CHAPTER XXVII

BASSANO

We wonder how many of those sightseers who pass through the

Ante-Collegio in the Ducal Palace, and stare for a few moments at

Tintoretto's famous quartet and at Veronese's "Rape of Europa," turn to

give even such fleeting attention to the long, dark canvas which hangs

beside them, "Jacob's Journey into Canaan," by Jacopo da Ponte, called

Bassano.

Yet from the position in which it is placed the visitor might guess that

it is considered to be a gem, and it gains something in interest when we

learn from Zanetti that it was ordered by Jacopo Contarini at the same

time as the "Rape of Europa," as if the great connoisseur enjoyed

contrasting Veronese's light, gay style with the vigorous brush of

da Ponte.

If attention is arrested by the beauty of the painting, and the visitor

should be inspired to seek the painter in his native city, he will be

well repaid. Bassano once held an important position on the main road

between Italy and Germany, but since the railroad was made across the

Brenner Pass, few people ever see the little town which lies cradled on

the spurs of the Italian Alps, where the gorge of Valsugana opens. It is

surrounded by chestnut woods, which sweep up to the blue mountains, the

wide Brenta flows through the town, and the houses cluster high on

either side, and have gardens and balconies overhanging the water. The

façades of many of the houses are covered with fading frescoes, relics

of da Ponte's school of fresco-painters, which, though they are fast

perishing, still give a wonderful effect of warmth and colour.

Jacopo da Ponte was the son and pupil of his father, Francesco, who

in his day had been a pupil of the Vicentine, Bartolommeo Montagna.

Francesco da Ponte's best work is to be found at Bassano, in the

cathedral and the church of San Giovanni, and has many of the

characteristics, such as the raised pedestal and vaulted cupola, which

we have noticed that Montagna owed to the Vivarini. Francesco's son

went when very young to Venice, and was there thrown at once among the

artists of the lagoons, and attached himself in particular to Bonifazio.

In Jacopo's earliest work, now in the Museum at Bassano, a "Flight into

Egypt," Bonifazio's tuition is markedly discernible in the build of the

figures and, above all, in the form of the heads. A comparison of the

very peculiarly shaped head of the Virgin in this picture with that of

the Venetian lady in Bonifazio's "Rich Man's Feast," in the Venetian

Academy, leaves us in no doubt on this score. Jacopo's "Adulteress

before Christ" and the "Three in the Fiery Furnace" have Bonifazio's

manner in the architecture and the staging of the figures. Only five

examples are known of this early work of da Ponte, and it is all in

Bonifazio's lighter style, not unlike his "Holy Family" in the National

Gallery.

The house in which the painter lived when he returned to his native

town, still stands in the little Piazza Monte Vecchio, and its whole

façade retains the frescoes, mouldy and decaying, with which he

decorated it. The design is in four horizontal bands. First comes a

frieze of children in every attitude of fun and frolic. Then follows a

long range of animals--horses, oxen, and deer. Musical instruments and

flowers make a border, with allegorical representations of the arts and

crafts filling the spaces between the windows. The principal band is

decorated with Scriptural subjects, most of which are now hardly

discernible, but which represent "Samson slaying the Philistines,"

"The Drunkenness of Noah," "Cain and Abel," "Lot and his Daughters,"

and "Judith with the Head of Holofernes." Between the two last there

formerly appeared a drawing of a dead child, with the motto, "Mors omnia

aequat," which was removed to the Museum in 1883, in comparatively good

preservation.

Jacopo da Ponte lived a busy life at Bassano, where, with the help of

his four sons, who were all painters, he poured out an inexhaustible

stream of works, which, it is said, were put up to auction at the

neighbouring fairs, if no other market was forthcoming. From time to

time he and his sons went down to Venice, and with the help of the

eldest, Francesco, Bassano (as he is generally known) painted the "Siege

of Padua" and five other works in the Ducal Palace. His mature style was

founded mainly upon that of Titian, and it is to this second manner that

he owes his fame. He makes use of fewer colours, and enhances his lights

by deepening and consolidating his shadows, so that they come into

strong contrast, and his technique gains a richer impasto. He has a

marvellous faculty for keeping his colour pure, and his greens shine

like a beetle's wing. A nature-lover in the highest degree, his painting

of animals and plants evinces a mind which is steeped in the magic of

outdoor life. A subject of which he was particularly fond, and which he

seems to have undertaken for half the collectors of Europe, was the

"Four Seasons." Here was found united everything that Bassano most loved

to paint: beasts of the farmyard and countryside, agriculturists with

their implements, scenes of harvest-time and vintage, rough peasants

leading the plough, cutting the grass, harvesting the grain, young girls

making hay, driving home the cattle, taking dinner to the reapers. When

he was obliged to paint for churches he chose such subjects as the

Adoration of the Shepherds, the Sacrifice of Noah, the Expulsion from

the Temple, into which he could introduce animals, painting them with

such vigour and such forcible colour that Titian himself is said to

have had a copy hanging in his studio. He loved to paint his daughters

engaged in household tasks, and perhaps placed his figures with rather

too obvious a reference to light and shade, and to the sun striking

full on sunburnt cheeks and buxom shoulders. A friend, not a rival, of

Veronese and Tintoretto, Gianbattista Volpado, records that when he was

one day discussing contemporary painters with the latter, Tintoretto

exclaimed, "Ah, Jacopo, if you had my drawing and I had your colour I

would defy the devil himself to enable Titian, Raphael, and the rest to

make any show beside us."

Bassano was invited to take up his residence at the Court of the Emperor

Rudolph, but he refused to leave his mountain city, where he died in

1592. His funeral was attended by a crowd of the poorest inhabitants,

for whom his charity had been boundless.

The "Journey of Jacob," to which we have already alluded, is among his

most beautiful works. The brilliant array of figures is subordinated to

the charm of the landscape. The evening dusk draws all objects into its

embrace. The long, low, deep-blue distance stands out against a gleam

of sunset sky. The tree-trunks and light play of leafy branches, which

break up the composition, are from da Ponte's own country round Bassano.

The pony upon which the boy scrambles, the cows, the dog among the quiet

sheep, are given with all the loving truth of the born animal-painter.

It is no wonder that Teniers borrowed ideas from him, and has more than

once imitated his whole design.

The "Baptism of St. Lucilla" (in the Museum at Bassano) is one of his

most Titianesque creations. The personages in it are grouped upon a

flight of steps, in front of a long Renaissance palace with cypresses

against a sky of evening-red barred with purple clouds. The drawing

and modelling of the figures are almost faultless, and the colour is

dazzling. The bending figure of S. Lucilla, with the light falling on

her silvery satin dress, as she kneels before the young bishop, St.

Valentine, is one of the most graceful things in art, and Titian himself

need not have disowned the little angels, bearing palm branches and

frolicking in the stream of radiance overhead.

Bassano has a "Concert," which is interesting as a family piece. It was

painted in the year in which his son Leandro's marriage took place, and

is probably a bridal painting to celebrate the event. The "Magistrates

in Adoration" (Vicenza) again gives a brilliant effect of light, and

its stately ceremonial is founded on Tintoretto's numerous pictures of

kneeling doges and procurators in fur-trimmed velvet robes.

[Illustration: _Jacopo da Ponte._

BAPTISM OF S. LUCILLA.

_Bassano._

(_Photo, Alinari._)]

Madonnas and saints are usually built into close-packed pyramids, but

in the "Repose in Egypt," now in the Ambrosiana, Milan, his arrangement

comes very close to Palma and Lotto. The beautiful Mother and Child,

the attendants, above all the St. Joseph, resting, head on hand, at the

Virgin's feet and gazing in rapt adoration on the Child, are examples of

the true Venetian manner, while the exquisite landscape behind them, and

the vigorously drawn tree under which they recline, show Bassano true to

his passion for nature.

Hampton Court is rich in his pictures. "The Adoration of the Shepherds,"

in which the pillars rise behind the sacred group, is an exercise in

the manner of Titian's Frari altarpiece. His portraits are fine and

sympathetic, but hardly any of them are signed or can be dated. His

own is in the Uffizi, and there is a splendid "Old Man" at Buda-Pesth.

Ariosto and Tasso, Sebastian Venier, and many other distinguished

men were among his sitters; most of them are in half-length with

three-quarter heads. The National Gallery possesses a singularly

attractive one of a young man with a sensitive, acute countenance,

robed in dignified, picturesque black, relieved by an embroidered linen

collar. He stands by the sort of square window, opening on a distant

landscape, of which Tintoretto and Lotto so often made use, in front of

which a golden vase, holding a branch of olive, catches the rays of

light.

Bassano has no great power of design, and his knowledge of the nude

seems to have been small, but his brushwork is facile, and his colour

leaps out with a vivid beauty which obliterates other shortcomings.

PRINCIPAL WORKS

Augsburg. Madonna and Saints.

Bassano. Susanna and Elders (E.); Christ and Adulteress (E.); The Three

Holy Children (E.); Madonna, Saints, and Donor (E.); Flight

into Egypt (E.); Paradise; Baptism of S. Lucilla; Adoration

of Shepherds; St. Martin and the Beggar; St. Roch recommending

Donor to Virgin; St. John the Evangelist adored by a Warrior;

Descent of Holy Spirit; Madonna in Glory, with Saints (L.).

Duomo: S. Lucia in Glory; Martyrdom of S. Stephen (L.);

Nativity.

S. Giovanni: Madonna and Saints.

Bergamo. Carrara: Portrait.

Lochis: Portraits.

Cittadella. Duomo: Christ at Emmaus.

Dresden. Israelites in Desert; Moses striking Rock; Conversion of

S. Paul.

Hampton Court. Portraits; Jacob's Journey; Boaz and Ruth; Shepherds (E.);

Christ in House of Pharisee; Assumption of Virgin; Men

fighting Bears; Tribute Money.

London. Portrait of Man; Christ and the Money-Changers; Good Samaritan.

Milan. Ambrosiana: Adoration of Shepherds (E.); Annunciation to

Shepherds (L.).

Munich. Portraits; S. Jerome; Deposition.

Padua. S. Maria in Vanzo: Entombment.

Paris. Christ bearing Cross; Vintage (L.).

Rome. Villa Borghese: Last Supper; The Trinity.

Venice. Academy: Christ in Garden; A Venetian Noble; S. Elenterino

blessing the Faithful.

Ducal Palace, Ante-Collegio: Jacob's Journey.

S. Giacomo dell' Orio: Madonna and Saints.

Vicenza. Madonna and Saints; Madonna; St. Mark and Senators.

Vienna. The Good Samaritan; Thomas led to the Stake; Adoration of Magi;

Rich Man and Lazarus; The Lord shows Abraham the Promised

Land; The Sower; A Hunt; Way to Golgotha; Noah entering the

Ark; Christ and the Money-Changers; After the Flood; Saints;

Adoration of Magi; Portraits; Christ bearing Cross.

Academy: Deposition; Portrait.

PART III

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE INTERIM

Many of the churches and palaces of Venice and the adjoining mainland,

and almost every public and private gallery throughout Europe, contain

pictures purporting to be painted by Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese, and

others of that famous company. Hardly a great English house but boasts

of a round dozen at least of such specimens, acquired in the days when

rich Englishmen made the "grand tour" and substantiated a reputation for

taste and culture by collecting works of art. These pictures resemble

the genuine article in a specious yet half-hearted way. Their owners

themselves are not very tenacious as to their authenticity, and the

visit of an expert, or the ordeal of a public exhibition tears their

pretensions to tatters. In the Academia itself the Bonifazio and

Tintoretto rooms are crowded with imitations. The Ducal Palace has

ceilings and panels on which are reproduced the kind of compositions

initiated by the great artists, which make an effort to capture their

gamut of colour and to master their scheme of chiaroscuro, copying them,

in short, in everything except in their inimitable touch and fire and

spirit. It would have been impossible for any men, however industrious

and prolific, to have carried out all the work which passes under their

names, to say nothing of that which has perished; but our surprise and

curiosity diminish when we come to inquire systematically into the

methods of that host of copyists which, even before the masters' death,

had begun to ply its lucrative trade.

We must bear in mind that every great man was surrounded by busy and

attentive satellites, helping him to finish and, indeed, often painting

a large part of important commissions, witnesses of the high prices

received, and alive to all the gossip as to the relative popularity of

the painters and the requests and orders which reached them from all

quarters. The painters' own sons were in many instances those who first

traded upon their fathers' fame. From Ridolfi, Zanetti, or Boschini we

learn of the many paintings executed by Carlotto Caliari and the vast

numbers painted by Domenico Robusti in the style of their respective

fathers. Domenico seems to have particularly affected the subject of

"St. George and the Dragon," and the picture at Dresden, which passes

under Tintoretto's name, is perhaps by his hand. Of Bassano's four sons,

Francesco "imitated his father perfectly," conserving his warmth of

tint, his relief and breadth. Zanetti enumerates a surprising number of

Francesco's works, seven of them being painted for the Ducal Palace.

Leandro followed more particularly his father's first manner, was a good

portrait-painter, and possessed lightness and fancy. Girolamo copied and

recopied the old Bassano till he even deceived connoisseurs, "how much

more," says Zanetti, writing in 1771, "those of the present day, who

behold them harmonised and accredited by time." No school in Venice was

so beloved, or lent itself so well to the efforts of the imitators, as

that of Paolo Veronese. Even at an early date it was impossible not to

confound the master with the disciples; the weaker of the originals were

held to be of imitators, the best imitations were assigned to the master

himself. "Oh how easy it is," exclaims Zanetti again, "to make mistakes

about Veronese's pictures, but I can point out sundry infallible

characteristics to those who wish for light upon this doubtful path; the

fineness and lightness of the brushwork, the sublime intelligence and

grace, shown particularly in the form of the heads, which is never found

in any of his imitators."

Few Venetians, however, followed the style of only one man; the output

was probably determined and varied by the demand. Too many attractive

manners existed to dazzle them, and when once they began to imitate,

they were tempted on all hands. It must also be remembered that every

master left behind him stacks of cartoons, sketches and suggestions, and

half-finished pictures, which were eagerly seized upon, bought or

stolen, and utilised to produce masterpieces masquerading under his

name.

As the seventeenth century advanced the character of art and manners

underwent a change. Men sought the beautiful in the novel and bizarre,

and the complex was preferred to the simple. Venetian art, in all its

branches, had passed from the stately and restrained to the pompous and

artificial. Yet the barocco style was used by Venice in a way of its

own; whimsical, contorted, and overloaded with ornament as it is, it yet

compels admiration by its vigorous life and movement. The art of the

sei-cento in Venice was extravagant, but it was alive. It escaped the

most deadly of all faults, a cold and academic mannerism--and this at a

time when the rest of Italy was given over to the inflated followers of

Michelangelo and the calculated elaborations of the eclectics.

Many of the things we most love in Venice, such as the Salute, the

Clock-Tower, the Dogana, the Bridge of Sighs, the Rezzonico and

Pesaro Palaces, are additions of the seventeenth century. The barocco

intemperance in sculpture was carried on by disciples of Bernini; and

as the immediate influence of the great masters declined, painting

acquired the same sort of character. The carelessness and rapidity of

Tintoretto, which, in his case, proceeded from the lightning speed of

his imagination and the unerring sureness of his brush, became a

mechanical trick in the hands of superficial students. True art had

migrated elsewhere--to the homes of Velasquez, Rubens, and Rembrandt. As

art grew more pompous it became less emotional. Painters like Palma

Giovine spoilt their ready, lively fancy by the vice of hurry. The

nickname of "Fa Presto" was deserved by others besides Luca Giordano,

and Venice was overrun by a swarm of painters whose prime standard of

excellence was the ability to make haste. Grandeur of conception was

forgotten; a grave, ample manner was no longer understood; superficial

sentiment and bombastic size carried the day. Yet a few painters, though

their forms had become redundant and exaggerated, retained something of

what had been the Venetian glory--the deep and moist colour of old. It

still glowed with traces of its old lustre on the canvases of Giovanni

Contarini, or Tiberio Tinelli, or Pietro Liberi; and though there was a

perfect fury of production, without order and without law, there can

still be perceived the survival of that sense of the decorative which

kept the thread of art. We discover it in the ceiling of the Church of

San Pantaleone, where Gianbattista Fumiani paints the glorification of

the martyred patron, and which, fantastic and extravagant as it is,

with its stupendous, architectural setting, and its acutely, almost

absurdly foreshortened throng, is not without a certain grandiose

geniality, ample and picturesque, like the buildings of that date. In

Alessandro Varotari (il Padovanino), whose "Nozze di Cana" in the

Academia is a finely spaced scene, in which a charming use is made of

cypresses, we seem to recognise the last ray of the Titianesque. The

painting of the seventeenth century passed on towards the eighteenth,

and, from ceilings and panels, rosy nymphs and Venuses smile at

us, attitudinising and contorted upon their cloudy backgrounds.

Lackadaisical Magdalens drop sentimental tears, and the Angel of the

Annunciation capers above the head of an affected Virgin, while violent

colours, intensified chiaroscuro, and black greasy impasto betray

the neighbourhood of the _tenebrosi_. When, towards the end of the

seventeenth century, Gregorio Lazzarini set himself to shake off these

influences, he went to the opposite extreme. Although a beautiful

designer, he becomes cold and flat in colour, with a coldness and

insipidity, indeed, that take us by surprise, appearing in a country

where the taste for luminous and brilliant tints was so strongly rooted.

The student of Venetian painting, who wishes to fill up the hiatus which

lies between the Golden Age and the revival of the eighteenth century,

cannot do better than compare Fumiani's vault in San Pantaleone with

Lazzarini's sober and earnest fresco, "The Charity of San Lorenzo

Giustiniani," in San Pietro in Castello, and with Pietro Liberi's

"Battle of the Dardanelles" in the Ducal Palace. In all three we have

examples of the varied and accomplished yet soulless art of this period.

Not many of the scenes painted for the palaces of patricians in the

seventeenth century have survived. They are to be found here and

there by the curious who wander into old churches and palaces with a

second-hand copy of Boschini in their hands; but in the reaction from

the florid which took place in the Empire period, many of them gave

place to whitewash and stucco. In the Ducal Palace, side by side with

the masterpieces of the Renaissance, are to be found the overcrowded

canvases of Vicentino, Giovanni Contarini, Pietro Liberi, Celesti, and

others like them. Some of the poor and meretricious mosaics in St.

Mark's are from designs by Palma Giovine and Fumiani. Carlo Ridolfi, who

was a painter himself, as well as the painter's chronicler, has an

"Adoration of the Magi" in S. Giovanni Elemosinario, poor enough in

invention and execution. Two pictures by obscure artists disfigure a

corner of the Scuola di San Rocco. The Museo Civico has a large canvas

by Vicentino, a "Coronation of a Dogaressa," which once adorned Palazzo

Grimani. We hear of a school opened by Antonio Balestra, who was the

master of Rosalba Carriera and Pietro Longhi, and the names of others

have come down to us in numbers too numerous to be quoted. Towards the

end of the seventeenth century more light and novelty sparkles in the

painting of the Bellunese, Battista Ricci, and assures us that he was no

mere copyist; and, as the eighteenth century opens, we become aware of

the strong and daring brush of Gianbattista Piazetta. Piazetta studied

the works of the Carracci for some time in Bologna, and especially those

of Guercino, whose style, with its bold contrasts of light and shade,

has served above all as his model. He paints very darkly, and his

figures often blend with and disappear into the profound tones of his

backgrounds. Charles Blanc calls him "a Venetian Caravaggio"; and he has

something of the strength and even the brutality of the Bolognese. A

fine decorative and imaginative example of his work is the "Madonna

appearing to S. Philip Neri" in the Church of S. Fava. The erect form of

the Madonna is relieved in striking chiaroscuro against the mantle,

upheld by _putti_. Radiant clouds light up the background and illumine

the form of the old saint, a refined and spirited figure, gazing at

the vision in an ecstasy of devotion. Piazetta is a bold realist, and

many of his small pictures are strong and forcible. Sebastiano Ricci,

Battista's son, is described as "a fine intelligence," and attracts

our notice as having forged special links with England. Hampton Court

possesses a long array of his paintings. In the chapel of Chelsea

Hospital the plaster semi-dome is painted by him, in oils, with very

good effect. He is said to have worked in Thornhill's studio, and his

influence may be suspected in the Blenheim frescoes, and even in touches

in Hogarth's work.

By the eighteenth century Venice had parted with her old nobility of

soul, and enjoyment had become the only aim of life. Yet Venice, among

the States of Italy, alone retained her freedom. The Doge reigned

supreme as in the past. Beneath the ceiling of Veronese the dreaded

Three still sat in secret council. Venice was still the city of subtle

poisons and dangerous mysteries, but the days were gone when she

had held the balance in European affairs, and she had become, in a

superlative degree, the city of pleasure. Nowhere was life more

varied and entertaining, more full of grace and enchantment.

A long period of peace had rocked the Venetian people into calm

security. There was, indeed, a little spasmodic fighting in Corfù,

Dalmatia, and Algiers, but no real share was retained in the

struggles of Europe. The whole policy of the city's life was one of

self-indulgence. Holiday-makers filled her streets; the whole population

lived "in piazza," laughing, gossiping, seeing and being seen. The

very churches had become a rendezvous for fashionable intrigues; the

convents boasted their _salons_, where nuns in low dresses, with pearls

in their hair, received the advances of nobles and gallant abbés.

People came to Venice to waste time; trivialities, the last scandal,

sensational stories, were the only subjects worth discussing. In an age

of parodies and practical jokes, the more absurd any one could be, the

more silly or witty stories he could tell, the more assured was his

success in the joyous, frivolous circle, full of fun and laughter. The

Carnival lasted for six months of the year, and was the occasion for

masques and licence of every description. In the hot weather, the gay

descendants of the Contarini, the Loredan, the Pisani, and other grand

old houses, migrated to villas along the Brenta, where by day and night

the same reckless, irresponsible life went gaily on. The power of such

courtesans as Titian and Paris Bordone had painted was waning. Their

place was adequately supplied by the easy dames of society, no longer

secluded, proud and tranquil, but "stirred by the wild blood of youth

and stooping to the frolic." "They are but faces and smiles, teasing

and trumpery," says one of their critics, yet they are declared to be

wideawake, natural and charming, making the most of their smattering of

letters. Love was the great game; every woman had lovers, every married

woman openly flaunted her _cicisbeo_ or _cavaliere servente_.

The older portion of the middle class was still moderate and temperate,

contented to live in the old fashion, eschewing all interest in

politics, with which it was dangerous for the ordinary individual to

meddle; but the new leaven was creeping through every level of society.

The sons and daughters of the _bourgeoisie_ tried to rise in the social

scale by aping the pleasant vices of the aristocracy. They deserted the

shop and the counting-house to play cards and strut upon the piazza.

They mimicked the fine gentleman and the gentildonna, and made

fashionable love and carried on intrigues. The spirit of the whole

people had lost its elevation; there were no more proud patricians, full

of noble ambitions and devoted zeal of public service; it was hardly

possible to get a sufficient number of persons to carry on public

business. It is a contemptible indictment enough; yet among all this

degenerate life, we come upon something more real as we turn to the

artists. They were very much alive. In music, in literature, and in

painting, new and graceful forms of art were emerging. Painting was not

the grand art of other days; it might be small and trivial, but there

grew up a real little Renaissance of the eighteenth century, full of

originality and fire, and showing a reaction from the pompous and banale

style of the imitators.

The influence of the "lady" was becoming increasingly felt by society.

Confidential little boudoirs, small and cosy apartments were the mode,

and needed decorating as well as vast salas. The dainty luxury of gilt

furniture, designed by Andrea Brustolon and upholstered in delicate

silks, was matched by small, attractive works of art. Venice had lost

her Eastern trade, and as the East faded out of her scheme of life, the

West, to which she now turned, was bringing her a different form of

art. The great reception rooms were still suited by the grandiose

compositions of Ricci, Piazetta, and Pittoni, but another genre of

charming creations smiled from the brocaded alcoves and more intimate

suites of rooms.

It is impossible to name more than a fraction of these artists of the

eighteenth century. There is Amigoni, admirable as a portrait-painter;

Pittoni, one of the ablest figure-painters of the day; Luca Carlevaris,

the forerunner of Canale; Pellegrini, whose decorations in this country

are mentioned by Horace Walpole and of which the most important are

preserved in the cupola and spandrils of the Grand Hall at Castle

Howard. Their work is still to be found in many a Venetian church or

North Italian gallery. Some of it is almost fine, though too often

vitiated by the affected, exaggerated spirit of their day. When

originality asserts itself more decidedly, Rosalba Carriera stands out

as an artist who acquired great popularity. In 1700, when she was a

young woman of twenty-four, she was already a great favourite with the

public. She began life as a lace-maker, but when trade was bad, Jean

Stève, a Frenchman, taught her to paint miniatures. She imparted a

wonderfully delicate feeling to her art, and, passing on to pastel, she

brought to this branch of portraiture a brilliancy and freshness which

it had not known before. Rosalba has perhaps preserved for us better

than any one else, those women of Venice who floated so lightly on the

dancing waves of that sparkling stream. There they are: La Cornaro; La

Maria Labia, who was surrounded by French lovers, "very courteous and

very beautiful"; La Zenobio and La Pisani; La Foscari, with her black

plumes; La Mocenigo, "the lady with the pearls." She has pinned them all

to the canvas; lovely, frail, light-hearted butterflies, with velvet

neck-ribbons round their snowy throats and coquettish patches on their

delicate skin and bouquets of flowers in their high-dressed hair and

sheeny bodices. They look at us with arch eyes and smile with melting

mouths, more frivolous than depraved; sweet, ephemeral, irresponsible in

every relation of life. Older men and women there are, too, when those

artificial years have produced a succession of rather dull, sodden

personages, kindly, inoffensive, but stupid, and still trifling heavily

with the world.

Of Rosalba we have another picture to compare with those of her sitters.

She and the other artists of her circle lived the merry, busy life of

the worker, and found in their art the antidote to the evil living and

the dissipation of the gay world which provided sitters and patrons.

Rosalba's _milieu_ is a type of others of its class. She lives with her

mother and sisters, an honest, cheerful, industrious existence. They are

fond of old friends and old books, and indulge in music and simple

pleasures. Her sisters help Rosalba by preparing the groundwork of

her paintings. She pays visits, and writes rhymes, and plays on the

harpsichord. She receives great men without much ceremony, and the

Elector Palatine, the Duke of Mecklenburg, Frederick, King of Norway,

and Maximilian, King of Bavaria, come to her to order miniatures of

their reigning beauties. Then she goes off to Paris where she has plenty

of commissions, and the frequently occurring names of English patrons in

her fragmentary diaries, tell how much her work was admired by English

travellers. She did more than anybody else to promote the fashion for

pastels, and her delightful art may be seen at its best in the pastel

room of the Dresden Gallery.

Henrietta, Countess of Pomfret, has left us a charming description of a

party of English travellers, which included Horace Walpole, arriving in

Venice in 1741, strolling about in mask and _bauta_, and visiting the

famous pastellist in her studio. It is in such guise that Rosalba has

painted Walpole, and has left one of the most interesting examples of

her art.

SOME EXAMPLES

_Francesco da Ponte._

Venice. Ducal Palace: Sala del Maggior Consiglio. Four pictures on

ceiling (second from the four corners of the sala). On left

as you face the Paradiso: 1. Pope Alexander III. giving the

Stocco, or Sword, to the Doge as he enters a Galley to

command the Army against Ferrara; 2. Victory against the

Milanese; 3. Victory against Imperial Troops at Cadore;

4. Victory under Carmagnola, over Visconti. These four are

all very rich in colour.

Chiesetta: Circumcision; Way to Calvary.

Sala dell' Scrutino: Padua taken by Night from the Carraresi.

_Leandro da Ponte._

Venice. Sala del Maggior Consiglio: The Patriarch giving a

Blessed Candle to the Doge.

Sala of Council of Ten: Meeting of Alexander III. and Doge

Ziani. A fine decorative picture, running the whole of one

side of the sala.

Sala of Archeological Museum: Virgin in Glory, with the

Avogadori Family.

_Palma Giovine._

Dresden. Presentation of the Virgin.

Florence. Uffizi: S. Margaret.

Munich. Deposition; Nativity; Ecce Homo; Flagellation.

Venice. Academy: Scenes from the Apocalypse; S. Francis.

Ducal Palace: The Last Judgment.

Vienna. Cain and Abel; Daughter of Herodias; Pietà;

Immaculate Conception.

_Il Padovanino._

Florence. Uffizi: Lucretia.

London. Cornelia and her Children.

Paris. Venus and Cupid.

Rome. Villa Borghese: Toilet of Minerva.

Venice. Academy: The Marriage of Cana; Madonna in Glory; Vanity,

Orpheus, and Eurydice; Rape of Proserpine; Virgin in Glory.

Verona. Man and Woman playing Chess; Triumph of Bacchus.

Vienna. Woman taken in Adultery; Holy Family.

_Pietro Liberi._

Venice. Ducal Palace: Battle of the Dardanelles.

_Andrea Vicentino._

Venice. Museo Civico: The Marriage of a Dogaressa.

_G. A. Fumiani._

Venice. San Pantaleone: Ceiling.

Church of the Carità: Christ disputing with the Doctors.

_A. Balestra._

Verona. S. Tomaso: Annunciation.

_G. Lazzarini._

Venice. S. Pietro in Castello.

The Charity of S. Lorenzo Giustiniani.

_Sebastiano Ricci._

Venice. S. Rocco: The Glorification of the Cross.

Gesuati: Pope Pius V. and Saints.

London. Royal Hospital, Chelsea: Half-dome.

_G. B. Pittoni._

Vicenza. The Bath of Diana.

_G. B. Piazetta._

Venice. Chiesa della Fava: Madonna and S. Philip Neri.

Academy: Crucifixion; The Fortune-Teller.

_Rosalba Carriera._

Venice. Academy: pastels.

Dresden. Pastels.

CHAPTER XXIX

TIEPOLO

We have already noted that to establish the significance of any period

in art, it is necessary that the tendencies should unite and combine in

some culminating spirits who rise triumphant over their contemporaries

and soar above the age in which they live. Such a genius stands out

above the eighteenth century crowd, and is not only of his century, but

of every time. For two hundred years Tiepolo has been stigmatised as

extravagant, mannered, as just equal to painting cupids, nymphs, and

parroquets. In the last century he experienced the effect of the

profound discredit into which the whole of eighteenth-century art had

fallen. In France, David had obliterated Watteau; and the reputation

of Pompeo Battoni, a sort of Italian David, effaced Tiepolo and his

contemporaries. When the delegates of the French Republic inspected

Italian churches and palaces, and decided what works of art should be

sent to the Louvre, they singled out the Bolognese, the Guercinos and

Guidos, the Carracci, even Pompeo Battoni and other such forgotten

masters, a Gatti, a Nevelone, a Badalocchio; but to the lasting regret

of their descendants, they disdained to annex a single one of the great

paintings of the Venetian, Gianbattista Tiepolo.

Eastlake only vouchsafes him one line as "an artist of fantastic

imagination." Most of the nineteenth-century critics do not even mention

him. Burckhardt dismisses him with a grudging line of praise, Blanc is

equally disparaging, and for Taine he is a mere mannerist, yet his

influence has been felt far beyond his lifetime; only now is he coming

into his own, and it is recognised that the _plein-air_ artist, the

luminarist, the impressionist, owe no small share of their knowledge to

his inspiration.

The name of Tiepolo brings before us a whole string of illustrious

personages--doges and senators, magnificent procurators and great

captains--but we have nothing to prove that the artist belonged to a

decayed branch of the famous patrician house. Born in Castello, the

people's quarter of Venice, he studied in early youth with that good

draughtsman, Lazzarini. At twenty-three he married the sister of

Francesco Guardi; Guardi, who comes between Longhi and Canale and who is

a better painter than either. Tiepolo appeared at a fortunate moment.

The demand for a facile, joyous genius was at its height. The life of

the aristocracy on the lagoons was every year growing more gay, more

abandoned to capricious inclination, to light loves and absurd

amusements. And the art which reflected this life was called upon to

give gaiety rather than thought, costume rather than character. Yet if

the Venetian art had lost all connection with the grave magnificence of

the past, it had kept aloof from the academic coldness which was in

fashion beyond the lagoons, so that though theatrical, it was with a

certain natural absurdity. The age had become romantic; the Arcadian

convention was in full force, Nature herself was pressed into the

service of idle, sentimental men and women. The country was pictured as

a place of delight, where the sun always shone and the peasants passed

their time singing madrigals and indulging in rural pleasures. The

public, however, had begun to look for beauty; the traditions which had

formed round the decorative schools were giving way to the appreciation

of original work. Tiepolo, sincere and spontaneous even when he is

sacrificing truth to caprice, struck the taste of the Venetians, and

without emancipating himself from the tendencies of the time, contrives

to introduce a fresh accent. All round him was a weak and self-indulgent

world, but within himself he possessed a fund of buoyant and

inexhaustible energy. He evokes a throng of personages on the ceilings

of the churches and palaces confided to his fancy. His creations range

from mythology to religion, from the sublime to the grotesque. All

Olympia appears upon his ample and luminous spaces. It is not to the

cold, austere Lazzarini, or to the clashing chiaroscuro of Piazetta, or

the imaginative spirit of Battista Ricci, though he was touched by each

of them, that we must turn for Tiepolo's derivation. Long before his

time, the kind of decoration of ceilings which we are apt to call

Tiepolesque; the foreshortened architecture, the columns and cornices,

the figures peopling the edifices, or reclining upon clouds, had been

used by an increasing throng of painters. The style arose, indeed, in

the quattrocento; Mantegna, the Umbrians, and even Michelangelo had used

it, though in a far more sober way than later generations. Correggio

and the Venetians had perfected the idea, which the artists of the

seventeenth century seized upon and carried to the most intemperate

excess. But Tiepolo rose above them all; he abandoned the heavy,

exaggerated, contorted designs, which by this time defied all laws of

equilibrium, and we must go back further than his immediate predecessors

for his origins. His claim to stand with Tintoretto or Veronese may be

contested, but he is nearest to these, and no doubt Veronese is the

artist he studied with the greatest fervour. Without copying, he seems

to have a natural affinity of spirit with Veronese and assimilates the

ample arrangement of his groups, the grace of his architecture, and his

decorative feeling for colour. Zanetti, who was one of Tiepolo's dearest

friends, writes: "No painter of our time could so well recall the bright

and happy creations of Veronese." The difference between them is more

one of period than of temperament. Paolo Veronese represented the

opulence of a rich, strong society, full of noble life, while Tiepolo's

lot was cast among effeminate men and frivolous women, and full of the

modern spirit himself, he adapts his genius to his time and devotes

himself to satisfy the theatrical, sentimental vein of the Venice of the

decadence. Full of enthusiasm for his work, he was ready to respond to

any call. He went to and fro between Venice and the villas along the

mainland and to the neighbouring towns. Then coveting wider fields, he

travelled to Milan and Genoa, where his frescoes still gleam in the

palaces of the Dugnani, the Archinto, and the Clerici. At Würzburg in

Bavaria he achieved a magnificent series of decorations for the palace

of the Prince-Archbishop. Then coming back to Italy, he painted

altarpieces, portraits, pictures for his friends, and a fresh multitude

of allegorical and mythological frescoes in palaces and villas. His

charming villa at Zianigo is frescoed from top to bottom by himself and

his sons, and has amusing examples of contemporary dress and manners.

When the Academy was instituted in 1755, Tiepolo was appointed its

first director, but the sort of employment it provided was not suited to

his impetuous spirit, and in 1762 he threw up the post and went off to

Spain with his two sons. There he received a splendid welcome and was

loaded with commissions, the only dissentient voice being that of

Raphael Mengs, who, obsessed by the taste for the classic and the

antique, was fiercely opposed to the Venetian's art. Tiepolo died

suddenly in Madrid in 1770, pencil in hand. Though he was past seventy,

the frescoes he has left there show that his hand was as firm and his

eye as sure as ever.

His frescoes have, as we have said, that frankly theatrical flavour

which corresponds exactly to the taste of the time. Such works as the

"Transportation of the Holy House of Loretto" in the Church of the

Scalzi in Venice, or the "Triumph of Faith" in that of the Pietà, the

"Triumph of Hercules" in Palazzo Canossa in Verona, or the decorations

in the magnificent villa of the Pisani at Strà, are extravagant and

fantastic, yet have the impressive quality of genius. These last, which

have for subject the glorification of the Pisani, are full of portraits.

The patrician sons and daughters appear, surrounded by Abundance, War,

and Wisdom. A woman holding a sceptre symbolises Europe. All round are

grouped flags and dragons, "nations grappling in the airy blue," bands

of Red Indians in their war-paint and happy couples making love. The

idea of the history, the wealth, the supreme dignity of the House is

paramount, and over all appears Fame, bearing the noble name into

immortality. In Palazzo Clerici at Milan a rich and prodigal committee

gave the painter a free hand, and on the ceiling of a vast hall the Sun

in a chariot, with four horses harnessed abreast, rises to the meridian,

flooding the world with light. Venus and Saturn attend him, and his

advent is heralded by Mercury. A symbolical figure of the earth joys at

his coming, and a concourse of naiads, nymphs, and dolphins wait upon

his footsteps. In the school of the Carmine in Venice Tiepolo has left

one of his grandest displays. The haughty Queen of Heaven, who is his

ideal of the Virgin, bears the Child lightly on her arm, and, standing

enthroned upon the rolling clouds, hardly deigns to acknowledge the

homage of the prostrate saint, on whom an attendant angel is bestowing

her scapulary. The most charming _amoretti_ are disporting in all

directions, flinging themselves from on high in delicious _abandon_,

alternating with lovely groups of the cardinal virtues. At Villa

Valmarana near Vicenza, after revelling among the gods, he comes to

earth and delights in painting lovely ladies with almond eyes and

carnation cheeks, attended by their cavaliers, seated in balconies,

looking on at a play, or dancing minuets, and carnival scenes with

masques and dominoes and _fêtes champêtres_, which give us a picture of

the fashions and manners of the day. He brings in groups of Chinese in

oriental dress, and then he condescends to paint country girls and their

rustic swains, in the style of Phyllis and Corydon.

Sometimes he becomes graver and more solid. He abandons the airy fancies

scattered in cloud-land. The story of Esther in Palazzo Dugnano affords

an opportunity for introducing magnificent architecture, warriors in

armour, and stately dames in satin and brocades. He touches his highest

in the decorations of Palazzo Labia, where Antony and Cleopatra, seated

at their banquet, surrounded by pomp and revelry, regard one another

silently, with looks of sombre passion. Four exquisite panels have

lately been acquired by the Brera Gallery, representing the loves of

Rinaldo and Armida, and are a feast of gay, delicate colour, with

fascinating backgrounds of Italian gardens. The throne-room of the

palace at Madrid has the same order of compositions--Æneas conducted

by Venus from Time to Immortality, and other deifications of Spanish

royalty.

[Illustration: _Tiepolo._

ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.

_Palazzo Labia, Venice._]

Now and then Tiepolo is possessed by a tragic mood. In the Church of

San Alvise he has left a "Way to Calvary," a "Flagellation," and a

"Crowning of Thorns," which are intensely dramatic, and which show strong

feeling. Particularly striking is the contrast between the refined and

sensitive type of his Christ and the realistic and even brutal study of

the two despairing malefactors--one a common ruffian, the other an aged

offender of a higher class. His altarpiece at Este, representing S.

Tecla staying the plague, is painted with a real insight into disaster

and agony, and S. Tecla is a pathetic and beautiful figure. Sometimes

in his easel-pictures he paints a Head of Christ, a S. Anthony, or a

Crucifixion, but he always returns before long to the ample spaces and

fantastic subjects which his soul loved.

Tiepolo is a singular contradiction. His art suggests a strong being,

held captive by butterflies. Sometimes he is joyous and limpid,

sometimes turbulent and strong, but he has always sincerity, force, and

life. A great space serves to exhilarate him, and he asks nothing better

than to cover it with angels and goddesses, white limbs among the

clouds, sea-horses ridden by Tritons, patrician warriors in Roman

armour, balustrades and columns and _amoretti_. He does not even need to

pounce his design, but puts in all sorts of improvised modifications

with a sure hand. The vastness of his frescoes, the daring poses of his

countless figures, and the freedom of his line speak eloquently of the

mastery to which his hand had attained. He revels, above all, in effects

of light--"all the light of the sky, and all the light of the sea; all

the light of Venice ... in which he swims as in a bath. He paints not

ideas, scarcely even forms, but light. His ceilings are radiant, like

the sky of birds; his poems seem to be written in the clouds. Light is

fairer than all things, and Tiepolo knows all the tricks and triumphs of

light."[6]

[6] Philippe Monnier, _Venice in the Eighteenth Century_.

Nearly all his compositions have a serene and limpid horizon, with

the figures approaching it painted in clear, silvery hues, airy and

diaphanous, while the forms below are more muscular, the flesh tints are

deeper, and the whole of the foreground is often enveloped in shadow.

Veronese had lit up the shadows, which, under his contemporaries, were

growing gloomy. Tiepolo carries his art further on the same lines. He

makes his figures more graceful, his draperies more vaporous, and

illumines his clouds with radiance. His faded blue and rose, his

golden-greys, and pearly whites and pastel tints are not so much solid

colours as caprices of light. We have remarked already that with

Veronese the accessories of gleaming satins and rich brocades serve to

obscure the persons. In many of Tiepolo's scenes the figures are lost

in a flutter of drapery, subject and action melt away, and we are only

conscious of soft harmonies of delicious colour, as ethereal as the

hues of spring flowers in woodland ways and joyous meadows. With these

delicious, audacious fancies, put on with a nervous hand, we forget the

age of profound and ardent passion, we escape from that of pompous

solemnity and studied grace, and we breathe an atmosphere of

irresponsible and capricious pleasure. In this last word of her great

masters Venice keeps what her temperament loved--sensuous colour and

emotional chiaroscuro, used to accentuate an art adapted to a city of

pleasure.

The excellence of the old masters' drawings is a perpetual revelation.

Even second-class men are almost invariably fine draughtsmen, proving

that drawing was looked upon as something over which it was necessary

for even the meanest to have entire mastery. Tiepolo's drawings,

preserved in Venice and in various museums, are as beautiful as can be

wished; perfect in execution and vivid in feeling. In Venice are twenty

or thirty sheets in red carbon, of flights of angels, and of draperies

studied in every variety of fold.

Poor work of his school is often ascribed to his sons, but the superb

"Stations of the Cross," in the Frari, which were etched by Domenico,

and published as his own in his lifetime, are almost equal to the

father's work. Tiepolo had many immediate followers and imitators. The

colossal roof-painting of Fabio Canal in the Church of SS. Apostoli,

Venice, may be pointed out as an example of one of these. But he is full

of the tendencies of modern art. Mr. Berenson, writing of him, says he

sometimes seems more the first than the last of a line, and notices how

he influenced many French artists of recent times, though none seem

quite to have caught the secret of his light intensity and his exquisite

caprice.

PRINCIPAL WORKS

Aranjuez. Royal Palace: Frescoes; Altarpiece.

Orangery: Frescoes.

Bergamo. Cappella Colleoni: Scenes from the Life of the Baptist.

Berlin. Martyrdom of S. Agatha; S. Dominia and the Rosary.

London. Sketches; Deposition.

Madrid. Escurial; Ceilings.

Milan. Palazzi Clerici, Archinto, and Dugnano: Frescoes.

Brera: Loves of Rinaldo and Armida.

Paris. Christ at Emmaus.

Strà. Villa Pisani: Ceiling.

Venice. Academy: S. Joseph, the Child, and Saints; S. Helena finding

the Cross.

Palazzo Ducale: Sala di Quattro Porte: Neptune and Venice.

Palazzo Labia: Frescoes; Antony and Cleopatra.

Palazzo Rezzonico: Two Ceilings.

S. Alvise: Flagellation; Way to Golgotha.

SS. Apostoli: Communion of S. Lucy.

S. Fava: The Virgin and her Parents.

Gesuati: Ceiling; Altarpiece.

S. Maria della Pietà: Triumph of Faith.

S. Paolo: Stations of the Cross.

Scalzi: Transportation of the Holy House of Loretto.

Scuola del Carmine: Ceiling.

Verona. Palazzo Canossa: Triumph of Hercules.

Vicenza. Museo Entrance Hall: Immaculate Conception.

Villa Valmarana: Frescoes; Subjects from Homer, Virgil,

Ariosto, and Tasso; Masks and Oriental Scenes.

Würzburg. Palace of the Archbishop: Ceilings; Fêtes Galantes; Assumption;

Fall of Rebel Angels.

CHAPTER XXX

PIETRO LONGHI

We have here a master who is peculiarly the Venetian of the eighteenth

century, a genre-painter whose charm it is not easy to surpass, yet

one who did not at the outset find his true vocation. Longhi's first

undertakings, specimens of which exist in certain palaces in Venice,

were elaborate frescoes, showing the baneful influence of the Bolognese

School, in which he studied for a time under Giuseppe Crispi. He

attempts to place the deities of Olympus on his ceilings in emulation of

Tiepolo, but his Juno is heavy and common, and the Titans at her feet

appear as a swarm of sprawling, ill-drawn nudities. He shows no faculty

for this kind of work, but he was thirty-two before he began to paint

those small easel-pictures which in his own dainty style illustrate the

"Vanity Fair" of his period, and in which the eighteenth century lives

for us again.

His earliest training was in the goldsmith's art, and he has left many

drawings of plate, exquisite in their sense of graceful curve and their

unerring precision of line. It was a moment when such things acquired a

flawless purity of outline, and Longhi recognised their beauty with all

the sensitive perception of the artist and the practised workman. His

studies of draperies, gestures, and hands are also extraordinarily

careful, and he seems besides to have an intimate acquaintance with all

the elegant dissipation and languid excesses of a dying order. We feel

that he has himself been at home in the masquerade, has accompanied the

lady to the fortune-teller, and, leaning over her graceful shoulder, has

listened to the soothsayer's murmurs. He has attended balls and routs,

danced minuets, and gossiped over tiny cups of China tea. He is the last

chronicler of the Venetian feasts, and with him ends that long series

that began with Giorgione's concert and which developed and passed

through suppers at Cana and banquets at the houses of Levi and the

Pharisee. We are no longer confronted with the sumptuosity of Bonifazio

and Veronese; the immense tables covered with gold and silver plate, the

long lines of guests robed in splendid brocades, the stream of servants

bearing huge salvers, or the bands of musicians, nor are there any more

alfresco concerts, with nymphs and bacchantes. Instead there are

masques, the life of the Ridotto or gaming-house, routs and intrigues in

dainty boudoirs, and surreptitious love-making in that city of eternal

carnival where the _bauta_ was almost a national costume. Longhi

holds that post which in French art is filled by Watteau, Fragonard,

and Lancret, the painters of _fêtes galantes_, and though he cannot be

placed on an equal footing with those masters, he is representative and

significant enough. On his canvases are preserved for us the mysteries

of the toilet, over which ladies and young men of fashion dawdled

through the morning, the drinking of chocolate in _négligé_, the

momentous instants spent in choosing headgear and fixing patches, the

towers of hair built by the modish coiffeur--children trooping in, in

hoops and uniforms, to kiss their mother's hand, the fine gentleman

choosing a waistcoat and ogling the pretty embroideress, the pert young

maidservant slipping a billet-doux into a beauty's hand under her

husband's nose, the old beau toying with a fan, or the discreet abbé

taking snuff over the morning gazette. The grand ladies of Longhi's day

pay visits in hoop and farthingale, the beaux make "a leg," and the

lacqueys hand chocolate. The beautiful Venetians and their gallants

swim through the gavotte or gamble in the Ridotto, or they hasten to

assignations, disguised in wide _bauti_ and carrying preposterous muffs.

The Correr Museum contains a number of his paintings and also his book

of original sketches. One of the most entertaining of his canvases

represents a visit of patricians to a nuns' parlour. The nuns and their

pupils lend an attentive ear to the whispers of the world. Their

dresses are trimmed with _point de Venise_, and a little theatre is

visible in the background. This and the "Sala del Ridotto" which hangs

near, are marked by a free, bold handling, a richness of colouring, and

more animation than is usual in his genre-pictures. He has not preserved

the lovely, indeterminate colour or the impressionist touch which was

the natural inheritance of Watteau or Tiepolo. His backgrounds are dark

and heavy, and he makes too free a use of body colour; but his attitude

is one of close observation--he enjoys depicting the life around him,

and we suspect that he sees in it the most perfect form of social

intercourse imaginable. Longhi is sometimes called the Goldoni of

painting, and he certainly more nearly resembles the genial, humorous

playwright than he does Hogarth, to whom he has also been compared. Yet

his execution and technique are a little like Hogarth's, and it is

possible that he was influenced by the elder and stronger master, who

entered on his triumphant career as a satirical painter of society

about 1734. This was just the time when Longhi abandoned his unlucky

decorative style, and it is quite possible that he may have met with

engravings of the "Marriage à la mode," and was stimulated by them to

the study of eighteenth-century manners, though his own temperament is

far removed from Hogarth's moral force and grim satire. His serene,

painstaking observation is never distracted by grossness and violence.

The Venetians of his day may have been--undoubtedly were--effeminate,

licentious, and decadent, but they were kind and gracious, of refined

manners, well-bred, genial and intelligent, and so Longhi has

transcribed them. In the time which followed, ceilings were covered by

Boucher, pastels by Latour were in demand, the scholars of David painted

classical scenes, and Pietro Longhi was forgotten. Antonio Francesco

Correr bought five hundred of his drawings from his son, Alessandro, but

his works were ignored and dispersed. The classic and romantic fashions

passed, but it was only in 1850 that the brothers de Goncourt, writing

on art, revived consideration for the painter of a bygone generation.

Many of his works are in private collections, especially in England, but

few are in public galleries. The National Gallery is fortunate in

possessing several excellent examples.

[Illustration: _Pietro Longhi._

VISIT TO THE FORTUNE-TELLER.

_London._

(_Photo, Hanfstängl._)]

PRINCIPAL WORKS

Bergamo. Lochis: At the Gaming Table; Taking Coffee.

Baglioni: The Festival of the Padrona.

Dresden. Portrait of a Lady.

Hampton Court. Three genre-pictures.

London. Visit to a Circus; Visit to a Fortune-Teller; Portrait.

Mond Collection: Card party; Portrait.

Venice. Academy: Six genre-paintings.

Correr Museum: Eleven paintings of Venetian life; Portrait of

Goldoni.

Palazzo Grassi: Frescoes; Scenes of fashionable life.

Quirini-Stampalia: Eight paintings; Portraits.

CHAPTER XXXI

CANALE

While Piazetta and Tiepolo were proving themselves the inheritors of the

great school of decorators, Venice herself was finding her chroniclers,

and a school of landscape arose, of which Canale was the foremost

member. Giovanni Antonio Canale was born in Venice in 1697, the same

year as Tiepolo. His father earned his living at the profession,

lucrative enough just then, of scene-painting, and Antonio learned to

handle his brush, working at his side. In 1719 he went off to seek his

fortune in Rome, and though he was obliged to help out his resources by

his early trade, he was most concerned in the study of architecture,

ancient and modern. Rome spoke to him through the eye, by the

picturesque masses of stonework, the warm harmonious tones of classic

remains and the effects of light upon them. He painted almost entirely

out-of-doors, and has left many examples drawn from the ruins. His

success in Rome was not remarkable, and he was still a very young man

when he retraced his steps. On regaining his native town, he realised

for the first time the beauty of its canals and palaces, and he never

again wavered in his allegiance.

Two rivals were already in the field, Luca Carlevaris, whose works were

freely bought by the rich Venetians, and Marco Ricci, the figures in

whose views of Venice were often touched in by his uncle, Sebastiano;

but Canale's growing fame soon dethroned them, "i cacciati del nido," as

he said, using Dante's expression. In a generation full of caprice,

delighting in sensational developments, Canale was methodical to a

fault, and worked steadily, calmly producing every detail of Venetian

landscape with untiring application and almost monotonous tranquillity.

He lived in the midst of a band of painters who adored travel.

Sebastiano Ricci was always on the move; Tiepolo spent much of his time

in other cities and countries, and passed the last years of his life in

Spain; Pietro Rotari was attached to the Court of St. Petersburg;

Belotto, Canale's nephew, settled in Bohemia; but Canale remained at

home, and, except for two short visits paid to England, contented

himself with trips to Padua and Verona.

Early in life Canale entered into relations with Joseph Smith, the

British Consul in Venice, a connoisseur who had not only formed a fine

collection of pictures, but had a gallery from which he was very ready

to sell to travellers. He bought of the young Venetian at a very low

price, and contrived, unfairly enough, to acquire the right to all his

work for a certain period of time, with the object of sending it, at a

good profit, to London. For a time Canale's luminous views were bought

by the English under these auspices, but the artist, presently

discovering that he was making a bad bargain, came over to England,

where he met with an encouraging reception, especially at Windsor Castle

and from the Duke of Richmond. Canale spent two years in England and

painted on the Thames and at Cambridge, but he could not stand the

English climate and fled from the damp and fogs to his own lagoons.

To describe his paintings is to describe Venice at every hour of the day

and night--Venice with its long array of noble palaces, with its Grand

Canal and its narrow, picturesque waterways. He reproduces the Venice we

know, and we see how little it has changed. The gondolas cluster round

the landing-stages of the Piazzetta, the crowds hurry in and out of the

arcades of the Ducal Palace, or he paints the festivals that still

retained their splendour: the Great Bucentaur leaving the Riva dei

Schiavoni on the Feast of the Ascension, or San Geremia and the entrance

to the Cannaregio decked in flags for a feast-day. From one end to

another of the Grand Canal, that "most beautiful street in the world,"

as des Commines called it in 1495, we can trace every aspect of

Canale's time, when the city had as yet lost nothing of its splendour

or its animation. At the entrance stands S. Maria della Salute, that

sanctuary dear to Venetian hearts, built as a votive offering after the

visitation of the plague in 1631. Its flamboyant dome, with its volutes,

its population of stone saints, its green bronze door catching the

light, pleased Canale, as it pleased Sargent in our own day, and he

painted it over and over again. The annual fête of the Confraternity of

the Carità takes place at the Scuola di San Rocco, and Canale paints the

old Renaissance building which shelters so much of Tintoretto's finest

work, decorated with ropes of greenery and gay with flags,[7] while

Tiepolo has put in the red-robed, periwigged councillors and the gazing

populace. Near it in the National Gallery hangs a "Regatta" with its

array of boats, its shouting gondoliers, and its shadows lying across

the range of palaces, and telling the exact hour of the day that it was

sketched in; or, again, the painter has taken peculiar pleasure in

expressing quiet days, with calm green waters and wide empty piazzas,

divided by sun and shadow, with a few citizens plodding about their

business in the hot midday, or a quiet little abbé crossing the piazza

on his way to Mass. Canale has made a special study of the light on wall

and façade, and of the transparent waters of the canals and the azure

skies in which float great snowy fleeces.

[7] It is thought that it may have been painted from his studio.

His second visit to England was paid in 1751. He was received with open

arms by the great world, and invited to the houses of the nobility in

town and country. The English were delighted with his taste and with the

mastery with which he painted architectural scenes, and in spite of

advancing years he produced a number of compositions, which commanded

high prices. The Garden of Vauxhall, the Rotunda at Ranelagh, Whitehall,

Northumberland House, Eton College, were some of the subjects which

attracted him, and the treatment of which was signalised by his calm and

perfect balance. He made use of the camera ottica, which is in principal

identical with the camera oscura. Lanzi says he amended its defects and

taught its proper use, but it must be confessed that in the careful

perspective of some of his scenes, its traces seem to haunt us and to

convey a certain cold regularity. Canale was a marvellous engraver.

Mantegna, Bellini, and Titian had placed engraving on a very high level

in the Venetian School, and though at a later date it became too

elaborate, Tiepolo and his son brought it back to simplicity. Canale

aided them, and his _eaux-fortes_, of which he has left about thirty,

are filled with light and breadth of treatment, and he is particularly

happy in his brilliant, transparent water.

The high prices Canale obtained for his pictures in his lifetime led to

the usual imitations. He was surrounded by painters whose whole ambition

was limited to copying him. Among these were Marieschi, Visentini,

Colombini, besides others now forgotten. More than fifty of his finest

works were bought by Smith for George III. and fill a room at Windsor.

He was made a member of the Academy at Dresden, and Bruhl, the Prime

Minister of the Elector, obtained from him twenty-one works which now

adorn the gallery there. Canale died in Venice, where he had lived

nearly all his life, and where his gondola-studio was a familiar object

in the Piazzetta, at the Lido, or anchored in the long canals.

His nephew, Bernardo Belotto, is often also called Canaletto, and it

seems that both uncle and nephew were equally known by the diminutive.

Belotto, too, went to Rome early in his career, where he attached

himself to Panini, a painter of classic ruins, peopled with warriors and

shepherds. He was, by all accounts, full of vanity and self-importance,

and on a visit to Germany managed to acquire the title of Count, which

he adhered to with great complacency. He travelled all over Italy

looking for patronage, and was very eager to find the road to success

and fortune. About the same time as his uncle, he paid a visit to London

and was patronised by Horace Walpole, but in the full tide of success

he was summoned to Dresden, where the Elector, disappointed at not

having secured the services of the uncle, was fain to console himself

with those of the nephew. The extravagant and profligate Augustus II.,

whose one idea was to extract money by every possible means from his

subjects, in order to adorn his palaces, was consistently devoted to

Belotto, who was in his element as a Court painter. He paints all his

uncle's subjects, and it is not always easy to distinguish between the

two; but his paintings are dull and stiff as compared with those of

Canale, though he is sometimes fine in colour, and many of his views are

admirably drawn.

SOME WORKS OF CANALE

It is impossible to draw up any exhaustive list, so many being in

private collections.

Dresden. The Grand Canal; Campo S. Giacomo; Piazza S. Marco;

Church and Piazza of SS. Giovanni and Paolo.

Florence. The Piazzetta.

Hampton Court. The Colosseum.

London. Scuola di San Rocco; Interior of the Rotunda at Ranelagh;

S. Pietro in Castello, Venice.

Paris. Louvre: Church of S. Maria della Salute.

Venice. Heading; Courtyard of a Palace.

Vienna. Liechtenstein Gallery: Church and Piazza of S. Mark, Venice;

Canal of the Giudecca, Venice; View on Grand Canal;

The Piazzetta.

Windsor. About fifty paintings.

Wallace Collection. The Giudecca; Piazza San Marco; Church of San

Simione; S. Maria della Salute; A Fête on the Grand Canal;

Ducal Palace; Dogana from the Molo; Palazzo Corner;

A Water-fête; The Rialto; S. Maria della Salute; A Canal

in Venice.

CHAPTER XXXII

FRANCESCO GUARDI

An entry in Gradenigo's diary of 1764, preserved in the Museo Correr,

speaks of "Francesco Guardi, painter of the quarter of SS. Apostoli,

along the Fondamenta Nuove, a good pupil of the famous Canaletto, having

by the aid of the camera ottica, most successfully painted two canvases

(not small) by the order of a stranger (an Englishman), with views of

the Piazza San Marco, towards the Church and the Clock Tower, and of the

Bridge of the Rialto and buildings towards the Cannaregio, and have

to-day examined them under the colonnades of the Procurazie and met with

universal applause."

Francesco Guardi was a son of the Austrian Tyrol, and his mountain

ancestry may account, as in the case of Titian, for the freshness and

vigour of his art. Both his father, who settled in Venice, and his

brother were painters. His son became one in due time, and the

profession being followed by four members of the family accounts

for the indifferent works often attributed to Guardi.

His indebtedness to Canale is universally acknowledged, and perhaps it

is true that he never attains to the monumental quality, the traditional

dignity which marks Canale out as a great master, but he differs from

Canale in temperament, style, and technique. Canale is a much more exact

and serious student of architectural detail; Guardi, with greater

visible vigour, obliterates detail, and has no hesitation in drawing in

buildings which do not really appear. In his oval painting of the Ducal

Palace (Wallace Collection) he makes it much loftier and more spacious

than it really is. In his "Piazzetta" he puts in a corner of the Loggia

where it would not actually be seen. In the "Fair in Piazza S. Marco"

the arch from under which the Fair appears is gigantic, and he

foreshortens the wing of the royal palace. He curtails the length of the

columns in the piazza and so avoids monotony of effect, and he often

alters the height of the campaniles he uses, making them tall and

slender or short and broad, as his picture requires. At one time he

produced some colossal pictures, in several of which Mr. Simonson, who

has written an admirable life of the painter, believes that the hand of

Canale is perceptible in collaboration; but it was not his natural

element, and he often became heavy in colour and handling. In 1782 he

undertook a commission from Pietro Edwards, who was a noted connoisseur

and inspector of State pictures, and had been appointed superintendent

in 1778 of an official studio for the restoration of old masters.

Edwards had important dealings with Guardi, who was directed to paint

four leading incidents in the rejoicings in honour of the visit of Pius

IV. to Venice. The Venetians themselves had become indifferent patrons

of art, but Venice attracted great numbers of foreign visitors, and

before the second half of the eighteenth century the export of old

masters had already become an established trade. There is no sign,

however, that Joseph Smith, who retained his consulship till 1760,

extended any patronage to Guardi, though he enriched George III.'s

collection with works of the chief contemporary artists of Venice. It is

probable that Guardi had been warned against him by Canale and profited

by the latter's experience.

We can divide his work into three categories. 1. Views of Venice. 2.

Public ceremonies. 3. Landscapes. Gradenigo mentions casually that he

used the camera ottica, but though we may consider it probable, we

cannot trace the use of it in his works. He is not only a painter of

architecture, but pays great attention to light and atmosphere, and aims

at subtle effects; a transparent haze floats over the lagoons, or the

sun pierces though the morning mists. His four large pendants in the

Wallace Collection show his happiest efforts; light glances off the

water and is reflected on the shadowed walls. His views round the Salute

bring vividly before us those delicious morning hours in Venice when the

green tide has just raced up the Grand Canal, when a fresh wind is

lifting and curling all the loose sails and fluttering pennons, and when

the gondoliers are straining at the oars, as their light craft is caught

and blown from side to side upon the rippling water. The sky occupies

much of his space, he makes searching studies of it, and his favourite

effect is a flash of light shooting across a piled-up mass of clouds.

The line of the horizon is low, and he exhibits great mastery in

painting the wide lagoons, but he also paints rough seas, and is one

of the few masters of his day--perhaps the only one--who succeeds in

representing a storm at sea.

Often as he paints the same subjects he never becomes mechanical or

photographic. We may sometimes tire of the monotony of Canale's unerring

perspective and accurate buildings, but Guardi always finds some new

rendering, some fresh point of interest. Sometimes he gives us a summer

day, when Venice stands out in light, her white palaces reflected in the

sun-illumined water; sometimes he is arrested by old churches bathed in

shadow and fusing into the rich, dark tones of twilight. His boats and

figures are introduced with great spirit and _brio_, and are alive

with that handling which a French critic has described as his _griffe

endiablée_.

[Illustration: _Francesco Guardi._

S. MARIA DELLA SALUTE.

_London._

(_Photo, Mansell and Co._)]

His masterly and spirited painting of crowds enables him to reproduce

for us all those public ceremonies which Venice retained as long as the

Republic lasted: yearly pilgrimages of the Doge to Venetian churches, to

the Salute to commemorate the cessation of the plague, to San Zaccaria

on Easter Day, the solemn procession on Corpus Christi Day, receptions

of ambassadors, and, most gorgeous of all, the Feast of the Wedding of

the Adriatic. He has faithfully preserved the ancient ceremonial which

accompanied State festivities. In the "Fête du Jeudi Gras" (Louvre) he

illustrates the acrobatic feats which were performed before Doge

Mocenigo. A huge Temple of Victory is erected on the Piazzetta, and

gondoliers are seen climbing on each other's shoulders and dancing upon

ropes. His motley crowds show that the whole population, patricians as

well as people, took part in the feasts. He has also left many striking

interiors: among others, that of the Sala del Gran Consiglio, where

sometimes as many as a thousand persons were assembled, the "Reception

of the Doge and Senate by Pius IV." (which formed one of the series

ordered by Pietro Edwards), or the fine "Interior of a Theatre,"

exhibited at the Burlington Fine Arts in 1911, belonging to a series

of which another is at Munich.

In his landscapes Guardi does not pay very faithful attention to nature.

The landscape painters of the eighteenth century, as Mr. Simonson points

out, were not animated by any very genuine impulse to study nature

minutely. It was the picturesque element which appealed to them, and

they were chiefly concerned to reproduce romantic features, grouped

according to fancy. Guardi composes half fantastic scenes, introducing

classic remains, triumphal arches, airy Palladian monuments. His

_capricci_ include compositions in which Roman ruins, overgrown with

foliage, occupy the foreground of a painting of Venetian palaces, but in

which the combination is carried out with so much sparkle and nervous

life and such charm of style, that it is attractive and piquant rather

than grotesque.

England is richest in Guardis, of any country, but France in one respect

is better off, in possessing no less than eleven fine paintings of

public ceremonials. Guardi may be considered the originator of small

sketches, and perhaps the precursor of those glib little views which are

handed about the Piazza at the present day. His drawings are fairly

numerous, and are remarkably delicate and incisive in touch. A large

collection which he left to his son is now in the Museo Correr. In his

later years he was reduced to poverty and used to exhibit sketches in

the Piazza, parting with them for a few ducats, and in this way flooding

Venice with small landscapes. The exact spot occupied by his _bottega_

is said to be at the corner of the Palazzo Reale, opposite the Clock

Tower. The house in which he died still exists in the Campiello della

Madonna, No. 5433, Parrocchia S. Canziano, and has a shrine dedicated to

the Madonna attached to it. When quite an old man, Guardi paid a visit

to the home of his ancestors, at Mastellano in the Austrian Tyrol, and

made a drawing of Castello Corvello on the route. To this day his name

is remembered with pride in his Tyrolean valley.

SOME WORKS OF GUARDI

Bergamo. Lochis: Landscapes.

Berlin. Grand Canal; Lagoon; Cemetery Island.

London. Views in Venice.

Milan. Museo Civico: Landscapes.

Poldi-Pezzoli: Piazzetta; Dogana; Landscapes.

Oxford. Taylorian Museum: Views in Venice.

Padua. Views in Venice.

Paris. Procession of the Doge to S. Zaccaria; Embarkment in

Bucentaur; Festival at Salute; "Jeudi Gras" in Venice;

Corpus Christi; Sala di Collegio; Coronation of Doge.

Turin. Cottage; Staircase; Bridge over Canal.

Venice. Museo Correr: The Ridotto; Parlour of Convent.

Verona. Landscapes.

Wallace Collection. The Rialto; San Giorgio Maggiore (two);

S. Maria della Salute; Archway in Venice; Vaulted Arcades;

The Dogana.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

It is an advantage to the student of Italian art to be able to read

French, German, and Italian, for though translations appear of the most

important works, there are many interesting articles and monographs of

minor artists which are otherwise inaccessible.

Vasari, not always trustworthy, either in dates, facts, or opinions, yet

delightfully human in his histories, is indispensable, and new editions

and translations are constantly issued. Sansoni's edition (Florence),

with Milanesi's notes, is the most authoritative; and for translations,

those of Mrs. Foster (Messrs. Blashfield and Hopkins), and a new edition

in the Temple classics (Dent, 8 vols., 2s. each vol.).

Ridolfi, the principal contemporary authority on Venetian artists, who

published his _Maraviglie dell' arte_ nine years after Domenico

Tintoretto's death, is only to be read in Italian, though the anecdotes

with which his work abounds are made use of by every writer.

Crowe and Cavalcaselle's _Painting in North Italy_ (Murray) is a

storehouse of painstaking, minute, and, on the whole, marvellously

correct information and sound opinion. It supplies a foundation, fills

gaps, and supplements individual biographies as no other book does. For

the early painters, down to the time of the Bellini, _I Origini dei

pittori veneziani_, by Professor Leonello Venturi, Venice, 1907, is a

large book, written with mastery and insight, and well illustrated; _La

Storia della pittura veneziana_ is another careful work, which deals

very minutely with the early school of mosaics.

In studying the Bellini, the late Mr. S. A. Strong has _The Brothers

Bellini_ (Bell's Great Masters), and the reader should not fail to read

Mr. Roger Fry's _Bellini_ (Artist's Library), a scholarly monograph,

short but reliable, and full of suggestion and appreciation, though

written in a cool, critical spirit. Dr. Hills has dealt ably with

_Pisanello_ (Duckworth).

Molmenti and Ludwig in their monumental work _Vittore Carpaccio_,

translated by Mr. R. H. Cust (Murray, 1907), and Paul Kristeller in the

equally important _Mantegna_, translated by Mr. S. A. Strong (Longmans,

1901), seem to have exhausted all that there is to be said for the

moment concerning these two painters.

It is almost superfluous to mention Mr. Berenson's two well-known

volumes, _The Venetian Painters of the Renaissance_, and the _North

Italian Painters of the Renaissance_ (Putnam). They are brilliant essays

which supplement every other work, overflowing with suggestive and

critical matter, supplying original thoughts, and summing up in a few

pregnant words the main features and the tendencies of the succeeding

stages.

In studying Giorgione, we cannot dispense with Pater's essay, included

in _The Renaissance_. The author is not always well informed as to

facts--he wrote in the early days of criticism--but he is rich in idea

and feeling. Mr. Herbert Cook's _Life of Giorgione_ (Bell's Great

Masters) is full and interesting. Some authorities question his

attributions as being too numerous, but whether we regard them as

authentic works of the master or as belonging to his school, the

illustrations he gives add materially to our knowledge of the

Giorgionesque.

When we come to Titian we are well off. Crowe and Cavalcaselle's _Life

of Titian_ (Murray, out of print), in two large volumes, is well written

and full of good material, from which subsequent writers have borrowed.

An excellent Life, full of penetrating criticism, by Mr. C. Ricketts,

was lately brought out by Methuen (Classics of Art), complete with

illustrations, and including a minute analysis of Titian's technique.

Sir Claude Phillips's Monograph on Titian will appeal to every thoughtful

lover of the painter's genius, and Dr. Gronau has written a good and

scholarly Life (Duckworth).

Mr. Berenson's _Lorenzo Lotto_ must be read for its interest and

learning, given with all the author's charm and lucidity. It includes an

essay on Alvise Vivarini.

My own _Tintoretto_ (Methuen, Classics of Art) gives a full account of

the man and his work, and especially deals exhaustively with the scheme

and details of the Scuola di San Rocco. Professor Thode has written a

detailed and profusely illustrated Life of Tintoretto in the Knackfuss

Series, and the Paradiso has been treated at length and illustrated

in great detail in a very scholarly _édition de luxe_ by Mr. F. O.

Osmaston. It is the fashion to discard Ruskin, but though we may allow

that his judgments are exaggerated, that he reads more into a picture

than the artist intended, and that he is too fond of preaching sermons,

there are few critics who have so many ideas to give us, or who are so

informed with a deep love of art, and both _Modern Painters_ and the

_Stones of Venice_ should be read.

M. Charles Yriarte has written a Life of Paolo Veronese, which is full

of charm and knowledge. It is interesting to take a copy of Boschini's

_Della pittura veneziana_, 1797, when visiting the galleries, the

palaces, and the churches of Venice. His lists of the pictures, as they

were known in his day, often open our eyes to doubtful attributions.

Second-hand copies of Boschini are not difficult to pick up. When the

later-century artists are reached, a good sketch of the Venice of their

period is supplied by Philippe Monnier's delightful _Venice in the

Eighteenth Century_ (Chatto and Windus), which also has a good chapter

on the lesser Venetian masters. The best Life of Tiepolo is in Italian,

by Professor Pompeo Molmenti. The smaller masters have to be hunted for

in many scattered essays; a knowledge of Goldoni adds point to Longhi's

pictures. Canaletto and his nephew, Belotto, have been treated by M.

Uzanne, _Les Deux Canaletto_; and Mr. Simonson has written an important

and charming volume on Francesco Guardi (Methuen, 1904), with beautiful

reproductions of his works. Among other books which give special

information are Morelli's two volumes, _Italian Painters in Borghese and

Doria Pamphili_, and _In Dresden and Munich Galleries_, translated by

Miss Jocelyn ffoulkes (Murray); and Dr. J. P. Richter's magnificent

catalogue of the Mond Collection--which, though published at fifteen

guineas, can be seen in the great art libraries--has some valuable

chapters on the Venetian masters.

INDEX

Academy, Florence, 28

Venice, 13, 16, 19, 32, 36, 38, 40, 43, 47, 52,

57, 67, 80, 102, 116, 117, 171, 183, 196, 202,

205, 206, 210, 211, 217, 219, 226, 227, 242,

262, 267, 271, 277, 281, 286, 295, 296, 308,

313, 320

Adoration of Magi, 28, 31, 116, 131, 197, 205, 287

Adoration of Shepherds, 116, 196, 222,

273, 275

Agnolo Gaddi, 15

Alemagna, Giovanni, 29-32, 36, 37, 58

Altichiero, 24, 25

Alvise Vivarini, 58-63, 65, 66, 69, 79,

104, 105, 112, 187, 190, 223, 330

Amalteo, Pomponio, 219

Amigoni, 292

Anconæ, 12, 17, 18, 24, 36, 45, 59, 60, 187

Angelico, Fra, 48

Annunciation, 16, 26, 45, 178, 183, 258, 286

Antonello da Messina, 50, 51, 59, 62, 66

Antonio da Murano, 29, 31, 32, 36, 37, 58

Antonio Negroponte, 37, 44

Antonio Veneziano, 15

Aretino, 163, 166, 167, 172-174, 182, 192,

201, 234, 236, 240

Ascension, 41

Augsburg, 176, 266, 276

Badile, 229

Balestra, 287

Baptism of Christ, 41, 98, 255

Bartolommeo Vivarini, 32, 36, 37, 38, 48, 58, 59,

64, 189, 223, 225

Basaiti, Marco, 104, 111-116

Bassano, 10, 247, 269-276, 282

Bastiani, Lazzaro, 70, 73, 79

Battoni, Pompeo, 297, 298

Bellini, Gentile, 48-57, 68, 70, 81, 83, 89, 90,

99, 101, 103, 146

Bellini, Giovanni, 10, 43, 48, 55, 61, 62, 63, 69,

78, 81, 82, 84-89, 90, 92, 94-101, 103, 104,

107, 109, 112-114, 122, 123, 127, 129, 130,

134, 140, 146, 147, 152, 155, 158, 159, 179,

186, 187, 223, 225, 318, 329, 330

Bellini, Jacopo, 27, 28, 39-43, 58, 81-84, 86

Belotto, 315, 319-331

Bembo, Cardinal, 97, 111, 174, 240

Benson, Mr., 47, 80, 116, 117, 143

Berenson, Mr., 156, 187, 195, 210, 221, 229, 243,

307, 330

Bergamo, 101, 114, 116, 117, 141, 143, 185, 188,

190, 196, 211, 219, 226, 227, 276, 308, 313, 328

Berlin, 19, 32, 35, 47, 57, 66, 80, 101, 115-117,

139, 182, 196, 211, 223, 226, 227, 266, 308, 328

Bissolo, 104, 114, 115, 117

Blanc, M. Charles, 240, 288, 298

Bologna, 36, 38, 60, 167, 288, 309

Bonifazio, 203-206, 210, 243, 245, 250, 270, 281, 310

Bonsignori, 224, 275

Bordone, Paris, 203, 206, 208-211, 219, 231, 290

Borghese, Villa, 154, 188, 194, 197, 331

Boschini, 104, 282, 287, 331

Boston, 139

Botticelli, 127, 159

Brera, 47, 57, 101, 115, 117, 143, 194, 205, 209,

211, 251, 304

Brescia, 182, 196, 219, 220, 222, 226, 227

Bridgewater House, 182, 211

British Museum, 41, 263

Broker's patent, 130, 169, 248

Brusasorci, 229

Buonconsiglio, 223, 224

Burckhardt, 298

_Burlington Magazine_, 18

Byzantine art, 11, 13, 21

Calderari, 219

Carlevaris, Luca, 292, 315

Caliari, Carlotto, 282

Caliari, Paolo. _See_ Veronese

Campagnola, Domenico, 151

Canal, Fabio, 307

Canale, Gian Antonio, 292, 298, 314-320, 322, 331

Canaletto. _See_ Canale

Caravaggio, 288

Cariani, 141-143, 204

Carpaccio, 68, 70, 71, 73, 74, 76, 79, 80, 103,

122, 123, 146, 191

Carracci, 88, 288, 298

Carriera. _See_ Rosalba Carriera

Castagno, Andrea del, 27, 48

Castello, Milan, 51

Catena, Vincenzo, 104, 108-111, 114, 202, 206

Cathedrals, Ascoli, 47

Bassano, 270, 276

Conegliano, 115

Cremona, 215, 220, 226

Murano, 109

Spilimbergo, 226

Treviso, 183, 211, 215, 226

Verona, 183, 227

Celesti, 287

Chelsea Hospital, 289

Churches--

Bergamo.

S. Alessandro, 117, 196

S. Bartolommeo, 188

S. Bernardino, 190

S. Spirito, 114, 117, 196

Brescia.

S. Clemente, 227

SS. Nazaro e Celso, 182

Castelfranco.

S. Liberale, 132

S. Daniele.

S. Antonino, 212, 214, 226

Padua.

Eremitani, 48, 83, 224

Il Santo, 25, 227

S. Giustina, 220, 242

S. Maria in Vanzo, 276

S. Zeno, 48

Pesaro.

S. Francesco, 102

Piacenza.

Madonna di Campagna, 216

Ravenna.

S. Domenico, 117

Rome.

S. Maria del Popolo, 200

S. Pietro in Montorio, 200, 202

Venice.

S. Alvise, 304

SS. Apostoli, 307, 308

S. Barnabà, 242

Carmine, 107, 116, 197

S. Cassiano, 267

SS. Ermagora and Fortunato, 245

S. Fava, 288, 308

S. Francesco della Vigna, 37, 38, 242

Gesuati, 296

S. Giacomo dell' Orio, 197, 277

S. Giobbe, 67, 78, 92, 95, 113

S. Giorgio Maggiore, 259, 263, 267

S. Giovanni in Bragora, 17, 38, 64, 67, 98,

106, 116, 211

S. Giovanni Crisostomo, 98, 102

S. Giovanni Elemosinario, 168, 287

SS. Giovanni and Paolo, 53, 101, 116

S. Maria Formosa, 31, 38, 196

S. Maria dei Frari, 38, 65, 67, 92, 93, 102,

112, 157, 161, 180, 183, 219, 275, 307

S. Maria Mater Domini, 109, 116, 267

S. Maria dei Miracoli, 20

S. Maria dell' Orto, 102, 106, 116, 249, 267

S. Maria della Salute, 173, 262, 267, 317, 324, 325

S. Mark's, 14, 19, 27, 49, 53, 247, 287

S. Pantaleone, 30, 285, 287

Pietà, 221, 227, 308

S. Pietro in Castello, 287, 296

S. Pietro in Murano, 92, 93

S. Polo, 259, 267

Redentore, 63, 64, 67, 117

S. Rocco, 267, 296

S. Salvatore, 178, 183

Scalzi, 308

S. Sebastiano, 230, 236, 241, 242

S. Spirito, 173

S. Stefano, 260, 267

S. Trovaso, 16, 116, 267

S. Vitale, 79, 80

S. Zaccaria, 17, 97, 112, 134, 325

Verona.

S. Anastasia, 24, 25, 28, 31, 41

S. Antonio, 24, 28

S. Fermo, 26, 28

S. Tomaso, 296

Vicenza.

S. Corona, 98, 102, 227

Monte Berico, 105, 223, 224, 227, 242

Cima da Conegliano, 66, 98, 99, 103-108, 123, 322

Colombini, 319

Confraternity, Carità, 171

S. Mark, 69, 206, 245

Contarini, Giovanni, 287

Cook, Sir F., 183

Cook, Mr. Herbert, 330

Correggio, 189, 300

Correr Museum (Museo Civico), 19, 79, 84, 87, 102,

117, 287, 311, 313, 326

Crivelli, Carlo, 38, 44-47, 189

Crowe and Cavalcaselle, 215, 329, 330

Crucifixion, 25, 41, 84, 255, 256, 262

Dante, 264

David, 297, 313

Doges--

Barbarigo, 93

Dandolo, 11

Giustiniani, 49

Gradenigo, 206

Grimani, 170

Loredano, 100, 109

Mocenigo, 325

Donatello, 34, 82, 87

Doria Gallery, 194, 331

Dresden, 139, 182, 196, 210, 211, 242, 266, 276,

294, 296, 320

Dürer, Albert, 59, 99, 150

Edwards, Pietro, 323, 325

Este, 305

Este, Isabela d', 96, 97, 159, 229

Fabriano, Gentile da, 19, 21, 25, 27, 28, 30, 31,

33, 39, 42, 62

Florence, 4, 9, 21, 22, 28, 101, 117, 122, 123,

139, 182, 197, 202, 211, 242, 266

Florentine, 3, 5, 7, 35, 121, 122, 125, 135, 153,

199, 200, 251

Florigerio, 217

Fondaco dei Tedeschi, 129, 130, 147

Fragonard, 33

Fry, Mr. Roger, 85, 89, 330

Fumiani, Gianbattista, 285, 286

Gaston de Foix, 222

Giambono, Michele, 17, 18, 27

Giordano, Luca, 285

Giorgione, 10, 65, 97, 113, 125, 126-135, 137,

139-142, 147-149, 152-155, 166, 177, 179,

184-187, 193, 206, 210, 213, 214, 216, 219,

222, 310, 330

Giotto, 4, 11, 15, 24, 33, 86

Goldoni, Carlo, 312, 331

Goncourt, de, 313

Guardi, Francesco, 298, 321-324, 326, 328, 331

Guariento, 15, 17, 62, 122

Guercino, 297

Guido, 297

Guilds, 12, 16, 22, 23, 29, 39, 75, 198, 251

Guillaume de Guilleville, 94

Hampton Court, 143, 210, 211, 219, 266, 289, 320

Hazlitt, 6, 8

Hogarth, 289, 312

Jacobello del Fiore, 16, 19, 27, 164

Jacopo Bellini. _See_ Bellini

Kristeller, M. Paul, 330

Lancret, 311

Last Judgment, 238

Last Supper, 237, 208, 259

Layard, Lady, 50, 57, 80, 116

Lazzarini, Gregorio, 286, 287, 296, 300

Leonardo, 122, 127, 136, 140, 159, 162

Liberi, Pietro, 285, 287, 295

Licinio, Bernardino, 218

Licinio, G. A. _See_ Pordenone

Lippo, Fra, 48

London (National Gallery), 47, 57, 66, 100, 101,

115-117, 133, 141, 143, 156, 159, 182, 197,

201, 202, 208, 211, 218, 221, 222, 226, 227,

242, 261, 266, 276, 308, 313, 320, 328

Longhi, Pietro, 288, 298, 309-313

Lorenzo di San Severino, 46

Lorenzo Veneziano, 16, 17, 19

Loreto, 193, 197

Lotto, Lorenzo, 172, 186, 187-196, 204, 222, 224,

275, 330

Louvre, 40, 41, 43, 50, 57, 66, 115-117, 143, 161,

165, 177, 178, 182, 196, 202, 211, 233, 235,

242, 266, 277, 297, 308, 320, 328

Luciani. _See_ Sebastian del Piombo

Ludwig, Professor, 94, 203, 330

Madrid, 139, 150, 182, 264, 266, 302, 304

Mansueti, Giovanni, 56, 79

Mantegna, 39, 42, 49, 58, 59, 77, 84, 96, 159, 215,

223, 224, 300, 318, 330

Marieschi, 319

Martino da Udine. _See_ Pellegrino

Maser, Villa, 231, 242

Masolino, 41

Mengs, Raphael, 302

Michelangelo, 110, 121, 122, 137, 164, 174, 199,

200-202, 244, 249, 300

Milan, Ambrosiana, 66, 116, 275, 276

Brera. _See_ Brera

Mocetto, Girolamo, 225

Molmenti, Professor, 330, 331

Mond Collection, 18, 20, 47, 49, 101

Monnier, Philippe, 306, 331

Montagna, Bartolommeo, 105, 114, 222-224, 270

Morelli, 177, 203, 331

Moretto, 221, 222

Morto da Feltre, 130, 214

Munich, 116, 183

Murano, 29, 102, 116, 217, 226

Museo Civico. _See_ Correr

Naples, 50, 57, 66, 102, 183

National Gallery. _See_ London

Niccolo di Pietro, 16, 17, 20

Niccolo Semitocolo, 16, 17, 19

Osmaston, Mr. F. O., 331

Padovanino, Il, 286, 196

Padua, 19, 28, 34-37, 49, 59, 82, 86, 87, 116, 151,

155, 183, 223, 226, 227, 242, 272, 276

Palaces--

Milan.

Archinto, 301, 308

Clerici, 301

Dugnani, 301, 304

Rome.

Colonna, 196

Strà.

Pisani, 302

Venice.

Ducal, 15, 87, 90, 102, 109, 114-117, 170, 183,

211, 235, 236, 242, 260, 265, 267, 269, 272,

277, 281, 295, 308, 316

Giovanelli, 136

Labia, 304, 308

Rezzonico, 308

Verona.

Canossa, 302

Würzburg, 301, 308

Palma Giovine, 285, 287, 295

Palma Vecchio, 141, 184-188, 196, 203, 204, 214,

219, 231, 244

Paolo da Venezia, 14

Paris. _See_ Louvre

Parma, 115

Pellegrino, 213, 214, 219, 226

Pennacchi, 104, 214

Perugino, 133, 134, 202

Pesaro, 90, 94, 102

Pesellino, 48

Piacenza, 216, 226

Piero di Cosimo, 135

Pietà, 86, 87, 179, 199, 223, 224

Pintoricchio, 74, 135

Pisanello (Pisano), 21, 22, 24-28, 31, 33, 34, 37,

39-42, 62, 224, 330

Pordenone, 169, 170, 202, 204, 214-221, 226

Previtali, 104, 114, 115

Quirizio da Murano, 37

Raphael, 140, 161, 174, 200, 213, 221, 234

Ravenna, 117, 132

Rembrandt, 285

Ricci, Battista, 288, 300

Ricci, Marco, 315

Ricci, Sebastiano, 148, 288, 292, 296, 315

Richter, Dr. J. P., 331

Ricketts, Mr. C., 330

Ridolfi, 108, 229, 234, 247, 282, 287, 329

Rimini, 87, 89, 102

Robusti, Domenico, 246, 282

Robusti, Jacopo. _See_ Tintoretto

Robusti, Marietta, 246

Romanino, 219-221

Rome, 143, 183, 188, 196, 197, 202, 211, 227, 267,

277, 314, 319

Rondinelli, 104, 114, 117

Rosalba Carriera, 288, 292-294, 296

Rubens, 160, 165, 170, 285

Ruskin, 264, 331

Sansovino, 92, 167, 174, 192

Santa Croce, Girolamo da, 56

Sarto, Andrea del, 137, 140

Savoldo, 66, 222

Sebastian del Piombo, 140, 198, 199-202, 228

Siena, 4, 11, 12

Signorelli, 121

Simonson, Mr., 322, 326, 331

Smith, Joseph, 315, 323

Speranza, 223

Spilimbergo, 216, 226

Strong, Mr. S. A., 329, 330

Taylor, Miss Cameron, 94

Tiepolo, Domenico, 307

Tiepolo, G. B., 10, 297-307, 309, 312, 314, 315,

317, 318, 331

Tintoretto, 10, 15, 25, 173, 179, 181, 210, 231,

234, 243, 245-251, 253-256, 258-267, 269, 273,

276, 281, 282, 285, 300, 317, 330, 331

Titian, 65, 106, 130, 135, 137, 143, 144-160,

162-178, 180, 181, 183, 184, 186, 187, 191-193,

201, 204, 205, 210, 215, 217, 220, 221, 224,

231, 236, 239, 243-245, 250, 256, 265, 273-275,

281, 290, 318, 321, 330

Torbido, Francesco, 225

Treviso, 108, 183, 186, 202, 211, 215, 226, 239

Uccello, Paolo, 26, 42, 48

Urbino, 163, 168, 174

Uzanne, M. O., 331

Valmarana, Villa, 303

Varotari. _See_ Padovanino

Vasari, 15, 89, 130, 148, 169, 170, 174, 178, 199,

209, 219, 225, 247, 329

Vecellio. _See_ Titian

Vecellio, Marco, 171

Vecellio, Orazio, 164, 174

Vecellio, Pomponio, 166

Velasquez, 285

Venice. _See_ Academy

Venturi, Professor Antonio, 40

Venturi, Professor Leonello, vi, 38, 329

Verona, 22, 24, 25, 28, 183, 227, 229, 242, 302,

315, 328

Veronese, Paolo, 221, 228, 230-242, 247, 253, 269,

281, 283, 310, 331

Vicentino, 287

Vicenza, 57, 102, 185, 227, 242-277, 296, 303, 307

Vienna, 67, 80, 110, 116, 117, 131, 143, 149, 183,

196, 197, 211, 242, 268, 277, 320

Visentini, 319

Viterbo, 202

Vivarini. _See_ Alvise

Vivarini. _See_ Bartolommeo

Wallace Collection, 183, 320, 328

Walpole, Horace, 292, 294, 319

Watteau, 297, 311, 312

Wickhoff, Dr., 154

Windsor, 47, 320

Yriarte, M. Charles, 229, 331

Zanetti, 129, 148, 246, 269, 282, 283, 301

Zelotti, 230

Zoppo, Marco, 44

Zucchero, Federigo, 236