FLORENTINE SCHOOL (_Continued_)
“And mark through the winter afternoons,
By a gift God grants me now and then,
In the mild decline of those suns like moons,
Who walked in Florence, besides her men.”
Filippino Lippi (1457–1504) was Fra Filippo’s son, the “little Filippo,”
and he too was a painter of genius. He was a very young man when his
father died—too young to have learned much from him—and he became the
pupil of Sandro Botticelli. His pure and excellent life made him greatly
beloved. Vasari, the chronicler of the painters of the close of the
fifteenth and of the opening of the sixteenth centuries, whose
contemporary he was, tells us “that he was loved by all who had known
him, not only for the excellence of his life, but for the courtesy and
the amiability of his disposition.”
“St. Francis with the Stigmata” (598) is a very characteristic picture
by this artist. In it we see the saint, whose bride was Poverty, whose
heart overflowed with love for humanity and for all created things,
receiving the stigmata. The stigmata is the trace of the wounds that our
Lord had borne—his lacerated hands and feet, his “riven side.” It is a
tradition of the Catholic Church that St. Francis meditated so
constantly upon the Saviour’s sufferings, prayed so incessantly, wept
such bitter tears over them, that the Lord himself appeared to him and
touched his hands and feet and side. From henceforth St. Francis bore in
his person the wounds that his Saviour had borne. Here we see him
standing in glory against a gold background, contemplating a small
crucifix above. On each side of him are angels playing musical
instruments, singing anthems exhorting others to follow the example of
the saint. It is a strange picture full of a great fervour.
Let us now look at “An Angel Adoring” (927), a somewhat battered
fragment from a large picture. A faded halo is round the angel’s head;
we can see the trace of wings on the shoulders. How tender is the
expression of the face bent in prayer, how tender also is the clasp of
the finger tips. Seldom has the expression of adoring prayer been more
beautifully rendered; adoration is the note of this painter’s work. We
have in the National Gallery three pictures of “The Adoration of the
Magi” (592), (1033), (1124), by Filippino Lippi. In these pictures we
see his love for splendour of costume. According to Vasari he introduces
figures in antique garments, in armour, swords, togas; all the
paraphernalia of classic antiquity appear in his works. Note especially
(in 1124) the heralds blowing their trumpets, the ample robes of the
three Magi offering gifts. The garments Filippino paints are of superb
brocade and velvet, his jewels are gems of rare colour, yet as we look
we forget all the splendour and remember only the sweet and rapt
expression of the adoring faces. The love of the classics touched
Filippino, as I have told you it had seized all Italy at the time of the
Renaissance. Legends of saints, scenes from the biblical story, formed
still the subject of the artist’s inspiration, but he clothed his
conceptions in the worldly splendour that was so dear to his generation.
I must speak to you of the art of composition that he so skilfully
employed; in the “Adoration of the Magi” (1124) that art enabled him to
fill his canvas and yet to allow no sense of crowding. Group balances
group, and we are surprised to find that there are over seventy figures
introduced into a comparatively small picture. Of Filippino’s works I
should say that they reflect his own nature—so pious, so serene, so
interested in the world’s spiritual beauty and its progress. I can
imagine him with his courteous manner, noted by Vasari, his gentle
address, painting these pictures of prayer and of divine love. His art
differed very much from that of his father; it differed also from that
of his master Botticelli, although it was much influenced by it. We
recognise little of his father’s care of all the dear humble things of
the world—the flowers, the sunlight, the beauty of the lilies of the
field—nor does he show intimate appreciation of the meaning of gesture;
we see none of Botticelli’s vehemence. Filippino’s art, it seems to me,
is all contained in the word “worship.” It is detached from the world,
while appreciating its glory; it is exalted, pure, and expressive. He
died at Florence in April 1504, and the inhabitants of the city, in
order to show their affection for his gentle and gifted personality,
closed their shutters all along the route of the funeral procession.
Let us pause for a moment before the picture, “The Battle of Sant’
Egidio” (583), by Paolo Uccello (1397–1479). The painter is called
Uccello—the Italian for bird—because of his love for the feathered
creation. His family name was Dono. “He filled his home,” says Vasari,
“with a number of painted birds, cats, and dogs.” He loved them all—he
loved all animals—but he was poor and he could not keep any.
You have all heard of perspective—the science of foreshortening, of
representing things as they look, differently from what they are. It was
Uccello who discovered its rules. He was so interested that he would sit
up all night drawing perspective plans, intricate circles, and squares.
His wife could not get him to bed. “What a sweet thing perspective is,”
he would say regretfully when she urged him to come. Vasari thinks that
Uccello would have been the most original genius since Giotto, but for
that love of perspective—“if he had studied figures and animals instead
of wasting his time over perspective; although it is a fine science,” he
says, “yet he who is devoted to it out of measure wastes his time.”
But Uccello was “bitten with it,” as they say, and he persisted in his
studies, growing every day more solitary and more eccentric in his
tastes. He died in great poverty. Look at this picture, “The Battle of
Sant’ Egidio” (583). In this battle, Carlo Malatesta, Lord of Rimini,
and his nephew Galeazzo, were taken prisoners by Braccio di Montone.
Malatesta is depicted on his white horse. He has in his raised hand the
stick of command with which he apparently is giving the signal of
battle. He is covered with mail, over which he wears a red mantle
embroidered with gold. On his head he has a large biretta worked with
flowers in gold. Galeazzo is behind him, seen in profile. He has a
beautiful face marked by a peaceful expression; his blonde and abundant
hair flows about his neck, and he is attentively following the manœuvres
of the combatants. Look at the spirit of the horses as they close in the
fight; they seem to tear the ground in their energy; the order has gone
forth and the battle is raging in earnest. Behind is a hedge of wild
roses—roses bloom notwithstanding the tumult of the fray. In the
foreground a knight has fallen wounded. His figure lies prone on the
earth, and is an example of Uccello’s skill in foreshortening. It is a
somewhat grotesque picture, but it is full of movement and spirit. Its
importance is to show a new development in art—a new thing brought into
the world by the genius of man, and this new thing is the union of
science with art. Scientific perspective joined to the emotional side of
art.
“The Death of Procris” (698), by Piero di Cosimo (1462–1521), is a
quaint and interesting picture, full of wonder and full of beauty. I
must tell you something of the painter, for he was a singular man. The
son of a goldsmith, he was placed by his father to study under a painter
named Cosimo, who grew to love him dearly, and whose name he took. Piero
di Cosimo, as a youth, was very absent-minded and dreamy. “He was so
fond of solitude,” says Vasari, “that he had no greater pleasure than to
go by himself to solitary places, there to weave visions and to build
castles in the air.” When his master died, to whom he was greatly
attached, Piero would let no one see him. “He lived more like a wild
beast than a man,” says Vasari. “He would never let his room be swept,
or his garden dug or his fruit trees pruned.” He loved to see things
wild as was his own nature. He ate when he was hungry only. He brought
himself to live upon hard boiled eggs, which he would cook by fifties,
keeping them in a bag to consume by degrees. Later, when you are older,
you will read the noble novel “Romola,” by George Eliot, and there you
will get to know the painter in his old age; you will understand his
genius and his eccentricity, his patriotism, his tender love for some
people, his aversion to others. Poor Cosimo, as he grew older, he grew
more singular and fantastic. He loved animals dearly. He used to spend
hours watching them, but he loved solitude most of all. He became more
morose as the shadow of years gathered about his tormented soul. A
terrible misfortune overtook him in his old age; he was struck with
paralysis, and Vasari tells us of his misery, how he would try to keep
his hands steady, how he would force himself to hold a maul stick and
brushes, but it was all in vain; his grasp grew feebler, and things
would drop from his fingers. Then he would rage, and, in his despair, he
would talk wildly. It was very pitiful to watch him, but peace came at
last, and one morning the grim old man was found lying dead at the foot
of his stairs.
[Illustration:
“THE DEATH OF PROCRIS” (698)
BY PIERO DI COSIMO
page 30
]
“The Death of Procris” is a beautiful picture. See how charming is the
wide effect of light in the sky; how charming also are the flowers in
the foreground. All the tenderness underlying Cosimo’s rough exterior is
apparent here. We must think of that picture painted in the untidy
studio by the solitary artist. Do you know the story of Procris? She was
a nymph; she ran, oh! so lightly, she was glad and free, and she fell in
love with Cephalus, the young huntsman; she loved him so much that she
was jealous of whoso approached him. She made herself miserable fancying
that Cephalus loved another nymph. One day, when he was gone hunting,
she followed him secretly and hid behind a bush, and there she heard his
voice. He was only saying, “Oh air, how sweet thou art,” or something of
that kind, but she was sure he was addressing another nymph. She
shivered with pain; she pushed forward to see to whom he was speaking,
and the leaves of the bush that hid her moved. Cephalus, thinking a wild
animal was hiding behind the tree, sent his arrow whizzing in its
direction, and the arrow hit Procris and killed her. There you see her
lying on the ground with the cruel wound in her throat, a long-eared
fawn is gazing wonderingly and sadly down upon her, and her dog Lelaps
is watching her. He seems to be saying, “Why is she so still, why do not
her nimble feet run as they used?” Poor Procris, poor silly Procris!
You must note how Piero di Cosimo uses gold. He was the son of a
goldsmith. See how tenderly he has placed it in Procris’ sandals, in her
beautiful waving hair. Every bit of this picture is full of charming
colour. Over four hundred years have passed since it was painted, and
still it is bright as on the day it left Piero di Cosimo’s studio, and
it is quaint, as were its painter’s imaginings.
“Raphael and Tobias” (781), by Antonio Pollajuolo (1429–1498), is a
delightful picture worthy to be studied. Some say it is by another
person than by Antonio Pollajuolo, that it is by one of his school, and
they give good reasons for their opinion. Anyhow it is a very fine
example of the early Florentine school. Have you ever read the story of
Tobias, the son of Tobit, in the Apocrypha? It tells how Tobit was a
Jewish exile, and how he became blind and prayed for death. His son
Tobias was to wed a rich kinswoman, Sarah by name, but she was haunted
by an evil spirit, who had slain her seven husbands on their wedding
night. To the household of Tobit came the angel of duty, Raphael,
disguised as a menial. He left high heaven and came down in order to
watch over Tobias. The time came when the youth must go forth to marry
Sarah, and the angel went with him. We see them in the picture
journeying together over the green country through which winds a river.
The angel and the lad are conversing together, and, as they converse,
they walk fast. The dust rises under their speeding feet. Tobias, like a
young bridegroom, is hastening to see his love, and Raphael is his
protector and adviser. Tobias’s dog goes before them—a grey, fluffy dog
careering in front. The angel carries a small box, intended for gall,
wherewith to cure Tobit of his blindness, and Tobias carries a fish, the
heart and liver of which, pounded together, is to act like a charm and
drive away the evil spirit that haunts his bride. Raphael’s wings are
strong and sheeny pinions. The rapidity of his walk sends his garment in
serried folds around his figure; his charming face is smiling down upon
Tobias, who, dressed in fifteenth-century costume, is eagerly looking
up. You must note the landscape background, which is very fresh and
pleasant.
To Antonio Pollajuolo is ascribed the “Martyrdom of St. Sebastian”
(292). Look at the wonderful drawing of that picture. The martyred saint
stands pierced by many arrows, and all about are the executioners. Some
are in the act of shooting, others are changing their cross-bows. One in
the foreground is a perfect masterpiece of drawing. Pollajuolo was the
first to study artistic anatomy—that is, the play of bones and muscles
under the flesh. He was the first to dissect dead bodies for that
purpose. Uccello, we have seen, established the rules of perspective,
and here we find anatomy entering into the curriculum of the painter.
This picture of St. Sebastian is a marvellous presentation of the human
figure. The painter was celebrated as a sculptor in bronze, and he was
famed for modelling. Yet the picture is lacking in what we find so
pathetic in earlier pictures, where the genius of the painter is
concentrated upon rendering the expression of the face, the divine look
of prayer and exaltation. This St. Sebastian is a magnificently modelled
figure, and all about him stand figures as nobly executed. And yet we
look upon the cruel scene unmoved; it seems to me that the emotions of
pity and repulsion are not conveyed by the artist.
The glory of Domenico Ghirlandajo (1449–1494) is to have been the master
of Michael Angelo. He was accounted the greatest teacher in Italy, and
to him for instruction went this genius of the Florentine school.
Domenico Ghirlandajo’s work is very fine and true; and his fame rests
upon portraiture. In all his pictures you will see painted the faces of
his contemporaries—the men and women of his time. For a century after
Giotto there was but one conventional facial expression. Every face was
like another face. Then, very humbly, religious painters began to
introduce into their work the portraits of the giver of the picture.
Ghirlandajo developed this practice. He differentiated the countenances
of the individuals, and under him the portrait became an independent
branch of art. We have two portraits by him—(1230) that of a young girl
in a red bodice; her face is characteristic, framed in by her long
waving hair; the other (1299) is the portrait of a youth.
His son, Ridolpho (1483–1561), excelled also in portrait painting. He
was a great friend of Raphael, who invited him to Rome to paint with
him. But Ridolpho refused the invitation and remained in Florence, his
native city, surrounded by friends and patrons, advancing in his art and
in the estimation of other men. He had great ideas of composition, of
forcible colouring, but what distinguishes him among his fellows is the
earnestness and the character of the heads he painted. The “Procession
to Calvary” (1143) is full of movement, full of character, and also full
of pathos. The Saviour is wearily bearing His cross, followed by a
company of soldiers and accompanied by a procession of weeping women.
St. Veronica is among them, and she, her heart full of pity for the
suffering Saviour, wipes with a napkin His brow, all bedewed with drops
of agony. When the Saviour returns the napkin to her, lo! it bears a
miraculous imprint of His features. It is a fine picture, full of a
mystic spirit, notwithstanding the brightness of its colouring and the
atmosphere surrounding the figures. In the crowd Ridolpho has painted
many portraits, among others those of his father, Domenico, and of
several friends.