ornamentation. One looks first at the exquisite workmanship; and
afterwards are noticed the precious materials, which form a
subordinate part and do not interfere with the design. It is almost as
though a veil had been swept over the whole building, both inside and
out, bringing together this wealth of colour and forming it into a
complete whole. It has the effect of a marvellous glaze--of a picture
that has had a thin glaze swept over it. Wherever you look, the Church
teems with colour; but it seems to be piercing through a veil. It is
not vivid positive colour, but colour breaking through a skin. In the
East I have seen millions of pounds' worth of jewels in one heap,
with the sun shining on them, and I was overpowered with this wealth,
I was inspired with their costliness;--but St. Mark's does not affect
you at all in this way. Rich man and peasant are alike in this
respect: they are elevated and stimulated in that building, not
because of its costliness, but because of its extreme beauty. The
technique is marvellous, but not obvious: the moment you are conscious
of technique you may be sure that the work is poor. You never wonder
how St. Mark's was built; and that is the highest tribute to the
marvellous arts which it expresses.
[Illustration: SCUOLA DI SAN MARCO]
[Illustration: A QUIET WATERWAY]
PAINTERS OF THE RENAISSANCE
One of the chief characteristics of the Venetian school of painters,
and one of the most attractive to all art lovers, is their great
appreciation of colour. In most of their work colour seems to be the
chief motive. Pictures by Venetian painters never suggest drawings.
They strike you not as having been coloured afterwards, but as having
been painted essentially for the colour. One sees this throughout the
whole school. And in their paintings they do not go to extremes. There
is no exaggeration in their colouring. They do not err, as do so many
schools, either on the foxy-red side or on the cold steely colouring.
Unfortunately, much of the beautiful colouring of these pictures is
lost by age. One has to become accustomed to that ugly brown skin
which has formed upon the surface before one can realise what great
colourists these early Venetians really were. The pictures somehow
cause one to resent oil as a medium. One realises how different they
must have looked when fresh from the easel, and wishes that these
great masters could have painted with a medium more lasting--as did
the Chinese, whose works are as young and fresh now as if they had
been painted yesterday: the years have left no trace whatever: the
simple colouring is the same to-day as it was a hundred years ago.
Many of the earlier paintings, those of the Gothic Venetians, the
less-known men, are a good deal better preserved. Their canvasses have
not turned black; the glazings have not departed; and there is no
smoky film upon them, as in the case of the works of the great
masters, such as Titian, Tintoretto, and Giovanni Bellini, men who
came a hundred years afterwards. It may very possibly be that the
pigment which painters used then was purer and less adulterated.
Certainly one sees in the various schools all over the world that the
older the pictures are the better preserved they are. Age never
improves a picture--unless, indeed, it is an extremely bad one, when
time serves as a thin veil.
[Illustration: CANAL PRIULI]
Undoubtedly these great colourists, the Venetians, influenced the
various schools of painters all over the world, and are still
influencing them. Originally they worked for the churches, and colour
was used exactly as music was used--to appeal to the senses, to the
emotions: to influence the people, to teach them biblical stories and
parables. It also educated the people to understand painting and to
feel the need of it in their daily lives.
At about this time the Renaissance began to express itself, not only
in poetry and other literature, but also in paintings; and it found
clearer utterance in Venice than elsewhere. The conditions at this
time were perfect for the development of art. Venice at that period
lent herself to art. She was at peace with the whole world, and she
was prosperous. The people were joyous, gay, and light-hearted. They
longed for everything that made life pleasant. Naturally, they wanted
colour. And Venice was not affected by that wave of science which
swept over the rest of Italy. The Venetians were not at all absorbed
in literature and archæology. They wanted merely to be joyous. This
was an ideal atmosphere for the painter. Such a condition of things
could not but create a fine artistic period. The painter is not
concerned with science and learning, or should not be. Such a
condition of mind would result in feeble, academical work--in
struggling to tell a story with his medium, instead of producing a
beautiful design. That is partly why the Venetian school has had such
a strong influence on art, even until the present day. The conditions
were perfect for the development of art, because the patrons were
capable of appreciating beautiful form and beautiful colour. Because
the public would have it, this new school of painters appeared. The
demand was created, and the supply came.
There was undoubtedly great friction among the painters of this
period, exactly as there has been lately with the modern
impressionists and the academic painters. Some of the old Venetians
resented the new school that was springing up; but they had eventually
to bend and try to paint in sympathy with the senses and emotion of
their patrons. You find this new mode of thought expressed strongly
even in the churches and in the treatment of religious subjects. The
old ideals were altered. Men no longer painted saints and Madonnas as
mild, attenuated people. The figures were lifelike and full of
actuality. The women were Venetian women of the period dressed in
splendid robes and dignified; the men were healthy, full-blooded, and
joyous. Florence, however, at this particular period was undergoing
quite a different mood. The Florentines preferred to express
themselves in poetry and in prose. That was the language the masses
understood. Painting was not popular. There has always been a literary
atmosphere about Florence, and one feels it there to this day; it is
essentially the city for the student.
When painting became so much a vogue in Venice, painters began to try
and perfect the art in every possible way. They struggled for
actuality. Art began to develop in the direction of realism. The
Venetians wanted form and colour in their pictures; but they wanted
also a suggestion of distance and atmosphere. In those early pictures
you find that painters smeared their distance to give it a blurred
look. That was the beginning of perspective. Painters of this period
seem to have been marvellously modern. They were quite in the
movement. There has never been any attempt at harking back to earlier
periods.
Venice was very wealthy at this time, and Venetian people never missed
an opportunity of parading wealth. They loved glory where the State
was concerned, and encouraged pageantry by both land and sea. They
loved to see Doge and senators in their gorgeous robes, either on the
piazza or on the Grand Canal. Then there came a demand for painted
records of these processions and ceremonials. All this was encouraged
by the State for political reasons. Pageantry entertained the people,
and at the same time made them less inquisitive. Much better, these
great officials argued, that the people should be enjoying things in
this way than that they should begin to inquire into the doings of the
State. Gentile Bellini and Carpaccio were the first pageant painters
of the period. Paolo Veronese, who came much later, also loved
pageantry, elevated it to the height of serious art, and idealised
prosaic magnificence. He painted great banquets, and combined
ceremony, splendour, and worldliness with childlike naturalness and
simplicity.
[Illustration: OSMARIN CANAL]
First of all, as has been shown, it was the Church that called for
pictures--to represent their saints and to enforce biblical legends.
Painting became more and more popular. People became more and more
educated to understand painting, until at last they wanted their
domestic and social lives depicted. Also they wanted to hang these
pictures in their homes. Pictures were neither so rare nor so
expensive in those days as they are now, and people could afford to
buy them--even the lower and the middle classes. Immediately there
sprang up painters who satisfied the demand. In those days there were
no academies and no salons wherein artists fought to outdo one another
as to the size and eccentricity of their pictures; there were no
vulgar struggles of that kind. Painters simply supplied to the best of
their ability the wants of the people. Naturally, the public required
small pictures, suitable to the size of their houses. Therefore, they
needed gay and beautiful colour, and pictures in which the subjects
did not obtrude themselves forcibly. Thus, in the natural course of
events pageantry found less favour, and pictures of social and
domestic life found more. Religious subjects were rather deserted. By
the aid of books people could learn all the stories of the Bible.
Besides, they were not at that period in a devotional or contrite
mood. They were too happy and full of life to feel any pressing need
for religion.
Painting took much the same position with the Venetians as music has
with us now. The fashion for triumphal marches and the clashing of
cymbals in processional pictures had died out, and the vogue of
symphonies and sonatas had come in. No one at that time seemed quite
capable of satisfying the public taste. Carpaccio, whose subtle yet
brilliant colouring would have exactly suited it, never undertook
these subjects. Giovanni Bellini attempted them; but his style was too
severe for the gaiety of the period.
However, there was not long to wait. Soon appeared a man who told the
public what they wanted and gave it to them. He swept away conventions
and revolutionised art all over the world. He was a genius--Giorgione.
Pupil of Bellini and Carpaccio, he combined the qualities of both.
When he was quite a youth painters all over the world followed his
methods. Curiously enough, there are not a dozen of this great
master's works preserved at the present day. The bulk of them were
frescoes which long ago disappeared. The few that remain are quite
enough to make one realise what a great master he was. The picture
which most appeals to me is an altar-piece of the Virgin and Child at
Castelfranco. It is painted in the pure Giorgione spirit. St. George
in armour is at one side, resting on a spear which seems to be coming
right out of the picture; while on the other side there is a monk, and
in the background are a banner of rich brocade and a small landscape.
The Renaissance, the rejuvenation of art, seems to have slowly
developed until at length it culminated in Giorgione. He was the man
who opened the door, the one great modern genius of his period, whose
influence remains and is felt to this day. Velasquez would never have
been known but for Giorgione. Imagine this young man with his new
ideas and his sweeps of golden colouring suddenly appearing in a
studio full of men, all painting in the correct severe style
established at the period. Such a man must needs influence all his
fellows. Even Giovanni Bellini, the Watts of his day, acknowledged the
young man's genius, and almost unconsciously began to mingle
Giorgione's style with his own. We cannot realise what they meant at
that period--these new ideas of Giorgione. He created just as much of
a "furore" as when Benvenuto Cellini, in his sculpture, allowed a limb
to hang over the edge of a pedestal. He needed this to complete his
design. Since then almost everyone that has modelled has hung a limb
over a pedestal. But Benvenuto Cellini started this new era. So, in
much the same sort of way, did Giorgione. He cut away from convention,
and introduced landscape as backgrounds to his figure subjects. He
was the first to get actuality and movement in the arrangement of
drapery. The Venetian public had long been waiting, though
unconsciously, for this work; and Giorgione was so well in touch with
the needs of the people that the moment he gave them what they wanted
they would take nothing else.
In the work of Giorgione the Renaissance finds its most genuine
expression. It is the Renaissance at its height. Both Giorgione and
Titian were village boys brought to Venice by their parents and placed
under the care of Giovanni Bellini to learn art. They must have been
of very much the same age. It is interesting to watch the career of
these boys--the two different natures--the impulsiveness of the one
and the plodding perseverance of the other. Giorgione shot like a
meteor early and bright into the world of art, scattering the clouds
in the firmament, bold, crowding the work and the pleasure of a
lifetime in a few short years. His work was a delight to him, and life
itself was full of everything that was beautiful. He was surrounded
always by a multitude of admiring comrades, imitating him and urging
him on. Giorgione was ever restless and impetuous by nature. When
commissions flagged and he had no particular work in hand, he took to
painting the outside of his own house. He cared not a whit for
convention. He followed his own tastes and his own feelings. He
converted his home into a glow of crimson and gold,--great forms
starting up along the walls, sweet cherub boys, fables of Greece and
Rome,--a dazzling confusion of brilliant tints and images. Think how
this palace must have appeared reflected in the waters of the Canal!
Unfortunately, the sun and the wind fought with this masterly canvas,
conquered, and bore all these beautiful things away. Indeed, many of
Giorgione's works were frescoes, and the sea air swept away much of
the glory of his life. His career was brief but gay, full of work and
full of colour. This impetuous painter died in the very heyday of his
success. Some say he died of grief at being deserted by a lady whom he
loved; others that he caught the plague.
[Illustration: A SOTTO PORTICO]
Of what a different nature was Titian! He studied in the same bottega
as Giorgione, and was brought up under much the same conditions. But
he was a patient worker, absorbing the knowledge of everyone about
him, ever learning and experimenting; never completing. He did not
think of striking off on a new line, of executing bold and original
work. He wanted to master not one side of painting but all sides. He
waited until his knowledge should be complete before he declared
himself, before he really accomplished anything. He absorbed the new
principles of his comrade Giorgione, as he absorbed everything else
that was good, with unerring instinct and steady power. Titian was
never led away in any one direction. He was always open to any new
suggestion. As it happened, it was just as well that Titian worked
thus at his leisure, and Giorgione with haste and fever. Titian had
ninety-nine years to live; Giorgione had but thirty-four. There is an
interesting anecdote told by Vasari with regard to these two young
men. They were both at work on the painting of a large building, the
Fondaco dei Tedeschi; Titian painting the wall facing the street, and
Giorgione the side towards the canal. Several gentlemen, not knowing
which was the particular work of either artist, went one day to
inspect the building, and declared that the wall facing the Merceria
far excelled in beauty that of the river front. Giorgione was so
indignant at this slight that he declared that he would neither see
nor speak to Titian again.
Titian does not seem to have been very much appreciated by his
patrons at the beginning of his career. He inspired no affection. He
was acknowledged as the greatest of all the young painters; but the
Republic, it would seem, was never very proud of the man who did her
so much credit and added so greatly to her fame. Even although the
noise of his genius was echoed all over the world,--although the great
Emperor himself stooped to pick up his brush, declaring that a Titian
might well be served by a Cæsar,--although Charles the Fifth sat to
him repeatedly, and maintained that he was the only painter whom he
would care to honour,--the Venetians do not seem to have been greatly
enamoured of him. Perhaps it was that they missed the soul, the purity
and grace and devotion, of the pictures of Bellini and Carpaccio.
Certainly, as far as one can judge, he did not have a prepossessing
nature. He was shifty in his dealings with his patrons and unfaithful
in his promises. He seems to have belonged to a corrupt and luxurious
society. Pietro Aretino had a very bad influence on Titian. He taught
him to intrigue, to flatter, to betray. Aretino was a base-born
adventurer for whom no historian seems to have a good word. He was,
however, a man of wit and dazzling cleverness, with a touch of real
genius. Aretino corresponded with all the most cultured men of his
time, and he had the power of making those whom he chose famous. It
was he who introduced Titian to Charles the Fifth.
Titian's pictures were much more saleable in foreign courts than in
his own country. Abroad they did not seem to have the lack of soul
which the Venetians so greatly deplored. It was the old case of the
prophet having no honour in his own country. Certainly in the art of
portraiture Titian has never been surpassed. At that period he had the
field completely to himself. Nothing could have been more magnificent
than Titian's portraits. They help to record the history of the age.
It was in Titian's power to confer upon his subjects the splendour
that they loved, handing them down to posterity as heroes and learned
persons. His men were all noble, worthy to be senators and emperors,
no coxcombs or foolish gallants. Titian was more at home in pictures
of this kind than in religious subjects. His Madonnas are without
significance; his Holy Families give no message of blessing to the
world.
In the prime of his life he moved from his workshops to a noble and
luxurious palace in San Cassiano, facing the wide lagoon and the
islands. All trace of it has disappeared, and homes of the poor cover
the garden where the best company of Venice was once entertained. It
is said that Titian gave the gayest parties and suppers--that he
entertained the most regal guests. Nevertheless, although made a
knight and a count, and a favourite at most of the courts in Europe,
he was greatly disliked by the Venetian Signoria, who in the midst of
his famous supper-parties called upon him to demand that he should
execute a certain work for which he had received the money long
before. He seems to have been exceedingly grasping--a strange trait in
the character of a painter. One sees throughout his correspondence,
until the end of his life, a certain desire and demand for money.
Undoubtedly he often painted merely for money alone, turning out a
sacred picture one day and a Venus the next with equal impartiality.
Anything, it was said, could have been got out of Titian for money.
The Venetians never loved Titian's works, though foreign princes
adored them. He seems to have laboured, until the end of his life,
more from love of gain than from necessity. He was buried at the
Frari, carried thither in great haste by order of the Signoria,--for
it was at the time of the plague, when other victims were taken to
the outlying islands and put in the earth unnamed.
Somehow, in reading the life of Titian one is brought right away to
the twentieth century. Here is the painter with the attendant
journalist, Pietro Aretino, the boomer. Aretino was a journalist, the
first. He took Titian in hand and "ran" him for all he was worth. Had
it not been for this system of booming, Titian would probably not have
been well known during his lifetime. In the Academy of the Fine Arts
one can trace by his pictures a splendid historical record of Titian's
life, and can see plainly the changes in popular feeling and their
effect upon his work. For very many years he lived and painted
constantly, and then was killed by the plague!
There is a picture painted by him when he was fourteen years of age--a
picture which contains all the qualities, in the germ, of his later
work: marvellous architecture, pomp, yet great simplicity and luminous
colour. Here also is the last picture he ever painted--at the age of
ninety-nine. Think of the interval between the two! It is sombre,
pious. There is something pathetic about it. This great painter, whose
work showed such fury, audacity, vehemence,--the man who had
always the sun on his palette--was now painting mildly, carefully,
obviously with the shadow of approaching death upon him.
[Illustration: A NARROW CANAL]
A marvellous picture by Titian hangs in the Academy of the Fine Arts.
It is considered to be one of his finest pictures--the masterpiece of
all his masterpieces--the eye of the peacock, as it were. This picture
was neglected for many years, hidden away in an obscure portion of a
church, and covered with a thick layer of cobwebs and dust. The
custodian had almost forgotten the subject of the picture and the name
of the painter. One day a certain Count Cicogna happened to visit the
church. Being a great connoisseur and lover of art, he noticed this
picture, and could not resist moistening his finger and rubbing it
over a portion of the canvas. To his amazement, this portion emerged
young and fresh, and as highly coloured as when it left the painter's
hands--a picture bearing upon it the unmistakable stamp of Titian's
genius! The delight of the Count can be imagined. He suggested to the
custodian, with great care and tact, that he would present to the
church a bran-new glossy picture, very large, of some religious
subject; and mentioned in a casual way that they might give him the
dilapidated old picture as a slight return. This was the Assunta. It
was painted for the church of the Frari. Fra Marco Jerman, the head of
the convent, ordered it at his own expense. Many a time when the work
was in progress he and all the ignorant brethren visited the painter's
studio and criticised his picture, grumbling and shaking their heads,
and wondering whether it would be good enough to be accepted, whether
it would be sneered at when uncovered before all Venice. They
undoubtedly thought that they had done a rash thing in engaging him.
Think of the agony of Titian, hindered by these ignorant men, being
forced to explain elaborately that the figures were not too large,
that they must needs be in proportion to the space! It was not until
the envoy of the Emperor had seen the picture and declared it to be a
masterpiece, offering a large sum of money for its purchase, that the
Frari understood its value, and decided that, as the buying and
selling of pictures was not in their profession, they had better keep
it.
[Illustration: BRIDGE NEAR THE PALAZZO LABIA]