The Project Gutenberg eBook of The National Gallery
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: The National Gallery
Author: Alice Corkran
Release date: October 5, 2026 [eBook #79730]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Wells Gardner, Darton & Co., 1908
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79730
Credits: Richard Tonsing, Tim Lindell, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NATIONAL GALLERY ***
THE NATIONAL GALLERY
[Illustration:
“PORTRAITS OF JEAN ARNOLFINI AND JEANNE DE CHENANY HIS WIFE” (186)
BY JAN VAN EYCK
page 124
]
THE TREASURE-HOUSE SERIES
THE NATIONAL GALLERY
BY
ALICE CORKRAN
AUTHOR OF “DOWN THE SNOW STAIRS,” ETC.
_WITH ILLUSTRATIONS_
LONDON
WELLS GARDNER, DARTON & CO., LTD.
3 PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS
[Illustration: 1908]
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
I have to record my gratitude to the many writers whose works have
helped me to compile this guide to our National Gallery for young
folk—to Vasari, to Messrs. Crowe and Cavaleschi, to Dr. Waagen, to M.
Charles Blanc, to Messieurs de Goncourt, to Monsieur L. Viardot, to
Monsieur Chesneau, to Monsieur de Sizeranne. I have also referred to
Diderot’s letters and criticisms; to the Official Guides to the National
Gallery, and to many other authorities read in handbooks and articles
which I cannot enumerate. I owe an especial debt of gratitude to Mr. E.
T. Cook for his admirable handbook that was a store of inspiration to
me, to Mr. Cosmo Monkhouse, and Mr. Frederick Wedmore. Mr. Ruskin has
been my unfailing guide, and if I have sometimes ventured to differ from
him as a critic, I have never differed from the noble spirit of his
teaching.
A. C.
* * * * *
The illustrations in this volume and on the cover are from photographs
taken by Messrs. W. A. Mansell & Co., Oxford Street, a list of whose
publications will be found at the end of the volume.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
Introduction, 1
CHAPTER II
Vestibule, 5
CHAPTER III
Florentine School, 14
CHAPTER IV
Florentine School (_continued_), 25
CHAPTER V
Michael Angelo, 36
CHAPTER VI
Leonardo da Vinci, 41
CHAPTER VII
Andrea del Sarto and Others, 44
CHAPTER VIII
Mostly about the School of Siena, 49
CHAPTER IX
Umbrian School, 53
CHAPTER X
Umbrian School (_continued_), 57
CHAPTER XI
Umbrian School (_continued_), 64
CHAPTER XII
The Ferrarese and Bolognese School, 70
CHAPTER XIII
Paduan School: Andrea Mantegna, 79
CHAPTER XIV
Venetian School, 82
CHAPTER XV
Venetian School (_continued_), 88
CHAPTER XVI
Paul Veronese, Sebastian del Piombo, and the Great Portrait Painters,
95
CHAPTER XVII
Schools of Lombardy: Three Great Painters, 102
CHAPTER XVIII
Decay and Decline, 107
CHAPTER XIX
School of Spain, 110
CHAPTER XX
Velazquez and Murillo, 115
CHAPTER XXI
Art of the Low Countries, 122
CHAPTER XXII
A Great Trio, 130
CHAPTER XXIII
Dutch Art, 138
CHAPTER XXIV
Dutch School (_continued_), 142
CHAPTER XXV
German School, 155
CHAPTER XXVI
French School, 161
CHAPTER XXVII
French Artists of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, 167
CHAPTER XXVIII
English School, 176
CHAPTER XXIX
English School (_continued_), 183
CHAPTER XXX
Painters of the Norwich School and Others, 189
CHAPTER XXXI
English School: Constable, 194
CHAPTER XXXII
English School: Turner, 197
CHAPTER XXXIII
Lesser Lights yet Great, 201
CHAPTER XXXIV
Conclusion, 208
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Portraits of Jean Arnolfini and Jeanne
de Chenany, his wife _Jan van Eyck_ _Frontispiece_
The Death of Procris _Piero di Cosimo_ 30
The Madonna and Infant Christ, St. _Michael Angelo
John the Baptist, and Angels Buonarroti_ 40
The Virgin of the Rocks _Leonardo da
Vinci_ 42
The Annunciation _Duccio_ 51
Vision of a Knight _Raphael Sanzio_ 60
The Virgin with the Infant Christ, and
St. Anne enthroned, surrounded by
Saints _Francia_ 76
Bacchus and Ariadne _Titian_ 90
The Vision of St. Helena _Paolo Veronese_ 96
Portrait of the Spanish Admiral,
Pudilo Pareja _Velazquez_ 117
Head of Charles I. _Van Dyck_ 134
The Avenue, Middelharnis, Holland _Hobbema_ 150
The Horse Fair _Rosa Bonheur_ 174
Heads of Angels _Sir Joshua
Reynolds_ 179
The “Fighting Téméraire” tugged to her
last berth to be broken up _Turner_ 198
Dignity and Impudence _Sir Edwin
Landseer_ 206
THE NATIONAL GALLERY
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
“Art is long and time is fleeting.”
When we step out of Trafalgar Square into the National Gallery we step
into the midst of beauty. Two massive pale green marble pillars form the
approach to the vestibule; their carved capitals are of alabaster from
Derbyshire, their base of Aberdeen granite. Delicate yellow marble, like
sunshine caught in stone, lines the side walls of the stair-flight. It
is the beautiful _giallo-antico_ of ancient Rome. Red columns resembling
jaspar, coming from the west of Algiers, support the arches of the
ceiling; their pedestal is of marble from the Apennines. It is a fit
entrance to the shrine of these world-famous pictures that are in a
sense the work of all the greatest painters the world has known. All
that is best in their work has come down into the art of our time.
I want you to imagine that, together, we are visiting the National
Gallery, room by room, chatting as we go along of the various pictures,
of the artists who have painted them, of their subjects, talking of the
different schools to which they belong.
“What is a school?” you ask me.
No, it is not a place where you learn your lessons, where there is
fagging and games, and rewards awarded, and punishments administered. A
school of painters means a group of artists working under the influence
of a leader—a painter, who has brought some new view of art into the
world. One, for instance, brought colour and the harmony of colour,
another brought what is called composition—that is arranging figures to
the best advantage so as to serve the purpose of the work; another
taught how to look at landscape and so on. Perhaps it would be more
correct to say that to those who worked under the overpowering influence
of a master, the new thing his genius had brought seemed such a great
thing that they were content to go on doing it as if there were nothing
more to be done. They and their master formed what is called a “school.”
A school, therefore, is founded on some new view of art which comes as a
priceless addition to the great accumulation of art-principles,
contributed by all the other schools that have gone before. It is a sort
of hoard of treasures.
In early art the subject was the first consideration. In the thirteenth
century there was a great awakening of art in Italy. Cimabue and Giotto
founded the Florentine school. A great many schools descended from it.
All began by being religious. Painting, it may be said, was the handmaid
of the Church, and the Catholic Church permeated the life of the people.
The subjects demanded were taken from legends of saints. The Madonna
reigned supreme in art. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when
perspective, composition, the science of light and shade had been
mastered, artists began to treat allegorical and mythological subjects,
and above all portraiture.
The different schools that were affected by the great Florentine revival
are the Sienese, the Ferrarese, the Bolognese, the Umbrian, the Paduan,
and that of Lombardy, all culminating in the Venetian school in which
art seemed to reach its climax. All represent a larger outlook upon the
life of the people. Italy and after it Spain represent the Catholic
influence in art. Every church contained numerous altars above which was
raised a masterpiece. The art of the South was pre-eminently a Catholic
art.
The art of the North was essentially a Protestant art, caring little for
legends of the saints and the Madonna, caring very much for human beings
and for the love of country. The Flemish school is a grand school of
portraiture. It numbered Van Eyck, Rubens, Van Dyck among its supreme
masters.
The Dutch school was developed only after the Reformation, and its
painting is entirely independent of the Catholic Church, its art
independent of Church patronage. Patriotism is the strong inspirer of
Dutch genius; portraiture, landscape and genre painting (the painting
that illustrates the modest incidents of home life) were its favourite
forms of art. In portraits the Dutch masters painted the portraits of
their burgomasters; in landscape they set themselves to preserve every
feature of their low-lying, level pasture land, in genre painting all
the simple avocations of the home-loving national life.
The German school shows the serious sincere ideal of the German folk. It
was of short duration. The Thirty Years War put an end to the
florescence of art. Albert Dürer was the great Lutheran painter, Holbein
was the king of portrait painters. Then came the French school born of
classic traditions, a school full of cultured, charming artificiality.
Afterwards, towards the end of the seventeenth century, came the English
school. It is strong and individualistic, as is the nation. It had three
foremost painters for its leaders—Hogarth, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and
Gainsborough.
CHAPTER II
VESTIBULE
“But at any rate I have loved the season
Of Art’s spring birth so dim and dewy;
My sculptor is Nicolo the Pisan;
My painter—who but Cimabue?”
Here we are in the National Gallery. Oh these wonderful pictures! How
beautiful they are, how soothing is their colour; we feel what the
Americans call “good” in this lovely atmosphere. Now I am going to speak
to you about these works of art—not about them all or nearly all—but
about those that I think you would care for most and those that are
important for you to know something about. I must not trouble too much
to keep to the order of the rooms, although I will keep to it as far as
possible; but there are so many changes in the hanging of the pictures
that confusion ensues when we look for them in the rooms. I shall
mention them by their numbers as these never alter. The artist who
founded the Florentine school was Cimabue, and he is now in Room III.
Let us seek for him there, as I am anxious to trace for you the history
of the Florentine school from the beginning.
Cimabue’s picture, “The Madonna and Child” (565), marks the beginning of
the revival of art in Italy and in the world. It is the first picture
that we have of the Florentine school. The Byzantine influence is strong
upon it. It is important that you should understand what I mean by the
Byzantine influence. In the fourth century, the Roman Empire had been
broken up into two great divisions—the Eastern Empire and the Western
Empire. The Western Empire had Rome for its capital, the Eastern had
Constantinople or Byzantium. As trouble continued to overwhelm Italy
from without and from within, the centre of civilisation was gradually
transferred to Constantinople. Then when Italy had been broken up into
separate republics, when peace returned to the country, it was found
that during that time of warfare the buildings had been allowed to fall
into decay, and, what was of greater importance, there were no artists
in Italy fitted to undertake their restoration. Art had taken refuge in
the Byzantine Empire. About the twelfth century wealth and happiness had
come back to Italy. Florence especially was prosperous, and the gaiety
and courtliness of its life had returned.
The heads of the State wished to rebuild and to re-decorate the ruined
buildings, but there was no Florentine who could undertake the task, so
they sent to Constantinople for Greek artists.
Byzantine art was a curious product. It was very conventional. Greek
artists always worked from a preconceived idea, and they never looked at
nature to correct this idea. They largely encrusted their work with
gold; they put gold instead of light on the dresses, gold on the halos,
gold on the crowns, gold in the background. It was garish, even splendid
in effect, but it was not nature. For everything there was a ready-made
model, and from that model the artists never departed. The faces they
painted were always the same faces, with goggling eyes and rigid lips.
The figures were without grace, they were gaunt and archaic, but gold
made up for everything, and gold was lavishly used.
To Florence, therefore, came Greek painters and Greek architects to
rebuild the churches and to decorate the walls and altars. The
inhabitants of the town watched the painters at work; and in the crowd
there was a little lad, the member of an illustrious family. He was born
about 1240, and he was named Giovanni Cimabue. His father wished him to
attend the classes held by a relative in the convent of Santa Maria
Novella, but Cimabue did not care for that kind of learning; his heart
was with the artists in the chapel. When he could not get there he
covered the leaves of his lesson-books with drawings of men and women,
of horses and houses, but whenever he could escape he would run off to
watch the Greek artists at work. Don’t you fancy you can see the lad
watching, with all his soul in his eyes? The father felt that the boy
had a vocation and no longer opposed his bent. Cimabue was apprenticed
to the Greek artists. He was happy now; he could devote all his time to
his beloved art. His masters never looked to nature, but Cimabue was
full of observation. For nigh three hundred years no one in Italy had
drawn from life. Cimabue studied nature; his pictures were very
grotesque, but it was a right impulse he gave to art; instead of
following convention he attempted the representation of things as they
were. He tried to paint what he saw, his Madonnas, his angels are gaunt,
the drawing is almost childish, but there is in it a touch of reality.
It was because of this truth that he brought into the world—to study
from nature direct—that his pictures meant so much to his
contemporaries.
He painted a Madonna, with the shadow of pain in her eyes, carrying the
Babe on her knee; about her and the Child are angels. All the citizens
of Florence turned out and carried Cimabue’s picture in triumph through
the city to the church of Santa Maria Capella. The citizens donned
holiday attire, the children threw flowers, the youths sounded trumpets,
the joy bells rang, all the dignitaries of Church and State accompanied
the picture on its way. Lord Leighton has painted a beautiful
representation of this scene. The way Cimabue’s Madonna went has been
called the suburb of gladness, and still it is called the “Borgo
Allegri.”
The “Madonna and Child” (565), by Cimabue, is a colossal Madonna, very
stiffly drawn, but her eyes are sad, and, with a tender gesture, she
clasps her Child. Time has very much injured the picture’s colour; it
has worn away the flesh tints; it has left uncovered the green
foundation, yet there is truth in it, because Cimabue studied from
nature. He became the founder of the Florentine school, to which
Botticelli and Lippo Lippi belonged, Piero di Cosimo, and Andrea del
Sarto, of incomparable grace, the school that blossomed into the genius
of Michael Angelo, into the divine grace of Leonardo da Vinci.
We shall now return to the vestibule. Giotto, Cimabue’s pupil, carried
further than his master did the study of nature, and shares with him the
glory of being head of the Florentine school. He was the son of a
shepherd who lived in Vespignamo, a hamlet fourteen miles from Florence.
The lad used to take out his father’s flocks to pasture. One day, when
he was about ten years of age, he drew, as was his wont, with a sharp
stone for pencil upon a smooth rock. Cimabue passed that way and stopped
to see the little fellow’s work; he was so pleased with it that he asked
Giotto if he would go to Florence to learn there how to draw and paint.
Giotto was wonderstruck and answered he would willingly go if his father
allowed him. Then Cimabue went to the shepherd’s hut and asked if he
might take the child back with him and teach him art. Permission was
granted, and the boy from that day prepared to become a painter. In
another version of the meeting of Cimabue and his future pupil, it is
said that Giotto’s father had apprenticed the lad to a wool-merchant,
and, one day asking news of his son, he heard that he used to spend all
his time at the studio of Cimabue. It was no use to oppose his bent for
art; the father took him away from the wool-merchant, and placed him
under the care of Cimabue.
The joy of Giotto! He might work all day without pause! Very soon his
ardour made him outstrip his master. He drew straight from life, and he
drew everything. He formed a friendship with the poet Dante, painting
his portrait. Poet and painter, how ennobling was their intercourse!
Giotto’s most notable works are his frescoes at Assisi. Saint Francis,
who looked upon all created things as his brothers and sisters, who
wrote canticles to the sun, to the birds, whom the very wolves obeyed,
was dead. He was buried in the church on the hill. Giotto was entrusted
by the prior of the order of the Dominicans to paint the frescoes
illustrating the miracles and life of St. Francis of Assisi.
We have nothing authentic from Giotto’s hand. But we have pictures that
undoubtedly belong to his school—thus (276), placed in the vestibule,
shows the heads of St. John and St. Paul bowed in adoration. They are
part of a fresco; some say that they are portraits. It is the beauty of
the expression, the fervour of the look, that makes them dear to us. No.
(568) is “The Coronation of the Virgin.” Neither is this picture held to
be by Giotto, but, again, it is by a member of his school. There is a
charming and familiar loveliness in the incidents depicted; the human
element is strong, as it is in all that Giotto painted. Thus it was
that, although Cimabue founded the school of Florence, Giotto went
further than he did in the study of nature, and all the artists of this
period were called Giottesques.
Margaritone (1216–1293) was the last of the Italians who painted
according to the Greek or Byzantine manner. This picture, “The Virgin
and Child” (564), with incidents taken from the “Lives of the Saints,”
is placed in the vestibule. It speaks to us in symbols. The child Christ
is blessing the faithful. He holds in his left hand the roll on which
are inscribed the names of the saved. The Virgin is surrounded by an
aureole, almond-shaped, used for her only when she holds the Child.
Outside are placed the Angel, the Ox, the Lion, and the Eagle—emblems of
the four Evangelists. On either side of the panel are pictured incidents
from the “Lives of the Saints,” eight in number. How quaint and
grotesque is the symbolism; it is almost childish in execution. Here,
for instance, is St. John the Evangelist, apparently in a hip-bath of
seething oil, blessing with uplifted hand his persecutors; a little
further we see him resuscitating Drusiana; there is St. Benedict rushing
into a thicket of briars and nettles to rid himself of the thought of a
beautiful woman that is impeding his prayers, and St. Nicholas of Bari
is also there preaching to the sailors. Further on is St. Catherine
being beheaded, her body buried by angels on Mount Sinai, and strangest
of all these strange little pictures is that of St. Margaret in prison
swallowed and disgorged by the dragon.
Margaritone died when he was aged seventy-seven. He was weary of life;
he had survived the art of his youth and the taste of his time, for
taste had turned from the love of convention to the love of the new
ideals in art. Cimabue and the shepherd’s son, Giotto, had taught their
generation to care only for the truth of nature. Men were beginning to
look to the present rather than to the past, to the teaching of the
actual rather than to the teaching of the symbol, and Margaritone had
been left behind in the march of the human spirit towards progress.
Orcagna (1308–1368), painter, poet, sculptor, and architect, is the next
painter whose works I want you to look at. His name means the
“Archangel,” and although his pictures are stiff and show a want of
knowledge of anatomy, they are imbued with the solemnity of great faith.
His virgins and angels have a certain elegant sweetness of pose and
expression. He drew with force and energy, and he finished every part of
his picture with care and delicacy. In this altarpiece (569), placed in
the vestibule, the “Coronation of the Virgin,” we find these qualities
exemplified. In the centre Christ is crowning His Mother. How dignified
and graceful is the Virgin’s pose, as she bends her head to receive the
crown which her son is placing upon it. Angels are around, some
kneeling, some playing musical instruments, all worshipping the Lord and
His Mother. In the two compartments, one on the right and one on the
left of this central panel, saints are kneeling in adoration. On the
left is Peter carrying the model of the church St. Peter Maggiore, for
which the picture was painted. Saints and apostles are there, and among
them are women—St. Elizabeth of Hungary, Mary Magdalene, and St.
Catherine of Alexandria. It is a picture full of adoration and of a
sense of character. You will find nine small pictures (570 to 578),
portions of this altarpiece, helping to tell the great story of the
redemption of man. All these pictures are more or less rudely drawn, but
they reveal to us why the painter was called “Archangel.” His mind dwelt
on heavenly themes, and he was impatient of others less exalted. We have
not many details of Orcagna’s life.
CHAPTER III
FLORENTINE SCHOOL
“Washed by the morning’s water gold
Florence lay out on the mountain side.”
We push the swing-door open and we enter. Most of the pictures at the
first glance will strike you as religious pictures, for art was the
handmaid of religion. The supreme artist expresses best what are the
spiritual influences of his time, and therefore you will see how
powerful was the influence of the Catholic Church during the Middle
Ages. Men and women were always thinking of the Jewish maiden, so pure,
so pious, so tender, whom God considered worthy to be the Mother of His
Son. You will see the Madonna continually painted—sometimes she is
seated on a throne, sometimes she is lowly adoring her child, sometimes
she is simply the human mother rejoicing in her baby boy, or weeping
broken-hearted at the cross. In Italian and in Spanish pictures you will
continually see the Madonna depicted, because in these two countries the
influence of the Catholic Church was strongest.
But all the pictures here are not religious pictures. There are many of
heathen gods and goddesses, and there are portraits. Near the pictures
of the Madonna, or of the legends of the saints, you will find, for
instance, one of the heathen gods, and that is because there was another
influence at work among painters and lovers of art. The fifteenth
century saw the rebirth of learning—what we call the Renaissance. I
shall not enter into the causes of this rebirth except to ascribe it to
the invasion of Constantinople by the Turks and the dispersion of the
treasure of art and literature hoarded in the city. Plato and Aristotle,
Ovid and Virgil, the great poems of Homer, became the favourite study of
the scholars of the time. They laid aside their canonical books to read
the classics. They put away austere thoughts; a great joy of life seized
the Italian nation. It delighted in lovely things as it had not done
before, for before it had been absorbed in the high truths of religion
only. The period of the Renaissance is the finest period of art the
world has known, and here in this first room we see the struggle of the
new spirit and of the old. Of this conflict Sandro Botticelli was the
exponent.
Let us begin by looking at the picture of the Virgin and Child by Fra
Filippo Lippi (589), who was the master of Botticelli. “Fra Filippo
Lippi’s art,” says Mr. Ruskin, “is the finest out and out art which ever
man did.” He was the son of a butcher, and he was strong and full of
life. He early became an orphan, and he was placed by his aunt in a
Carmelite convent; then, when he was in his early teens, he was
persuaded to take the vows. But he was faithless to them, for when he
went to paint an altarpiece at the convent of Santa Margherita, at
Prato, he fell in love with one of the sisters, rather with a young
novice—the charming Lucretia Buti, who had sat for the Madonna in his
picture. We are told that he ran away with her at a convent festival, in
which she was to bring the girdle to the Madonna. There are other
pictures by him in this room, and in each you will find the same realism
of representation and the same strong religious fervour of idea. There
is something very vital about his art. It is an art more than four
hundred years old, for Fra Lippi was born about 1406 and died 1469. And
yet we seem through it to know the artist; he loved human beings, he
loved life, he was always watching the people around him, he was curious
about them. His patron was Cosmo de’ Medici, whose portrait is here
painted by Angelo Bronzino (704). It is a small portrait, but you will
see that his face expresses all that he was—cruel to his enemies,
intellectual, generous towards those whom he patronised.
Let us first look at Fra Filippo Lippi’s picture, “The Virgin and Child”
(589). It is a strange and beautiful conception, a wonderful symbol; all
the details in it are full of nature. It gives us the key to Fra Lippi’s
genius, which was both ideal and realistic. We see the Virgin sitting
out of doors, and an angel comes and presents to her the infant Christ.
It is not the Virgin who holds the Child, but the angel who brings it,
as a symbol that He is more than a human babe, that He is the Redeemer
of the world.
The other pictures by Fra Filippo Lippi in this gallery are “The Vision
of St. Bernard” (248). The Virgin, surrounded by children, appears to
the saint as he sits writing. It is an open-air scene—the table at which
St. Bernard, wearing a white Carmelite costume, sits is formed by a rock
on which are placed his inkstand and his paper. He is looking up, gazing
at the gracious apparition, surrounded by a procession of angels. The
Virgin is a benignant presence. She might be a tender woman answering
one who calls her, and the little angels about her are human children.
Then there is the “Annunciation” (666), at present in the second room.
In a charmingly furnished interior the Virgin is sitting. Beyond, on the
left, we have a glimpse of a garden full of flowers. Fra Filippo
evidently loved flowers, for he paints them so lovingly; from the
garden, steps an angel, who, with a graceful gesture, proclaims to Mary
her future motherhood. Above the young girl’s head a mysterious hand
appears, from which a dove is loosened and descends in a ray of golden
light. The companion picture (667) is “St. John the Baptist and Saints.”
This is the loveliest picture of all, I think. I want you to observe the
details, the greenery of the garden, the marble bench, the light and
peace over all. It is a serene summer day, full of the glow of delicate
sunshine. St. Francis is there with the stigmata, St. Lawrence and St.
Cosmas sitting on the right of St. John the Baptist; St. Anthony and St.
Peter the martyr on his left; all are listening to the saint’s words. We
breathe the warmth of the summer day, we hear the thousand sounds of
nature—the singing of the birds, the hum of the insects; we smell the
fragrance of the exquisite flowers. The joy and peace that the artist
felt so many hundred years ago, fill our hearts to-day—the joy of
earthly beauty and the peace of the spirit.
In Fra Filippo’s pictures you must always look for the beauty of
material surroundings; he is very much the painter of light idealising
what it touches. The picture of St. John and saints is all suffused with
light. In “The Annunciation” the light falls upon the sweet maiden about
to become the Mother of God. It is caught up by the angel and repeated
by a thousand touches in the room and in the garden.
Fra Filippo died suddenly, some say by poison.
Sandro Botticelli was the pupil of Fra Filippo. In childhood he longed
to be allowed to devote himself to art as a career. He was then
apprenticed to a goldsmith, and he learned how to handle gold, but he
was unhappy until his father placed him with Fra Filippo to learn
painting. Sandro won the affection of his master. He was gay; his
pictures, full of the delight of life, were full of vigour. Before we
begin to look at them I must tell you something of a preacher named
Savonarola, who had a tremendous influence over his time. He was a monk,
stern, severe, inspired; his voice was harsh, his aspect was austere.
When he first began to preach no one listened to what he said, then he
went into retreat in order to study and pray. As I have told you, the
nobles, the people, and the clergy of Italy had become devoted to the
new learning. They cared no longer for the Christian virtues of
self-sacrifice and detachment from the world’s joys; they thought only
of the beauty of life. Before he heard Savonarola Botticelli painted
nothing but heathen gods and goddesses. “Mars and Venus” (915) is a good
example of his earlier work. Venus is clothed in delicate white and gold
tissue; she lies among flowers, and no one ever painted roses as
Botticelli painted them. Near Venus is Mars asleep, satyrs and loves
play about; they have got hold of the god’s weapons—one of them is
shouting in his ear, but he does not heed. What mischievous little imps
they look! How full of life they are! A swarm of hornets buzzes round
the head of Mars. It is a picture of the ruin brought by lazy pleasure.
There are other pictures by Botticelli, painted during his first period;
in them Venus is a beautiful woman surrounded by roses and by loves.
Then comes a great difference in Botticelli’s art. He had heard
Savonarola preach; and the monk was thundering against the pagan
influences of the time. He was telling of the visions he had seen of the
fair city of God—purity was its light, and obedience to divine law the
habit of every life. He spoke of the day of judgment, and the citizens
of Florence listened and were afraid. They went about like ghosts
wringing pale hands in dread. Savonarola stirred the conscience of his
hearers; they lit a great fire at the door of the cathedral, and women
threw their jewels into the flames; learned men and youths threw their
books of poetry, their classics, the works of art that celebrated the
pagan gods and goddesses. This was called the great sacrifice.
Savonarola founded a company of mourners of “Grumblers,” and Botticelli
entered that order. He turned away from the subjects that had been the
theme of his art till now—he vowed that he would belong to Christ alone,
and his pictures from henceforth were inspired by religion. You will see
in this room the picture of “The Nativity”; it expresses all
Botticelli’s creed. It is Christmas morning and there
... “the heaven born child
All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies.”
Heaven and earth are rejoicing together. See the very animals in the
manger are lifting up their voices and joining in the Hosannah. The
Virgin is kneeling worshipping her Babe, the shepherds, the kings, are
hurrying towards Him, and radiant winged angels are rushing to greet
them. They embrace pointing to where the heavenly Child is lying. They
seem to be saying “this is the Saviour of mankind,” and the crowd is
pressing onwards as if nothing could keep it back; and look, the devils,
all in amaze, are hiding away in rocks. Above the manger is a glow of
dazzling light:—
“The helmed Cherubim
And sworded Seraphim
Are seen in glittering ranks with wings displayed,
Harping, in loud and solemn quire,
With inexpressive notes, to Heaven’s new born Heir.”
This picture was painted in 1500, two years after Savonarola had been
put to death. The Friar had been executed for seditious preaching; but
Botticelli lived to paint the vision that had haunted the monk—the
reconciliation of heaven and earth. On the top of the picture there is
an inscription in Greek telling that it was painted in “the second woe
of the Apocalypse,” that the devil was loosened, that afterwards he
would be chained, and that we should see him trodden down as we see in
this picture.
What a difference between the two Botticellis—between the pagan
Botticelli, and the Christian painter who saw all heaven and earth with
anointed eyes.
There is another picture by Botticelli (275), a circular picture of the
Virgin holding her baby boy on her lap, and of St. John and an angel
behind. This picture was painted at a time when Botticelli, while much
impressed by Savonarola’s preaching, was not yet quite converted to
Christianity. The Virgin is very beautiful, but she seems somewhat
frightened at being the Mother of the Christ. The Child, a chubby baby,
is lying on her knee in all the joyous life of infancy. St. John is
watching adoringly behind, and the angel is bowing low to the little
one. I want you to notice the delicacy of the painting in all
Botticelli’s works, how beautifully he uses gold. He was apprenticed to
a goldsmith in early life. Notice the way in which it is laid upon the
Virgin’s veil, upon the bodice of her dress. I would have you note also
the energy of Botticelli’s temperament, expressed by the vehement
gesture of the Child in this picture. We see the same force and feeling
in the laughing triumph of the children in Mars asleep, in the joy of
the angels and the shepherds in the Nativity.
There is a picture of the school of Botticelli (2083), lately added to
the National collection by the “Cohen” bequest. It shows the profile of
a lovely Florentine woman, painted with the marvellous care with which
Botticelli worked. Her auburn hair, her lilac dress and pearl ornaments
are models of exquisite workmanship. Behind, at the back of the picture,
is an angel carrying a celestial globe, standing, with sandalled feet,
tiptoe on our globe, announcing the glad tidings to all mankind that the
Redeemer is born.
There is a great picture by Botticelli, “The Assumption of the Virgin”
(1126). It is in Room II. among the pictures by Sienese painters.
Critics are not agreed whether Botticelli painted it or not, but they
are certain, if not by him, that it was painted by one of his disciples.
It is a splendid bit of colour. Christ is on high blessing His mother,
who kneels before Him, and on His knee is an open book showing the
mystic letters, “Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.” He stands
amongst cherubim and seraphim, saints, apostles, and martyrs, amongst
the glorious company of heaven, lauding and magnifying His name. When we
sing the “Te Deum Laudamus” on a Sunday we sing what this picture
teaches in zones of colour and light. Below is the empty tomb of the
Virgin, in which blossom pure white lilies, and, by the side, following
the custom of the time, are the portraits of the giver of the picture,
Palmeira and his wife, kneeling on either side of the sepulchre. Behind
stretches the valley of the Arno and the lovely city of Florence.
Another Florentine picture is Fra Angelico’s “Resurrection” (663). There
we see the spirit of prayer and the spirit of art mingling as they have
never mingled before or since. Fra Angelico entered a Dominican convent
in Florence when he was quite young, but the spirit of art was in him.
He illuminated the breviaries of the brethren, and you will see through
his art how illumination influenced him. You will see it in the golden
halos round the heads of the blessed, in the shadowless and flame-like
colouring of their raiment. Angelico’s visions were of the glory of
heaven. Before setting to work he always knelt and prayed, asking God
and His saints to inspire him. He could never think of the Passion of
our Lord without weeping bitter tears. Thus he painted the sweet faces
of angels, the glorified countenances of martyrs and saints, dressing
his angels in robes that glitter like flame. The Christ stands above. He
is somewhat weakly drawn; about Him floats the white banner bearing the
red cross of the Resurrection. What can be more beautiful than the
choirs of cherubim and seraphim that crowd about the Lord, sounding
their trumpets, playing their viols, their lutes, and beating their
drums. Above, on the right of the Saviour, is the Virgin followed by the
Apostles; on the left are Abraham with his sword, Noah with the ark,
Moses with the tables of the law, Aaron with his name inscribed on his
mitre. About are numberless patriarchs and saints. The martyrs carry
palms in their hands. Some wear wreaths of roses, others crowns of
thorns. At the extreme end, on either side of the picture, are portraits
of the brothers Dominican, wearing their black robes, who have joined
the company of the blessed. Other pictures by Florentine artists are
hung, but these are the finest in the Sienese room.
CHAPTER IV
FLORENTINE SCHOOL (_Continued_)
“And mark through the winter afternoons,
By a gift God grants me now and then,
In the mild decline of those suns like moons,
Who walked in Florence, besides her men.”
Filippino Lippi (1457–1504) was Fra Filippo’s son, the “little Filippo,”
and he too was a painter of genius. He was a very young man when his
father died—too young to have learned much from him—and he became the
pupil of Sandro Botticelli. His pure and excellent life made him greatly
beloved. Vasari, the chronicler of the painters of the close of the
fifteenth and of the opening of the sixteenth centuries, whose
contemporary he was, tells us “that he was loved by all who had known
him, not only for the excellence of his life, but for the courtesy and
the amiability of his disposition.”
“St. Francis with the Stigmata” (598) is a very characteristic picture
by this artist. In it we see the saint, whose bride was Poverty, whose
heart overflowed with love for humanity and for all created things,
receiving the stigmata. The stigmata is the trace of the wounds that our
Lord had borne—his lacerated hands and feet, his “riven side.” It is a
tradition of the Catholic Church that St. Francis meditated so
constantly upon the Saviour’s sufferings, prayed so incessantly, wept
such bitter tears over them, that the Lord himself appeared to him and
touched his hands and feet and side. From henceforth St. Francis bore in
his person the wounds that his Saviour had borne. Here we see him
standing in glory against a gold background, contemplating a small
crucifix above. On each side of him are angels playing musical
instruments, singing anthems exhorting others to follow the example of
the saint. It is a strange picture full of a great fervour.
Let us now look at “An Angel Adoring” (927), a somewhat battered
fragment from a large picture. A faded halo is round the angel’s head;
we can see the trace of wings on the shoulders. How tender is the
expression of the face bent in prayer, how tender also is the clasp of
the finger tips. Seldom has the expression of adoring prayer been more
beautifully rendered; adoration is the note of this painter’s work. We
have in the National Gallery three pictures of “The Adoration of the
Magi” (592), (1033), (1124), by Filippino Lippi. In these pictures we
see his love for splendour of costume. According to Vasari he introduces
figures in antique garments, in armour, swords, togas; all the
paraphernalia of classic antiquity appear in his works. Note especially
(in 1124) the heralds blowing their trumpets, the ample robes of the
three Magi offering gifts. The garments Filippino paints are of superb
brocade and velvet, his jewels are gems of rare colour, yet as we look
we forget all the splendour and remember only the sweet and rapt
expression of the adoring faces. The love of the classics touched
Filippino, as I have told you it had seized all Italy at the time of the
Renaissance. Legends of saints, scenes from the biblical story, formed
still the subject of the artist’s inspiration, but he clothed his
conceptions in the worldly splendour that was so dear to his generation.
I must speak to you of the art of composition that he so skilfully
employed; in the “Adoration of the Magi” (1124) that art enabled him to
fill his canvas and yet to allow no sense of crowding. Group balances
group, and we are surprised to find that there are over seventy figures
introduced into a comparatively small picture. Of Filippino’s works I
should say that they reflect his own nature—so pious, so serene, so
interested in the world’s spiritual beauty and its progress. I can
imagine him with his courteous manner, noted by Vasari, his gentle
address, painting these pictures of prayer and of divine love. His art
differed very much from that of his father; it differed also from that
of his master Botticelli, although it was much influenced by it. We
recognise little of his father’s care of all the dear humble things of
the world—the flowers, the sunlight, the beauty of the lilies of the
field—nor does he show intimate appreciation of the meaning of gesture;
we see none of Botticelli’s vehemence. Filippino’s art, it seems to me,
is all contained in the word “worship.” It is detached from the world,
while appreciating its glory; it is exalted, pure, and expressive. He
died at Florence in April 1504, and the inhabitants of the city, in
order to show their affection for his gentle and gifted personality,
closed their shutters all along the route of the funeral procession.
Let us pause for a moment before the picture, “The Battle of Sant’
Egidio” (583), by Paolo Uccello (1397–1479). The painter is called
Uccello—the Italian for bird—because of his love for the feathered
creation. His family name was Dono. “He filled his home,” says Vasari,
“with a number of painted birds, cats, and dogs.” He loved them all—he
loved all animals—but he was poor and he could not keep any.
You have all heard of perspective—the science of foreshortening, of
representing things as they look, differently from what they are. It was
Uccello who discovered its rules. He was so interested that he would sit
up all night drawing perspective plans, intricate circles, and squares.
His wife could not get him to bed. “What a sweet thing perspective is,”
he would say regretfully when she urged him to come. Vasari thinks that
Uccello would have been the most original genius since Giotto, but for
that love of perspective—“if he had studied figures and animals instead
of wasting his time over perspective; although it is a fine science,” he
says, “yet he who is devoted to it out of measure wastes his time.”
But Uccello was “bitten with it,” as they say, and he persisted in his
studies, growing every day more solitary and more eccentric in his
tastes. He died in great poverty. Look at this picture, “The Battle of
Sant’ Egidio” (583). In this battle, Carlo Malatesta, Lord of Rimini,
and his nephew Galeazzo, were taken prisoners by Braccio di Montone.
Malatesta is depicted on his white horse. He has in his raised hand the
stick of command with which he apparently is giving the signal of
battle. He is covered with mail, over which he wears a red mantle
embroidered with gold. On his head he has a large biretta worked with
flowers in gold. Galeazzo is behind him, seen in profile. He has a
beautiful face marked by a peaceful expression; his blonde and abundant
hair flows about his neck, and he is attentively following the manœuvres
of the combatants. Look at the spirit of the horses as they close in the
fight; they seem to tear the ground in their energy; the order has gone
forth and the battle is raging in earnest. Behind is a hedge of wild
roses—roses bloom notwithstanding the tumult of the fray. In the
foreground a knight has fallen wounded. His figure lies prone on the
earth, and is an example of Uccello’s skill in foreshortening. It is a
somewhat grotesque picture, but it is full of movement and spirit. Its
importance is to show a new development in art—a new thing brought into
the world by the genius of man, and this new thing is the union of
science with art. Scientific perspective joined to the emotional side of
art.
“The Death of Procris” (698), by Piero di Cosimo (1462–1521), is a
quaint and interesting picture, full of wonder and full of beauty. I
must tell you something of the painter, for he was a singular man. The
son of a goldsmith, he was placed by his father to study under a painter
named Cosimo, who grew to love him dearly, and whose name he took. Piero
di Cosimo, as a youth, was very absent-minded and dreamy. “He was so
fond of solitude,” says Vasari, “that he had no greater pleasure than to
go by himself to solitary places, there to weave visions and to build
castles in the air.” When his master died, to whom he was greatly
attached, Piero would let no one see him. “He lived more like a wild
beast than a man,” says Vasari. “He would never let his room be swept,
or his garden dug or his fruit trees pruned.” He loved to see things
wild as was his own nature. He ate when he was hungry only. He brought
himself to live upon hard boiled eggs, which he would cook by fifties,
keeping them in a bag to consume by degrees. Later, when you are older,
you will read the noble novel “Romola,” by George Eliot, and there you
will get to know the painter in his old age; you will understand his
genius and his eccentricity, his patriotism, his tender love for some
people, his aversion to others. Poor Cosimo, as he grew older, he grew
more singular and fantastic. He loved animals dearly. He used to spend
hours watching them, but he loved solitude most of all. He became more
morose as the shadow of years gathered about his tormented soul. A
terrible misfortune overtook him in his old age; he was struck with
paralysis, and Vasari tells us of his misery, how he would try to keep
his hands steady, how he would force himself to hold a maul stick and
brushes, but it was all in vain; his grasp grew feebler, and things
would drop from his fingers. Then he would rage, and, in his despair, he
would talk wildly. It was very pitiful to watch him, but peace came at
last, and one morning the grim old man was found lying dead at the foot
of his stairs.
[Illustration:
“THE DEATH OF PROCRIS” (698)
BY PIERO DI COSIMO
page 30
]
“The Death of Procris” is a beautiful picture. See how charming is the
wide effect of light in the sky; how charming also are the flowers in
the foreground. All the tenderness underlying Cosimo’s rough exterior is
apparent here. We must think of that picture painted in the untidy
studio by the solitary artist. Do you know the story of Procris? She was
a nymph; she ran, oh! so lightly, she was glad and free, and she fell in
love with Cephalus, the young huntsman; she loved him so much that she
was jealous of whoso approached him. She made herself miserable fancying
that Cephalus loved another nymph. One day, when he was gone hunting,
she followed him secretly and hid behind a bush, and there she heard his
voice. He was only saying, “Oh air, how sweet thou art,” or something of
that kind, but she was sure he was addressing another nymph. She
shivered with pain; she pushed forward to see to whom he was speaking,
and the leaves of the bush that hid her moved. Cephalus, thinking a wild
animal was hiding behind the tree, sent his arrow whizzing in its
direction, and the arrow hit Procris and killed her. There you see her
lying on the ground with the cruel wound in her throat, a long-eared
fawn is gazing wonderingly and sadly down upon her, and her dog Lelaps
is watching her. He seems to be saying, “Why is she so still, why do not
her nimble feet run as they used?” Poor Procris, poor silly Procris!
You must note how Piero di Cosimo uses gold. He was the son of a
goldsmith. See how tenderly he has placed it in Procris’ sandals, in her
beautiful waving hair. Every bit of this picture is full of charming
colour. Over four hundred years have passed since it was painted, and
still it is bright as on the day it left Piero di Cosimo’s studio, and
it is quaint, as were its painter’s imaginings.
“Raphael and Tobias” (781), by Antonio Pollajuolo (1429–1498), is a
delightful picture worthy to be studied. Some say it is by another
person than by Antonio Pollajuolo, that it is by one of his school, and
they give good reasons for their opinion. Anyhow it is a very fine
example of the early Florentine school. Have you ever read the story of
Tobias, the son of Tobit, in the Apocrypha? It tells how Tobit was a
Jewish exile, and how he became blind and prayed for death. His son
Tobias was to wed a rich kinswoman, Sarah by name, but she was haunted
by an evil spirit, who had slain her seven husbands on their wedding
night. To the household of Tobit came the angel of duty, Raphael,
disguised as a menial. He left high heaven and came down in order to
watch over Tobias. The time came when the youth must go forth to marry
Sarah, and the angel went with him. We see them in the picture
journeying together over the green country through which winds a river.
The angel and the lad are conversing together, and, as they converse,
they walk fast. The dust rises under their speeding feet. Tobias, like a
young bridegroom, is hastening to see his love, and Raphael is his
protector and adviser. Tobias’s dog goes before them—a grey, fluffy dog
careering in front. The angel carries a small box, intended for gall,
wherewith to cure Tobit of his blindness, and Tobias carries a fish, the
heart and liver of which, pounded together, is to act like a charm and
drive away the evil spirit that haunts his bride. Raphael’s wings are
strong and sheeny pinions. The rapidity of his walk sends his garment in
serried folds around his figure; his charming face is smiling down upon
Tobias, who, dressed in fifteenth-century costume, is eagerly looking
up. You must note the landscape background, which is very fresh and
pleasant.
To Antonio Pollajuolo is ascribed the “Martyrdom of St. Sebastian”
(292). Look at the wonderful drawing of that picture. The martyred saint
stands pierced by many arrows, and all about are the executioners. Some
are in the act of shooting, others are changing their cross-bows. One in
the foreground is a perfect masterpiece of drawing. Pollajuolo was the
first to study artistic anatomy—that is, the play of bones and muscles
under the flesh. He was the first to dissect dead bodies for that
purpose. Uccello, we have seen, established the rules of perspective,
and here we find anatomy entering into the curriculum of the painter.
This picture of St. Sebastian is a marvellous presentation of the human
figure. The painter was celebrated as a sculptor in bronze, and he was
famed for modelling. Yet the picture is lacking in what we find so
pathetic in earlier pictures, where the genius of the painter is
concentrated upon rendering the expression of the face, the divine look
of prayer and exaltation. This St. Sebastian is a magnificently modelled
figure, and all about him stand figures as nobly executed. And yet we
look upon the cruel scene unmoved; it seems to me that the emotions of
pity and repulsion are not conveyed by the artist.
The glory of Domenico Ghirlandajo (1449–1494) is to have been the master
of Michael Angelo. He was accounted the greatest teacher in Italy, and
to him for instruction went this genius of the Florentine school.
Domenico Ghirlandajo’s work is very fine and true; and his fame rests
upon portraiture. In all his pictures you will see painted the faces of
his contemporaries—the men and women of his time. For a century after
Giotto there was but one conventional facial expression. Every face was
like another face. Then, very humbly, religious painters began to
introduce into their work the portraits of the giver of the picture.
Ghirlandajo developed this practice. He differentiated the countenances
of the individuals, and under him the portrait became an independent
branch of art. We have two portraits by him—(1230) that of a young girl
in a red bodice; her face is characteristic, framed in by her long
waving hair; the other (1299) is the portrait of a youth.
His son, Ridolpho (1483–1561), excelled also in portrait painting. He
was a great friend of Raphael, who invited him to Rome to paint with
him. But Ridolpho refused the invitation and remained in Florence, his
native city, surrounded by friends and patrons, advancing in his art and
in the estimation of other men. He had great ideas of composition, of
forcible colouring, but what distinguishes him among his fellows is the
earnestness and the character of the heads he painted. The “Procession
to Calvary” (1143) is full of movement, full of character, and also full
of pathos. The Saviour is wearily bearing His cross, followed by a
company of soldiers and accompanied by a procession of weeping women.
St. Veronica is among them, and she, her heart full of pity for the
suffering Saviour, wipes with a napkin His brow, all bedewed with drops
of agony. When the Saviour returns the napkin to her, lo! it bears a
miraculous imprint of His features. It is a fine picture, full of a
mystic spirit, notwithstanding the brightness of its colouring and the
atmosphere surrounding the figures. In the crowd Ridolpho has painted
many portraits, among others those of his father, Domenico, and of
several friends.
CHAPTER V
MICHAEL ANGELO (1475–1564)
“The fetters of my tongue do Thou unbind
That I may have the power to sing of Thee,
And sound Thy praises everlastingly.”
WORDSWORTH (_From the Italian of Michael Angelo_).
“The Entombment of our Lord” (790). We come now to an artist who was the
crown and glory of his age, and of his school, as he was the crown and
glory of the art of all time. You have all heard of Michael Angelo.
Ruskin says that his imaginative perception was almost superhuman. If
you go to Rome you will visit the Sixtine Chapel, the ceiling of which
he painted. Saints, sibyls, prophets are there. The story of the
creation of man, of his fall and of his redemption, is the theme
presented there. Over the altar he painted that greatest of all visions
seen by the inner eye of man—the Last Judgment.
It would be impossible for me to sketch here Michael Angelo’s life, or
to give you an idea of his greatness. He was the son of Lodovico di
Leonardo Buonarotti Simoni, a descendant, it is said, of the Counts of
Canossa. His father had a small estate close to Florence, and that
estate was rich in quarries of hard stone. “The nurse of Michael
Angelo,” says Vasari, “was a stone-cutter’s wife, and she would
sometimes put into the baby hands of her little charge a chisel and
hammer.” Michael Angelo used to say to Vasari, “Giorgio, if I have
anything of genius it came to me from being in the subtle air of your
country of Arezzo, while from my nurse I got the chisel and hammer with
which to fashion my figures.”
His father wished to place him in the woollen and silk trade, but the
hand of the spirit was upon the boy, and he would spend his time in
drawing secretly. There was no resisting the claims of inborn genius,
and when Michael Angelo was fourteen his father had ceased to throw
obstacles in his way. He placed the boy with Ghirlandajo, who was
considered the best teacher in Italy. The master recognised the genius
of his pupil.
Lorenzo de’ Medici was one of the great nobles of Venice; he had a
splendid garden on the Piazza San Marco, the alleys of which were filled
with antique sculpture. Lorenzo wished to transform that garden into a
school of sculpture. He wrote to Ghirlandajo inviting him if he had a
pupil of genius to send the youth to this open-air academy. Michael
Angelo was sent, and we must think of him in the fragrant avenues of the
beautiful garden handling the marble and the chisel. He was greatly
envied by some of his fellow-students, and, in a quarrel with one, he
received a heavy blow which fractured his nose. This gave a peculiar
look to his rugged countenance—the look of an antique bust that has been
mutilated. Michael Angelo won the love of Lorenzo de’ Medici, and stayed
in his house four years, when the death occurred of that great patron of
art.
He then left Venice for Florence and went on to Rome, executing on his
way a triumphant series of works. I could not enumerate to you all that
he did in sculpture and in painting, but here are a few masterpieces—the
statues of “David” and “Moses,” the wonderful statue of Duke Lorenzo
brooding in the shadow of the grave, the four symbolic figures of
“Night” and “Day,” of “Dawn” and “Twilight” that are so beautiful,
Vasari tells us, that “if art were lost they are sufficient to restore
it to light.” Pope Julius II. had ordered the mausoleum for himself, and
he resolved to rebuild the church of St. Peter in order to give Michael
Angelo’s work a fair setting. Thus he became the architect of the great
cathedral of St. Peter’s at Rome.
Michael Angelo was a solitary man, a patriot and a poet in marble, in
painting and in words. Raphael, of the “sweet Madonnas,” used to say
that he thanked God to have been born in the days of Michael Angelo. In
his old age the incomparable artist loved the beautiful Vittoria
Colonna, the widow of the Marquis of Pescara. He wrote sonnets to her
and she wrote some to him. Religious sympathy united them. In his youth
Michael Angelo had heard Savonarola preach, and he and Vittoria were the
monk’s disciples, for both believed in the internal reform of the Church
such as Savonarola preached. She died, and the old man watched by her
bedside; and, when the last sigh had left her lips, he kissed the dead
hands, afterwards bitterly regretting that he had not kissed her
forehead and cheek. Beautiful and sacred friendship worthy of two such
peerless souls! He died many years after, but he preserved to the last
the memory of what she had been. Our poet Wordsworth has translated some
of Michael Angelo’s sonnets. In one addressed to Vittoria he says—
“Better plea,
Love cannot have, than that in loving thee
Glory to that eternal Peace is paid,
Who such divinity to thee imparts
As hallows and makes pure all gentle hearts.”
This picture of “The Entombment” is quite unfinished. Perhaps it was
painted in early youth and laid aside. There is grandeur in the
conception, but it fails to hold us by the subtle charm of presentation.
There are the three Marys. The kneeling Virgin is vaguely outlined; just
in front of her is Mary, the wife of Cleophas, a figure that has in it a
touch of woeful grace. The other Mary, a tall, slight woman, helps to
hold the twisted sheet in which Christ is being carried. Salome is also
there, seated on the ground examining something in her hand which has
not been rendered by the artist. Joseph and another in the background
support the Saviour, whose figure is painful to look at in its
emaciation. The picture in its unfinished state is valuable to students,
for it reveals Michael Angelo’s method of work.
“The Madonna and Infant Christ: St. John the Baptist and Angels” (809).
This picture is unfinished also, but the charm and majesty of the work
are manifest. There is in it a haunting mystery. The Madonna, a
beautiful figure, holds an open book out of reach of the Child, who is
trying to grasp it. That book contains the scroll on which the sorrows
He has to meet are recorded. St. John the Baptist, hiding his sad little
countenance, stands near her. Behind are two wingless angels reading
from another scroll. On the other side of the Virgin and behind her are
two unfinished angels with shrouded heads. Mark the beauty of the
Virgin’s expression, the simple treatment of the folds of her dress, the
nobility of her attitude. From these two pictures you must try to guess
the greatness of Michael Angelo’s genius—a genius expressive of that of
Florence, of its intellect, its unresting quality, its religion. You
must always remember that to understand a picture you must try to feel
it through the artist’s temperament; you must try to understand the
ideals of the age in which it was painted; above all, you must
understand its religion. It is Michael Angelo’s spiritual power that
still lives on for us in these works, however unfinished they may be,
and gives to them an arresting quality.
[Illustration:
“THE MADONNA AND INFANT CHRIST, ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST, AND ANGELS”
(809)
BY MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI
page 40
]
CHAPTER VI
LEONARDO DA VINCI
“Blessed babe! what glorious features,
Spotless fair, divinely bright,
Must He dwell with brutal creatures?
How could angels bear the sight.”
I shall take you at once to Room IV. to stand before Leonardo da Vinci’s
picture, “Our Lady of the Rocks” (1093). Its almost unearthly effect is
produced by the light being concentrated upon the faces of the mother,
the children, the angel; all the surroundings are lost in shadow.
Leonardo (1452–1519) represented the eager spirit of the Renaissance. He
had the intellectual restlessness of the Florentines. He was a painter,
a poet, a sculptor, a musician, an architect, a machinist, a
mathematician, a philosopher and an explorer. He wrote upon art, he
practised anatomy upon dead bodies, he understood perspective, and he
excelled in the new science—the management of light and shade. Vasari
tells us of his great personal beauty—“the radiance of his countenance,”
he says, “brought cheerfulness to the heart of the most melancholy.” He
relates stories of the tenderness of Leonardo’s heart, so that “while
passing by a place where they sold birds, he would take them out of
their cages and, paying the price that was asked for them, he would let
them fly into the air, restoring to them their lost liberty.”
This picture is one of the great pictures of the world. In a flowery
nook, guarded all round by weird-looking rocks, like fangs (they are the
least good thing in the picture, for Leonardo was not much attracted to
landscape painting), the Virgin is kneeling, her arm round the little
John the Baptist, who holds his cross of reeds, whilst an angel supports
the child Christ. The divine little One, with hand upraised, blesses his
cousin who is kneeling before Him. It is a charming scene, reposeful to
the mind and to the heart. The light touches the child Christ, creeps up
to the face of the angel, falls upon the beautiful motherly countenance
of the Virgin, and seems to die away upon the form of John the Baptist.
The faces of the mother and the angel are both illuminated by that inner
smile of peace that distinguishes all the women’s faces painted by
Leonardo. It is the Leonardo smile touching the lips, reflected in the
eyes, setting the dimples playing on the cheeks, but not widening the
lips. It tells of a heart at peace, of a joy that is rooted in the soul.
It is a smile that suggests listening to music—the music of sweet
thoughts. Look and look again at this picture, and each time you will
find in it some new beauties—all but the rocks, strange basaltic
formations that are not natural, and yet that seem to harmonise with the
aspect of the scene. Leonardo da Vinci died at over seventy years of
age, and he died in the arms of King Francis the First of France.
[Illustration:
“THE VIRGIN OF THE ROCKS” (1093)
BY LEONARDO DA VINCI
page 42
]
Later I shall speak to you of Raphael, but I want you always to remember
these three great names, those of this trinity of genius,
unapproachable, mysterious. Michael Angelo representing strength;
Leonardo da Vinci, whose subtle charm is not to be analysed, but whose
mysterious appeal it is impossible to resist; Raphael, the exponent of a
grace human and divine. The art of these three must exist so long as
there are pictures in the world. Michael Angelo, Leonardo da Vinci,
Raphael, the perfect three in whom culminated the genius of art. The
Florentine school declined and faded away after the death of Michael
Angelo and Leonardo da Vinci. All that came before pointed to them, all
that came after declined from them.
There are many pictures that I have not noticed, for I want simply to be
a guide to the greatest works, the most memorable ones. Later you will
come to enjoy and to know all the pictures on these walls.
CHAPTER VII
ANDREA DEL SARTO AND OTHERS
“God and the glory! never care for gain.
The present by the future what is that?
Live for fame, side by side with Angelo!
Raphael is waiting: up to God all three.”
Opposite Michael Angelo’s work is a portrait long reputed to be the
likeness of Andrea del Sarto, called the “faultless” painter. It is that
of a beautiful and sensitive face—the face of a true artist. Look at the
brown eyes as they gaze appealingly out of the canvas. Look at the
sensitive mouth, at the delicate chin that bears the fatal mark of
weakness. The face fits in so well with our idea of the artist, that we
would fain believe it to be that of Andrea del Sarto. Its melancholy
seems to betoken a soul clouded by a sad memory.
Andrea del Sarto (1486–1531) carried about with him a consuming remorse
and sorrow. What a contrast there is between Michael Angelo’s rugged
countenance and the melancholy charm of this man’s features. A beautiful
face, it was said, had the power to lead Michael Angelo’s soul to
heaven, as that of Beatrice led Dante’s up to the mysteries of the white
rose of Paradise. A beautiful face had the power to drag down Andrea del
Sarto to depths of dishonour. He was married to a lovely woman named
Lucrezia, and he loved her passionately. She was always needing money to
buy jewels, to spend on pleasures, and he never could refuse her. “He
was of a soft and pliable disposition where honour was concerned,” says
Vasari, the genial gossip, and we can understand this verdict as we look
at this appealing face long held to be that of Andrea del Sarto.
King Francis the First of France had seen two pictures by the “faultless
painter” which he greatly admired, and he commissioned Andrea to
ornament one of his palaces. Andrea went, miserable at leaving his wife,
still full of high hopes for the future. He was received by the King of
France with magnificent hospitality. He set to work, and his work was
appreciated by the monarch and his courtiers. All was going well with
him, but for Lucrezia’s letters. She was weary of waiting; she entreated
him to come back; at last she said he would find her dead if he did not
return. Andrea asked the King’s permission to leave for a time,
promising to return with his wife, swearing on the Bible that he would
come back. Francis allowed him to depart with regret, and gave him large
sums of money in payment for future toil and for the purchase of works
of art. Andrea hurried back to Lucrezia, but he never returned. He spent
the money that had been given him in buying jewels for her, in building
her a beautiful house. He never went back to finish the pictures he had
been commissioned to paint; he never purchased the works of art he had
been entrusted by the king to buy. He broke his troth; he squandered
money that did not belong to him. That is the great stain on his
character.
He was a pupil of Piero di Cosimo, and a friend of the great painter
Francia. Opposite to the portrait long believed to be his, on the other
side of the door, is a “Holy Family” (17) by him. Lucrezia was his
model, and she sat for the Virgin. It is a pretty domestic scene; St.
Elisabeth, with her infant son St. John, has come to visit the Madonna
and infant Christ. The symbolic cross of John the Baptist, the faint
circle of gold round the Virgin’s head, alone testify to the divinity of
the scene. It is difficult to believe that the soft lips painted here
were addicted to violent words as Lucrezia’s are reported to have been,
that the brow so lofty and pure belonged to one who was a seductress,
winning her husband away from the straight path, leading him into
another path whose end was destruction.
Look out for the works of Andrea del Sarto in other galleries; you will
always recognise them by the softness of their outline, by the rounded
curves he loved to paint, by the subtle gradations of the light and
shade—by their cool sweet colour. Andrea died in 1531 when he was
forty-five years of age, of the plague, and Lucrezia survived him forty
years.
Before we leave this room I want you to glance at Lorenzo di Credi’s
“Virgin Adoring” (648) and the “Virgin and Child” (593). These pictures
are full of fervid and poetic fancy. In “The Virgin Adoring the Infant
Christ” the scene is the corner of an old-world city. See the pretty
background, the river winding through wooded banks crowned by a formal
garden. We can imagine di Credi walking down that zigzag path. It is not
Bethlehem but Italy he has painted. It is the garden he loved, the
familiar corner of the river he had looked upon so often. The sweet and
gracious Virgin is kneeling before her Babe; the light of mother love is
on her face, and something of the awe of the spirit before its God is
also upon it.
“Sleep, sleep, mine Holy One!
My flesh, my Lord! what name? I do not know
A name that seemeth not too high or low,
Too far from me or Heaven.”
Lorenzo di Credi lived in troublous times (1459–1537) but he kept his
faith unsullied. He was a disciple of Savonarola, and he took part in
the great sacrifice, when men and women threw into the fire lit at the
door of the Cathedral their most precious treasures. How delicate is the
painting of these pictures, how painstaking it is in all its details.
Look at the veil over the Virgin’s head, at the exquisiteness of the
flowers growing near the Child.
Here is a lovely picture by Fra Bartolommeo (1475–1517), entitled “The
Virgin and Child with St. John” (1694). The Virgin is seated on the
ground out in the open air, behind her is the river on the shores of
which grow some feathery trees; a distant town and blue mountains are
beyond. It is a charming and peaceful landscape. She is seen in profile
with her left hand supporting the head of the little John the Baptist,
pressing it towards the Child who is leaping forward to embrace His
cousin. We might imagine just such a scene on a sunshiny day hundreds of
years ago,—a young Italian mother, graceful with the unconscious grace
of nature, her baby at her knee, and the painter sketching her.
Bartolommeo was a disciple of Savonarola and he, too, had taken part in
the great sacrifice. He was a painter then, and his thoughts had not yet
turned towards the holy life. The preaching of Savonarola moved his
heart, and Vasari tells us that when the monk was condemned to death
Bartolommeo took the vows and joined the order of the Dominicans. He
died at the age of forty-two.
CHAPTER VIII
MOSTLY ABOUT THE SCHOOL OF SIENA
“Yon heaven thy home, that waits and opes its door.”
Now let us pass on to Room II., which is devoted to the Sienese school.
Siena was close to Florence as we now compute distance, but in those
days, when the difficulties of travel were great, the schools did not
touch each other. That of Siena was extremely religious. Its Guild of
painters, in their charter, proclaimed religion to be the one saving
influence in life and art. “Since we are teachers to unlearned men, who
know not how to read, of the marvels done by the power and strength of
holy religion ... and since no undertaking, however small, can have a
beginning or an end without these three things—that is, without the
power to do, without knowledge, and without true love of the work; and
since in God every perfection is eminently united; now, to the end that
in this our calling, however unworthy it may be, we may have a good
beginning and a good ending in all our works and deeds, we will
earnestly ask the aid of the divine grace, and commence by a dedication
to the honour of the Name and in the Name of the most Holy Trinity.”
As we look round this room we feel how truly religion inspired the
painters. How beautiful is the colour, but how quaint is the drawing.
What strikes us as we look at this collection of works of artists of
Siena is the quantity of gold they used; they have golden backgrounds,
golden halos, the light on the drapery outlined in gold—all is a
survival of the Byzantine art that reigned before Cimabue and Giotto
brought a new spirit into the world. In its retreat among the mountains
Siena felt at first none of the movements that reached Florence. It knew
nothing for some time of Uccello’s perspective, of Pollajuolo’s anatomy;
it was moved by the spirit of religion only, the one that first inspired
art.
Some judges have considered Matteo di Giovanni (1435–1495) as the
school’s best and most representative painter; others look upon Duccio
(1260–1340) as its most conspicuous and important figure. The latter was
certainly the Cimabue of the Sienese school. He partly forsook the
conventional Byzantine manner, and sought to bring into his pictures
some resemblance to nature. To one of his works was accorded the honour
that was accorded to Cimabue’s Madonna. It was carried through the city
to the Duomo of Siena, the church bells rang, the trumpets sounded, as
the great picture was taken from the studio, where it had been painted,
to the church where it was to hang. It showed the Virgin surrounded by
angels seated on a throne, holding in her arms her Babe; angels, with
their chins in their hands, looked at her; saints and prophets were
kneeling in reverent attitudes before her. The archbishop with his
clergy, the fraternity of the monks, the great officials of the commune
followed by a crowd of men, women, and children in holiday attire, wound
their way through the city. It was a great time for art when the
painting of a picture could be thus celebrated. It was a time when there
was no reading—when all the ideas of men came to them through things
seen.
[Illustration:
“THE ANNUNCIATION” (1139)
BY DUCCIO
page 51
]
In “The Madonna and Child” (566) I think that Duccio tried to make men
understand the humanity as well as the divinity of Christ. Like a true
human child he draws aside the veil that hides His Mother’s face. Above
are the prophets, below St. Dominic and St. Catherine adoring this
vision of the Virgin. There is still a good deal of the Byzantine
influence, but we see a new awakening in this art of Duccio.
I want you next to look at “The Assumption of the Virgin” (1155) by
Matteo di Giovanni, who lived nearly two hundred years later. That
picture resumes all the artist’s creed. The Virgin seated on clouds
ascends heavenward, cherubim and seraphim float around hailing her. She
wears, as does the Beatrice of Dante in Paradise, the three theological
colours. Her draperies are white, red, and green, symbolic of faith,
hope, and charity. The background is golden. Her empty tomb is below,
groups of prophets are on either side. St. Thomas is there pressing
forward to grasp the girdle, which legend says the Virgin threw down to
him as she ascended. Duccio and Matteo di Giovanni, therefore, are the
two representative masters of the school of Siena. Duccio at its dawn,
Matteo heralding its setting.
There are many artists between them—Ugolino (died about 1339), about
whom few authentic details are known, but who, like Duccio, sought to
emancipate himself from convention. “The Procession to Calvary” (1189)
by him is a series of little scenes from the great tragedy of the
Passion. He was in great repute, and a Madonna that he painted was
believed to have miraculous powers. There were the two brothers
Lorenzetti, who painted pathetic, ill-drawn figures, illustrative of
some miraculous incident. Niccolo Buonaccorso (1388), remarkable for his
marvellous elaboration of gold ornaments. Then (in 1436 to about 1517)
came Benvenuto da Siena, who knew how to harmonise the old spirit with
the new—the old gold background dear to the Sienese to the fresh flesh
colouring of little children. In the “Madonna of the White Rose” (909)
these attributes are pre-eminent. In the compartments on either side are
St. Peter and St. Nicholas of Bari, with his favourite emblem, the three
gold balls, at his feet.
CHAPTER IX
UMBRIAN SCHOOL
PERUGINO
“For all honest work is worship,
And to labour is to pray.”
The painters, natives of the townlets round the hamlet of Assisi formed
the Umbrian school. There had been born the saint whose heart burned
with love and pity for the suffering of men and beasts. Assisi, closely
associated with the life of St. Francis, is the spiritual mother of the
school of Umbria. Essentially religious in spirit this school had a
cultivated sense of classic beauty in the human form, far excelling that
of Siena.
To the Umbrian school belongs the glory of having nurtured Raphael—dear
Raphael who painted the “Madonna and Child” as no man has painted them.
His master, Perugino, belonged to this school. He was born about 1446,
and died in 1524. His real name was Pietro Vannucci, but, later, when he
became a citizen of Perugia, he called himself after the town of his
adoption. He was brought up in great poverty. Vasari tells us he was
apprenticed to an artist who was very deficient as a painter, but who
had a great reverence for art. The master was always telling his pupil
what a glory it was to excel in painting, and Perugino’s imagination was
fired. He was continually asking which was the best place to study in,
and the master always answered that Florence was the only place, firstly
because all men there were critics, secondly because Florence was not
built upon a fertile soil, so that all must work hard to gain a living,
and, lastly, because the air of Florence excited dullards, so that the
dwellers therein for ever sought honour and glory.
To Florence went Perugino eager in his quest. He studied, we are told,
under Andrea Verrocchio, and in a few years he had obtained a great
reputation, so that his pictures were sought for in many countries
besides Italy. He was sensitively honest, and he easily took offence.
Once he had to ornament with painting the cloisters of a convent, of
which the prior had a great reputation for making ultramarine. This is a
most beautiful blue extracted from a very rare and precious mineral. The
prior was very suspicious, fearing that his ultramarine should be
stolen, so he would watch the artist at work; and honest Perugino took
it very ill that the prior should distrust him. He resolved to prove to
him how easy it was to cheat, if you were so minded, and, ordering a
large pail of water, he continually washed his brush laden with
ultramarine. Every time that the prior groaned because he had to provide
more of his precious colour, Perugino would say cheerfully, “You see I
have used it all.” The picture was finished; then the artist took his
noble revenge. He emptied the water and showed a deposit of blue mineral
collected at the bottom of the basin.
“You should not distrust an honest man,” he said to the prior. “You must
learn to trust, for the honest man too knows how to deceive suspicious
men like yourself.”
The National Gallery possesses four undoubted pictures by Perugino (181,
288, 1075, 1441). “The Baptism of Our Lord” (1431) is not undoubted, so
we do not include it in our list. You will find in all these pictures a
lovely purity of tone, an ideal sense of beauty, and a most perfect
grace. The peacefulness of the landscape, introduced as a background,
brings a spiritual repose to the work. In the “Madonna and Child” (288)
we see the quiet hills behind the Virgin’s head; a lovely river runs at
their base, peaceful as a river in Paradise. The somewhat formal trees
repeat each other, one on either side; their slender stems, their
branchings, are examples of perfect symmetry. It is like a landscape
seen in a dream, not quite natural, but full of mystic romance.
If you look at “The Virgin and Child and St. John” (181) you will find
these qualities repeated. The saintly beauty of the young Virgin’s face
is very noticeable; there is a melancholy and a purity on her broad
brow, in her downcast eyes, gazing with an anticipation of sorrow on her
bonny boy. The richness of her raiment is finely rendered; on the border
of her mantle, embroidered in gold, is Perugino’s name. Behind her head
stretches a delicate sky, hills at whose base winds a river, level
meadows beyond; all are steeped in a transparent golden glow. In the
picture (288) which I have mentioned there is the same purity, the same
exquisiteness of tone. The young mother is worshipping her Child, which
an angel is holding, angels aloft are choiring praises to It, while on
either side are two panels; on one is depicted the Archangel Michael,
dressed in armour typifying that he is the “orderer of Christian
warfare,” on the other is Raphael, the ministering angel, the friend of
man; Tobias is looking at his gentle countenance. All Perugino’s
qualities are repeated in “The Virgin and Child, St. Jerome and St.
Francis”[1] (1075)—beautiful pictures painted by a master hand, seen in
a master’s vision!
Footnote 1:
“The Adoration of the Shepherds” (1441) is believed to be the last
picture by Perugino.
Perugino died at the age of seventy-eight. Vasari tells us that he was
very fond of money, because of the extreme poverty of his up-bringing.
All his pictures testify to the charm and peace of his soul.
CHAPTER X
UMBRIAN SCHOOL (_Continued_)
RAPHAEL (1483–1520)
“Oh their Raphael of the dear Madonnas!”
Let us now approach the works of Raphael Sanzio. We know that his name
stands with those of Michael Angelo and Leonardo da Vinci, and that the
three represent grace, strength, and science.
Giovanni Santi (about 1440–1494), Raphael’s father, was a painter and a
poet. The family originally came from Colbordolo, a hill town in Umbria,
where it had fine possessions, but it lost them when Malatesta di Rimini
made war upon the district and set the town and castle on fire. At that
time Giovanni Santi was a boy. At Urbino, where the Santis settled, the
father made a fortune. When the time came to choose a profession,
Giovanni preferred to prepare himself to be a painter than to follow his
father’s successful career.
He painted many pictures. Urbino at the time was ruled over by a just
and noble prince, Duke Frederigo di Montefeltro, who invited to his
court all the men famed in art and literature. Giovanni Santi was a
favourite guest. His pictures were somewhat hard, but were marked by
much pious feeling. He also wrote a long poem, or rather a rhymed
chronicle, in praise of Frederigo’s virtues, wherein are mentioned the
names of the great men his contemporaries. He had married a rich wife,
and a son Raphael was born to him. That Giovanni was much thought of at
Urbino may be gathered from the fact of his being selected to be the
host of Piero della Francesca, when this illustrious painter came to the
city at the invitation of the Brotherhood of Corpus Domini.
Here is one of Giovanni’s pictures, “The Madonna and Child” (751). The
mother is watching the child as it sleeps, supporting his head with her
right hand. The sleeping infant is lying partly on a cushion placed on a
stone parapet. The background shows a rocky landscape with blue distant
mountains.
Thus we must imagine the youth of Raphael passed in the midst of a
brilliant society, among artists and men of letters gathered in his
father’s house. It was a gentle training for his noble spirit.
His father taught him drawing, but soon recognised that the boy had a
genius far outshining his own. Vasari says that Raphael’s artistic
education was then entrusted to Perugino; now, however, it is accepted
that Raphael’s first teacher next to his father was a painter named
Timoteo Viti. The boy continued under this artist’s care till after his
father’s death, when he went to Perugia and entered the studio of
Perugino. But a warm and life-long friendship existed between himself
and Viti. He was just eleven when his father died, three years before he
had lost the mother whom he dearly loved.
It is not certain at what time Raphael became Perugino’s pupil. He
imitated his master’s manner so perfectly that it is often impossible to
determine whether it was Perugino or Raphael who painted a certain
picture. His charming address won for him the love of all, and Perugino
often prophesied that his pupil would be a great artist—the greatest of
his generation.
The turning-point in the lad’s career came when he went to Florence and
saw the sketches by Michael Angelo, Signorelli, and Leonardo da Vinci.
He had a marvellous capacity for assimilating the genius of other
masters. Michael Angelo’s work greatly impressed him; the loveliness of
expression of Leonardo da Vinci’s women fascinated him; the management
of light and shade that is so remarkable in this master’s work also
fired his imagination. Raphael studied from the nude; he learnt anatomy,
and he developed the grace that is the crowning quality of his art. His
first manner is called the Umbrian manner.
He was not seventeen when he painted the little masterpiece, “The Vision
of the Knight” (213). The knight is asleep under a laurel tree; on
either side of him is a beautiful female figure. One is more austere
than the other; she is dressed in purple; she holds out a book and a
sword—the emblems of study and conflict; the other, a charming creature,
the very embodiment of youth and joy, offers to the sleeper a sprig of
myrtle—the white blossom with its evergreen foliage, which in old times
was dedicated to Venus the Queen of Love, and which even to this day is
a bridal flower. Both these dream-women are calling to the knight, both
are saying “Follow me.” It is the old, old story of the two influences
speaking to the spirit of man. The story of the choice of Hercules, the
story that Tennyson sang in “The Two Voices”—
“So heavenly-toned, that in that hour
From out my sullen heart a power
Broke, like the rainbow from the shower,
To feel, altho’ no tongue can prove,
That every cloud, that spreads above
And veileth love, itself is love.”
This picture belongs to Raphael’s first manner, that of Umbria.
[Illustration:
“VISION OF A KNIGHT” (213)
BY RAPHAEL SANZIO
page 60
]
Let us look at the “Madonna degli Ansidei” (1171), thus called because
it was painted for the Ansedei family at Perugia. Raphael was not twenty
when he painted it. The Virgin is sitting on a throne under a canopy
with St. John the Baptist and St. Nicholas of Bari on either side. How
charming is the young mother, how mild and loving is her expression as
she holds the Babe on her knee and points with her finger to a pictured
page. The Child, a chubby little one, looks attentively at what His
mother is showing Him; His head is a little inclined forward, His hand
is on His chest. It is a picture of human and divine love beautifully
combined. The two saints effectively complete the composition. On one
side John the Baptist, a wild figure, holding in his hand a crystal rod
bearing the cross, looks up in rapt ecstasy on the divine Child. On the
other side is St. Nicholas of Bari, the scholar saint, absorbed in his
book, wearing his bishop’s mitre and crook. At his feet are the three
purses of gold that tradition says St. Nicholas threw through a window
to three dowerless girls.
Then there is the beautiful “St. Catherine of Alexandria” (168), the
princess who loved meditation and study rather than splendour and state,
whom the tyrant Maximus slew in his rage. She is no meagre and ascetic
saint, but one who belongs to a fine type of developed womanhood. She is
leaning on the wheel intended for her martyrdom as she looks up to the
sky, through which light is streaming, touching her pure young brow and
throat with flame. It was said that the wheel was broken by an angel
from heaven, but that Maximus would not be put off making a martyr of
St. Catherine, so he had her slain with a sword. See how exquisite is
every detail in the picture—the folds of the bodice crossed over her
bosom, the wonder of her hands, the charm of the homely landscape
behind.
Let us also look at the “Garvagh Madonna” (744). It is a lovely
representation of the play of childhood. The Saviour and little St. John
the Baptist are making merry together; the mother holds the Child on her
lap; He has taken a carnation from the hand of St. John. Look at the
pretty gesture of the Child Christ, at the eagerness of St. John the
Baptist. Never has children’s gaiety been more tenderly represented. The
Virgin is a stately young mother; behind her is a luminous background of
sky and distant open country. “The Madonna of the Tower” (2069) has all
the same attributes—the love light on the mother’s face, the childlike
sweetness of the Babe. His arms are round Mary’s neck as He looks at us
out of the picture.
Nor must I forget to mention the portrait of “Pope Julius II.” (27),
seated in his pontifical chair in his scarlet robes. He is lost in
thought. His passionate spirit is for the moment at rest. This portrait
is one of the masterpieces of the world.
I cannot dwell longer on the works of Raphael. He touched the summit of
art; no one has ever gone beyond him in the technique of painting, in
charm and tender grace of expression. His pictures are a revelation of
the visions genius gives to the artist and of the power that genius
gives to his hand. When you go to the South Kensington Museum you should
look at his magnificent cartoons. You will see the human figure painted
and drawn in a way that has never yet been surpassed. And Raphael
himself was as wonderful as were his works. We are told that when he was
at the height of his fame no stranger could call to consult him that he
did not leave his work to attend to what was needed. He had the most
charming and courteous manners. He presided over a school of some fifty
artists, who worked under his influence, and that influence was one of
perfect peace. There were no quarrels where Raphael was.
He was born on a Good Friday, and, when he was thirty-seven years of
age, on a Good Friday he died. He was painting “The Transfiguration of
Christ,” and Vasari tells us that he had put forth all his power to
depict the face of the Saviour. It was the last thing he ever did, for
there came the call of death. Fever seized him, and he made his will,
passing away on the thirty-seventh anniversary of his birthday. “The
Transfiguration” was placed at the head of his bier. When the citizens
filed in to see the last of the divine painter, the sight of his young
inanimate body and of his living work filled them with grief. The room
resounded with cries and sobs of lamentation, because Raphael was dead.
CHAPTER XI
UMBRIAN SCHOOL (_Continued_)
“Teach me my God and King
In all things Thee to see,
And what I do in anything
To do it as for Thee.”
We now come to one of my favourite pictures, “The Nativity” (908), by
Piero della Francesca (1416–1492). A choir of wingless angels is its
chief beauty. The minstrels are singing the praises of the Babe lying on
the ground at their feet, accompanying themselves on stringed
instruments. Never has singing been represented more beautifully or more
realistically. We ask ourselves are they heavenly minstrels or are they
mortal maidens singing? Each mouth differs from the other as it utters
the words of glory and praise addressed to the divine child. The bodies
seem to swing in rhythm to the canticle—
“Answering the stringed noise
All their souls in blissful rapture took.”
The Virgin is a charming figure kneeling before and adoring her Babe.
The landscape is very simple, but what we remember are these delightful
songsters half human, half divine.
Francesca was a pupil of Uccello, the discoverer of perspective. If you
look at “The Baptism of Christ in the river Jordan” (665) you will see a
foreshortened street in the middle distance that leads up to a fortified
town. The street is admirably drawn; it may be a street in Perugia, the
city on the hill.
Now look especially at his pupil Luca Signorelli’s works (1441–1523).
Famous beyond other painters, the precursor of Michael Angelo,
Signorelli was the first who studied “the human form for its own sake.”
His pictures here are “The Triumph of Chastity” (910), “The
Circumcision” (1128), “The Nativity” (1133), and each is a masterpiece.
In “The Circumcision” especially you must note the splendour of colour,
the animation and restraint of the figures, the firmness of the drawing,
the harmonious grouping. Look at St. Simon behind the Virgin, at the
ecstasy of his expression as he sings, “Lord, now lettest Thou Thy
servant depart in peace”; look at the nobility and refinement of the
women. Signorelli is best known by his altarpieces, some of which were
executed ten years before Michael Angelo had begun to paint the Sistine
Chapel. A poet has called him the “morning star of Michael Angelo.”
Vasari tells us that Signorelli was so devoted to art that when his son
died, a lad of seventeen years of age, beautiful in face and form,
Signorelli mastered his grief, laid the dead body on a bed, and, seizing
his brushes, began to paint. He painted all day, “firm and dry eyed
before the lordly canvas,” until the dead seemed to have come to life.
Vasari gives us a glimpse of Signorelli in his old age kindly and
courteous. He stayed at Arezzo where the Vasaris were. “I was then a
little boy of eight years old,” he says, “and I remember how the good
old man, who was very courteous and gracious, having heard from the
master who gave me my first instruction that I attended to nothing at
school but drawing figures—I remember how he turned to Antonio my father
and said, “Antonio, let Giorgio learn to draw by all means, for even if
later he takes to literature drawing will still be of use and honour and
profit to him as it is to all men.” Then, turning to me, as I was
standing in front of him, he said, ‘Study, little kinsman.’” Signorelli
ended his days at Cortona, where, says Vasari, he lived splendidly—more
like a grand signor than a painter. He died in 1523.
Let us now look at some of the remaining pictures of the Umbrian school.
Here is a picture in three panels, “The Story of Griselda” (912, 913,
914), which I am sure will interest you. Griselda, called the patient
Griselda, is as you know the type and pattern of the woman of the old
ideals. The story of the wrongs she endured from her husband, the
recompense she won at last by being restored to his favour, is told in
these panels. I must admit that the patience of Griselda strikes me as
anything but praiseworthy. In the first panel we see her in her home.
She is a rustic maid, and the high lord of the district is out hunting
with a splendid retinue. He sees her and falls in love with her; he
takes her home and has her dressed in brocade and gold; he makes her sit
by his side at a great banquet. In the second panel we come to a sad
scene. Griselda’s two children, a boy and a girl, are being carried off,
and she is told that they have perished. The high lord, her husband, has
grown tired of her, and without any ado he divorces her and sends her
back to her father. Griselda patiently goes, puts on her rustic dress,
and returns to guard the flocks. It is interesting to note how the
servants seem disgusted by the harsh treatment inflicted on their
mistress, whilst two gallants, in curiously twisted attitudes, look on
half superciliously, half pityingly. The third panel tells the sequel of
the tale. The noble lord has sent for Griselda. She appears wearing her
peasant’s clothes expecting another lady to preside at the feast, and
she is ready to submit to this last indignity. But when Griselda comes
she is hailed by her long lost son and daughter. The children had not
perished, but had been cared for and had grown up in beauty and
learning. All ends happily, and we see Griselda, once more splendidly
attired, sitting by her lord and master’s side dispensing hospitality.
She has won the reward of virtue—his good pleasure. The hall where the
feast is given is the hall of one of the great palaces of the
Renaissance.
This picture is usually ascribed to Pinturicchio, “the little painter”
(1454–1513). Some dispute about the authorship exists, however. There is
so much vivacity in the manner of presenting the story, such a charming
_naïveté_ that I incline to believe it is by Pinturicchio. His undoubted
works are “St. Catherine of Alexandria with her Attributes” (693), “The
Madonna and Child” (703), and “The Return of Ulysses to Penelope” (911).
This last picture illustrates Pinturicchio’s wonderful _naïveté_ of
manner. The faithful wife of Ulysses is seated at her loom, on which is
placed the tapestry that never gets finished. Four suitors in gay attire
have entered the room, and, in the background, we see Ulysses, who has
just returned. His big bow and his quiver of arrows are hanging above
the head of his faithful wife. Through the open window is seen the ship
in which Ulysses was bound to the mast, while the sirens sang to him
tempting him to come to them. The palace of Circe is on the island hard
by. In this curious picture is shown the manner in which two events were
often presented, as happening at the same time. We see here Ulysses
passing by the island of the sirens, and his return home.
Pinturicchio’s pictures are very quaintly drawn, but the colour is full
of charm, and there is a pleasing _naïveté_ in the conception. He was
very much under the artistic influence of Perugino, and he entered into
partnership with him. Vasari tells many stories of Pinturicchio’s love
of money; among others is that of Pinturicchio’s death. He was
commissioned to paint “The Birth of the Virgin” for the church of St.
Francesco in Siena. The friars gave him a large room and emptied it of
all furniture except of a chest which they could not move. Pinturicchio
made so much ado about this piece of furniture being left that at last
the friars made a desperate attempt to move it away. As they pushed and
pulled it a plank fell out from the bottom and revealed a hoard of
golden sequins; there were at least five hundred. The find was a
glorious treasure trove for the poor monks, but, says Vasari,
“Pinturicchio was so dismayed at their good fortune that he went home,
took to his bed, and died of chagrin.”
CHAPTER XII
THE FERRARESE AND BOLOGNESE SCHOOL
“Let us be content in work
To do the thing we can, and not presume
To fret because it’s little.”
The Ferrarese and Bolognese schools are almost one and the same, for the
Bolognese school is but an offshoot of that of Ferrara. They are
specially interesting for their influence upon other schools. The
Ferrarese people had much innate genius for art; they had also strong
originality of character.
Cosimo Tura (1420–1498) is the first painter that we can trace of that
school. The great house of Este was the royal house of Ferrara; its
lords were among the most learned in Italy, and attracted great men to
their service. Piero della Francesca came thither. He was a man of
science as well as of art, accomplished in the treatment of light and
shadow as well as of perspective. He it was who influenced the art of
Cosimo Tura, who is considered the leader of the school. To the court of
Este also came Roger Van der Weyden, a German artist of eminence, who
likewise influenced Tura.
“The Madonna and Child Enthroned” (772). Its wealth of detail is
extraordinary, the painting is brilliant and somewhat harsh in effect.
The types of the faces of the angels are certainly Flemish. It has been
said that the picture looks like a coloured Flemish window of the
fifteenth century. The details are strong and splendid. Six angels play
musical instruments; they are sweet, high-spirited girls, somewhat
German in type and German by their golden hair. They play the viol and
violin, and two of them in the foreground play upon a portable organ;
one strikes the keys—beautiful ivory keys—while the other blows the
bellows. It is an animated scene full of youth and exuberant vitality.
We feel that Cosimo Tura was an original genius. Let us look at “St.
Jerome in the Desert” (773). There is in the picture the same spirit of
vigorous life. St. Jerome is beating his breast with a large stone; all
about him is rugged nature, softened into friendliness by the gentle
company of birds and beasts who recognise the grim saint to be their
friend. Among them is the familiar lion placidly walking to the stream
for water. It is a wild and homely scene.
Ercole di Giulio Cesare Grandi (died 1531) is another remarkable painter
of the Ferrarese school. “The Virgin and Child with St. John and St.
William” (1119) is a splendid work. Not much of a personal kind is known
about Ercole Grandi, yet we seem to know him as we look at this fine
picture. The Virgin is sitting under a rich canopy, a graceful, serious,
dark-eyed woman; she holds her Son on her left knee, and He is
beautifully poised. Look how natural is the gesture of His hand
outstretched, blessing the spectators and saints. He has a charming face
full of benign and childlike grace. Below are the saints. To the left of
the throne is the gaunt figure of the Baptist holding a volume. It is
the book of Prophets, and, in the other hand, he carries his cross of
reeds. To the right of the throne is St. William, a youthful knight, the
defender of the faith. Bare-headed, with long flowing hair, he is
dressed in armour, his right hand on his sword. He is a gallant youth,
ready to do and die if need be for the faith. He contrasts in appearance
with the strange, wild, ecstatic figure of the Baptist. I should like
you to examine all the delicate details that adorn this picture, every
one of which has a meaning carefully thought out and placed there with
intention by the painter. First of all, on the arch above the Virgin’s
head, is a beautiful design of angels and lilies. They seem to indicate
the painter’s love of the Mother of God, whom the holy cherubim and
seraphim worship; clusters of lilies between each group signify her
purity. Underneath her feet, round the throne, is a design of dolphins
that symbolise love, and below them another design of stags and
swans—emblems of the heart longing for its God. And still further below
is a central panel placed in the base of the throne; it is in ivory and
_alto relievo_; it represents Adam and Eve on each side of the tree of
knowledge. On the prædella are scenes from the divine story. We might
study this picture for a long time—there is in it so much of symbolism
and of simple human nature.
All the pictures in this room are interesting; those especially by
Garofalo (1481–1559), who has been called the “miniature Raphael.” He
was afflicted with blindness towards the end of his life, but he was
cheerful, and accepted the sorrow as the will of God. I would ask you to
look at all his pictures, but particularly at “The Madonna and Child
Enthroned” (671), in which he introduces St. William, the patron saint
of Ferrara. We have seen the saint in Ercole’s great picture, and St.
William appears again here dressed in armour, typifying that he was a
soldier and that he had led a soldier’s wild life. But his heart was
touched, and he left behind the temptations and the glory of the life of
arms and became a holy man. He left the weapons of the flesh and adopted
those of prayer and penitence. He dwelt in mountain solitudes, communing
with his Lord the Christ. Beside him stands St. Clare, who was the
friend of St. Francis of Assisi, and who spent her days after the death
of this saint in striving with Popes to attain for herself and her
order, the little Clares, the triumph of “holy poverty.” On the other
side of the throne stands St. Francis and the good St. Anthony. All
these figures reveal the painter’s aspiration after a life which was at
one with the divine ideal. St. Francis represented the all-consuming
love of created things, St. Anthony the struggle of life with
temptation, St. William the bright spirit of man tamed and devoted to
the love of Christ, and St. Clare the woman’s love for her friend,
carrying out his work for the poor and afflicted. The whole picture
reveals a genius serene and absorbed in divine contemplation. Look also
at the “Vision of St. Augustine” (81), at the “Holy Family” (170), at
“Christ’s Agony in the Garden” (642)—we see in all the spirit triumphant
over earthly impediments.
One picture by Francesco del Cossa (died 1430), whose work in
continental galleries you may get to know later, is well worth looking
at, “St. Hyacinth Dominican” (597). The figure of the saint is standing
upon a hexagonal platform; he is looking up to Christ in glory
surrounded by angels, and pointing to a rosary. It has a grandeur and
severity which are ever noticeable in this painter’s works.
Then we come to Lorenzo Costa (1460–1535), a friend of Francia, whom he
influenced to take up painting. There is a certain feebleness in Costa’s
style, but there is in it a gentle dignity that redeems its
shortcomings. He did not paint drapery very intelligently, for it hides
rather than clothes the form, and there is a want of balance in his
figures; they do not always stand firmly on their feet. He studied
landscape and introduced it as a background. It is the purist landscape
that he paints, with feathery trees and limpid skies. He has a great
sense of colour, and his pictures are full of religious charm. He
influenced many painters, who became his scholars, and, to his honour be
it said, that he kindled in all a love of art. “The Madonna and Christ
Enthroned with Angels” (629) is a very fair example of his qualities and
also of his limitations. It is a large work in five panels. The Madonna
sits enthroned on a high pedestal holding the infant Christ on her knee,
angels on either side bend forward in adoration, and two baby angels
play on musical instruments. In the lower compartment are the
full-length figures of St. John the Evangelist and St. Peter. Above them
are half-length figures of St. Philip and St. John the Evangelist. I am
sure you will notice how very limited is the choice of subjects in these
painters—the Virgin enthroned, the Virgin and Child, and angels are
always appearing.
Francia is the crown and glory of the school of Ferrara. His real name
is Raibolini, and he was the son of a carpenter. Born in 1450, he died
in 1518. Apprenticed in his youth to a goldsmith, he became skilled in
all the arts that are required for the handling of the precious metal.
He understood enamelling, medal engraving, die sinking, and he became
master of the mint of Bologna, and he retained that position to the end
of his days, even when painting had become the absorbing occupation of
his life. He had, as I have told you, a great friendship for Lorenzo
Costa, and, when he was forty, it was through Costa’s influence that he
took to painting. Here are two noble pictures that together form one
altarpiece—“A Pietà” (180), in the shape of a lunette, to be placed
above (179), a tall picture showing the “Virgin and Child and St. Anne
Enthroned, surrounded by Saints.” In the “Pietà” the dead Christ is
lying across His Mother’s knee, an angel on either side. Oh! how sad is
the Mother’s face, how tear reddened are her eyes as she gazes on the
Son so cruelly martyred. He is beautiful in His young manhood; His
gentle, refined face shows the trace of His suffering and of His longing
to redeem humanity. It is very calm, as if He were sleeping, now that
the struggle is over; a faint aureole shows above His head. One of the
kneeling angels holds a lock of His red gold hair, gazing out of the
picture as if she were saying, “Look how beautiful it is! Oh the pity of
it!” And the other angel is gazing at the nail prints in the Saviour’s
feet. It is a picture filled with the spirit of grief. “The pity of it,
oh the pity of it!” is what the weeping Virgin seems to be saying, and
it is repeated by the angels watching the recumbent figure of the slain
Christ.
In the other picture (179) we see the Virgin, in her young and happy
motherhood, holding her Baby on her lap. He is full of happy infant life
as he strains towards the peach held out to him by St. Anne, who is
seated by the Virgin’s side. She is a noble figure with her shrouded
head, the dark veil reaching down to her shoulders, white draperies
folded about her neck; she is an austere and gracious type of elderly
womanhood. About the Virgin’s throne are a group of saints and
martyrs—St. Sebastian pierced with arrows, St. Paul leaning on the sword
that is to kill him, St. Lawrence bearing the gridiron and the palm of
martyrdom, and St. Frediano placed there in honour of the church under
his patronage, for which the picture was painted. All are looking
upwards towards the mother and Babe. Below is a delightful child, John
the Baptist, carrying his cross and a scroll on which are inscribed the
words, “Ecce Agnus Dei.” He trips along pointing upwards to the Baby in
its mother’s lap. There are many charming children in the National
Gallery, but none is more lovely than is this child with his dancing
step and his grace of perfect innocence.
[Illustration:
“THE VIRGIN WITH THE INFANT CHRIST, AND ST. ANNE ENTHRONED, SURROUNDED
BY SAINTS” (179)
BY FRANCESCO RAIBOLINI (CALLED FRANCIA)
page 76
]
I must tell you of the death of Francia, as Vasari, the prince of
chroniclers, tells it. He and the divine Raphael were friends although
they had never met, but they had “saluted each other by letter,” and
they corresponded and loved each other. Francia was old and could not
leave Bologna, but he longed greatly to see some work by Raphael. His
wish was fulfilled. One day he received a letter from Raphael telling
him that he was sending a picture of St. Cecilia to the church of San
Giovanni in Monte at Bologna. He begged Francia to supervise the hanging
thereof, and, as a favour to himself, to repair any damage that might
have happened to the picture. Francia was happy; at last he was to see a
picture by Raphael. When the case came he had it opened before him, and
when he beheld the St. Cecilia he was struck dumb with wonder at its
beauty. He looked at it till his eyes were full of its loveliness, and
then he realised that nothing that he had done could compare with the
splendour of Raphael’s work, that all the praise lavished upon him by
his compatriots was undeserved. He had St. Cecilia carefully put up in
the chapel, but he had received his death-blow. It had been given when
he discovered the greatness of the difference existing between him and
Raphael. He went home in a state of great depression, took to his bed,
and in a few days he died of melancholy.
The other pictures in this room I am sure you will appreciate later on.
But I should like to draw your attention to those by Dosso Dossi, who
held a high place among his contemporaries, and was called “The Titian
of the Ferrarese School.” He was born at Bologna, 1479; he died in 1542,
and was a pupil of the Ferrarese Lorenzo Costa. He is very badly
represented in the National Gallery, but he has won a very remarkable
name for himself; and in churches and galleries on the Continent you
will see him at his best. Dossi was not of a religious spirit, and his
finest works treat of mythological subjects. His colour is very rich,
and he is said to have painted excellent portraits. This picture, “The
Adoration of the Magi” (640), is principally remarkable for the hilly
landscape with trees in the background, and “A Muse Instructing a Court
Poet” has much in it that is interesting. The head of the poet is said
to be a portrait. Dosso Dossi, is not to be judged by either of these
pictures.
CHAPTER XIII
PADUAN SCHOOL: ANDREA MANTEGNA
“Let us pray
God’s grave to keep God’s image in repute.”
“The Paduans are great scholars,” says an Italian proverb, and from that
city of classic traditions comes Mantegna. He may be said to be the only
illustrious painter of the school. Squarcione—of whose work the National
Gallery possesses no example—was its founder, Mantegna was its crown. He
was of humble origin—a little lad who kept cattle in the fields, and
who, one day, Squarcione took home, adopted, and taught (1431–1506). The
artist was renowned as a teacher and the boy was his favourite pupil.
When Andrea Mantegna grew up he became intimate with his master’s
rivals, Jacobo Bellini of Venice and his two sons, Gentile and Giovanni.
He ultimately married the daughter Niccolosia. Squarcione was angry at
Mantegna’s friendship with the Bellinis and would have nothing more to
do with him.
He surpassed all rivals in the sense of style, this one great painter of
the Paduan school. Squarcione complained that Mantegna’s pictures looked
like sculptured reliefs, forgetting that it was he who had not only
taught him drawing, but had taught him to reverence the immortal works
of antiquity. Squarcione had travelled through Greece and Italy, and had
brought home casts of all the noble statues. His pictures are formal;
they entirely lack inspiration, but he was unrivalled as a teacher.
Mantegna, from study of the casts his master had brought home, acquired
a magnificent sense of form and of drapery.
His two pictures—“Samson and Delilah” (1145) and “The Triumph of Scipio”
(902)—were intended to represent sculptured reliefs. Scipio has been
chosen by the senate as the worthiest man to receive the image of
Sybele; the goddess is seen carried in a litter. The wild figure of
Claudia, mad with joy at having established her innocence, flings
herself before the image. It depicts Mantegna’s power of presenting
violent passion and movement. In these he had no rival. You must study
these wonderful monochromes; they show Mantegna’s severe and statuesque
ideal, his restrained emotion. They show above all his enthusiastic love
of the antique—a love that he shared with his time and that made him its
exponent. In them he gives way to no soft feeling, but if you will look
at his picture, the “Mother and Child” (274), you will see that he can
be tender enough. The Virgin is a country girl all womanly and simple,
holding her Baby on her knee. On either side of her stands St. John the
Baptist and Mary Magdalene—magnificent figures clothed with the most
elaborate drapery, the folds of which display rather than hide the
outline of their forms. The Magdalene, looking upwards, holds the box of
ointment which she is later to break over the feet of the divine Son of
man. St. John the Baptist bears a cross, to which is attached a scroll
carrying the inscription in Latin, “Behold the Lamb of God.” The Virgin,
with her shrouded head, is clothed in the same extraordinarily beautiful
drapery. There is a shrinking sweetness in her look and attitude. This
picture is one of the immortal works in the National Gallery; it will
appeal to you more than the sculpturesque friezes that also bear
Mantegna’s signature.
CHAPTER XIV
VENETIAN SCHOOL
“Once did she hold the gorgeous East in fee;
And was the safeguard of the West: the worth
Of Venice did not fall below her birth—
Venice, the eldest child of Liberty.”
Let us now enter the long room of the National Gallery, the largest of
all the rooms. There we shall see the pictures of the Venetian
school—Venice, the Republic, whose merchants were princes, whose people
were free born, and whose doges rank with the highest potentates of the
world, is here. Rich, luxurious, and powerful, she was the bride of the
Adriatic. Every year her doges wooed the sea and wedded it with the
marriage ring that they threw into its waves.
The Venetian school of painting was a school of colour, of light; it
pictures a free, joyous, opulent life. As you stand in this room, you
have a great sense of splendour—splendour of drapery, splendour of
architecture, splendour of physical beauty; it is the happy noon-tide of
art. Lovely women, blonde, red-haired, of massive types, surround us.
They contrast with the slender forms, the more intellectual and
spiritual physiognomies portrayed by Leonardo da Vinci, by Botticelli,
by Raphael. Never has colour been used so boldly and successfully; never
has light and shadow produced more dramatic effects. Religion was the
source of the art of Venice as it has been the source of every art.
In the early half of the fifteenth century the Vivarinis were a family
of painters; natives of the island of Murano, they heralded the
foundation of the Venetian school. Murano is an island of the lagoons on
the north of Venice; it lies so close to the city “Queen of the
Adriatic,” that the gondolas congregate there at holiday time. The
Vivarinis lavishly inlaid their pictures with gold, so that they look
half goldsmith’s work, half that of painters. Antonio Vivarini was a
native of Murano, and he had for partner a German named Johannes; but in
1450 he sundered his partnership and associated himself with his younger
brother Bartolommeo. They had a younger kinsman, the most gifted of the
family, Luigi or Alvise. We have in the National Gallery two panels of
saints by Antonio Vivarini which I want you to look at (768 and 1284).
They are panels embossed with gold; the gold is inlaid with precious
stones. The transparent colour is very beautiful, and the work is
altogether serious and dignified.
The Vivarinis were the only rivals Giovanni Bellini had to encounter
when he came and settled in Venice, about 1460, with his brother
Gentile. Both were pupils of their father Jacobo, who belonged to the
Paduan school, and who was a man of some distinction.
Before looking at Bellini’s pictures I should like you just to glance at
the “Annunciation” by Carlo Crivelli, an artist who was born in Venice
about 1430. He was a link between the old school that was very much
under Byzantine influence and the new school of which Giovanni Bellini
was the leader. Crivelli employed gold and silver as did the Byzantines;
he painted in transparent and brilliant colour, using gold so skilfully
that it seems to be part of his palette. He delighted in lovely and
gorgeous details, in splendid masses of colour, in magnificent stuffs,
in rare ornaments. We have in his pictures a foretaste of the colouring
of Paul Veronese, of the opulent effects attained by the use of flowered
brocades. There are eight pictures from the hand of Crivelli, but we
shall look at one only—“The Annunciation” (739). It is an exquisite
little work, very naïf in sentiment. Through an open door we see the
Virgin kneeling in a sumptuously furnished room. From a window above
hangs a carpet, a rich medley of tints such as the looms of Venice alone
could weave. A peacock of iridescent hues stands on the ledge above. The
angel of the “Annunciation” is kneeling in the street outside the window
at which the Virgin is praying, and by the angel’s side is St. Emilius,
carrying a model of the city of Ascali. A ray of light pierces the roof
of the house, and a dove descends upon the Virgin’s head. Many figures
are in the street; some are aware of the ray of dazzling light, and are
scared and troubled at the phenomenon. A little child from a balcony
opposite is peeping timidly, wondering what is happening in the house
over the way. It is a delightful picture, full of story, most perfect in
all its details, full also of interest in human beings.
And now let us look at some of Giovanni Bellini’s works. He is the real
founder of the Venetian school, the school that revels in the glory of
the world. Let us first look at “Christ’s Agony in the Garden.” (726) It
is a very early picture by Bellini; it was painted nearly fifty years
before he painted the superb portrait of the Doge Leonardo Loreano. The
sun is setting, the sky is suffused with rosy radiance: this is said to
be the first painted sunset in the National Gallery. How beautiful is
the quiet twilight descending on the hills, contrasting with the
splendour of light in the sky. Christ is kneeling somewhat apart from
His disciples, who have been overcome by sleep. In the distance we see
Judas approaching with a crowd of Jews. Our Lord is praying in His
mysterious agony, and lo! the heavens have opened and an angel is
descending bearing a cup. The picture is full of peace. We feel that
Bellini was a true Christian, and that, as he painted, in his heart was
a passionate love for our Saviour.
The portrait of the Doge Leonardo Loreano in his state robes (189) next
claims our attention. What a portrait that is! The power of
differentiating individuals is the secret of portraiture, and the
Venetian school excels in portraiture. We seem to see the Doge as he was
in life, fearless, astute, the representative of a mighty Republic
against whom the great powers of Europe had formed a league—the league
of Cambrai. Look at his wise, challenging eyes, at his resolute jaw, at
the dignity of his carriage, at the courage breathed by his whole
personality. He is secure in his own wit and bravery and in the faith of
his people. Do you not seem to know the Doge wearing that curious peaked
cap, that white and gold brocaded mantle? The picture is painted in oil.
Bellini was one of the first to adopt the discovery of a new medium by
Van Eyck. He had painted in tempera, now he abandoned it and took to the
pellucid and golden oil.
It is believed that he was taught by a Sicilian painter named Antonello
da Messina, who had learnt the secret of oil painting from Jan Van Eyck.
When I come to the Flemish school I will tell you more of Van Eyck’s
discovery. Let us look at the “Madonna and Child,” often called “Madonna
of the Pomegranate” (280), one of the loveliest Madonnas in the National
Gallery, with her shrouded head and eyes full of sorrow. She holds her
Babe, a noble boy with auburn curls and dark eyes like His mother’s
eyes. There is also from Bellini’s palette, “The Blood of the Redeemer”
(1233), a pathetic and appealing picture, full of mystic teaching. Every
detail seems put there to emphasise its meaning that Christ died for
man. “The Death of St. Peter Martyr” (812) is a noble landscape; heavy
intricate masses of foliage glow in the light of afternoon, and in a
glade of the wood takes place the murder of Peter, the general of the
Dominicans. He was a fanatic, and he was hated for his cruelty. On that
day he was going in search of an enemy of the Church, and men waylaid
him, cleft his skull, and left him dead on the spot. Strange it is to
see how undisturbed are the woodcutters, the dogs and all the people
about. “There must be serenity for perfect beauty,” says Mr. Ruskin.
Perhaps it is for this that nothing disturbs the sense of peace and of
labour. There is not a drop of blood upon the robe of Peter or upon the
weapon of the assassin. All is sunshine and quiet about the violent
deed. Splendid as is the painting of this picture, we ask is not reality
too much sacrificed to the claims of art? There are other pictures by
the founder of the Venetian school, among them a portrait of St. Dominic
(1440) wearing the black and white habit of his order, carrying a lily
in his hand. It is a fine and serene portrait.
Bellini died November 24, 1516.
CHAPTER XV
VENETIAN SCHOOL (_Continued_)
“She holds the flower to heaven, and by his power
Brings heaven to the flower.”
We must hurry along looking at the representative pictures only of each
painter. Oh! the beauty of that long room, the beauty of all the
canvases hanging on these walls, the splendour of Titian, the gentle
peace of Bellini, the impetuosity of Tintoretto, the magnificence of
Veronese. All Venice seems to be here! There is joy in the sense of
loveliness—the loveliness of colour, of subject; it creeps into our
hearts. It is a splendid company we are amongst—Bellini, Titian,
Giorgione, Tintoretto.
Here is “St. Jerome in his Study” (694). The picture was long ascribed
to Giovanni Bellini; now critics universally agree that it is by another
painter. It is believed to be by Catena, who formed his style and
colouring on those of the master. How delightful is this picture. Could
we not spend hours in studying it? We see that it is a lovely day full
of sunshine. The serene and limpid atmosphere comes through the open
windows, and we catch a glimpse of the country beyond. It is Italy, but
the painter wishes us to imagine that we are in Bethlehem where St.
Jerome had built a monastery. How dignified is the appearance of the
saint as he sits in his study absorbed in reading the Scriptures. There
is not a grain of dust anywhere. The doors of the cupboard are open; we
see his books inside, his candlesticks, all his homely belongings. The
old lion is dozing at the saint’s feet, gentle and docile, and there is
the little brown partridge that he cared for looking at his old
slippers. His hat also is there. What a quaint and dainty scene it is,
the picture of a holy life serene and prayerful.
Now let us look at “A Warrior Adoring” (234). The painter is unknown,
but it is believed to be by Catena; and if you look at this picture and
compare it with “St. Jerome in his Study,” you will see that there is
much resemblance in the scheme of colour. How full of worship is the
figure of the adoring knight, prostrating himself before the infant
Saviour sitting on the knee of the Virgin. Joseph, the knight’s squire,
even the horse—all seem under a spell of peace. This picture is filled
with a sentiment of adoration. Catena died 1531.
Now let us pass to and pause before the immortal picture, “Bacchus and
Ariadne” (35), by Titian (1477–1576). It is a glorious poem in paint—a
poem of the joy of life. Theseus, who had loved Ariadne, has abandoned
her, and she is on the sea-shore watching the sail that has borne her
false love away. Presently there comes through the wood the sound of
cymbals, of hurrying footsteps, of merry laughter. There dashes in the
god Bacchus on his car driven by leopards, a train of revellers behind
him. They are led by a satyr child stepping high on furry legs; his
roguish eyes look out full of mirth, his head is crowned with white
flowers that catch the light. One blossom has fallen at his feet and
shines whitely there. I have said there are many beautiful children in
the National Gallery, and this is pre-eminently one of them. He is the
incarnation of childish life and joy. How full of animation is the
picture, how full of colour; all the dancing figures are golden brown.
We seem to hear the turmoil of the merry crew. The blue sea, the blue
sky, the blue distance show up the glowing colour of the crowd of
revellers. Look at the grace of the figure of Bacchus as he steps from
his car to greet Ariadne. It is a picture full of the rare union of
poetry and painting. And here is another lovely scene—the “Madonna and
Child with St. John the Baptist and St. Catherine” (635). This saint is
embracing the little one with rapture. See how charming is the face of
the Madonna and of the kneeling and adoring St. Catherine, who is taking
the Babe in her arms. Look at the beautiful landscape behind, woodland
and plain, sky and water. It is believed to be a picture of Cadore, the
birthplace of Titian.
[Illustration:
“BACCHUS AND ARIADNE” (35)
BY TITIAN
page 90
]
Of Titian’s portraits it has been said by Vasari, “There is no lord of
note, or prince, or great lady who has not been painted by Titian.” The
National Gallery possesses but one undoubted portrait by him—it is that
of the “divine Ariosto,” as his countrymen loved to call the poet who
wrote the “Orlando Furioso.” He was Titian’s beloved friend, and, in his
poem, he speaks of the “honoured Cadore,” the little town among the
hills where the painter was born. One portrait—“Portrait of a Poet”
(636)—was first ascribed to Titian, then to Palma Vecchio; now some say
it is by Giorgione. It is the portrait of a languid, suffering,
intellectual looking man gazing out of the canvas; his whole pose
expresses fatigue. Behind his head is a laurel tree, the leaves of which
form a background to the sad and weary countenance.
But the undoubted portrait of Ariosto (1944) by Titian shows the poet
looking over his right shoulder with a somewhat supercilious and
sceptical expression. His hair, his beard, are of ruddy brown; he is
splendidly attired in grey brocade, and the doublet is cut low at the
throat. We seem to see Ariosto before us, aloof of bearing, observant,
sensitive. When you read the “Orlando Furioso” you must think of that
portrait painted by his friend Titian, the greatest painter of his age,
as Ariosto was accounted one of its greatest poets.
Titian was very much influenced by Giorgione, who had been his
fellow-pupil in Giovanni Bellini’s studio. Giorgione went to Florence,
met Leonardo da Vinci, studied his works, imitating his manner of
modelling in light and shade, of melting the colours together, and
throwing the objects in greater relief. It was Giorgione’s habit to draw
with his brush; he used no cartoon for his pictures, and he influenced
Titian to adopt this method. It was a great revolution in the latter’s
work. His last pictures are boldly painted in large masses of colour,
his first were painted with extreme care and diligence.
Titian lived to ninety-nine years of age. He received princes and the
learned and famous men, and he was greatly beloved, for his manners were
“most pleasant and courteous.”
Giorgione (1477–1511), whom I have spoken of as influencing Titian, was
born at Castelfranco. He was of low origin, but his manners were
dignified and gentle. Brought up in Venice, he sang and played divinely,
but it was to drawing that he devoted himself. He loved nature, and he
would never draw but direct from her. I have told you that he went to
Florence and imitated Leonardo da Vinci’s manner, giving great depth to
his shadows, blending and softening them and concentrating his light. He
was one of the greatest painters of a great age. His contemporaries,
recognising his genius, called him, playfully, “George of Georges”
(Giorgione). The influence that he exercised over Titian is still a
living force, inspiring many painters of to-day. Giorgione understood
the true language of the brush, each stroke of which was, as it were, a
word in a poem, and his pictures were lyric poems of pleasant places, of
summer sunshine, of the sound of running water, of luxuriant vegetation,
of people indolently happy enjoying the scenes. Usually you will find
tokens of his love of music in his pictures. Very often we see a
shepherd or a knight piping to the girls about him. Musical instruments
lie on the ground. Giorgione loved life; he loved the beautiful world,
the brave and dignified men, the charming women in it; his spirit was
attuned to pure and sweet emotions. With all his poetry he was a
realist. He never sought inspiration outside this world. Men and women,
fine scenery, were enough for him. His colour was glowing. No colour
ever glowed as does that of Giorgione. It was the true Venetian colour,
full of sunshine, full of the glamour of the ever-changing sea.
In the National Gallery we have but one picture that we can be certain
is his—“The Knight in Armour” (269). It is a small, highly finished
study, believed to be intended for San Liberale, one of the figures in
the great altarpiece that he painted for his native village
Castelfranco. It is a wonderful little painting; the bronze colour of
the knight’s complexion, the extraordinary lustre of his armour are
unapproachable. We cannot appreciate the genius of Giorgione from that
study, and yet it makes us understand the reason of his influence over
others. He was thirty-four when he died, dying in his prime, as if his
buoyant genius could not face old age and the lassitude of life.
Pictures belonging to his school are here. If we take “The Garden of
Love” (930) we see a scene that might well have fascinated the master,
but the painting is not his. If we look at “An Unknown Subject” (1173)
we see a strong picture, captivating in its mystery. With “The Knight in
Armour” and perhaps with “The Adoration of the Magi” (1160) we exhaust
all that we have of Giorgione.
Tintoretto (1518–1584), who, with Titian, Paolo Veronese, Bellini, and
Giorgione, resumes the genius of the Venetian school, is also very
slightly represented in the National Gallery. He was the painter of
impulse, vehement and unfettered. He flung the emotion of the scene on
the canvas. His execution was so rapid that his contemporaries nicknamed
him “Il Furioso.” He was very unequal in work; the Venetians said he had
three pencils, “one of gold, one of silver, and one of iron.” Look at
his picture of “St. George and the Dragon” (16). The story is dear to
every English boy and girl, and it has never been presented as it is
here presented. The earth, the sky, the very air seem charged with the
tremendous energy of the moment. St. George, riding on a white horse,
the emblem of purity, has attacked the loathly dragon, the emblem of the
soul’s evil passions. From his mouth the dragon spits fire. Before the
saint is the dead body of a man killed by the monster, and the princess,
who was to have been sacrificed to the foul beast, has sunk on her
knees, lifting her hands to heaven in supplication. There is the sense
of a mighty storm passing over the face of the earth. In the other
pictures by Tintoretto we have the same sense of mighty life. In “Christ
Washing the Disciples’ Feet” (1130) and in “The Milky Way” (1313) we
recognise his dominant force. He was sixty-five when he died.
CHAPTER XVI
PAUL VERONESE, SEBASTIAN DEL PIOMBO, AND THE GREAT PORTRAIT PAINTERS
“The rich heritage, the milder life.
Of nations fathered by a mighty Past.”
Let us now look at the works of Paolo Veronese, the artist who, with
Tintoretto, carried on the traditions of the Venetian school, to the
dawn of the seventeenth century. Paolo Veronese was above all things a
painter. What I want you to understand by this is that he was a master
of expression in a difficult and complex language. He had the gift of
colour and the gift of line. And what did he say in that strange tongue,
how did the world appeal to him? It appealed to him through its wonder,
through the dignity of its men and the beauty of its women, through the
stateliness of its architecture, and the glory of its sunlight. He did
not care for exactitude. He treated correctness with superb
indifference. He dressed his women in the splendid brocades woven in the
looms of Venice, he clothed his men in the armour of his time. The last
born of the greatest painters of Italy (1528–1588), he was the most
gloriously ornate of them all.
Look at his great picture, “The Family of Darius at the feet of
Alexander” (294) after the battle of Issus, 333 B.C. These magnificently
dressed women are imploring for the body of their loved husband and
father. They mistake Hephæstion for Alexander. The conqueror is a simple
and dignified figure in armour. The palace in which the widowed wife and
the fatherless daughters are kneeling is the hall of an Italian palace;
perhaps it is that of the Pisani family, for whom Veronese painted this
immortal work. Among the princesses, in their laced bodices and flowing
gowns, is the daughter of Darius, whom Alexander later wedded.
Bucephalus, the splendid war-horse, is here, and here also is a monkey,
and all the accessories of pomp and state.
And now let us pass from that scene of splendour to No. (1041). It is
the picture of a single figure—of St. Helena seeing the vision of the
cross. The saint is sleeping on a marble window-seat in the limpid
sunshine of Venice. She rests her head upon her right hand, and behold
the heavens have opened and angels are descending holding aloft the
cross. See the look of rapture that is stealing over her slumbering face
as she beholds the holy symbol by which her son Constantine will
conquer. Look how charming is the modelling of the figure, the
disposition of the folds of her crimson gown, how tranquil and exalted
is the atmosphere about her. When she wakes she will set forth for the
Holy Land; she will visit the hill of Calvary, searching there for the
implements of torture that were buried in the spot where our Lord was
martyred.
[Illustration:
“THE VISION OF ST. HELENA” (1041)
BY PAOLO CALIARI (CALLED PAOLO VERONESE)
page 96
]
There are many other pictures by Veronese in the Gallery, but if you
study these two you will know how to appreciate his genius. With our
eyes filled with the splendour of Venetian colour, let us look at “The
Raising of Lazarus” (1) by Sebastian del Piombo. It is a picture very
interesting in the history of art, but I think it is disappointing. Its
emotion is remote with that curious remoteness that comes when our
hearts do not throb as we look at a moving scene. Sebastian del Piombo
was a laborious painter; he worked hard, but painting did not come
easily to him. Vasari tells us that “The Raising of Lazarus” was painted
in rivalry to the “Transfiguration” of Raphael, and that Michael Angelo
helped Sebastian with the drawing. Raphael’s “Transfiguration” and
Sebastian’s “Raising of Lazarus” were exhibited together. The two
pictures received great applause from all who saw them, and some people
preferred Sebastian’s work.
There are two drawings at the British Museum of the figure of Lazarus by
Michael Angelo, showing that he had helped his friend in this picture.
The moment chosen for the subject is the one when Lazarus comes forth
bound hand and foot in his grave clothes. Christ is in the centre of the
picture pointing to heaven; Lazarus is looking eagerly towards Him.
Pharisees, disciples, men, and women are about. Mary is sitting at the
feet of the Saviour; Martha is behind her brother. It is a grim,
realistic picture, filled with repulsive details. Sebastian soon after,
on entering the monastic life, became keeper of the leaden seal, a
well-paid appointment that he obtained from the Pope. He gave up
painting; he took life easily henceforth, and never troubled any more
about work. His friends would remonstrate with him. Why had he lost all
ambition? Why did he not set to work and achieve great things with his
brush?
“No, no,” Sebastian would answer laughing; “there are so many clever
fellows about, I am well out of the struggle. They can do in a month
what would take me a year to achieve. It is a good thing that some
people should do nothing,” and he remained quite firm in his resolve. He
never painted again. When you look at that large canvas of “The Raising
of Lazarus” you must think of Sebastian del Piombo, who became a monk
and who retired so early from the life of struggle. I think that through
the centuries I hear him laugh as he answers his friends, “No, no; there
are so many clever fellows about, I am well out of the struggle.”
Now let us look at the portraits—the lifelike portraits that bring the
men and women of Venice and its neighbourhood before us to-day. Truth
and beauty are the two considerations the artist must keep before him in
painting a portrait. The earlier portrait painters aimed at fidelity to
nature more than do the painters of a later period. Here, in this great
Gallery, we see the men and women as they took part in the life of
Venice in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
There are two great portraits by Il Moretto (1498–1555), who was a
native of Brescia, close to Venice. His father was a merchant. Il
Moretto painted almost entirely for his native town. His nickname of
“Blackamoor” is very inappropriate to his work. He chose a cool, tender,
and harmonious scheme of colouring. His two portraits are of Italian
noblemen. They have the noble bearing, the dignity and grace of the
grandees of Italy. The first Count Sciarra Cesaresco (299) shows us a
magnificently attired man in satin and ermine, with a plumed hat,
resting his head on his hand. There is something melancholy and aspiring
in his attitude. The second (1025) is probably the portrait of a member
of the Fenariola family. In this portrait, the cool and splendid colour,
the depth of expression, the ease and grace of carriage are marvellously
depicted. They make us understand the spell that Il Moretto exercised as
a portrait painter.
Moroni, his pupil (1525–1578), was not so successful with the noblemen
of Italy, but he shows himself eminently gifted to represent the
character of the men and women who have lower claims of birth. His
lawyer (742), so alert and inquisitive looking; his ecclesiastic (1024),
so important; and, best of all, his tailor (697)—are all masterpieces.
We seem to know them all. The lifelike attitude of the tailor, as he
stands scissors in hand, looking towards us with an enquiring
expression, makes us realise that the men of the sixteenth century were
very like the men of to-day.
“Tagliapanni”—for this is the tailor’s name—I think I hear one of you
boys say, “how much cloth will I want for a jerkin?”
And Tagliapanni, looking as he looks in the picture, scissors in hand,
answers, “That depends, little sir, upon the fashion of the jerkin you
want.”
Another remarkable portrait painter is Lotto (1476–1555). He gives us
the likeness of the “Prothonotary-Apostolic Juliano” (1105).
Prothonotary means the chief of what may be called the Record Office of
the Church. His business is to draw up reports on all important Church
functions, such as the enthronement of new popes and other public
functions. If we remember that the artist impresses his personality on
the portraits he paints, we shall recognise how charming was the inner
self of the painter Lotto. He has given a great elegance to this
portrait of a scholar. How charming and cool is the colour, how
beautiful is the drawing, the calm and thoughtful brow, the wise and
weary eyes, weary with much reading—
“The low man seeks a little thing to do,
Sees it and does it:
This high man with a great thing to pursue
Dies ere he knows it.”
Lotto was a pupil either of Bellini or of Vivarini. He was a gentle,
earnest man, passing most of his long life among the Dominican monks.
Thus the peaceful inwardness of his life was reflected in his works.
There are many more portraits here that I cannot write to you about. Of
the beautiful women I can single out but one—the golden-haired, bright,
and sinister-eyed beauty by Paris Bordone (674). It is a portrait that
makes us shudder as we look at it. The eyes are hard as jewels; there is
something ruthless about them. A story is told about this woman, who
lived a treacherous and a cruel life in a treacherous and cruel age. One
day she wandered into a church; looking towards the altar, she beheld a
picture of herself painted when she was young and innocent. She was an
angel there playing on a lute and singing. The memory of what had been
overcame her, and she sank fainting on the floor. Tradition says that
she entered a nunnery, and that she became a holy woman.
Bordone was born 1500 and died 1571.
And now we must leave this entrancing room of the school of Venice. As
we leave it we seem to be going out of the sunshine, out of an
atmosphere of gaiety and colour.
CHAPTER XVII
SCHOOLS OF LOMBARDY: THREE GREAT PAINTERS
“Like a poet hidden
In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden
Till the world is wrought
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not.”
There are three great masters whom I want you to study in the Lombard
school—and in the Lombard school are included the school of Milan and
the Parmese school. Of this last school Correggio is the delightful
outcome. His bright, happy, debonair genius is the genius of Italy.
In the Lombard school one master deserves a very high place—Ambrogio
Borgognone (1455–1523). He was a religious painter, who had something
of the genius of Fra Angelico. There are several pictures by him in
the National Gallery, but the finest of all is “The Virgin and Child
with the two St. Catherines” (298). The Virgin is seated on a
beautifully carved throne. She is a sweet and timid girl, who holds
her divine Son in her lap. He is somewhat stiff, but there is charm in
the expression of His face. His two little hands are extended, and in
them He holds out two wedding rings. St. Catherine of Alexandria, the
great princess who loved to meditate on holy things, and who endured
martyrdom rather than marry a heathen prince, is receiving the symbol
of her consecration to Christ; on her head she wears a crown; at her
feet is the wheel that was intended for her martyrdom; in her hand she
bears the sword with which she was slain. The Virgin is gently drawing
the other Catherine—Catherine of Siena—towards her Son. This pure and
holy nun is the saint ministering to all those in affliction. She
entered the monastic life at thirteen years of age, and, quite
uneducated, she soon had more power over men and women than had
learned theologians and statesmen. She stands there in the Dominican
habit carrying a lily, the emblem of purity, wearing the ring that
will make her the bride of Christ. It is a fine picture, beautiful in
tone and full of sincerity.
Family portraits (779–780)—groups of nine men and thirteen women—you
should also look at; they will make you better understand the noble
sincerity and simplicity of Borgognone’s genius.
To the Lombard school belongs the gentle Luini, who, Mr. Ruskin says,
“stands alone in uniting consummate art power with untainted simplicity
and religious imagination.”
We have but one picture by Luini—“Christ Arguing with the Pharisees”
(18). In many respects the picture is so like Leonardo da Vinci’s work
that it was long ascribed to this master. Every face therein is a study
of expression. The Christ, who is the central figure, has a tender and
charming countenance; on either side of His face falls His golden brown
hair. The Pharisees about Him are puzzled and angry at His words, but He
continues to explain His thesis with earnestness. I wish we knew more of
Luini (1475–1529), who was born by the side of the lovely Lake Maggiore,
and whose whole youth was spent in its neighbourhood. His colouring is
so sweet and tender, the expression of his countenances is so deep that,
without having much to go upon, we yet claim him as one of that army of
old masters, one of those great men who held high the torch of art, and
whom we follow humbly.
Correggio (1494–1534), of the Parmese school, is believed to have
received his first training in the school of Ferrara. His name was
Allegri, and the name suited his gay and happy nature, his bright and
joyous art. The pictures we have from him are masterpieces. In the “Ecce
Homo” (15) the Christ is not a thin emaciated figure, but He is the most
gentle and beautiful of men. If His face shows the anguish of His
suffering there is no distortion of its features. In the little picture
called “The Holy Family” or “The Virgin of the Basket” (23) we see
Correggio’s charm, his gaiety, his attractive tenderness, the loveliness
of his light and shade. The picture is an enchanting representation of
motherhood. The Virgin is putting a little coat upon her baby Son, and
she is smiling at His attempt to pass His chubby arm through the sleeve.
It is a perfect picture of domestic peace and happiness. It was
Correggio’s wife who sat for it and his own baby, and the scene was
enacted in his studio; he sketched it and called it “The Mother and
Child.”
The other picture, “Mercury instructing Cupid in the presence of Venus”
(10), is one of the most exquisite of Correggio’s pagan pictures, if we
may so call them. Ruskin says “The two pictures which I would last part
from in the National Gallery would be Titian’s “Bacchus” and Correggio’s
“Venus.” We see Mercury wearing his winged cap and sandals, teaching the
alphabet, which it is said he invented, to the baby Cupid. The little
fellow’s wings are rainbow coloured; his golden hair clusters in close
curls round his head. He has a most absorbed mien as he learns his
letters. His mother stands behind him, radiantly beautiful, apparently
very much amused at her small son’s scholarly efforts. She, too, is
wearing wings;—perhaps it is to show that beauty flies,—and she holds
Cupid’s bow and arrow. Her lovely form is nude, and every curve of her
limbs is wrought in light and shade. She stands a glowing figure, one of
the purest and loveliest ever painted. This great picture first belonged
to Charles I. When he was beheaded it passed through many hands, and
ultimately came into the possession of Murat, King of Naples. When the
fortune of the Bonapartes was set in 1822, Murat’s wife wished to sell
it; and Lord Londonderry bought it over Russia’s head, giving the
largest sum and carrying it over to England.”
Other Correggios you will see in private galleries, in national museums,
and wherever you see them you will always find them imbued with
extraordinary life. His power of light and shade was unrivalled: his
figures move about in a luminous ether. Correggio died when he was forty
years of age, just three or four years older than was the immortal
Raphael. He was the last of Italy’s great masters.
CHAPTER XVIII
DECAY AND DECLINE
“Day is dying! Float, oh song,
Down the westward river,
Requiem chanting to the Day—
Day, the mighty giver.”
Now let us pass at once to the room where the later Italian pictures are
hung. It is the decay of the Italian school that we have to watch, for
painting has lost its spontaneity. The inspiration of genius has given
way to mere technical skill. This school is called the eclectic school,
for its followers sought to unite the excellences of many painters and
lost all inspiration in the attempt. Ludovico Carracci was its founder.
Tintoretto had warned him that he had no vocation for painting, that
there was nothing original or vital about his methods. Julio Romano,
Annibale Carracci, Canaletto, Guercino, Pietro Longuo, Giovanni Baptista
Tiepolo, Salvator Rosa, Carlo Dolci, Guido Reni, and Sassoferrato were
among the leaders of that school of decay.
Canaletto (1697–1768) is the painter of Venice, and he also painted
London, where he resided two years, coming thither in 1746. His pictures
are marvellous representations of the carvings of the great Venetian
palaces, accurate as photographs: he paints the gondolas, the canals;
but Venice, the land of limpid sunshine, of white marble, is a grey city
in Canaletto’s pictures. Sometimes it is “A State Regatta” (938) which
he paints, and we see the windows and balconies all decked with
tapestries and velvets; sometimes it is “The Grand Canal” (1058), one of
the waterways of Venice, filled with the market people coming in boats
that are laden with purple grapes and figs, scarlet gourds and crimson
fish baskets flaming in the morning sun. The painted sails above and the
sunburnt tanned limbs of the fisher folk glow. All the elements of
colour are here as we see them to-day, but in Canaletto’s pictures much
is grey and colourless.
Guido Reni (1575–1642), who was a pupil of the Carraccis, was a native
of Bologna. His father was a musician, and it was intended he should
follow the same career, but he preferred painting. There is something
very effeminate in his art. His “Magdalene” (177) is an example of his
curious overladen style.
Carlo Dolci (1616–1686), the son of a Florentine painter, is
sentimental, affected, pretty in art. There is a painful smoothness in
his compositions, there is nothing broad in his brush work.
Sassoferrato (1605–1685), who is a follower of the Carracci, has a
certain sweetness and dignity, but lacks originality. “The Virgin and
Child” (740) is a good example of his art. There is in his Madonnas no
stamp of the glorious inspiration of the great masters.
Salvatore Rosa’s (1615–1673) “Landscape with figures” (1206) is a dark
picture. It reflects the sad and interesting mind of the painter.
Salvatore’s life was the record of a disordered mind, full of
contradictory impulses—baseness, courage, ambition, and despair. His
pictures seem to be the work of a dark and tortuous spirit. It is said
that he once joined a band of brigands in the Abruzzi, and that he
sought there the solitude of the hills. Withered trees, dark abysses,
rocks that seemed thrown up by a mighty earthquake were his favourite
subjects. He had no religion: he said that he despised wealth and death.
The thought of that strange man painting these gloomy and mysterious
landscapes, these blasted trees, and nightmare vegetation, haunts our
imagination. His dark and terrible pictures image the awful fancies of
his mind.
But I shall not keep you long over this room. All the pictures are
painful to look at. When we think of the glorious art of Italy—the
exquisiteness of Botticelli, the holiness of Fra Angelico, the visions
of Titian, the noble frenzy of Tintoretto, the rugged splendour of
Michael Angelo, the infinite grace of Raphael, of Leonardo da Vinci, of
Andrea del Sarto, the splendour of the line and colour of Paolo
Veronese, we feel the sadness of decay in the smoothness of Guido Reni,
of Carlo Dolci, in the chaotic ruggedness of Salvatore Rosa, in the
absence of light of Canaletto’s Venice—all showing contempt for what is
natural and simple.
CHAPTER XIX
SCHOOL OF SPAIN
“How much of my young heart, oh Spain,
Went out to thee in days of yore!
What dreams romantic filled my brain
And summoned back to life again
The paladins of Charlemagne
The Cid Campeador!”
And now we enter the room dedicated to the art of Spain, an art that
flourished for a century. Some painters came before the great ones, but
they were poor heralds of the splendour that was to be—the glory then
faded away. Ribera, Zurbaran, Velazquez, Murillo were all painting
between 1588 and 1682. Long years of sterility passed, and then Goya
appeared, bringing some touch of the brightness of art into the early
years of the nineteenth century.
Looking round the room we see the grave spirit of the Spaniards
reflected in these pictures. Kings and monks, warriors and peasants,
children of the people—all are here represented with wonderful
naturalism. It is an art of truth to nature. The fervid piety, often
verging upon superstition, of the Spaniards is imprinted upon every
work. The Inquisition ruled the country. No taint was allowed to sully
the purity of its art; it bade that angels should always have wings, and
that the glorified Madonna should always wear blue and white, the
colours she had worn when she appeared to the Portuguese nun.
Ribera (1588–1656) is the first glorious ray of the dawn of Spanish
genius. He was a born artist, although his parents wished to devote him
to the career of letters. His whole heart was in the studio of Francisco
Ribalta. At last he was allowed to study there; and when he was still
quite a youth the passion for art possessed him, and he ran away to
Italy, the mother of beauty. He made his way to Rome, and began to study
the frescoes there and to sketch from nature; always out in the open
air, he endured privations of every description. A cardinal, it is said,
discovered him absorbed in work, dressed in rags; dry crusts by his side
that were given to him in charity. He took Ribera home, took care of
him, made him one of his retinue; but the boy soon broke loose, and set
to work once more in his own way. He became a powerful artist, studying
effects of light and shade, caring only for strange and wild effects. He
went through a phase of admiring the gentle Correggio, and set off to
Parma to study his work. But Correggio’s happy spirit did not suit the
Spaniard’s gloomy temperament, and he returned to his own dark and
striking methods. Little by little he climbed to fortune and to fame. He
remained a Spaniard at heart, although he worked in Italy. He was a
realist with nothing of Italian idealism. There was no fancifulness or
sweetness, no gaiety in his spirit.
“The Dead Christ” (235). We see the Virgin accompanied by Mary Magdalene
and St. John, weeping over the body of her Son, now rigid in death. The
cadaverous colours, the horror of the details, the angular lines of the
figure emphasise the terror of the subject. It creeps into our hearts in
all its darkness and gloom. There is no hope of the Resurrection. How
different is this _Pietà_ from the one by Francia, where the angels weep
with the mother over the body of the Saviour, beautiful in the lassitude
of death. Ruskin calls Ribera “the black slave of painting.” He was
impelled by a ferocity of jealousy. He settled in Naples, married the
daughter of a rich picture dealer, founded a society, the meetings of
which were held in his studio, whose object was by intimidation and
intrigue to drive from Naples, by the use of the poignard if necessary,
painters who might become his rivals.
Before approaching Velazquez, the incomparable master of the Spanish
school, I shall say a few words of Zurbaran. Lord Leighton has said that
“in Velazquez all was Spanish, but Zurbaran was all Spain.” In his
works, beyond those of other painters, is the very genius of the
nation—a genius that was so subservient to the Church that it has been
said that in other nations art was the handmaid of the Church, but in
Spain it was its bondslave. The Spaniards are a fiery race, indifferent
to beauty, full of dramatic instincts; their artists care for truth to
nature beyond all things, and give with extraordinary vivacity the
effects of light and shade. Realistic in their methods, they are
strangely idealistic in their thoughts; they were hampered by
superstition to a strange degree. In Zurbaran’s time it was said that
they would buy the cast-off cowls of monks in which to bury the dead, so
that St. Peter would mistake their ghosts for those of holy men.
Zurbaran’s parents were simple labourers of Estramadura. They early
discovered their son’s genius and sent him to Seville to study under the
painter-priest, Las Rodas. He seldom stirred from Seville, haunting the
aisles and the cloisters of the cathedral. Velazquez met him and brought
him to Madrid, but he soon returned to the Seville he loved.
“A Franciscan Monk” (230) is of all Spanish pictures in the Gallery the
most characteristic. We cannot look at that kneeling monk in his brown
and darned habit, his face hidden in the deep shadow of the hood, his
emaciated hands clasping a skull, without seeming to see all
priest-ridden Spain around us.
“The Nativity, or Adoration of the Shepherds” (232) is by common consent
the finest picture by Zurbaran. It was long believed to be the work of
Velazquez, but research has at last given its authorship to Zurbaran. I
want you to look at this beautiful painting so realistic and so holy.
The Virgin, the adoring shepherds, are simple peasant folk; there is no
attempt made to idealise them. The rustic offerings of lambs and fowls
and other commodities are gifts according to the means of the shepherds.
In the distance we see hovering above the guiding angel of the Epiphany—
“See the kinder shepherds round Him
Telling wonders from the sky!
Where they sought Him, there they found Him
With His Virgin-mother by.”
It is a picture full of reverence and of worship. The genius of the
Spanish school is fully expressed therein—extreme realism mingled with
extreme idealism.
Now we come to Velazquez, one of the greatest painters of all times and
of all nations. His colour is silvery; he sings with his brush; his art
reveals the sunniness of his nature. His marvellous facility was
expressed by Sir Joshua Reynolds when he said, “What other artists tried
to do with great labour Velazquez did at once.”
CHAPTER XX
VELAZQUEZ AND MURILLO
“He did God’s will; to him all one
If on the earth or in the sun.”
Velazquez was born in Seville in 1599 of well-to-do parents. They soon
discovered that their son had a native talent for art, and he entered
the studio of the elder Hirara, a man whose brutal ways soon drove the
young artist away. Velazquez was then placed under the tuition of
Francisco Pacheco, who appreciated his pupil’s character and genius. The
teacher was of a timid disposition, gifted for letters rather than for
art, and Velazquez soon chose Nature for his guide. He copied birds,
beasts, and fishes with scrupulous fidelity; he then began to paint man,
studying the human form with the same extraordinary care. He was
twenty-three years of age when he married Pacheco’s daughter. Then
Velazquez went to Madrid to copy the masterpieces of the royal
collections; there he attracted the attention of the minister Olivarez.
After he had returned to Seville, the minister called him back to court
and introduced him to the King. He was commissioned to paint Philip
IV.’s portrait, and this was the turning-point of Velazquez’s career.
The portrait of the King was an immense success, so great that, by royal
command, all other portraits were destroyed, and Velazquez was appointed
Philip IV.’s private painter. He became also the King’s intimate friend,
but this exalted friendship did not affect Velazquez’s nature. There was
in him a certain austerity of soul that kept him devoted to work and
remote from all the pleasures of the court. His kindness to the men of
his craft never wavered. When he went to Italy, sent thither by the King
to buy pictures, he visited Ribera. At another time he attracted
Zurbaran to Madrid, and influenced the King in his favour; later he
befriended Murillo. The contrast between Velazquez’s magnanimous soul
and that of Ribera is like the contrast between the glow of sunshine and
the gloom of night.
There are two portraits by Velazquez of Philip IV. One (1129) is a
slender, stately figure dressed in silvery brocade. Look at the
wonderful painting, at the fine modelling of the face, at the
intellectual brow, at the weak despotic mouth; look at the shimmering
stuff done with unerring precision of touch. The King, his cold
impassive countenance, his air of refinement and of high breeding,
stands before you in all the remoteness of rank. Then let us look at the
sovereign (745) in middle life. We seem to see the story of the years
that have elapsed. Once more we recognise Philip IV., careless, weak,
art-loving, indolent, singularly impassive, with his cold physiognomy,
expressive of his talent for freezing silence. His dress is black and
gold. In both portraits is conveyed the dignity of bearing, the graceful
carriage that distinguished Philip. He is more impassive in his middle
life than he was in his youth. He was not a great ruler, but he was an
enlightened patron of the arts, and he had friendship for Velazquez.
[Illustration:
“PORTRAIT OF THE SPANISH ADMIRAL PULIDO PAREJA” (1315)
BY VELAZQUEZ
page 117
]
Then let us look at that searching portrait of the Spanish Admiral,
Pulido-Pareja (1315). He stands against a luminous grey background, and
we seem to see him in the flesh. His doublet and breeches are of black
velvet, his dark hair falls over his lace collar, his rugged face is
alight with sombre eyes, his mouth is about to speak. The portrait is
very living; it is one of the living portraits of the world. It has been
said of Velazquez that he painted by his will alone, that he made no
effort to hamper it.
“Venus and Cupid” (2057); this newly acquired picture seems to have been
blown on the canvas, so light is the touch with which it has been
painted. The goddess of beauty is lying on a couch, turning away from us
to look into a mirror held by a Cupid. The colour is so fresh it might
have been laid on the canvas yesterday. The figure seems moulded in
light. Contrasting with the loveliness of this picture and the joy of
its beauty is “Christ at the Column” (1148). Our Saviour has been bound
by the wrists to a pillar; no object distracts the spectator’s attention
from the woeful theme. His hands are swollen by the tightness of the
cords. The blood is trickling down His shoulder, yet He looks round with
ineffable compassion upon the little child who is kneeling in prayer to
Him. The adoration of the fair-haired little one is beautifully
conveyed. Pushed forward by his guardian angel, he kneels half-shrinking
in awe from the God-man. It is a painful and dramatic scene. We see the
influence of the Inquisition in the representation of the angel. She
looks a woman but for the wings fastened to her shoulders. There are
other pictures by the great painter in the room, marked by the same
fidelity of brush work, by the same wonder of colour. Some deny to
Velazquez the higher gifts of imagination, but all admit that he loved
above all things nature and truth. I want you to study all the pictures
that you can of Velazquez, and in them you will find that reality is the
great characteristic of his art.
“The Dead Warrior” (741), called “The Dead Orlando,” was long ascribed
to Velazquez, but it is now held to be by one of his pupils. It shows a
dead knight lying full length in a cavern with a lamp at his feet; one
hand lies on his breast, the other is on the hilt of his sword. It is a
very impressive picture, which belonged to the Count of Pourtalès, and
was in his gallery in Paris. I remember my mother telling me that on the
day the works of art were exhibited previous to their sale, she went to
the Pourtalès gallery with Mr. Robert Browning, the poet. Together they
stood before this picture.
“That is my ideal of Roland who to the dark tower came,” said Mr.
Browning. They turned to the catalogue and lo! they saw inscribed the
name of Roland. Strange that a great painter and a great poet, divided
by nearly three hundred years, had had the same ideal of the peerless
knight of the Chanson de Roland.
Velazquez died in 1660. He had been appointed to a very onerous and a
very prosaic post—that of “quartermaster and purveyor to his Majesty.”
Wherever the King travelled the painter henceforth travelled too,
supervising the commissariat for the royal table. In the beginning of
1660 King Philip IV. accompanied his daughter, the Infanta, when she set
forth to meet her bridegroom, the French King, Louis XIV. Velazquez went
too, saw that all arrangements were on a magnificent scale for the
meeting of the two sovereigns. The work and anxiety were too much for
him, and he caught the seeds of the fever that was to kill him. He
sickened immediately on his return and died shortly after. His wife
followed him to the grave within a week. The sun of her life had set,
and she turned her face to the wall and died.
Bartholomé Estiban Murillo (1618–1682). Born in a humble condition of
life, Murillo passed an unhappy boyhood. A relation who knew something
of painting gave the lad some instruction in art, but, dying shortly
after, left him without guidance. Still Murillo painted. He covered
small bits of wood and of canvas with representations of the Madonna. He
sold these by dozens to the captains of American ships, who sold them
again to the recently converted Mexicans and Peruvians. He was
twenty-four years of age when his imagination was fired by the sight of
the painter Moya’s copies of Van Dyck. Murillo made up his mind to study
in some centre of art, and he set off for Madrid. There he found
Velazquez at the height of his fame, and he was received by him with
infinite kindness. Everything succeeded with Murillo. He got lessons,
protection, admittance to the royal palace; he was helped by Velazquez
in every way. When he returned to Seville two years later he was an
accomplished painter. He took his native town by storm when he exhibited
three little pictures illustrating the life of St. Francis. No one had
noticed Murillo’s absence until his return. He had left an obscure
member of society, he returned famous.
From that time he scarcely left Seville till the day of his death. For
thirty-seven years he painted, not always doing himself justice, for he
was loaded with commissions, and his many-sided industry impelled him to
accept everything that was offered. He had married a lady of fortune,
and his home had become a favourite resort of fashion and art.
The picturesqueness of low life attracted him, and his studies of beggar
boys are to be met with in every gallery—ragged and happy urchins
laughing in the sunshine. The glory of the Madonna worshipped by angels
entranced him, and his pictures of her Assumption are the glory of many
galleries. In the Louvre is one for which the government gave over
£23,000. The infinite pathos of the child Christ moved his soul. He was
profoundly religious, and he would pray for long hours in his parish
church. Murillo is a most popular painter, but he is unequal, and many
of his pictures are overcharged with sentiment. All, however, are full
of the glow of adoration. He died of a fall from a ladder while he was
painting a large altarpiece at Cadiz. During his fatal illness he used
to be brought every day to the church to spend hours in prayer.
There are many pictures in the National Gallery very characteristic of
his genius. “St. John and the Lamb” (176) is a charming work, very
popular with copyists. A brown curly-haired boy is clasping a lamb,
holding his head against its side. In “A Holy Family” (13) there is a
melting softness in the fusion of tones. The composition is rather
stagey, but there is a captivating sweetness in the face of the divine
Child. The chubby angels above are luminously painted. St. Joseph and
the Virgin below are rather set in their pose. We have a “Spanish
Peasant Boy” (74). He laughs in his rags, and his laugh has all the
gladsome carelessness of childish merriment.
After Murillo the glory of the art of Spain set. Velazquez and he died
without leaving a rival behind. Long years passed before another artist,
Goya (1746–1828), arose. He had no teacher and he had no pupil. Very
distantly he resembles the incomparable Velazquez. There is a certain
coarseness in his choice of subjects; his portraits are the best things
he has done. He has a kind of wit and much brilliancy of execution. We
have “The Portrait of a Spanish Lady” (1473) in pink satin covered with
black lace. It is full of vivacity, full also of a sense of beauty and
of character. The portrait “Dr. Peral” (1951) is also remarkable for its
delicate grey tones and for the life in the face.
CHAPTER XXI
ART OF THE LOW COUNTRIES
“They sit there in the shadow and shine
Of the flickering fire of the winter night,
Figures in colour and design
Like those by Rembrandt of the Rhine,
Half darkness and half light.”
The art of the North is that of Protestantism, Catholicism is that of
the South. This is the first impression borne in upon us by a quick
survey of the rooms devoted to the art of the Netherlands and of
Germany. The delight in life that is so marked in the Italian school has
given way to a sterner, more prosaic, more realistic ideal. The
traditions of a classic past, deeply rooted in the beautiful land where
nature is so kindly, have no hold on these other lands where the
conditions of life are hard and strenuous. In Italy the Catholic Church
preserved the traditions of saints and rules the life of the people. In
the fifteenth century the Reformation swept over Europe and divided the
continent into two opposing camps of faith, the Catholic and the
Protestant. The northern countries declared for the Protestant faith.
The Madonna was no longer the presiding inspiration of genius there, the
legends of saints no longer furnished the theme of northern painter’s
dreams. Art patronage became secular instead of ecclesiastical.
Portraiture, landscape-painting, genre-painting—and by genre-painting I
mean the painting which takes its subjects from the small incidents of
everyday life—these have replaced the old ideals. Instead of altarpieces
we have great portrait groups of the members of guilds and corporations.
Early portraiture was very faithful. Every wrinkle, every line was set
down.
Protestant art has ever been the art of the people, and realism is the
note of this art. The brothers Hubert and Jan Van Eyck were the chief
exponents of realism. They were born at Eyck-sur-Meuse, and they lived
and died there. If not the first inventors of the modern process of
oil-painting, they brought it to perfection, and, above all, they
brought it into common use. Up to this time tempera was the usual medium
for painting. Tempera consisted of grinding the colours with chalk and
laying them on with water, with white of egg, with size, or the juice of
unripe figs. Damp was the chief enemy of tempera. The Italian artists
had tried to mix their colours with oil and the result had been
unsatisfactory, for the great objection to the use of oil was the long
time it took to dry. The brothers Van Eyck understood chemistry, and
they did not rest in their experiments until they had discovered a
medium which hastened the drying and did not involve the necessity of
exposing the colours to the sun. Nowadays we mix our colours with an oil
medium, and we varnish them when the picture is finished. By the Van
Eyck’s method the varnish was incorporated with the surface colours.
Look at this wonderful painting by Jan Van Eyck (1390–1440); it is the
portrait of Jan Arnolfini and his wife (186). They stand in a room that
is a model of elegant neatness. She is dressed in the rich and ample
garments that were the fashion of the day; her gaunt husband, holding
her hand, stands beside her. He looks somewhat of a caricature with his
big hat drawn down to his ears, his fur-bordered tunic from under which
peep his thin legs and slippered feet. His right hand is raised. We feel
that this worthy couple looked just as they do in this picture when they
stood for Jan Van Eyck more than four hundred years ago. He painted them
with relentless fidelity.
See how perfectly the colours are preserved, how fresh is the green of
the woman’s immense mantle—fresh as if it had been painted yesterday.
Jan Van Eyck knew the nature of every colour, how one colour affects the
others. Sir Joshua Reynolds and Turner did not know chemistry as applied
to painting, or they were in too great a hurry to obtain their effects.
Their colours darken and crack; we can guess only at the first glow of
their pictures. Those of Van Eyck appear as they looked when they left
the easel. How marvellous also is the minuteness of the details. See the
circular mirror behind the husband and wife, with scenes of the Passion
let into its frame. Every object in the room is reflected therein—the
oranges on the window sill, the slippers on the floor; two additional
figures in a room beyond are seen through an open door. A branch brass
chandelier hangs from the ceiling; this chandelier still exists. At the
woman’s feet in the foreground is a poodle. The whole picture is a page
of the intimate, orderly, religious life of the time. Above is the
signature of the artist, which, in its ornamentation and its clearness,
is a work of art. “As I can, not as I would,” is the motto inscribed—the
motto that resumes all Van Eyck’s hopes and aims. By the side of this
great picture is a small portrait believed to be that of Jan Van Eyck
himself. It shows a middle-aged man with a red kerchief wound round his
head, and it is painted with unequalled strength, truthfulness, and
minuteness.
Gerard David (1450–1523) was a painter of exalted and religious feeling.
“A Canon and his Patron Saints” (1045) is full of fervour, but I think
his most typical picture is “The Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine”
(1432)—a theme often chosen by painters of the Middle Ages. This picture
shows a walled garden, beyond which we see the buildings of a town. The
Virgin is seated on a throne, the infant Christ is on her knee; He bends
forward to place a ring on St. Catherine’s finger. On the right is
seated St. Barbara holding an open book, and St. Mary Magdalene with the
vase of precious ointment in her lap. As is usual in these pictures, we
see the donor, Canon Richard Van der Capelle, accompanied by his
greyhound, kneeling before the Madonna and the Child. Every detail in
the picture is carried out with marvellous care, and through every
detail breathes the religious genius of the painter.
His contemporary was Mabuse (1470–1541), a most conscientious painter,
whose elaborate finish and brilliant colouring are very noticeable in
all his works (656, 946, 1689). This latter picture, “Portrait of a Man
and his Wife,” is quite a masterpiece of finished detail and of breadth
of effect. There are many portraits by him, and, although Mabuse was not
equal to the best painters of his time, we must note the high perfection
of finish in all his pictures.
Quentin Massys (before 1460–1530) was perhaps the greatest Belgian
painter of his time. He raised the school of Antwerp to a higher level
than that of any other Flemish school. He is usually called the smith of
Antwerp, because he began life as a blacksmith. He gave up this
profession to take up art, for which he had shown signs of genius almost
from childhood. He had little feeling for real beauty of form, but he
had an earnestness, a tenderness, and a clearness of colouring that
redeemed all his faults. The one picture that we have by him in the
National Gallery is the “Salvator Mundi and the Virgin Mary” (295). The
colouring of the Christ is somewhat heavy, but there is so much delicacy
of feeling, so much expression that it ranks among the masterpieces we
possess.
Roger Van der Weyden (1400–1464) some say was a pupil of Jan Van Eyck,
but very little is known about him. That he was a native of Tournay,
that he was deeply religious, that he visited Italy, that he wielded a
great influence over the early Flemish school, and that Memling was his
pupil is about all that we know about Van der Weyden. The three pictures
in the National Gallery (664, 711, 712) show the intensity of his faith.
The two last are heads and hands of the Madonna and of Christ on a gold
background.
“Husband and Wife” (653), sometimes called “The Painter and his Wife,”
is often ascribed to Roger Van der Weyden, but now is generally held to
be by a member of his school. The man has a resolute and serious face,
“the woman is sweet and motherly.” I should like to think it is a
portrait of Van der Weyden and his wife, but it is doubtful.
“A Reading Magdalen” (654) belongs to the school of Van der Weyden; it
is believed to be by one of his pupils. The Magdalen is dressed in the
cumbrous draperies of the time. I cannot imagine how women walked thus
attired. Her hair is gathered under a heavy coif, and she is reading; at
her feet lies the alabaster box of ointment. Her face is plain, but
there is in it so much sweetness, so much absorption in her study that
it attracts the beholder.
There are a great many legendary records concerning Memling, the painter
of Bruges. One of the most charming tells that, at the Battle of Nancy
in 1477, where Count Charles the Bold lost his life, a wounded soldier
was brought into the Hospital of St. John at Bruges. His name was
Memling. He had been a painter before he became a soldier; during his
long convalescence love for his art returned, and there also returned
the old enthusiasm for religion. Tradition says he loved the young nun
who spent her days nursing the sick and who used to sing and pray in the
chapel. The soldier recovered from his wounds and he took to painting
once more. He painted the marvellous pictures that are still in the
Hospital of St. John and that are the treasures of the place. The
reliquary of St. Ursula is among them. It is a shrine about four feet in
length. On one of its gable ends is a painting of the Madonna and Child
with two of the sisters of the order kneeling before them. On the other
is the picture of St. Ursula with the arrows that were the instrument of
her martyrdom and the Virgins hiding under her mantle. There are
medallions of Ursula painted on the ceiling of the shrine, showing the
saint leading up to heaven a procession of maidens martyred with her. I
can imagine the young nun Memling loved inspiring his work, and being
the unconscious model from which he painted. Through the picture “The
Virgin and Infant Christ enthroned in a Garden” (686) breathes the
spirit of Memling’s art. The figures are seated in a peaceful enclosure.
Oh, how serene is the light that shines over the alleys! The Virgin has
an angular charm of her own with her high arched eyebrows, her lofty
brow, her beautiful slim figure, her long hair, and her mild eyes under
drooping lids. On her right is an angel playing a guitar, on her left is
St. George trampling under his feet the dragon which symbolises sin. In
the front is the donor of the picture kneeling to the divine Infant, who
is turning over the pages of a book His mother is holding while He
listens to the angelic music. It is a picture that sets us dreaming and
thinking of that wonderful story. There are two other pictures by
Memling (709, 747). His landscape backgrounds are always very clear, and
are peaceful, as was his soul.
CHAPTER XXII
A GREAT TRIO
“There are dreams that cannot die.”
Contrasting with the art of Memling is that of Rubens. Rubens is
pre-eminently the naturalist painter (1577–1640). There is little trace
of the ideal inspiring his work, yet his genius was so stupendous that
it cast a radiance over the whole Flemish school. He was born at Siegen
in Westphalia, where his father had been exiled for political offences
and for his adherence to Protestantism. The boy got a splendid
education, and his talents enabled him to assimilate all he learned. He
lost his father when he was ten years of age, passed his childhood at
Cologne, then returned with his mother to Antwerp. He was very handsome,
very cultivated, very charming. His love of work was so great and his
imagination so fertile that the number of his pictures is astonishing.
His first teacher in art was Adam van Noort, illustrious as a colourist.
Before four years had elapsed the pupil had excelled his master. He then
studied under Otho Venius, a painter of no great attainment, but one who
loved science, who was a mathematician, a historian, and a poet. He
could not do much to train the genius of his pupil, but he helped to
cultivate his mind. There was a gaiety about Rubens that early displayed
itself in the _brio_ of his brush work and the glow of his colour.
When he was twenty-one he was admitted into the Guild of Painters at
Antwerp. Two years later he left Holland and went straight to Venice,
and there his charm, his handsomeness, his cultivated manners won
friends for him. He received recognition almost from the first from the
princes of Italy. He was a man who found delight in this world, in its
beauty, its form and colour. All life came easily to him. Later, when he
went to England, he enjoyed the friendship of Charles I. Raphael himself
was not more honoured than was Rubens. He was the confidant of
sovereigns; sometimes he dabbled in politics. He was charged with a
secret mission from Philip IV. of Spain to our Charles I. in 1629.
During his visit to the King of England he was one day copying a Venus
by Titian. One of the courtiers, who only knew him as an envoy of the
King of Spain, discovered him at his easel.
“Does the ambassador of his Catholic Majesty sometimes amuse himself
with painting?” he asked.
“I amuse myself sometimes with being ambassador,” retorted Rubens.
He was a man of power, holding his life lightly as becomes a master.
His exuberant vitality made him prefer painting big pictures to little
ones, for no undertaking, however difficult, surpassed his courage, yet
he has painted small pictures that are lovely in the care with which
they are finished. We should have to travel over Europe visiting the
galleries before we could have an idea of all that Rubens has done. Let
us look at some of the pictures in our National Gallery.
“The Abduction of the Sabine Women” (38). You know the story of how
Romulus, the founder of Rome, wanted wives for his soldiers and resolved
to get them by stratagem. So he appointed a day for a splendid
sacrifice. Thither came the neighbouring Sabines with their wives and
daughters, and, at a given signal by Romulus, the Romans with a shout
rushed on the daughters of the Sabines and carried them off. The moment
chosen is when the signal is given and the throng of men and women are
fighting and struggling together. Rubens’ women are not Roman, but
Flemish women dressed in the costume of the seventeenth century. It is a
rough scene, instinct with vitality, the occasion for superb colour, for
wonderful drawing. It is a gay and brilliant rendering of a barbaric
episode. Then if we turn to “The Judgment of Paris” (194) we see a
landscape flooded with afternoon sunlight. Three women are standing,
three goddesses—Venus, Minerva, and Juno. They are contending for the
apple that Discord has offered to the most beautiful. Paris, the son of
Priam, who is feeding his flocks, is to be the judge. By his side is
Mercury. Paris is about to hold out the apple to Venus, a fair-haired
opulently formed woman. Under a tree stands Minerva, an owl seated on a
branch above. To the right of Venus is the stately Juno with the peacock
at her feet. The subject is a legend of Greek mythology, but Rubens has
treated it most realistically. The women are three Flemish women and are
no goddesses of Greece. The landscape is very beautiful, full of
sunshine, and fresh with an open-air feeling. It is Venetian in its
golden hue, in its unclouded brightness.
I wish I could show you some children painted by Rubens—mischievous,
animated little creatures, instinct with life from the tips of their
toes to the crown of their curly heads, but I have time only to cast a
rapid glance at a portrait, “Le Chapeau de Paille” (852). This portrait
is a wonder of painting. It is that of Rubens’ sister-in-law, Susanne
Fourment. Her hands are crossed; she looks out of the canvas with an
alluring expression. A transparent shadow is cast by her hat over the
upper part of her face. Rubens had been twice married. He was happy in
each union, but he was most happy in the second. His wife, the beautiful
Helena, was his ideal type of beauty. He was constantly painting her,
and her portrait is to be found in many galleries. This incomparable
painter died aged sixty-four, possessed of immense wealth.
Van Dyck (1599–1641) was born at Antwerp; he was the son of a simple
tradesman. When he was little more than ten years of age he became the
pupil of Hendrik van Balen. His real teacher, however, was Rubens, with
whom he lived four years. By this master’s advice he visited Italy in
1623, staying at Venice and Rome; his longest sojourn was at Genoa. He
then returned to Antwerp, and his fame spread as a portraitist. The
wealthy and titled flocked to be painted by him.
He twice visited England, in 1620 and 1627, and finally he settled there
in 1632 in the service of Charles I. The English king delighted to do
honour to Van Dyck’s genius. He gave him a pension of £200 a year,
knighted him, and appointed him court painter. The lords and ladies
followed the royal example, and Van Dyck painted the whole society of
the time. Himself, a cavalier in sympathy, he was the painter of
cavaliers. We know these gallant men with their long ringlets, their
heavy plumed hats, their wonderful silken coats. We know the sweet and
remote court ladies with their slender white hands and their air of
unconscious god-like superiority.
Van Dyck was devoted to the King. Let us look at the equestrian portrait
of Charles I. (1172), one of the finest equestrian portraits ever
painted. The artist is a courtier and his king is his ideal. Charles I.
is riding past on a dun-coloured horse, carrying a marshal’s baton,
dressed in armour; his refined melancholy countenance is very abstracted
in expression. The nobility of his carriage, the elegance of his figure,
the sadness and beauty of his face make us understand the spell he has
cast over the nation. He is gazing in front of him, seeing nothing
around him. We know that he is riding to his death. We forget his
faults; we only remember his kingly grace and his unhappy fate.
[Illustration:
“HEAD OF CHARLES I” (FROM 1172)
BY SIR ANTHONY VAN DYCK
page 134
]
A portrait of less alluring charm but of splendid quality is that of
Gevartius, now called the portrait of Cornelius van der Geest (52). It
is the magnificent rendering of a grave and noble countenance. Van Dyck
considered it one of his finest works; he would carry it about with him
as a specimen of what he could do. Our Gallery does not possess any
portrait of the fair women and distinguished children in which he used
to excel.
Van Dyck lived in great style. He was always magnificently dressed. He
was the adored portrait painter of an age whose romance he has
preserved, whose men and women he has endowed with immortal youth, round
the head of whose ill-fated king he has placed a halo. The misfortunes
gathering round the sovereign and the royal family weighed upon the
painter. He spent two years travelling with his young wife, the
granddaughter of Lord Ruthven, but the depression gained upon him.
Illness overtook him and he died at the age of forty-two.
One more great painter of the Flemish school remains to be noticed—David
Teniers. He flourished between 1610 and 1690, and he was the first genre
painter of Belgium. He was very prolific. “To contain all my works,” he
would say in his pleasant voice, “would take a gallery two leagues
long.” He painted every detail. A famous French painter used to say,
“Show me a pipe and I will tell you if the smoker is by Teniers or not.”
He became rich and celebrated, and entertained the most select society
of the Netherlands in his castle of Trois Tours at Perck, between
Antwerp and Malines. His wife was Velvet Brughel, the ward of Rubens. He
loved to represent feasts, village dances, the interior of country inns,
laboratories, shops, and kitchens, and he represented all with spirit
and gaiety. “A Music Party” (154) shows us his charming genius. He also
painted with heart-breaking sadness the horrors of war. We find his
pictures everywhere—in Russia, in Spain, in his native country, in
Italy, in France, and here in England.
“A Game of Backgammon” (242) is very characteristic of Teniers. Look at
the eager attitude of the old man bending forward to watch the throw of
the dice as the others look on. There is a pot of beer beautifully
painted by the side of the bench, and, in the background, we see mine
host warming his back at the fire and talking. He has turned to look at
one of the rustics, who evidently has drunk too much and is falling
asleep. Every detail is painted with Teniers’ brilliant touch. Its ease,
its force, its gaiety is quite unparalleled. These pictures represent
the joy of life. There is no religion in Teniers’ inspiration, there may
be no idealism. They show the jollity of existence without care, with no
thought for the morrow.
Mr. Ruskin has called Teniers the painter of the pot-house; this seems
too severe a definition of the man who had such rare artistic qualities.
He arranged his groups so picturesquely, he had such exquisite harmony
of colouring, so much sparkle in his touch. The charm and value of his
pictures lie in their sincerity. We feel as we look at them that he saw
what he painted. His boors, his soldiers, his plain folk are all alive.
He did not strive much for the ideal. His people as a rule are not very
pleasant to look at, but the beauty of his execution cannot be
overlooked. “The Village Fête” (952) is remarkable for its colouring,
its arrangement, for the spirit and gaiety of the painting. There are
several pictures by Teniers in the National Gallery. You must look at
them all and look at his landscapes, for they are silvery in tone and
full of a delicate feeling for nature.
CHAPTER XXIII
DUTCH ART—ITS RISING AND ITS SETTING SUN
“How fair a lot to fill
Is left to each man still.”
Van Dyck’s contemporary in Holland was Frans Hals of Haarlem, born about
1581, died 1666. With this painter begins the century of great art in
Holland, a century that closed suddenly and completely with the death of
Rembrandt. It was the Renaissance of Holland, the time immediately
following her liberation from the shackles of Spain. She feared no more
the terrors of the Inquisition, she shook herself free from Catholicism,
and in her new-found liberty she opened wide her doors and became an
asylum for the boldest thinkers. She founded a national school of
painting. All the great painters of the Dutch school flourished between
1584 and 1683, the year of the birth of Van Huysen. Frans Hals, whose
portraits have the look of arrested life, began the school. Rembrandt,
the magician, whose wand was light, closed it.
Frans Hals was the merriest, the most clearsighted of all the Dutch
portrait painters. The stroke of his brush was swift and sure, his
colour was brilliant; he moulded his faces in light. He is very poorly
represented in our National Gallery; there are but two heads by him—the
“Portrait of a Woman” (1021), which is not at all characteristic of his
free, jovial, and vigorous method, and “Portrait of a Man” (1251). I
want you to look at this portrait. The original is a man of about forty
years of age. He wears a simple satin doublet and an ample ruffle round
his neck; his face is kindly, scrutinising, slightly amused. It is a
strong, thoughtful countenance, full of good sense and of life. In all
Hals’ portraits you will see the same animation, the same splendid
spontaneity. None of his people seem to be posing for a likeness.
Frans Hals was the rising sun, Rembrandt the setting of the new era.
Many are the painters grouped about these two supreme artists. I shall
first speak to you of Rembrandt van Rhyn, thus called because he was
born on the banks of the Rhine, the poet painter of light and shade.
Born at Leyden in 1606, he was the son of a miller. He was never
book-learned: he possessed a Bible, Josephus (the great historian of the
Jews), and Albert Dürer’s book on proportion. In later life eight more
volumes were added to his collection. You see he did not read much, but
he studied life at first hand; he observed everything, and, most of all,
he observed the play of light and shade in the dusky corners of his
father’s mill. He was a pupil of Lastman, a man of importance, but in
truth he learned of no man; he taught himself everything. He simply
worked patiently and passionately from morning to night. He had his
models at hand—his father, his mother above all, whom he was always
painting or drawing at work, at rest; every wrinkle of her face, every
expression of her wise and patient eyes grew familiar to him. There was
his sister Lizbeth; above all there was himself. Rembrandt’s self
portraits are extraordinarily numerous. We see him in youth when his
face was still unlined, in his triumphant manhood when he surmounted
every obstacle, in his weary old age after he had experienced
disappointment and sorrow. These self portraits are the record of his
life. He studied humanity first by studying himself.
In our National Gallery we possess Rembrandt (672) in the flower of his
life, aged thirty-two, a calm and purposeful man. He is dressed in rich
velvet and heavy fur. We have Rembrandt aged sixty-three (221). Years
and suffering have lined his face, tears have furrowed his cheeks and
dimmed his troubled eyes. A whole lifetime lies between these two
portraits—between Rembrandt in the prime of his years and Rembrandt old
and sorrowful. The tragedy of grief and disappointment, of desperate
straits was enacted. Rembrandt was undone by his love of collecting. He
loved beautiful things not wisely but too well—gems, armour, rich
brocades, pictures, etchings, carved furniture; he was always buying
them. So long as his wife, his beloved Saskia lived, he would purchase
jewels and rare stuffs with which to deck her. She died, and, in his
wretchedness and loneliness, he devoted himself more than ever to his
art, and bought these things the loveliness of which entranced him, and
the collecting of which was ultimately to prove his ruin. He has been
called miserly; far from that he was extravagant. He had the artist’s
passion for beauty and he could not control his bent.
It is by his treatment of light and shade that Rembrandt gained
immortality. It was a peculiar and personal treatment. He sought after
effects that are beyond the range of colour to give, and which he strove
to express by his management of light. In the British Museum you will
find many marvellous etchings signed by him, and you must look at them
all, seeking for that strong and subtle power of working in light and
its attendant shade. There is one of “The Last Supper at Emmaus.” Christ
has broken the bread and given the wine to His two disciples, who still
do not recognise Him, and as they look He vanishes; a great light alone
tells where He has been.
In “The Adoration of the Shepherds” (47) you will see what I mean by
Rembrandt’s personal treatment. The scene is a dark stable, and all the
illumination comes from the light emanating from the Child. That
glorious light quenches all others; a lantern held by one of the
shepherds sends but a feeble ray, the kneeling figure in the foreground
is in deep shadow. In Rembrandt’s portraits he makes light and shade
play a transfigurating part. There are several portraits in the National
Gallery besides those I have mentioned (51, 166, 190, 237, 243, 775,
850, 1674, and 1675). His portraits of old ladies are peculiarly
touching. He had a great sympathy for age for his mother’s sake, all its
wrinkles are dear to him, pathetic eyes tell him a tale of wise prudence
and tenderness. He died in poverty and loneliness in 1669.
CHAPTER XXIV
DUTCH SCHOOL (_Continued_)
“Jack and Joan they think no ill,
But loving live, and merry still;
Do their week days’ work and pray
Devoutly on the holy day.”
Rembrandt’s influence was largely felt, and it was owing to him that the
Dutch school became renowned for its striking and poetic treatment of
light. It redeemed the commonplace; it touched with something of the
ideal the household pots and pans; the implements and contents of the
larder—all the trifles that make up still life.
A group of painters, all more or less illustrious, gathered round
Rembrandt and his great precursor Frans Hals. Portraits, pictures filled
with the atmosphere of home life, marine scenes and landscapes depicting
the beauties of their beloved country, such are the themes chosen by
these painters.
Pieter de Hoogh (1630–1678) flooded his pictures with golden sunshine.
He is the painter of pure light, and light gives the idealising touch.
There are three pictures in the National Gallery by him, two of Dutch
courtyards (794 and 835) and one (834) the interior of a Dutch house.
These pictures are festivals of gem-like colour. All the home-loving
life of Holland is in them. We see the zealous haus-frau standing in the
courtyard waiting for her husband’s return, we see him returning pushing
open the garden gate. The interior of the Dutch house shows a
tessellated floor all brilliant with light and shadow. It is a picture
of well-to-do comfort. There is no spiritual ideality, but there is
honest and beautiful workmanship and familiar delight.
I can only tell you of some of the artists that formed the group. There
is Gabriel Metzu (1630–1667), remarkable for the harmony of his colour.
His pictures are often of music (838–839), suggesting pleasant memories
in which music entered.
Van der Neer (1603–1677), the poet of night, is represented by several
pictures, the most charming being (239). He painted moonlight
romantically.
Nicholas Maas, pupil of Rembrandt (1632–1693), draws his figures most
finely and spiritedly. Of the pictures by him in the Gallery “Card
Players” (1247) is the most characteristic of his manner. See how the
young girl’s fingers are hovering over the cards she holds, hesitating
which to play, and her partner is waiting for her decision, looking out
of the canvas with an amused expression. (207) and (159) are also
excellent. Maas is a fine example of observation of ordinary life and a
noble sense of colour.
Adrian van Ostade (1610–1685) was a pupil of Frans Hals. He is the
painter of peasant life and rustic revels, the painter also of the
necromancer’s life. See the alchemist (846), a strong picture, showing
the destitution of the man who is devoted to his quest for gold. His
brother Isaac (1621–1649) is the painter of winter, of frozen canals and
skating (963).
Bartholemew Van der Helst (1611–1670) was a portrait painter of most
remarkable gifts; indeed we may say that he never attempted anything but
portraits, for his great historical pictures in the museum of Amsterdam
are simply a number of portraits in one frame. Sir Joshua Reynolds said
of the picture at Amsterdam, “A Company of Civil Guards,” that it is
“perhaps the finest picture of portraits in the world.” Here is a
portrait of a young lady (1348), which is a specimen of his art. It is a
realistic portrait; look at the expression in the dark grey eyes, at the
beautiful painting of the hands, at the representation of the gold
embroidery, of the fine lace collar and cuffs, at the lustre of pearls
and jewels. There is nothing, however, of Rembrandt’s concentration of
light and of deep gloom in Van der Helst’s works.
Molenaer, the two Mieris, Netscher, all belong to the group of painters
flourishing between Frans Hals and Rembrandt.
Gerard Dou (1613–1675) was a direct pupil of Rembrandt; his work is
quite microscopic. “The Poulterer’s Shop” (825) is a marvel of high
finish and breadth of execution. The shopwoman is holding up a pair of
birds for the inspection of a customer; on the window sill is game of
every description; every feather of the birds, every hair of the
animals’ hides are exquisitely depicted. In (192) and (968) we have the
portraits of this extraordinarily clever artist and his wife. The
portraits are finely individualised; they are full of life and of
expression.
Then there is Jan Steen (about 1626–1679), the wittiest, most jovial of
artists. The painter of tavern scenes, himself a brewer, who joined the
profession of painter and publican; he was the least spiritual of
artists. We see his rollicking rustics in every gallery—boors drinking,
making love, clumsily dancing, sometimes fighting. With his observant
eye he beheld many brawls, many discordant scenes, many joyful revels,
and he painted them as he alone could paint. He had a great gaiety of
brush. He has left a fine portrait of himself; it is that of a gentle,
serious face, the very last we would associate with his genius and with
his life. In the National Gallery is “The Music Master” (856), for often
Jan Steen chose scenes of life from the wealthier classes; and the
magnificence of the painting of this little picture is very remarkable.
We now come to Terborgh (1617–1681). Let us look at his remarkable
historical picture, “The Peace of Münster” (896), a peace that put an
end to the terrible Thirty Years’ War and proclaimed the independence of
the Dutch united provinces in 1648. This picture is one of the gems of
our national collection, every face therein is portrayed so strongly and
is so well individualised. We seem to know the character, the very
temperament of its owner. The delegate, in a red cloak, reads the
clauses of the treaty, and the listeners are holding up their hands in
sign of approval. The wonderful distribution of the light over all these
faces, the dark gloom of the black draperies give a unity to the picture
scene. Terborgh introduces his own portrait amongst those of the crowd;
it is the third on the left behind the man whose hand is on the back of
a chair. It is a scene of supreme interest. Terborgh himself was present
at the great discussion, and he painted it at Münster during the
congress. All the heads are portraits. During his lifetime Terborgh
would not part from it.
There is a story of dramatic interest attached to this picture. It
belonged to Prince Demidoff. When the prince died his pictures were put
up for sale, and the Marquis of Hertford became the possessor of “The
Peace of Münster.” Lord Londonderry had tried to get it for England; he
had offered eight thousand pounds, and he could do no more. In due time
the Marquis of Hertford died, and Sir Richard Wallace inherited his
gallery.
One day the keeper of the National Gallery was told that a gentleman
wished to see him. It was a busy morning; however, on the promise that
the interview would last but a few moments, a stranger bearing a parcel
was admitted. He began to explain the object of his visit, but the
official cut him short, bidding him leave the picture behind and he
would hear tidings of it within a week. For all answer the stranger
began to undo the straps round the parcel; the official tied them up
again, impatiently repeating what he had just said. Then the visitor
said: “My name is Sir Richard Wallace, and this is the ‘Peace of
Münster’ by Terborgh. I wish to present it to the National Gallery.”
You can well believe how the keeper was thunderstruck.
Terborgh excelled in another class of pictures, of which “The Guitar
Lesson” (864) is an example. It shows how music was part of the home
life in that northern country, and it displays the master’s certain and
delicate touch.
In marine painting we have Van de Velde, the younger, who was born in
1633 and died in 1707. He has been called the most famous marine painter
of Holland. He lived for a large part of his life at Greenwich in the
service of Charles II. and of James II.; they granted him and his father
a pension of £100 per annum. His father was an eminent draughtsman, whom
the English king paid to make drawings of sea-fights, and he paid the
son to put these draughts into colours. Both artists were specially
commissioned by the East India Company to paint several of their ships.
It was in Holland that marine painting first played an important part.
The sea was the glory and the menace of this low lying country. We
prefer Van de Velde’s calm seas where the boats are at anchor to his
boisterous ones. The “Calm at Sea” (874) is painted like a miniature;
the transparent light, the delicacy of the tone I want you to notice.
We will now pass on to Bakhuizen (1631–1708), the painter of wrecks and
storms. The artist is said to have often exposed his life for the sake
of studying the effects of cloud and wind. We have five of his pictures;
they are hard and they lack transparency of colour, but they are full of
movement. Bakhuizen was very much patronised by sovereigns. It is good
to study them, for they show the state of marine painting in Holland.
Peter the Great frequently visited his studio and even took lessons from
him. “Dutch Shipping” (223) is a good example of his work.
Then there are the landscapes of the Dutch school. The Dutch set
themselves to reproduce the physical features of their country with love
and great technical skill. We meet constantly avenues of poplars, wide
plains, sluggish canals. Albert Cuyp (1620–1691) was before all things
the painter of light. We, in England, call him the Dutch Claude. His
golden skies over a misty land, or over calm waters, are delightful to
contemplate. Whether Cuyp paints a river scene where ships are leisurely
sailing, as in (823), or whether, as in (53), he paints a landscape with
cattle and figures, he is always individual. These pictures are all gold
and silver haze. In (53) a rider in a coat of brilliant vermilion,
somewhat out of keeping with the tone of the landscape, mounted on a
horse of dapple grey, is talking to a pretty shepherdess guarding her
flocks. It is an idyllic scene. The light, the sky, the misty haze are
tender and suggestive. Ruskin says hard things of Cuyp, but he also
tells us that Turner owed much to him. He loved the mellow light of
evening rather than the garish light of early afternoon, and almost all
his pictures in the National Gallery are harmonies in gold.
Paul Potter is a painter of cattle first and of landscape merely as a
background. What a painter and what a worker was Paul Potter (1625–1654)
during his twenty-nine years of life. He was born at Amsterdam, and he
was an accomplished artist at fifteen years of age. He died, some say of
consumption, others of over-work. I can’t tell you much about him, for
my limit is coming to an end. His aim was truth; he thought of nothing
but representing faithfully what he saw. He was a painter of the dear
dumb animals. We see them in his pictures standing knee deep in the
flowery fields, generally in the spring time. We possess but two
pictures by him. “Landscape with Cattle” (849) brings all nature to us,
and “An Old Grey Hunter” (1009), a portrait of a horse, a fine example
of his style. His “Young Bull” at Amsterdam is a marvel of life; it is a
huge picture; the bull is life-sized.
And now we come to one who might be called the king of landscape
painters—Jacob Ruysdael (1628–1682). The son of a picture dealer, he
quitted medicine for art and he never married. At heart a solitary, he
sought the silence, the mystery of nature. He painted storms as they
have never been painted. There is the picture of one at the Louvre which
a great French critic calls the “prodigy of the Louvre.” The sense of a
turbulent influence seemed to possess him, and he would render the
sadness of many effects. He was inspired by solitude, by the roar of
falling water, by the jagged rocks. Woods of pines and beeches were his
favourite haunts, torrents and waterfalls his favourite subjects. In “A
Landscape with Waterfall” (627) (and there are three pictures (628 and
737) that bear that title), we seem to hear the dash of the spray among
the rocks and to see the brilliancy of the white clouds against the dark
trees. So dearly were trees associated with the life of this unmarried
man that he would often paint the portrait of a single tree. In “An Old
Oak” (988) and “The Broken Tree” (991) we have pathetic examples of this
love of the leafy monarchs. He painted many northern scenes from
sketches made in Norway by a friend. He died in 1682 in an almshouse
close to where Rembrandt had lived.
Meindert Hobbema (1638–1709) is Ruysdael’s only rival, and he was his
pupil and friend. But Hobbema loved the blithe side of nature. His trees
glitter in the sunshine, his skies are wind swept, and in them great
white clouds gather. “The Avenue, Middelharnis, Holland” (830) remains
in our memory. It is so imbued with the sense of homeliness, which is
the endearing charm of these Dutch pictures. We feel that Hobbema must
often have walked down that long avenue under those tall lopped trees,
that he must often have looked at the ditches on either side dividing
the neat plantations trim as a lawn, from the road, and seen the nursery
garden on the left in which the gardener is at work. The road leads to
the village, and we like to think of Hobbema frequenting the village
church peeping from the trees to the left; those red-roofed cottages we
feel were familiar to him. The beautiful white clouds of fantastic
shapes congregating above are very characteristic of his love of summer
skies. Other pictures by the same artist are in the Gallery. He was not
appreciated by his country folk, and he died in great poverty in the
street where Rembrandt had died just as poor four years before.
[Illustration:
“THE AVENUE: MIDDELHARNIS, HOLLAND” (830)
BY MINDERT HOBBEMA
page 150
]
We must not forget the golden landscapes of Jan and Andrea Both
(1610–1652). The brothers were models of fraternal affection: they
travelled together, worked together, and I was about to say they died
together, for Jan died of grief when Andrea was drowned in one of the
canals of Venice. Andrea was a good painter, yet he cared only to paint
the figures in Jan’s landscapes. These landscapes are charming, but
there is something artificial about them in their glowing skies, their
feathery trees. The brothers Both were among those who italianised the
Dutch landscape. To look at one of their pictures is to look at all.
“Landscape: a Party of Muleteers with Laden Mules: Morning” (71), with
its mountain scenery, its rocky foreground, with the lake in the middle
distance and blue mountains beyond, is very like “An Italian Landscape”
(1917), where there are groups of trees with distant mountains seen in a
glowing sunset, where peasants on horseback and two men are grouped by
the roadside in charge of some goats, and two craggy cliffs close in the
picture and the landscape beyond.
Jan Wynants (about 1620–1679) was the first of the school of real Dutch
landscape painters. He sought his inspiration from Holland and Holland
alone. He is the very reverse of Ruysdael; he has no sympathy for gloom
or solitude, he cares only for sunshiny scenes, for sandbanks that glow
in the light of summer skies, or for the wooded borders of the great
forest. Look at the two “Landscapes with Figures” (884, 971). They are
excellent examples of Wynants’ art. There are other landscapes by him in
the National Gallery, and in almost all you will see a sand-hill or a
sandy road gleaming golden. The figures in his landscapes were put in by
other artists. It often happens in Dutch pictures that the landscapes
are by one artist and the figures by another. Andrian Van De Velde was
probably Wynants’ assistant.
Wouwerman (1619–1668), “of the White Horse,” as he is called, for in
almost all his pictures a white horse is the central object that
focusses the light. He was a very prolific painter; his pictures are
full of movement, and his figures and animals are skilfully drawn, and
yet they do not move us. We remain cold before scenes that should harrow
us. It is all too orderly, too smooth, too neat. We cannot imagine “A
Battle, Cavalry and Infantry” (976) conducted on so orderly a pattern.
Sir Peter Lely (1618–1680) was a native of Holland; he settled in
England in 1641. He came in the suite of William of Orange, son-in-law
of King Charles I. It was the year after Van Dyck’s death; upon this
master Lely modelled his style. He began by painting Cromwell, who
commanded him to paint warts and all. Then when Charles II. succeeded as
king, he became a royal favourite. He painted all the frail beauties of
the court. You will see them all at Hampton Court. It was a lucrative
business. “Lely is a mighty proud man,” says Pepys. As he was painting
the Duchess of Somerset in 1680 he was struck down with apoplexy. A
portrait (1016) of a girl feeding her parrot with cherries is the single
specimen here of Sir Peter Lely’s work. It is somewhat artificial, and
yet there is in it a decided sense of beauty.
We must not forget Van Huysum (1682–1769), the painter of flowers, of
birds’ nests with eggs in them. Look at “A Vase with Flowers” (796 and
1001). They are full of charm and grace. Then there are two painters of
still life, Jan Weenix (1621–1661) and his son (1640–1719). They painted
with great spirit hares, pheasants, wonderful fruit, vegetables, and the
imitation is so perfect that in their pictures “life,” it was said,
“seemed restored to the dead creatures.”
Snyders (1579–1652) was a friend of Rubens and a native of Antwerp. His
parents were the proprietors of a large eating-house, and Snyders had
plenty of opportunity of seeing dead game, fish, fruit, and vegetables,
and he enhanced the brilliancy of his groups by introducing some
gorgeously plumed parrot or bird. See his fine picture, “A Fruit Piece”
(1252). Rubens often helped him, and Snyders groups are very valuable
now.
I have told you enough I think of these Dutch painters. There are many
other things, but I must hurry on to other schools. I want you to
remember always that light and shade are the magic of the Dutch, that
with them they wrought superb and glowing effects. The love of the Dutch
for their Holland inspired their art; all the simple ideals of life were
dwelt upon by them with special love. It is this affection for home, for
the skies and roads of their native land, for the plain and humble
people who were their kinsfolk, for their delight in music, in the
amusements—often the boisterous ones of daily life—that are expressed in
their art and make it so interesting to us. We feel that nothing is
really common to these Dutch painters, that observation and sympathy
touch all things and lift their representation to the rank of high art.
CHAPTER XXV
THE GERMAN SCHOOL
“Here, where art was still religion,
With a simple, reverent heart,
Lived and laboured Albrecht Dürer,
The evangelist of art.”
Two supreme masters cast a glory over the German school—Albert Dürer and
Holbein. Dürer is a far more typical German than is Holbein. He was very
much impressed with the Lutheran teaching, and pure and high ideals
moulded his art and moulded his character. Holbein was a complete
contrast to him. He was not prone to theories; he was not steeped in
speculation; he did not dream as did Dürer of mysteries in heaven and
earth; he had no passion, but he was full of joyous fancies. A less
powerful personality than Dürer, Holbein was a far superior painter.
From the unfathomable mind of Dürer came strong thoughts. He has
expressed them in his art, especially in his wood engravings. One is a
knight riding out, pressing onwards, looking neither to the right nor to
the left, surrounded by the foul fiend and the terrors of death. His
cheek does not blanch, his eyes do not wander, he keeps gazing straight
before him. Another is Melancholia—a strange woman pondering over the
secrets of life and death. These two woodcuts express all Dürer’s soul.
Of Dürer we know something from his own journal. He lets us into his
life. We know that his father was a goldsmith, that he was born at
Nuremburg (1471), and that his master was Michel Wolgemut, an artist who
is unrepresented in the National Gallery. Dürer was the intimate friend
of the fiery Luther, the gentle Melancton, the learned Erasmus.
Melancton said of him, “The least of his graces was that he was a
painter.” Dürer told Melancton towards the end of his days that nature
had not unfolded herself to him when young, that he had only learned the
charm of simplicity too late, and that he mourned over his early
pictures.
Dürer was realistic in form, but he was ideal in thought. We have one
portrait by him in our National Gallery—that of his father (1938); it
was painted when Dürer was twenty-six years of age in 1497. It is most
animated in conception, light and spirited in execution. The old face is
seamed with wrinkles; the curly hair, which is scarcely grizzled, falls
from under a black cap. He looks forth seriously with patient anxiety on
his brow. It is an excellent portrait, painted with love.
Dürer lived in Nuremburg, and in that city of dreams we still see the
gabled house in which he toiled. I hope that you will see it yourselves
and that you will think of the steadfast and earnest painter at his
work. Of Dürer, his friend, the painter Birkheimer, said, that he
“united every virtue in his soul, genius, uprightness, purity, energy
and prudence, gentleness and piety.”
Germany was miserably poor, and Dürer, to live, had to devote himself to
wood-engraving. Venice offered him two hundred ducats a year if he would
settle in her midst, but he would not leave his beloved country. His
death occurred on the 5th April 1528. He left many treatises behind him,
including one on “proportion.”
Lucas Cranach, his contemporary (1472–1553), had much of Dürer’s genius.
He was a great friend of Luther, whose rugged face he painted often; and
it is said that he brought about the marriage of the stern reformer with
the nun Catherina Bora. “Portrait of a Young Lady” (291) is a very good
specimen of his portrait painting; the tone of colour is warm and
luminous, and the head is altogether pleasantly conceived.
Now let us pass to the artist who is the glory of the school of
Augsburg, Hans Holbein the younger (1497–1543), son of a painter of
eminence. Surrounded from his childhood by artistic influences, Hans
Holbein soon became the king of portrait painters; yet it was not only
as a portrait painter that he excelled but in all branches of art. Let
us remember the beautiful Madonna at Darmstadt. This gracious and lovely
woman with her golden crown is a true Protestant Madonna. She has laid
aside her halo and shines forth in her perfect womanhood. Holbein, above
all things, represented men and women as they were, painting what was
noblest in them, their souls and their intellect. He came over to
England bearing a letter of introduction from Erasmus to Sir Thomas
More, to whom he brought a portrait of the great theologian which was
more like Erasmus than the one done by Albert Dürer. The friendship of
the great Chancellor kept Holbein in England, and we may often think of
him at More’s house by the river, wandering in the beautiful garden. He
painted the portrait of More’s wife, of More’s beloved daughter,
Margaret Roper, and of the other children. We know that Holbein sent a
drawing of More’s family to Erasmus, for there is a letter still extant
thanking him for the gift.
At Hampton Court there are twenty-seven portraits by Holbein, and they
resume his whole life. At first we find him the cold, correct
draughtsman, then by degrees his manner becomes softer, his colouring
more transparent and brilliant. He painted the picture of “The
Ambassadors” (1314) in 1533. It was at first thought that Sir Thomas
Wyatt, the most accomplished gentleman of the time in England, was the
original of the figure wearing the order of St. Michael. But now we know
that the portrait is of Jean de Dinteville, who was ambassador from
France to England in 1533, and that the other portrait is of George de
Selve, his friend, Bishop of Lavaur. Holbein’s insight into character,
the force united with delicacy of his colouring, the certainty of his
line carved as by a chisel have made this portrait-group one of the
wonders of the art-world. You must study it yourselves and get to know
the meaning of all its marvellous detail—the varied mathematical
implements, the globe, the compasses, the wind instruments, everything
expressing the calling and the tastes of the two men.
Henry VIII. had the greatest admiration for Holbein. “I can make a lord
of any one,” he used to say, “but I cannot make a Holbein.” It was one
of the painter’s duties to take the portraits of the ladies the King
proposed to wed. We know with what disastrous results he had painted
Anne of Cleves, making, as Henry VIII. said, “A Venus of her who was
nothing but a Dutch frau.” The widowed Duchess of Milan, daughter of
Christian II. of Denmark, and niece of the Emperor Charles V., was very
much admired by the King, and he sent Holbein to paint her portrait. It
is here lent by the Duke of Norfolk. Look at her as she stands in her
black student’s gown and cap, with her pretty hands, wearing a big
cornelian ring, crossed in front of her. How piquant she looks! She is
only sixteen years of age and she is a widow already. She gave a sitting
of three hours only to Holbein, but refused to give more. We seem to see
the big dimple in her cheek as she sends a message to Bluebeard. Some
doubt that she ever did send it, but I feel certain that she did; as I
look at her animated face, her bright eyes, I seem to hear her say,
“Tell his Majesty of England that if I had two heads I would willingly
put one at his disposal; having one only I prefer to keep it for
myself.”
“The Duchess of Milan” is lent to the National Gallery, and so you had
better go and look at the portrait and feel the centuries roll away as
you gaze at the speaking countenance.
I cannot tell you more of Holbein. He died of the plague, aged
fifty-four, an unparalleled genius. After his death Germany was so
distraught with the horrors and miseries of the Thirty Years’ War that
she could no longer encourage art, and art died away.
CHAPTER XXVI
FRENCH SCHOOL
“Art is the child of Nature; yes.
Her darling child in whom we trace
The features of the mother’s face,
Her aspect and her attitude.
All her majestic loveliness
Chastened and softened and subdued
Into a more attractive grace,
And with a human sense imbued.”
We now come to the French school. Art is so woven into French life, and
it is so much part of the spirit of the nation that we cannot conceive
of France without art. In the days of Charlemagne architecture already
flourished, and in painting, modern art was born with the Clouets.
François Clouet (1510–1572) was the son, the grandson, the nephew of
painters. He had a native skill and delicacy of handling that came to
him by the grace of inheritance, and that gave him a singular mastery of
detail. It was in portraits that the Clouets excelled; and the two
portraits in our Gallery (660 and 1190), one a man’s portrait and the
other, a boy’s, are very good examples of François Clouet’s art. They
are masterpieces of observation and style. They might pass for the works
of some Flemish painter. The painstaking accuracy of their detail, the
illusive quality of their expression are peculiarly Northern, and we
must always remember that the Clouets were of Flemish descent. The heads
are detached against a sea-green background, a tint much affected by the
whole Clouet school.
Then let us pass to Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665), who has been called
“the painter of intellect.” His culture lifted him high above the
ordinary intellectual level of the public. Born in Normandy of a noble
family, he went to Paris when he was a lad of eighteen. A friend showed
him a collection of prints from Italy, and from that moment his soul was
fired with the longing to go to Rome. He steeped himself in the
classics. “He understood the ancients so well,” says Sir Joshua
Reynolds, “that he acquired the habit of thinking their way.” At last he
set forth and he reached Lyons, where the poet Marino employed him and
finally took him to Rome. Nicolas Poussin continued to live there till
his death, with the exception of a few years; these he spent in Paris in
the service of Louis XIII. The King appointed him his “Painter in
Ordinary.” After three years, disgusted with the intrigues and
jealousies of the gay capital, he rejoined his wife, returning to the
city of his dreams. There he continued to reside for the rest of his
life. He died in 1665.
Nicolas Poussin adored books; he loved to look at sculpture. His
knowledge and his feeling for Greek mythology surpassed those of every
other painter. In his landscapes there is a dignified reserve; indeed
reserve in landscape painting is too much the note of his art. In
“Cephalus and Aurora” (65) the Greek mythology inspires every incident
of the picture. A little Cupid is holding up before Cephalus the
portrait of his wife Procris, and the hunter is trying to disengage
himself from the embrace of Aurora. Behind is the white-winged Pegasus,
beside him a river god sleeps, Apollo’s horses melt into the shapes of
the clouds. This love of classic learning is at once the strength and
the weakness of Nicolas Poussin’s art. In his two Bacchanalian Dances
(42 and 62), accounted among the best things he ever did, all the
ancient comedy is revived. The pictures are full of riotous frolic, full
of varied incident, and they reveal the ideal of the Greek philosopher,
Epicurus, that pleasure is the aim of life.
Nicolas Poussin adopted his wife’s brother, Gaspard Dughet (1613–1675),
who took the name of Poussin and became his pupil. There is a sense of
infinity in Gaspard Poussin’s pictures. In “The Sacrifice of Isaac” (31)
we feel the solemnity of the scene. The father is trudging up the hill
bearing a lighted torch, the son is carrying the wood for the sacrifice,
all nature is sombre; it seems to understand and to watch the tragedy of
the deed about to be enacted. In “The Calling of Abraham” (1159) we have
a magnificent study of sky, and it is Gaspard Poussin’s skies that I
want you to note. They give distinction to his pictures, they suggest
the Infinite. I think in all the pictures by him in the National Gallery
you will find that the skies are the keynote to the nobility of his
conception.
Very different from the learned Nicolas Poussin was Claude Gelée, known
as Claude Lorraine (1600–1682). He was very ignorant; he scarcely knew
how to read or how to sign his name, and yet what poems of light are his
pictures! The son of poor parents, he was born at Champagne, in the
department of the Vosges, in the year 1600. His parents apprenticed him
to a pastry cook, and the pastry cooks of Lorraine were very famous in
those days. When he had learned his trade he went to seek employment at
Rome, and there became the servant of a landscape painter. He was his
factotum, prepared his meals, ground his colours, and got from him his
first instruction in art. Before long he found himself his assistant,
for his master had been commissioned to adorn the palace of the popes.
We can imagine how the little pastry cook was happy at his work. Then he
returned to Nancy in Lorraine and apprenticed himself to a decorative
painter of some celebrity in order to learn figure painting.
Before two years were over Claude was back again in Italy, the land of
light, the country of enchantment, that had laid its spell upon him.
Sandrart, a German painter, tells us many details concerning him—how
Claude would be out in the open air before daybreak, stay there till
nightfall, learning to depict “with a scrupulous adherence to nature’s
model the changing faces of dawn, the rising and setting sun, as well as
the hours of twilight.” He spent many years in this mode of study;
sometimes, Sandrart says, he met him at Tivoli painting the well-known
waterfalls. His landscapes are of a golden world under a golden sky. It
is not for us to enter into controversy with Mr. Ruskin, who places
Turner so far above the Frenchman; but is there not place for both these
supreme painters in the world of art? Claude was a dreamer. His calm
skies glow with a glory seldom seen on sea or land; his great palaces
form the entrance of visionary seaports filled with visionary ships; his
waves, illumined by the fire of the sky, lead us away in imagination to
a fairy world. He has painted landscapes lit by the noon-day sun and by
the pearly light of morning, and all he paints declares the beauty of
light. His aerial perspective, which is perhaps his greatest charm,
lends a vast horizon to the scenes.
If Claude was not always true to actual nature, he was always true to
dream-nature. He is a great composer of landscape; his ideal pictures
may not be representations of what is, but of what might be; they are
the outcome of his memory and of his broodings. Goethe has said that
“Claude used his knowledge of the material world to express the world in
his own soul.” We have many pictures by him in the National Gallery.
There are the two pictures, “The Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca” (12) and
the “Queen of Sheba” (14). These are hung between two Turners, the “Sun
Rising in a Mist” (479) and “Dido Building Carthage” (498). It was the
express wish of the English painter that these pictures should be hung
together, to form his appeal beyond the tomb, challenging the world to
choose between the truth as he saw it and as Claude depicted it.
Claude’s two pictures have been greatly injured by restoration; still I
think that they are noble pictures, true to classical tradition.
Let us look at “A Seaport at Sunset” (5). It is a fine and
characteristic work with its Italian architecture, its ships lying at
anchor, and, in the middle distance, the declining sun nearly level with
the horizon. “Landscape with Figures” (19), representing the story of
Narcissus and Echo, is full of charm. It is radiant with pearly light,
and its foreground is occupied by a transparent, shadowy pool in which
Narcissus is admiring his own image. Mr. Ruskin finds great fault with
the drawing of the trees. “Seaport: the Embarkation of St. Ursula” (30)
is a picture full of delightful freshness. It is the early hour of the
day when Ursula, a Sicilian princess, is starting with her maidens on a
journey to the shrines of the saints before her marriage to a prince of
Britain. We think as we look at it of Claude’s early rambles, when he
studied nature at all hours of the day. I cannot speak to you more of
this great artist. He died in Rome in 1682, and he was buried at La
Trinita dei Monti. He was much appreciated a few generations ago. His
serenity, his wide distances, all imbued with the charm of light,
exercised a witchery over tired spirits.
CHAPTER XXVII
FRENCH ARTISTS OF THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES
“What men or gods are these? What maidens loath?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?”
After Claude Lorraine came the group of painters that represented the
eighteenth century. This strange century was a mingling of sentiment and
wit; life was a perpetual comedy of love, but the hearts of men and
women were as a rule untouched. It was all a charming drama. Everything
was most aptly said and demeanour was invariably courtly. Society alone
existed at the time. Antoine Watteau resumes the genius of that century.
It is a great miss in the National Gallery to have no picture by this
master, for he was the founder of the eighteenth-century art; he may be
said to have been its poet. His landscape is idealised; it was always
peopled by men and women, in silken attire, who were the embodiment of
cultured artificiality. Watteau died at thirty-seven, and already he
dominated all the art of that time; but his art, perfect as it was, had
in it the seeds of decay. We will not speak of Fragonard, another great
representative painter, because he too has no painting in the National
Gallery.
Boucher (1704–1770) has one picture; Lancret (1690–1743), Watteau’s
other pupil has four—“The Four Ages of Man.” The art of both Boucher and
Lancret was clever, graceful, and degraded in aim. Boucher earned a
large fortune, and was the favourite painter of the ignoble Madame de
Pompadour. Lancret fashioned himself on the art of Watteau, and followed
the advice of the master to “imitate nature.” Pleasure is the object of
life in Lancret’s philosophy, and you will see it illustrated in his
four pictures in the National Gallery (101, 102, 103, 104).
We must now look at Chardin’s two pictures. This painter stands for
sincerity in a period of artificiality. He was born in Paris on the 2nd
November, in the last year of the seventeenth century (1699–1779). His
father was an upholsterer, and he is the painter of the lower
middle-class. He seeks his inspiration in the humble world from which he
sprang, a world very far removed from that of the court and society. His
pictures contrast with those of Watteau and his followers. He is the
only wholesome painter of a time when life was insincere and its
pleasures far removed from the innocence of nature. He never looked for
inspiration away from his own rank. The life of the tradesman class, its
modest ambition, its fatigues, the order of its interiors, the joys of
family life, the duties of motherhood—these are his themes. He first
began by painting still-life, and he painted it always, but at first it
was his exclusive study. He did not give himself the trouble to compose
his groups. He threw on the canvas the objects he found to his hand, but
what splendours of colour, what marvels of light are his!
Sometimes it was a silver goblet surrounded by fruit, sometimes, as here
in (1258), it is a black bottle and a tumbler half filled with wine, a
knife placed on a bit of newspaper. “Oh! it is not colour alone that you
mix,” writes the critic Diderot to Chardin; “it is the very substance of
the objects; it is light and air that you render.” Then he began to
paint children, after that the mothers and women of the people. “La
Fontaine” (1664) is a dazzling little canvas, rich in broken tints. A
woman is turning the tap of a fountain. She is a healthy woman; we see
the blood coursing in her veins; the texture of her linen apron and of
her woollen skirt is rendered with extraordinary precision. All the
hundred details of the picture are Chardin’s own properties. The
fountain from which she is drawing water, the pots and pans, are all as
he saw them in his own kitchen. His painting lets nature into the
artificiality of the eighteenth century. He is a great painter of
still-life, a great painter of the quiet, lower middle-class. He was
received by the French Academy in 1728 as a painter of flowers and
fruit.
Looking at Greuze’s pictures (1725–1805), we can understand the
enthusiasm they aroused in Diderot, that remarkable man, who wrote
criticisms of art while he was attending to the interests of the French
nation. Diderot was sick of the immoralities about him; he hated Boucher
and Lancret; he was weary of mythology; and when Greuze came with his
homely pathos and his lovely girls, there was no limit to the enthusiasm
with which he hailed them. Now we can see Greuze’s pictures with cooler
judgment, and we see there is a certain consciousness in his
unconsciousness, and that his pretty girls are not altogether the simple
creatures he depicts. The “Head of a Girl” (206) and his other two
pictures, “Girl with an Apple” (1020)—a sad little head with wistful
eyes—and “Head of a Girl Looking Up” (1019) are full of girlish charm.
It was the time when Rousseau wrote, and Rousseau, as you will know
later, was a reformer who fought against the vices around him. He
preached the return to nature. He was one of the forces that brought on
the Revolution, and he, too, saw in Greuze’s pictures the glorification
of simplicity.
Greuze died in great poverty; he had squandered his money. The time of
the Revolution was over; another art than his was now the fashion. He
was far from the time in which Diderot had written, “Courage, my good
Greuze; introduce morality into painting.”
We come to Madame Vigée Le Brun (1755–1842), whose portrait of herself
in her twenty-seventh year (1653) is a wonderful work. The shadow cast
by her hat over her face is an imitation of that in Rubens’ “Chapeau de
Paille.” She was a great favourite of Marie Antoinette, whose portrait
she painted many times. It is difficult to imagine the terrors of the
Revolution eddying about this lovely woman. She left Paris in haste and
travelled, going from one great town to another always painting. The
eighteenth century had sounded its last stroke—the nineteenth had come.
Madame Le Brun spent many years in St. Petersburg away from her country.
The darkness of the Revolution had passed away, and the Empire, with its
pseudo-classic taste, was a reigning power not only over French society,
but over French art. David is the painter of the Empire.
We will pass over that time and come to the more modern period. Diaz de
la Pena (1809–1876) was born at Bordeaux, and, from his earliest years,
he studied nature. He was always out in the woods looking at the trees,
at their shadows cast on the ground, at the effect of the clouds, at the
rocks in the great forest of Fontainebleau. He would follow Rousseau,
the landscape painter, studying and painting the landscapes that
ultimately won him fame. “Sunny Days in the Forest” (2058) is a glade
near a shallow pool, where the trees are lit by the afternoon sun.
Here is a fine portrait group, by Fantin Latour, of Mr. and Mrs. Edwards
(1952). The artist is better known in England as a flower painter. He
was born in Grenoble on January 14, 1836, and he died two or three years
ago. This picture brings down the French school to the present time.
Have you ever seen, I wonder, Fantin Latour’s exquisite pictures of
roses and pansies, of gorgeous peonies and humble stocks? He was the
greatest flower painter of our day—greater perhaps than any flower
painter of any period. The illustrious artist Whistler, writing to
Fantin Latour, says of one of the Frenchman’s flower pieces, “The effect
is bewildering, and it seems to me you have discovered something new in
the boldness of your colouring.” Fantin loved flowers. “I have a garden
outside Paris,” he said, “and a tiny house in it, and there I get up at
four o’clock on a summer morning and paint the flowers as they wake.” He
painted flowers for England and portraits for France. This portrait
group of his friends, Mr. and Mrs. Edwards, is an exception to the rule.
Mr. Edwards had begun life as a lawyer; he retired from his profession
when he was thirty-eight, and cultivated painting and etching. In this
picture he is represented seated, his left hand on a portfolio,
examining an engraving, which he holds in his right hand. How finely
Fantin has seized the scrutinising expression of his sitter’s face. How
splendidly he has painted the grey hair and rendered the beard. Behind
him is Mrs. Edwards, standing with folded arms, dressed in black. It is
an interesting picture, a study of life itself.
I want you to look particularly at “The Marsh Arleux-du-Nord” (2135) not
so much because it is a fine example of the artist’s work, as because it
is the work of Corot—the dreamer—the poet Corot. He was a man to whom
the birds sang as he painted; the wind stirred the leaves about him, and
he transferred to the canvas all the emotions they called up. Corot
(1796–1875) was the son of parents in somewhat humble circumstances. His
father held a small post under government, his mother was a milliner.
When he was sixteen years of age he was apprenticed to a draper. He
served him for seven years, and at last the desire of his heart was
gratified, for all the time that he served his master his soul was
absorbed in the love of art. He left his employer, and wrung from his
father a grudging promise that he would not oppose his wish to become a
painter.
It was at the Ville d’Avray, a delicious spot near Paris, that Corot
mostly lived and mostly worked, but he made many excursions in Italy
especially, also in the South of France. At the beginning of his career
there was something conventional in his methods, but he soon after
reached his ideal, and this ideal was to study nature herself. I wish I
could quote to you some of his letters telling of his happy love of art,
of his humble spirit, ever seeking to learn from nature herself. He was
delightfully simple. The folk of the Ville d’Avray called him “_Le père
Corot_.” He would go about in a peasant’s blouse and paint out of doors,
setting his canvas, preparing his brushes, smiling to the birds as they
twittered around him, keeping his appointments with the dawn and with
the sunset. He always painted the effects of soft light, of the quiet
dusk; he never cared for the garish light of noon-day or for the
splendours of sunset. Look at his pictures; you will see how subdued
they are in tone, how light is the foliage of the trees. “It must be
light for the birds to fly through,” Corot would say. When you look at a
picture by Corot, a picture of broad, subdued masses of colour, you must
think of the simple artist happy at his work, happy in his love of
nature. When Corot lay on his death-bed, he had visions of exquisite
landscape; and, as he died, he moved his hands as if he were painting
still.
“The Horse Fair,” by Rosa Bonheur, which is now placed in the Tate
Gallery, but which is not to remain permanently there, is a magnificent
work, one full of energy. Rosa Bonheur differed very much in her
conception of animal life from that held by our painter Landseer. He
made his beasts the comrades of man, sympathising, understanding all his
moods. Rosa Bonheur painted hers as a distinct creation. In this picture
we seem to hear the tramp of the horses’ hoofs, we seem to feel their
wild delight at the touch of the free air, and to sympathise with their
acquiescence in man’s power over them. All her life she was devoted to
the study of animals. As a girl she used to spend hours in the Paris
slaughter-houses, drawing from the poor creatures in their agony,
learning anatomy from their bodies. Her studio in Fontainebleau had a
number of stables.
When I was quite a little girl in Paris, I remember going to see Rosa
Bonheur with my father and mother and Mr. and Mrs. Browning. It all
comes back to me so dimly. There was a big studio with the pictures on
easels and among others was this “Horse Fair.” I remember that, when we
came, Rosa Bonheur was not there to receive us, and yet we had come by
appointment. We all looked at the pictures, and I remember how my father
drew the attention of his little daughter to the vigorous hoof of a
strong white horse.
[Illustration:
“THE HORSE FAIR”
BY ROSA BONHEUR
This picture has been recently removed to the Tate Gallery (601)
page 174
]
Still Rosa Bonheur did not come. Presently there was a noise, and I
remember the start I gave when I saw creeping from under the table a
laughing, brilliant woman in a costume that struck me as very masculine.
It was Rosa Bonheur. She had fallen asleep under the table, resting
after her lecture at the Jardin des Plantes, and she had overslept
herself. I can never look at that wonderful picture without the memory
of that day coming back to me.
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE ENGLISH SCHOOL—THE THREE FOUNDERS
“O England! model to thy inward greatness,
Like little body with a mighty heart,
What mightst thou do, that honour would thee do,
Were all thy children kind and natural.”
The English school differs from every other school in the individualism
of its members. Each painter of note stands by himself, isolated from
his brother artists. It is therefore difficult to write of the art of
England according to its school. Sir Peter Lely was not an Englishman;
he came from Westphalia. Godfrey Kneller, who succeeded Sir Peter Lely
in the royal favour, came from Lübeck. Neither could lay claim to being
a member of the English school. England, for the first time, entered
into the march of art towards the eighteenth century. The painters who
came before that time were of foreign extraction, or greatly influenced
by foreign schools. There were the admirable miniaturists—the Olivers,
the Hilliards, the greatest of all, Samuel Cooper, called the Van Dyck
of miniature painting; but there are no miniatures in the National
Gallery.
Three famous English masters are at the head of the English school; they
were contemporaries—Hogarth, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Gainsborough.
Hogarth, with his merciless sarcasm, was a moralist painter—moralist
first and painter after. Sir Joshua Reynolds was an accomplished student
of the classics, a traveller in many countries, a man who knew the
galleries of Spain and Italy, who understood the methods of the old
masters, and who possessed besides an insight and a genius rare among
painters. Gainsborough was a student of nature; he never went abroad; he
learnt in the woods of Suffolk how to paint; he was a poet and a wizard
of the brush. These three men are the leaders of the English school.
Hogarth was born in London, in the parish of St. Bartholomew, towards
the end of 1697. He died 1764. His father had been a village
schoolmaster in Westmoreland, who, fired by ambition, came to London to
follow a literary career. He failed miserably and became a literary hack
to a publisher. His son, William Hogarth, discouraged by his father’s
fate, resolved to learn a trade, and he learnt engraving. He made very
little money by his engravings, and so he took to painting portraits and
strange sarcastic pictures, founded upon his observation of the
ridicules and the weaknesses of the time. He was resolved to win; he
studied faces, expressions, attitudes. Everything that gave him a clue
to the understanding of character he mastered. He was always sketching:
wherever he went, his notebook went with him. His portrait, with that of
his dog Trump by his side, will help you to understand him (112). Trump
and his master, I think, are very like each other. You will admit, as
you look at them, that neither the one nor the other was likely to be
beaten at anything he undertook to do. They have the same determined
expression, the same challenging look. Hogarth said, “I have always
found that nature herself is the best and safest course that we can
follow in order to acquire the knowledge of our art.” He was not a great
colourist, but he was a marvellous observer. We seem to know all the
originals of his portraits. Miss Fenton as Polly Peacham (1161); a group
of his servants (1374), each one curiously individualised; the “Shrimp
Girl” (1162), a vigorous sketch of a jolly fishwife crying out her
wares—all these and many others are likenesses that live.
Then we have his sardonic and terrible pictures—a series (113–118)
called the “Marriage à la Mode”—very painful to look at. Let us rather
look at the “Calais Gate” or the “Roast Beef of Old England” (1464). It
is a scene that an Englishman alone could have painted, I am quite sure.
Trump must have very much approved of it. A man dressed according to the
fashion of cooks in France, wearing a white cap and a large white apron,
is carrying a big sirloin of beef. A fat monk, with an approving
gesture, is feeling the joint. Behind him is a ragged, half-starved
French soldier, also admiring the sirloin. There are Scotchmen and
shabbily dressed Irishmen—mercenaries in the pay of France—looking with
watering mouths towards the savoury dish. All Hogarth’s pictures are
chronicles of the time. We can see in them the bygone days, and they are
often a sad spectacle to behold.
[Illustration:
“HEADS OF ANGELS” (186)
BY SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS, P.R.A.
page 179
]
Sir Joshua Reynolds was born in 1723 and died in 1792. Monsieur
Chesneau, in his history of the English school, speaks of Sir Joshua
Reynolds’ works “as a magnificent victory of the will.” His originality
triumphed over all his studies. We know how impossible it is to mistake
a picture by Reynolds in any collection. “I know no man,” says Dr.
Johnson, “who has passed through life with more observation than Sir
Joshua.” It was this quality that made him the king of portrait
painters. He was an extraordinarily gentle and courteous man. “His grace
has almost passed into a proverb,” says Burke. It was but the expression
of his charming mind, his delightful nature, his affectionate heart.
“Heads of Angels” (182) is a token of his sympathetic soul. It was
painted for Lady William Gordon, who was broken-hearted at the death of
her little daughter. Sir Joshua Reynolds could not speak of her grief;
he felt for her, so he painted the child singing in the glory of heaven.
If you look at the picture you will see the five faces are one face,
bathed in God’s transfigurating light. The picture brought consolation
to the bereaved mother.
It is very difficult to decide which is the best of Sir Joshua Reynolds’
portraits in the National Gallery—which is the most charming of these
lovely ladies who smile down so serenely upon us, and who are so full of
elegance, refinement, and grace. Is it the portraits of the daughters of
Sir William Montgomery as “The Graces Decorating a Statue of Hymen”
(79)—fair girls whose likenesses seem blown upon the canvas; or is it
that of “Mrs. Hartley and Child” (1924), sometimes called “A Nymph with
the Infant Bacchus”? In her hair is a rose, round her waist a scarlet
sash; she holds her child, who is crowned with ivy on her shoulder.
Which is the most delightful of the children? Is it “Samuel” (162),
kneeling as he hears the mysterious voice calling to him, or is it the
enchanting little girl sitting under a big tree called “The Age of
Innocence” (307), or is it Robinetta (892) with her sweet and
mischievous face? Which is the most heroic of the men? Is it Lord
Heathfield (111), standing undaunted with superb obstinacy before the
port of Gibraltar, holding the key of the fortress in his hand, the
smoke of the artillery behind him; or is it Dr. Johnson (887), in all
his ugliness and all his greatness, all his wonderful sweetness and all
the irritability of his nature speaking to us?
Gainsborough’s art (1727–1788) is intrinsically different from that of
Sir Joshua Reynolds, while it bears to it a superficial likeness. He is
the poet of the brush, nurtured by the influences of the sun and the
wind. Born at Sudbury, near Ipswich, he came to London when he was
fourteen years old to learn the rudiments of art, but he was depressed
by the teaching he got in schools and academies. Four years later he
returned to his beloved woods of Suffolk. Fame found him out, but he
still continued to study and to dream of nature. While Reynolds applied
all the subleties of the varied methods he had mastered, Gainsborough
loved the simple truth. In 1774 he returned to London, and all society
flocked to his studio. Great ladies wished to be painted by him, and
Gainsborough represented all that was noblest and sweetest in them. In
this lies the great difference between the art of Gainsborough and that
of Sir Joshua Reynolds. Gainsborough’s portraits are the result of his
single attitude of mind before the truth. Reynolds is swayed and led by
a thousand reminiscences and influences. Both results are beautiful, but
both are the outcome of different principles. Gainsborough’s masterpiece
is “The Blue Boy,” in the Duke of Westminster’s gallery. It was painted
as a protest against the dictum Sir Joshua laid down in one of his
lectures, that blue cannot be made the dominant colour in a picture.
Gainsborough took up his palette and painted that marvellous boy in his
dazzling royal blue costume. All the portraits he has painted pass like
a dream before me—a dream of fair women and brave men, with noble souls.
There is Mrs. Siddons (683) in her blue and white dress, her heavy black
feathered hat, dignified, beautiful, and melancholy. There is “The
Village Clerk” (760), the story of a simple and kindly life written in
wrinkles upon the old face. The limpid eyes are turned towards the
light. Every countenance that Gainsborough painted bears the stamp of
truth. If we look at his landscapes we shall acknowledge that he
deserves the title of “The Father of English landscape.” All nature in
her simplicity, her infinite variety, is in these landscapes. There is a
lane near the river Orwell, close to Ipswich, in which I have often
stood. It is called Gainsborough’s lane. Tradition says that here he
painted one of his most famous landscapes. I have felt there how nature
loved her poet-painter and revealed to him all her delicate delights.
Look at “The Market Cart” (80), the golden picture of a loaded waggon;
the horse has just passed from the shaded pool on to the high road
beyond. Look at “The Watering Place” (109). Do we not feel that it is a
hot summer day, that the trees are enchanted by the sunlight, that the
cattle are weary and glad to step into the cool water? Oh Gainsborough,
wizard who make us feel what you felt under the spell of nature! Then
there are Gainsborough’s animals. How dear they are! Was ever an old
horse painted with more loving understanding than this faithful and
laborious animal (1484), tied by the halter to the ancient tree that is
the symbol of his waning years.
“We are going to Heaven and Van Dyck will be of the company,” whispered
Gainsborough, as he lay dying, to Sir Joshua Reynolds. A
misunderstanding had parted the two great artists, but they met again in
the reconciling presence of death, and these were the last words that
Gainsborough spoke.
CHAPTER XXIX
ENGLISH SCHOOL (_Continued_)
“I learnt to love that England
Such an up and down
Of verdure—nothing too much up or down
A ripple of land.”
We must look at another landscape painter’s works, those of Richard
Wilson, who was born in 1714, some years before Gainsborough, and who
died in 1782. He was an accomplished artist, yet his landscapes leave us
cold near those of the Suffolk poet-painter. Wilson could not see things
simply; he decked nature, he made her classic. He had been to Italy, the
land of high art, and he loved that land and its associations so dearly
that he could not paint our England simply as he saw it. There are many
splendid pictures by Wilson—skies of pearly light, dark trees, the
foliage of which form a frame to the classic scene beyond. Let us look
at “Niobe” (110). A cascade rushes down the rocks, and the landscape is
a fit setting to the terrible tragedy enacted. Apollo and Diana are up
in the clouds shooting down the children of the unhappy Niobe, because
she mocked at their mother Latona for having two children only, whereas
she had seven sons and seven fair daughters.
Wilson was much neglected during his lifetime. England resented seeing
her fair fields turned into classic groves. The King returned a picture
of Kew Gardens that he had ordered. “It is not Kew,” he said; it was
some representation of a classic country, and he would not have it.
Although Wilson was elected one of the first Academicians, he could not
sell his works, and he became terribly poor. We are glad to know that
towards the end of his life, by the death of his brother, he inherited a
small competence, and was saved from the worst.
George Romney was another of the great painters of the eighteenth
century. He was born in 1734 and died in 1802. The father was “honest
John Romney,” a cabinetmaker, who greatly, but vainly, wished George to
follow his trade. George was bent upon learning to paint, and persuaded
his father to place him with an artist named Steele. Later we find him
with his friend the miniaturist, Ozias Humphrey, wandering about the
Continent. He had married when he was about twenty-two, but he left his
wife for many years. His whole heart was in his painting, and when he
returned to London his works had preceded him and had already made him
popular. He was the recognised rival of Sir Joshua Reynolds and
Gainsborough. His favourite model was the exquisite woman, who later
became Lady Hamilton.
She was a siren; she wiled away the hearts of men. Romney was always
painting her—as Cassandra, as St. Cecilia, as a Bacchante, as a
Magdalene; in every character the divine lady, as he called her, was
more beautiful than in the last. Let us look at her as a Bacchante
(312); her head is turned over her right shoulder, her exquisite mouth
is smiling, her eyes look love. Then, again, in Cassandra (1668) what a
world of woe lies in her prophetic eyes. It is always the same; as he
painted her, she is the type of perfect beauty. Other women Romney
painted, and to all he gave spiritual grace. Mrs. Mark Currie (1651),
with her cloudy hair, her hands half crossed, is a vision of happy and
peaceful womanhood. His career was very successful, dividing the
patronage of the aristocracy with Gainsborough and Reynolds. He went
back to Kendal and died there, November 15, 1802.
Then there is Raeburn, the Scotch portrait painter (1756–1823). Strong,
straightforward, he looked his sitters straight in the eyes, and
detected their souls as he painted them. He has a strong and simple
manner that suited the painting of men rather than that of women, I
should say than that of young women, for his old ladies in large mob
caps are delightful to look at. The portrait of Lieutenant Colonel Bruce
Macmerdoe (1435) is a fine breezy picture of a sailor, who is
represented fishing; he has a clear, open, and intelligent face; (1146)
is the delightful portrait of a lady dressed in white. I cannot dwell
much longer upon the great portrait painters of the English school. It
has excelled from the first in men gifted with the art of painting the
human face.
There is Opie (1761–1807), a man of great culture, wise in speech, and
philosophic in his turn of mind. Two portraits, one of Mary
Wollstonecraft (1167) and one of William Godwin (1208) are here. These
portraits of remarkable personages are well worth looking at. Godwin is
the author of “Caleb Williams” and two other weird romances. He was an
advocate of freedom of thought in all things, and Mary Wollstonecraft,
his wife, wrote a famous treatise upon the rights of women, and was the
mother of Shelley’s second wife. Opie was not a great painter by any
means, but he was a remarkable man. He married twice. Mrs. Opie, the
famous novelist, was his second wife, and she was devoted to him.
Then there is Hoppner, a charming painter, who was born in London in
1759, and died in 1810. He early entered the Royal Academy Schools.
Gifted for song, he gave up his musical ambition for that of painting.
In 1782 he won the gold medal at the Academy. His mother was a German
lady in waiting to the Queen. Hoppner was patronised by the Prince of
Wales, who became King George IV.; and soon attracted the attention of
the fashionable world. Two camps divided the courts—one composed of Whig
ladies who followed Hoppner, and the other of Tory ladies who followed
Lawrence. But the two painters remained friendly rivals to the end, both
taking opposite views of art, as they did of politics. Hoppner, although
the follower of a prince of loose morals, cared for a demure and refined
ideal of beauty. There is something almost Quaker-like in the purity of
his conceptions, while Lawrence’s ladies are graceful, and suggest
somewhat easy morals. The Countess of Oxford (900) is a good specimen of
Hoppner’s delightful style.
Sir Thomas Lawrence was called the second Reynolds, and he was an infant
prodigy. He recited, he drew, his manners were charming. He was well
known long before he came up to London. Born in 1769, he was of a good
family who had fallen upon evil fortunes. He yet came early in touch
with people, for his father had a large inn at Devizes. Later on he
became the idol of fashionable society; everybody admired him, and was
delighted to be with him. Byron speaks of his cultured and lively talk,
and his sitters were charmed with his compliments. He was fond of his
family, and he was always kind and generous to its members. Perhaps the
greatest talent he possessed was that he knew how to paint the furbelows
of fashion with grace and distinction, and to depict character in dress.
He gave a curious look of animation to his portraits. His sitters seem
as if they could speak to us, and yet we ask ourselves did he guess
their souls. His portrait of Mrs. Siddons (785) contrasts with
Gainsborough’s dignified and melancholy representation of the same
woman. It is a brilliant head, full of a seductive charm, but is it not
too simply pretty for that of the woman Sir Joshua immortalised as “The
Tragic Muse”? I prefer Lawrence’s portraits of men. That of Benjamin
West, P.R.A. (144), shows us the venerable painter at the age of
seventy-three. On the easel behind him is the sketch of Raphael’s
cartoon of “The Death of Ananias.” Angerstein, the collector whose
pictures formed the nucleus of the National Gallery (129), and Romilly
(1238), the great lawyer who reformed the cruel laws, are here, and in
them you will see Lawrence at his best. They are simply and nobly
expressive; they show none of the freaks of passing fashion so
noticeable in his portraits of women. Lawrence was President of the
Royal Academy. He died in 1830, and was buried with pomp in St. Paul’s
Cathedral.
CHAPTER XXX
THE NORWICH SCHOOL AND OTHER PAINTERS
“All in the April morning,
April airs were abroad.
The sheep with their little lambs
Pass’d me by on the road.”
There was formed in Norwich an association of painters that called
itself the Norwich school of artists. Its leader and founder was a
simple man of simple life, who has ever since been known as “Old Crome”
(1768–1821). This designation of “old” is really to distinguish him from
his son, who succeeded him in the leadership of the school. He was born
at Norwich on December 8, 1768. His father kept a public-house, and he
was brought up to be a coach painter, but he rebelled against his fate
and he was apprenticed to a sign painter. He married very young. It was
in 1805 that he gathered together the artists and formed the Norwich
school. Its members had a common painting room; they held exhibitions,
and their works became famous, that is the works of their leader John
Crome, with whom was associated Cotman. But to us the Norwich school is
Crome.
Hobbema was his spiritual ancestor, and the art of the Low Countries
inspired him. To him the trees, the airy spaces, the sky with golden
floating clouds, the solitude and stillness of out of the way places
were all delight. Their spirit dwells in the aspects of nature that he
was always striving for. He is the very reverse of Wilson, who always,
as you know, sought some classic theme. Crome loved simple things.
“Mousehold Heath” (689) is a representation of solitude and stillness—a
grassy slope, a foreground of heath and thistles, golden clouds above.
He knew a particular tree as you know the face of a friend, and he
especially loved the oak. He had a perfect passion for fidelity; he
loved shadow and sunshine, the shadow of deep places, the sunshine of
the afternoon light. “Landscape—Slate Quarries” (1037), a picture of
desolate Welsh slate quarries where men are labouring. “The Windmill”
(926), a very suggestive picture of a mill set on a hill, and of a man
trudging home from work.
This unaffected and genial man, honest and homely, cared only for the
scenery of his own county; he lived and died at Norwich. We can imagine
him every night going to the public-house as to an informal club, no
more understanding what we call “impressionism” than he would have
understood some new fangled word. He painted what he saw, and the things
that appealed to him most were air and space.
He died in 1821, and if we read the local records of that time we shall
see that there was a fine funeral given to him, that all the notable
inhabitants of Norwich turned out to do honour to the man who had
painted their county so faithfully. He left his son behind. He also did
good work, but it is always of old Crome that we think when we mention
the name. I like to remember him as he was, in his simple life, painting
at his easel, or talking with his comrades of local affairs.
Cotman (1782–1842), was a foremost member of the Norwich school. He
spent long years at Yarmouth, where he studied all things nautical.
“River Scene” (1111)—wherries on the Yare—is a good example of his love
and faithful observation of the sea.
If we turn from Norwich we find George Morland, prince of the painters
of farmyards, who lived principally in London pot-houses. He was born in
1763. His life is a sad example of the power of dissipation over a great
mind; it is a record of arrests, of fleeing from creditors, of going to
jail for debt. We hear that he was arrested in 1799, and sent to prison
and finally released in 1802, and that he died suddenly in 1806 while
under arrest for debt. When his wife, who was the sister of William
Ward, heard of his death, she succumbed to the shock, and both were
buried on a November day.
Nothing can be sadder than George Morland’s life and death; he was a man
of genius, the painter of England’s rural life in its homeliest aspect.
It was the common things that interested him, and there was no misery
for him in doing common tasks. If you look at “The Inside of a Stable”
(1030), see how beautifully the two horses and a pony are painted, how
exquisite and how tender is the light and shade, how charming is the
whole atmosphere of the picture. Unfortunate George Morland, gifted and
debased in taste, who loved the humble animals, and led a life that
would have shamed them! We can but think of him with sorrow as we look
at this beautiful picture, glorified with the light of real genius.
Stothard (1755–1834) is the very opposite of George Morland. He was
orderly, a modest, contented man, and thus he remained to the end of his
life. The son of a well-to-do innkeeper in Long Acre, delicate in
health, his gentle spirit never rebelled against the existing order of
things. He was always drawing in childhood, so his father apprenticed
him to a draughtsman of patterns for brocaded silks, and the boy took
very happily to his work. His father died and his mother placed him
under an artist, and all her son’s feeling for grace came out in his
drawings. There was a sweet, grave humour about him that found
expression in his art. He began to devote himself to illustration, and
this turned out to be the work of his life; in it he is without a rival.
Perhaps the finest thing he ever did was the “Pilgrimage to Canterbury”
(1163). It is a long, horizontal composition, in which are numerous
figures, all mounted on horseback riding in cavalcade. It is quite
delightful to trace the different pilgrims—“The Knight and his Son,”
“the Yonge Squier,” “the Wife of Bath,” talking with such winsome
coquetry to the Pardoner, “The Clerk of Oxenford,” the Nun talking to
her superior, the lady Prioress, “Madame Eglentyne,” and all the goodly
company that is described in the prologue to Chaucer’s “Canterbury
Tales.” The freshness of the May morning is conveyed in this enchanting
frieze. “A Greek Vintage” (317) is a graceful illustration, full of
innocent gaiety.
Stothard had a great feeling for grace of costume. I must not dwell
longer upon him. I have seen his portrait painted in his old age, and it
is the face of a man of dignity and delicate observation, one possessed
of more sweetness of temperament than of vigour. He died in 1834. He was
neither rich nor poor, but much esteemed and much honoured by all who
knew him.
CHAPTER XXXI
ENGLISH SCHOOL: CONSTABLE
“And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard-bough
In England—now.”
And now we come to the two greatest landscape painters of the modern
English school, Constable (1776–1837) and Turner. At first endless
difficulties beset Constable. He loved the springtime, the time of
blossoms, of sunny showers and sudden bursts of sunshine. The
rain-twinkling leaves, the rain-soddened grass, the wind singing, the
great clouds rolling before it—these are what Constable paints. But the
artists of his time did not believe in the glorious awakening of the
season as a theme fit for painters. The freshness of spring had no place
in art, and it was in vain for Constable to persevere painting picture
after picture. They remained unsold, proclaiming his enthusiastic
delight in the caprice of nature, in the passionate breath of the North
wind, in the early greenness of the day. He walked out in the dewy
mornings, “And at every step I take,” he wrote in one of his letters, “I
am reminded of the words of Christ, ‘I am the Resurrection and the
Life.’”
Still his pictures remained uncared for. He had nearly reached his
fiftieth year when, in 1824, he exhibited in Paris, and, for the first
time, tasted appreciation. The new school of landscape painting chose
him for its leader, chose him because he was totally opposed to
classicism, because he cared only to express what he felt.
The French recognised in Constable the leader of a revolution in the art
of landscape painting. He was the herald of what we now call
impressionism. It is his delight that we feel in every stroke of his
brush. Life, movement, emotion appealed to him. He was the very reverse
of Wilson, of Poussin, even of Claude Lorraine. He imitated no master
before him. His thought alone swayed him. Look at “The Cornfield” (130).
The great cornfield in the middle distance bathed in light, the elm
trees on either side of the road dividing the fields, the distant
steeple of the church, the wonderful sky full of great masses of pearly
clouds; it is a summer day such as Constable felt it. We cannot remain
cold before it, for in our soul rise memories of similar days. This is
the difference between the classic picture and one of impression. The
artist, in the latter, gives himself. We feel with him the scene he
presents. In the classic picture there is something always remote in its
serenity, something that belongs to tradition, and in a tradition apart
from our daily life.
He was born at East Bergholt, in Sussex, in 1776, and, as Gainsborough
did, he spent his youth in his native county. He was the son of a
miller, and his father wished him to take up his own profession. But the
lad longed to be a painter. He came to London and entered the Royal
Academy in 1810, and he was greatly encouraged by Sir George Beaumont.
He married in 1816, and he came to live in Hampstead in 1820. This
beautiful neighbourhood was at once the inspiration and the study of his
art.
“The Valley Farm” (327) is a delightful picture of a red-roofed
farmhouse, a farm in which its owner, Willie Lott, spent his life of
eighty years, being absent during that time but four days and nights.
Here is one of Constable’s wind-swept skies; the water is full of
shadows of broken reflections; it fills the foreground and stretches
away, while great trees form a cluster on the bank. (1814) is a sketch
of Salisbury Cathedral, one of Constable’s most famous pictures. A
rainbow spans the sky, showing the church shining there like a vision;
the river flows past osier beds, and is forded by a waggon and a team of
three horses.
I must not dwell longer on Constable. His works hold me by the charm of
his impetuous and religious spirit. You will often find his pictures in
private galleries here and also in Paris; they are always different, and
yet they always resemble each other. The masterful representation of
nature, the dewiness of the grass, the joyous clash of wet leaves, the
glint of the summer sunlight are in all of them.
He died at Hampstead, where he had lived so many years, April 1837.
CHAPTER XXXII
ENGLISH SCHOOL: TURNER
“Leave him still loftier than the world suspects
Living and dying.”
Turner was the son of a barber, and he was born in Maiden Lane, Covent
Garden, in 1775; he died in 1851. “The Sun is God” were Turner’s last
words, and they gave the keynote of his life-work. It was devoted to the
painting of light, the problem that had baffled so many held him by its
marvellous intricacies, its reflections and gradations. If we look at
the glorious pictures in the two rooms called the Turner Gallery, you
will see that all have the same aim—all strive to render the subtleties
and the splendours of light.
I will not worry you about the first and second period of Turner’s art,
for both served this one dominant object. Others had tried to paint
light. De Hoogh had striven for it, and filled with it his Dutch
interiors; Claude Lorraine had made the sun rise and set in a glow of
gold; Rembrandt had been the great magician, using shadow to bring out
its glory. Turner came, and, setting aside shadow, made light the
supreme ruler in landscape. If you will examine these pictures
carefully, you will see that Turner little by little laid aside the old
conventional treatment of bringing out light by the contrast of
deepening shadows, that little by little delicate grey replaced the dark
bituminous spaces, and light reigned supreme.
I think that in “The Bay of Baiae with Apollo and the Sibyl” (505) his
triumph was assured. The lovely sunshine of Italy is over the scene of
ruin: no shadows compete with its charm. Still it is a desolate picture.
The sub-title, “Apollo and the Sibyl,” makes us understand its
desolation, for Apollo had loved the Sibyl in her youth, and had granted
her prayer to live as many years as there were grains of sand in the
handful of earth she held. But he had not given her perpetual youth, and
we see her in this picture a haggard figure, the type, says Ruskin, “of
the ruined beauty of Italy.”
Another picture characteristic of the splendour of sky, the magnificence
of line, the pathos of past achievements, is “The Fighting Téméraire
tugged to her Last Berth” (524). It is a very affecting picture. After
her long day’s fight is done, the vessel is gliding home to her rest.
The sky is illuminated with the variegated rays of the setting sun, the
sea is a road of light over which the magnificent veteran ship is being
tugged. All the feeling of England is in that picture—infinite love and
gratitude for Nelson, tenderness for the noble vessels that helped him
in his struggle with the enemy. All heaven is a blaze of gold and
scarlet, all the sea is a pathway of glory for the grand old vessel to
traverse.
[Illustration:
“THE ‘FIGHTING TEMERAIRE’ TUGGED TO HER LAST BERTH TO BE BROKEN UP”
(524)
BY J. M. W. TURNER, R.A.
page 198
]
“Captain! my captain! our fearful trip is done.
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won.
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring.”
“Ulysses Deriding Polyphemus” (508) is another picture we must look at.
Every intricacy of crimson light fires the restless waves. From a
luminous centre emerges a tangle of flaming clouds, reflected in the sea
below. It is sunrise, and Ulysses is putting off from the island. We see
the monster sprawling on the top of a cliff, while close to shore are
the remains of the fire in which the olive staff was burnt, with which
Ulysses and his followers put out Polyphemus’s one eye.
We can but notice some of the noble pictures in this Gallery, and in
Room XIX. Here are the three pictures (370, 534, 535) of Venice, a
pearly white city rising out of the sea, dream-like, dimly radiant, a
ghostly town seen in a golden light. There is “The Garden of the
Hesperides” (477), a picture full of meaning. The three fair daughters
of Hesperus are singing about the golden tree, and the Goddess of
Discord has come to choose the apple which Paris is to present to the
most beautiful of the goddesses. From that choice is to arise the war of
Troy. It is a characteristic picture.
“The Death of Nelson” (480) represents the hero towards whom all
England’s eyes were straining, having just received his death-wound. It
is a magnificent picture, worthy of its great theme.
You must look at the superb, but much impaired, “Childe Harold’s
Pilgrimage” (516), a picture that represents all the outdoor life, the
feasting and dancing of Italy, bathed in the luminous atmosphere
peculiar to that country. “Crossing the Brook” (497) Ruskin describes as
glorious in composition, and perfect in all that is most desirable and
most ennobling in art. Then let us look at “Peace: The Burial at Sea of
the Body of Sir David Wilkie” (528), a tribute paid by the great English
painter to the great Scotch painter, “Train, Steam, and Speed” (538), a
wonderful attempt to represent the dash and wonder of a train going at
full speed. These are but a few, a very few of the pictures in this
Gallery.
Turner belongs to no school; he expresses himself and himself alone. He
was in love with the sun, possessed by that love of light which it
became his aim to express in art. You must study his pictures again and
again; you must return to them until the passion of his soul becomes the
passion of your own.
CHAPTER XXXIII
LESSER LIGHTS YET GREAT
“A man’s a man for a’ that.”
Sir David Wilkie (1785–1841) was the son of a Scotch minister. He was
born in November 1785. The child was father to the man, for nothing
pleased the laddie so much as scribbling in pencil on his copybook and
on every piece of paper he could lay hands on. He never sought to
illustrate mythological subjects or fairy stories. It was always the
animals, the surrounding objects, the people about him, which the little
mannikin was drawing. At last he was allowed to cultivate his gift, and,
in 1799, when he was just fourteen, he was placed in the Trustees
Academy at Edinburgh, and, in 1805, he became a student of the Royal
Academy schools. Oh these happy student days, how Wilkie loved them! How
hard he worked, how frugal he was; all this is related in his biography.
He had many friends, amongst whom was Haydon, the self-centred, the
warm-hearted, the unfortunate painter. It was in rendering the actual
life around him that Wilkie from the first excelled, and it was this
talent that had been foreshadowed in his childish scribblings. “I could
draw before I could read, and paint before I could spell,” he says.
He has been compared to Goldsmith, the Goldsmith of art; the comedy and
tragedy of life as it went on around him, its humour, its delicious
contradictions, its simple yet often heart-breaking pathos, charmed and
attracted him. Everything that was sincere, however humble, interested
him. If we compare him with Hogarth, we will see that as Hogarth saw
nothing but the baseness of life, Wilkie saw its pity and its innocent
happiness. He inspired great affection, and he gave it back with all the
strength of his nature. Haydon has told us that the “Village
Politicians” was exhibited in 1806, and was very favourably noticed in
the papers. When he read the notices, “I was in the clouds,” says
Haydon, “hurried over my breakfast, rushed away, met Jackson, who joined
me, and we both bolted into Wilkie’s room. I roared out ‘Wilkie, my boy,
your name’s in the paper.’ ‘Is it rea-al-ly?’ said David. I read the
puff. We huzzaed, and, shaking hands, all three danced round the table
until we were tired.” Next day the friends went arm in arm to the
Gallery. There was no getting near. Wilkie, pale as death, kept saying,
“Dear, dear, it’s just wonderful.” From that time forward his success
was assured.
Here is “The Blind Fiddler” (99). Wilkie was a great admirer of the
Dutch school, and, in painting this picture, he borrowed one by Teniers,
and kept it by him all the time he was at work. It shows the interior of
a farmhouse; the mother tosses her baby to the tune of the fiddler, the
father snaps his fingers, the boy, making a pair of bellows his fiddle,
the poker his bow, mimics the musician, the girl listens intently; even
the dog is all attention to the music. The picture is full of elaborate
details and none are far-fetched. It is a scene that might take place in
any happy home circle. Another picture, “The Village Festival” (122),
and “The Bagpiper” (329) are pages torn from the life of the rustics
about.
Wilkie had a second manner in which he became an historical painter. His
most celebrated historical picture was “John Knox Preaching to the Lords
of the Congregation.” Wilkie grew more and more in popularity. He was
made an Associate in 1809, and a full R.A. in 1811. After the death of
Sir Thomas Lawrence, he was appointed painter in ordinary to his
Majesty, and, after the death of Sir Henry Raeburn, limner to the King
in Scotland. Then came a short period of illness and his sudden death.
He had gone in search of health to the Holy Land and to Egypt. He died
on the 1st June, 1841. His body was committed to the deep, and Turner
painted the scene. “I wish I could paint them blacker,” he said, when
some one objected to the black sails in the picture.
Let us now look at two strange pictures by Blake, the poet-painter
(1757–1827). He was a visionary, and he painted visions; he was a poet
with the heart of a child and a child’s imagination. He wrote the “Songs
of Innocence,” those lovely songs pure and bright as the voice of
spring. He ornamented each song with a fanciful border, printed poem and
design in wonderful colours. It was his dead brother, he said, who
appeared in a dream and taught him thus to ornament his poems.
Wordsworth and Shelley were singing of the war of the spiritual and the
material world, and Blake, enraptured by Wordsworth’s poetry, dreamt of
bringing mystic Swedenborgianism into art. He lived among dreams and
spirits, and people called him mad. They did not buy his pictures, they
paid no attention to his poetry, but he was content. In the picture of
“The Spiritual Form of Pitt guiding Behemoth” (1110), we see the
spiritual form of Pitt as Blake imagined it. “Pitt,” he says, in his
catalogue to the pictures he exhibited, “is that angel who pleads to
perform the Almighty’s order.” The picture really means the power of
statesmanship to control the brute forces. It is full of a strange
symbolism. I could write to you much about Blake’s beautiful soul. He
lived and died in great poverty, always sustained by the love of his
wife, and for all the misery of his outward circumstances he was happy.
“May God make this world to you, my child, as beautiful as it has been
to me,” he said, stroking the hair of a little girl who had been brought
by her mother to see him. As he lay dying he sang songs to his Maker.
His life is a beautiful and unique example of the spirit triumphing over
all the diverse circumstances of the material world. His other picture
in this Gallery is the “Procession from Calvary” (1164).
Landseer (1802–1873) contrasts with this mystic painter. He is the
painter of dogs and of all the dear dumb creatures that we love. He knew
all their attitudes, and their least movements possessed a meaning for
him. He sympathised with them so much that he made their expression
quite human. For this he has been found fault with, and yet it is this
which draws us to him. The texture of the animals’ coats, the fire or
the wistfulness of their eyes, the eager poise of their bodies in
action, the beautiful laxity of their lines in repose, all this he
studied. He has gained his knowledge by his loving watchfulness. He
entered the Academy schools when he was thirteen. “Where is my little
dog boy?” Fuseli, the keeper, used to ask when Landseer was missing.
I think the animals understood and loved him as much as he loved and
understood them. A story was told me by a friend of his that I have
never seen in print. Landseer had a beautiful dog, which he was always
painting. The poor dog did not like to be made such constant use of, and
he plainly showed his reluctance, and told his master that he thought it
unfair. One day Landseer said to him, “This is the last time I shall ask
you to sit, the very last,” so the dog wagged his tail and sat
beautifully and patiently to the end. When the picture was done Landseer
renewed his promise, and the dog henceforth took his ease and was happy.
One day my friend came on a visit to the artist. “This is a jolly dog of
yours; I should like to paint him,” he said. “Certainly,” replied
Landseer, forgetting all about his promise, and he whistled to the dog,
and bade him sit. The dog, said my friend, sat up surprised; he looked
at his master, and, when the signal was renewed, he threw his head back
and uttered one long dismal howl, sprung out of the window and
disappeared. They sought for him everywhere, but Landseer had broken his
promise, and the dog had vanished. I hope he came back after the visitor
had left.
Landseer was very young when he began painting. His father was an
engraver, and he educated his sons in art. At thirteen years of age the
boy won a medal from the Society of Arts for the drawing of a large
Alpine mastiff. From that time to the year of his death, in 1873, his
life was a series of triumphs. He was elected an Associate of the
Academy when he was twenty-four, and four years later he was made a full
Academician. He won the friendship of many remarkable men, among others
of Sydney Smith and Dickens. He was as great a social, as he was an
artistic, success; he sang beautifully; he told stories with great zest
and point. The Queen and Prince Albert honoured him with their
friendship, and the Queen knighted him in 1850.
[Illustration:
“DIGNITY AND IMPUDENCE” (604)
BY SIR EDWIN LANDSEER, R.A.
page 206
]
“Dignity and Impudence” (604), is a perfect bit of character drawing.
Grafton is the name of the bloodhound who stands alert, with chest
thrown back and head uplifted, intently watching. His paw hangs over the
lintel of his kennel, but he is not fussed; he is quietly surveying the
stranger who is entering, and whom we do not see. He is “Dignity.” A
small Scotch terrier represents “Impudence.” He sits in the same kennel,
and he is all in a flurry at the approach of the stranger; we seem to
hear him bark. It is a perfect representation of dignity and impudence.
See how beautifully the glossy hair of the animals’ coats is painted,
their eyes speak. Then look at “Shoeing the Bay Mare” (606). A farrier
is trying on a shoe on the hind foot of a mare, whose name was “Old
Betty,” and she stands in a characteristic attitude; on her neck is no
halter, for “Old Betty” would never wear one. She used to love to go to
the blacksmith to have her shoe put on. The bloodhound who is watching
is called Lama, and the donkey in the background, a grey furry donkey,
is also watching. The farrier is a portrait. I want you to notice the
glossiness and crispness of the hide of the animals. It is really a
portrait group. We seem to know the three animals—“Betty,” the mare of
character, “Lama,” the bloodhound of observation, and the dear old ass
behind—all are watching intently the farrier at his work.
“The King Charles Spaniels” (409) and “The Sleeping Bloodhound” (603)
are the beautiful representations of three animals who all died violent
deaths. The bloodhound had fallen asleep upon a balcony, awaiting his
master’s return. He heard the wheels of his carriage in the distance,
and, leaping down, missed his balance, fell between twenty and thirty
feet, and died during the night. Landseer painted the splendid dog while
he lay dead. The little spaniels also died from falls.
Landseer, the lover of animals, died in 1873, and received a public
funeral in St. Paul’s Cathedral. The design is his of the great lions at
the foot of Nelson’s statue in Trafalgar Square.
CHAPTER XXXIV
CONCLUSION
“All’s well that ends well—through art’s magic.”
The work of artists of the English school, and there are many, are in
the Tate Gallery, the adjunct of the National Gallery. You must go there
to study them—Mulready, Leslie, Etty, Ward are there. I think that you
will agree with me that the peculiarity of the English school is its
singularity. It differs from every other school. It is essentially
itself. The English people are thought cold and insular by the
continental nations, and their art expresses their separateness.
You have heard of the pre-Raphaelite movements, the object of which was
to revive the faithful study of nature—its ideal was sincerity. The
pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, as the artists who formed it called
themselves, painted with fine, small touches; they omitted what are
called the values in painting. The effect was often that of hardness.
Millais (1829–1896), our great artist, joined the brotherhood, but,
after a while, he returned to the old school with its broader methods.
Still the discipline of his pre-Raphaelite studies clung to him, and he
never lost the splendid accuracy of his touch. During his pre-Raphaelite
period he painted some of his noblest pictures—“The Vale of Rest,” the
“Ophelia,” and others which are now in the Tate Gallery. We have here
but two of his splendid portraits, that of W. E. Gladstone (1666), and
that of the great surgeon, Sir Henry Thompson (1941). Look at the fire
and the tenderness in the eyes of Mr. Gladstone. The portrait was
painted in 1879, at the time when the Eastern part of Europe was in
revolt against Turkish despotism. Then the soul of the great statesman
was full of wrath at the idea of liberal England backing Turkey, and
going to war for her sake. And in the portrait of Sir Henry Thompson how
splendidly the decision, the masterfulness of the spirit of the sitter,
are conveyed. We cannot look at these two works without acknowledging
the power and insight of Millais’ genius.
He was born in Jersey, and his parents came to London in 1837, and
settled in Gower Street. They sent their son to an art school directed
by Mr. Sass, and there, at the age of nine, he won a silver medal. At
eleven he was admitted to the Academy schools. Before he was seventeen,
he had painted his first picture, which was hung in the Royal Academy,
and in 1847 he gained the R.A. medal. In 1853, when he was just
twenty-four years of age, he was elected an Associate, and, ten years
afterwards, he attained the full dignity of Royal Academician. After the
death of Lord Leighton, the Presidentship of the Academy was offered to
Millais. He accepted it, but disease had already marked him for its own,
and he died in 1896. Those of you who are old enough, must remember the
magnificent series of pictures he painted, and how every year, when the
Academy opened, there was but one question of interest, “What has
Millais painted?”
And now we have finished our tour of the National Gallery. We have left
many pictures unnoticed, but I think we have left out none that are
memorable, and that you will be able to trace the peculiarities of each
master in his works. The master’s genius is the outcome of his time, of
his faith and struggles. We have seen how Catholicism reigned over the
spirit of Italy and Spain; how Protestantism and love of country
inspired the artists of the Low Countries, how charming and cultured
artificiality was expressed in French art, and how the art of England
declares her strong and insular soul.
Art is the language of the spirit. Poetry, music, painting, sculpture
tell us the secret of humanity’s dreams. The National Gallery and all
the picture galleries throughout the world are shrines of one mode of
its expression, and as such are unique and important possessions.
PICTURES AND PAINTERS
FLORENTINE SCHOOL
PICTURE PAINTER NUMBER PAGE
The Madonna and Child _Cimabue_ 565 6
St. John and St. Paul _School of Giotto_ 276 10
Coronation of the Virgin „ 568 10
The Virgin and Child _Margaritone_ 564 11
Coronation of the Virgin _Orcagna_ 569 12
The Trinity „ 570 13
Angels Adoring „ 571 13
Angels Adoring „ 572 13
The Nativity „ 573 13
The Adoration of the Magi „ 574 13
The Resurrection „ 575 13
The Three Maries „ 576 13
The Ascension „ 577 13
The Holy Spirit „ 578 13
The Virgin and Child _Filippo Lippi_ 589 15
The Vision of St. Bernard „ 248 16
Portrait of Cosmo I. _Bronzino_ 704 16
The Annunciation _Filippo Lippo_ 666 17
St. John the Baptist and Saints „ 667 17
Mars and Venus _Botticelli_ 915 19
The Nativity of the Saviour „ 1034 20
The Virgin and Child, St. John the „
Baptist and an Angel 275 21
The Assumption of the Virgin „ 1126 22
Portrait of a Lady _School of
Botticelli_ 2083 22
The Resurrection _Fra Angelico_ 663 23
St. Francis with the Stigmata _Filippino Lippi_ 598 25
Angel Adoring „ 927 26
The Adoration of the Magi „ 592 26
The Adoration of the Magi „ 1033 26
The Adoration of the Magi _Filippino Lippi_ 26
1124 27
The Battle of Sant’ Egidio _Paolo Uccello_ 583 28
The Death of Procris _Piero di Cosimo_ 698 30
Raphael and Tobias _Antonio
Pollajuolo_ 781 32
Martyrdom of St. Sebastian „ 292 33
Portrait of a Girl _Domenico
Ghirlandajo_ 1230 35
Portrait of a Youth „ 1299 35
Procession to Calvary _Ridolpho
Ghirlandajo_ 1143 35
The Entombment of Our Lord _Michael Angelo_ 36
790 39
The Madonna and Infant Christ, St. „
John the Baptist and Angels 809 39
Our Lady of the Rocks _Leonardo da Vinci_ 1093 41
His Own Portrait _Andrea del Sarto_ 690 44
Holy Family „ 17 46
The Virgin Adoring the Infant Christ _Lorenzo di Credi_ 648 46
Virgin and Child „ 593 47
The Virgin and Child with St. John _Bartolommeo_ 1694 47
SIENESE SCHOOL
PICTURE PAINTER NUMBER PAGE
The Madonna and Child _Duccio_ 566 51
The Assumption of the Virgin _Matteo di
Giovanni_ 1155 51
The Procession to Calvary _Ugolino_ 1189 52
Madonna and Child _Benvenuto da
Siena_ 909 52
UMBRIAN SCHOOL
PICTURE PAINTER NUMBER PAGE
The Virgin and Infant Christ with St. _Perugino_
John 181 55
The Virgin Adoring the Infant Christ „ 55
288 56
The Virgin and Child with St. Jerome „ 55
and St. Francis 1075 56
The Adoration of the Shepherds „ 55
1441 56
The Baptism of Our Lord _Ascribed to
Perugino_ 1431 55
The Madonna and Child _Giovanni Santi_ 751 58
The Vision of a Knight _Raphael_ 213 59
Madonna Degli Ansidei „ 1171 60
St. Catherine of Alexandria „ 168 61
The Madonna, Infant Christ and St. „
John (Garvagh Madonna) 744 61
The Madonna of the Tower „ 2069 62
Portrait of Julius II. „ 27 62
The Nativity _Piero della
Francesca_ 908 64
The Baptism of Christ in the River „
Jordan 665 65
The Triumph of Chastity _Signorelli_ 910 65
The Circumcision „ 1128 65
The Nativity „ 1133 65
The Story of Griselda _Umbrian School 912 66
(ascribed to 913 67
Pinturicchio)_ 914 67
St. Catherine of Alexandria _Pinturicchio_ 693 68
The Madonna and Child „ 703 68
The Return of Ulysses to Penelope „ 911 68
FERRARESE AND BOLOGNESE SCHOOLS
PICTURE PAINTER NUMBER PAGE
The Madonna and Child Enthroned _Cosimo Tura_ 772 70
St. Jerome in the Desert „ 773 71
The Madonna and Child with Saints _Ercole di Grandi_ 1119 71
The Madonna and Child Enthroned _Tisio da Garofalo_ 671 73
The Vision of St. Augustine „ 81 74
The Holy Family „ 170 74
Christ’s Agony in the Garden „ 642 74
St. Hyacinth: Dominican _Francesco del
Cossa_ 597 74
The Madonna and Christ Enthroned with _Lorenzo Costa_
Angels 629 74
A Pietà _Francia (Francesco
Raibolini)_ 180 75
The Virgin and Child and St. Anne „ 75
Enthroned: Surrounded by Saints 179 76
The Adoration of the Magi _Dosso Dossi_ 640 78
PADUAN SCHOOL
PICTURE PAINTER NUMBER PAGE
The Triumph of Scipio _Andrea Mantegna_ 902 80
Samson and Delilah „ 1145 80
The Virgin and Child Enthroned „ 274 80
VENETIAN SCHOOL
PICTURE PAINTER NUMBER PAGE
Saints Peter and Jerome _Antonio Vivarini_ 768 83
St. Francis and St. Mark „ 1284 83
The Annunciation _Carlo Crivelli_ 739 84
Christ’s Agony in the Garden _Giovanni Bellini_ 726 85
The Doge Leonardo Loredano in His „
State Robes 189 85
Madonna and Child „ 280 86
The Blood of the Redeemer „ 1233 86
St. Peter Martyr „ 812 86
St. Jerome in His Study _Catena_ 694 88
A Warrior Adoring (_Ascribed to
Catena_) 234 89
Bacchus and Ariadne _Titian_ 35 89
The Madonna and Child with St. John „
the Baptist and St. Catherine
Embracing the Divine Infant 635 90
Ariosto „ 1944 91
Portrait of a Poet (_Ascribed to
Titian_) 636 91
A Knight in Armour _Giorgione
(Barbarelli)_ 269 93
The Adoration of the Magi „ 1160 93
The Garden of Love _School of
Giorgione_ 930 93
An Unknown Subject _School of
Giorgione_ 1173 93
St. George and the Dragon _Tintoretto
(Robusti)_ 16 94
Christ Washing the Feet of His „
Disciples 1130 94
The Origin of “The Milky Way” „ 1313 94
The Family of Darius at the Feet of _Veronese
Alexander (Ca’liari)_ 294 95
The Vision of St. Helena „ 1041 96
The Raising of Lazarus _Sebastian del
Piombo_ 1 97
Portrait of Count Sciarra Cesaresco _Moretto_ 299 99
Portrait of an Italian Nobleman „ 1025 99
Portrait of a Lawyer _Moroni_ 742 99
Portrait of an Ecclesiastic „ 1024 99
Portrait of a Tailor „ 697 99
Portrait of the Phrothonotary _Lorenzo Lotto_
Apostolic Juliano 1105 100
Portrait of a Lady _Paris Bordone_ 674 100
SCHOOLS OF LOMBARDY
(SCHOOL OF MILAN AND PARMESE SCHOOL)
PICTURE PAINTER NUMBER PAGE
The Marriage of St. Catherine of _Ambrogio
Alexandria Borgognone_ 298 102
Family Portraits „ 779–780 103
Christ Arguing with the Pharisees _Bernardino Luini_ 18 103
“Ecce Homo” _Correggio_ 15 104
The Holy Family „ 23 104
Mercury Instructing Cupid in the „
Presence of Venus 10 105
Regatta on the Grand Canal _Canaletto_ 938 108
View on the Canal Reggio, Venice „ 163 108
The Magdalen _Guido Reni_ 177 108
The Madonna with the Infant Christ _Sassoferrato_ 740 108
Landscape and Figures _Salvatore Rosa_ 1206 108
SCHOOL OF SPAIN
PICTURE PAINTER NUMBER PAGE
The Dead Christ _Ribera_ 235 111
A Franciscan Monk _Zurbaran_ 230 113
The Nativity, or Adoration of the „
Shepherds 232 113
Portrait of Philip IV., King of Spain _Velazquez_ 1129 116
Philip IV., King of Spain „ 745 116
Portrait of the Spanish Admiral „
Pulido-Pareja 1315 117
Venus and Cupid „ 2057 117
Christ at the Column „ 1148 117
A Dead Warrior _Ascribed to
Velazquez_ 741 118
St. John and the Lamb _Murillo_ 176 121
The Holy Family „ 13 121
A Spanish Peasant Boy „ 74 121
Portrait of Doña Isabel Corbo de _Goya y Lucientes_
Porcel 1473 121
Portrait of Dr. Peral „ 1951 121
FLEMISH SCHOOL
PICTURE PAINTER NUMBER PAGE
Portraits of Jean Arnolfini and Jeanne _Jan van Eyck_
de Chenany His Wife 186 124
A Canon and His Patron Saints _Gerard David_ 1045 125
The Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine „ 1432 125
Portrait of a Man Dressed in Black _Mabuse_
with Fur over His Shoulders 656 126
A Man’s Portrait „ 946 126
Portrait of a Man and His Wife „ 1689 126
Salvator Mundi, and the Virgin Mary _Quinten Massys_ 295 126
The Deposition in the Tomb _Roger van der
Weyden_ 664 127
“Mater Dolorosa” „ 711 127
“Ecce Homo” „ 712 127
Husband and Wife _Ascribed to Van
der Weyden_ 653 127
The Magdalen _School of Van der
Weyden_ 654 127
The Virgin and Infant Christ Enthroned _Memling_
in a Garden 686 128
The Madonna and Infant Christ „ 709 129
St. John the Baptist Holding a Lamb on „
His Left Arm 747 129
The Abduction of the Sabine Women _Rubens_ 38 132
The Judgment of Paris „ 194 132
Le Chapeau de Paille (Portrait of „
Susanne Fourment) 852 133
An Equestrian Portrait of Charles I., _Van Dyck_
King of Great Britain and Ireland 1172 134
Portrait of Cornelius van der Geest „ 52 134
A Music Party _David Teniers (the
younger)_ 154 136
Players at Tric-Trac, or Backgammon „ 242 136
The Village Fête „ 952 137
DUTCH SCHOOL
PICTURE PAINTER NUMBER PAGE
Portrait of a Woman _Frans Hals_ 1021 139
Portrait of a Man „ 1251 139
His own Portrait when Aged About _Rembrandt_
Thirty-two 672 140
The Painter’s own Portrait at an „
advanced age 221 140
The Adoration of the Shepherds „ 47 141
Portrait of a Capuchin Friar „ 166 141
A Jewish Rabbi „ 190 141
Portrait of a Woman „ 237 141
A Man’s Portrait „ 243 141
Portrait of an Old Lady in Black, with „
White Cap and Ruff 775 141
A Man’s Portrait „ 850 141
A Burgomaster „ 1674 141
Portrait of an Old Lady „ 1675 141
The Courtyard of a Dutch House _Pieter de Hoogh_ 794 142
Courtyard of a Dutch House Paved with „
Bricks 835 142
The Duet _Gabriel Metsu_ 838 143
The Music Lesson „ 839 143
River Scene by Moonlight, with _Van der Neer_
Shipping 239 143
Card Players _Nicolas Maas_ 1247 143
The Idle Servant „ 207 143
The Dutch Housewife „ 159 143
The Alchymist _Adrian van Ostade_ 846 144
A Frozen River _Isaak van Ostade_ 963 144
Portrait of a Young Lady _Van der Helst_ 1248 144
The Poulterer’s Shop _Gerard Dou_ 825 144
The Painter’s Own Portrait „ 192 145
The Painter’s Wife: Bust „ 968 145
The Music Master _Jan Steen_ 856 145
The Peace of Münster _Gerard Terborch_ 896 145
The Guitar Lesson „ 864 147
A Calm at Sea _Van de Velde (the
younger)_ 874 147
Dutch Shipping _Ludolf Bakhuizen_ 223 148
River Scene with Cattle _Albert Cuyp_ 823 148
Landscape with Cattle and Figures: „
Evening 53 148
Landscape with Cattle _Paul Potter_ 849 149
A Landscape with Waterfall _Jacob Ruysdael_ 627 150
An Old Oak „ 988 150
The Broken Tree „ 991 150
The Avenue, Middelharnis, Holland _Meindert Hobbema_ 830 150
Landscape, a Party of Muleteers with _Jan Both_
Laden Mules: Morning 71 151
An Italian Landscape „ 1917 151
Landscape with Figures _Jan Wynants_ 884 152
Landscape, a Hilly Country with a Few _Jan Wynants_
Trees 971 152
A Battle, Cavalry and Infantry _Philips Wouwerman_ 976 152
A Full Length Portrait of a Girl _Sir Peter Lely_ 1016 153
A Vase with Flowers _Jan van Huysum_ 796 153
A Fruit Piece _Frans Snyders_ 1252 153
Portrait of the Painter’s Father _Albrecht Dürer_ 1938 156
Portrait of a Young Lady _Lucas Cranach_ 291 157
The Ambassadors _Hans Holbein_ 1314 158
FRENCH SCHOOL
PICTURE PAINTER NUMBER PAGE
A Man’s Portrait _Ascribed to
Clouet_ 660 161
Portrait of a Boy „ 1190 161
Cephalus and Aurora _Nicolas Poussin_ 65 163
A Bacchanalian Festival „ 42 163
A Bacchanalian Dance „ 62 163
A Landscape with Figures, Representing _Gaspard Poussin_
Abraham and Isaac Going to the
Sacrifice 31 163
The Calling of Abraham „ 1159 163
Landscape with Figures, Representing _Claude Lorrain
the Marriage Festival of Isaac and (Claude Gellée)_
Rebecca 12 165
Seaport, with Figures, Representing „
the Embarkation of the Queen of
Sheba, on the Occasion of Her Visit
to Solomon 14 165
A Seaport at Sunset „ 5 166
Landscape with Figures, Representing „
the Story of Narcissus and Echo 19 166
The Four Ages of Man _Nicolas Lancret_ 101–4 168
Study of Still Life _Siméon Chardin_ 1258 169
“La Fontaine” „ 1664 169
The Head of a Girl _Jean Baptiste
Greuze_ 206 170
Girl with an Apple „ 1020 170
Head of a Girl Looking Up „ 1019 170
Portrait of the Artist _Mme. Vigée Le
Brun_ 1653 170
Sunny Days in the Forest _Diaz de la Pena_ 2058 171
Portrait of Mr. and Mrs. Edwards _Fantin Latour_ 1952 171
The Marsh Arleux-du-Nord _Corot_ 2135 172
ENGLISH SCHOOL
PICTURE PAINTER NUMBER PAGE
His Own Portrait _William Hogarth_ 112 177
Portrait of Miss Fenton, the Actress, „
as “Polly Peachum” in the “Beggar’s
Opera” 1161 178
The Marriage “À La Mode” „ 113–118 178
Calais Gate, called also “The Roast „
Beef of Old England” 1464 178
Heads of Angels _Sir Joshua
Reynolds_ 182 179
The Graces Decorating a Terminal „
Figure of Hymen 79 179
Mrs. Harley and Child (sometimes „
called a Nymph with the Infant
Bacchus) 1924 180
The Infant Samuel Kneeling at Prayer „ 162 180
The Age of Innocence „ 307 180
Robinetta „ 892 180
Portrait of Lord Heathfield, with the „
Key of the Fortress of Gibraltar in
His Hand 111 180
Dr. Samuel Johnson „ 887 180
Portrait of Mrs. Siddons _Thomas
Gainsborough_ 683 181
Portrait of Orpin, Parish Clerk of „
Bradford, Wiltshire 760 181
The Market Cart „ 80 182
The Watering Place „ 109 182
Study of an Old Horse „ 1484 182
Landscape with Figures, Representing _Richard Wilson_
the Destruction of Niobe’s Children 110 183
Study of Lady Hamilton as a Bacchante _George Romney_ 312 185
Sketch Portrait of Lady Hamilton _George Romney_
(Cassandra) 1668 185
Portrait of Mrs. Mark Currie „ 1651 185
Portrait of Lieut.-Colonel Bryce _Sir Henry Raeburn_
McMurdo 1435 185
Portrait of a Lady (a Member of the „
Dudgeon Family) 1146 185
Portrait, said to Represent Mary _John Opie_
Wollstonecraft (Mrs. Godwin) 1167 186
Portrait of William Godwin, the Author „ 1208 186
Portrait of the Countess of Oxford _John Hoppner_ 900 187
Portrait of Mrs. Siddons _Sir Thomas
Lawrence_ 785 187
Portrait of Benjamin West, P.R.A. „ 144 187
Portrait of the late John Julius „
Angerstein, the Banker, and
Collector of the Angerstein Gallery 129 188
Portrait of Romilly „ 1238 188
Mousehold Heath, near Norwich _John Crome_ 689 190
Slate Quarries „ 1037 190
The Windmill „ 926 190
River Scene _John Cotman_ 1111 191
The Inside of a Stable _George Morland_ 1030 191
The Pilgrimage to Canterbury _Thomas Stothard_ 1163 192
A Greek Vintage, a Dance in the „
Vineyard 317 193
The Corn Field, or Country Lane _John Constable_ 130 195
The Valley Farm „ 327 196
The Sun Rising in a Mist _J. M. W. Turner_ 479 165
Dido Building Carthage „ 498 165
The Bay of Baiae, Apollo and the Sibyl „ 505 198
The “Fighting Téméraire” Tugged to Her „
Last Berth to be broken up 524 198
Venice „ 370 199
Ulysses Deriding Polyphemus „ 508 199
Approach to Venice, Looking Towards „
Fusina 534 199
The “Sun of Venice” Going to Sea „ 535 199
The Garden of the Hesperides „ 477 199
The Death of Nelson „ 480 199
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage „ 516 199
Peace: Burial at Sea of the Body of „
Sir David Wilkie 528 200
The Blind Fiddler _Sir David Wilkie_ 99 202
The Village Festival „ 122 203
The Bagpiper „ 329 203
The Spiritual form of Pitt Guiding _William Blake_
Behemoth 1110 204
The Procession from Calvary „ 1164 204
Dignity and Impudence _Sir Edwin
Landseer_ 604 206
Shoeing „ 606 207
Spaniels of King Charles’s Breed „ 409 207
The Sleeping Bloodhound „ 603 207
Portrait of Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone _Sir John E.
Millais_ 1666 209
Portrait of Sir Henry Thompson, Bart „ 1941 209
NATIONAL GALLERY
INDEX TO PAINTERS AND THEIR WORKS
A
_Abduction of the Sabine Women, The_, by Rubens, 132
_Adoration of the Magi_ by Dosso Dossi, 78
_Adoration of the Magi_ by Giorgione, 93
_Adoration of the Magi_ by Filippino Lippi, 26, 27
_Adoration of the Shepherds_ by Rembrandt, 141
_Adoration of the Shepherds_ by Perugino, 56
_Age of Innocence_ by Reynolds, 180
_Ambassadors, The_, by Holbein, 158, 159
_Angel Adoring, An_, by Filippino Lippi, 26
Angelico, Fra., 23, 24, 109
_Angerstein, Portrait of Lord_, by Lawrence, 188
_Annunciation_ by Carlo Crivelli, 84, 85
_Annunciation_ by Filippo Lippi, 17, 18
_Approach to Venice_ by Turner, 199
_Ariosto_ by Titian, 90, 91
_Assumption of the Virgin_ by Botticelli, 22
_Assumption of the Virgin_ by M. di Giovanni, 51
_Avenue, The, Middelharnis, Holland_, by Hobbema, 150
B
_Bacchanalian Dance_ by Poussin, 163
_Bacchanalian Festival_ by Poussin, 163
_Bacchante_ by Romney, 184, 185
_Bacchus and Ariadne_ by Titian, 89, 105
_Bagpiper, The_, by Wilkie, 203
Bakhuizen, 147, 148
_Baptism of Christ in the River Jordan_ by Francesca, 65
_Baptism of our Lord_ ascribed to Perugino, 55
Bartolommeo, 47, 48
_Battle, A, Cavalry and Infantry_, by Wouwerman, 152
_Battle of Sant’ Egidio_ by Uccello, 28, 29
_Bay of Baiae, Apollo and the Sibyl_ by Turner, 198
Bellini, Gentile, 79, 83
Bellini, Giovanni, 79, 83, 85–86, 88, 91, 94, 100
Benevenuto da Siena, 52
Blake, 203
_Blind Fiddler, The_, by Wilkie, 202, 203
_Blood of the Redeemer_ by Bellini, 86
Bonheur, 174, 175
Bordone, 100
Borgognone, 102
Both, Jan, 151
Both, Adrian, 151
Botticelli, 9, 15, 18–23, 27, 82, 109
Botticelli (School of), 22
_Broken Tree, The_, by Ruysdael, 150
Bronzino, 16
Boucher, 168, 169
_Bruce Macmerdoe, Lt.-Colonel_, by Raeburn, 185
Buonaccorso, 52
C
“_Calais Gate_” by Hogarth, 178
_Calling of Abraham_ by G. Poussin, 163
_Calm at Sea_ by Van de Velde, 147
Canaletto, 107–108, 109
_Canal Reggio_ (_The Grand Canal_) by Canaletto, 108
_Canon, A, and his Patron Saints_ by Gerard David, 125
Carracci, 107
_Card Players_ by Nicholas Maas, 143
Catena, 88, 89
_Catherine of Alexandria_ by Pinturicchio, 68
_Cephalus and Aurora_ by N. Poussin, 163
_Chapeau de Paille, Le_, by Rubens, 133
_Charles I._ by Van Dyck, 134
Chardin, 168, 169
_Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage_ by Turner, 199, 200
_Christ at the Column_ by Velazquez, 117, 118
_Christ Disputing with the Pharisees_ by Luini, 103, 104
_Christ’s Agony in the Garden_ by Giovanni Bellini, 85
_Christ’s Agony in the Garden_ by Garofalo, 74
_Christ Washing the Disciples’ Feet_ by Tintoretto, 94
Cimabue, 2, 5–11, 12, 50
_Circumcision_ by Signorelli, 65
Claude, 148, 164–166, 167, 195, 197
Clouet, François, 161, 162
_Cornelius van der Geest_ by Van Dyck, 134
Constable, 194–196
Correggio, 102, 104–106
Corot, 172–174
_Coronation of the Virgin_ (School of Giotto), 10
_Coronation of the Virgin_ by Orcagna, 12, 13
Cosimo, 9, 30–32
Costa, Lorenzo, 74, 75
_Cosmo de’ Medici_ by Bronzino, 16
Cotman, 191
_Courtyard of a Dutch House_ by De Hoogh, 142, 143
Cranach, 157
Credi, Lorenzo di, 46, 47
Crivelli, Carlo, 84
Crome, 189–191
_Crossing the Brook_ by Turner, 200
_Currie, Mrs. Mark_, by Romney, 185
Cuyp, 148
D
David, Gerard, 125
_Dead Christ, The_, by Ribera, 111–112
_Dead Warrior, The_, by Velazquez, 118–119
_Death of Nelson, The_, by Turner, 199
_Death of Procris, The_, by Cosimo, 30–32
_Dido Building Carthage_ by Turner, 165
_Dignity and Impudence_ by Landseer, 206–207
Diaz de la Pena, 171
_Doge Leonardo Loredano in his State Robes_ by Giovanni Bellini, 85, 86
Dolci, 107, 108, 109
Dosso Dossi, 78
Dou, 144
_Dou: Portrait of himself_, 145
_Dou: Portrait of his Wife_, 145
Duccio, 50–52
Dughet (see Poussin, Gaspard)
Dürer, 4, 155–157, 158
_Dutch Shipping_ by Bakhuizen, 148
Dyck, Van, 3, 119, 133–135, 152, 176
E
_Ecce Homo_ by Corregio, 104
_Edwards, Mr. and Mrs._, by Fantin Latour, 171
_Entombment of Our Lord_ by Michael Angelo, 36–39
Eyck, Van, 3, 86, 123–125, 126
F
_Family Portraits_ by Brogognone, 103
_Family of Darius at the Feet of Alexander_ by Veronese, 95, 96
_“Fighting Téméraire,” The, Tugged to her Last Berth_ by Turner, 198
_Fontaine, La_, by Chardin, 169
_Four Ages of Man_ by Lancret, 168
Fragonard, 167
Francesca, Piero della, 64–65
Francia, 75–78
_Franciscan Monk_ by Zurbaran, 113
_Fruit Piece_ by Snyders, 153
G
Gainsborough, 4, 176, 177, 180–182, 183, 184, 185, 195
_Game of Backgammon_ by Teniers, 136
_Garden of Love_ (school of Giorgione), 93
_Garden of the Hesperides, The_, by Turner, 196
Garofalo, 73
_Garvagh Madonna_ by Raphael, 61, 62
Gellée (see Claude)
Ghirlandajo, Domenico del, 34
Ghirlandajo, Ridolfo del, 35
_Girl with an Apple_ by Greuze, 170
Giorgione, 88, 91, 92–93, 94
Giotto, 2, 9–11, 12
Giotto (School of), 10
Giovanni, Matteo di, 50, 51, 52
_Gladstone, W. E._, by Millais, 209
_Godwin, William_, by Opie, 186
Goya, 121
_Graces Decorating a Statue of Hymen_ by Reynolds, 179, 180
Grandi, 71
_Greek Vintage, A_, by Stothard, 193
Greuze, 169–170
_Griselda, The Story of_ (Umbrian School), 66
Guercino, 107
H
Hals, 138–139, 143, 144
_Hamilton, Lady, as Bacchante_ by Romney, 185
_Hamilton, Lady, as Cassandra_ by Romney, 185
_Hartley, Mrs., and Child_ by Reynolds, 180
_Head of a Girl_ by Greuze, 170
_Head of a Girl Looking up_ by Greuze, 170
_Heads of Angels_ by Reynolds, 179
_Heathfield, Portrait of Lord_, by Reynolds, 180
Helst, Van der, 144
_His own Portrait_ by Hogarth, 177, 178
Hobbema, 150–151, 189
Hogarth, 4, 176, 177–178
Holbein, 4, 155, 157–160
_Holy Family, The_, by Andrea del Sarto, 46
_Holy Family_ by Correggio, 104
_Holy Family_ by Garofalo, 74
_Holy Family_ by Murillo, 121
Hoppner, 186, 187
_Horse Fair, The_, by Rosa Bonheur, 174
I
_Infant Samuel_ by Reynolds, 180
_Inside of a Stable_ by Morland, 191
_Interior of a Dutch House_ by De Hoogh, 142, 143
_Italian Landscape, An_, by Jan Both, 151
_Italian Nobleman, Portrait of_, by Moretto, 99
J
_Jan Arnolfini and his Wife_ by Van Eyck, 124–125
_Johnson, Portrait of Dr._, by Reynolds, 180
_Judgment of Paris_ by Rubens, 132
_Julius II. (Pope)_ by Raphael, 62
K
_King Charles Spaniels_ by Landseer, 207
_Knight in Armour_ by Giorgione, 93
L
_Lancret_, 168, 169
_Landscape: A Party of Muleteers_ by Jan Both, 151
_Landscape with Cattle and Figures_ by Cuyp, 148
_Landscape with Cattle_ by Paul Potter, 149
_Landscape with Figures_ by Salvatore Rosa, 108–109
_Landscape with Figures_ by Wynants, 152
_Landscape with Figures representing the story of Narcissus and Echo_
by Claude, 166
_Landscape with Waterfall_ by Ruysdael, 150
Landseer, 204–207
Latour, Fantin, 171, 172
Lawrence, 187–188
_Lawyer, Portrait of a_, by Moroni, 99
Lely, 152–153, 176
Lippi, Filippo, 9, 15–18
Lippi, Filippino, 25–28
Lorenzetti, A., 52
Lorenzetti, P., 52
Longuo, 107
Lotto, 100
Luini, 103
M
Maas, 143
Mabuse, 125, 126
_Madonna and Child_ by Giovanni Bellini, 86
_Madonna and Child_ by Cimabue, 6, 8
_Madonna and Child_ by Duccio, 51
_Madonna and Child_ by Pinturicchio, 68
_Madonna and Child_ by Santi, 58
_Madonna and Child Enthroned_ by Cosimo Tura, 70
_Madonna and Child Enthroned with Angels_ by Costa, 74–75
_Madonna and Child Enthroned_ by Garofalo, 73
_Madonna and Child with St. John the Baptist_ by Titian, 90
_Madonna and Infant Christ, St. John the Baptist and Angels_ by Michael
Angelo, 39, 40
_Madonna Degli Ansidei_ by Raphael, 60
_Madonna of the Tower_ by Raphael, 62
_Madonna of the White Rose_ by Benvenuto da Siena, 52
_Magdalen, The_, by Guido Reni, 108
_Magdalen, A Reading_ (school of Van der Weyden), 127
_Market Cart, The_, by Gainsborough, 182
_Man’s Portrait_ by Clouet, 161
Mantegna, 79
Margaritone, 11, 12
_Marriage à la Mode_ by Hogarth, 178
_Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca_ by Claude, 165
_Mars and Venus_ by Botticelli, 19, 22
_Martyrdom of St. Sebastian_ (ascribed to Pollajuolo), 33, 34
Massys, 126
_Mater Dolorosa_ by Van der Weyden, 127
Memling, 126, 127–128
_Mercury Instructing Cupid_ by Correggio, 105
Metzu, 143
Michael Angelo, 9, 34, 36–40, 59, 65, 97, 109
Mieris, F. van, 144
Mieris, W. van, 144
Millais, 208–210
_Milky Way, The_, by Tintoretto, 94
Molenaer, 144
Moretto, 98
Morland, 191, 192
Moroni, 99–100
_Mousehold Heath_ by Crome, 190
Murillo, 119–121
_Muse, A, Instructing a Court Poet_ by Dossi, 78
_Music Party, A_, by Teniers, 136
_Music Master, The_, by Steen, 145
_Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine_ by Gerard David, 125
N
_Nativity, The_, by Botticelli, 20, 21
_Nativity, The_, by Francesca, 64
_Nativity, The_, by Signorelli, 65
_Nativity, The_, by Zurbaran, 113
Neer, Van der, 143
Netscher, 144
_Niobe_ (landscape) by Wilson, 183
O
_Old Grey Hunter, The_, by Paul Potter, 149
_Old Oak, An_, by Ruysdael, 150
Opie, 185
Orcagna, 12, 13
Ostade, A. van, 143
_Our Lady of the Rocks_ by Da Vinci, 41, 42
_Oxford, Countess of_, by Hoppner, 187
P
_Peace of Münster, The_, by Terborgh, 145–147
_Peace: Burial at Sea of the Body of Sir David Wilkie_ by Turner, 200
_Peral, Dr._, by Goya, 121
Perugino, 53–56, 58, 59
_Phrothonotary Apostolic Juliano_ by Lotto, 100
_Philip IV., King of Spain_, by Velazquez, 116
_Philip IV., King of Spain_ by Velazquez (another portrait), 116
_Pietà, A_, by Francia, 75–76
_Pilgrimage to Canterbury, The_, by Stothard, 192–193
Pinturicchio, 67–69
Piombo, 97–98
Pollajuolo, 32–34
“_Polly Peachum_” by Hogarth, 178
_Poet, Portrait of_, by Titian, 91
_Pope Julius II._ by Raphael, 62
_Portrait of a Boy_ by Clouet, 161
_Portrait of a Girl_ by Ghirlandajo, 35
_Portrait of a Girl_ by Lely, 153
_Portrait of a Lady_ by Bordone, 100–101
_Portrait of a Lady_ by Raeburn, 185
_Portrait of a Man and his Wife_ by Mabuse, 126
_Portrait of a Man and his Wife_ (School of Van der Weyden), 127
_Portrait of a Man_ by Hals, 139
_Portrait of a Sculptor_ by Andrea del Sarto (reputed to be of
himself), 44
_Portrait of a Woman_ by Hals, 139
_Portrait of a Young Lady_ by Cranach, 157
_Portrait of a Youth_ by Ghirlandajo, 35
_Portrait of the Artist_ by Vigée le Brun, 170
_Portrait of the Painter’s Father_ by Dürer, 156
Potter, 149
Poussin, Nicolas, 162, 163, 164, 195
Poussin, Gaspard, 163
_Poulterer’s Shop, The_, by Dou, 144–145
_Procession from Calvary_ by Blake, 204
_Procession to Calvary_ by R. Ghirlandajo, 35
_Procession to Calvary_ by Ugolino, 52
Q
_Queen of Sheba, The_, by Claude, 165
R
Raeburn, 185
Raibolini (see Francia)
_Rain, Steam and Speed_ by Turner, 200
_Raising of Lazarus_ by Piombo, 97
Raphael, 53, 57–63, 82, 97, 106, 109, 131
_Raphael and Tobias_ by Pollajuolo, 32
_Regatta, A State_, by Canaletto, 108
Rembrandt, 138, 139–141, 142, 144, 197
_Rembrandt, Portraits of_, by himself, 140
Reni, 107, 108, 109
_Resurrection, The_, by Fra Angelico, 23, 24
_Return of Ulysses to Penelope_ by Pinturicchio, 68
Reynolds, 4, 124, 162, 176, 177, 179–180, 184, 185, 187
Ribera, 110, 111, 112, 116
_River Scene_ by Cotman, 191
_River Scene with Cattle_ by Cuyp, 148
_Roast Beef of Old England_ by Hogarth, 178
_Robinetta_ by Reynolds, 180
Romano, 107
_Romilly, Portrait of_, by Lawrence, 188
Romney, 184–185
Rosa, Salvatore, 107, 108, 109
Rubens, 3, 130–133, 153
Ruysdael, 149–150, 152
S
_Sacrifice of Isaac_ by G. Poussin, 163
_St. Catherine of Alexandria_ by Raphael, 61
_St. Francis and the Stigmata_ by Filippino Lippi, 25, 26
_St. George and the Dragon_ by Tintoretto, 94
_St. Helen_ by Veronese, 96
_St. Hyacinth: Dominican_ by Cossa, 74
_St. Jerome in his Study_ by Catena, 88
_St. Jerome in the Desert_ by Tura, 71
_St. John and the Lamb_ by Murillo, 121
_St. John and St. Paul_ (School of Giotto), 10
_St. John the Baptist and Saints_ by Filippo Lippi, 17, 18
_St. Peter Martyr_ by Bellini, 86, 87
_Salvator Mundi and the Virgin Mary_ by Massys, 126
_Samson and Delilah_ by Mantegna, 80
Santi, Giovanni, 57, 58
Sarto, 9, 44–46, 109
Sassoferrato, 107, 108
_Sciarra Cesaresco, Count of_, by Moretto, 99
_Seaport at Sunset_ by Claude, 166
_Seaport with the Embarkation of St. Ursula_ by Claude, 166
_Shoeing the Bay Mare_ by Landseer, 207
_Shrimp Girl, The_, by Hogarth, 178
_Siddons, Mrs._, by Gainsborough, 181
_Siddons, Mrs._, by Lawrence, 187
Signorelli, 59, 65–66
_Slate Quarries_ by Crome, 190
Snyders, 153
_Spanish Admiral Pulida Pareja, The_, by Velazquez, 117
_Spanish Lady, A_, by Goya, 121
_Spanish Peasant Boy_ by Murillo, 121
_Spiritual Form of Pitt Guiding Behemoth_ by Blake, 204
Steen, 145
Stothard, 192–193
_Study of an Old Horse_ by Gainsborough, 182
_Sunny Days in the Forest_ by Diaz, 171
_“Sun of Venice,” The_, by Turner, 199
_Sun Rising in a Mist_ by Turner, 165
T
_Tailor, Portrait of A_, by Moroni, 99
Teniers, 135–137
Terborgh, 145–147
_Thompson, Sir Henry_, by Millais, 209
Tiepoli, 107
Timoteo-Vite, 58
Tintoretto, 88, 93–94, 95, 107, 109
Titian, 88, 89–92, 93, 105, 109, 131
_Triumph of Chastity, The_, by Signorelli, 65
_Triumph of Scipio, The_, by Mantegna, 80
Tura, 70, 71
Turner, 124, 165, 194, 197–200
U
Uccello, 28, 29
Ugolino, 52
_Ulysses Deriding Polyphemus_ by Turner, 199
_Unknown Subject, An_ (School of Giorgione), 93
V
_Valley Farm, The_, by Constable, 196
Vannucci, Pietro, 53
Velazquez, 110, 112, 114–119, 120, 121
_Vase with Flowers_ by Van Huysum, 153
Velde, Van de, 147
_Venice_, by Turner, 199
_Venus and Cupid_ by Velazquez, 117
Verrocchio, 54
Veronese, Paul, 84, 88, 94, 95, 97, 109
Vigée le Brun, 170
_Village Clerk, The_, by Gainsborough, 181
_Village Festival, The_, by Wilkie, 203
_Village Fête, A_, by Teniers, 137
Vinci, 9, 41–43, 59, 82, 91, 109
_Virgin Adoring, The_, by Credi, 46, 47
_Virgin Adoring the Infant Christ_ by Perugino, 55
_Virgin and Child and St. Anne Enthroned_ by Francia, 75, 76
_Virgin and Child_ by Botticelli, 21
_Virgin and Child_ by Credi, 47
_Virgin and Child_ by Filippo Lippi, 15, 16
_Virgin and Child_ by Mantegna, 80, 81
_Virgin and Child_ by Margaritone, 11
_Virgin and Child_ by Sassoferrato, 108
_Virgin and Child with St. John_ by Bartolommeo, 47
_Virgin and Child with St. Jerome and St. Francis_ by Perugino, 55
_Virgin and Child with St. John and St. William_ by Grandi, 71, 72, 73
_Virgin and Child with the two St. Catherines_ by Borgognone, 102, 103
_Virgin and Infant Christ Enthroned in a Garden_ by Memling, 128
_Virgin and Infant Christ with St. John_ by Perugino, 55
_Virgin of the Rocks_ by da Vinci, 41
_Vision of a Knight_ by Raphael, 59, 60
_Vision of St. Augustine_ by Garofalo, 74
_Vision of St. Bernard_ by Filippo Lippi, 16, 17
Vivarini, 83, 100
W
_Warrior Adoring the Infant Christ_ by Catena, 89
_Watering Place, The_, by Gainsborough, 182
Watteau, 167, 168
Weenix, 153
_West, Portrait of Benjamin_, by Lawrence, 187, 188
Weyden, Roger, van der, 70, 126
_Windmill, The_, by Crome, 190
Wilkie, 201–203
Wilson, 183, 184, 190, 195
_Wollstonecraft, Mary_, by Opie, 186
Wouwerman, 152
Wynants, 151–152
Z
Zurbaran, 110–113, 116
THE END
Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.,
Edinburgh & London.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
● Fixed typos; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NATIONAL GALLERY ***
Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will
be renamed.
Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United
States without permission and without paying copyright
royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™
concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following
the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use
of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for
copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very
easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation
of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project
Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may
do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected
by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark
license, especially commercial redistribution.
START: FULL LICENSE
THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
Project Gutenberg License available with this file or online at
www.gutenberg.org/license.
Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg
electronic works
1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg electronic works in your
possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
Project Gutenberg electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person
or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg electronic works if you follow the terms of this
agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg
electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.
1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the
Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
of Project Gutenberg electronic works. Nearly all the individual
works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
that you will support the Project Gutenberg mission of promoting
free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg
works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
Project Gutenberg name associated with the work. You can easily
comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg License when
you share it without charge with others.
1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
other Project Gutenberg work. The Foundation makes no
representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
country other than the United States.
1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg License must appear
prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg work (any work
on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the
phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed,
performed, viewed, copied or distributed:
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg™ License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you
are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws
of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg electronic work is
derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in
the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply
either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or
obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg
trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
will be linked to the Project Gutenberg License for all works
posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
beginning of this work.
1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg.
1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg License.
1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg work in a format
other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official
version posted on the official Project Gutenberg website
(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain
Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the
full Project Gutenberg License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg electronic works
provided that:
• You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
the use of Project Gutenberg works calculated using the method
you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
to the owner of the Project Gutenberg trademark, but he has
agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid
within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are
legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty
payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in
Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation.”
• You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™
License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™
works.
• You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
receipt of the work.
• You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.
1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than
are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of
the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set
forth in Section 3 below.
1.F.
1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project
Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™
electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may
contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate
or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or
other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
cannot be read by your equipment.
1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right
of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.
1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium
with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you
with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in
lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If
the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing
without further opportunities to fix the problem.
1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO
OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement
violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the
agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or
limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or
unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
remaining provisions.
1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in
accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™
electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of
the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this
or any Project Gutenberg work, (b) alteration, modification, or
additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg work, and (c) any
Defect you cause.
Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
from people in all walks of life.
Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg’s
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg collection will
remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg and future
generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see
Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org.
Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by
U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws.
The Foundation’s business office is located at 41 Watchung Plaza #516,
Montclair NJ 07042, USA, +1 (862) 621-9288. Email contact links and up
to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website
and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation
Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread
public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.
The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state
visit www.gutenberg.org/donate.
While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.
International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate.
Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg electronic works
Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
Gutenberg concept of a library of electronic works that could be
freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
distributed Project Gutenberg eBooks with only a loose network of
volunteer support.
Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
edition.
Most people start at our website which has the main PG search
facility: www.gutenberg.org.
This website includes information about Project Gutenberg,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
