Transcriber's note:
Bracketted lower case letters refer to notes at the end of
the text{a}
At the end of this text I have provided some links to Internet
sites which have more information about some of the artists,
some of which may have color images similar to the ones presented
in this book.
GREAT PICTURES
As Seen and Described by Famous Writers
Edited and Translated by
ESTHER SINGLETON
Author of "Turrets, Towers, and Temples" and
Translator of "The Music Dramas of Richard Wagner"
With Numerous Illustrations
[Illustration: FISHERMAN PRESENTING THE RING TO THE DOGE GRADENIGO.
_Bordone._]
New York
Dodd, Mead and Company
Copyright, 1899
By Dodd, Mead and Company
Preface
The cordial reception of "Turrets, Towers, and Temples" has encouraged
me to hope that a welcome may be given to a book treating the
masterpieces of painting in a similar manner.
Great writers and literary tourists have occasionally been inspired to
record the impressions of their saunterings among galleries and museums.
The most interesting of these, not necessarily professional, I have
tried to bring together in the following pages. My object has been not
to make a selection of the greatest pictures in the world, although many
that have that reputation will be found here, but rather to bring
together those that have produced a powerful impression on great minds.
Consequently, when the reader is disturbed at the omission of some
world-famous painting, I beg him to remember my plan and blame the great
writers instead of me for neglecting his favourite.
My task has not been a light one. A few words of rapturous admiration
are constantly to be met with in the pages of art-lovers, but a
sympathetic study of a single work is rarely found. General comment of a
given artist's work is also plentiful, while discriminating praise of
individual canvases is scanty. The literary selection has, therefore,
involved a great deal of research.
From time to time the relative popularity of painters shifts strangely,
but no matter what inconstant fashion may dictate, or what may be the
cult of the hour, certain paintings never lose their prestige, but
annually attract as many pilgrims as Lourdes or Fusi-San.
Of modern painters I have only included Turner and Rossetti.
It is interesting to compare the example I have chosen from Rossetti
with Leonardo's "Monna Lisa." Pater has admirably brought out, without
dwelling too much upon it, the charm that is eternal in her face as well
as the fantastic imagination of the great artist who created her for all
time. He says: "The fancy of a perpetual life, sweeping together ten
thousand experiences, is an old one.... Certainly Lady Lisa might stand
as the embodiment of the _old_ fancy, the symbol of the _modern_ idea."
In a similar sense Lilith the siren, the Lorelei, the eternal
enchantress, in her modern robe, is the embodiment of a _new_ fancy, the
symbol of the _ancient_ idea; and just here across four centuries the
thoughts of two great artists meet.
The types of beauty and women in this book offer no little suggestion to
the fancy. From Botticelli's "La Bella Simonetta," and Raphael's "La
Fornarina," through all the periods of painting the model has been a
great influence upon the painter's work, and upon this point nearly
every essayist and critic represented in these pages dwells. In many of
the essays, such as Pater's on Botticelli, and Swinburne's on Andrea del
Sarto, the author strays away from the painting to talk of the painter,
but in doing this he gives us so thoroughly the spirit of that painter
that a fuller light is thrown upon the picture before us.
I have included a few criticisms by modern French critics, MM.
Valabrègue, Lafond, Giron, Guiffrey, and Reymond, recognized authorities
upon the artists whose works they describe; and I have selected
Fromentin's valuable essay on "The Night Watch," feeling sure that this
thoughtful criticism would interest even the enthusiastic admirers of
this enigmatical work.
I have been careful to take no unnecessary liberties with the text. In
the translations from Gruyer, Goethe, Fromentin, and others, which were
unfortunately too long to be included entire, I have not allowed myself
to condense, but only to cut. This is true, also, of the English
extracts.
E.S.
NEW YORK, _September_, 1899.
Contents
THE FISHERMAN PRESENTING THE RING
TO THE DOGE GRADENIGO _Bordone_ 1
THÉOPHILE GAUTIER.
THE BIRTH OF VENUS _Botticelli_ 5
WALTER PATER.
THE QUEEN OF SHEBA _Veronese_ 16
JOHN RUSKIN.
THE LAST JUDGMENT _Michael Angelo_ 18
ALEXANDRE DUMAS.
MAGDALEN IN THE DESERT _Correggio_ 27
AIMÉ GIRON.
BANQUET OF THE ARQUEBUSIERS _Van der Helst_ 33
WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY.
L'EMBARQUEMENT POUR L'ÎLE DE
CYTHÈRE _Watteau_ 38
EDMOND AND JULES DE GONCOURT.
THE SISTINE MADONNA _Raphael_ 45
F.A. GRUYER.
THE DREAM OF ST. URSULA _Carpaccio_ 58
JOHN RUSKIN.
THE DESCENT FROM THE CROSS _Rubens_ 62
EUGÈNE FROMENTIN.
BACCHUS AND ARIADNE _Titian_ 71
I. CHARLES LAMB.
II. EDWARD T. COOK.
THE CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN _Fra Angelico_ 77
THÉOPHILE GAUTIER.
JUDITH _Botticelli_ 80
MAURICE HEWLETT.
THE AVENUE OF MIDDELHARNAIS _Hobbema_ 88
PAUL LAFOND.
THE DANCE OF THE DAUGHTER OF
HERODIAS _Andrea del Sarto_ 93
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.
ADORATION OF THE MAGI _Fabriano_ 98
F.A. GRUYER.
PORTRAIT OF GEORG GISZE _Holbein_ 101
ANTONY VALABRÈGUE.
PARADISE _Tintoret_ 106
JOHN RUSKIN.
AURORA _Guido Reni_ 114
I. CHARLOTTE A. EATON.
II. JOHN CONSTABLE.
THE ASSUMPTION OF THE VIRGIN _Titian_ 119
THÉOPHILE GAUTIER.
THE NIGHT WATCH _Rembrandt_ 124
EUGÈNE FROMENTIN.
THE RAPE OF HELEN _Gozzoli_ 138
COSMO MONKHOUSE
MONNA LISA _Leonardo da Vinci_ 142
WALTER PATER.
THE ADORATION OF THE LAMB _Van Eyck_ 154
KUGLER.
THE DEATH OF PROCRIS _Piero di Cosimo_ 168
I. EDWARD T. COOK.
II. JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS.
THE MARRIAGE IN CANA _Tintoret_ 172
JOHN RUSKIN.
MADAME DE POMPADOUR _De la Tour_ 177
CHARLES-AUGUSTIN SAINTE-BEUVE.
THE HAY WAIN _Constable_ 184
C.L. BURNS.
THE SURRENDER OF BREDA _Velasquez_ 191
THÉOPHILE GAUTIER.
THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION _Murillo_ 196
AIMÉ GIRON.
ST. FRANCIS BEFORE THE SOLDAN _Giotto_ 202
JOHN RUSKIN.
LILITH _Rossetti_ 212
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.
ADORATION OF THE MAGI _Dürer_ 215
MORIZ THAUSING.
MARRIAGE A-LA-MODE _Hogarth_ 218
AUSTIN DOBSON.
THE MADONNA OF THE ROCKS _Leonardo da Vinci_ 234
THÉOPHILE GAUTIER
BEATRICE CENCI _Guido Reni_ 239
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
THE TRANSFIGURATION _Raphael_ 249
MRS. JAMESON
THE BULL _Paul Potter_ 256
EUGÈNE FROMENTIN
CORÉSUS AND CALLIRHOÉ _Fragonard_ 262
EDMOND AND JULES DE GONCOURT
THE MARKET-CART _Gainsborough_ 268
RICHARD AND SAMUEL REDGRAVE
BACCHUS AND ARIADNE _Tintoret_ 273
HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE
BACCHUS AND ARIADNE 278
ANONYMOUS
LA CRUCHE CASSÉE _Greuze_ 280
THÉOPHILE GAUTIER
PORTRAIT OF LADY COCKBURN
AND HER CHILDREN _Reynolds_ 282
FREDERIC G. STEPHENS
ST. CECILIA _Raphael_ 287
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
THE LAST SUPPER _Leonardo da Vinci_ 289
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
THE CHILDREN OF CHARLES I. _Van dyck_ 300
JULES GUIFFREY
THE FIGHTING TÉMÉRAIRE TUGGED
TO HER LAST BERTH TO BE
BROKEN UP, 1838 _Turner_ 306
JOHN RUSKIN
SPRING _Botticelli_ 313
MARCEL REYMOND
Illustrations
BORDONE Fisherman presenting the Ring
to the Doge Gradenigo _Venice_ Frontispiece
FACING PAGE
BOTTICELLI The Birth of Venus _Florence_ 6
VERONESE The Queen of Sheba _Turin_ 16
MICHAEL ANGELO The Last Judgment _Rome_ 18
CORREGGIO Magdalen _Dresden_ 28
VAN DER HELST The Banquet of the Arquebusiers _Amsterdam_ 34
WATTEAU L'Embarquement pour l'Île
de Cythère _Paris_ 38
RAPHAEL The Sistine Madonna _Dresden_ 46
CARPACCIO The Dream of St. Ursula _Venice_ 58
RUBENS The Descent from the Cross _Antwerp_ 62
TITIAN Bacchus and Ariadne _London_ 72
FRA ANGELICO The Coronation of the Virgin _Paris_ 78
BOTTICELLI Judith _Florence_ 80
HOBBEMA The Avenue of Middelharnais _London_ 88
ANDREA DEL SARTO The Dance of the Daughter
of Herodias _Florence_ 94
FABRIANO The Adoration of the Magi _Florence_ 98
HOLBEIN Portrait of Georg Gisze _Berlin_ 102
TINTORET Paradise _Venice_ 106
GUIDO RENI Aurora _Rome_ 114
TITIAN The Assumption of the Virgin _Venice_ 120
REMBRANDT The Night Watch _Amsterdam_ 124
GOZZOLI The Rape of Helen _London_ 138
L. DA VINCI Monna Lisa _Paris_ 142
VAN EYCK The Adoration of the Lamb _Ghent_ 154
PIERO DI COSIMO The Death of Procris _London_ 168
TINTORET The Marriage in Cana _Venice_ 172
DE LA TOUR Portrait of Madame de Pompadour _Paris_ 178
CONSTABLE The Hay Wain _London_ 184
VELASQUEZ The Surrender of Breda _Madrid_ 192
MURILLO The Immaculate Conception _Paris_ 196
GIOTTO St. Frances before the Soldan _Florence_ 202
ROSSETTI Lilith _Rockford, Del._ 212
DÜRER The Adoration of the Magi _Florence_ 216
HOGARTH The Marriage A-la-Mode _London_ 218
L. DA VINCI The Madonna of the Rocks _Paris_ 234
GUIDO RENI Portrait of Beatrice Cenci _Rome_ 240
RAPHAEL The Transfiguration _Rome_ 250
PAUL POTTER The Bull _The Hague_ 256
FRAGONARD Corésus and Callirhoé _Paris_ 262
GAINSBOROUGH The Market-Cart _London_ 268
TINTORET Bacchus and Ariadne _Venice_ 274
GREUZE La Cruche Cassée _Paris_ 280
REYNOLDS Portrait of Lady Cockburn
and her Children _London_ 282
RAPHAEL St. Cecilia _Naples_ 288
L. DA VINCI The Last Supper _Milan_ 290
VAN DYCK Portrait of the Children of
Charles I. _Turin_ 300
TURNER The Fighting Téméraire _London_ 306
BOTTICELLI Spring _Florence_ 314
GREAT PICTURES
DESCRIBED BY GREAT WRITERS
THE FISHERMAN PRESENTING THE RING TO THE DOGE GRADENIGO
(_BORDONE_)
THÉOPHILE GAUTIER
This picture, which represents a gondolier returning the ring of Saint
Mark to the Doge, treats of a legend, an episode of which Giorgione, as
we shall see in the next hall, has also painted in a somewhat singular
manner. Here is the story in a few words: One night while the gondolier
was sleeping in his gondola, waiting for custom along the canal of S.
Giorgio Maggiore, three mysterious individuals jumped into his boat and
bade him take them to the Lido; one of the three persons, as well as he
could be distinguished in the darkness, appeared to have the beard of an
apostle and the figure of a high dignitary of the Church; the two
others, by a certain sound as of armour rubbing beneath their mantles,
revealed themselves as men-at-arms. The gondolier turned his prow
towards the Lido and began to row; but the lagoon, so tranquil at their
departure, began to chop and swell strangely: the waves gleamed with
sinster{a} lights; monstrous apparitions were outlined menacingly around
the barque to the great terror of the gondolier; and hideous spirits of
evil and devils half man half fish seemed to be swimming from the Lido
towards Venice, making the waves emit thousands of sparks and exciting
the tempest with whistling and fiendish laughter in the storm; but the
appearance of the shining swords of the two knights and the extended
hand of the saintly personage made them recoil and vanish in sulphurous
explosions.
The battle lasted for a long time; new demons constantly succeeded the
others; however, the victory remained with the personages in the boat,
who had themselves taken back to the landing of the Piazzetta. The
gondolier scarcely knew what to think of their strange conduct; until,
as they were about to separate, the oldest of the group, suddenly
causing his nimbus to shine out again, said to the gondolier: "I am
Saint Mark, the patron of Venice. I learned to-night that the devils
assembled in convention at the Lido in the cemetery of the Jews, had
formed the resolution of exciting a frightful tempest and overthrowing
my beloved city, under the pretext that many excesses are committed
there which give the evil spirits power over her inhabitants; but as
Venice is a good Catholic and will confess her sins in the beautiful
cathedral which she has raised to me, I resolved to defend her from this
peril of which she was ignorant, by the aid of these two brave
companions, Saint George and Saint Theodore, and I have borrowed thy
boat; now, as all trouble merits reward, and as thou hast passed a
boisterous night, here is my ring; carry it to the Doge and tell him
what thou hast seen. He will fill thy cap with golden sequins."
So saying, the Saint resumed his position on the top of the porch of
Saint Mark's, Saint Theodore climbed to the top of his column, where his
crocodile was grumbling with ill-humour, and Saint George went to squat
in the depths of his columned niche in the great window of the Ducal
Palace.
The gondolier, rather astonished, and he had reason enough, would have
believed that he had been dreaming after drinking during that evening
several glasses too many of the wine of Samos, if the large and heavy
golden ring studded with precious stones which he held in his hand had
not prevented his doubting the reality of the events of the night.
Therefore, he went to find the Doge, who was presiding over the Senate
in his cap of office, and, respectfully kneeling before him, he related
the story of the battle between the devils and the patron saints of
Venice. At first this story seemed incredible; but the return of the
ring, which was in very sooth that of Saint Mark, and the absence of
which from the church treasury was established, proved the gondolier's
veracity. This ring, locked up under triple keys in a carefully-guarded
treasury, the bolts of which showed no trace of disturbance, could only
have been removed by supernatural means. They filled the gondolier's cap
with gold and celebrated a mass of thanksgiving for the peril they had
escaped. This did not prevent the Venetians from continuing their
dissolute course of life, from spending their nights in the haunts of
play, at gay suppers, and in love-making; in masking for intrigues, and
in prolonging the long orgy of their carnival for six months in the
year. The Venetians counted upon the protection of Saint Mark to go to
paradise and they took no other care of their salvation. That was Saint
Mark's affair; they had built him a fine church for that, and the Saint
was still under obligations to them.
The moment selected by Paris Bordone is that when the gondolier falls on
his knees before the Doge. The composition of the scene is very
picturesque; you see in perspective a long row of the brown or grey
heads of senators of the most magisterial character. Curious spectators
are on the steps, forming happily-contrasted groups: the beautiful
Venetian costume is displayed here in all its splendour. Here, as in all
the canvases of this school, an important place is given to
architecture. The background is occupied by fine porticos in the style
of Palladio, animated with people coming and going. This picture
possesses the merit, sufficiently rare in the Italian school, which is
almost exclusively occupied with the reproduction of religious or
mythological subjects, of representing a popular legend, a scene of
manners, in a word, a romantic subject such as Delacroix or Louis
Boulanger might have chosen and treated according to his own special
talent; and this gives it a character of its own and an individual
charm.
_Voyage en Italie_ (Paris, new ed., 1884).
THE BIRTH OF VENUS
(_BOTTICELLI_)
WALTER PATER
In Leonardo's treatise on painting only one contemporary is mentioned by
name--Sandro Botticelli. This pre-eminence may be due to chance only,
but to some will rather appear a result of deliberate judgment; for
people have begun to find out the charm of Botticelli's work, and his
name, little known in the last century, is quietly becoming important.
In the middle of the Fifteenth Century he had already anticipated much
of that meditative subtlety which is sometimes supposed peculiar to the
great imaginative workmen of its close. Leaving the simple religion
which had occupied the followers of Giotto for a century, and the simple
naturalism which had grown out of it, a thing of birds and flowers only,
he sought inspiration in what to him were works of the modern world, the
writings of Dante and Boccaccio, and in new readings of his own of
classical stories; or if he painted religious subjects, painted them
with an undercurrent of original sentiment which touches you as the real
matter of the picture through the veil of its ostensible subject. What
is the peculiar sensation, what is the peculiar quality of pleasure
which his work has the property of exciting in us, and which we cannot
get elsewhere? For this, especially when he has to speak of a
comparatively unknown artist, is always the chief question which a
critic has to answer.
In an age when the lives of artists were full of adventure, his life is
almost colourless. Criticism indeed has cleared away much of the gossip
which Vasari accumulated, has touched the legend of Lippo and Lucrezia,
and rehabilitated the character of Andrea del Castagno; but in
Botticelli's case there is no legend to dissipate. He did not even go by
his true name: Sandro is a nickname, and his true name is Filipepi,
Botticelli being only the name of the goldsmith who first taught him
art. Only two things happened to him, two things which he shared with
other artists--he was invited to Rome to paint in the Sistine Chapel,
and he fell in later life under the influence of Savonarola, passing
apparently almost out of men's sight in a sort of religious melancholy
which lasted till his death in 1515, according to the received date.
Vasari says that he plunged into the study of Dante, and even wrote a
comment on the _Divine Comedy_. But it seems strange that he should have
lived on inactive so long; and one almost wishes that some document
might come to light which, fixing the date of his death earlier, might
relieve one, in thinking of him, of his dejected old age.
[Illustration: THE BIRTH OF VENUS.
_Botticelli._]
He is before all things a poetical painter, blending the charm of story
and sentiment, the medium of the art of poetry, with the charm of line
and colour, the medium of abstract painting. So he becomes the
illustrator of Dante. In a few rare examples of the edition of 1481, the
blank spaces left at the beginning of every canto for the hand of the
illuminator have been filled as far as the nineteenth canto of the
_Inferno_, with impressions of engraved plates, seemingly by way of
experiment, for in the copy in the Bodleian Library, one of the three
impressions it contains has been printed upside down and much awry in
the midst of the luxurious printed page. Giotto, and the followers of
Giotto, with their almost childish religious aim, had not learned to put
that weight of meaning into outward things, light, colour, every-day
gesture, which the poetry of the _Divine Comedy_ involves, and before
the Fifteenth Century Dante could hardly have found an illustrator.
Botticelli's illustrations are crowded with incident, blending with a
naïve carelessness of pictorial propriety three phases of the same scene
into one plate. The grotesques, so often a stumbling-block to painters
who forget that the words of a poet, which only feebly present an image
to the mind, must be lowered in key when translated into form, make one
regret that he has not rather chosen for illustration the more subdued
imagery of the _Purgatorio_. Yet in the scene of those who go down quick
into hell there is an invention about the fire taking hold on the
up-turned soles of the feet, which proves that the design is no mere
translation of Dante's words, but a true painter's vision; while the
scene of the Centaurs wins one at once, for, forgetful of the actual
circumstances of their appearance, Botticelli has gone off with delight
on the thought of the Centaurs themselves, bright small creatures of the
woodland, with arch baby faces and mignon forms, drawing tiny bows.
Botticelli lived in a generation of naturalists, and he might have been
a mere naturalist among them. There are traces enough in his work of
that alert sense of outward things which, in the pictures of that
period, fills the lawns with delicate living creatures, and the
hill-sides with pools of water, and the pools of water with flowering
reeds. But this was not enough for him; he is a visionary painter, and
in his visionariness he resembles Dante. Giotto, the tried companion of
Dante, Masaccio, Ghirlandaio even, do but transcribe with more or less
refining the outward image; they are dramatic, not visionary painters;
they are almost impassive spectators of the action before them. But the
genius of which Botticelli is the type usurps the data before it as the
exponents of ideas, moods, visions of its own; with this interest it
plays fast and loose with those data, rejecting some and isolating
others, and always combining them anew. To him, as to Dante, the scene,
the colour, the outward image or gesture, comes with all its incisive
and importunate reality; but awakes in him, moreover, by some subtle
structure of his own, a mood which it awakes in no one else, of which it
is the double or repetition, and which it clothes, that all may share
it, with sensuous circumstances.
But he is far enough from accepting the conventional orthodoxy of Dante
which, referring all human action to the easy formula of purgatory,
heaven, and hell, leaves an insoluble element of prose in the depths of
Dante's poetry. One picture of his, with the portrait of the donor,
Matteo Palmieri, below, had the credit or discredit of attracting some
shadow of ecclesiastical censure. This Matteo Palmieri--two dim figures
move under that name in contemporary history--was the reputed author of
a poem, still unedited, _La Città Divina_, which represented the human
race as an incarnation of those angels who, in the revolt of Lucifer,
were neither for God nor for his enemies, a fantasy of that earlier
Alexandrian philosophy, about which the Florentine intellect in that
century was so curious. Botticelli's picture may have been only one of
those familiar compositions in which religious reverie has recorded its
impressions of the various forms of beatified existence--_Glorias_, as
they were called, like that in which Giotto painted the portrait of
Dante; but somehow it was suspected of embodying in a picture the
wayward dream of Palmieri, and the chapel where it hung was closed.
Artists so entire as Botticelli are usually careless about philosophical
theories, even when the philosopher is a Florentine of the Fifteenth
Century, and his work a poem in _terza rima_. But Botticelli, who wrote
a commentary on Dante and became the disciple of Savonarola, may well
have let such theories come and go across him. True or false, the story
interprets much of the peculiar sentiment with which he infuses his
profane and sacred persons, comely, and in a certain sense like angels,
but with a sense of displacement or loss about them--the wistfulness of
exiles conscious of a passion and energy greater than any known issue of
them explains, which runs through all his varied work with a sentiment
of ineffable melancholy.
So just what Dante scorns as unworthy alike of heaven and hell,
Botticelli accepts, that middle world in which men take no side in great
conflicts, and decide no great causes, and make great refusals. He thus
sets for himself the limits within which art, undisturbed by any moral
ambition, does its most sincere and surest work. His interest is neither
in the untempered goodness of Angelico's saints, nor the untempered evil
of Orcagna's _Inferno_; but with men and women in their mixed and
uncertain condition, always attractive, clothed sometimes by passion
with a character of loveliness and energy, but saddened perpetually by
the shadow upon them of the great things from which they shrink. His
morality is all sympathy; and it is this sympathy, conveying into his
work somewhat more than is usual of the true complexion of humanity,
which makes him, visionary as he is, so forcible a realist.
It is this which gives to his Madonnas their unique expression and
charm. He has worked out in them a distinct and peculiar type, definite
enough in his own mind, for he has painted it over and over again,
sometimes one might think almost mechanically, as a pastime during that
dark period when his thoughts were so heavy upon him. Hardly any
collection of note is without one of these circular pictures, into which
the attendant angels depress their heads so naïvely. Perhaps you have
sometimes wondered why those peevish-looking Madonnas, conformed to no
acknowledged or obvious type of beauty, attract you more and more, and
often come back to you when the Sistine Madonna and the virgins of Fra
Angelico are forgotten. At first, contrasting them with those, you may
have thought that there was even something in them mean or abject, for
the abstract lines of the face have little nobleness and the colour is
wan. For with Botticelli she too, though she holds in her hands the
"Desire of all nations," is one of those who are neither for God nor
for his enemies; and her choice is on her face. The white light on it is
cast up hard and cheerless from below, as when snow lies upon the
ground, and the children look up with surprise at the strange whiteness
of the ceiling. Her trouble is in the very caress of the mysterious
child, whose gaze is always far from her, and who has already that sweet
look of devotion which men have never been able altogether to love, and
which still makes the born saint an object almost of suspicion to his
earthly brethren. Once, indeed, he guides her hand to transcribe in a
book the words of her exaltation, the _Ave_ and the _Magnificat_, and
the _Gaude Maria_, and the young angels, glad to rouse her for a moment
from her dejection, are eager to hold the inkhorn and support the book;
but the pen almost drops from her hand, and the high cold words have no
meaning for her, and her true children are those others, in the midst of
whom, in her rude home, the intolerable honour came to her, with that
look of wistful inquiry on their irregular faces which you see in
startled animals--gipsy children, such as those who, in Apennine
villages, still hold out their long brown arms to beg of you, but on
Sundays become _enfants du choeur_ with their thick black hair nicely
combed and fair white linen on their sunburnt throats.
What is strangest is that he carries this sentiment into classical
subjects, its most complete expression being a picture in the Uffizi, of
Venus rising from the sea, in which the grotesque emblems of the middle
age, and a landscape full of its peculiar feeling, and even its strange
draperies powdered all over in the Gothic manner with a quaint conceit
of daisies, frame a figure that reminds you of the faultless nude
studies of Ingres. At first, perhaps, you are attracted only by a
quaintness of design, which seems to recall all at once whatever you
have read of Florence in the Fifteenth Century; afterwards you may think
that this quaintness must be incongruous with the subject, and that the
colour is cadaverous, or at least cold. And yet the more you come to
understand what imaginative colouring really is, that all colour is no
mere delightful quality of natural things, but a spirit upon them by
which they become expressive to the spirit, the better you will like
this peculiar quality of colour; and you will find that quaint design of
Botticelli's a more direct inlet into the Greek temper than the works of
the Greeks themselves even of the finest period. Of the Greeks as they
really were, of their difference from ourselves, of the aspects of their
outward life, we know far more than Botticelli, or his most learned
contemporaries; but for us, long familiarity has taken off the edge of
the lesson, and we are hardly conscious of what we owe to the Hellenic
spirit. But in pictures like this of Botticelli's you have a record of
the first impression made by it on minds turned back towards it in
almost painful aspiration from a world in which it had been ignored so
long; and in the passion, the energy, the industry of realization, with
which Botticelli carries out his intention, is the exact measure of the
legitimate influence over the human mind of the imaginative system of
which this is the central myth. The light is, indeed, cold--mere sunless
dawn; but a later painter would have cloyed you with sunshine; and you
can see the better for that quietness in the morning air each long
promontory as it slopes down to the water's edge. Men go forth to their
labours until the evening; but she is awake before them, and you might
think that the sorrow in her face was at the thought of the whole long
day of love yet to come. An emblematical figure of the wind blows hard
across the grey water, moving forward the dainty-lipped shell on which
she sails, the sea "showing his teeth" as it moves in thin lines of
foam, and sucking in one by one the falling roses, each severe in
outline, plucked off short at the stalk, but embrowned a little, as
Botticelli's flowers always are. Botticelli meant all that imagery to be
altogether pleasurable; and it was partly an incompleteness of
resources, inseparable from the art of that time, that subdued and
chilled it; but his predilection for minor tones counts also; and what
is unmistakable is the sadness with which he has conceived the goddess
of pleasure as the depository of a great power over the lives of men.
I have said that the peculiar character of Botticelli is the result of a
blending in him of a sympathy for humanity in its uncertain condition,
its attractiveness, its investiture at rarer moments in a character of
loveliness and energy, with his consciousness of the shadow upon it of
the great things from which it shrinks, and that this conveys into his
work somewhat more than painting usually attains of the true complexion
of humanity. He paints the story of the goddess of pleasure in other
episodes besides that of her birth from the sea, but never without some
shadow of death in the grey flesh and wan flowers. He paints Madonnas,
but they shrink from the pressure of the divine child, and plead in
unmistakable undertones for a warmer, lower humanity. The same
figure--tradition connects it with Simonetta, the mistress of Giuliano
de' Medici--appears again as Judith returning home across the hill
country when the great deed is over, and the moment of revulsion come,
and the olive branch in her hand is becoming a burthen; as Justice,
sitting on a throne, but with a fixed look of self-hatred which makes
the sword in her hand seem that of a suicide; and again as Veritas in
the allegorical picture of Calumnia, where one may note in passing the
suggestiveness of an accident which identifies the image of Truth with
the person of Venus. We might trace the same sentiment through his
engravings; but his share in them is doubtful, and the object of this
fragment has been attained if I have defined aright the temper in which
he worked.
But, after all, it may be asked, is a painter like Botticelli, a
second-rate painter, a proper subject for general criticism? There are a
few great painters, like Michael Angelo or Leonardo, whose work has
become a force in general culture, partly for this very reason that they
have absorbed into themselves all such workmen as Sandro Botticelli;
and, over and above mere technical or antiquarian criticism, general
criticism may be very well employed in that sort of interpretation which
adjusts the position of these men to general culture, whereas smaller
men can be the proper subjects only of technical or antiquarian
treatment. But, besides those great men, there is a certain number of
artists who have a distinct faculty of their own by which they convey to
us a peculiar quality of pleasure which we cannot get elsewhere, and
these, too, have their place in general culture, and have to be
interpreted to it by those who have felt their charm strongly, and are
often the objects of a special diligence and a consideration wholly
affectionate, just because there is not about them the stress of a great
name and authority. Of this select number Botticelli is one; he has the
freshness, the uncertain and diffident promise which belongs to the
earlier Renaissance itself, and makes it perhaps the most interesting
period in the history of the mind; in studying his work one begins to
understand to how great a place in human culture the art of Italy had
been called.
_Studies in the History of the Renaissance_ (London, 1873).
THE QUEEN OF SHEBA
(_VERONESE_)
JOHN RUSKIN
This picture is at Turin, and is of quite inestimable value. It is hung
high; and the really principal figure--the Solomon, being in the shade,
can hardly be seen, but is painted with Veronese's utmost tenderness, in
the bloom of perfect youth, his hair golden, short, crisply curled. He
is seated high on his lion throne; two elders on each side beneath him,
the whole group forming a tower of solemn shade. I have alluded,
elsewhere, to the principle on which all the best composers act, of
supporting these lofty groups by some vigorous mass of foundation. This
column of noble shade is curiously sustained. A falconer leans forward
from the left-hand side, bearing on his wrist a snow-white falcon, its
wings spread, and brilliantly relieved against the purple robe of one of
the elders. It touches with its wings one of the golden lions of the
throne, on which the light also flashes strongly; thus forming, together
with it, the lion and eagle symbol, which is the type of Christ,
throughout mediæval work. In order to show the meaning of this symbol,
and that Solomon is typically invested with the Christian royalty, one
of the elders by a bold anachronism, holds a jewel in his hand in the
shape of a cross, with which he (by accident of gesture) points to
Solomon; his other hand is laid on an open book.
[Illustration: THE QUEEN OF SHEBA.
_Veronese._]
The group opposite, of which the Queen forms the centre, is also painted
with Veronese's highest skill; but contains no point of interest bearing
on our present subject, except its connection by a chain of descending
emotion. The Queen is wholly oppressed and subdued; kneeling, and nearly
fainting, she looks up to Solomon with tears in her eyes; he, startled
by fear for her, stoops forward from the throne, opening his right hand,
as if to support her, so as almost to drop the sceptre. At her side her
first maid of honour is kneeling also, but does not care about Solomon;
and is gathering up her dress that it may not be crushed; and looking
back to encourage a negro girl, who, carrying two toy-birds, made of
enamel and jewels, for presentation to the King, is frightened at seeing
her Queen fainting, and does not know what she ought to do; while
lastly, the Queen's dog, another of the little fringy paws, is wholly
unabashed by Solomon's presence, or anybody else's; and stands with his
forelegs well apart, right in front of his mistress, thinking everybody
has lost their wits; and barking violently at one of the attendants, who
has set down a golden vase disrespectfully near him.
_Modern Painters_ (London, 1860).
THE LAST JUDGEMENT
(_MICHAEL ANGELO_)
ALEXANDRE DUMAS
While Michael Angelo worked upon his _Moses_, Clement VII., following
the example of Julius II., would not leave him alone for a moment. It
was a trick of all these Popes to exact from the poor artist something
different to what he was doing at the time. To obtain some respite, he
was forced to promise the Pope that he would occupy himself at the same
time with the cartoon of _The Last Judgment_. But Clement VII. was not a
man to be put off with words; he supervised the work in person, and
Buonarroti was obliged to pass continually from the chisel to the pencil
and from the pen to the mallet. _The Last Judgment!_ _Moses!_ these are
two works of little importance and easy to do off-hand! And yet he had
to. His Holiness would not listen to reason.
One day it was announced to Michael Angelo that he would not receive his
accustomed visit: Clement VII. was dead. The artist breathed freely just
during the Conclave.
The new Pope, Paul III., had nothing more pressing to do than to present
himself in Buonarroti's studio, followed pompously by ten cardinals. The
newly-elected Pope was easily recognized there!
[Illustration: THE LAST JUDGMENT.
_Michael Angelo_.]
"Ah!" said the Holy Father, in a tone of firm decision, "I hope that
henceforth the whole of your time will belong to me, Maestro
Buonarroti."
"May your Holiness deign to excuse me," replied Michael Angelo, "but I
have just signed an engagement with the Duke of Urbino, which forces me
to finish the tomb of Pope Julius."
"What!" exclaimed Paul III.: "for thirty years I have had a certain wish
and now that I am Pope I cannot realize it!"
"But the contract, Holy Father, the contract!"
"Where is this contract? I will tear it up."
"Ah!" exclaimed in his turn the Cardinal of Mantua, who was one of the
suite, "your Holiness should see the _Moses_ which Maestro Michael
Angelo has just finished: that statue alone would more than suffice to
honour the memory of Julius."
"Cursed flatterer!" muttered Michael Angelo in a low voice.
"Come, come, I will take charge of this matter myself," said the Pope.
"You shall only make three statues with your own hand: the rest shall be
given to other sculptors, and I will answer for the Duke of Urbino's
consent. And now, Maestro, to the Sistine Chapel. A great empty wall is
waiting for you there."
What could Michael Angelo reply to such an emphatic wish expressed so
distinctly? He finished in his best style his two statues of _Active
Life_ and _Contemplative Life_--Dante's symbolical Rachel and Leah--and
not wishing to profit by this new arrangement to which he was forced to
submit, he added fifteen hundred and twenty-four ducats to the four
thousand he had received, to pay with his own gains for the works
confided to the other artists.
Having thus terminated this unfortunate affair, which had caused him so
much worry and fatigue, Michael Angelo was at last enabled to occupy
himself exclusively with the execution of his _Last Judgment_, to which
he devoted no less than eight to nine years.
This immense and unique picture, in which the human figure is
represented in all possible attitudes, where every sentiment, every
passion, every reflection of thought, and every aspiration of the soul
are rendered with inimitable perfection, has never been equalled and
never will be equalled in the domain of Art.
This time the genius of Michael Angelo simply attacked the infinite. The
subject of this vast composition, the manner in which it is conceived
and executed, the admirable variety and the learned disposition of the
groups, the inconceivable boldness and firmness of the outlines, the
contrast of light and shade, the difficulties, I might almost say the
impossibilities vanquished, as if it were all mere play, and with a
happiness that savours of prodigy, the unity of the whole and the
perfection of the details, make _The Last Judgment_ the most complete
and the greatest picture in existence. It is broad and magnificent in
effect, and yet each part of this prodigious painting gains infinitely
when seen and studied quite near; and we do not know of any
easel-picture worked upon with such patience and finished with such
devotion.
The painter could only choose one scene, several isolated groups, in
this appalling drama which will be enacted on the last day in the Valley
of Jehoshaphat, where all the generations of man shall be gathered
together. And yet, admire the omnipotence of genius! With nothing but a
single episode in a restricted space, and solely by the expression of
the human body, the artist has succeeded in striking you with
astonishment and terror, and in making you really a spectator of the
supreme catastrophe.
At the base of the picture, very nearly in the centre, you perceive the
boat of the _Inferno_, a fantastic reminiscence borrowed from Pagan
tradition, in accordance with which first the poet and then the painter
were pleased to clothe an accursed being with the form and occupation of
Charon.
"Charon with the eyes of burning embers gathering together with a
gesture all these souls, and striking with his oar those who
hesitate."[1]
It is impossible to form an idea of the incredible science displayed by
Michael Angelo in the varied contortions of the damned, heaped one upon
the other in the fatal bark. All the violent contractions, all the
visible tortures, all the frightful shrinkings that suffering, despair,
and rage can produce upon human muscles are rendered in this group with
a realism that would make the most callous shudder. To the left of this
bark you see the gaping mouth of a cavern; this is the entrance to
Purgatory, where several demons are in despair because they have no more
souls to torment.
This first group, which very naturally attracts the spectator's
attention, is that of the dead whom the piercing sound of the eternal
trumpet has awakened in their tombs. Some of them shake off their
shrouds, others with great difficulty open their eyelids made heavy by
their long sleep. Towards the angle of the picture there is a monk who
is pointing out the Divine Judge with his left hand; this monk is the
portrait of Michael Angelo.
The second group is formed of the resuscitated ones who ascend of
themselves to the Judgment. These figures, many of which are sublime in
expression, rise more or less lightly into space, according to the
burden of their sins, of which they must render account.
The third group, also ascending to the right of Christ, is that of the
Blessed. Among all these saints, some of whom show the instrument of
their execution, others the marks of their martyrdom, there is one head
especially remarkable for beauty and tenderness: it is that of a mother
who is protecting her daughter, turning her eyes, filled with faith and
hope, towards the Christ.
Above the host of saints, you see a fourth group of angelic spirits,
some bearing the Cross, others the Crown of Thorns,--instruments and
emblems of the Saviour's Passion.
The fifth group, parallel to the fourth which we have just pointed out,
is composed of angels; such, at least, they seem to be by the splendour
of their youth and the aërial lightness of their movements; and these
also bear, as if in triumph, other emblems of the divine expiation--the
column, the ladder, and the sponge.
Above these angels, on the same plane as the saints and to the left of
Christ, is the choir of the just; the patriarchs, the prophets, the
apostles, the martyrs, and the holy personages form this sixth group.
The seventh is the most horrible of all and the one in which the art of
Michael Angelo has displayed itself in all its terrific grandeur: it is
composed of the rejected ones, overwhelmed by the decree and led away to
punishment by the rebel angels. The very coldest spectator could not
remain unmoved by this spectacle. You believe yourself in hell; you hear
the cries of anguish and the gnashing of the teeth of the wretched, who,
according to the terrible Dantesque expression, vainly desire a second
death.
The eighth, ninth, and tenth groups, occupying the base of the
composition, are composed, as we have already said, of the bark of
Charon, the grotto of Purgatory, and the Angels of Judgment, eight in
number, blowing their brazen trumpets with all their might to convoke
the dead from the four quarters of the earth.
Finally, in the eleventh group, in the centre, very near the upper part
of the picture, between the two companies of the blessed, and seated
upon the clouds, the sovereign Judge with a terrible action hurls his
malediction upon the condemned: _"Ite maledicti in ignem aeternum."_ The
Virgin turns away her head and trembles. On Christ's right is Adam, and
on his left, St. Peter. They have exactly the same positions assigned to
them by Dante in his _Paradiso_.
This immense work was exhibited to the public on Christmas Day, 1541. It
had cost eight years of work. Michael Angelo was then sixty-seven years
old.
Several anecdotes relating to this great picture have come down to us.
It is related that the Pope, scandalized at the nudity of certain
figures, a nudity which Daniele da Volterra was afterwards charged to
clothe, sent word to Michael Angelo that he must cover them.
Michael Angelo replied with his usual brusqueness:
"Tell the Pope that he must employ himself a little less in correcting
my pictures, which is very easy, and employ himself a little more in
reforming men, which is very difficult."
It is said that Maestro Biaggio, master of ceremonies to Paul III.,
having accompanied the Pope on a visit that His Holiness made to see
Michael Angelo's fresco when it was about half finished, allowed himself
to express his own opinion upon _The Last Judgment_.
"Holy Father," said the good Messer Biaggio, "if I dare pronounce my
judgment, this picture seems more appropriate to figure in a tavern than
in the chapel of a Pope."
Unfortunately for the master of ceremonies, Michael Angelo was behind
him and did not lose a word of Messer Biaggio's compliment. The Pope had
scarcely gone before the irritated artist, wishing to make an example as
a warning for all future critics, placed this Messer Biaggio in his
hell, well and duly, under the scarcely flattering guise of Minos. That
was always Dante's way when he wanted to avenge himself upon an enemy.
I leave you to imagine the lamentations and complaints of the poor
master of ceremonies when he saw himself damned in this manner. He threw
himself at the Pope's feet, declaring that he would never arise unless
His Holiness would have him taken out of hell: that was the most
important thing. As for the punishment, that the painter deserved for
this dreadful sacrilege, Messer Biaggio would leave that entirely to the
high impartiality of the Holy Father.
"Messer Biaggio," replied Paul III. with as much seriousness as he could
maintain, "you know that I have received from God an absolute power in
heaven and upon the earth, but I can do nothing in hell; therefore you
must remain there."
While Michael Angelo was working at his picture of _The Last Judgment_,
he fell from the scaffold and seriously injured his leg. Soured by pain
and seized with an attack of misanthropy, the painter shut himself up in
his house and would not see any one.
But he reckoned without his physician; and the physician this time was
as stubborn as the invalid.
This excellent disciple of Æsculapius was named Baccio Rontini. Having
learned by chance of the accident that had befallen the great artist, he
presented himself before his house and knocked in vain at the door.
No response.
He shouted, he flew into a passion, and he called the neighbours and the
servants in a loud voice.
Complete silence.
He goes to find a ladder, places it against the front of the house, and
tries to enter by the casements. The windows are hermetically sealed and
the shutters are fast.
What is to be done? Any one else in the physician's place would have
given up; but Rontini was not the man to be discouraged for so little.
With much difficulty he enters the cellar and with no less trouble he
goes up into Buonarroti's room, and, partly by acquiescence and partly
by force, he triumphantly tends his friend's leg.
It was quite time: exasperated by his sufferings, the artist had
resolved to let himself die.
_Trois Maîtres_ (Paris, 1861).
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Dante, _Inferno_ III.
MAGDALEN IN THE DESERT
(_CORREGGIO_)
AIMÉ GIRON