one. The principal works dating from this epoch begin, according to the
order of merit, with the window of the Cathedral of Mans, which
represents Yolande[31] of Aragon, and Louis II., King of Naples and
Sicily, ancestors of the good King René; after them we shall place the
windows of the Sainte-Chapelle, Riom; St. Vincent, Rouen; the Cathedral
of Tours; and that of Bourges, representing a memorial of Jacques Cœur,
&c.
The sixteenth century, although bringing with it, owing to religious
troubles, many ravages of new iconoclasts, has handed down to us a
variety of numerous and remarkable church-windows. We are, of course,
unable to mention them all; but it seems expedient--adopting the rule of
most archæologists--to divide them into three branches or schools, which
are actually formed by the different styles of the artists of that
epoch; the French school, the German school, and the Lorraine school
(Fig. 235), which partakes of the characteristics of the two preceding.
[Illustration: Fig. 235.--Allegorical Window, representing the “Citadel
of Pallas.” (Lorraine work of the Sixteenth Century, preserved in the
Library at Strasbourg.)]
At the head of the French school figures the celebrated Jean Cousin, who
decorated the chapel of Vincennes; he also made for the Célestins
monastery, Paris, a representation of Calvary; for St. Gervais, in
1587, the windows representing the “Martyrdom of St. Lawrence,” the
“Samaritan conversing with Christ,” and the “Paralytic.” In these works,
which belong to a high style of painting, the best method of
arrangement, vigorous drawing, and powerful colouring, seem to reflect
the work of Raphael. Windows in “_grisaille_,” made from the cartoons of
Jean Cousin, also decorated the Castle of Anet.
Another artist, named Robert Pinaigrier, who, although inferior to
Cousin, was much more fertile in production, assisted by his sons Jean,
Nicholas, and Louis, and several of his pupils, executed a number of
windows for the churches of Paris, of which the greater part have
disappeared: Saint-Jacques la Boucherie, the Madeleine, Sainte-Croix en
la Cité, Saint Barthélemy, &c. Magnificent specimens of his work still
remain at Saint-Merry, Saint-Gervais, Saint-Etienne du Mont, and in the
Cathedral of Chartres. Pinaigrier’s works in the decorations of châteaux
and the mansions of the nobility are perhaps equally numerous.
At this period several windows were made from the drawings of Raphael,
Leonardo da Vinci, and Parmigiano; it may also be remarked that two
patterns of the latter’s work were used by Bernard Palissy, who was a
glass-maker before he became an enameller, in forming windows in
“_grisaille_” for the chapel of the Château of Ecouen. For the same
place, following the style of Raphael, and from the drawings of Rosso,
called _Maître Roux_, Bernard Palissy executed thirty pictures on glass,
representing the history of Psyche, which are justly considered as
ranking among the most beautiful compositions of the epoch; but it is
not now known what has become of these valuable windows, which at the
Revolution were transported to the Museum of French Monuments.
They were, it is said, executed under the direction of Leonard of
Limoges, who, like all the masters of that school (Fig. 236), applied to
painting on glass the processes of enamelling, and _vice versâ_. In the
collections of the Louvre and of several amateurs, there are still
examples of his composition, on which he employed the best
glass-painters of his time; for he could not himself work on all the
objects that proceeded from his studios, and which were almost
exclusively destined for the king’s palace.
The French art of glass-working became cosmopolitan. It was introduced
into Spain and also into the Low Countries under the protection of
Charles V. and the Duke of Alba. It even appears to have crossed the
Alps; for we know that in 1512 a glass-painter of the name of Claude
adorned with his works the large windows of the Vatican; and Julius II.
summoned Guillaume of Marseilles to the Eternal City, the pontiff when
occupying the sees of Carpentras and Avignon having appreciated his
talent. We must not omit to mention, among the Flemish artists who
escaped this foreign influence, the name of Dirk of Haarlem (Fig. 237),
the most celebrated master in this art at the close of the fifteenth
century.
[Illustration: Fig. 236.--St. Paul, an Enamel of Limoges, by Etienne
Mercier.]
While French art was thus spreading over the continent, foreign art
[Illustration: Fig. 237.--Flemish Window (Fifteenth Century), half
life-size. Painted in Monochrome, relieved with yellow, by Dirk of
Haarlem. (Collection of M. Benoni-Verhelst, Ghent.)]
was being introduced into France. Albert Dürer employed his pencil in
painting twenty windows in the church of the Old Temple, in Paris, and
produced a collection of pictures characterised by vigorous drawing, and
warm and intense colouring. The celebrated German did not work
alone--other artists assisted him; and, notwithstanding the devastations
which took place during the Revolution, in many a church and mansion
traces of these skilful masters may still be found; their compositions,
which are generally as well arranged as they are executed, are marked
with a tinge of German simplicity very suitable to the pious nature of
the subjects they represent.
In 1600, Nicholas Pinaigrier placed in the windows of the Castle of La
Briffe seven pictures in “_grisaille_,” copied from the designs of
Francis Floris, a Flemish master, who was born in 1520. At this same
period Van Haeck, Herreyn, John Dox, and Pelgrin Rösen, all belonging to
the school of Antwerp, and other artists who had decorated the windows
of most of the churches in Belgium, especially St. Gudule in Brussels,
influenced either directly or indirectly the glass-painters of the east
and north of France. Another group of artists, the Provençals, imitators
of the Italian style, or rather perhaps inspired by the same luminary,
the sun of Michael Angelo, trod a similar path to that which Jean
Cousin, Pinaigrier, and Palissy had followed with so much renown. The
chiefs of this school were Claude, and Guillaume of Marseilles, who, as
we have just mentioned, carried their talent and their works into Italy,
where they succeeded in educating some clever pupils.
With regard to the school of Messin or Lorraine, it is principally
represented by a disciple of Michael Angelo, Valentin Bousch, the
Alsatian, who died in 1541 at Metz, where he had executed, since 1521,
an immense number of works. The windows of the churches of St. Barbe,
St. Nicolas du Port, Autrey, and Flavigny-sur-Moselle, are due to the
same school, in which Israel Henriet was also brought up; he became the
chief of a school exclusively belonging to Lorraine, at the time when
Charles III. had invited the arts to unite under the patronage of the
ducal throne. Thierry Alix, in a “Description inédite de la Lorraine,”
written in 1590, and mentioned by M. Bégin, speaks of “large plates of
glass of all colours,” made in his time in the mountains of Vosges,
where “all the herbs and other things necessary to painting” were found.
M. Bégin, after having quoted this curious statement, adds that the
windows which at that era were produced in the studios of Vosges, and
subsequently carried to all parts of Europe, constituted a very active
branch of commerce.
“Nevertheless,” says Champollion-Figeac, “art was declining. Christian
art especially was disappearing, and had almost come to an end, when
Protestantism stepped in and gave it the last blow; this is proved by
the window in the cathedral church of Berne, in which the artist,
Frederic
“FRANCIS I. AND ELEANOR HIS WIFE AT PRAYERS.”
PART OF A WINDOW IN THE CHURCH OF ST. GUDULE IN BRUSSELS. FROM
“L’HISTOIRE DE LA PEINTURE SUR VERRE EN EUROPE.”
This magnificent window was given to the Church of St. Gudule by
Francis I. and Eleanor of Spain, his wife, sister of Charles V.,
and widow by her first marriage of Emmanuel the Great, King of
Portugal.
The donors are represented kneeling, each one protected by his or
her patron saint; the king is attended by St. Francis of Assisi,
who is receiving in a vision the impress of the stigmata of Jesus
on the Cross; the queen is accompanied by St. Eleanor, who holds in
her hand the palm of the elect. This window is from a design by
Bernard van Orley.
Francis I. and Eleanor expended on the window two hundred and
twenty-two crowns, or four hundred florins, an important sum in
those days (1515-47).
[Illustration: FRANCIS I. AND ELEONORA AT THEIR DEVOTIONS.
Portion of a Stained Glass Window in the Church of St. Gudule at
Brussels.]
Walter, dared to launch his satire against doctrine itself, and to
ridicule transubstantiation by representing a pope shovelling four
evangelists into a mill, from which come forth a number of wafers; these
a bishop is receiving into a cup in order to distribute them to the
wondering people. Any edification of the masses by the powerful effect
of transparent images placed, so to speak, between the earth and heaven,
soon ceased to be possible, and glass-painting, henceforth alienated
from the special aim of its origin, was destined also to disappear.”
[Illustration: Fig. 238.--Temptation of St. Mars, a Hermit of Auvergne,
by the Devil disguised as a Woman. Fragment of a Window of the
Sainte-Chapelle of Riom. Fifteenth Century. (From “Histoire de la
Peinture sur Verre,” by M. F. de Lasteyrie.)]
FRESCO-PAINTING.
The Nature of Fresco.--Employed by the Ancients.--Paintings at
Pompeii.--Greek and Roman Schools.--Mural Paintings destroyed by
the Iconoclasts and Barbarians.--Revival of Fresco, in the Ninth
Century, in Italy.--Fresco-Painters since Guido of
Siena.--Principal Works of these Painters.--Successors of Raphael
and Michael Angelo.--Fresco in _Sgraffito_.--Mural Paintings in
France from the Twelfth Century.--Gothic Frescoes of Spain.--Mural
Paintings in the Low Countries, Germany, and Switzerland.
“Too frequently in conversational language and even in the writings of
grave authors,” says M. Ernest Breton, “the word _fresco_ is made
synonymous with mural painting in general. This confusion of terms has
sometimes caused the most fatal errors. The etymology of the word is the
best definition of the subject. The Italians give the name of paintings
_in fresco_ or _a fresco_, that is to say, _à frais_, or _sur le frais_,
to those works executed upon damp stucco into which the colour
penetrates to a certain depth. The ancient French authors, preserving
the difference existing between the Italian _fresco_ and the French
_frais_, wrote the word _fraisque_. At the present day Italian
orthography has prevailed, and with us this word has now more relation
to its etymology than its real signification.”
Whatever may be the common acceptation of the word, we must, in order to
keep within the limits of our subject, here only take into consideration
real frescoes, or in other words, works of art executed upon a bare
wall, properly prepared for the purpose, with which they are as it were
incorporated; for in the roll of art all are excluded from the catalogue
of mural paintings, rightly so called, which, although applied to walls
either directly or by the aid of panels or fixed canvas, are produced
otherwise than with water-colours, and used in such a manner as to
penetrate the special kind of plaster with which the wall had been
previously covered. We will mention as a striking example of this the
famous “Lord’s Supper” of Leonardo da Vinci, which has many times been
called a fresco (it is well known to have been painted upon the wall of
the refectory of Santa Maria della Gratia, at Milan), but is nothing but
a painting in distemper[32] on a dry partition--a circumstance,
by-the-bye, which has not a little contributed to the deterioration of
this magnificent work.
Fresco has long been considered the most ancient style of painting.
Vasari, who wrote in the middle of the sixteenth century, says in apt
terms that “the ancients generally practised painting _in fresco_, and
the first painters of the modern schools have only followed the antique
methods;” and, in our own day, Millin, in his “Dictionnaire des
Beaux-Arts,” asserts that the great paintings in the “Pœcile” of Athens
and the “Lesche” of Delphi, by Panænus and Polygnotus, spoken of by
Pausanias, were executed by this process; the same author also ranks
among frescoes the numerous paintings left by the Egyptians in their
temples and catacombs. “It was,” he remarks, “what the Romans called _in
udo pariete pingere_ (to paint on a damp wall); they say _in cretula
pingere_ (to paint on chalk) to designate water-colour painting on a dry
ground.”
Some persons have considered the paintings found at Herculaneum and
Pompeii to be frescoes; nevertheless Winckelmann, who is an authority in
these matters, said, a hundred years ago, in speaking of those works,
“It is to be remarked that the greater part of these pictures were not
painted on damp lime, but upon a dry ground, which is rendered very
evident by several of the figures having scaled off in such a way as to
show distinctly the ground upon which they rest.”
The whole mistake has arisen from taking the expression “_in udo
pariete_,” found in Pliny, in too literal a sense; the error, which
might at all events have been dissipated by an attentive examination of
the examples themselves, would not have lasted long if the passage from
Pliny had been compared with a statement of Vitruvius, which informs us
that they applied to fresh walls uniform tints of black, blue, yellow,
or red, which were destined to form the grounds of paintings, or even
allowed them to remain plain, like our present coloured walls. The
employment of this process may also be easily recognised in the
paintings of Pompeii, where this uniform colouring has sometimes
penetrated nearly an inch into the stucco of the wall. On this ground,
when it was perfectly dry, ornamental subjects were painted either in
distemper or encaustic.
Thus, therefore, it is shown that the process of painting _in fresco_
was unknown to the ancients, and was invented by artists of succeeding
times; but it would be difficult to assign any precise date to this
invention; for however far we go back, we do not find any authors who
fix the epoch at which the new method was for the first time followed.
We are, therefore, compelled to notice the age of some particular
example which shows that the discovery had then taken place, without
being able to determine the exact date of its commencement.
Painting, which with the Greeks attained its greatest height in the
reign of Alexander, fell, says M. Breton, “with the power of Greece. In
losing its liberty, the country of the Fine Arts lost, too, the
perception of the beautiful.” At Rome, painting never reached the same
degree of perfection as it did in Greece; for a long time it was only
practised by men of the lowest rank and by slaves. A few patricians,
such as Amulius, Fabius _Pictor_ (painter), and Cornelius Pinus, were,
at the best, able to bring about only some slight revival. After the
twelve Cæsars, painting followed the movement of decadence which carried
away with it all the arts; like them, it received its death-blow in the
fourth century, on the day when Constantine, quitting Rome in order to
establish the seat of empire at Byzantium, took with him into his new
capital not only the best artists, but also a prodigious number of their
productions, and of those of the artists who preceded them. Several
other causes may also be mentioned as having led to the decline of art,
or to the destruction of examples which would now bear witness to its
power in remote ages. In the first place, there was the birth of
Christian Art, which rose on the ruins of Paganism; then, the invasion
of barbarians which took place in the fifth century; lastly, in the
eighth and ninth centuries, the fury of the Iconoclasts, or
Image-breakers, a sect at the head of which figured several emperors of
the East, from Leo the Isaurian, who reigned in 717, down to Michael
the Stammerer and Theophilus, who respectively ascended the imperial
throne in 820 and 829.
Even among the ignorant masses, to whom we owe the loss of so many
_chefs-d’œuvre_, were some individuals who formed honourable exceptions,
not only by opposing the devastations, but also by manifesting a
laudable conservative instinct. Cassiodorus tells us that Theodoric,
king of the Goths, re-established the office of _centurio nitentium
rerum_ (guardian of beautiful objects), instituted by the emperor
Constantius; and we know that the Lombard kings who succeeded this
prince and reigned in Italy for 218 years, although less zealous in the
culture of the arts, did not fail to honour and protect them. In Paul
the Deacon[33] we read that, in the sixth century, queen Teudelinde,
wife of Autharis and afterwards of Agilulphus, caused the valorous deeds
of the first Lombard kings to be painted on the _basilica_ that she had
consecrated at Monza under the name of St. John. Other paintings of the
same epoch may still be seen at Pavia. The Church of St. Nazaire at
Verona possesses in its crypt paintings spoken of by Maffei, which have
been engraved by Ciampini and Frisi: these must date back to the sixth
and seventh centuries. Lastly, they have recently found in the
subterranean chapel of the _basilica_ of St. Clement, in Rome, some
admirable mural paintings, which archæologists refer to the same epoch.
The Eastern artists, driven away by the persecutions of the Iconoclasts,
sought an asylum in Italy, where the Latin Church, obedient to the
prescriptions of the Council of Nice, seemed determined to multiply
sacred images as much as possible. The arrival of the Grecian artists in
the West was also singularly promoted by the commercial relations which
from that time were established between all points of the Mediterranean
shore and the maritime or mercantile towns of Italy--Pisa, Genoa, and
Venice. Thus was brought about the movement which, although taking place
on Italian soil, drew from an entirely Eastern source the inspiration of
the revival of the Fine Arts; thus was continued the so-called Byzantine
school, destined to be the foundation of all modern art.
In 817 some Greek artists, by order of Pope Pascal I., executed under
the portico of the Church of St. Cecilia in Rome a series of frescoes,
the subjects of which were taken from the life of the saint. To the same
school we are indebted for the sitting figures of Christ and His mother
(Fig. 239), in the old Church of Santa-Maria Trans-Tiberia, in Rome; the
large Madonna painted on the walls of Santa-Maria della Scala, Milan,
which, at the time when this church was destroyed and replaced by the
theatre of La Scala, was taken away and carried to the Church of
Santa-Fidelia, where it still remains; a series of portraits of the
Popes after St. Leo, a collection of which a large portion perished in
the fire of St. Paul-extra-Muros, Rome (Fig. 240); and lastly, the
paintings in the vaults of the Cathedral of Aquila.
[Illustration: Fig. 239.--Christ and His Mother. Fresco-Painting of the
Ninth Century, in the Apse of Santa-Maria Trans-Tiberia, Rome.]
“The works of these earliest painters,” observes M. Breton, “seem to
mark the transition from painting to sculpture: they are long figures as
stiff as columns, single or arranged symmetrically, forming neither
groups nor compositions, without perspective or effects of light and
shade, and having nothing to express their meaning than a sort of legend
proceeding out of the mouths of the characters. These frescoes, which
are so weak when looked at in an artistic point of view, are remarkable
for their material execution, being extremely solid in their
workmanship. It is astonishing to see the wonderful preservation of some
pictures of saints that adorn the pilasters of St. Nicholas in Treviso
and the walls of the church in Fiesole, whereon are preserved the
frescoes of Fra Angelico.”
Among the paintings remaining to our time, the first in which the
authors departed from the uniform style of the Byzantine masters are
those which adorn the interior of the ancient temple of Bacchus, now the
Church of St. Urban in the Campagna of Rome: there is nothing Grecian
either in the figures or draperies, and it is impossible not to
recognise in them an Italian pencil; the date, however, is 1011. Pesaro,
Aquila, Orvieto, and Fiesole, possess examples of the same epoch.
[Illustration: Fig. 240.--Portrait of the Pope Sylvester I.
Fresco-Painting in Mosaic, on a gold ground, in the Basilica of St.
Paul-extra-Muros, Rome.]
At last, in the thirteenth century, notwithstanding its fierce intestine
struggles, Italy, and especially Tuscany, witnessed the dawn of the sun
of the Fine Arts, which, after a long period of darkness, was to shine
with so much brilliancy over the whole world. Pisa and Siena, earliest
in the revival, gave birth respectively to Giunta and Guido
(Palmerucci), each of whom in his time acquired great renown; but the
only works of these artists which remain now, in the Cathedral of
Assisi, seem but to indicate a desire of progress without manifesting
any real advancement in art.
[Illustration: Fig. 241.--The Apostles in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Fresco by Berna, at San-Geminiano. (Fourteenth Century.)]
To Guido of Siena succeeds, but not immediately, the friend of
Petrarch, Simon Memmi, whose frescoes in the Campo Santo of Pisa
testify to his powerful genius, and denote the first remarkable stage of
art.
In the collegiate church of San-Geminiano[34] may be still seen a fresco
by Berna (Fig. 241), an eminent master in the school of Siena, who died
in 1370.
Passing, but not without mention, Margaritone and Bonaventura
Berlinghieri, who were only the timid harbingers of a great
individuality, the Florentine school places in the first rank of its
celebrities Cimabue (1240-1300), justly regarded by the artistic world
as the true restorer of painting. Cimabue pointed out the path; Giotto,
his pupil, trod it. He took nature for his guide, and has been surnamed
“nature’s pupil.” Real imitation was the object of his endeavour, and as
he found this system marvellously applied in the beautiful antique
marbles which had already inspired, in the preceding century, the
sculptors John and Nicolas of Pisa, he made an earnest study of these
ancient _chefs-d’œuvre_. The impulse was given, and the Campo Santo of
Pisa shows us its first results in “The Dream of Life.”
For two centuries there was a slow but always progressive improvement,
owing to the industry of Buffamalco, Taddeo Gaddi, Orcagna, Spinello of
Lucca, and Masolino of Panicale. With the fifteenth century appeared Fra
Angelico of Fiesole (Figs. 242 and 246), and Benozzo Gozzoli; then
Masaccio, Pisanello, Mantegna, Zingaro, Pinturicchio, and lastly
Perugino, the Master of the divine Raphael. In the sixteenth century art
attained its culminating point. At this epoch Raphael and his pupils
painted the “Farnesina” and the “Stanze” and “Loggie” of the Vatican (it
is known that the two first pictures of the “Loggie” (Fig. 243) were
painted solely by the hand of Raphael); Michael Angelo alone executed
the immense expanse of the “Last Judgment,” and Paul Veronese painted
the ceilings of the palace of the Doges at Venice. Then Giulio Romano
covered with his works the walls of the Te palace at Mantua; Andrea del
Sarto, those of the “Annunziata” and “Dello Scalzo” at Florence. Daniel
of Volterra painted his famous “Descent from the Cross” for the Trinité
du Mont, Rome; at Parma, the Pencil of Correggio worked marvels on the
circle of the dome of the cathedral. Leonardo da Vinci, besides the
picture of the “Lord’s Supper,” which we before mentioned only to
exclude it from the
[Illustration: “THE DREAM OF LIFE.”
FRESCO-PAINTING, BY ORCAGNA, IN THE CLOISTER OF THE CAMPO SANTO OF PISA.
(FOURTEENTH CENTURY.)