PAINTERS OF THE VENETIAN PROVINCES
It has become usual to include in the Venetian School those artists from
the subject provinces on the mainland, who came down to try their luck
at the fountain-head and to receive its hallmark on their talent. The
Friulan cities, Udine, Serravalle, and small neighbouring towns, had
their own primitive schools and their scores of humble craftsmen. Their
art wavered for some time in its expression between the German taste,
which came so close to their gates, and the Italian, which was more
truly their element.
Up to 1499 Friuli was invaded seven times in thirty years by the
Turks. They poured in large numbers over the Bosnian borders, crossed
the Isonzo and the Tagliamenta, and massacred and carried off the
inhabitants. These terrible periods are marked by the cessation of work
in the provinces, but hope always revived again. The break caused by
such a visitation can be distinctly traced in the Church of S. Antonino,
at the little town of San Daniele. Martino da Udine obtained the
epithet of Pellegrino da San Daniele in 1494 when he returned from an
early visit to Venice, where he had been apprenticed to Cima. He was
appointed to decorate S. Antonino. His early work there is hard and
coarse, ill-drawn, the figures unwieldy and shapeless, and the colour
dusky and uniform; but owing to the Turkish raid, he had to take flight,
and it was many a year before the monks gained sufficient courage and
saved enough money to continue the embellishment of their church. In the
meantime, Pellegrino's years had been spent partly in Venice and partly,
perhaps, in Ferrara, for the reason Raphael gave for refusing to paint a
"Bacchus" for the Duke, was that the subject had already been painted
by Pellegrino da San Daniele. When Pellegrino resumed his work, it
demonstrated that he had studied the modern Venetians and had come under
a finer, deeper influence. A St. George in armour suggests Giorgione's
S. Liberale at Castelfranco; he specially shows an affinity with
Pordenone, who was his pupil and who was to become a better painter than
his old master. As Pellegrino goes on he improves consistently, and
adopts the method, so peculiarly Venetian, of sacrificing form to a
scheme of chiaroscuro. He even, to some extent, succeeds in his
difficult task of applying to wall painting the system which the
Venetians used almost exclusively for easel pictures. He was an
ambitious, daring painter, and some of his church standards were for
long attributed to Giorgione. The church of San Antonino remains his
chief monument; but for all his travels Pellegrino remains provincial in
type, is unlucky in his selection, cares little for precision of form,
and trusts to colour for effect.
The same transition in art was taking place in other provinces. Morto da
Feltre, Pennacchi, and Girolamo da Treviso have all left work of a
Giorgionesque type, and some painters who went far onward, began their
career under such minor masters. Giovanni Antonio Licinio, who takes his
name from his native town of Pordenone, in Friuli, was one of these. All
the early part of his life was spent in painting frescoes in the small
towns of the Friulan provinces. At first they bear signs of the tuition
of Pellegrino, but it soon becomes evident that Pordenone has learned to
imitate Giorgione and Palma. Quite early, however, one of his chief
failings appears, and one which is all his own, the disparity in size
between his various figures. The secondary personages, the Magi in a
Nativity, the Saints standing round an altar, are larger and more
athletic in build and often more animated in action than the principal
actors in the scene. What pleased Pordenone's contemporaries was his
daring perspective and his instinctive feeling for movement. He carried
out great schemes in the hill-towns, till at length his reputation,
which had long been ripe in his native province, reached Venice. In
1519 he was invited to Treviso to fresco the façade of a house for one
of the Raviguino family. The painter, as payment, asked fifty scudi, and
Titian was called in to adjudicate, but he admired the work so much that
he hinted to Raviguino that he would be wise not to press him for a
valuation. As a direct consequence of this piece of business, Pordenone
was employed on the chapel at Treviso, in conjunction with Titian. At
this time the Assumption and the Madonna of Casa Pesaro were just
finished, and it is probable that Pordenone paid his first visit to
Venice, hard by, and saw his great contemporary's work. With his
characteristic distaste for fresco, Titian undertook the altarpiece and
painted the beautiful Annunciation which still holds its place, and
Pordenone covered the dome with a foreshortened figure of the Eternal
Father, surrounded by angels. Among the remaining frescoes in the
Chapel, an Adoration of the Magi and a S. Liberale are from his brush.
Fired by his success at Treviso, Pordenone offered his services to
Mantua and Cremona, but the Mantovans, accustomed to the stately and
restrained grace of Mantegna, would have nothing to say to what Crowe
and Cavalcaselle call his "large and colossal fable-painting." He
pursued his way to Cremona, and that he studied Mantegna as he passed
through Mantua is evident from the first figures he painted in the
cathedral. In Cremona every one admired him, and all the artists set to
work to imitate his energetic foreshortening, vehement movement and huge
proportions.
Pordenone, with his love for fresco, was all his life an itinerant
painter. In 1521 he was back at Udine and wandered from place to
place, painting a vast distemper for the organ doors at S. Maria at
Spilimbergo, the façade of the Church of Valeriano, an imposing series
at Travesio, and in 1525, the "Story of the True Cross" at Casara. At
the last place he threw aside much of his exaggeration, and, ruined and
restored as the frescoes are, they remain among his most dignified
achievements. He may be studied best of all at Piacenza, in the Church
of the Madonna di Campagna, where he divides his subjects between sacred
and pagan, so that we turn from a "Flight into Egypt" or a "Marriage
of S. Catherine," to the "Rape of Europa" or "Venus and Adonis." At
Piacenza he shows himself the great painter he undoubtedly is, having
achieved some mastery over form, while his colour has the true Venetian
quality and almost equals oils in its luscious tones and vivid hues,
which he lowers and enriches by such enveloping shadows as only one
whose spirit was in touch with the art of Giorgione would have
understood how to use. Very complete records remain of Pordenone's life,
full details of a quarrel with his brother over property left by his
father in 1533, and accounts of the painter's negotiations to obtain a
knighthood, which he fancied would place him more on a par with Titian
when he went to live in Venice. The coveted honour was secured, but from
this time he seems to have been very jealous of Titian and to have aimed
continually at rivalling him. Pordenone was a punctual and rapid
decorator, and on being given the ceiling of the Sala di San Finio to
decorate in the summer of 1536, he finished the whole by March 1538. We
have seen how Titian annoyed the Signoria by his delays, how anxious
they were to transfer his commission to Pordenone, and what a narrow
escape the Venetian had of losing his Broker's patent. Pordenone was
engaged by the nuns of Murano to paint an Annunciation, after they had
rejected one by Titian on account of its price, and though it seems
hardly possible that any one could have compared the two men, yet no
doubt the pleasure of getting an altarpiece quickly and punctually and
for a moderate sum, often outweighed the honour of the possible painting
by the great Titian.
No one has left so few easel-paintings as Pordenone; fresco was so much
better suited to his particular style. The canvas of the "Madonna of
Mercy" in the Venice Academy, was painted about 1525 for a member of the
house of Ottobono, and introduces seven members of the family. It is
very free from his colossal, exaggerated manner; the attendant saints
are studied from nature, and in his journals the painter mentions that
the St. Roch is a portrait of himself. The "S. Lorenzo enthroned," in
the same gallery, shows both his virtues and failings. The saints have
his enormous proportions. The Baptist is twisting round, to display the
foreshortening which Pordenone particularly affects. The gestures are
empty and inexpressive, but the colour is broad and fluid; there is a
large sense of decoration in the composition, and something simple and
austere about the figure of S. Lorenzo. As is so often the case with
Pordenone, the principal actor of the scene is smaller and more
sincerely imagined than the attendant personages, who are crowded into
the foreground, where they are used to display the master's skill.
Pordenone died suddenly at Ferrara, where he had been summoned by its
Duke to undertake one of his great schemes of decoration. He was said
to have been poisoned, but though he had jealous rivals there seems no
proof of the truth of the assertion, which was one very commonly made in
those days. He is interesting as being the only distinguished member of
the Venetian School whose frescoes have come down to us in any number,
and as being the only one of the later masters with whom it was the
chosen medium.
His kinsman, Bernardino Licinio, is represented in the National Gallery
by a half-length of a young man in black, and at Hampton Court by a
large family group and by another of three persons gathered round a
spinet. His masterpiece is a Madonna and Saints in the Frari, which
shows the influence of Palma. His flesh tints, striving to be rich, have
a hot, red look, but his works have been constantly confounded with
those of Giorgione and Paris Bordone.
A long list might be given of minor artists who were industriously
turning out work on similar lines to one or other of these masters:
Calderari, who imitates Paris Bordone as well as Pordenone; Pomponio
Amalteo, Pordenone's son-in-law, a spirited painter in fresco;
Florigerio, who practised at Udine and Padua, and of whom an altarpiece
remains in the Academy; Giovanni Battista Grassi, who helped Vasari to
compile his notices of Friulan art, and many others only known by name.
At the close of the fifteenth century the revulsion against Paduan art
extended as far as Brescia, and Girolamo Romanino was one of the first
to acquire the trick of Venetian painting. He probably studied for a
time under Friulan painters. Pellegrino is thought to have been at
Brescia or Bergamo during the Friulan disturbances of 1506-12, and
about 1510 Romanino emerges, a skilled artist in Pellegrino's Palmesque
manner. His works at this time are dark and glowing, full of warm light
and deep shadow; the scene is often laid under arches, after the manner
of the Vivarini and Cima; a gorgeous scheme of accessory is framed in
noble architecture.
Brescia was an opulent city, second only to Milan among the towns of
northern Italy, and Romanino obtained plenty of patronage; but in 1511
the city fell a prey to the horrors of war, was taken and lost by
Venice, and in 1512 was sacked by the French. Romanino fled to Padua,
where he found a home among the Benedictines of S. Giustina. Here he was
soon well employed on an altarpiece with life-size figures for the high
altar, and a "Last Supper" for the refectory. It is also surmised that
he helped in the series for the Scuola del Santo, for several of which
Titian in 1511 had signed a receipt, and the "Death of St. Anthony" is
pointed out as showing the Brescian characteristics of fine colour, but
poor drawing.
Romanino returned to Brescia when the Venetians recovered it in 1516,
but before doing so he went to Cremona and painted four subjects, which
are among his most effective, in the choir of the Duomo.
He is not so daring a painter as Pordenone, from whom he sometimes
borrows ideas, but he is quite a convert to the modern style of the day,
setting his groups in large spaces and using the slashed doublets, the
long hose, and plumed headgear which Giorgione had found so picturesque.
Romanino is often very poor and empty, and fails most in selection and
expression at the moments when he most needs to be great, but he is
successful in the golden style he adopted after his closer contact
with the Venetians, and his draperies and flesh tints are extremely
brilliant. He is, indeed, inclined to be gaudy and careless in
execution, and even the fine "Nativity" in the National Gallery gives
the impression that size is more regarded than thought and feeling.
Moretto is perhaps the only painter from the mainland who, coming within
the charmed circle of Venetian art and betraying the study of Palma and
Titian and the influence of Pordenone, still keeps his own gamut of
colour, and as he goes on, gets consistently cooler and more silvery
in his tones. He can only be fully studied in Brescia itself, where
literally dozens of altarpieces and wall-paintings show him in every
phase. His first connection was probably with Romanino, but he reminds
us at one time of Titian by his serious realism, and finished, careful
painting, at another of Raphael, by the grace and sentiment of his
heads, and as time goes on he foreshadows the style of Veronese. In the
"Feast in the House of Simon" in the organ-loft of the Church of the
Pietà in Venice, the very name prepares us for the airy, colonnaded
building, with vistas of blue sky and landscape, and the costly raiment
and plenishing which might have been seen at any Venetian or Brescian
banquet. In his portraits Moretto sometimes rivals Lotto. His personages
are always dignified and expressive, with pale, high-bred faces, and
exceedingly picturesque in dress and general arrangement. He loved to
paint a great gentleman, like the Sciarra Martinengo in the National
Gallery, and to endow him with an air of romantic interest.
One of those who entered so closely into the spirit of the Venetian
School that he may almost be included within it, is Savoldo. His
pictures are rare, and no gallery can show more than one or two
examples. The Louvre has a portrait by him of Gaston de Foix, long
thought to be by Giorgione. His native town can only show one
altarpiece, an "Adoration of Shepherds," low in tone but intense in
dusky shadow with fringes of light. He is grey and slaty in his shadows,
and often rough and startling in effect, but at his best he produces
very beautiful, rich, evening harmonies; and a letter from Aretino bears
witness to the estimation in which he was held.
It is not easy to say if Brescia or Vicenza has most claim to
Bartolommeo Montagna, the early master of Cima. Born of Brescian
parents, he settled early in Vicenza, and he is by far the most
distinguished of those Vicentine painters who drank at the Venetian
fount. He must have gone early to Venice and worked with the Vivarini,
for in his altarpiece in the Brera he has the vaulted porticoes in
which Bartolommeo and Alvise Vivarini delighted. His "Madonna enthroned"
in the gallery at Vicenza has many points of contact with that of Alvise
at Berlin. Among these are the four saints, the cupola, and the raised
throne, and he is specially attracted by the groups of music-making
angels; but Montagna has more moral greatness than Alvise, and his lines
are stronger and more sinewy. He keeps faithful to the Alvisian feeling
for calm and sweetness, but his personages have greater weight and
gravity. He essays, too, a "Pietà" with saints, at Monte Berico, and
shows both pathos and vehemence. He has evidently seen Bellini's
rendering, and attempts, if only with partial success, to contrast in
the same way the indifference of death with the contemplation and
anguish of the bereaved. Hard and angular as Montagna's saints often
are, they show power and austerity. His colour is brilliant and
enamel-like; he does not arrive at the Venetian depth, yet his
altarpieces are very grand, and once more we are struck by the greatness
of even the secondary painters who drew their inspiration from Padua and
Venice.
Among the other Vicentines, Giovanni Speranza and Giovanni Buonconsiglio
were imbued with characteristics of Mantegna. Speranza, in one of his
few remaining works, almost reproduces the beautiful "Assumption" by
Pizzolo, Mantegna's young fellow-student, in the Chapel of the
Eremitani. He employs Buonconsiglio as an assistant, and they imitate
Montagna to such an extent that it is difficult to distinguish between
their works. Buonconsiglio's "Pietà" in the Vicenza gallery, is
reminiscent of Montagna's at Monte Berico. The types are lean and bony,
the features are almost as rugged as Dürer's, the flesh earthy and
greenish. About 1497 Buonconsiglio was studying oils with Antonello da
Messina; he begins to reside in Venice, and a change comes over his
manner. His colours show a brilliancy and depth acquired by studying
Titian; and then, again, his bright tints remind us of Lotto. His name
was on the register of the Venetian Guild as late as 1530.
After Pisanello's achievement and his marked effect on early Venetian
art, Veronese painting fell for a time to a very low ebb; but Mantegna's
influence was strongly felt here, and art revived in Liberale da Verona,
Falconetto, Casoto, the Morone and Girolamo dai Libri, painters
delightful in themselves, but having little connection with the
school of Venice. Francesco Bonsignori, however, shook himself free
from the narrow circle of Veronese art, where he had for a time
followed Liberale, and grows more like the Vicentines, Montagna and
Buonconsiglio. He is careful about his drawing, but his figures, like
those of many of these provincial painters, are short, bony and vulgar,
very unlike the slender, distinguished type of the great Paduan. Under
the name of Francesco da Verona, Bonsignori works in the new palace of
the Gonzagas, and several pictures painted for Mantua are now scattered
in different collections. At Verona he has left four fine altarpieces.
He went early to Venice, where he became the pupil of the Vivarini. His
faces grow soft and oval, and the very careful outlines suggest the
influence of Bellini.
Girolamo Mocetto was journeyman to Giovanni Bellini; in fact, Vasari
says that a "Dead Christ" in S. Francesco della Vigna, signed with
Bellini's name, is from Mocetto's hand. His short, broad figures have
something of Bartolommeo Vivarini's character.
Francesco Torbido went to Venice to study with Giorgione, and we can
trace his master's manner of turning half tones into deep shades; but he
does not really understand the Giorgionesque treatment, in which shade
was always rich and deep, but never dark, dirty and impenetrable, nor in
the lights can he produce the clear glow of Giorgione. Another Veronese,
Cavazzola, has left a masterpiece upon which any painter might be happy
to rest his reputation; the "Gattemalata with an Esquire" in the Uffizi,
a picture noble in feeling and in execution, and one which owes a great
deal to Venetian portrait-painters.
PRINCIPAL WORKS
_Pordenone._
Casara. Old Church: Frescoes, 1525.
Colatto. S. Salvatore: Frescoes (E.).
Cremona. Duomo: Frescoes; Christ before Pilate; Way to Golgotha;
Nailing to Cross; Crucifixion, 1521; Madonna enthroned
with Saints and Donor, 1522.
Murano. S. Maria d. Angeli: Annunciation (L.).
Piacenza. Madonna in Campagna: Frescoes and Altarpiece, 1529-31.
Pordenone. Duomo: Madonna of Mercy, 1515; S. Mark enthroned with Saints,
1535.
Municipio: SS. Gothard, Roch, and Sebastian, 1525.
Spilimbergo. Duomo: Assumption; Conversion of S. Paul.
Sensigana. Madonna and Saints.
Torre. Madonna and Saints.
Treviso. Duomo: Adoration of Magi; Frescoes, 1520.
Venice. Academy: Portraits; Madonna, Saints, and the Ottobono Family;
Saints.
S. Giovanni Elemosinario: Saints.
S. Rocco: Saints, 1528.
_Pellegrino._
San Daniele. Frescoes in S. Antonio.
Cividale. S. Maria: Madonna with six Saints.
Venice. Academy: Annunciation.
_Romanino._
Bergamo. S. Alessandro in Colonna: Assumption.
Berlin. Madonna and Saints; Pietà.
Brescia. Galleria Martinengo: Portrait; Christ bearing Cross; Nativity;
Coronation.
Duomo: Sacristy: Birth of Virgin; Visitation.
S. Francesco: Madonna and Saints; Sposalizio.
Cremona. Duomo: Frescoes.
London. Polyptych; Portrait.
Padua. Last Supper; Madonna and Saints.
Sato, Lago di Garda. Duomo: Saints and Donor.
Trent. Castello: Frescoes.
Verona. St. Jerome. S. Giorgio in Braida: Organ shutters.
_Moretto._
Bergamo. Lochis: Holy Family; Christ bearing Cross; Donor.
Brescia. Galleria Martinengo: Nativity and Saints; Madonna
appearing to S. Francis; Saints; Madonna in Glory
with Saints; Christ at Emmaus; Annunciation.
S. Clemente: High Altar and four other Altarpieces.
S. Francesco: Altarpiece.
S. Giovanni Evangelista: High Altar; Third Altar.
S. Maria in Calchera: Dead Christ and Saints;
Magdalen washing Feet of Christ.
S. Maria delle Grazie: High Altar.
SS. Nazaro and Celso: Two Altarpieces; Sacristy:
Nativity.
Seminario di S. Angelo: High Altar.
London. Portrait of Count Sciarra Martinengo; Portrait;
Madonna and Saints; Two Angels.
Milan. Brera: Madonna and Saints; Assumption.
Castello: Triptych; Saints.
Rome. Vatican: Madonna enthroned with Saints.
Venice. S. Maria della Pietà: Christ in the House of Levi.
Verona. S. Giorgio in Braida: Madonna and Saints.
_Bartolommeo Montagna._
Bergamo. Lochis: Madonna and Saint, 1487.
Berlin. Madonna, Saints, and Donors, 1500.
Milan. Brera: Madonna, Saints, and Angels.
Padua. Scuola del Santo: Fresco; Opening of S. Antony's Tomb.
Pavia. Certosa: Madonna, Saints, and Angels.
Venice. Academy: Madonna and Saints; Christ with Saints.
Verona. SS. Nazaro e Celso: Saints; Pietà; Frescoes, 1491-93.
Vicenza. Holy Family; Madonna enthroned; Two Madonnas with Saints;
Three Madonnas.
Duomo: Altarpiece; Frescoes.
S. Corona: Madonna and Saints.
Monte Berico: Pietà, 1500; Fresco.