to the old mosaic and illumination school of color, not to the school
of ‘great schemes,’ in which the masses are blent into one great
harmony. The masses, or patches, of color are isolated and produce a
pleasant variegation without fusion. His color is thin, also, as of a
superficial tinting, not affecting the substance. His flesh is hard
and opaque, his flowers leathery, his fruit, though finely drawn and
beautifully colored, of a stony texture, his draperies anything but
soft. It is only in hard smooth things, like pottery and glass, that
you get the true consistency as well as the true color. Yet his color
is exquisite of its kind, brilliant and transparent like enamel, and
the different tints in themselves are lovely and varied. Such reds and
greens and lilacs and salmon-pinks and a hundred other combinations
of the primaries are scarcely to be matched in the work of any other
artist. Nor has anyone been more skillful in the use of gold in
connection with color.
“There is scarcely any need to call attention to Crivelli’s special
gift as a designer of decoration. Almost every square inch of his
canvas attests the inexhaustible richness of his invention--an
invention fed no doubt from the rich products of Oriental looms of
which Venice was the emporium.
“Crivelli wrought only for the Church and appears to have spent
most of his life at Ascoli, but neither restriction of subject and
feeling, nor provincial residence, could fetter his genius. There is,
indeed, no artist of more striking individuality than Carlo Crivelli,
no one who had more complete mastery over his means of expression, or
attained more nearly to his ideal. This ideal was not the ‘_beau
ideal_’--that is to say, the perfection of physical beauty--it was
an ideal of character, the embodiment of the essential qualities of
his subject. One cannot help regarding Crivelli as a man of knowledge
and intellect, of charming manners, refined almost to fastidiousness,
delighting in all things dainty and beautiful, a lover of animals and
of his kind.”
This picture, an oil painting on panel (38 × 17 inches), came from the
Benson Collection, having been previously in the Collection of Mr. G.
H. Marland (sold in 1863), and in the Collection of Mr. William Graham
(sold in 1886). The Virgin, a small full-length figure, is seated on a
red and white marble throne, wearing a pale-red robe and a gold brocade
mantle lined with green carried up over the head, which is adorned
with a white veil. The Holy Child, standing on her lap, has on a gold
dress and a white sash. Behind these two figures there is a hanging
of pale-red, watered silk and behind the throne again there is a gold
hanging with the pomegranate pattern. The Holy Child turns to the
right in the act of blessing. On the step of the throne, which has a
conspicuous crack, two pears[16] are lying; and they have attracted a
fly. The step is inscribed: “Carolvs Crivellvs Venetvs Pinsit, 1472.”
[Illustration:
_Collection of Mr. A. W. Erickson_
MADONNA AND CHILD
--_Crivelli_]
“The effect is archaic and almost Byzantine,” G. McNeil Rushforth
writes in his _Carlo Crivelli_ (London, 1900), “but its merits
are very great.” “Though on a comparatively small scale the decorative
effect is superb. The Child’s head is heavy and inferior to that of
the Virgin, but the action is lively and realistic. The great charm,
however, of the picture is the Virgin. Her features are not beautiful
and the drawing of the hands might be criticized. But if ever grace
and dignity were conceived and executed by Crivelli, they are here.
Preëminently does this Virgin possess all that we understand by
distinction. Taken separately, the turn of the head and the action of
the fingers might be called affected. But they do not offend as parts
of the whole, so perfectly has the artist defined the ideal that was
before his mind. A curious feature in the picture is the treatment of
the drapery. The folds of the brocaded mantle are more elaborate than
anything which Crivelli had yet attempted, and they are expressed by
clear-cut lines without any shadow.”
MADONNA AND CHILD.
_Carlo Crivelli
(1430?–1493?)._
_Collection of
Mr. Philip Lehman._
This beautiful picture belongs to Crivelli’s greatest period, when
the artist had reached the height of his powers, had attained perfect
command of the problems of composition, and had gained the technique to
represent those materials he delighted in,--such as brocades, marbles,
and garlands of fruit, which he always combined with such decorative
beauty. Roger Fry says of this picture: “It has, in a supreme degree,
the delicacy and the almost metallic incisiveness of Crivelli’s contour
as well as the firmness and brilliance of his painting. The Madonna
supporting the Child upon her right arm, is seated in one of those
sumptuous Renaissance thrones, which Crivelli loved to elaborate with
every conceivable ingenuity of invention. Though the forms are intended
to be Classic, it is evident from the proportions of the mouldings
and something in the character of the detail that Crivelli is still
essentially an old Venetian artist, one who uses Classical conventions
with a Gothic exuberance.
[Illustration:
_Collection of Mr. Philip Lehman_
MADONNA AND CHILD
--_Crivelli_]
“This is a work of Crivelli’s prime. Indeed, it would be hard to
name another design in which he shows quite such mastery as he does
here. There is hardly another work in which the sequence of lines
is so suave, its flow so uninterrupted, or in which the movements
of the figures harmonize so perfectly. It is already almost a
_cinque-cento_ work as regards the amplitude of its forms and the
breadth of its divisions. One notes, for instance, that the fruits
hanging on the throne are even more enlarged and more massed than
usual, so that the quantities of relief support and carry out the
relief of the figures in a remarkable manner. Much of the earlier
intensity of feeling has undoubtedly gone. This has none of the
strange, brooding pathos of the early Madonnas, nor has it the sharp
individual accent of their faces. The works with which it appears to be
most akin are the Vatican _Madonna_ and the Triptych in the Brera,
both of 1482.”
THE VIRGIN AND CHILD WITH ST. LUCY, ST. CATHERINE,
ST. PETER AND ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST.
_Giovanni Bellini
(1428–30–1516)._
_Collection of
Mr. Jules S. Bache._
This is the type of group picture known as a “Holy Conversation” and
represents the Virgin and Child with Saints. It seems to have been
painted when Bellini was between seventy-two and seventy-seven years of
age and between the years 1500 and 1505.
The figures are three-quarter length and under life-size and the
picture, which is an oil painting on canvas, measures 38 × 60 inches.
The Virgin is seated in the centre with a dark-grey curtain behind
her and a marble balustrade in front of her. She wears a rose-colored
tunic and a blue mantle lined with a changeable green and yellow silk.
The Holy Child leans back against her right arm. On her right stands
St. Catherine with a rope of pearls twisted in her hair and St. Lucy,
on her left, wearing a myrtle wreath and holding a tall standing-cup
of Venetian glass. St. John the Baptist, wearing a green mantle,
stands on the right, looking downward with bended head; and St.
Peter, in orange-brown cloak with book and key, stands on the left.
A very decorative effect is derived from the palm-branches, which
curve upwards into the top corners of the picture. A range of distant
hills appears in the background and on the _cartellino_ on the
balustrade is the signature in script, “Ioannes Bellinus.”
[Illustration:
_Collection of Mr. Jules S. Bache_
THE VIRGIN AND CHILD WITH ST. LUCY, ST. CATHERINE, ST. PETER
AND ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST
--_Giovanni Bellini_]
Authority for dating the picture is derived from the fact that the
features of St. Lucy reappear in the San Zaccaria altar-piece, which
is dated 1505, and the features of St. John the Baptist occur in the
_Baptism of Christ_ in Santa Corona, Vicenza, supposed to have
been begun in 1500.
The picture came from the Benson Collection, having been formerly in
the Wynn Ellis Collection and in the Collection of Mr. William Graham.
[Illustration:
_Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Nicholas F. Brady_
THE VIRGIN AND CHILD
--_Giovanni Bellini_]
The date of Giovanni Bellini’s birth is not known. He was working with
his brother, Gentile, in his father’s studio in Padua and was painting
in Venice in 1464, where he produced two pictures for the Scuola di San
Girolamo. In 1475 he met Antonello da Messina, who came to Venice, and
seems to have adopted then his method of painting in oil. In 1479, when
Gentile Bellini went to Constantinople, Giovanni was appointed to carry
on his work in the Doge’s Palace; and when Gentile returned the two
brothers worked together. Giovanni was essentially a religious painter
and his Madonnas stand among the finest ever created. Most of his
portraits are lost; but one, the _Doge Loredano_ (in the National
Gallery, London), ranks as one of the finest of all known portraits.
This dates from 1501, painted when Giovanni was over eighty! Giovanni
died in 1516.
THE VIRGIN AND CHILD.
_Giovanni Bellini
(1428–30–1516)._
_Collection of
Mr. and Mrs. Nicholas F. Brady._
The Madonna at half-length turned towards the left, supports the Holy
Child with both arms as He reclines in her lap against her right knee,
which is raised. She is dressed in a blue mantle arranged to form a
hood, with embroidered border. A graceful white veil, also embroidered,
covers the head and falls below the neck.
The Holy Child gazes upward into his mother’s face and she, with eyes
slightly veiled by drooping lids, looks tenderly downward towards him.
The background is hilly, with a castle on the left. The picture, oil on
a panel (28¾ × 23¾) is signed “Joannes Bellinus.”
This Bellini Madonna comes from the Collection of the Grand Dukes
of Oldenburg, Oldenburg Castle, near Bremen, Germany, and was also
formerly in the Collection of Count Montija in Madrid. Much has been
written about Bellini’s Madonnas. They differ greatly from those
painted by the Florentines; and the following sympathetic note tells us
why:
“If we turn to the religious art of Venice, we shall be struck by a
lack of anything like mystic rapture, or absorption in the sufferings
of Christ. We have but two examples in Venice of Bellini’s portrayal of
the facts of Christ’s mature life, but he has treated the theme of the
Madonna and Child with a unique profundity. The mystery of life seems
to be shadowed in the face of the Madonna; his saints and apostles,
so striking in their individuality, so virile in their piety, have a
significance beyond their perfect act of worship. No Venetian religious
painter before Tintoretto equalled Bellini in solemnity and depth
of conception; but in all we find the same pervading calm, the same
absence of tumult, or the disturbing elements of pain or agony.”[17]
Is it not the quietness of Bellini’s Madonnas that give them their
peculiar charm?
MADONNA AND CHILD.
_Giovanni Bellini
(1428–30–1516)._
_Collection of
Mr. Philip Lehman._
This picture came from the Collection of Prince Potenziani, of Rieti,
Italy, and represents the Virgin standing behind a parapet and
supporting the Holy Child who is standing upon it. Her mantle and tunic
are decorated with a border of embroidery and over the mantle falls
her heavy white veil which might be described as a hood, showing a
little of her wavy hair. The face of the Virgin is a perfect oval, her
eyes are set far apart, her nose is long and aquiline, and her mouth
a little discontented. Her arm and wrist are beautifully modelled
and so is the thumb of her right hand. This hand is noticeably wide.
The left hand does not seem to match the right; it is coarser. The
Holy Child is leaning against His mother’s left shoulder and looking
out of the picture. He wears a little tunic over a white shirt with
sleeves and a wide, blue sash with a striped pattern. A close-fitting
cap is tied with ribbons under His chin. His right hand is lifted in
blessing and His left is clasping the fingers of His mother’s right
hand. On the right of the parapet a crystal ball is lying and on the
left a capsicum-pod, and behind the Madonna’s head hangs a heavy swag
of capsicum. The landscape in the background is noticeably fine. On
the left, a road winds through trees to the gates of a city with high
Gothic towers; on the right, a river flows past hills crowned with
castles. Clouds fill the sky. The _nimbi_ are quite unusual. This
is evidently an early work and not a little of Mantegna’s influence is
apparent in it.
[Illustration:
_Collection of Mr. Philip Lehman_
MADONNA AND CHILD
--_Giovanni Bellini_]
THE FEAST OF THE GODS.
(IL BACCANALE.)
_Giovanni Bellini
(1428–30–1516)._
_Collection of
Mr. Joseph E. Widener._
“In the year 1514”--this is Vasari’s narrative--“Duke Alfonso
of Ferrara had caused a little chamber to be decorated and had
commissioned Dosso, the painter of Ferrara, to execute in certain
compartments stories of Æneas, Mars, and Venus and, in a grotto, Vulcan
with two smiths at the forge; and he desired that there should also be
there pictures by the hand of Gian Bellini. Bellini painted on another
wall a vat of red wine with some _Bacchanale_ around it and
Satyrs, musicians and other men and women all drunk with wine, and near
them a nude and very beautiful Silenus riding on his ass, with figures
about him that have their hands full of fruits and grapes; which work
was in truth executed and colored with great diligence, inasmuch
that it is one of the most beautiful pictures that Gian Bellini ever
painted, although in the manner of the draperies there is a certain
sharpness after the German manner (nothing, indeed, of any account)
because he imitated a picture by the Fleming,[18] Albrecht Dürer, which
had been brought in those days to Venice and placed in the Church of
S. Bartolommeo, a rare work and full of most beautiful figures painted
in oils. On that vat Gian Bellini wrote these words: ‘Joannes Bellinus
Venetus P. 1514.’ That work he was not able to finish completely,
because he was old, and Tiziano, as the most excellent of all the
others, was sent for to the end that he might finish it.”
Titian’s work is to be found in the landscape-background,--which
is an exact view of Titian’s own Cadore. This landscape, with its
valley and rocky hill surmounted by a castle with towers, bathed in
warm, luminous light, was the finest that had ever been painted up to
that time. Bellini only lived two years after painting _The Feast
of the Gods_. In 1515 he painted the so-called _Venus of the
Belvedere_ and he died in the following year.
“So easy is the passage from Bellini’s art to Titian’s, that the
transition creates no contrast. The tone throughout is harmonized, and
the art of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries meets and mingles in
perfect fellowship,” Crowe and Cavalcaselle note.
This picture, an oil painting on canvas (67 × 74 inches) came from
the Collection of the Duke of Northumberland at Alnwick Castle,
England, having been previously in the Collection of Cardinal Pietro
Aldobrandini and in that of Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi, Rome.
These two villas, upon whose walls _The Feast of the Gods_ hung
for so many years, are very celebrated. The _Villa Aldobrandini_
is one of the most notable residences near Rome. It is situated on the
slope of a mountain overlooking Frascati and was built by Cardinal
Pietro Aldobrandini, who entrusted its decoration to the most eminent
artists of his day, such as Jacopo della Porta, Domenichino, Giuseppe
Gesari, and Giovanni Fontana. Here, too, were gathered the most
precious relics of ancient art, while the gardens, adorned with vases,
statues, colonnades, and sparkling fountains, made the exterior a place
of marvellous beauty and charm. The view of mountains and sea suggested
the name of _Belvedere_. The Villa belongs to-day to the Borghese
family, who inherited it from the Aldobrandini.
[Illustration:
_Collection of Mr. Joseph E. Widener_
FEAST OF THE GODS
--_Giovanni Bellini_]
The _Villa Ludovisi_, frequently called the Piombino Palace, is
situated on the site of the ancient gardens of Sallust. This palace was
erected in 1622 by Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi, nephew of Pope Gregory
XV, who selected Domenichino for his architect and the famous Le Nôtre
for his landscape-gardener. The property passed by inheritance to the
Princess of Piombino (Buonocampagni-Ludovisi).
Art-lovers know the name in connection with the colossal and
magnificent head of the Juno Ludovisi (Fifth Century, B. C.);
and it will be remembered that the Juno Ludovisi and other antiques
from the Villa Ludovisi formed the Museo Buonocompagni.
THE VIRGIN AND CHILD.
_Titian
(1477?–1576)._
_Collection of
Mr. Jules S. Bache._
The Virgin, in profile, seated on a stone seat, has auburn
hair--“Titian hair”--which is relieved against a dark-green curtain.
Her robe is pale rose-color with slashes of white and her mantle of
cobalt blue like the landscape, “which resembles the sea at midday.”
She also wears a white veil. She is looking with great tenderness at
the Holy Child, lying at full length on her lap and smiling at her.
The composition is most beautiful and the introduction of the trees
gives perpendicular lines which contrast delightfully with the general
horizontal effects.
Lionel Cust calls it a picture of great charm, as indeed it is, and
says: “The Virgin leans tenderly over the Child lying upon her knees.
This composition is treated in the same manner as the picture at
Bergamo, the _Virgin and Child with St. Bridgit and St. Ulphus_,
in the Prado at Madrid, and a few others. In all of these works the
sentiment is that of Giorgione, even though the execution is of the
hand of Titian; and one could not think of attaching another name than
his to this picture and to that at Madrid. It will be noticed also that
the two tree-trunks, so much in evidence at the back of the picture,
constitute a _leit-motiv_, which Giorgione first employed and
which Titian imitated.”
[Illustration:
_Collection of Mr. Jules S. Bache_
THE VIRGIN AND CHILD
--_Titian_]
Herbert F. Cook in his _Giorgione_ (London, 1907), gives this
painting to Giorgione, sustaining the claim by the following: “The
marble parapet is a feature in Giorgione’s work, but not in Titian’s.
But the most convincing evidence to those who know the master lies
in the composition, which forms an almost equilateral triangle,
revealing Giorgione’s supreme sense of beauty in line. The splendid
curves made by the drapery, the pose of the Child, so as to obtain
the same unbroken sweep of line, reveal the painter of the _Dresden
Venus_. The painting of the Child’s hand over the Madonna’s is
precisely as in the Madrid picture, where, moreover, the pose of
the Child is singularly alike. The folds of drapery on the sleeve
recur in the same picture, the landscape with the small figure seated
beneath the tree is such as can be found in any Giorgione background.
The oval of the face and the delicacy of the features are thoroughly
characteristic, as is the spirit of calm reverie and tender simplicity
which Giorgione has breathed into his figures.”
Whether by Titian, or by Giorgione, or by both, the painting is a gem.
If by Giorgione, it would be even more valuable, as this master is so
rare.
The painting, oil on panel (18 × 22 inches), came from the
Benson Collection and was formerly at Burghley House, Stamford,
Northamptonshire, having been acquired in Italy between 1690 and 1700
by the Earl of Exeter.
Tiziano Vecellio was born about 1477 at Pieve di Cadore, the son
of Gregorio Vecelli, and was taken to Venice at the age of ten and
apprenticed to a mosaic-worker. After this he studied in Giovanni
Bellini’s _bottega_, where he had for a fellow-pupil, Giorgione,
with whom he was associated in decorating the Fondaco dei Tedeschi.
Titian visited Padua, Rome, and, in 1516, Ferrara. Commissions of all
kinds followed rapidly and Titian became the most famous painter of
his time. He lived in splendid style and his long life was filled with
magnificent painting and magnificent results. Titian died of the Plague
in 1576.
In his long life, crowned with every kind of success, Titian painted
with superlative skill every sort of subject. Titian was one of the
greatest masters the world has ever known.
“In attempting to picture Titian,” writes Taine, “we imagine a happy
man, the happiest and the healthiest of his species, Heaven having
bestowed upon him nothing but favors and felicities: the first among
his rivals; visited in his house by the Kings of France and Poland;
a favorite of the Emperor, of Philip II, of the Doges, of Pope Paul
III, of all the Italian princes; created a knight and a count of
the Empire; overwhelmed with orders; liberally paid, pensioned, and
worthily enjoying his good fortune. He kept house in great state,
dressed himself splendidly, and entertained at his table cardinals,
lords, the greatest artists and the ablest writers of his day. Beauty,
taste, cultivation, and talent play and reflect back upon him, as if
from a mirror the brightness of his own genius. His brother, his son,
Orazio, his two cousins, Cesare and Fabrizio, and his relative, Marco
di Tiziano, were all excellent painters. His daughter, Lavinia, dressed
as Flora, with a basket of fruit on her head, supplied him with a model
of fresh complexion and ample form. His talent flows on like a great
river in its bed, nothing disturbs its course, and its own increase is
sufficient. Like Leonardo and Michelangelo, Titian sees nothing outside
of his art.”
CATERINA CORNARO, QUEEN OF CYPRUS.
_Titian
(1477–1576)._
_Collection of
Mr. John Ringling._
Proud and handsome this famous Queen and beauty looks down upon us
from the centuries. She is wearing a dress of gold and green striped
velvet with a pink camelia at her neck and one of those fashionable,
tall, sugar-loaf head-dresses--called in France the _hennin_--with
jewelled band around the rim and a floating veil. Very beautifully are
her pearls painted; and, fastened by a chain to a bracelet on her left
wrist, is a pet chameleon.
This portrait, oils on canvas (43 × 38 inches), came from the Ricardi
Palace, Florence, and from the Collection of R. S. Holford, Esq.,
Dorchester House.
Caterina Cornaro, “_La Reine de Chypre_,” famous in song and story,
was the daughter of Marco Cornaro, a noble Venetian and descendant of
the Doge of the same name, and Florence, daughter of Niccolò Crispo,
Duca dell’ Archipelago. Caterina was born in Venice in 1454, educated
at the Convent of San Benedetto in Padua, and reared in all the wealth
and elegance of the time. At an early age she was married to the King
of Cyprus, Jerusalem, and Armenia (Jacques de Lusignan), who chose
her from sixty-two of the most beautiful women of Venice. The Senate,
having adopted Caterina Cornaro as a daughter of the Republic, gave her
a dowry of a hundred thousand golden ducats and agreed to defend the
Kingdom of Cyprus against all enemies.
The wedding took place by proxy in Venice in 1472 and was celebrated
with great magnificence. The Doge, himself, Cristoforo Moro, called
for the bride at her palace in the Bucentaur and accompanied her to
the Venetian ship in which she embarked with a regal suite for her
new home. After experiencing several accidents at sea, the beautiful
Venetian lady arrived in Cyprus, where her rare beauty and charming
manners captivated the entire population. Within two years her husband
died and Caterina then reigned over Cyprus for fourteen years, subject,
however, to the strict surveillance of Venice. At last, wearied by
restrictions and intrigues, the Queen of Cyprus in 1489 returned to
Venice with her beloved brother, Giorgio Cornaro, and made a solemn
transfer of all her claims in Cyprus to the Doge.