principal works of this period. Among these were the Uffizi _Venus_,
said to be a portrait of the Duchess herself. The _Girl in a Fur Mantle_
at Vienna, portraits of the Duke and of the Duchess (1537), and the
so-called _La Bella_ at the Uffizi. The so-called _Duke of Norfolk_ at
the Pitti, supposed to represent the young Duke Guidobaldo of Urbino.
Also the _Isabella d'Este_ at Vienna, and somewhat earlier, the
_Cardinal Ippolito_ in Hungarian dress, at the Pitti; and the _Daughter
of Robert Strozzi_, at Berlin.
The large _Ecce Homo_ in the Vienna Gallery, dated 1543, measuring 11
ft. 3 in. by 7 ft. 7 in. was for some years in London, and with better
fortune might still be in this country if not in our national
collection. It was one of the nineteen pictures by Titian in the
wonderful collection of Rubens, which the Duke of Buckingham persuaded
him to sell to him for a fabulous price. The collection was shipped to
England in 1625, when the pictures were taken to York House in the
Strand, and the statues and gems to Chelsea. In 1649 a portion of the
collection was sold at Brussels, and the _Ecce Homo_ was purchased there
by the Archduke Leopold for his gallery at Prague, which now forms part
of that at Vienna. The Earl of Arundel offered the Duke of Buckingham
L7000 for it--an unheard of price, especially when we remember the
greater value of money at that time.
With another masterpiece--fortunately still preserved in the Prado,
though not entirely uninjured by fire--we may close the second period.
This is the magnificent equestrian portrait of _The Emperor Charles V._
which was painted at Augsburg in 1548. A few years later the Emperor
abdicated in favour of his egregious son, Philip II., of whom Titian
painted three portraits in succession. The second of these, now in the
Prado, has an especial interest for us, inasmuch as it was painted for
the benefit or the enticement of Queen Mary before her marriage to
Philip. As might be expected, it is a highly flattering likeness,--in
white and gold, in half armour. To quote M. Caro-Delvaille, this king of
_auto da fes_ and sunken galleys is here nothing more than a gallant
cavalier--neurasthenic but elegant. For England was also painted the
_Venus and Adonis_, in 1554; but unfortunately the original is now in
Madrid, and only a copy in our National Gallery. However, the remains of
Philip are there too, and not in Westminster Abbey!
A copy of another famous picture painted by Titian for the Emperor
Charles V. was also in the collection of the Duke of Buckingham, who
probably brought it with him when he returned from his madcap expedition
with Prince Charles to Madrid. It is described in his catalogue as "One
great Piece of the Emperor Charles, a copy called Titian's Glory, being
the principal in Spain, now in the Escurial." This was the great
_Paradise_, or Apotheosis of Charles V. which Charles took with him into
Spain at the time of his abdication and placed in the monastery of St.
Juste, in Estramadura, to which he retired. After his death it was
removed by Philip II. to Madrid.
Of the two versions of _The Crowning with Thorns_, the earlier one at
the Louvre, painted in 1560, is more familiar to, and probably more
popular with, the general public than the much later one at Munich
painted in 1571. But for the real merits of the two we need not hesitate
to accept M. Caro-Delvaille's judgment, since if he had any bias it
would be in favour of his own country's treasure. The former he
characterises as an incoherent composition, in which useless
gesticulation diminishes the dramatic effect, while striving to force
it; and adds that all the false romanticism of painting comes from this
sort of theatrical pathos. Of the other he writes "It was the picture at
the Louvre which shocked me with its violent declamation and its forced
blows that never hit anything. But here at Munich a mystery so profound
broods over the drama that the melodramatic element disappears. The
scene becomes tragic, lamentable, hopelessly sad. The great artist with
a brush that trembles in his aged hands paints but the sentiment of it,
to exhale from his work like a plaintive sigh. The veil of death
descends and spreads over life.... Titian might seem to have painted it
as an offering to Rembrandt when he, too, should feel the approach of
death."
Another of his latest pictures, the _Adam and Eve in Paradise_, is in
the Prado (No. 429, formerly 456). This was copied, or one might almost
say travestied, by Rubens when he was at Madrid in 1629, and his work
was hung in the same room with it. As the colouring is of a lower tone
than is usual with Titian, and the attitudes of the figures extremely
simple and natural, the contrast is all the more marked, and was well
expressed by Cumberland, who said that "when we contemplate Titian's
picture of Adam and Eve we are convinced they never wore clothes; turn
to the copy, and the same persons seem to have laid theirs aside."
A more generous comparison between these two painters is made by
Reynolds in a note on du Fresnoy's poem on Painting respecting the
qualities of regularity and uniformity. "An instance occurs to me where
those two qualities are separately exhibited by two great painters,
Rubens and Titian: the picture of Rubens is in the Church of S.
Augustine at Antwerp, the subject (if that may be called a subject where
no story is represented) is the Virgin and Infant Christ placed high in
the picture on a pedestal with many saints about them and as many below
them, with others on the steps to serve as a link to unite the upper and
lower part of the picture. The composition of this picture is perfect in
its kind; the artist has shown the greatest skill in composing and
contrasting more than twenty figures without confusion and without
crowding; the whole appearing as much animated and in motion as it is
possible where nothing is to be done.
"The picture of Titian which we would oppose to this is in the Church
of the S. Frari at Venice (the "Pesaro Madonna," where the two donors
kneel below the Virgin enthroned). One peculiar character of this piece
is grandeur and simplicity, which proceed in a great measure from the
regularity of the composition, two of the principal figures being
represented kneeling directly opposite to each other, and nearly in the
same attitude. This is what few painters would have had the courage to
venture; Rubens would certainly have rejected so unpicturesque a mode of
composition had it occurred to him. Both these pictures are excellent in
their kind, and may be said to characterize their respective authors.
There is a bustle and animation in the work of Rubens, a quiet solemn
majesty in that of Titian. The excellence of Rubens is the picturesque
effect he produces; the superior merit of Titian is in the appearance of
being above seeking after any such "artificial excellence."
The most important artist besides Titian who was a pupil of Giorgione
was SEBASTIANO DEL PIOMBO, as he was called--his father's name was
LUCIANI. But as two other notable influences determined his career, he
is not to be taken as typical of the Venetian School in general or that
of Giorgione in particular. Born in Venice about the year 1485, he first
studied under Giovanni Bellini, as appears from the signature as well as
from the style of a _Pieta_ by him in the Layard collection, which we
may hope soon to see in the National Gallery. Of his Giorgionesque
period there is only one important picture known to us, the beautiful
altar-piece in S. Giovanni Crisostomo in Venice, which is not far
removed from the richness of Titian's earlier work. The picture
represents the mild and dignified S. Chrysostom seated, reading aloud at
a desk in an open hall; S. John the Baptist leaning on his cross is
looking attentively at him; behind him are two male and on the left two
female saints listening devoutly, and in the foreground the Virgin
looking majestically out of the picture at the spectator--a splendid
type of the full and grand Venetian ideal of female beauty of that time.
The true expression of a _Santa Conversazione_ could not be more
worthily given than in the relation in which the listeners stand to the
reader, and in glow of colour this work is not inferior to the best of
Giorgione's or Titian's.
As early as 1510, however, he not only left Venice, but also his
Venetian manner. He was invited to Rome by the rich banker and patron of
the arts, Agostino Chigi, where he met Raphael, and with astonishing
versatility succeeded as well in emulating the excellences of that
master as he had those of Bellini and Giorgione. The half-length
_Daughter of Herodias_ bequeathed to the National Gallery by George
Salting is dated 1510, and in 1512 he painted the famous _Fornarina_ in
the Uffizi, which until the middle of the last century was supposed to
be a _chef d'oeuvre_ of Raphael. To this period also belongs the _S.
John in the Desert_, at the Louvre.
Within the next seven years a still mightier influence found him, that
of Michelangelo, and how far he was capable of responding to it may be
judged by our great _Raising of Lazarus_, painted at Rome in 1517-19 for
Giulio de'Medici, afterwards Pope Clement VII., to be placed with
Raphael's _Transfiguration_ in the Cathedral of Narbonne. Both pictures
were publicly exhibited in Rome, and by some people Sebastiano's was
preferred to Raphael's. According to Waagen the whole composition was
designed by Michelangelo, with whom Sebastiano had entered into the
closest intimacy; and Kugler states that the group of Lazarus and those
around him was actually drawn by the master. However that may be, we can
hardly fail to see how entirely the Venetian influence is obscured by
that of the great Florentine, and to recognise the extraordinary genius
of a painter who could do something more than imitate from such masters
as Bellini, Giorgione, Raphael and Michelangelo.
The last traces of the Vivarini influence are to be seen in the earlier
works of LORENZO LOTTO(1480-1556), who was a pupil of Alvise, though his
pictures after 1508, when he had left Venice, Treviso and Reccanti,
where he had been employed, show the effect of his changed surroundings.
To this date is assigned the _Portrait of a Young Man_, at Hampton
Court. At Rome in 1509 he was painting with Raphael in the Vatican, and
in his next dated work, the _Entombment_, at Jesi, the echoes of
Raphael's Disputation and the _School of Athens_ are clear. The Dresden
_Madonna and Child with S. John_ was probably painted at Bergamo in
1518, and the _Madonna and Saints_, lately bequeathed to the National
Gallery, is dated 1521.
At Madrid is a picture by him of _A Bride and Bridegroom_ dated 1523, to
which year probably belongs the _Family Group_ in the National Gallery.
These are early instances of the comparatively rare inclusion of more
than a single figure in a pure portrait. In our example the father and
mother and two children are composed into a delightful picture, in which
for once we may see the actual people of the time in something like
their natural surroundings, instead of being posed, however effectively,
to assist in the representation of some historic or legendary scene.
In 1527 Lotto was back again in Venice, and was probably influenced by
Palma Vecchio when he painted the superb portrait of the sculptor
_Odoni_, which is at Hampton Court. A little later the influence of
Titian is more visible. Two other portraits are in our National Gallery,
those of the Protonotary Juliano and of Agostino and Niccolo della
Torre.
BONIFAZIO DI PITATI (1487-1553), sometimes called Bonifazio Veronese or
Veneziano, was born at Verona, but studied in Venice under Palma
Vecchio. The influence of his native city distinguishes his work in some
degree from the pure Venetian, as it did that of the more famous Paolo
in later years; but the atmosphere created by Giorgione was so strong as
to cause Bonifazio's masterpiece (if we except the _Dives and Lazarus_
at the Academy in Venice) to be attributed until quite lately to
Giorgione. It is thus described by Kugler:--"A picture in the Brera in
Milan, very deserving of notice, is perhaps one of Giorgione's most
beautiful works; it is historic in subject, but romantic in conception.
The subject is the finding of Moses; all the figures are in the rich
costume of Giorgione's time. In the centre the princess sits under a
tree, and looks with surprise at the child who is brought to her by a
servant. The seneschal of the princess, with knights and ladies, stand
around. On one side are seated two lovers on the grass, on the other
side musicians and singers, pages with dogs, a dwarf with an ape, etc.
It is a picture in which the highest earthly splendour and enjoyment are
brought together, and the incident from Scripture only gives it a more
pleasing interest. The costume, however inappropriate to the story,
disturbs the effect as little as in other Venetian pictures of the same
period, since it refers more to a poetic than to a mere historic truth,
and the period itself was rich in poetry; its costume too assists the
display of a romantic splendour. This picture, with all its glow of
colour, is softer than the earlier works of the master, and reminds us
of Titian...."
The beautiful _Santa Conversazione_ in the National Gallery, again,
which was formerly in the Casa Terzi at Bergamo, was there attributed to
Palma Vecchio. Here the Virgin in a rose-coloured mantle is the centre
of the composition, with the Child on her knee, whose foot the little S.
John is bending to kiss. On the right is S. Catherine and on the left S.
James the Less and S. Jerome. In the landscape are seen a shepherd lying
beside his flock, while other shepherds are fleeing from a lion who has
seized their dog. A copy of this composition is in the Academy at
Venice.
Oddly enough it was a pupil of Bonifazio who employed the grand Venetian
manner in the humbler and more commonplace walks of life, and neglecting
alike the _Sacra Conversazione_ and the pompous scenes of festivity,
developed into the first Italian painter of _genre_. This was JACOPO DA
PONTE, called from his birthplace BASSANO, who was working in Venice
under Bonifazio as early as 1535. He afterwards returned to Bassano, and
selecting those scenes in which he could most extensively introduce
cottages, peasants, and animals, he connected them with events from
sacred history or mythology. A peculiar feature by which his pictures
may be known is the invariable and apparently intentional hiding of the
feet of his figures, for which purpose sheep and cattle and household
utensils are introduced. He confines himself to a bold, straightforward
imitation of familiar objects, united, however, with pleasing
composition, colour, and chiaroscuro. His colours, indeed, sparkle like
gems, particularly the greens, in which he displays a brilliancy quite
peculiar to himself. His lights are boldly infringed on the objects,
and are seldom introduced except on prominent parts of the figures. In
accordance with this treatment his handling is spirited and peculiar,
somewhat in the manner of Rembrandt; and what on close inspection
appears dark and confused, forms at a distance the very strength and
magic of his colouring. The picture of the _Good Samaritan_ in the
National Gallery is a good example, and was formerly in the collection
of Reynolds, who it is said always kept it in his studio. The _Portrait
of a Man_ (No. 173) is excelled by that of an _Old Man_ at Berlin.
III
PAOLO VERONESE AND IL TINTORETTO
It cannot be said that the Venetian artists of the second half of the
sixteenth century equalled in their collective excellence the great
masters of the first, but in single instances they are frequently
entitled to rank beside them. At the head of these is JACOPO ROBUSTI
(1518-1594), called IL TINTORETTO (the dyer), in allusion to his
father's trade. He was one of the most vigorous painters in all the
history of art; one who sought rather than avoided the greatest
difficulties, and who possessed a true feeling for animation and
grandeur. If his works do not always charm, it should be imputed to the
foreign and non-Venetian element which he adopted, but never completely
mastered; and also to the times in which he lived, when Venetian art had
fallen somewhat into the mistaken way of colossal and rapid
productiveness. His off-hand style, as Kugler calls it, is always full
of grand and significant detail, and with a few patches of colour he
sometimes achieves the liveliest forms and expressions. But he fails in
that artistic arrangement of the whole and in that nobility of motives
in the parts which are necessary exponents of a really high ideal. His
compositions are achieved less by finely studied degrees of
participation in the principal action than by great masses of light and
shade. Attitudes and movements are taken immediately from common life,
not chosen from the best models. With Titian the highest ideal of
earthly happiness in existence is expressed by beauty; with Tintoretto
in mere animal strength, sometimes of an almost rude character.
For a short time he was a pupil of Titian, but for some unknown reason
he soon left him, and struck out for himself. In the studio which he
occupied in his youth he had inscribed, as a definition of the style he
professed, "The drawing of Michelangelo, the colouring of Titian." He
copied the works of the latter, and also designed from casts of
Florentine and antique sculpture, particularly by lamplight--as did
Romney a couple of centuries later--to exercise himself in a more
forcible style of relief. He also made models for his works, which he
lighted artificially, or hung up in his room, in order to master
perspective. By these means he united great strength of shadow with the
Venetian colouring, which gives a peculiar character to his pictures,
and is very successful when limited to the direct imitation of nature.
But apart from the impossibility of combining two such totally different
excellences as the colouring of Titian and the drawing of Michelangelo,
it appears that Tintoretto's acquaintance with the works of the latter
only developed his tendency to a naturalistic style. That which with
Michelangelo was the symbol of a higher power in nature was adopted by
Tintoretto in its literal form. Most of his defects, it is probable,
arose from his indefatigable vigour, which earned for him the nickname
of _Il Furioso_. Sebastian del Piombo said that Tintoretto could paint
as much in two days as would occupy him two years. Other sayings were
that he had three brushes, one of gold, one of silver, and a third of
brass, and that if he was sometimes equal to Titian he was often
inferior to Tintoretto! In this last category Kugler puts two of his
earliest works, the enormous _Last Judgment_, and _The Golden Calf_, in
the church of S. Maria dell'Orto, while on his much later _Last Supper_
he is still more severe. "Nothing more utterly derogatory," he writes,
"both to the dignity of art and to the nature of the subject can be
imagined. S. John is seen with folded arms, fast asleep, while others of
the Apostles with the most burlesque gestures are asking, 'Lord, is it
I?' Another Apostle is uncovering a dish which stands on the floor
without remarking that a cat has stolen in and is eating from it. A
second is reaching towards a flask; a beggar sits by, eating. Attendants
fill up the picture. To judge from an overthrown chair the scene appears
to have been a revel of the lowest description. It is strange that a
painter should venture on such a representation of this subject scarcely
a hundred years after the creation of Leonardo da Vinci's _Last
Supper_."
It was in 1548, when but thirty years old, that Tintoretto first became
famous, with the large _Miracle of S. Mark_, now in the Venice Academy.
This is perhaps his finest as well as his most celebrated work; but the
greatest monument to his industry and general ability is the Scuola
di'San Rocco, where he began to work in 1560 under a contract to produce
three pictures a year for an annuity of a hundred ducats. In all there
are sixty-two of his pictures in this building, the greater part of
them very large, the figures throughout being of the size of life. _The
Crucifixion_, painted in 1565, is the most extensive of them, and on the
whole the most perfect. In 1590, four years before his death, he
completed the enormous _Paradise_ in the Sala del Gran Consiglio,
measuring seventy-four feet in length and thirty in height.
In the National Gallery we have three characteristic examples,
fortunately on a smaller scale, namely, the _S. George_ on a white
horse, which, with its greyish flesh tones and the blue of the
princess's mantle, is cooler in tone than the generality of his
pictures; _Christ washing the Disciples' Feet_, and the very beautiful
and radiant _Origin of the Milky Way_, purchased from Lord Darnley in
1890. At Hampton Court a still finer example, _The Nine Muses_, is so
discoloured by age and hung in such a difficult light that it is
impossible to enjoy its full beauty.
PAOLO CALIARI, better known as VERONESE, was born ten years later than
Tintoretto, and died six years before him (1528-1588). He studied in his
native city of Verona till he was twenty, and after working for some
time at Mantua he came to Venice in 1555, where he was quickly
recognised by Titian and by Sansovino, the sculptor and Director of
Public Buildings, and was commissioned in that year to paint a
_Coronation of the Virgin_ and other works in the church of S.
Sebastian. The _Martyrdom of S. Giustino_, now in the Uffizi, and the
_Madonna and Child_ in the Louvre are also among his earlier works. As
early as 1562 he was at work on the enormous _Feast at Cana_, now in the
Louvre, and a similar work at Dresden is of the same date. In 1564 he
went to Rome, where he studied the works of Raphael and Michelangelo. On
his return to Venice in
[Illustration: PLATE XVII.--TINTORETTO
ST GEORGE AND THE DRAGON
_National Gallery, London_]
1565--after visiting Verona, where he painted in his parish church, and
also married--he was employed to decorate the Ducal Palace, but much of
his best work there was destroyed by fire. Two of his most important
works completed before 1573 are in the Academy at Venice, _The Battle of
Lepanto_ and the _Feast in the House of Levi_. In this last he incurred
strictures from the Inquisition more severe than those of Kugler upon
Tintoretto's _Last Supper_, and possibly with as much reason, it being
objected that the introduction of German soldiery, buffoons, and a
parrot was "irreligious." His _Family of Darius_, now in the National
Gallery, was one of his latest works.
Veronese, even more than Titian, whom in colouring he sought to emulate,
and Tintoretto, whom in this respect he certainly excelled, expresses
the spirit of the Venetians of his time--a powerful and noble race of
human beings, as Kugler calls them, elate with the consciousness of
existence, and in full enjoyment of all that renders earth attractive.
By the splendour of his colour, assisted by rich draperies and other
materials, by a very clear and transparent treatment of the shadows, he
infused a magic into his great canvases which surpasses almost all the
other masters of the Venetian School. Never had the pomp of colour, on a
large scale, been so exalted and glorified as in his works. This, his
peculiar quality, is most decidedly and grandly developed in scenes of
worldly splendour; he loved to paint festive subjects for the
refectories of rich convents, suggested of course from particular
passages in the Scriptures, but treated with the greatest freedom,
especially as regards the costume, which is always of his own time.
Instead, therefore, of any religious sentiment, we are presented with a
display of the most cheerful human scenes and the richest worldly
splendour. That which distinguishes him from Tintoretto, and which in
his later period, after the death of Titian and Michelangelo, earned for
him the rank of the first living master, was that beautiful vitality,
that poetic feeling, which as far as it was possible he infused into a
declining period of art. At the same time it becomes more and more
evident, as our attention is turned to the deeper and nobler spirit of
the earlier masters in Venice, that the beauty of his figures is more
addressed to the senses than to the soul, and that his naturalistic
tendencies are often allowed to run wild.