_ILLUSTRATED BIOGRAPHIES OF
THE GREAT ARTISTS._
ANDREA MANTEGNA.
FRANCESCO RAIBOLINI,
CALLED
FRANCIA.
ILLUSTRATED BIOGRAPHIES OF THE GREAT ARTISTS.
_The following volumes, each illustrated with from 14 to 20 Engravings,
are now ready, price 3s. 6d._:—
_ITALIAN, &c._
GIOTTO. By HARRY QUILTER, M.A., Trinity College, Cambridge.
FRA ANGELICO. By CATHERINE MARY PHILLIMORE.
FRA BARTOLOMMEO. By LEADER SCOTT.
MANTEGNA AND FRANCIA. By JULIA CARTWRIGHT.
LEONARDO DA VINCI. By Dr. J. PAUL RICHTER.
MICHELANGELO. By CHARLES CLEMENT.
RAPHAEL. From J. D. PASSAVANT. By N. D’ANVERS.
TITIAN. By RICHARD FORD HEATH, M.A., Oxford.
TINTORETTO. By W. ROSCOE OSLER. From researches at Venice.
VELAZQUEZ. By EDWIN STOWE, B.A., Oxford.
VERNET AND DELAROCHE. By J. RUNTZ REES.
_TEUTONIC._
ALBRECHT DÜRER. By RICHARD FORD HEATH, M.A., Oxford.
HOLBEIN. From Dr. A. WOLTMANN. By JOSEPH CUNDALL.
THE LITTLE MASTERS OF GERMANY.* By W. B. SCOTT.
REMBRANDT. From CHARLES VOSMAER. By J. W. MOLLETT, B.A.
RUBENS. By C. W. KETT, M.A., Oxford.
VAN DYCK AND HALS. By PERCY R. HEAD, Lincoln College, Oxford.
FIGURE PAINTERS OF HOLLAND. By LORD RONALD GOWER, F.S.A.
_ENGLISH._
HOGARTH. By AUSTIN DOBSON.
REYNOLDS. By F. S. PULLING, M.A., Oxford.
GAINSBOROUGH. By G. M. BROCK-ARNOLD, M.A., Oxford.
TURNER. By W. COSMO MONKHOUSE.
WILKIE. By J. W. MOLLETT, B.A., Brasenose College, Oxford.
LANDSEER. By FREDERIC G. STEPHENS.
_The following volumes are in preparation_:—
CORREGGIO. By M. COMPTON HEATON.
CORNELIUS AND OVERBECK. By J. BEAVINGTON ATKINSON.
* An _Edition de luxe_, containing 14 extra plates from rare engravings
in the British Museum, and bound in Roxburgh style, may be had, price
10_s._ 6_d._
[Illustration: ANDREA MANTEGNA.
_From the bronze bust, attributed to Sperandio, in Sant’ Andrea, Mantua._]
“_The whole world without Art would be one great wilderness._”
MANTEGNA
AND
FRANCIA
BY JULIA CARTWRIGHT
AUTHOR OF “VARALLO AND HER PAINTER,” ETC.
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
SCRIBNER AND WELFORD
LONDON: SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON
1881
(_All rights reserved._)
PREFACE.
Although no separate biography of Mantegna has been published in England,
his life and works have been the subject of much study in other countries
during recent years. The thanks of the writer are especially due to
Dr. Woltmann, the author of the biography of the painter in Dr. Robert
Dohme’s “Kunst und Künstler,” to M. Armand Baschet, Canonico Willelmo
Braghirolli, and Dr. Karl Brun. It is to be hoped that before long the
last-named of these scholars will give the result of his researches to
the public in a complete work on this remarkable man, who was both one of
the greatest artists and one of the most striking personalities of the
Renaissance.
With regard to Francia, materials for the history of his life are far
less plentiful, and are to be found almost exclusively in the works of
Bolognese writers, of whom Malvasia and Calvi are the fullest and most
trustworthy. In offering this little work as a guide for the use of
those who have not the opportunity of studying the master’s works for
themselves the author has only to add that the pictures mentioned have
been carefully examined, and their descriptions written on the spot.
J. M. C.
[Illustration]
CONTENTS.
PAGE
MANTEGNA.
CHAPTER I.
EARLY YEARS AND WORK AT PADUA. A.D. 1431-1457 1
CHAPTER II.
WORK AT VERONA AND MANTUA. A.D. 1457-1470 12
CHAPTER III.
THE CAMERA DEGLI SPOSI. A.D. 1470-1474 21
CHAPTER IV.
WORK AT MANTUA AND ROME. ENGRAVINGS, A.D. 1474-1490 29
CHAPTER V.
THE TRIUMPHS OF JULIUS CÆSAR. DRAWINGS, A.D. 1490-1500 38
CHAPTER VI.
LAST WORKS AND DEATH—HIS INFLUENCE ON ART. A.D. 1500-1506 50
FRANCIA.
CHAPTER I.
EARLY ART IN BOLOGNA. A.D. 1300-1450 65
CHAPTER II.
EARLY LIFE AND WORKS. A.D. 1450-1500 75
CHAPTER III.
THE FRIENDSHIP AND INFLUENCE OF RAPHAEL. A.D. 1500-1506 86
CHAPTER IV.
THE FRESCOES OF ST. CECILIA’S CHAPEL. A.D. 1506-1509 94
CHAPTER V.
LAST WORKS AND DEATH. A.D. 1509-1517 102
THE PRINCIPAL WORKS OF MANTEGNA 109
THE PRINCIPAL WORKS OF FRANCIA 114
CHRONOLOGY 119
BIBLIOGRAPHY 121
INDEX 122
[Illustration]
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
MANTEGNA.
BUST PORTRAIT OF MANTEGNA _Frontispiece_
MEETING OF LODOVICO GONZAGA AND HIS SON, THE CARDINAL FRANCESCO 26
THE ENTOMBMENT (_engraving_) 35
JUDITH WITH THE HEAD OF HOLOFERNES (_drawing_) 37
PART OF THE TRIUMPHS OF JULIUS CÆSAR 42
THE MADONNA DELLA VITTORIA 46
VIRGIN AND CHILD WITH ST. JOHN AND THE MAGDALEN 48
THE CRUCIFIXION 58
FRANCIA.
PORTRAIT OF FRANCIA _Frontispiece_
THE VIRGIN ENTHRONED WITH SAINTS 80
MADONNA AND CHILD WITH THE BIRD 85
DEPOSITION FROM THE CROSS 89
A PIETÀ 91
THE MADONNA OF THE ROSE-GARDEN 101
[Illustration]
ANDREA MANTEGNA.
CHAPTER I.
EARLY YEARS AND WORK AT PADUA, A.D. 1431-1457.
Among the different schools of painting which flourished on the mainland
of North Italy during the fifteenth century, that of Padua was the only
one which attained more than a merely local importance. Independent of
Byzantine traditions and strikingly peculiar in its characteristics, it
rivalled for a time and even surpassed the Venetian school in the vigour
and individuality of its art.
A Paduan by birth, Andrea Mantegna became the greatest master of his
day, and left the stamp of his powerful genius not only on the schools
of neighbouring cities, but on the whole artistic world. By his own
achievements, and still more by the greatness of his aims, he stands
foremost among the men of his generation who carried on the work of the
Renaissance and prepared the way for the splendid age that was to follow.
This development was the more remarkable, because until the fifteenth
century we do not hear of a single Paduan artist of note. Giotto had left
the frescoes of the Arena Chapel within the walls of the “learned city,”
and Umbrian influences had later reached her students through Gentile
da Fabriano, but these seeds were slow in bearing fruit. The men who
painted in the famous basilica of Sant’ Antonio were mostly foreigners.
Jacopo d’Avanzo and Altichieri of Verona, Giusto of Florence, belonged to
other Italian cities, and although a Paduan guild existed and increased
steadily in numbers the results were poor, and the few works which
its members produced were feeble imitations of Giottesque or Umbrian
originals.
The first to raise Paduan art out of obscurity was Francesco Squarcione,
who, although “not the best of artists himself,” undoubtedly gave a new
direction to painting in his native city, and in a measure earned the
title of founder of the school, which has been liberally bestowed upon
him. Born in 1394, and by profession a tailor and embroiderer, Squarcione
early devoted himself to art, and having inherited some fortune from
his father, spent his youth in travelling both in Italy and Greece.[1]
During his travels he collected a considerable number of pictures, and
made drawings and took casts of ancient marbles, which on his return to
Padua he exhibited for the teaching of young artists. By these means he
soon obtained great reputation as a master, and as many as a hundred and
thirty-seven pupils, he himself tells us, were trained in his school.
A man of excellent judgment in art, but of slender powers of execution,
who knew how to attract talented pupils to his studio, and who
employed them in the production of works which bore his name, is the
universal verdict passed upon Squarcione by early writers. The truth
of this testimony is tolerably well proved by the curious difference
of style visible in the only two authentic works of his that remain,
an altar-piece in the gallery of Padua, and a Madonna painted for the
Lazzara family. The former is a coarse and unpleasant work, with the
hardness of line and heavy colouring that mark Zoppo and the inferior
Squarcionesques, while the latter in the dignity of its pose and careful
modelling bears evident traces of Mantegna’s hand. Squarcione no doubt
possessed a quick eye for discerning talent, and it is his lasting claim
on the gratitude of posterity that he at once saw and appreciated the
rising genius of the young Mantegna.
* * * * *
Andrea Mantegna, the greatest of Lombard masters, was born in the
neighbourhood of Padua in the year 1431. His father, Biagio, is supposed
to have been a small farmer, and Vasari tells us that in his childhood
Andrea herded cattle until Squarcione, struck by the boy’s talent for
drawing, adopted him as his own son.
In November, 1441, Mantegna’s name is entered on the registers of the
Paduan guild as Squarcione’s foster-child, and seven years later he
painted an altar-piece for the ancient church of Santa Sofia. Of this
youthful work contemporaries speak with high praise as bearing marks
of a practised hand, but it had already disappeared in the seventeenth
century, and the earliest painting of Mantegna that now exists is the
fresco above the portal of Sant’ Antonio. In this lunette, which bears
the date of 1452, the two saints Anthony and Bernardino are represented
supporting the sacred monogram; but the figures are too much damaged
to be a fair test of the young artist’s style, and the work is chiefly
interesting as a proof of the high reputation in which he was already
held by his fellow-citizens.
It is to the frescoes of St. Cristoforo’s chapel in the church of the
Eremitani friars that we must turn in order to form a correct idea
of Mantegna’s powers during this time. Here we see him carrying the
principles which he had learnt in Squarcione’s workshop to their furthest
limits, and with the boldness of genius venturing on new and untried
paths. Here too we find him painting side by side with the best of
Squarcione’s other pupils, and we have an opportunity of comparing his
work with that of artists who had been formed on the same models.
This chapel, which stands to the right of the high altar, at the east
end of the great Eremitani Church, belonged to the Ovetari family, whose
last representative, dying in 1443, had left a sum of seven hundred gold
ducats to be spent in decorating its walls with frescoes illustrating
the history of St. James and St. Christopher. Squarcione received the
commission from the dead man’s heir, and between the years 1448 and 1458,
the walls, apse, and ceiling were covered with frescoes by his different
pupils.
Thus, only a few steps from the garden which encloses Giotto’s Chapel,
another great series was painted, to become for the schools of North
Italy what the Brancacci Chapel had been for Florence.
Less fortunate than the celebrated frescoes of the Carmine, these
paintings have suffered much from the damp of the walls, and a great
part of the subjects in the apse, as well as several figures in the
martyrdom and burial of St. Christopher, are completely destroyed. Other
portions are still in good preservation, and afford excellent examples
of the peculiarities of the Paduan school and the studies which laid the
foundation of Mantegna’s subsequent greatness.
The leading feature which marks the work of all Squarcione’s scholars,
and was to attain its highest artistic development in Mantegna’s later
conceptions, is the sculptural treatment of form, which was a direct
result of an exclusive study of ancient statues. Painting in their hands
becomes more plastic than pictorial, the forms are sharply defined,
the drapery falls in the small folds of ancient bas-relief, while the
severity of the whole is relieved by rich decorations in the shape of
festoons of fruit and foliage, which, when unskilfully managed, give a
heavy and over-loaded effect. This plastic tendency sprang from the
discovery, then first dawning upon the men of the Renaissance, that the
principles of the highest art are to be found in the antique, and was
so far as it went true and laudable in its aim. But in the case of the
Squarcionesques this study of classic statuary was not combined with
sufficient knowledge of nature, and, therefore, frequently degenerated
into a lifeless rigidity and absence of expression, if not into positive
ugliness and coarseness of form.
This stiffness and want of vitality strike us at once in the four
Evangelists on the ceiling of the chapel, wrongly ascribed by Vasari to
Mantegna, and in the upper frescoes of St. Christopher’s life, attributed
to three different artists—Marco Zoppo, Bono of Ferrara, and Ansuino of
Forli. These last-named subjects are not without a considerable degree
of skill in perspective and composition, but are alike marked by the
same rigidity of form and metallic coldness of colouring. The feeblest
of the three is Bono’s representation of St. Christopher bearing the
child through the river, a work which, in awkwardness, incorrect drawing
and truly painful ugliness, seems to exaggerate the worst faults of the
Paduan school.
On the other hand there is a decided advance in the frescoes of Niccolo
Pizzolo, the only one of the Squarcionesques who approached Mantegna’s
style, and whose improved colouring and greater nobleness of type are
best explained by the discovery that he had worked with the Florentines,
Donatello and Filippo Lippi, during their residence in Padua. To him
Vasari ascribes the figure of the Eternal between St. Peter and St.
Paul on the dome of the tribune, and later critics have recognised his
hand in the “Call of St. James and St. John” and “St. James exorcising
Devils” on the upper part of the left wall. But the finest of all his
works here is “The Assumption,” in the apse, a fresco which in joyous
life and freedom of movement so far surpasses the ordinary manner of the
Paduans that one of the best critics, Dr. Woltmann, pronounces it to be
by Mantegna’s hand. Against this we have the testimony of the anonymous
traveller of the sixteenth century, who says decidedly that Andrea
painted the lower part of the right and the whole of the left wall, but
that “The Assumption” and cupola are by Pizzolo. Vasari is silent on this
point, but remarks that Pizzolo’s works in this chapel yielded nothing
in excellence to those of Andrea, and probably the best solution of the
question is to accept both “The Assumption” and the upper frescoes of St.
James’s life as the joint composition of the two artists, or at least to
allow that they were partly designed by Mantegna.
In the midst of Pizzolo’s labours in the Eremitani Chapel his promising
career was cut short by a violent end. He had, it appears, an unlucky
habit of taking part in street brawls and riots, and one evening as
he was returning home from his work he was attacked and slain by some
unknown persons whose enmity he had excited.
Mantegna was now left alone to complete the unfinished work, and whatever
uncertainty rests on his share in the earlier frescoes there is no doubt
that the six remaining subjects are entirely by his hand. In each of
these we see some clearer revelation of unfolding powers. Step by step
some fresh difficulty is overcome, some new knowledge gained, until
by slow degrees the battle is won, and the mastery over human form is
complete.
In the fresco of “St. James baptizing Converts” the statuesque air of
Squarcione’s school is still strongly felt in the principal figures. The
action is stiff, and the faces are mostly wanting in expression. But
the spectators of the ceremony are, on the contrary, full of life and
animation. Nothing can be more natural than the two children who look on
with wondering eyes—the taller of the two holding a water-melon in his
hand, while the smaller one presses close to his side—or the youth under
the colonnade in the act of turning round to speak to a figure whose face
is concealed by a pillar. If from these we turn to the decorative part of
the fresco, the winged angels in the upper corners at once remind us of
the charming groups of children on Donatello’s bronzes in Sant’ Antonio,
and prove how attentively Mantegna must have studied these recently
finished works of the Florentine master. The beneficial influence of
the great sculptor had already appeared in the earlier frescoes of the
Eremitani, and from his example Andrea now learnt how to combine the
study of nature with sculptural treatment, and to adopt a more elevated
type of human form.
The next subject, “St. James before Herod,” reveals a new feature,
afterwards to become prominent in his career, in the accurate knowledge
of Roman costumes and classical architecture which is here displayed. One
of the finest figures is that of a soldier leaning on his lance in the
left-hand corner of the picture, an ancient Roman, in whom we recognise
immediately the painter’s own portrait, from the close resemblance
which his strongly marked features and massive brow bear to the bust on
Andrea’s tomb at Mantua. Both of these frescoes show considerable skill
in perspective, but in the next, “St. James blessing a kneeling Disciple
on his way to Execution,” Mantegna boldly ventures on an experiment
that is altogether new. For no apparent reason, but purely as a trial
of skill, he suddenly alters the point of sight to a low level, and
while the feet of the foremost figures appear to stand on the edge of
the picture the lower extremities of those in the background vanish
altogether. The difficulties thus created are on the whole correctly
solved. Each figure is carefully foreshortened, and the Roman arch under
which the procession passes is drawn in admirable perspective, but
freedom of action is impaired, and the whole suffers from an unpleasant
sense of effort and unnatural constraint. Perspective was in those days
a favourite branch of learning in the University of Padua, and Mantegna,
whose vigorous genius took pleasure in the driest studies, seems to have
derived this strange passion for applying its laws to the human form from
Paolo Uccelli, a Florentine who had lately visited Padua. In his ardour
to accomplish his self-imposed task he failed to see the mistake of
subjecting living figures to the rules of architecture, and of treating
them as existing solely in order to demonstrate a scientific problem.
But at the time the young painter’s exhibition of skill excited the
utmost admiration, and both Daniele Barbaro and Lomazzo praise him as the
first artist who opened men’s eyes to the true principles of perspective.
If we are to believe Vasari, Squarcione, who till now had been as proud
of his pupil’s growing fame as if it were his own, suddenly altered his
tone and openly blamed Mantegna for the stony rigidity of his figures,
declaring that they were mere copies of marble statues, altogether devoid
of life and expression.
The reproach, although not wholly undeserved, was a curious one in
Squarcione’s lips, but the real cause of the breach which took place
between the master and scholar was Andrea’s connection with the rival
workshop of Jacopo Bellini. The Venetian painter, with his two sons,
Gentile and Giovanni, had lately taken up his abode at Padua, and a
strong friendship had sprung up between Mantegna and the members of his
family which before long led to the marriage of the young Paduan with
Jacopo’s daughter Niccolosia. Their union took place while Mantegna
was actually engaged on the Eremitani frescoes—probably about 1454 or
1455, since in 1458 he had already two or three children—and becomes an
important fact in art history as strengthening the ties between these
distinguished artists. The influence each was to exercise on the other
was destined to prove great and lasting. Jacopo Bellini, who had spent
some time in Florence, was probably instrumental in leading Mantegna to
follow Donatello and Uccelli’s models, while from Giovanni, Andrea would
learn the softer colouring and delicate feeling that impart so pure a
charm to those well-known Madonnas which fill the churches of Venice.
Mantegna, on his part, gave back at least as much as he took, and no
one can doubt that Gian Bellini owed to his brother-in-law in a great
measure his knowledge of classical architecture and perspective, as well
as the sculptural cast of drapery, that distinguish his pictures from
those of earlier Venetian masters. In all probability this new influence,
rather than Squarcione’s jealous reproaches, was the cause of the marked
improvement visible in the later frescoes. The principal figures in the
“Execution of St. James” are more life-like; there is less hardness in
the modelling and laying on of shadows, while the background, with its
winding road and rocky terraces crowned with olive-trees, is an exact
copy of a Lombard hill-side. Nothing, indeed, is more striking in these
frescoes than the close attention to natural objects, which shows how
strongly realistic was the bent of our painter’s genius, in spite of his
Squarcionesque training and love of antique statuary. He not only fills
his backgrounds with faithful reproductions of Italian landscape and
streets, with red roofs, arched loggias, or vine-trellised arbours, but
recalls every detail and renders the furrows and wrinkles of old age, the
ragged coat or torn shoe, with an accuracy that is almost painful.
The eagerness with which he sought difficulties and his courage in
grappling with them meet us again in the foreshortened rider who looks
on at the Saint’s martyrdom, and is still more triumphant in the bold
action of the men who drag away the dead body of the giant Christopher,
in itself a masterpiece of perspective which served as a model for Titian
and other Venetians in dealing with similar subjects in future years.
Unfortunately these two last frescoes, “The Martyrdom” and “Burial of
St. Christopher,” are much injured, and some of the chief figures are
completely obliterated. The portions that remain justify the praises of
former critics who pronounced these to be the finest of the whole series.
Here at least Squarcione’s reproach is refuted, the stony look of the
faces has given place to warm flesh-tones and softer modelling, and the
band of archers assembled under the vine-trellis in the scene where the
saint is to meet his doom are remarkable for their energetic action and
expressive faces.
According to Yasari, in this last subject, Mantegna represented
Squarcione himself in the character of a fat archer, as a proof that he
knew how to draw from living models, and the same writer mentions several
other contemporary personages whose portraits are also introduced.
Especially interesting in our eyes is the group, in the right-hand corner
of “The Martyrdom,” of an elderly man standing between two younger
figures, one of whom wears a red cap. The Venetian costume of these three
spectators, and a certain resemblance of one of the youthful heads to
a medal bearing the likeness of Gentile Bellini, go far to confirm the
truth of Crowe and Cavalcaselle’s supposition that here we have portraits
of Mantegna’s father and brothers-in-law, who were all in Padua at the
time, and whom he would very naturally introduce among his other friends.
With these frescoes Andrea’s labours in the church of the Eremitani end,
and the decoration of the chapel, with which Squarcione’s pupils had been
intrusted some ten years before, was finally completed.
If from details of execution we pass to consider the work as a whole, it
must be owned that the general impression left upon the spectator’s mind
is one of coldness and severity. These stern and vigorous figures which
look down upon us from the walls awe us by the power and reality of their
presence; they impress us by the accurate science and years of assiduous
labour which they reveal, but they fail to touch the heart or delight the
eye; they are wanting in that sense of beauty which, is so conspicuous
a feature in Mantegna’s later work. If he had painted nothing else he
would have left behind him the reputation of a master of strong realistic
tendency, who solved difficult problems and attained a remarkable degree
of proficiency in drawing and anatomy, but lacked the qualities necessary
for the highest class of art.
Fortunately for us Mantegna’s activity does not end here. The frescoes
of the Eremitani were only the first stage in a great career, and as
we contemplate them we can always reflect with satisfaction that these
powerful works, in their grimness and austere dignity, in their curious
display of scientific knowledge and minute attention to detail, were the
preliminary studies, by means of which he reached the perfection of after
years, and achieved the ultimate successes that were to make his name
celebrated.
[Illustration]