It has been well observed by a Venetian writer, whose meagre panegyric
is nearly all we have in print upon the subject of this painter's
biography, that "there is no scene or point of domestic life which
Longhi has not treated many times and in divers ways. All those episodes
which make up the Day of a Gentleman as sung at a later date by Parini,
had been already set forth by the brush of Longhi."[93]
The duties of the toilette, over which ladies and young men of fashion
dawdled through their mornings; the drinking of chocolate in bed,
attended by a wife or mistress or obsequious man of business; the long
hours spent before the looking-glass, with maids or valets matching
complexions, sorting dresses from the wardrobe, and fixing patches upon
telling points of cheek or forehead; the fashionable hairdresser,
building up a lady's tower with tongs, or tying the knot of a beau's
bag-wig; the children trooping in to kiss their mother's hand at
breakfast-time--stiff little girls in hoops, and tiny _cavalieri_ in
uniform, with sword and shoe-buckles and queue; the vendors of flowered
silks and laces laying out their wares; the pert young laundress
smuggling a _billet-doux_ into a beauty's hand before her unsuspecting
husband's face; the fine gentleman ordering a waistcoat in the shop of a
tailoress, ogling and flirting over the commission, while a running
footman with tall cane in hand comes bustling in to ask if his lord's
suit is ready; the old patrician lolling in his easy-chair and toying
with a fan; the abbe turning over the leaves of some fresh play or
morning paper: scenes like these we may assign to the Venetian forenoon.
Afternoon brings ceremonious visits, when grand ladies, sailing in their
hoops, salute each other, and beaux make legs on entering a
drawing-room, and lacqueys hand round chocolate on silver salvers.
Dancing-lessons may perhaps be assigned to this part of the day; a
spruce French professor teaching his fair pupil how to drop a curtsey,
or to swim with solemn grace through the figures of the minuet. At night
we are introduced to the hall of the Ridotto; patricians in toga and
snow-white periwig hold banks for faro beneath the glittering
chandeliers; men and women, closely masked, jostle each other at the
gambling-tables, where sequins and ducats lie about in heaps. The petty
houses, or _casini_, now engage attention. Here may be seen a pair of
stealthy, muffled libertines hastening to complete an assignation. Then
there are meetings at street-corners or on the landing-places of
_traghetti_--mysterious figures flitting to and fro in wide miraculous
_bautte_ beneath the light of flickering flambeaux. Both men and women
in these nocturnal scenes wear muffs, trimmed with fur, and secured
around their waist by girdles.
Theatres, masked balls, banquets and coffee-houses, music-parties in
villa-gardens, the assemblies of literary coteries, promenades on the
piazza, and Carnival processions, obtain their due share of attention
from this vigilant observer. But, as is the way with Longhi, only
episodes are treated. He does not, like some painters of our own
time--like Mr. Frith, R.A., for instance--attempt to bring the
accumulated details of a complex scene before us. He leaves the context
of his chosen incident to be divined.
The traffic of the open streets--quack-doctors on their platforms with a
crowd of gaping dupes around them, mountebanks performing tricks, the
criers of stewed plums and sausages, fortune-tellers, itinerant
musicians, improvisatory poets bawling out their octave stanzas, cloaked
serenaders twangling mandolines--such motives may be found in fair
abundance among Longhi's genre-pieces. Nor does he altogether neglect
the country. Many of his pictures are devoted to hunting-parties,
riding-lessons, shooting and fishing, all the amusements of the Venetian
_villeggiatura_. Peasants lounging over their wine or pottage at a
rustic table are depicted with no less felicity than the beau and
coquette in their glory. The grimy interior of a village-tavern is
portrayed with the same gusto as a fine lady's gilt saloon.