1475, and died in Milan in 1531 or 1532. Luini worked chiefly in the
vicinity of Milan and painted a great many frescoes. He is said to
have been a pupil of Borgognone; but whether that be true or not, most
certainly Leonardo da Vinci was his real master. It was assuredly
from the painter of the _Mona Lisa_ that Luini learned how to
paint a charming woman with refined features breaking into a radiant
and enchanting smile. Luini painted many notable religious pictures,
including admirable Madonnas, but his loveliest work is the portrait
of a Milanese lady known as _The Columbine_, in The Hermitage
Gallery, gazing at the flower she is holding in her hand, from which
the picture takes its name.
[Illustration:
_Collection of the Hon. Andrew W. Mellon_
PORTRAIT OF A LADY
--_Luini_]
“Luini’s female creations are so exquisite that for a long time
people supposed that Leonardo alone was capable of conceiving them,”
writes Marcel Reymond, “and permanently recording their loveliness;
but now this injustice has come to an end and Luini’s art appears
before us with sharply determined characteristics that prevent us from
confounding it with Leonardo’s art; first of all, from the point of
view of technique, it must be remembered that Leonardo works like a
master born about 1450 and Luini like one born after 1470. With Luini
the workmanship is less precise than with Leonardo, while the stroke is
less restrained and the modelling freer.”
TITIAN’S SCHOOLMASTER.
_Giambattista Moroni
(1520–5–1578)._
_Collection of
Mr. Joseph E. Widener._
In the National Gallery, London, there is a striking portrait of a
_Tailor_--known as the _Tagliapanni_--standing behind his board, at
half-length, with shears in his right hand and a piece of cloth in his
left, looking inquiringly at the spectator. It is forceful, attractive,
commands attention, and lives in the memory of all who have looked upon
it. Moroni’s _Tailor_ is one of the great portraits of the world. The
merest glance at the picture represented here would tell you that it
is by the same hand. The means of producing a striking effect are even
simpler than in the London portrait.
The title is entirely fanciful, but it accords well with the subject,
a pleasant, genial man with an intellectual countenance. He seems to
be about sixty years of age and is dressed in black with white linen
collar and a black cap. His beard is grey. He is sitting sideways in
a chair that is often described to-day (and for no reason whatever)
as a “Savonarola Chair,” resting his left arm on the arm of the chair
and holding a book in his right. It would appear that he has just
been interrupted in his reading--pleasantly, too, it would seem--and
is keeping the page he has left off reading with one finger between
the leaves. The hands are marvellously drawn and painted, as is also
the ring on the left hand. Van Dyck admired this picture so much that
he made a sketch of it in his Italian sketch-book (which is now at
Chatsworth).
This portrait in oils on canvas (38 × 29½ inches) was long in the
Borghese Gallery at Rome, and then at the beginning of the Nineteenth
Century it was purchased by the Marquis of Stafford. From the Duke of
Northumberland’s Collection, Stafford House, it passed to the present
owner.
[Illustration:
_Collection of Mr. Joseph E. Widener_
TITIAN’S SCHOOLMASTER
--_Moroni_]
Moroni’s great fame, even in his own day, was as a portrait-painter;
and it is said that when people from Bergamo and its vicinity went to
Titian to have their portraits painted, he told them to go home and sit
to their own countryman. Moroni was a pupil of Moretto at Brescia, was
influenced by Lotto and Titian, and he, in his turn, influenced Van
Dyck.
Moroni was born at Bondo in Bergamo between 1520 and 1525 and died at
Bergamo in 1578.
_VENETIAN_
“It is evident,” wrote Taine, “that, while following a path of its own,
Venetian Painting developed as in the rest of Italy. It issued here, as
elsewhere, from missals and mosaics and was at first in sympathy with
purely Christian emotion; then, by degrees, the feeling for beautiful
human life introduced into the altar-frames vigorous and healthy
bodies taken from contemporary types; and we wonder at the placid,
expressions and religious physiognomies on the blooming faces in which
the youthful blood circulates and sustains innate temperament. This is
the confluence of two spirits and two ages: one, the Christian, which
is fading away; the other, the Pagan, which is in the ascendant. In
Venetian Art special traits are distinguished. The people are more
closely copied from life and are less transformed by Classic or mystic
sentiment, not so pure as at Perugia, not so noble as at Florence:
they are addressed more to the senses than to the mind or the heart;
they are more quickly recognized as men and give greater pleasure to
the eye. Strong and lively tones color their muscles and their faces;
living flesh is soft on their shoulders and on the thighs of little
children; clear landscapes open into the distance to make the deeper
tints of the figure stand out; saints gather around the Virgin in a
variety of attitudes unknown to the other Primitive Schools with their
uniform processions. At the height of its fervor and faith the national
spirit, fond of diversity and joy, allows a smile to escape.”
Venice was slow in abandoning Byzantine tradition. Changes begin to be
apparent in the Fourteenth Century. Walter Pater notes: “The beginnings
of Venetian Painting link themselves to the last, stiff, half-barbaric
splendors of Byzantine decoration and are but the introduction into the
crust of marble and gold on the walls of the Duomo of Murano, or of St.
Mark’s, of a little more of human expression. And throughout the course
of its later development, always subordinate to architectural effect,
the work of the Venetian School never escaped from the influence of
its beginnings. Unassisted, and therefore, unperplexed by naturalism,
religious mysticism, philosophical theories, it had no Giotto, no
Fra Angelico, no Botticelli. Except from the stress of thought or
sentiment, which taxed so severely the resources of the generations of
Florentine artists, those earlier Venetian painters, down to Carpaccio
and the Bellini, seem never for a moment to have been tempted even to
lose sight of the scope of their art in its strictness, or to forget
that painting must be before all things decorative, a thing for the
eye, a space of color on the wall, only more dexterously blent than the
marking of its precious stone, or the chance interchange of sun and
shade upon it--this to begin and end with--whatever higher matter of
thought, or poetry, or religious reverie, might play its part therein,
between.”
During the Fifteenth Century Venice began to be influenced by painters
from other cities, particularly by Gentile da Fabriano (see page 74)
and Pisanello (see page 99), who were sent for to decorate the Doge’s
Palace. Gentile da Fabriano represented all the latest “modernistic”
ideas of his day. Among the Venetians who were most profoundly
influenced by him was Jacopo Bellini (who later went to Padua).
Jacopo, in spite of his contact with Squarcione and Andrea Mantegna
(who married his daughter), remained “Gothic” in essentials. Jacopo
Bellini had one of the largest _bottegas_ in Venice; and this
_bottega_ was continued by his gifted sons, Giovanni and Gentile.
Jacopo was a talented painter who had worked in Florence as well as
Padua, but who really belongs to Venice.
The great rivals of the Bellini painters were the Vivarini on the
Island of Murano. The Vivarini, the first of whom was Antonio da
Murano (active 1440–1476 or 1484), who played a great part in the
development of the Venetian School and whose work consisted of enormous
altar-pieces of many compartments set in Gothic framework of very
ornate character and profusely adorned with gold; Bartolommeo Vivarini,
Antonio’s younger brother (1431?–1499?), in whose work the influence of
the Paduan School of Squarcione is marked and also that of Antonello
da Messina; and Antonio’s son, Alvise Vivarini (1447–1504), a pupil of
his father and uncle, who was working in 1474 with Giovanni Bellini
in the Scuola di San Girolamo in Venice and whose portraits show the
influence of Antonello da Messina.
Carlo Crivelli (1430?–1493?), if not a Venetian by birth, which is most
probable, is classed as belonging to the Venetian School. Crivelli
was a fellow-pupil of Bartolommeo Vivarini under Antonio da Murano
(Vivarini), and Squarcione. Like Mantegna, Crivelli kept to tempera
painting; Crivelli stands alone for his wonderful decorative qualities
(see page 125 and page 128).
Antonello da Messina (1430–1479) was a contemporary of Crivelli and
is particularly distinguished for introducing into Italy the Flemish
system of painting with oils. In his pictures the influence of the
Bellini is apparent (see page 124).
Giovanni Bellini (1428–30–1516), one of the greatest painters of the
Fifteenth Century, was trained by his father, Jacopo Bellini. Next
he followed in the footsteps of Squarcione and Andrea Mantegna; but
he changed his style, as well as his technique, gradually abandoning
tempera for the new practice in oils, which he was one of the first to
master. In some respects Giovanni Bellini was influenced by his own
pupil, Giorgione (see page 118). Gentile Bellini (1426–9–1507), was
named, it is interesting to note, for Gentile da Fabriano, his father’s
master and friend. Gentile, trained by his father, Jacopo, was called
upon to paint the organ-shutters at St. Mark’s with colossal figures
of St. Mark, St. Theodore, St. Jerome, and St. Francis; was knighted
by Frederic III in 1469; and was employed to restore the frescoes of
Gentile da Fabriano in the Hall of the Grand Council in the Doge’s
Palace, a commission which carried with it the honor of painting the
portrait of every new Doge. Sent for by the Sultan of Constantinople,
Mohammed II, to paint his portrait, Gentile sailed for Constantinople
in 1479 and returned in 1480 with the title of Bey. Gentile then joined
his brother, Giovanni, who was working on the Fabriano frescoes. The
Bellini brothers also painted on canvas a series of pictures portraying
the legend of Frederic Barbarossa and Pope Alexander III, which
perished in the fire of 1577. Gentile’s _Procession of Corpus Christi
of 1496_ has been pronounced “the most important extant work of the
Venetian School previous to the advent of Titian.”
The _bottegas_ of the Bellini and Vivarini naturally produced
a host of able painters, among whom were Marco Basaiti (active
1500–1521); Lazzaro Bastiani (active 1449–1512); Cima da Conegliano
(1460?–1517?); and Jacopo Bassano (1510?–1592). Vittore Carpaccio
(1450?–1526?), was a follower of Gentile Bellini; and the stories
he told in paint, such as the series depicting the _Life of Saint
Ursula_, belong to the great works of Venice.
Giorgione (1477–1510) is the next important name. Little or nothing
is known of his life, except that he was born of humble parents at
Castelfranco. By 1500 his reputation was established, for he was then
painting important works. Among these was a picture for the Hall of
Audience in the Doge’s Palace and some fresco decorations for the
exterior of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, the bank of the German merchants
in Venice. Giorgione was a pupil and follower of the Bellini and had
much influence upon Giovanni Bellini. Giorgione died of the Plague in
his thirty-fourth year. Giorgione stands alone for his romantic and
lyrical qualities and for his penetrating charm. He is notable, too,
for having introduced music into his pictures, or rather persons who
are playing upon instruments.
Apart from his delightful qualities Giorgione is of the greatest
importance in the evolution of painting. Walter Pater writes:
“Giorgione is the inventor of _genre_, of those easily movable
pictures which serve for uses, neither of devotion nor of allegorical,
or historical teaching--little groups of real men and women,
amid congruous furniture or landscape--morsels of actual life,
conversation, or music, or play, refined upon or idealized, till they
come to seem like glimpses of life from afar. Those spaces of more
cunningly blent color, obediently filling their place, hitherto, in
a mere architectural scheme, Giorgione detaches from the wall; he
frames them by the hands of some skillful carver, so that people may
move them readily and take with them where they go, like a poem in
manuscript, or a musical instrument, to be used, at will, as a means of
self-education, stimulus or solace, coming like an animated presence,
into one’s cabinet, to enrich the air as with some choice aroma, and,
like persons, live with us, for a day or a lifetime. Of all art like
this, art which has played so large a part in men’s culture since that
time, Giorgione is the initiator.”
Titian, or rather Tiziano Vecello (1477?–1576), fellow-pupil of
Giorgione, of Gentile and Giovanni Bellini and assistant to Giorgione
in decorating the Fondaco dei Tedeschi (which established a new era in
Italian painting), was the leading painter of his day (see page 140).
Bartolommeo Veneto, of Veneziano (1480–1555), pupil of Giovanni
Bellini, became a famous portrait-painter. (See page 148.)
Tintoretto, the magnificent Venetian, was nicknamed “Il Furioso,”
because of his great technical powers that include astonishing display
of foreshortening and many curious effects in light and color, as
well as in form. Ruskin says Tintoretto (or Tintoret, call him as you
please) made “figures lovely in themselves, content that they should
_deserve_ not _demand_, your attention.”
Playing with a full orchestra of color and understanding how to produce
the most luminous effects of light, the great Venetian filled Venice
with marvellous pictures. Tintoretto was equal to the immense work he
undertook and his noble brush never left anything that was unworthy of
it. Tintoretto, whose real name was Jacopo Robusti (1518–1594), was
apprenticed to Titian and was influenced by Titian, Palma Vecchio,
Michelangelo, and Parmigiano (of the School of Palma and follower of
Correggio).
“There is one only--the last and greatest of the Venetians of the
Renaissance--who could sound all the notes of tragedy and pathos
as well as notes of joy. Tintoretto, the supreme Venetian, the
greatest exponent of the essential spirit of Venice, is the son of a
wider kingdom than hers and of a greater age than the Renaissance.
Unsurpassed as a designer and colorist, he is endowed throughout with
the peculiar gifts of Venice; but during those years of passionate
study, in which he was winning here and there the secrets of his
art, hungry for knowledge, careless of gain, and bargaining only for
material in which to realize his conceptions,--during those years in
which he lived alone in continual meditation on some fresh labor, he
was probing the deep and passionate things of humanity as no Venetian
artist had ever probed them before. The streets and churches of the
city seem to echo still to the steps of this genius at once so robust,
so tender, so profound, and so joyous.”[15]
Paolo Veronese, or rather Paolo Caliari (1528–1588), a native of
Verona, whence his name, is one of the most delightful of painters.
J. Buisson considers Veronese of all the painters of Italy “the one
whose work best serves to particularize the art of painting” and this
able French critic goes on to say that “Veronese painted the Venetian
Beautiful as the Greeks sculptured the Hellenic Beautiful” and that
“Paul Veronese is of all the colorists, without a single exception, the
one who has most unity. He is the most ethereal of the colorists. He is
the painter of the air, both out-of-doors and in-doors. His values are
impeccable and his shadows are at once transparent and full of color,
without any artifice, such as Rubens’s exaggerated reflections, or the
excessive sacrifices, which in Rembrandt are almost equivalent to a
monotone in those parts that are lacking in light. His lights are broad
and steady although modelled without any gleams, but of so shining a
quality that they are positively radiant. Happy artist! He had the eye
of the most perfect colorist ever known, able to perceive at the same
time the different qualities of light and color and their variations
in intensity and values and he possessed the gift to reveal them with
marvellous art to ordinary mortals. Optics applied to his pictures show
no law that he did not know and practice. Moreover, around his perfect
visions of color are grouped other qualities, such as imagination,
taste, rhythm, elegance, nobility, and magnificence in decoration. His
hand is the equal of his eye. The rapidity of his brush may be compared
only to that of Velasquez and to that of Rubens.”
This great period, Taine sums up as follows:
“The more we consider the ideal figures of Venetian Art, the more we
feel the breath of an heroic age behind us. Those great, toga-draped,
old men with the bald foreheads are the Patrician Kings of the
Archipelago, Moorish Sultans, who, trailing their silken _simars_,
received tribute and ordered executions. The superb women in sweeping
robes, bedizened and jewelled, are Empress-daughters of the Republic,
like that Caterina Cornaro from whom Venice received Cyprus. There
are the muscles of fighters in the bronzed breasts of the sailors
and captains; their bodies, reddened by the sun and the wind, have
dashed against the athletic bodies of Janizaries; their turbans, their
_pelisses_, their furs, their sword-hilts constellated with
precious stones--all the magnificence of Asia is mingled on their
bodies with the floating draperies of Classic times and the nudities of
Pagan tradition.”
Sebastian del Piombo (1485?–1547), pupil of Giovanni Bellini and
Giorgione, preferred oil to fresco and this led to a famous quarrel
between him and Michelangelo. Palma Vecchio (1480–1528), standing
first in the second rank of Bellini-Giorgione followers, is another
important painter. Lorenzo Lotto (1480–1556), pupil of Alvise Vivarini,
painted with Raphael in the Vatican in 1508–9 and naturally fell under
Raphael’s spell. Lotto spent much time in Bergamo; was touched by
Correggio’s spirit; and, after 1529, was affected by Titian.
Paris Bordone (1500–1571), a gorgeous colorist, pupil and follower
of Giorgione and Titian (and slightly touched by Palma Vecchio),
was famous for his portraits, mythological pictures, and for that
masterpiece entitled _The Fisherman Presenting the Ring of St. Mark
to the Doge_ (now in the Accademia at Venice).
“These Venetian artists of the Renaissance,” says d’Annunzio, “create
in a medium that is itself a joyous mystery--in color, the ornament
of the world, in color which seems to be the striving of the spirit
to become light. And the entirely new _musical understanding they
have of color_ acts in such a way that their creation transcends
the narrow limits of the symbols it represents and assumes the lofty,
revealing faculty of an infinite harmony.”
To the Eighteenth Century belongs Giovanni Battista Tiepolo
(1696–1769), famous as a designer and colorist, influenced by Veronese,
and a decorator of palaces and villas in Venice, Genoa, Milan,
Würzburg, and Madrid, where he died. Tiepolo married Guardi’s sister in
1715.
Canaletto, or Giovanni Antonio da Canale (1697–1768), son of Bernardo
da Canale, a scene-painter, is famous for his views of Venice and for
being the teacher of Guardi.
Francesco Guardi (1712–1793), a native Venetian, but of Austrian
stock, a follower of his master Canaletto, was also celebrated for his
Venetian views (see page 153).
“Venice herself” writes Berenson, “had not grown less beautiful in her
decline. Indeed, the building which occupies the very centre of the
picture Venice leaves in the mind--the Salute--was not built until the
Seventeenth Century. This was the picture that the Venetian himself
loved to have painted for him and that the stranger wanted to carry
away. Canale painted Venice with a feeling for space and atmosphere,
with a mastery over the delicate effects of mist peculiar to the city,
that make his view of the Salute, the Grand Canal, and the Piazzetta
still seem more like Venice than all the pictures that have been
painted since. Later in the century Canale was followed by Guardi, who
executed smaller views with more of an eye for the picturesque, and for
what may be called instantaneous effects, thus anticipating both the
Romantic and the Impressionist painters of our own century.”
To the Eighteenth Century also belongs Pietro Longhi (1702–1785?),
influenced by Guardi, but called “The Goldini of painters,” because
of his bright comedies of manners, somewhat in the _genre_ of
Watteau, Pater, and Lancret.
“Longhi painted for the picture-loving Venetians,” says Berenson,
“their own lives in all their ordinary domestic and fashionable phases.
In the hair-dressing scenes we hear the gossip of the periwigged
barber; in the dressmaking scenes the chatter of the maid; in the
dancing-school, the pleasant music of the violin. There is no tragic
note anywhere. Everybody dresses, dances, makes bows, takes coffee,
as if there were nothing else in the world that wanted doing. A tone
of high courtesy, of great refinement, coupled with an all-pervading
cheerfulness, distinguishes Longhi’s pictures from the works of
Hogarth, at once so brutal and so full of presage of change.”
MADONNA AND CHILD.
_Antonello da Messina_
(_1430–1479_).
_Collection of
Mr. Clarence H. Mackay._
The Virgin, slightly under life-size, stands behind a stone parapet,
three-quarter face to left, apparently in a reverie with half-closed
eyelids. She wears a red and gold brocade gown and a blue mantle
carried up over her head and falling in a straight line, but for
one small plait, to her left arm. The Holy Child is seated upon a
green cushion on the parapet and is wrapped in a brick-red shawl.
With His left arm around His mother’s neck and right hand in her
bosom, He gazes straight ahead. The flesh-tones are pale with clear,
light-brown shadows and the rose-leaf lips and cylindrical fingers with
filbert-shaped nails are to be noticed and admired.
[Illustration:
_Collection of Mr. Clarence H. Mackay_
MADONNA AND CHILD
--_Antonello da Messina_]
This oil painting on panel (23 × 16 inches), comes from the Benson
Collection. Antonello da Messina, also known as Antonello di Giovanni
degli Antoni, holds a very important place in the development of
Painting, because _it is owing to him that the Flemish system of
painting in oil was adopted in Italy_, although Italian painters had
been previously acquainted with the process, for they knew the works of
the Van Eycks and Roger van der Weyden. It is supposed that Antonello,
who was born in Messina in 1430, visited Flanders. It is certain,
however, that Antonello was travelling in Italy in 1457–1460 and he may
have met Roger van der Weyden, who visited Italy in 1450. Antonello da
Messina was certainly in Venice in 1475–1476. He died in 1479, leaving
a son, Jacobello, or Jacopo degli Antoni, and a nephew, Antonello di
Saliba, both of whom were painters. It seems that Antonello da Messina
and the Bellini exchanged many ideas and were of great mutual benefit.
It is supposed that Antonello da Messina encouraged Giovanni Bellini to
try painting in oils. _St. Jerome in his Study_ in the National
Gallery, London, shows the new character that Antonello brought into
the Italian painting of his day.
MADONNA AND CHILD.
_Carlo Crivelli_
(_1430?–1493?_).
_Collection of
Mr. A. W. Erickson._
Before analysing this delightful picture, let us read an appreciation
of a most fascinating and not too well-understood painter by Cosmo
Monkhouse: “Carlo Crivelli is a Venetian artist of whom we know
little but what can be gathered from pictures. He is supposed to have
been born about 1430 and his dated works range from 1468 to 1493. He
was a Venetian by birth and from his mode it would appear certain
that he studied under Squarcione at Padua and probably also under
Vivarini at Venice. But he perfected a style and one marked by so many
peculiarities that despite all affinities which may be traced with
other masters he stands out clear and distinct by himself.