UMBRIAN SCHOOL
PERUGINO
“For all honest work is worship,
And to labour is to pray.”
The painters, natives of the townlets round the hamlet of Assisi formed
the Umbrian school. There had been born the saint whose heart burned
with love and pity for the suffering of men and beasts. Assisi, closely
associated with the life of St. Francis, is the spiritual mother of the
school of Umbria. Essentially religious in spirit this school had a
cultivated sense of classic beauty in the human form, far excelling that
of Siena.
To the Umbrian school belongs the glory of having nurtured Raphael—dear
Raphael who painted the “Madonna and Child” as no man has painted them.
His master, Perugino, belonged to this school. He was born about 1446,
and died in 1524. His real name was Pietro Vannucci, but, later, when he
became a citizen of Perugia, he called himself after the town of his
adoption. He was brought up in great poverty. Vasari tells us he was
apprenticed to an artist who was very deficient as a painter, but who
had a great reverence for art. The master was always telling his pupil
what a glory it was to excel in painting, and Perugino’s imagination was
fired. He was continually asking which was the best place to study in,
and the master always answered that Florence was the only place, firstly
because all men there were critics, secondly because Florence was not
built upon a fertile soil, so that all must work hard to gain a living,
and, lastly, because the air of Florence excited dullards, so that the
dwellers therein for ever sought honour and glory.
To Florence went Perugino eager in his quest. He studied, we are told,
under Andrea Verrocchio, and in a few years he had obtained a great
reputation, so that his pictures were sought for in many countries
besides Italy. He was sensitively honest, and he easily took offence.
Once he had to ornament with painting the cloisters of a convent, of
which the prior had a great reputation for making ultramarine. This is a
most beautiful blue extracted from a very rare and precious mineral. The
prior was very suspicious, fearing that his ultramarine should be
stolen, so he would watch the artist at work; and honest Perugino took
it very ill that the prior should distrust him. He resolved to prove to
him how easy it was to cheat, if you were so minded, and, ordering a
large pail of water, he continually washed his brush laden with
ultramarine. Every time that the prior groaned because he had to provide
more of his precious colour, Perugino would say cheerfully, “You see I
have used it all.” The picture was finished; then the artist took his
noble revenge. He emptied the water and showed a deposit of blue mineral
collected at the bottom of the basin.
“You should not distrust an honest man,” he said to the prior. “You must
learn to trust, for the honest man too knows how to deceive suspicious
men like yourself.”
The National Gallery possesses four undoubted pictures by Perugino (181,
288, 1075, 1441). “The Baptism of Our Lord” (1431) is not undoubted, so
we do not include it in our list. You will find in all these pictures a
lovely purity of tone, an ideal sense of beauty, and a most perfect
grace. The peacefulness of the landscape, introduced as a background,
brings a spiritual repose to the work. In the “Madonna and Child” (288)
we see the quiet hills behind the Virgin’s head; a lovely river runs at
their base, peaceful as a river in Paradise. The somewhat formal trees
repeat each other, one on either side; their slender stems, their
branchings, are examples of perfect symmetry. It is like a landscape
seen in a dream, not quite natural, but full of mystic romance.
If you look at “The Virgin and Child and St. John” (181) you will find
these qualities repeated. The saintly beauty of the young Virgin’s face
is very noticeable; there is a melancholy and a purity on her broad
brow, in her downcast eyes, gazing with an anticipation of sorrow on her
bonny boy. The richness of her raiment is finely rendered; on the border
of her mantle, embroidered in gold, is Perugino’s name. Behind her head
stretches a delicate sky, hills at whose base winds a river, level
meadows beyond; all are steeped in a transparent golden glow. In the
picture (288) which I have mentioned there is the same purity, the same
exquisiteness of tone. The young mother is worshipping her Child, which
an angel is holding, angels aloft are choiring praises to It, while on
either side are two panels; on one is depicted the Archangel Michael,
dressed in armour typifying that he is the “orderer of Christian
warfare,” on the other is Raphael, the ministering angel, the friend of
man; Tobias is looking at his gentle countenance. All Perugino’s
qualities are repeated in “The Virgin and Child, St. Jerome and St.
Francis”[1] (1075)—beautiful pictures painted by a master hand, seen in
a master’s vision!
Footnote 1:
“The Adoration of the Shepherds” (1441) is believed to be the last
picture by Perugino.
Perugino died at the age of seventy-eight. Vasari tells us that he was
very fond of money, because of the extreme poverty of his up-bringing.
All his pictures testify to the charm and peace of his soul.