branch of art before he was twenty-eight years old. Among his finest
portraits is that of "Carmencita," a Spanish dancer, who for a time
set the world wild with pleasure. The list of his famous portraits is
very long.
Sargent's father was a Philadelphia physician; who originally came
from New England, but the artist himself was born in Florence. He was
given a good education and grew up with the beauties of Florence all
about him, in a refined and charming home. He was the delight of his
master, Carolus Durand for he was modest and refined, yet full of
enthusiasm and energy. In his twenty-third year he painted a fine
picture of his master. Sargent was a musician as well as a painter; a
man of great versatility, as if the gods and all the muses had
presided at his birth.
PLATE--CARMENCITA
In this picture of the famous Spanish dancer Sargent shows all the
life and character he can put into a portrait. The girl seems on the
point of springing into motion. She is poised, ready for flight and
the proud lift of her head makes one believe that she will accomplish
the most difficult steps she attempts. The painting is in the
Luxembourg, Paris.
Other noted Sargent portraits are "Mr. Marquand" in the Metropolitan
Museum of Art, "Lady Elcho, Mrs. Arden, Mrs. Tennant," "Mrs. Meyer and
Children," "Homer St. Gaudens," "Henschel," and "Mr. Penrose."
XXXVII
TINTORETTO (JACOPO ROBUSTI)
_Venetian School_
1518-1594
_Pupil of Titian_
Tintoretto was born with an ideal. As a young boy he wrote upon his
studio wall: "The drawing of Michael Angelo, the colouring of Titian,"
and that was the end he tried to reach. His father was a "tintore"--a
dyer of silk, a tinter--and it was from the character of that work the
artist took his name. He helped his father with the dyeing of silks,
while he was still a child, and was called "II tintoretto," little
dyer.
As the little tinter showed great genius for painting, his father
placed him in Titian's studio, but for some reason he only stayed
there a few days, long enough, however, to permit us to call him a
pupil of Titian; especially as he wrote that master's name upon his
wall and determined to imitate him. After his few days with Titian,
Tintoretto studied with Schiavone and afterward set up a studio for
himself.
As a determined lad in this studio of his, Tintoretto tried every
means of developing his art. He studied the figures upon Medicean
tombs made by Michael Angelo, taking plaster casts of them and copying
them in his studio. He used to hang little clay figures up by strings
attached to his ceiling, that he might get the effect of them high in
air. By looking at them thus from below he gained an idea of
foreshortening.
Although this artist nearly succeeded in getting into line with
Michael Angelo, he did not colour after the fashion of his master,
Titian. Tintoretto was about twenty-eight years old before he got any
very big commission, but at that age a chance came to him. In the
church of Santa Maria del Orto were two great bare spaces, unsightly
and vast, about fifty feet high and twenty broad. In that day anything
and everything was decorated with masterpieces, and it was almost
disgraceful for a church to let such a space as that go
unfrescoed. Tintoretto saw an opportunity, and finally offered to
paint pictures there for nothing if the church would agree to pay for
the materials he needed. The church certainly was not going to refuse
such an offer, even if Tintoretto was not thought to be much of an
artist at the time. If the work was poor, one day they could choose to
have it repainted. Thus Tintoretto got his first great opportunity. He
painted on those walls "The Last Judgment" and "The Golden Calf." They
made him famous, and gained him the commission to paint the picture
which is used as an illustration here.
The brothers of the Scuola di San Rocco asked him to compete with
Veronese, in painting the ceilings after he had done four pictures for
their walls.
Tintoretto consented, and Veronese and two others who were in the
competition set about making their sketches which they were to present
for the brothers' consideration. Finaly the day of decision came. All
were assembled, the artists armed with sketches of their plans.
"Where are yours, Tintoretto?" the others asked. "We expect a drawing
of your idea."
"Well, there it is," the artist answered, drawing a screen from the
ceiling. Behold! he had already painted it to suit himself. The work
was complete.
"That is the way I make my sketches," he said.
Though the work was magnificent it had not been done according to the
monks' ideas of business and order. They objected and objected.
"Very well," the artist cried; "I will make the ceiling a present to
you." As there was a rule of their order forbidding them to refuse a
present, they had to accept Tintoretto's. This did not promise very
good business at the time, but the work was so splendid and Tintoretto
so reasonable that they finally agreed to give him all the work of
their order--nearly enough to keep him employed during a
lifetime. After that he painted sixty great pictures upon their walls.
He painted so much and so fast that he did not always do good work,
and one critic declares that "while Tintoretto was the equal of
Titian, he was often inferior to Tintoretto"--which after all is a
very fine compliment.
His life was so tranquil and uneventful that there is little to say of
it; but there is much to say of his art. He lived mostly in his
studio, and when he died he was buried in the Santa Maria del
Orto--the church in which he had done his first work.
Veronese had given to Venice a brilliant, glowing, rich, ravishing
riot of colour and figures, but Tintoretto was said to rise up
"against the joyful Veronese as the black knight of the Middle Ages,
the sombre priest of a gloomy art." Tintoretto was of stormy
temperament, and upon one occasion he proved it by thrusting a pistol
under a critic's nose, after he had invited him to his studio; it is
this half savage spirit that may be seen in his paintings. He had
deep-set, staring eyes, it is said, a furrowed brow and hollow cheeks,
indicative of his passionate spirit. He painted very few female
figures, but mostly men. When he did paint a woman, she looked mannish
and not beautiful. When he painted gorgeous subjects, like doges and
senators, he gave to them gloomy backgrounds, awe-inspiring poses, and
he seldom painted a figure "full-face" but three-quarter, or half, so
that he did not give himself a chance to present human figures in
beautiful postures. He is said to have been the first who painted
groups of well-known men in pictures intended for the decoration of
public buildings. One great critic has written that "while the Dutch,
in order to unite figures, represented them at a banquet, Tintoretto's
_nobili_ (aristocrats) were far too proud to show themselves to the
people" in so gay and informal a situation. With the coming of
Tintoretto it was said "a dark cloud had overcast the bright heaven of
Venetian art. Instead of smiling women, bloody martyrs and pale
ascetics" were painted by him. He dissected the dead in order to learn
the structure of the human body. In his paintings "his women,
especially, with their pale livid features and encircled eyes,
strangely sparkling as if from black depths, have nothing in common
with the soft" painted flesh which he pictured in his youth while he
was following Titian as closely as he could. As he grew older and his
art more fixed, he followed Michael Angelo more and more. Titian's
colouring was that of "an autumn day" but Tintoretto's that of a
"dismal night." Yet these very qualities in Tintoretto's work made him
great.
PLATE--THE MIRACLE OF ST. MARK
This painting in the Academy at Venice tells the story of how a
Christian slave who belonged to a pagan nobleman went to worship at
the shrine of St. Mark. That was unlawful. The nobleman had his slave
taken before the judge, who ordered him to be tortured. Just as the
executioner raised the hammer with which he was finally to kill the
slave, St. Mark himself came down from heaven, broke the weapon and
rescued the slave.
The figure of the patron saint of Venice is swooping down, head first,
above the group, his garments flying in the air. A bright light
touches the slave's naked body, as he lies upon his back, the
executioner having turned away and raised his hammer aloft, while
others have drawn back in fright at the appearance of the patron
saint. We may imagine that Tintoretto was trying to acquire this power
of painting wonderful figures hovering in the air when he hung his
little clay images from the ceiling of his studio years before. Other
pictures of his are: "The Marriage of Bacchus and Ariadne," "Martyrdom
of St. Agnes," "St. Rocco Healing the Sick," "The Annunciation," "The
Crucifixion," and many others.
XXXVIII
TITIAN (TIZIANO VECELLI)
(Pronounced Tit-zee-ah'no (Vay-chel'lee))
_Venetian School_
1477-1576
_Pupil of Giovanni and Gentile Bellini_
Titian was a child of the Tirol Mountains, handsome, strong, full of
health and fine purposes, even as a boy. He was born in a little
cottage at Pieve, in the valley of Cadore, through which flows the
River Piave; and he wandered daily beside its banks, gathering flowers
from which he squeezed the juices to paint with. When he grew up he
became a wonderful colourist, and from his boyhood nothing so much
delighted him as the brilliant colours flaunted by the flowers of wood
and field.
Gathered about his good father's hearth were many children, Caterina,
Francesco, Orsa, and the rest, living in peace and happiness, closely
bound together by love. Titian had a gentle, loving mother named
Lucia, while his father was a soldier and an honoured man. In the
little town where they lived, he was councillor and also
superintendent of the castle and inspector of mines, no light honours
among those simple country people. Doubtless Titian inherited his
splendid bearing and his determined character from his soldier father.
Even while a little child, the man who was destined to become a great
artist began his work with the juices of the wild-flowers, which he
daubed upon the wall of the humble home in the Tirol valley, making a
Madonna with angels at her feet and a little Jesus upon her knee. But
if Titian was a great painter, he was never even a fair scholar. He
went to school, but would not, or could not, study. His father soon
saw that he was wasting his time and being made very unhappy through
being forced to do that for which he had no ability; so he was soon
released from book-learning and sent to Venice, seventy-five miles
from home, to learn art. In Venice, the Vecelli family had an uncle,
and it was with him that Titian lived, though he studied first with
Sebastian Zuccato, the head of the Venetian guild of mosaic workers,
and a pretty good teacher in his way. He was not able to teach Titian
very much, for the boy was an inspired artist and needed a good
master; so, after a little, the family held a consultation and it was
decided that Titian should become the pupil of Gentile Bellini, a very
clever artist indeed. There was an interesting story told about this
master which made the Vecellis feel that their boy would do well to be
under the influence of a kind-hearted man, as well as a genius. It
seems that Bellini's fame had become so great that the Sultan had sent
for him to paint the portraits of himself and the Sultana. Bellini
went gladly to Turkey to do this; but he took with him certain
pictures to show his patron. Among them was one of St. John the
Baptist having his head cut off. The Sultan looked at it, and cutting
heads off being a large part of his business, he saw that Bellini had
not scientifically painted it, and in order to show him the true way
to conduct such matters, he sent for a slave and ordered his head
chopped off in Bellini's presence. Bellini was so terrified and
sickened by the dreadful sight that he fled from Turkey and would not
paint its ruler, the Sultana nor anyone else who had to do with such
cruel things as he had witnessed.
It was into this man's studio that Titian went as a young boy, but
after a little he displeased Gentile Bellini, who complained that his
pupil worked too fast, and therefore could not expect to do great
work. He declared that picture painting was serious and careful work,
and that Titian was too careless and quick. As a matter of fact,
Titian was too wonderful for Bellini ever to do much for; and since he
could not get on with him, he went to another master--Gentile
Bellini's brother, Giovanni. One of Titian's chief troubles in the
studio of Gentile had been that he was not allowed to use the gorgeous
colouring he loved, but in the brother's studio he found to his joy
that colour was more valued, and he was given more freedom to use
it. Also there was a young peasant pupil with Giovanni, who, like
Titian, loved to use beautiful colours, and he and the newcomer became
fast friends.
The other artist's name was Giorgione, and he had the most delightful
ways about him, winning friends wherever he went, so it was no wonder
that the warm-hearted Titian sought his companionship. One day those
two young comrades left their master's studio, to have a good time off
by themselves. There was a stated hour for their return; but they had
spent all their money, and forgot that Giovanni Bellini was expecting
them home. When they did return the door was closed and locked. What
were they to do? They did the only thing they could. As comrades in
misfortune they joined forces, set up a studio of their own, and went
to work to earn their living as best they might. At first it was hard
sledding, but in time they got a good job, namely to decorate the
walls of a public building in Venice which was used by foreign
merchants for the transaction of their business, a sort of "exchange,"
as we understand it. This was the Fondaco de' Tedeschi, and it had two
great halls, eighty rooms, and twenty-six warehouses. It was indeed a
big undertaking for the two young men, and they divided the business
between them. Their joy was great, their cartoons successfully made
and the work well begun, when, alas, they fell to quarreling simply
because someone had declared that Titian's work upon the building was
a little better than Giorgione's.
This dispute parted the two friends, who had had good times together,
and it must have been Giorgione's fault, because Ludovico Dolce, one
who knew Titian well, said that "he was most modest ... he never spoke
reproachfully of other painters ... in his discourse he was ever ready
to give honour where honour was due ... he was, moreover, an eloquent
speaker, having an excellent wit and perfect judgment in all things;
of a most sweet and gentle nature, affable and most courteous in
manner; so that whoever once conversed with him could not choose but
love him henceforth forever." That is a most loving and splendid
tribute for one man to pay another. Not long after Giorgione died, and
Titian took up his unfinished work, doing it as well as his own.
There was a brilliant and mature artist called Palma Vecchio, in
Venice, and Titian painted in his studio, where he saw and loved
Vecchio's daughter, Violante. The young artist was not very well off
financially, and therefore could not marry; hence he was not specially
happy over his love affair. About that time he took to painting after
the manner of Vecchio, through being so much influenced by his soft
feelings for the older artist's daughter. He used the lovely Violante
again and again for his model, and many of the beautiful faces which
Titian painted at that time show the features of his lady-love. With
his new love Titian's serious work seemed to begin, and at twenty-one
he painted his first truly great picture, "Sacred and Profane Love."
To day this picture hangs upon the walls of the Borghese Palace, in
Rome.
Raphael painted a great many pictures, but Titian must have painted
more. At least one thousand have his signature.
Now came wars and troubles for Venice. The Turks, French, and
Venetians became at odds, and during the strife many fine works of art
were lost, among them many of Titian's pictures. He had painted
bishops, also the wicked Borgias, and many other great personages, but
all of these are gone and to this day, no one knows what became of
them.
At last Titian began one of his greatest paintings, "The Tribute
Money," and he set about it because he had been criticised. Some
German travellers in Venice visited Titian's studio, and though they
found his work very fine, one of them said that after all there was
only one master able to finish a painting as it should be finished,
and that was the great Dürer. The German pointed out the differences
between Titian's method and Dürer's, and declared that Venetian
painters never quite came up to the promise of their first
pictures. Dürer's wonderful pictures were quite different from
Titian's, inasmuch as his work was fuller of detail and careful
finishing, but Titian was as great in another way. His effects were
broader, but quite as satisfying. However, the German criticism put
him on his mettle, and he answered that if he had thought the greatest
value of a painting lay in its fiddling little details of finishing,
he too would have painted them. To show that he could paint after
Dürer's fashion, as well as his own, he undertook the "Tribute Money,"
and the result was a wonderful picture.
Soon Rome sent for Titian. The Florentines, Raphael and Michael
Angelo, were already there doing marvellous things, but the pope
wished to add the genius of Titian to theirs and made him a great
offer to go and live in Rome and do his future work for that
city. This was an honour, but amid all his fame and the homage paid
him, Titian had remembered the old home in the vale of Cadore. It was
there his heart was, and he determined to return to the home of his
boyhood to do his best work. So he sent his thanks and refusal to the
pope, and he wrote as follows to his home folks, through the council
of his town:
"I, Titian of Cadore, having studied painting from childhood upward,
and desirous of fame rather than profit, wish to serve the doge and
signorini, rather than his highness the pope and other signori, who in
past days, and even now, have urgently asked to employ me. I am
therefore anxious, if it should appear feasible to paint the hall of
council, beginning, if it pleases their sublimity, with the canvas of
the battle on the side toward the Piazza, which is so difficult that
no one as yet has had the courage to attempt it."
Then in stating his terms he asked for a very moderate sum of money
and a "brokerage" for life. The Government did not have to think over
the matter long. Titian's father had been honoured among them,
Titian's genius was well known, and the commission was gladly given
him. As soon as he got this business affair settled he moved into the
palace of the Duke of Milan "at San Samuele; on the Grand Canal, where
he remained for sixteen years," so says his biographer.
Titian's affairs were not yet entirely smooth, because both of the
Bellinis having painted for his patrons, they naturally considered
Titian an intruder, and thought that the work should have been given
to them. They did all they could to make trouble for the younger
artist, but after a time Titian came into his rights, receiving his
"brokerage" which gave to him a yearly sum of money 120 crowns,
$126.04. His taxes were taken off for the future, provided he would
agree to paint all the doges that should rule during his lifetime.
Titian undertook to do this, but he did not keep his word, for he
painted only five doges, though many more followed. He had no sooner
received his commission from the council of his native place than he
began to neglect it, and to paint for the husband of the wicked
poisoner--Lucretia Borgia--whose name was Alfonso d'Este, the Duke of
Ferrara. It was for him he painted the "Venus Worship," now in the
Museum of Madrid, also "The Three Ages," which belongs to Lord
Ellesmere, and the "Virgin's Rest near Bethlehem," now in the National
Gallery. Afterward he painted "Noli Me Tangere," which is in the same
London Gallery.
There is a picture of great size in the Academy of Arts in Venice,
which was first seen on a public holiday nearly four hundred years
ago. It is the "Assumption of the Virgin," first shown on
St. Bernardino's day, when all the public offices were closed by order
of the Senate, and the whole city had a gay time. This occasion made
Titian the most honoured artist of his time, but still the Venetians
had cause to complain; because now their painter took so much work in
hand that he nearly ceased doing the work on the council hall. The
council sent him word that unless he attended to business the
paintings should be finished by some one else and he would have to pay
the new artist out of his own pocket; but in waywardness he paid no
attention to this summons. Lucretia Borgia died, and her husband
having never loved her, fell at once in love with a girl of a lower
class, who was very good and worthy to be loved. The duke wanted
Titian to paint them both, and so once more the great painter
neglected his contract with the council. The girl's name was Laura,
and Titian painted her and the duke in one picture, which now hangs in
the Louvre.
At last, after seven years of his neglecting to do his promised work
the council became enraged and threatened to take the artist's
property away from him. That frightened Titian very much, and he began
frantically to work on the battle piece on the hall wall. It was about
this time that he married. He had probably forgotten Violante in the
passing of so many years; at any rate it was not she whom he married,
but a lady whose first name was Cecilia. Soon he had a little family
of children, but one of them was destined to make Titian very
unhappy. This was Pomponic who became a priest, but he was also a
wicked spendthrift, and kept his father forever in trouble, trying to
pay his debts and keep him out of scrapes. Another son became an
artist; not great like his father, but very helpful and a comfort to
him. Then his wife died, and Titian had loved her so dearly that for a
long time he had not the heart to paint much. His sister, Orsa, came
to live at his home and take care of his motherless children.
He left the palace on the Grand Canal and bought a home north of
Venice, with beautiful gardens attached, and there he lived and
worked, entertaining the most illustrious men. Titian's house and
gardens became the show place of the country, so many geniuses and
famous people visited there. It was there that he painted "The
Martyrdom of Saint Peter," and the picture was so loved by the
Venetians that the signori threatened with death any one who should
take the picture from the chapel where it hung. In spite of this
caution the picture was burned in the fire that destroyed the chapel
in 1867.