But Tintoret and Titian, even
at the height of their reputation, practically lived as craftsmen in
their workshops, and sent in samples of their wares, not to be praised
or caviled at, but to be either taken or refused.
225. I can clearly and adequately set before you these relations between
the great painters of Venice and her Senate--relations which, in
monetary matters, are entirely right and exemplary for all time--by
reading to you two decrees of the Senate itself, and one petition to it.
The first document shall be the decree of the Senate for giving help to
John Bellini, in finishing the compartments of the great Council
Chamber; granting him three assistants--one of them Victor Carpaccio.
The decree, first referring to some other business, closes in these
terms:[44]
"There having moreover offered his services to this effect our
most faithful citizen, Zuan Bellin, according to his agreement
employing his skill and all speed and diligence for the
completion of this work of the three pictures aforesaid,
provided he be assisted by the under-written painters.
"Be it therefore put to the ballot, that besides the aforesaid
Zuan Bellin in person, who will assume the superintendence of
this work, there be added Master Victor Scarpaza, with a
monthly salary of five ducats; Master Victor, son of the late
Mathio, at four ducats per month; and the painter, Hieronymo,
at two ducats per month; they rendering speedy and diligent
assistance to the aforesaid Zuan Bellin for the painting of the
pictures aforesaid, so that they be completed well and
carefully as speedily as possible. The salaries of the which
three master painters aforesaid, with the costs of colors and
other necessaries, to be defrayed by our Salt Office with the
moneys of the great chest.
"It being expressly declared that said pensioned painters be
tied and bound to work constantly and daily, so that said three
pictures may be completed as expeditiously as possible; the
artists aforesaid being pensioned at the good pleasure of this
Council.
"Ayes 23
"Noes 3
"Neutrals 0"
This decree is the more interesting to us now, because it is the
precedent to which Titian himself refers, when he first offers his
services to the Senate.
The petition which I am about to read to you, was read to the Council of
Ten, on the last day of May, 1513, and the original draft of it is yet
preserved in the Venice archives.
"'Most Illustrious Council of Ten.
"'Most Serene Prince and most Excellent Lords.
"'I, Titian of Serviete de Cadore, having from my boyhood
upwards set myself to learn the art of painting, not so much
from cupidity of gain as for the sake of endeavoring to
acquire some little fame, and of being ranked amongst those who
now profess the said art.
"'And altho heretofore, and likewise at this present, I have
been earnestly requested by the Pope and other potentates to go
and serve them, nevertheless, being anxious as your Serenity's
most faithful subject, for such I am, to leave some memorial in
this famous city; my determination is, should the Signory
approve, _to undertake, so long as I live, to come and paint in
the Grand Council with my whole soul and ability_; commencing,
provided your Serenity think of it, with the battle-piece on
the side towards the "Piaza," that being the most difficult;
nor down to this time has any one chosen to assume so hard a
task.
"'I, most excellent Lords, should be better pleased to receive
as recompense for the work to be done by me, such
acknowledgments as may be deemed sufficient, and much less; but
because, as already stated by me, I care solely for my honor,
and mere livelihood, should your Serenity approve, you will
vouchsafe to grant me for my life, the next brokers-patent in
the German factory,[45] by whatever means it may become vacant;
notwithstanding other expectancies; with the terms, conditions,
obligations, and exemptions, as in the case of Messer Zuan
Bellini; besides two youths whom I purpose bringing with me as
assistants; they to be paid by the Salt Office; as likewise the
colors and all other requisites, as conceded a few months ago
by the aforesaid most Illustrious Council to the said Messer
Zuan; for I promise to do such work and with so much speed and
excellency as shall satisfy your lordships to whom I humbly
recommend myself.'"
226. "This proposal," Mr. Brown tells us, "in accordance with the
petitions presented by Gentil Bellini and Alvise Vivarini, was
immediately put to the ballot," and carried thus--the decision of the
Grand Council, in favor of Titian, being, observe, by no means
unanimous:
"Ayes 10
"Noes 6
"Neutrals 0"
Immediately follows on the acceptance of Titian's services, this
practical order:
"We, Chiefs of the most Illustrious Council of Ten, tell and
inform you Lords Proveditors for the State; videlicet the one
who is cashier of the Great Chest, and his successors, that for
the execution of what has been decreed above in the most
Illustrious Council aforesaid, you do have prepared all
necessaries for the above written Titian according to his
petition and demand, and as observed with regard to Juan
Bellini, that he may paint ut supra; paying from month to month
the two youths whom said Titian shall present to you at the
rate of four ducats each per month, as urged by him because of
their skill and sufficiency in said art of painting, tho' we do
not mean the payment of their salary to commence until they
begin work; and thus will you do. Given on the 8th of June,
1513."
This is the way, then, the great workmen wish to be paid, and that is
the way wise men pay them for their work. The perfect simplicity of such
patronage leaves the painter free to do precisely what he thinks best:
and a good painter always produces his best, with such license.
227. And now I shall take the four conditions of change in succession,
and examine the distinctions between the two masters in their acceptance
of, or resistance to, them.
(I.) The change of good and permanent workmanship for bad and insecure
workmanship.
You have often heard quoted the saying of Michael Angelo, that
oil-painting was only fit for women and children.
He said so, simply because he had neither the skill to lay a single
touch of good oil-painting, nor the patience to overcome even its
elementary difficulties.
And it is one of my reasons for the choice of subject in this concluding
lecture on Sculpture, that I may, with direct reference to this much
quoted saying of Michael Angelo, make the positive statement to you,
that oil-painting is the Art of arts;[46] that it is sculpture, drawing,
and music, all in one, involving the technical dexterities of those
three several arts; that is to say--the decision and strength of the
stroke of the chisel;--the balanced distribution of appliance of that
force necessary for graduation in light and shade;--and the passionate
felicity of rightly multiplied actions, all unerring, which on an
instrument produce right sound, and on canvas, living color. There is
no other human skill so great or so wonderful as the skill of fine
oil-painting; and there is no other art whose results are so absolutely
permanent. Music is gone as soon as produced--marble discolors,--fresco
fades,--glass darkens or decomposes--painting alone, well guarded, is
practically everlasting.
Of this splendid art Michael Angelo understood nothing; he understood
even fresco, imperfectly. Tintoret understood both perfectly; but
he--when no one would pay for his colors (and sometimes nobody would
even give him space of wall to paint on)--used cheap blue for
ultramarine; and he worked so rapidly, and on such huge spaces of
canvas, that between damp and dry, his colors must go, for the most
part; but any complete oil-painting of his stands as well as one of
Bellini's own: while Michael Angelo's fresco is defaced already in every
part of it, and Lionardo's oil-painting is all either gone black, or
gone to nothing.
228. (II.) Introduction of dramatic interest for the sake of excitement.
I have already, in the _Stones of Venice_, illustrated Tintoret's
dramatic power at so great length, that I will not, to-day, make any
farther statement to justify my assertion that it is as much beyond
Michael Angelo's as Shakspeare's is beyond Milton's--and somewhat with
the same kind of difference in manner. Neither can I speak to-day, time
not permitting me, of the abuse of their dramatic power by Venetian or
Florentine; one thing only I beg you to note, that with full half of his
strength, Tintoret remains faithful to the serenity of the past; and the
examples I have given you from his work in S. 50,[47] are, one, of the
most splendid drama, and the other, of the quietest portraiture ever
attained by the arts of the Middle Ages.
Note also this respecting his picture of the Judgment, that, in spite
of all the violence and wildness of the imagined scene, Tintoret has not
given, so far as I remember, the spectacle of any one soul under
infliction of actual pain. In all previous representations of the Last
Judgment there had at least been one division of the picture set apart
for the representation of torment; and even the gentle Angelico shrinks
from no orthodox detail in this respect; but Tintoret, too vivid and
true in imagination to be able to endure the common thoughts of hell,
represents indeed the wicked in ruin, but not in agony. They are swept
down by flood and whirlwind--the place of them shall know them no more,
but not one is seen in more than the natural pain of swift and
irrevocable death.
229. (III.) I pass to the third condition; the priority of flesh to
spirit, and of the body to the face.
In this alone, of the four innovations, Michael Angelo and Tintoret have
the Greeks with them;--in this, alone, have they any right to be called
classical. The Greeks gave them no excuse for bad workmanship; none for
temporary passion; none for the preference of pain. Only in the honor
done to the body may be alleged for them the authority of the ancients.
You remember, I hope, how often in my preceding lectures I had to insist
on the fact that Greek sculpture was essentially [Greek:
aprosopos];--independent, not only of the expression, but even of the
beauty of the face. Nay, independent of its being so much as seen. The
greater number of the finest pieces of it which remain for us to judge
by, have had the heads broken away;--we do not seriously miss them
either from the Three Fates, the Ilissus, or the Torso of the Vatican.
The face of the Theseus is so far destroyed by time that you can form
little conception of its former aspect. But it is otherwise in Christian
sculpture. Strike the head off even the rudest statue in the porch of
Chartres and you will greatly miss it--the harm would be still worse to
Donatello's St. George:--and if you take the heads from a statue of
Mino, or a painting of Angelico--very little but drapery will be
left;--drapery made redundant in quantity and rigid in fold, that it may
conceal the forms, and give a proud or ascetic reserve to the actions,
of the bodily frame. Bellini and his school, indeed, rejected at once
the false theory, and the easy mannerism, of such religious design; and
painted the body without fear or reserve, as, in its subordination,
honorable and lovely. But the inner heart and fire of it are by them
always first thought of, and no action is given to it merely to show its
beauty. Whereas the great culminating masters, and chiefly of these,
Tintoret, Correggio, and Michael Angelo, delight in the body for its own
sake, and cast it into every conceivable attitude, often in violation of
all natural probability, that they may exhibit the action of its
skeleton, and the contours of its flesh. The movement of a hand with
Cima or Bellini expresses mental emotion only; but the clustering and
twining of the fingers of Correggio's S. Catherine is enjoyed by the
painter just in the same way as he would enjoy the twining of the
branches of a graceful plant, and he compels them into intricacies which
have little or no relation to St. Catherine's mind. In the two drawings
of Correggio (S. 13 and 14) it is the rounding of limbs and softness of
foot resting on cloud which are principally thought of in the form of
the Madonna; and the countenance of St. John is foreshortened into a
section, that full prominence may be given to the muscles of his arms
and breast.
So in Tintoret's drawing of the Graces (S. 22), he has entirely
neglected the individual character of the Goddesses, and been content to
indicate it merely by attributes of dice or flower, so only that he may
sufficiently display varieties of contour in thigh and shoulder.
230. Thus far, then, the Greeks, Correggio, Michael Angelo, Raphael in
his latter design, and Tintoret in his scenic design (as opposed to
portraiture), are at one. But the Greeks, Correggio, and Tintoret, are
also together in this farther point; that they all draw the body for
true delight in it, and with knowledge of it living; while Michael
Angelo and Raphael draw the body for vanity, and from knowledge of it
dead.
The Venus of Melos,--Correggio's Venus, (with Mercury teaching Cupid to
read),--and Tintoret's Graces, have the forms which their designers
truly _liked_ to see in women. They may have been wrong or right in
liking those forms, but they carved and painted them for their pleasure,
not for vanity.
But the form of Michael Angelo's Night is not one which he delighted to
see in women. He gave it her, because he thought it was fine, and that
he would be admired for reaching so lofty an ideal.[48]
231. Again. The Greeks, Correggio, and Tintoret, learn the body from the
living body, and delight in its breath, color, and motion.[49]
Raphael and Michael Angelo learned it essentially from the corpse, and
had no delight in it whatever, but great pride in showing that they knew
all its mechanism; they therefore sacrifice its colors, and insist on
its muscles, and surrender the breath and fire of it, for what is--not
merely carnal,--but osseous, knowing that for one person who can
recognize the loveliness of a look, or the purity of a color, there are
a hundred who can calculate the length of a bone.
The boy with the doves, in Raphael's cartoon of the Beautiful Gate of
the Temple, is not a child running, but a surgical diagram of a child in
a running posture.
Farther, when the Greeks, Correggio, and Tintoret, draw the body active,
it is because they rejoice in its force, and when they draw it inactive,
it is because they rejoice in its repose. But Michael Angelo and Raphael
invent for it ingenious mechanical motion, because they think it
uninteresting when it is quiet, and cannot, in their pictures, endure
any person's being simple-minded enough to stand upon both his legs at
once, nor venture to imagine anyone's being clear enough in his language
to make himself intelligible without pointing.
In all these conditions, the Greek and Venetian treatment of the body is
faithful, modest, and natural; but Michael Angelo's dishonest, insolent,
and artificial.
232. But between him and Tintoret there is a separation deeper than all
these, when we examine their treatment of the face. Michael Angelo's
vanity of surgical science rendered it impossible for him ever to treat
the body as well as the Greeks treated it; but it left him wholly at
liberty to treat the face as ill; and he did: and in some respects very
curiously worse.
The Greeks had, in all their work, one type of face for beautiful and
honorable persons; and another, much contrary to it, for dishonorable
ones; and they were continually setting these in opposition. Their type
of beauty lay chiefly in the undisturbed peace and simplicity of all
contours; in full roundness of chin; in perfect formation of the lips,
showing neither pride nor care; and, most of all, in a straight and firm
line from the brow to the end of the nose.
The Greek type of dishonorable persons, especially satyrs, fauns, and
sensual powers, consisted in irregular excrescence and decrement of
features, especially in flatness of the upper part of the nose, and
projection of the end of it into a blunt knob.
By the most grotesque fatality, as if the personal bodily injury he had
himself received had passed with a sickly echo into his mind also,
Michael Angelo is always dwelling on this satyric form of
countenance;--sometimes violently caricatures it, but never can help
drawing it; and all the best profiles in this collection at Oxford have
what Mr. Robinson calls a "nez retrousse;" but what is, in reality, the
nose of the Greek Bacchic mask, treated as a dignified feature.
233. For the sake of readers who cannot examine the drawings themselves,
and lest I should be thought to have exaggerated in any wise the
statement of this character, I quote Mr. Robinson's description of the
head, No. 9--a celebrated and entirely authentic drawing, on which, I
regret to say, my own pencil comment in passing is merely "brutal lower
lip, and broken nose":--
"This admirable study was probably made from nature, additional
character and more powerful expression having been given to it
by a slight exaggeration of details, bordering on caricature
(observe the protruding lower lip, 'nez retrousse,' and
overhanging forehead). The head, in profile, turned to the
right, is proudly planted on a massive neck and shoulders, and
the short tufted hair stands up erect. The expression is that
of fierce, insolent self-confidence and malevolence; it is
engraved in facsimile in Ottley's 'Italian School of Design,'
and it is described in that work, p. 33, as 'Finely expressive
of scornfulness and pride, and evidently a study from nature.'
"Michel Angelo has made use of the same ferocious-looking model
on other occasions--see an instance in the well-known 'Head of
Satan' engraved in Woodburn's Lawrence Gallery (No. 16), and
now in the Malcolm Collection.
"The study on the reverse of the leaf is more lightly executed;
it represents a man of powerful frame, carrying a hog or boar
in his arms before him, the upper part of his body thrown back
to balance the weight, his head hidden by that of the animal,
which rests on the man's right shoulder.
"The power displayed in every line and touch of these drawings
is inimitable--the head was in truth one of the 'teste divine,'
and the hand which executed it the 'mano terribile,' so
enthusiastically alluded to by Vasari."
234. Passing, for the moment, by No. 10, a "young woman of majestic
character, marked by a certain expression of brooding melancholy," and
"wearing on her head a fantastic cap or turban;"--by No. 11, a bearded
man, "wearing a conical Phrygian cap, his mouth wide open," and his
expression "obstreperously animated;"--and by No. 12, "a middle-aged or
old man, with a snub nose, high forehead, and thin, scrubby hair," we
will go on to the fairer examples of Divine heads in No. 32.
"This splendid sheet of studies is probably one of the 'carte
stupendissime di teste divine,' which Vasari says (Vita, p.
272) Michel Angelo executed, as presents or lessons for his
artistic friends. Not improbably it is actually one of those
made for his friend Tommaso dei Cavalieri, who, when young, was
desirous of learning to draw."
But it is one of the chief misfortunes affecting Michael Angelo's
reputation, that his ostentatious display of strength and science has a
natural attraction for comparatively weak and pedantic persons. And this
sheet of Vasari's "teste divine" contains, in fact, not a single drawing
of high quality--only one of moderate agreeableness, and two caricatured
heads, one of a satyr with hair like the fur of animals, and one of a
monstrous and sensual face, such as could only have occurred to the
sculptor in a fatigued dream, and which in my own notes I have classed
with the vile face in No. 45.
235. Returning, however, to the divine heads above it, I wish you to
note "the most conspicuous and important of all," a study for one of the
Genii behind the Sibylla Libyca. This Genius, like the young woman of a
majestic character, and the man with his mouth open, wears a cap, or
turban; opposite to him in the sheet, is a female in profile, "wearing a
hood of massive drapery." And, when once your attention is directed to
this point, you will perhaps be surprised to find how many of Michael
Angelo's figures, intended to be sublime, have their heads bandaged. If
you have been a student of Michael Angelo chiefly, you may easily have
vitiated your taste to the extent of thinking that this is a dignified
costume; but if you study Greek work, instead, you will find that
nothing is more important in the system of it than a finished
disposition of the hair; and as soon as you acquaint yourself with the
execution of carved marbles generally, you will perceive these massy
fillets to be merely a cheap means of getting over a difficulty too
great for Michael Angelo's patience, and too exigent for his invention.
They are not sublime arrangements, but economies of labor, and reliefs
from the necessity of design; and if you had proposed to the sculptor of
the Venus of Melos, or of the Jupiter of Olympia, to bind the ambrosial
locks up in towels, you would most likely have been instantly bound,
yourself; and sent to the nearest temple of AEsculapius.
236. I need not, surely, tell you,--I need only remind,--how in all
these points, the Venetians and Correggio reverse Michael Angelo's evil,
and vanquish him in good; how they refuse caricature, rejoice in beauty,
and thirst for opportunity of toil. The waves of hair in a single figure
of Tintoret's (the Mary Magdalen of the Paradise) contain more
intellectual design in themselves alone than all the folds of unseemly
linen in the Sistine chapel put together.