THE NATIONAL GALLERY
[Illustration:
“PORTRAITS OF JEAN ARNOLFINI AND JEANNE DE CHENANY HIS WIFE” (186)
BY JAN VAN EYCK
page 124
]
THE TREASURE-HOUSE SERIES
THE NATIONAL GALLERY
BY
ALICE CORKRAN
AUTHOR OF “DOWN THE SNOW STAIRS,” ETC.
_WITH ILLUSTRATIONS_
LONDON
WELLS GARDNER, DARTON & CO., LTD.
3 PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS
[Illustration: 1908]
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
I have to record my gratitude to the many writers whose works have
helped me to compile this guide to our National Gallery for young
folk—to Vasari, to Messrs. Crowe and Cavaleschi, to Dr. Waagen, to M.
Charles Blanc, to Messieurs de Goncourt, to Monsieur L. Viardot, to
Monsieur Chesneau, to Monsieur de Sizeranne. I have also referred to
Diderot’s letters and criticisms; to the Official Guides to the National
Gallery, and to many other authorities read in handbooks and articles
which I cannot enumerate. I owe an especial debt of gratitude to Mr. E.
T. Cook for his admirable handbook that was a store of inspiration to
me, to Mr. Cosmo Monkhouse, and Mr. Frederick Wedmore. Mr. Ruskin has
been my unfailing guide, and if I have sometimes ventured to differ from
him as a critic, I have never differed from the noble spirit of his
teaching.
A. C.
* * * * *
The illustrations in this volume and on the cover are from photographs
taken by Messrs. W. A. Mansell & Co., Oxford Street, a list of whose
publications will be found at the end of the volume.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
Introduction, 1
CHAPTER II
Vestibule, 5
CHAPTER III
Florentine School, 14
CHAPTER IV
Florentine School (_continued_), 25
CHAPTER V
Michael Angelo, 36
CHAPTER VI
Leonardo da Vinci, 41
CHAPTER VII
Andrea del Sarto and Others, 44
CHAPTER VIII
Mostly about the School of Siena, 49
CHAPTER IX
Umbrian School, 53
CHAPTER X
Umbrian School (_continued_), 57
CHAPTER XI
Umbrian School (_continued_), 64
CHAPTER XII
The Ferrarese and Bolognese School, 70
CHAPTER XIII
Paduan School: Andrea Mantegna, 79
CHAPTER XIV
Venetian School, 82
CHAPTER XV
Venetian School (_continued_), 88
CHAPTER XVI
Paul Veronese, Sebastian del Piombo, and the Great Portrait Painters,
95
CHAPTER XVII
Schools of Lombardy: Three Great Painters, 102
CHAPTER XVIII
Decay and Decline, 107
CHAPTER XIX
School of Spain, 110
CHAPTER XX
Velazquez and Murillo, 115
CHAPTER XXI
Art of the Low Countries, 122
CHAPTER XXII
A Great Trio, 130
CHAPTER XXIII
Dutch Art, 138
CHAPTER XXIV
Dutch School (_continued_), 142
CHAPTER XXV
German School, 155
CHAPTER XXVI
French School, 161
CHAPTER XXVII
French Artists of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, 167
CHAPTER XXVIII
English School, 176
CHAPTER XXIX
English School (_continued_), 183
CHAPTER XXX
Painters of the Norwich School and Others, 189
CHAPTER XXXI
English School: Constable, 194
CHAPTER XXXII
English School: Turner, 197
CHAPTER XXXIII
Lesser Lights yet Great, 201
CHAPTER XXXIV
Conclusion, 208
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Portraits of Jean Arnolfini and Jeanne
de Chenany, his wife _Jan van Eyck_ _Frontispiece_
The Death of Procris _Piero di Cosimo_ 30
The Madonna and Infant Christ, St. _Michael Angelo
John the Baptist, and Angels Buonarroti_ 40
The Virgin of the Rocks _Leonardo da
Vinci_ 42
The Annunciation _Duccio_ 51
Vision of a Knight _Raphael Sanzio_ 60
The Virgin with the Infant Christ, and
St. Anne enthroned, surrounded by
Saints _Francia_ 76
Bacchus and Ariadne _Titian_ 90
The Vision of St. Helena _Paolo Veronese_ 96
Portrait of the Spanish Admiral,
Pudilo Pareja _Velazquez_ 117
Head of Charles I. _Van Dyck_ 134
The Avenue, Middelharnis, Holland _Hobbema_ 150
The Horse Fair _Rosa Bonheur_ 174
Heads of Angels _Sir Joshua
Reynolds_ 179
The “Fighting Téméraire” tugged to her
last berth to be broken up _Turner_ 198
Dignity and Impudence _Sir Edwin
Landseer_ 206
THE NATIONAL GALLERY
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
“Art is long and time is fleeting.”
When we step out of Trafalgar Square into the National Gallery we step
into the midst of beauty. Two massive pale green marble pillars form the
approach to the vestibule; their carved capitals are of alabaster from
Derbyshire, their base of Aberdeen granite. Delicate yellow marble, like
sunshine caught in stone, lines the side walls of the stair-flight. It
is the beautiful _giallo-antico_ of ancient Rome. Red columns resembling
jaspar, coming from the west of Algiers, support the arches of the
ceiling; their pedestal is of marble from the Apennines. It is a fit
entrance to the shrine of these world-famous pictures that are in a
sense the work of all the greatest painters the world has known. All
that is best in their work has come down into the art of our time.
I want you to imagine that, together, we are visiting the National
Gallery, room by room, chatting as we go along of the various pictures,
of the artists who have painted them, of their subjects, talking of the
different schools to which they belong.
“What is a school?” you ask me.
No, it is not a place where you learn your lessons, where there is
fagging and games, and rewards awarded, and punishments administered. A
school of painters means a group of artists working under the influence
of a leader—a painter, who has brought some new view of art into the
world. One, for instance, brought colour and the harmony of colour,
another brought what is called composition—that is arranging figures to
the best advantage so as to serve the purpose of the work; another
taught how to look at landscape and so on. Perhaps it would be more
correct to say that to those who worked under the overpowering influence
of a master, the new thing his genius had brought seemed such a great
thing that they were content to go on doing it as if there were nothing
more to be done. They and their master formed what is called a “school.”
A school, therefore, is founded on some new view of art which comes as a
priceless addition to the great accumulation of art-principles,
contributed by all the other schools that have gone before. It is a sort
of hoard of treasures.
In early art the subject was the first consideration. In the thirteenth
century there was a great awakening of art in Italy. Cimabue and Giotto
founded the Florentine school. A great many schools descended from it.
All began by being religious. Painting, it may be said, was the handmaid
of the Church, and the Catholic Church permeated the life of the people.
The subjects demanded were taken from legends of saints. The Madonna
reigned supreme in art. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when
perspective, composition, the science of light and shade had been
mastered, artists began to treat allegorical and mythological subjects,
and above all portraiture.
The different schools that were affected by the great Florentine revival
are the Sienese, the Ferrarese, the Bolognese, the Umbrian, the Paduan,
and that of Lombardy, all culminating in the Venetian school in which
art seemed to reach its climax. All represent a larger outlook upon the
life of the people. Italy and after it Spain represent the Catholic
influence in art. Every church contained numerous altars above which was
raised a masterpiece. The art of the South was pre-eminently a Catholic
art.
The art of the North was essentially a Protestant art, caring little for
legends of the saints and the Madonna, caring very much for human beings
and for the love of country. The Flemish school is a grand school of
portraiture. It numbered Van Eyck, Rubens, Van Dyck among its supreme
masters.
The Dutch school was developed only after the Reformation, and its
painting is entirely independent of the Catholic Church, its art
independent of Church patronage. Patriotism is the strong inspirer of
Dutch genius; portraiture, landscape and genre painting (the painting
that illustrates the modest incidents of home life) were its favourite
forms of art. In portraits the Dutch masters painted the portraits of
their burgomasters; in landscape they set themselves to preserve every
feature of their low-lying, level pasture land, in genre painting all
the simple avocations of the home-loving national life.
The German school shows the serious sincere ideal of the German folk. It
was of short duration. The Thirty Years War put an end to the
florescence of art. Albert Dürer was the great Lutheran painter, Holbein
was the king of portrait painters. Then came the French school born of
classic traditions, a school full of cultured, charming artificiality.
Afterwards, towards the end of the seventeenth century, came the English
school. It is strong and individualistic, as is the nation. It had three
foremost painters for its leaders—Hogarth, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and
Gainsborough.