the fourteenth century, who executed for the Campo Santo of Pisa a
series of paintings which are still admired, representing the four
destinies of man:--“Death,” “Judgment,” “Hell,” and “Paradise.” Each of
these large compositions embraces several scenes; that which we give
belongs to the “Triumph of Death.”
Petrarch had just given to the world the concluding notes of his
funereal song, and the wish of the painter seems to have been to call to
life, in his fresco, the strange vision of the poet. The happy of this
world are here represented gathered together under cool shades and upon
carpets of verdure; gay lords are murmuring magic words into the ears of
the young ladies of Florence. Even quiet falcons on the wrists of the
lords seem captivated by this delicious music. Everything appears to
invite forgetfulness of the miseries of life,--the richness of the
vestments, the beautiful sky of Italy, the perfumes, the love-songs....
This is the “Dream of Life,” which “Death” is destined to dispel with
one sweep of his mighty wing.]
[Illustration: THE DREAM OF LIFE.
(After a Copy made for the Library of M Ambroise Firmin Didot.) From a
fresco Painting by Orcagna, in the Cloister of the Campo Santo of Pisa.
Fourteenth Century.]
number of frescoes, endowed the monastery of St Onofrio at Rome with a
magnificent Madonna, and the palace of Caravaggio, near Bergamo, with
[Illustration: Fig. 242.--Group of Saints, taken from the large Fresco
of “The Passion” in the Convent of St. Mark. Painted by Fra Angelico of
Fiesole.]
a colossal Virgin. It was, in short, the age of splendid productions in
mural painting, that in which the great Buonarotti exclaimed
when engaged in enthusiastic labour on one of his sublime
conceptions--“Fresco is the only painting; painting in oils is only the
art of women and idle and unenergetic men.” And yet, at least as regards
improvements in the process of execution, fresco had hardly reached its
climax.
In the seventeenth century the school of Bologna, after having for a
long time maintained a merely imitative style of art, shone forth with
independent light under the influence of the Carracci, who, summoned to
Rome, covered the walls of the Farnesian gallery with frescoes, to which
none others could be compared for brilliancy and powerful effect. As
much must be said of the works of their pupils: the “Martyrdom of St.
Sebastian,” in the Church of St. Mary of the Angels; the “Miracles of
St. Nil,” at Grotta-Ferrata, near Rome; the “Death of St. Cecilia,” at
Saint-Louis-des-Français, by Domenichino; “Aurora,” by Guercino, at the
Villa Ludovici; the “Chariot of the Sun,” by Guido, in the Rospigliosi
Palace, &c.
[Illustration: Fig. 243.--First Picture of the Loggie of Raphael--“God
creating the Heaven and the Earth.”]
Luca Giordano, a Neapolitan painter, founder of the gallery of the
Ricciardi Palace at Florence, and author of the frescoes in numerous
churches in Italy and Spain, must not be forgotten; and with him must
be mentioned Pietro da Cortona, of the Roman school, who especially
distinguished himself in the ceilings of the Barberini Palace, at Rome.
We still have to mention the fertile painters of the Genoese and
Parmesan schools--Lanfranc, Carloni, and Francavilla; but the hour of
decadence had come when these artists appeared; they had more boldness
than talent, they aimed at the majestic, but only succeeded in attaining
to the gigantic; their pencils were skilful, but their soul lacked
fervour and conviction; in spite of their efforts, fresco-painting
declined under their hands, and since that time has only decayed and
gradually sunk into oblivion.
We must not quit the classical ground of the Fine Arts without
mentioning a process of painting which is closely allied to fresco, and
bears the characteristic name of _sgraffito_ (literally, a scratch).
This style of painting, or rather of drawing (for the works had the
appearance of a large drawing in black crayon), was more generally used
for the exterior of buildings, and was produced by covering the wall
first with black stucco, then with a second layer of white, and
afterwards by removing with an iron instrument the second layer so as to
lay bare, in places, the black ground. The most important work executed
in this style is the ornamentation of the monastic house of the knights
of St. Stephen, at Pisa; this work is by Vasari, to whom also has been
attributed--but wrongfully--the invention of _sgraffito_, which was used
long before his time.
Hitherto we have chiefly confined our remarks to Italy and Italian
artists; however, in the consideration of them we have nearly summed up
our brief history of fresco. If we would look to France for any
remarkable works of this kind, we must refer to the epochs in which
Italy sent Simon Memmi to decorate the palace of the popes at Avignon,
and Rosso and Primaticcio to adorn that of the kings at Fontainebleau.
Prior to this, all we meet with are, at the most, a few primitive, not
to say barbarous, subjects, painted here and there, in distemper, by
unknown artists, on the walls of churches or monasteries. Among these
conventional examples it is, however, only just to distinguish some
pictures of powerful effect, if not in execution, at least for the ideas
they are intended to convey; we would speak of the “Dance of Death,” or
“Dance of the Dead,” like that which existed at Paris in the Cemetery of
the Innocents, and another still to be seen in the Abbey of Chaise-Dieu,
in Auvergne; legends more than
[Illustration: Fig. 244.--“Fraternity of the Cross-bowmen.”
(Fresco-Painting of the Fifteenth Century, in the ancient Chapel of St.
John and St. Paul, Ghent.)]
pictures, and philosophical compositions rather than manifestations of
art. Spain, too, has no reason to be proud of her national productions;
for, with the exception of the Gothic frescoes still existing in the
Cathedral of Toledo, representing the combats between the Moors and the
Toledans (pictures specially worthy of the attention of archæologists),
the only frescoes of Spanish origin we can mention are the paintings of
a few ceilings in the Escurial and in a chapter-room in the Cathedral of
Toledo; all the other frescoes must be attributed to Italian artists.
Whenever the northern artists, usually so cold and methodical in their
mode of operation, devoted themselves to mural painting, it seems to
have been necessary that they should enliven their temperament in the
sunny rays of a southern sky; for while in Holland and Belgium we notice
but few walls covered with decorative painting, we find a large number
of Italian churches and palaces which contain frescoes bearing the
signature of Flemish masters.
[Illustration: Fig. 245.--“Death and the Jew.” An episode from the
“Dance of Death.” Painted in 1441, in the Cemetery of the Dominicans,
Basle. (Facsimile from the Engraving of M. Mérian.)]
There was considerable excitement manifested a few years ago at the
discovery of the mural paintings in the ancient Chapel of St. John and
St. Paul, in Ghent (Fig. 244). These works are of the fifteenth
century, and although satisfactory enough as regards the design, they
derive more importance from the subjects which they represent than from
any merit of execution.
In speaking of Germany, we should not omit to mention the ancient “Dance
of Death” (Fig. 245), at Basle, in the cemetery of the Dominicans,
painted in the middle of the fifteenth century; also another “Dance of
Death” much more famous, and the façades of several houses, painted at
Basle by Holbein. We must also indicate the paintings with which (in
1466) Israel de Meckenheim covered the walls of a chapel of St. Mary of
the Capitol, at Cologne; and the frescoes of St. Etienne and St.
Augustine, at Vienna. But it does not follow, from this limited
enumeration of works, that Germany either created or followed any
special school.
[Illustration: Fig. 246.--Fra Angelico, of Fiesole.]
PAINTING ON WOOD, CANVAS, ETC.
The Rise of Christian Painting.--The Byzantine School.--First
Revival in Italy.--Cimabue, Giotto, Fra Angelico.--Florentine
School: Leonardo da Vinci, Michael Angelo.--Roman School: Perugino,
Raphael.--Venetian School: Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese.--Lombard
School: Correggio, Parmigianino.--Spanish School.--German and
Flemish Schools: Stephan of Cologne, John of Bruges, Lucas van
Leyden, Albert Dürer, Lucas van Cranach, Holbein.--Painting in
France during the Middle Ages.--Italian Masters in France.--Jean
Cousin.
After its first weak manifestations in the dark shadows of the
Catacombs--the place of refuge to which the earliest believers had to
resort to celebrate their holy mysteries--Christian painting made its
first attempt to display itself in open day at the time when the new
faith found in Constantine the high protection of a crowned disciple.
But this art felt an instinctive repugnance to draw its inspirations
from works which had been created under the empire of decayed and
contemned creeds. In the completely spiritual worship of the true God,
it seemed but natural to seek for other types than those which had been
consecrated by the fancies of materialistic mythologies.
The school of _idea_, which was substituted for the school of _form_,
desired to owe nothing to its frivolous predecessor. It would have
considered it a reproach to give even the semblance of permanence to
reprobated traditions, and it set itself to work to create an art
completely new in all its features. The rule it laid down, therefore,
was to regard as non-existent the _chefs-d’œuvre_ which recalled to mind
the days of moral error; rejecting the inspiration to be derived from
the magnificent relics of the past, it resolved to commence an era of
its own, and to exist on its own ideas. Hence that principle of
energetic simplicity which, although it may have hindered art from
elevating itself to the perfection we call classical, had at least this
advantage, that it sought by gradual development to imprint on
Christian art a stamp of individuality from which it was to derive both
its power and its glory.
Thus, by the enthusiasm of faith, was called into existence that really
primitive School of Painting which has received the name of _Byzantine_;
because at the very time when it obtained the liberty of displaying
itself, Constantine, transferring the seat of empire to Byzantium,
necessarily took with him the body of artists of whom he was the
protector; because, too, as we have before observed, Byzantium
henceforth became for many centuries the sole focus whence light
radiated towards the West, which was now plunged in barbarism. We must,
therefore, go back to the Byzantine school, if we wish to trace to their
origin all the forms of European painting.
“Allegory,” says M. Michiels, “was the first language of Christian
painting; not only did it express typically the Evangelical teachings,
but the Divine personages themselves were metamorphosed into symbols.
Sometimes, for instance, Christ appeared in the form of a young
shepherd, bearing on his shoulders and carrying back to the fold a
wandering sheep; sometimes He was represented as the Orpheus of the new
faith, charming and taming ferocious animals by the sound of His
lute.... He also was made to assume the form of the lamb without spot,
or of a phœnix spreading its wings, the conqueror of death and the
spirits of darkness. Thus was the transition softened down; thus did
they escape the raillery of Pagans who would have turned into ridicule
the heroic sufferings and the glorious humiliations of the Son of man.
But this timidity could not long continue.... The council held at
Constantinople in 692 commanded that allegory should be repudiated, and
that the objects of their veneration should be displayed to the faithful
without the veil hitherto employed. Now was exhibited to view a
spectacle new indeed to men; a Deity crowned with thorns, enduring the
outrages of a vile populace, or stretched upon a cross and pierced with
a lance, turning His sad glance to heaven and wrestling with His agony.
The Greeks and Latins were but slow in adopting this mode of
representation, and did so with regret.... But the perception of moral
dignity was destined to eclipse the vain pomp of Pagan grandeur. The
generous sufferings of sacrifice were to become the greatest of all
glories.”
“Christian painting, when once established as an art on the banks of the
Bosphorus, assumed a certain immobility of character. Forms, attitudes,
groups, and vestments--all were regulated by ecclesiastical
prescription. There was, as it were, an inflexible text-book, to which
artists were bound to submit. Delicacy of colouring and nobility of
attitude were the only things to recall the beauty of ancient art. Even
in our days the Greek and Russian painters follow a similar plan,
drawing and arranging their figures in the same manner as their
ancestors of the time of Honorius and the Palæologi.”
Even in the West the case was nearly the same, so long as the practice
of painting remained almost exclusively confined to artists coming from
Constantinople. Thus, in some celebrated manuscripts of the eighth and
ninth centuries we find compositions that give a very exact
representation of the state of the art in these remote times, though the
paintings themselves have been destroyed by the Iconoclasts. In fact,
during ten centuries it seemed that the Western races resisted any
expression of artistic individuality or invention. Throughout this long
period we find Greek painters the supreme arbiters of taste and
knowledge in the countries of Western Europe, forcing upon them their
own barren style, and teaching them their contracted perceptions. Art
among them seemed always to be but a mere instinct. Constant
immigrations took place which were continually leading them to every
point in Western Europe, but none of them ever brought anything novel in
art beyond what their predecessors had already introduced. If they took
root in a new country, the son repeated the works of his father. The
pupil took no means to enlarge his thoughts; he adopted as his model and
his ideal nothing but the work of his master, and the poor form of
tradition was continued without enthusiasm and without progress (Fig.
247). Genius is altogether wanting, or if its sacred spark sprung forth
from heaven, it was soon extinguished when it reached the earth for want
of a soul which could receive it, and be kindled by its fire. The Greek
masters doubtless affected some pride in the grandeur of their native
name, but they were none the less living proofs that the sources from
which flowed the inspiration of a Zeuxis, a Protogenes, or an Apelles,
had since those far-distant days been long dried up. The East had for
ever terminated its ancient character of artistic creation, and the most
it seemed destined to achieve during the Middle Ages was to preserve the
germ which the West was to bring again into active life.
Italy, and more particularly Tuscany, may lay claim to the honour of
[Illustration: Fig. 247.--“Baptism of King Clovis.” (Fragment of a
Painting on Canvas at Rheims. Fifteenth Century.)]
having witnessed, about the end of the thirteenth and the beginning of
the fourteenth century, the dawn of the great revival of artistic light.
The names of Giunta of Pisa, Guido of Siena, and Duccio, had, however,
already commenced the glorious list of Italian artists, who were the
first to endeavour to modify the immutable Greek manner. Their attempts,
no doubt, seem but insignificant, looking at the immense progress
subsequently accomplished; but, however slight it may appear to be, the
first step made beyond the beaten path which has been trodden for
centuries is often evidence of the most courageous daring.
The year 1240 witnessed the birth of Cimabue: as a young man, he became
enamoured of art by watching the labours of the Greek painters who had
been summoned to Florence to decorate the chapel of the Gondi. It was
purposed to make him a _savant_ and a lawyer; but he succeeded in
abandoning the pen in favour of the pencil, and, from the lessons of the
timid Byzantines, he soon became a master whose every thought was
henceforth devoted to the emancipation of an art that he found condemned
to a kind of immobility. Thanks to him, the expression of faces, which
up to that time had been entirely conventional in character, was
animated by a truer sentiment; the lines of drawing, which had been hard
and stiff, were broken up into well-ordered grace; the colouring,
hitherto dull and gloomy, assumed soft brilliancy and harmonious relief.
It is said that Cimabue’s _chef-d’œuvre_, the “Madonna” which is still
to be seen in the Church of Santa-Maria-Novella, was carried in
procession by the crowd to the place which it now occupies; the painter
was received with shouts, and, it is added, the joy of the people at the
sight of the picture was so great that the part of the city wherein
Cimabue’s studio was situated received, after this event, the name of
_Borgo Allegro_ (the Joyous Town). One day when Cimabue was in the
country, he noticed a young shepherd-boy who was amusing himself by
sketching on a rock the sheep he tended. The painter took charge of the
boy; he became his favourite pupil, and was the celebrated Giotto, who
happily persevered in the reform commenced by Cimabue. Giotto, the first
among the artists of his time, ventured to paint portraits, and
succeeded well in them. To him we owe our acquaintance with the real
features of his friend Dante; and we still admire, at least as
manifestations of an adventurous genius, the paintings he left in the
Church of Santa Clara at Naples, in the Cathedral of Assisi, and
especially in the Campo Santo at Pisa, where he painted in fresco the
history of Job.
Giotto died in 1336, but he left behind him to continue his work, Taddeo
Gaddi, Giottino, Stefano, Andrea Orcagna, and Simon Memmi, who were
each destined to open out some new path in art. In the Campo Santo at
Pisa we may see how great was the power of the genius of these masters,
especially of Andrea Orcagna (1329-1389), who has there represented,
with an equal measure of beauty and of sombre and terrible energy, the
“Dream of Life,” facing the “Triumph of Death.” Taddeo Gaddi remained a
fervent disciple of his master, and continued his delicate accuracy of
design, and the living freshness of his colouring. Stefano succeeded him
in the boldness of his compositions, in his studious knowledge of the
nude, and of perspective effect which had been hitherto neglected.
Giottino inherited his serious inspirations. Memmi endeavoured to recall
his mystical and graceful sentiment. Orcagna, who was at once painter,
sculptor, architect, and poet, seemed to possess in turn all the
qualities which his fellow-disciples had shared among them, and could
represent with equal success the terrors of the infernal regions and the
visions of heaven.
The progress of which these painters had constituted themselves the
apostles was not carried out without exciting some opposition. In
addition to the Greek masters, who naturally felt compelled to contend
with the innovators, certain individuals were found among the Italian
artists who energetically embraced the party of the past. We will only
mention one, Margaritone of Arezzo, who wore out his long life in a
useless devotion to a cause which was already lost; even his name we
should not have particularised, if it had not been that the art owed him
some gratitude for the service he rendered it, by substituting the use
of canvas prepared for painting instead of panels of wood, which had
hitherto been exclusively employed.
The Florentine school (for thus we call the group of artists who trod in
the footsteps of Cimabue and Giotto) had for its representative, at the
beginning of the fifteenth century, Giovanni of Fiesole, surnamed _Fra
Angelico_, the personification of enthusiasm in artistic sublimity;
whose works, too, resemble so many hymns of adoration. Born in the year
1387, and inheriting great wealth, he was endowed with a contemplative
mind, and, ignorant of the talent which inspired him, he sought oblivion
from the world in the garb of a Dominican, little suspecting that glory
awaited him in the very depth of his humility. At first, as a kind of
pious recreation, he covered with miniatures several pages of
manuscripts; next, his companions in the cloister requested him to
paint a picture. He obeyed, feeling convinced that the inspiration which
stirred within him was a manifestation of the Divine spirit, and it was
with the most artless simplicity that he referred to this celestial
origin the _chef-d’œuvre_ which proceeded from his hands. His reputation
spread far and wide. At the invitation of the head of the Christian
Church, he repaired to Rome in order to paint one of the chapels of the
Vatican. And when the pontiff, full of enthusiasm at his talent, wished
to confer upon him as a reward the dignity of archbishop, Angelico
retired modestly to his cell in order to devote himself without
interruption to that art which was to him a continual prayer, and a
perpetual soaring up to that heavenly country on which he unceasingly
meditated with all the unutterable feelings of the elect.
About the same era as the “seraphic monk,” who died full of years in
1455, appeared Tomaso Guidi, for whom a kind of unconsciousness of
everyday life had obtained the ironical _sobriquet_ of Masaccio (the
Stupid); who, however, astonished the world by his works to such extent
that it was said concerning them, “those of his predecessors were
_painted_, but his were _living_.” Masaccio was one of the first (and
this fact shows how slowly art may progress even in bold hands) to place
in his pictures firmly on the soles of their feet figures presenting a
full front, instead of making them stand upon their great-toes, as his
predecessors had done from a want of knowledge of the requisite
foreshortening. Masaccio died in 1443.
Philippo Lippi, who devoted himself more specially to the study of
nature, both in the human physiognomy and also in the accessory details
of his works, marks as it were the last stage of the art, when it
approached the state of full vigour in which it was to manifest the
whole extent of its power. We are now at the end of the fifteenth
century, and the masters of the _great masters_ are in existence. It was
Andrea Verrochio who, at the sight of an angel which Leonardo da Vinci,
his pupil, had painted in one of his works, for ever abandoned his
pencil. It was Domenico Ghirlandajo who, jealous of the superior
qualities which he recognised in his pupil, the youthful Buonarotti, not
only endeavoured, but succeeded in diverting his talents, at least for a
time, to sculpture. It was Fra Bartolommeo (1469-1517) who was affected
with such profound grief at the death of his friend Savonarola, that he
embraced a monastic life. Baccio della Porta (such was the name of the
Brother) was a very great painter (Fig. 248); the vigour and
[Illustration: Fig. 248.--“The Patriarch Job.” A Painting on Panel, by
Fra Bartolommeo. Fifteenth Century.
(In the Gallery at Florence.)]
harmony of colouring which he showed, especially in his last
productions, has sometimes caused them to be attributed to Raphael, with
whom he was for some time united in the bonds of friendship. But we must
not confine ourselves to characterising the works of one single group of
artists; for, although the revival took its rise on the banks of the
Arno, it spread far and wide beyond those limits. Added to this, Giotto,
when visiting Verona, Padua, and Rome, left in each place the still
resplendent traces of his presence. When Fra Angelico went to adorn the
Vatican, his genius spread around it a fruitful irradiation which
everywhere dimmed the ancient renown of the Byzantine painters who had
hitherto prevailed in the Italian cities.