There have always been factions in art; and while the schools have
battled separately, there has been no lack of single combats between
individual painters.
Pordenone painting his frescoes in the cloisters of St. Stefano at
Venice with his sword drawn and his buckler at hand, prepared for the
violence of Titian, is a sample of the masters who found it necessary to
combine profession of the fine arts with the business of a bravo.
Domenico Veniziano was brutally assaulted by Andrea del Castagno;
Annibale Caracci, Cesari, and Guido were driven from Naples, and their
lives threatened by Belisario, Spagnoletto, and Caracciolo. Agostino
Beltrano, surpassed in painting by his own wife, Amelia di Rosa (the
niece of an artist of eminence), murdered her in a fit of jealous rage;
Michael Angelo was envious of the growing fame of Sebastiano del
Piombo; Hudson[19] quarrelled with his pupil Reynolds, who in his turn
was made uneasy by the progress of his rival Romney; and Hoppner, on his
deathbed, writhed under the polite attentions of Sir Thomas Lawrence.
'In his visits,' said the poor sick man bitterly, 'there is more joy at
my approaching death than true sympathy with my sorrows.'
[19] A story to this effect has been generally credited; but in the
_Life of Reynolds_ by Messrs. Leslie and Taylor, 1865, a different
version is given of the relations subsisting between Sir Joshua and his
preceptor, and the notion of the one regarding the other with any sort
of animosity is rejected, if not altogether disproved.