Nothing in Venice is more perfect than this, and we know of no work of
art more complete. The picture is in three compartments; the Virgin sits
in the central division with her child; two venerable saints, standing
close together, occupy each of the others. It is impossible to imagine
anything more finished or more ripe. It is one of those things that sum
up the genius of a painter, the experience of a life, the teaching of
a school. It seems painted with molten gems, which have only been
clarified by time, and is as solemn as it is gorgeous and as simple as
it is deep. Giovanni Bellini is more or less everywhere in Venice, and,
wherever he is, almost certain to be first--first, I mean, in his own
line: paints little else than the Madonna and the saints; he has not
Carpaccio’s care for human life at large, nor the Tintoret’s nor the
of the Veronese. Some of his greater pictures, however, where several
figures are clustered together, have a richness of sanctity that is
almost profane. There is one of them on the dark side of the room at the
Academy that contains Titian’s “Assumption,” which if we could only see
it--its position is an inconceivable scandal--would evidently be one of
the mightiest of so-called sacred pictures. So too is the Madonna of San
Zaccaria, hung in a cold, dim, dreary place, ever so much too high, but
so mild and serene, and so grandly disposed and accompanied, that the
proper attitude for even the most critical amateur, as he looks at it,
strikes one as the bended knee. There is another noble John Bellini,
one of the very few in which there is no Virgin, at San Giovanni
Crisostomo--a St. Jerome, in a red dress, sitting aloft upon the rocks
and with a landscape of extraordinary purity behind him. The absence of
the peculiarly erect Madonna makes it an interesting surprise among the
works of the painter and gives it a somewhat less strenuous air. But it
has brilliant beauty and the St. Jerome is a delightful old personage.
The same church contains another great picture for which the haunter
of these places must find a shrine apart in his memory; one of the most
interesting things he will have seen, if not the most brilliant. Nothing
appeals more to him than three figures of Venetian ladies which occupy
the foreground of a smallish canvas of Sebastian del Piombo, placed
above the high altar of San Giovanni Crisostomo. Sebastian was a
Venetian by birth, but few of his productions are to be seen in his
native place; few indeed are to be seen anywhere. The picture represents
the patron-saint of the church, accompanied by other saints and by the
worldly votaries I have mentioned. These ladies stand together on the
left, holding in their hands little white caskets; two of them are in
profile, but the foremost turns her face to the spectator. This face and
figure are almost unique among the beautiful things of Venice, and they
leave the susceptible observer with the impression of having made,
or rather having missed, a strange, a dangerous, but a most valuable,
acquaintance. The lady, who is superbly handsome, is the typical
Venetian of the sixteenth century, and she remains for the mind the
perfect flower of that society. Never was there a greater air of
breeding, a deeper expression of tranquil superiority. She walks a
goddess--as if she trod without sinking the waves of the Adriatic. It
is impossible to conceive a more perfect expression of the aristocratic
spirit either in its pride or in its benignity. This magnificent
creature is so strong and secure that she is gentle, and so quiet that
in comparison all minor assumptions of calmness suggest only a vulgar
alarm. But for all this there are depths of possible disorder in her
light-coloured eye.
I had meant however to say nothing about her, for it’s not right to
speak of Sebastian when one hasn’t found room for Carpaccio. These
visions come to one, and one can neither hold them nor brush them aside.
Memories of Carpaccio, the magnificent, the delightful--it’s not for
want of such visitations, but only for want of space, that I haven’t
said of him what I would. There is little enough need of it for
Carpaccio’s sake, his fame being brighter to-day--thanks to the generous
lamp Mr. Ruskin has held up to it--than it has ever been. Yet there is
something ridiculous in talking of Venice without making him almost the
refrain. He and the Tintoret are the two great realists, and it is hard
to say which is the more human, the more various. The Tintoret had
the mightier temperament, but Carpaccio, who had the advantage of more
newness and more responsibility, sailed nearer to perfection. Here and
there he quite touches it, as in the enchanting picture, at the Academy,
of St. Ursula asleep in her little white bed, in her high clean room,
where the angel visits her at dawn; or in the noble St. Jerome in his
study at S. Giorgio Schiavoni. This latter work is a pearl of sentiment,
and I may add without being fantastic a ruby of colour. It unites the
most masterly finish with a kind of universal largeness of feeling, and
he who has it well in his memory will never hear the name of Carpaccio
without a throb of almost personal affection. Such indeed is the feeling
that descends upon you in that wonderful little chapel of St. George
of the Slaves, where this most personal and sociable of artists has
expressed all the sweetness of his imagination. The place is small
and incommodious, the pictures are out of sight and ill-lighted, the
custodian is rapacious, the visitors are mutually intolerable, but
the shabby little chapel is a palace of art. Mr. Ruskin has written a
pamphlet about it which is a real aid to enjoyment, though I can’t but
think the generous artist, with his keen senses and his just feeling,
would have suffered to hear his eulogist declare that one of his
other productions--in the Museo Civico of Palazzo Correr, a delightful
portrait of two Venetian ladies with pet animals--is the “finest picture
in the world.” It has no need of that to be thought admirable; and what
more can a painter desire?