Volume 1 — 1100. A SCENE IN A PLAY.

Pietro Longhi (Venetian: 1702-1762).

Pietro Longhi, who studied in Bologna, but afterwards settled in his native Venice, was one of the four masters who made a partial revival of Venetian painting in the eighteenth century—the other three being Tiepolo (1692-1769, see 1192), Canaletto (1697-1768, see 127), and Guardi (1712-1793, see 210). Longhi represented the Vanity Fair of Venice at his epoch with fidelity and kindly feeling. He has been called "the Italian Hogarth," but he is greatly inferior in every respect to that painter. Moreover he was not a satirist like Hogarth, and there is more truth in the description of him as "the Goldoni of painters"—Goldoni, the popular playwright, with whom Longhi was nearly contemporary, and who, like him, just reflects "the shade and shine of common life, nor renders as it rolls grandeur and gloom." "Longhi used to tell Goldoni that they were brethren in art. Longhi surveyed human life with the same kindly glance and the same absence of gravity or depth of intuition as Goldoni. They both studied nature, but nature only in her genial moods. They both sincerely aimed at truth, but avoided truths which were sinister or painful" (J. A. Symonds, in the Century Guild Hobby Horse, April 1889). Longhi was the son of a goldsmith, and as a lad showed unusual skill in designs for ornamental plate: hence the affectionate partiality in his pictures for the minutest details of decorative furniture, dress, and articles of luxury.

The engraved portrait on the wall is inscribed "Gerardo Sagredo di Morei," and perhaps the picture is a group of the Sagredo family, for whose palace in Venice Longhi painted some frescoes in 1734. The family preferred, perhaps, to be taken in the characters of a scene in a play of Goldoni's or some other popular writer—just as in the "Vicar of Wakefield" they resolved to be drawn together, in one large historical piece. "This would be cheaper, since one frame would serve for all, and it would be infinitely more genteel; for all families of any taste were now drawn in the same manner."

1101. MASKED VISITORS AT A MENAGERIE.

Pietro Longhi (Venetian: 1702-1762). See 1100.

A characteristic glimpse of Venetian life a hundred years ago. "At that time," it has been said, "perhaps people did not amuse themselves more at Venice than elsewhere, but they amused themselves differently. It is this seizing on peculiarities, on local and characteristic details, that makes Longhi's little canvases so curious." Here he shows us two ladies in dominoes, escorted by a cavalier, at a menagerie. The trainer exhibits a rhinoceros to them.

1102. THE CHEVALIER ANDREA TRON.

Pietro Longhi (Venetian: 1702-1762). See 1100.

The portrait of "a procurator of St. Mark's," a dignity in the Venetian State second only to that of Doge. The procurators were charged with the legal administration of all the affairs of St. Mark's, and their official palaces (the Procuratie) adjoined the church. They were further charged with the care of orphans, and with the administration of others who cared to put themselves "in chancery." The office was thus not unlike that of an English Lord Chancellor, and there is a "grandmotherliness" about this procurator that makes one think he must have discharged some of his duties well. The broad golden stole over his shoulder shows him to have been also a knight of the order of the Stola d'Oro, as the Procurator's stole was of crimson velvet. The picture is in its original frame, surmounted by the armorial bearings of the Tron family.

1103. VIRGIN AND CHILD, WITH SAINTS.

Fiorenzo di Lorenzo (Umbrian: 1472-1521).

These are the dates not of his birth and death (which are unknown), but of the earliest and latest events recorded of him. In 1472 he was commissioned to paint an altar-piece, the principal parts of which may now be seen in the Pinacoteca of Perugia, and he was elected a member of the Town Council of Perugia. In 1521 he was commissioned to value some works by another painter. The resemblance of his style to that of Benozzo Gozzoli may be seen by comparing No. 283. Fiorenzo's work is best seen in Perugia, where he reveals himself as an artist of great feeling and ability. Especially remarkable is the series of scenes from the life of Bernardino (some reproduced by the Arundel Society). (See for notices of this painter Morelli's German Galleries, p. 263, and S. Brinton's Renaissance in Italian Art, pt. iii. pp. 108, 141).

The accompanying figures are—in front of the throne, St. Francis (on the right of the Child), St Bernardino, a saint of Siena (on the left), and in smaller size the donor of the altar-piece. This is one of the earliest examples in the Gallery of the introduction of portraits in this way. In the left-hand compartment St. John the Baptist; and in the right-hand one St. Bartholomew, carrying his familiar attribute—a blood-stained knife, the instrument of his martyrdom. The compartments containing the figures of St. John the Baptist and St. Bartholomew were originally at one side of the central panel, but have been placed on each side for symmetry, the corresponding twin panels being lost. Notice the beautiful pattern engraved on the gold background.

1104. THE ANNUNCIATION.

Giannicola Manni (Umbrian: 1475-1544).

Born at Città della Pieve, the native town of Perugino, whose pupil and assistant he became. Several of his works may be seen in the Pinacoteca at Perugia, of which town he was a magistrate. He also executed the frescoes in the chapel attached to the Sala del Cambio.

Notice the quaint "arabesques" on the Virgin's prie-dieu, or praying-stool; they are characteristic of this painter.

1105. THE PROTHONOTARY-APOSTOLIC, JULIANO.

Lorenzo Lotto (Venetian: 1480-1555). See 699.

See for the subject under 1024. "A smooth-shaven old man with a face that one would not be in the least surprised to see to-day anywhere, and least of all in England. As a portrait, it is the quietest of all those by Lotto known to me, and—if I may be allowed the word—the most 'gentlemanly'" (Berenson: Lorenzo Lotto, p. 189).

1106. THE RESURRECTION.

Francesco Mantegna (Paduan: about 1470-1517). See 639.

Notice the classical sarcophagus of marble. The resurrection banner is affixed to a tall rod surmounted by a cross composed of golden balls.

1107. THE CRUCIFIXION.

Niccolò da Foligno (Umbrian: 1430-1492).

The pietism, characteristic of the Umbrian School generally, is conspicuous in Niccolò, of whom Vasari remarks that "the expression of grief in his angels, and the tears they shed, are so natural that I do not believe any artist, however excellent he might be, could have done it much better." But he often overstrained this expression into grimace. He shows, says Morelli, the "tendency to exaggeration which marks the inhabitant of a small provincial town." He was capable, however, of giving grace and beauty to his female heads and heads of angels. Examples may be seen in the Brera at Milan, and in the Vatican Gallery. It is probable that Niccolò owed a good deal to Benozzo Gozzoli, who from 1452 to 1457 was working not far from Foligno (see Morelli's German Galleries, p. 258). Niccolò is often called Niccolò Alunno. The origin of this mistake, made first by Vasari, is that on one of his pictures he is described as "Nicholaus alumnus Flogging" (Niccolò, a native, or alumnus, of Foligno).

In this picture the artist seems to revel in the depiction of emotion, and (as it were) in "piling up the agony." There is the same pleasure here in the use of a new gift—that of expressing emotion—as in 583, in that of expressing perspective. The central scene of the Crucifixion is surrounded by the Agony in the Garden, Christ bearing his Cross, the Descent from the Cross, and the Resurrection. Note as characteristic of the genius loci in the Umbrian School that St. Francis of Assisi is kneeling at the foot of the cross.

The acquisition of this picture by the National Gallery (in 1881) had a curious history. It was formerly in the convent of Santa Chiara at Aquila, and on the suppression of the convent became the property of the State. But by the Archbishop's orders it was successfully secreted. On his death, some years later, it was conveyed to the house of one of the canons of the cathedral, by whom it was sold to a dealer in Rome. The dealer made a good thing out of it; he bought it for £260, and sold it (with another small picture) to our National Gallery for £1200. The Italian Government instituted a prosecution for theft, which, however, was subsequently dropped for civil proceedings for damages against all the persons concerned, "except the Englishman who, it is believed, bought the picture in good faith."

1108. THE VIRGIN ENTHRONED.

Unknown (Sienese School: late 15th century).

1109. THE MARRIAGE OF THE VIRGIN.

Niccolò di Buonaccorso (Sienese: died 1388).

Of this painter, who worked and held several offices at Siena, none of the works is traceable except this signed picture and some fragments (also signed, and dated 1387) in a little village church near Siena.

"Remarkable, amongst other things, for the wonderful elaboration of the gold ornaments on the dresses, and the attempt to give an Oriental character to the scene by the introduction of the palm-tree, the carpet, and the dark-faced player on the kettledrums. It is interesting also for its notes from real life in the figure of the child, the faces of some of the spectators in the background, the window-openings with their poles, the figures on the right under the blind, and the flower-pot on the sill on the left" (Monkhouse: The Italian Pre-Raphaelites, p. 17). For some remarks on the subject, see under 1317.

1109a. VIRGIN AND CHILD.

A. R. Mengs (German: 1728-1779).

See also (p. xx)

Anton Raphael Mengs, the son of a court painter at Dresden—a post to which the boy afterwards succeeded—was taken when a boy to Rome and set to study the works of the great masters. He became the most celebrated representative of the Eclectic School of painting in the eighteenth century, and played a great part in the early days of the classic revival of that period. In his writings, in Spanish, Italian, and German, he elaborated his eclectic theory—the attainment of perfection by the combination of diverse excellences, Greek designs with the expression of Raphael, the chiaroscuro of Correggio, and the colour of Titian. He was an intimate friend of Winckelmann, who constantly wrote at his dictation. His work was eagerly sought after, both at Rome and at the courts of Dresden and Madrid, and his books enjoyed a very wide circulation.

A cartoon, executed in black chalk.

1113. A LEGENDARY SUBJECT.

Pietro Lorenzetti (Sienese: died 1348).

This painter was the elder brother of Ambrogio Lorenzetti (1147), and first appears as an artist in 1305. Many of his works, or fragments of them, may still be seen in and around Siena. Among the best is a triptych in the sacristy of the Cathedral representing the birth of the Virgin. "A long series of frescoes, representing different incidents in the Passion, have recently been rescued from whitewash in the church of S. Francesco. They are remarkable for their vigour and harmony, and show Pietro to have possessed great talents both as a colourist and as a draughtsman" (Bryan's Dictionary).

Probably illustrative of some incident in the life of a saint—of Bishop Sansovino, perhaps, the patron saint of Siena—in which the forces of the Christian and pagan religions were opposed. On one side is a pagan priest bearing a statue, supposed, from the apple in its hand, to be that of Venus. On the other is a Christian bishop engaged in some ecclesiastical function.

1114-1118. THE FIVE SENSES.

Coques (Flemish: 1618-1684). See 821.

Coques pays a pretty compliment to one of his fellow-artists Robert van Hoecke (who, like a greater man, Leonardo, was an authority on fortifications as well as a painter), in painting his portrait as typical of "Sight." The figures in the rest of the series, if portraits, have not been identified.

1119. MADONNA AND CHILD WITH SAINTS.

Ercole di Giulio Grandi (Ferrarese: died 1531).

Of this painter, one of the best of the Ferrarese school, very little is known, beyond the fact that he was in the service of the ducal house at Este. The identification of his works is also very uncertain, for Vasari, unaware that two painters of the Grandi family had borne the name of Ercole (see 1127), classed the works of both under the same head. The present picture is not signed, and was first identified as the younger Ercole's by Morelli. This Ercole, son of Giulio Cesare de' Grandi, studied under Francia and Lorenzo Costa, to the latter of whom, indeed, this picture was attributed in the foundling hospital of Ferrara, from which it comes. Like Francia, Ercole combined the practice of other arts with that of painting—being a gold-beater and modeller, as well as a painter—a conjunction which is seen in this picture, with its wealth of decorative accessories. He disputes with Garofalo the title of "the Raphael of Ferrara," a description which this splendid picture goes some way to justify.

A picture notable alike for its central idea and for its wealth of decorative detail. In the group of the infant Saviour (a very finely drawn figure) standing on the Virgin's knees in the act of benediction, with St. William on the right of the throne and on the left St. John the Baptist, is an imaginative representation of Christianity—the soldier of Christ, with his armour on him, but bareheaded, and with his hand on the sword, on one side; the saint, with the Cross and the Book, on the other. The accessories are full of decorative inventiveness, but every detail is full of thought; they are an epitome, as it were, of all the decorative arts of the time. Note first, in the walnut wood pedestal of the throne, that the frieze at the top is a graceful arrangement of dolphins, emblems of love and affection, and the base, of stags and swans ("As pants the hart for cooling streams, so pants my soul for thee, O God"). In its central panel is an alto-relievo in ivory, with Adam and Eve on either side of the Tree of Knowledge. On each of the receding panels is a white marble medallion of the turbaned head of a prophet. On the predella below there are, (1) beginning on the spectator's right, the Nativity, (2) the Presentation in the Temple, (3) the Massacre of the Innocents, (4) the Flight into Egypt, and (5) Christ disputing with the Doctors. The ornamental details of the marble baldacchino (or canopy), like those of the throne, are all symbolic; thus the archivolt is composed of choiring cherubim separated by pots of lilies, and the spandrils of the arch are occupied by medallions of the angel Gabriel and the Virgin (G. T. Robinson in Art Journal, May 1886, p. 150).

1120. ST. JEROME IN THE DESERT.

Cima da Conegliano (Venetian: 1460-1518). See 300.

Another of the numerous St. Jerome pictures: see under 694 and 227. The saint has his usual company of animals. His lion is frowning, somewhat with the same expression as in 227—as if to deprecate the penance which his master is about to inflict on himself. On the branch of the tree above is a hawk, looking on with the expression of a superior person—one quite too sagacious to countenance such madness. Notice also the serpent which crawls from beneath the rock on which the Cross is placed. The picture, says Mr. Gilbert, "is rich, even brilliant, in colouring, and if there is a touch of oddity in the house perched upon a crag, there is loveliness in the mountain range, and in the amber and lemon tints that streak the evening sky" (Landscape in Art, p. 340).

1121. PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN.

Unknown (Venetian: time of Bellini).

See also (p. xx)

This portrait, when it hung in Hamilton Palace, used to be called a Leonardo. Sir W. Armstrong (Notes on the National Gallery, p. 24) gives it unhesitatingly to Basaiti (see 599).

1122. ST. JEROME.

Domenico Theotocopuli (Spanish: 1548-1625).

This artist, called "Il Greco," was of Greek descent and is supposed to have studied in Venice. He was said to have been a pupil of Titian, but his impetuous style seems rather to have been modelled on that of Tintoretto. He settled at Toledo in 1575, and there acquired a great reputation. His picture of "The Parting of Our Lord's Raiment," which still adorns the sacristy of the cathedral at Toledo, is, says Stirling-Maxwell, "truly admirable in drawing and composition; and the colouring is on the whole rich and effective, although it is here and there laid on in that spotted, streaky manner which afterwards became the great and prominent defect of El Greco's style." The picture in our Gallery No. 1457 in its energetic action but faulty drawing is characteristic of him. The exaggerated elongation of his figures is one of his common weaknesses. The "St. Maurice with his Theban Legion," which he painted for Philip II. in the Escorial is "little less extravagant and atrocious than the massacre which it recorded"; this was painted in 1580. A year or two later he executed the "Burial of the Count of Orgaz" in the church of St. Tomé at Toledo. This is usually esteemed his masterpiece. "The artist or lover of art who has once beheld it will never, as he rambles among the winding streets of the ancient city, pass the pretty brick belfry of that church without turning aside to gaze upon its superb picture once more." Theotocopuli has been described as "an artist who alternated between reason and delirium, and displayed his great genius only at lucid intervals." His portraits, of which there are several in the Royal Gallery at Madrid, are often mannered; but occasionally very fine. Into the portrait of his daughter (now at Keir) he put all his skill; her face, with markedly Greek features, is "one of the most beautiful that death ever dimmed and that the pencil ever rescued from the grave." Il Greco was much employed both as sculptor and architect. He was a man of wit and learning, and is said to have written on the three arts which he professed (Annals of the Artists of Spain, ch. v.).

This picture passed when in the Hamilton Collection for the work of Titian. The inscription on the book, "Cornaro aet suae 100-1566," is interpolated. The picture appears to be one of those realistic representations of St. Jerome of which there are other examples by Theotocopuli.

1123. VENUS, ADONIS, AND MYRRHA.

School of Giorgione (Venetian: 16th century). See 269.

A picture of the golden age, entirely in the Giorgionesque spirit, and often attributed to Giorgione himself[214]—a vision of a land bathed in perpetual light and sparkling with golden sunshine. The legendary subject which forms the theme of this characteristic pastoral is the story of Myrrha, which may be read in Dryden's translations from Ovid's Metamorphoses. The principal group is Venus and her favourite Adonis (see under 34). He was the son of Myrrha, whose legend is the subject of several small groups. On the right is a woman fleeing from a man who pursues her, sword in hand; these represent Myrrha and her father Cinyras. Farther on the woman is on her knees; here Myrrha is praying to the gods to transform her—

A third group shows the answer to her prayer: she is transferred into the myrrh tree, whose "precious drops her name retain," while the wood-nymphs receive her new-born babe, Adonis. In the background on the left is represented the death of Adonis; Venus is lamenting over his body and changing his blood into the anemone. The group in the clouds may represent Cupid accidentally wounding his mother.

1124. THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI.

Filippino Lippi (Florentine: 1457-1504). See 293.

See also (p. xx)

By some ascribed to Botticelli.[215] "There is an unmistakable drawing for it in the Uffizi Collection (No. 210), which is there ascribed to Botticelli, and which I, for one, am not at all inclined to take away from him. My own opinion is that there was no painter of the time who could have given so poetically conceived a background as we have in No. 1124; the drawing of some of the figures also speaks of itself" (Mr. Maurice Hewlett in the Academy, January 9, 1892).

For two other more highly-finished pictures of the same subject also ascribed to this master see 592 and 1033. This picture, with others from the Hamilton Collection, was in the "Old Masters" Exhibition of 1873. "The 'Adoration of the Magi,'" wrote Ruskin to Mr. Fairfax Murray, "had prettiness in it, but was poor stuff."

1125. SUMMER AND AUTUMN.

Andrea Mantegna[216] (Paduan: 1431-1506). See 274.

Summer holds a sieve for sifting the corn which she ripens. Autumn raises a goblet of wine to her lips.

1126. THE ASSUMPTION OF THE VIRGIN.

Botticelli (Florentine: 1447-1510). See 1034.

See also (p. xx)

A picture with an interesting history. It was painted by Botticelli[217] when he was a young man, for Matteo Palmieri (a prominent Florentine citizen). This Matteo and his wife are here represented on either side of the tomb in the foreground. The patron assisted Botticelli in working out the design; and between them they made some modifications in theology, which brought them into trouble—so early did Sandro's reforming work begin. The story is thus told, and the picture described, by Vasari:—

"In the church of San Pietro (Florence) the master painted a picture for Matteo Palmieri with a very large number of figures. The subject of this work, which is near the side-door, is the Assumption of Our Lady, and the zones or circles of heaven are there painted in their order. The Patriarchs, the Prophets, the Apostles, the Evangelists, the Martyrs, the Confessors, the Doctors, the Virgins, and the Hierarchies; all which was executed by Sandro according to the design furnished to him by Matteo, who was a very learned and able man. The whole work was conducted and finished with the most admirable skill and care; at the foot of it was the portrait of Matteo kneeling, with that of his wife. But although the picture is exceedingly beautiful and ought to have put envy to shame, yet there were found certain malevolent and censorious persons who, not being able to affix any other blame to the work, declared that Matteo and Sandro had erred gravely in that matter, and had fallen into grievous heresy. Now, whether this be true or not, let none expect the judgment of that question from me; it shall suffice me to note that the figures executed by Sandro in that work are entirely worthy of praise, and that the pains he took in depicting those circles of the heavens must have been very great, to say nothing of the angels mingled with the other figures, or of the various foreshortenings, all which are designed in a very good manner" (ii. 233).

Matteo Palmieri was the author of a poem called "The City of Life,"[218] in which he adopted Origen's thesis that the human race was an incarnation of those angels who in the revolt of Lucifer were neither for God nor for his enemies, and explained how the soul of man could work its way back through the spheres to the very seat of deity. This "heresy" interprets (says Mr. Pater) much of the peculiar sentiment with which Botticelli infuses his profane and sacred persons,—neither all human, nor all divine (see above under 275). It was ingeniously suggested, as we shall see, in this picture, and was entirely in accord with those "Neo-Platonic" ideas in which Botticelli, as a member of the Medici circle, was well versed. Matteo seems to have been afraid that his poem might bring him into trouble owing to its heretical views on the nature of angels, for he presented his MS. to the Art of the Notaries in Florence, sealed and under the express condition that it should not be opened, "so long as he lived imprisoned in this body." He died in 1478, and his poem fell under the expected censure. Botticelli's picture, as Vasari says, shared this fate. The painting bears evidence of intentional injury, the faces of the donor and his wife having been scored through; nor did some of the apostles escape the wrath of these iconoclasts. Attempts at restoration were made at some subsequent period. As the portrait of a heretic might not be exhibited in a Roman Catholic church, the picture was covered up, and the chapel in which it stood was closed to public worship. Ultimately the book was declared innocuous, and the chapel was re-opened. The picture, however, had already been, or was afterwards, removed from the family chapel of the Palmieri to their villa. On the death of the last heir, it passed into the hands of a Florentine dealer who sold it to the 11th Duke of Hamilton. At the disposal of the Hamilton Collection in 1882 it was bought for the National Gallery.

The picture was doubtless designed as an illustration of the closing canto of "The City of Life," in which Matteo supposes himself conducted by the Cumæan Sibyl through the Elysian Fields to Heaven. The ostensible subject is the Assumption into Heaven of the Virgin. On earth the apostles are represented gathered around the Virgin's tomb, from which "annunciation lilies" are growing; while she is in heaven kneeling in adoration before the Saviour, who has an open book inscribed with the mystic letters Α and Ω: "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end." Around the Virgin and Christ are all the hierarchies of heaven, arranged, according to the scheme of the theologians, in three separate tiers. Nearest to Christ are the seraphs (red), cherubs (blue), and thrones (gold); these are conceived as absorbed in perpetual love and adoration round the throne of God, and are represented therefore as with heads only (the attribute of spirit) and wings ("swift as thought"). In relation with mankind come the remaining orders—the dominations, virtues, powers (these last with sceptres in their hands), and in the lowest of the three, tiers, archangels, princedoms, and angels (with their wands). "The black vases with golden borders in the hands of some of the angels are probably meant for the 'golden vials full of the wrath of God' (Revelations xv. 7). Near them there are other angels, who in the attitude of expectation point upward with their sticks; while those in the lowest circle point down, and at the same time seem to invite those who hold vials to pour them out upon the city of Florence" (Richter's Italian Art in the National Gallery, p. 28). Everywhere amongst the angelic host are the blessed dead, and it is here that the views of Matteo's poem found expression. We have seen in Botticelli's "Nativity" (1034) the same intercourse of men and angels, with reference there to the reconciling power of the "Logos." Among the cherubs, we may decipher St. James with the pilgrim staff, St. Andrew with his cross, St. Peter with the key, and St. Mary Magdalen with the casket. It is interesting to note Botticelli's estimate of degrees in the scale of spiritual excellence. For instance, St. Catherine of Siena is in the lowest ring among the Angels, but St. Bernard is in the third with Principalities; Moses is among Powers, so are St. Lawrence, St. Stephen, and St. Catherine of Alexandria; Virtues hold St. Bonaventura, St. Dominic, and St. Paul; St. Francis with the Evangelists is higher, in Dominations; in the highest Triplicitie, as Spenser puts it, there are men—including the Baptist—mingled with the Cherubim. The angels are represented throughout as ministering spirits; and nothing in the picture is prettier than the way in which the angels are calling upon the saints to "enter into the joy of their Lord"; note, for instance, the white angel on the right in the lowest tier, and the saint in black and red. She will teach to him

D. G. Rossetti: The Blessed Damozel.

There are many charming single figures; note, for instance, two angels in the lower tier in the centre; and all are characteristic of the new type of angels which Botticelli introduced—forsaking entirely the conventional idealism of earlier religious art, and substituting the waving garments and flowing hair (suggestive of atmosphere and swiftness of motion) which we see in Perugino and Raphael.

Finally, the picture is of topographical interest for the beautiful view of Florence and the Val d' Arno in the background—

Browning: Old Pictures in Florence.

The precise point of view has been identified by Miss Margaret Stokes in her Six Months in the Apennines, pp. 261-264. Turning off the high road, on the descent from the hill of Fiesole—

"I got among the lanes on Monte Rinaldi near La Lastra, on the Via Bolognese, and soon found myself among the ruined terraces of an ancient garden, where cactus and aloe grew side by side with brambles, periwinkles, and ivy. Having reached an open in the thicket into which I had strayed, I was startled to see the very scene represented by Botticelli about the year 1455 lying at my feet—the wide horizon reaching from San Domenico, and the Apennines beyond Monte Moro, Scala, and Monte Maggio, round the whole Val d' Arno, to San Lorenzo and the northern boundary of Florence. Seated on the same mountain side, where the great painter must have sat four hundred and thirty years ago, and holding my little copy of his landscape in my hand, it was intensely interesting to trace the objects still remaining on which his eye had rested, and which his conscientious pencil had outlined, and to note the changes wrought by time in the aspect of the scene."

Miss Stokes prints side by side with her copy of Botticelli's background a topographical plan of the present scene. The house on the hill above the Mugnone beyond the bridge is the Villa Palmieri, where Queen Victoria stayed in 1888. Boccaccio selected it for one of the homes of his fair storytellers in the Decameron. Matteo Palmieri bought it in 1450. There, no doubt, Botticelli was often a guest, and there the two friends may have planned this great altar-piece. "It is perfectly in keeping with the poetic instincts of sacred painters of the time that this great vision of Heaven should be represented as bursting on the poet in his own very home. Gazing upwards from his cypress groves into the unfathomable blue above, it is as if the sky had slowly opened, and the interior of a vast dome were revealed, rising above three iridescent bands of light, peopled with nine successive zones of sacred forms, all gazing in absorbed ecstasy on the figure of the Divine Mother, lowliest of women, kneeling at the feet of the Redeemer" (pp. 261-264).

1127. THE LAST SUPPER.

Ercole Roberti de' Grandi (Ferrarese: 1450-1496).

This Ercole is not to be confused with the younger painter of the same family (see 1119). Ercole Roberti was the son of Antonio Grandi, also a painter. A drawing attributed to him in the Louvre, representing the Massacre of the Innocents, in which he nearly approaches the grandeur of conception and masterly execution of Mantegna, seems to show that he had either studied under that great painter, or had experienced his influence. Mantua, where Mantegna lived after 1468, is at no great distance from Ferrara. Ercole was employed at the latter place by the dukes, from whom he received a regular salary. Pictures by him are rare, and none is authenticated by his genuine signature. In the Dresden Gallery are two compartments of a predella by him, another being in the Royal Institution at Liverpool. In these and a few other works, including those in our Gallery, Ercole reveals himself as a thorough Ferrarese, in his energetic rendering of life and character, and in his careful study of details (Layard's edition of "Kugler," ii. 351, and Morelli's German Galleries, pp. 109-113).

A very dainty little work. Notice especially the painting of the bas-reliefs and of the decanters. The attitudes of the disciples betoken respect or veneration, except that of the nearest figure, Judas, who turns away his head.

1128. THE CIRCUMCISION OF CHRIST.

Luca Signorelli (Cortona: 1441-1523).

Signorelli was born at Cortona, on the boundary of Umbria and Tuscany. By early teaching he is an Umbrian, but in style a Florentine. Indeed, his position in the history of art is that of forerunner of Michael Angelo. He was a pupil of Piero della Francesca, with whom, no doubt, he acquired a knowledge of the figure from anatomical study of the nude. His chief works, the frescoes in the cathedral of Orvieto,[219]—executed by the artist after his sixtieth year,—were ten years earlier than the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel by Michael Angelo, who was largely influenced by Signorelli's example. Like Michael Angelo, Signorelli is intensely dramatic, and in pictures which do not allow of the violent action to be found in his frescoes, his figures seem to be instinct with suppressed action. "To no other contemporary painter," says Morelli, "was it given to endow the human frame with the like degree of passion, vehemence, and strength" (Roman Galleries, p. 92). "To this we may add," says another critic, "that no other painter has ever conceived humanity with the same stately grandeur and in the same broad spirit. The confident strength of youth, the stern austerity of middle life, the resolute solemnity of old age—these are his themes. Signorelli is, before all, the painter of the dignity of human life" (Maud Cruttwell, Luca Signorelli, p. 31.) He is a representative also of the literary and classical Renaissance. He is fond of architectural adornments in the style of his time—as in the present picture, where the ceremony takes place in a hall or porch enriched with bas-reliefs in circular panels and paved with square slabs of coloured marbles. He painted the usual religious pictures, but did not adhere to the traditional modes, and often introduced a classical element (see 1133). It is interesting to note that in his picture of some nude Greek gods (at Berlin) the composition is the same as in his regulation church pictures of the Madonna and Saints. Of Signorelli's personal life there is a pleasant account in Vasari, whose kinsman he was. He was a person of consequence in his native city, going hither and thither to paint commissions, and then returning to the discharge of his civic duties. "He lived splendidly, in the manner," says Vasari, "rather of a noble and a gentleman than in that of a painter." Not that he despised his profession, for he expressly advised that his little kinsman should "by all means learn to draw, that he may not degenerate, for even though he should hereafter devote himself to learning, yet the knowledge of design, if not profitable, cannot fail to be honourable and advantageous." Of Signorelli's own devotion to his art Vasari tells another story, which has thus been versified—

Symonds, Renaissance, iii. 281.

Our picture is thus described by Vasari,—for the fact that he calls it a fresco is no argument against the identification, since he often makes such mistakes: "In the church of San Francesco, in Volterra, this master painted a fresco, representing the Circumcision of Christ. This also is considered a wonderfully beautiful picture, but the Child having been injured by the damp, was repaired by Sodoma, whereby the beauty was much diminished. And, of a truth, it would often be much better to retain the works of excellent masters, though half-spoiled, than suffer them to be retouched by less capable artists." Vasari, however, seems to have been "anxious to place Sodoma in a bad light whenever he could. Damp was in all probability not the cause of the restoration of the infant Christ. It was very likely repainted because the public of Volterra disliked the realism with which Signorelli seems to have treated the subject" (Richter, p. 48). Signorelli's children are curiously ugly: it seems as if he had no sympathy except in the painting of figures of powerful maturity. Of the fact of the repainting recorded by Vasari there is no doubt; for the position of the legs has been altered, their original action being distinctly shown by the incised outline still visible through the deep blue colour of the Virgin's robe. The painting of the other figures is "bold and resolute, the draperies sweep in broad folds round them. The attitude of the standing woman to the right is grand, and the earnest concentration of the faces on the ceremony, and the absence of any connecting link between them and us, give dramatic reality to the scene" (Cruttwell, p. 40). It is interesting to note that the figure of the operator is like the portrait of himself which Signorelli introduced into his frescoes of the Preaching of Anti-Christ at Orvieto: the figure is, moreover, clothed in the dress of the period and of the rich materials in which, Vasari says, the artist took much pleasure in dressing himself. Behind the central group is the aged Simeon, who blessed God and said, "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word."

1129. KING PHILIP IV. OF SPAIN.

Velazquez (Spanish: 1599-1660). See 197.

The king is younger here than in 745; hanging from his chain is the order of the Golden Fleece. Notice also that the head is not so minutely painted here as in 745; that being a bust portrait would be seen near, this being a full-length would naturally be placed above the level of the eye. The smaller picture might be called, in the art-slang of to-day, "a harmony in black and gold"; this, from the shimmer on its lace and the flashing on the rapier hilt, "a harmony in black and silver."

"Strange lot," exclaims a biographer of Velazquez, with reference to the painter's portraits of the king, "to be the Apelles of this inactive Alexander. For thirty-seven long years always painting the same effigy! For throughout all these years Philip's features preserved a marvellous, a startling uniformity. In the black silk court dress, in the hunting suit, in the military uniform, in the white satin robe of state, in the gilded steel armour, in the festive religious attire—kneeling, standing, mounted—the same stereotyped head is still there with its everlasting steadfast gaze. It may change from lean to full, from the fresh smooth features of youth and those of manhood, marked by the lines of passion, to the leaden, swollen, and rigid lineaments of age; but even at a distance it is still instantly recognised. Who can mistake the long oval, with its pale whitish complexion, and cold phlegmatic glance of the great blue eyes under the high forehead, and light stiffly-curled hair, strong flat lips and massive chin, the whole overcast with an expression of pride that repels all advances and suppresses all outward show of feeling? He is said to have laughed but thrice in his life; and although the statement might be questioned, it was still good enough to point a sally in one of Calderon's plays" (Justi's Velazquez and his Times, pp. 107, 108).

1130. CHRIST WASHING HIS DISCIPLES' FEET.

Tintoretto (Venetian: 1518-1584). See 16.

Some remarks made by Ruskin on another version by Tintoret of the same subject are not inappropriate to this dark and probably faded picture.[220] "One circumstance is noticeable as in a considerable degree detracting from the interest of most of Tintoret's representations of our Saviour with his disciples. He never loses sight of the fact that all were poor, and the latter ignorant; and while he never paints a senator or a saint, once thoroughly canonised, except as a gentleman, he is very careful to paint the Apostles in their living intercourse with the Saviour in such a manner that the spectator may see in an instant, as the Pharisee did of old, that they were unlearned and ignorant men; and, whenever we find them in a room, it is always such a one as would be inhabited by the lower classes.... We are quickly reminded that the guests' chamber or upper room ready prepared was not likely to have been in a palace, by the humble furniture upon the floor" (Stones of Venice, Venetian Index, under "Moisé, Church of St.") In front is St. Peter, placing his foot in a brazen basin and bending forward with a deprecating action—in contrast to which is the look of cheerful and almost amused alacrity on the part of Him who came not to be ministered unto, but to minister. Behind are other disciples pressing forward with reverent curiosity. Another, in the right-hand corner of the foreground, has raised his foot on a bench and is drying it with a cloth. To the left a female attendant holds a taper, whilst in the background are other figures, one of whom reclines before a fire.

1131. JOSEPH AND HIS KINDRED IN EGYPT.

Jacopo Carucci da Pontormo (Florentine: 1494-1557).

Jacopo Carucci, commonly called Pontormo, from his birthplace of that name (a town on the road from Pisa to Florence), was a scholar of Andrea del Sarto, and was employed with his master in decorating the outer court of the SS. Annunziata at Florence. His fresco there of the "Visitation" is, for the grandeur of the figures and beauty of the colouring, worthy of Andrea himself. Pontormo was one of the most original "characters" among those described by Vasari. His pictures were much sought after, but "he would never work but at such moments as he pleased, and for such persons as chanced to be agreeable to him, insomuch that he was frequently sought by gentlemen who desired to possess some work from his hand, but for whom he would do nothing; yet at that very time he would probably be employing himself zealously for some inferior and plebeian person. One of the Medici had been greatly pleased with a picture by Pontormo, and said that in reward for it he might ask whatever he pleased and should have his wish granted. But such was, I know not whether to say the timidity, or the too great respect and modesty of this man, that he asked nothing better than just so much money as would enable him to redeem a cloak which he had hastily pledged." Many other interesting tales of Pontormo will be found in Vasari—of his love of secrecy, his curious manner of life, and the dead bodies he kept in troughs of water, so to paint more realistically the victims of the Deluge. This last tale is characteristic of Pontormo's place in the history of art, which for the most part was that of an exaggerated mannerist after Michael Angelo. In the National Gallery we see him at his best. His portraits are uniformly excellent, and his "Joseph in Egypt" is mentioned by Vasari as his most successful work—"whether as regards the power of invention displayed, the grouping of the figures, the animation of the heads, or the variety and beauty of the attitudes."

This crowded and fantastic composition contains a drama in five acts describing incidents in the life of Joseph in Egypt (see Genesis xlvii. 1-6, 13-26; xlviii. 1-14). (1) On the left Pharaoh, in a white turban, and surrounded by attendants, is met by Joseph and his brethren, who stand before him in attitudes of supplication. The youth sitting on the steps with a basket in his hand is a portrait (Vasari tells us) of the painter's pupil, Bronzino. (2) On the right of the foreground Joseph, seated on a triumphal car drawn by naked children, stoops forward towards a man who kneels and presents a petition. (3) In the middle distance there is an animated group of men ("Wherefore shall we die before thine eyes, both we and our land?"). (4) On the steps leading up to the circular building on the right, Joseph is leading one of his sons to see the dying Jacob; he is followed by the "steward of the house," a conspicuous figure in a long crimson robe. The other boy appears at the top of the steps and is embraced by his mother. (5) Inside the room Jacob is represented as giving his blessing to the two boys, Ephraim and Manasseh, who are presented to him by their father. The antique statues which adorn the building were often given by mediæval artists as characteristic of Egypt, from which the art of Greece was believed to have been derived (see Richter's Italian Art in the National Gallery, pp. 36-40).

The removal of this picture has been blasted by a woman's curse. It was painted for a Florentine noble, named Borgherini; and when he was exiled, the civic authorities sent to his house to buy up all its works of art, which were to be sent as a present to the King of France. But Borgherini's wife received the official with "reproaches of intolerable bitterness," says Vasari, "such as had never before been hurled at living man: 'How then! Dost thou, vile broker of frippery, miserable huckster of twopences, dost thou presume to come hither with intent to lay thy fingers on the ornaments which belong to the chambers of gentlemen? despoiling, as thou hast long done, and as thou art for ever doing, this our city of her fairest ornaments to embellish strange lands therewith? Depart from this house, thou and thy myrmidons.'" The lady's anger preserved the picture—only to be afterwards seduced away, by English gold, into the Duke of Hamilton's Collection, from which it was bought for the National Gallery in 1882. Borgherini's commission for the works in question is thus described by Vasari:—

"It chanced that Pier Francesco Borgherini had at that time caused rich carvings in wood to be executed by Baccio d' Agnolo for the decoration of coffers, backs of chairs, seats of different forms, with a bedstead in walnut wood, all of great beauty, and intended for the furnishing forth of an apartment. He therefore desired that the paintings thereof should be equal to the rest of the ornaments. To that end he commissioned Andrea del Sarto to paint the history of Joseph in figures of no great size, and these our artist was to execute in competition with other artists,"—Ubertino and Pontormo among the number (Vasari, iii. 201, iv. 353).

Ubertino's paintings for this sumptuous bedroom as well as that of Pontormo have now found their way into our Gallery (see 1218, 1219).

1132. THE VESTIBULE OF A LIBRARY.

Hendrick Steenwyck, the younger (Flemish: 1580-1649).

The elder painter of this name was one of the first to give us those architectural interiors, which later became a specialty among various painters (see Havard's Dutch School, p. 53). His son, the younger Steenwyck, adopted the same line of art. He came to London before 1629, and was much employed in supplying architectural backgrounds to the royal portraits by Van Dyck and to other pictures. He died in London after 1649.

A picture for architects to look at. It is the interior of a vestibule giving access to a library, and is full of inventiveness. Notice, too, how beautifully the accessories—the tablecloth, the vase of flowers, etc., are painted.

1133. THE NATIVITY.

Luca Signorelli (Cortona: 1441-1523). See 1128.

A dramatic representation in one canvas of the Gospel story told in Luke ii. 1-17. Scene 1. "And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Cæsar Augustus, that all the world should be enrolled." This is represented by the Roman portico behind the central group, under which, at a long table, is seated a row of scribes, who are entering the names of the people. Scene 2. "And Joseph went up ... to be taxed with Mary his espoused wife ... and she brought forth her first-born son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in the manger." This is the subject of the central scene. But the artist, no longer bound by conventional rules, treats his text freely. There is no manger, but the stable is suggested by the heads of the ox and the ass at the side; and instead of the Babe being found "wrapped in swaddling clothes," it is naked. Joseph, in orange and crimson robes, is full of benevolence. The shepherds on the left are in deep reverence. The Virgin is robed in deep blue and green, typical of the depth and mystery of her divine love. In the interstices of the central group are three angels with golden hair and rainbow-hued wings—"calm shining sons of morn." Scene 3. On the left is a group of shepherds: "And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night." The angel of the Lord is appearing unto them from heaven, and they are sore afraid, shielding their eyes from the heavenly light. Scene 4. On the right of the spectator, and seen through an arch of natural rock, is a shepherd playing on the pipe. This figure suggests the antique; he is crowned with ivy leaves and might almost be Orpheus. Thus, instead of representing the "Glory to God in the highest" being sung by "a multitude of the heavenly host," Signorelli gives us a Greek singer—a variation thoroughly characteristic of the classical revival of his time.

The landscape is also thoroughly characteristic of the mediæval mind, which loved the fields but dreaded the mountains. See here, for instance, how lovingly the flowers in the foreground are painted, and note the trailing ivy in the centre of the picture, as well as the flowers and ferns; whereas the rocks upon which these latter grow are altogether impossible in form and position (see Modern Painters, vol. iii. pt. iv. chs. xiv. and xv., where the landscape of Dante, of whom Signorelli was a close student, is analysed). The artist's signature is inscribed on the frieze of the portico. Some, however, have questioned its authenticity and declare the picture to be a weak imitation of the master.

1134. MADONNA AND CHILD.

Liberale da Verona (Veronese: 1451-1535).

Liberale di Giacomo, of Verona, was brought up as a miniaturist, and his works in that sort, executed before he was out of his teens, are much admired for their fancy and sumptuous colour. The choral books which he executed for Monte Oliveto are now in the cathedral of Chiusi. Returning to Verona, Liberale took to painting on a large scale, and became one of the most esteemed artists of the Veronese School. "One of his best works is the Martyrdom of St. Sebastian in the Brera, in which he has introduced an interesting architectural background with Venetian palaces on a canal, designed with much spirit and minuteness. In consequence of his bold and vigorous style his works are occasionally attributed to Mantegna" (Kugler). Many of his pictures are still at Verona.

One of "the small spiritless Madonna pictures which he produced carelessly and hastily in his old age, and supplied for niggardly pay to the citizens of Verona. They served as wedding presents, and Liberale has only himself to thank if this degenerate practice should have spoilt his reputation" (Dr. Richter in the Art Journal, Feb. 1895).

1135, 1136. THE CLEMENCY OF TRAJAN.

Unknown (Veronese School: 15th century).

These two panels, which clearly formed two sides of an ornamental box, represent a favourite subject with Italian painters of the period. The story is that an ancient widow of Rome stopped the Emperor Trajan as he was about to proceed on one of his foreign expeditions, and asked for justice against the murderers of her son, who is here seen lying dead on the roadway. Trajan suggested that she should wait till his return. She replied that the emperor might be killed in battle. "Then," said Trajan, "my successor will attend to the business." "But why," she urged, "not decide the case at once?" The emperor on second thoughts did so, and the second panel shows him on the judgment seat. He called the culprits before him, spared their lives, but made them pay heavy damages to the widow. This incident was engraved, together with the record of his victories, on Trajan's column.

1137. PORTRAIT OF A BOY.

Jacob van Oost the Elder (Flemish: 1600-1671).

This painter was born at Bruges, and his pictures are very numerous in his native town. He painted principally religious subjects in the style of the Carracci, whose works he had studied in Italy. Of his portraits, this work—signed with his monogram,[221] and dated 1650—is the best.

A boy of eleven—so the inscription on the right-hand corner states—Mr. Pater's Sebastian van Storck, it might be.

"It was a winter scene, by Adrian van de Velde, or by Isaac van Ostade.... Sebastian van Storck, confessedly the most graceful performer in all the skating multitude moving in endless maze over the vast surface of the frozen water-meadow, liked best this season of the year for its expression of a perfect impassivity, or at least of a perfect repose. The earth was, or seemed to be, at rest, with a breathlessness of slumber which suited the young man's peculiar temper.... Yet with all his appreciation of the national winter, Sebastian was not altogether a Hollander. His mother, of Spanish descent and Catholic, had given a richness of tone and form to the healthy freshness of the Dutch physiognomy, apt to preserve its youthfulness of aspect far beyond the period of life usual with other peoples. This mixed expression charmed the eyes of Isaac van Ostade, who had painted his portrait at one of those skating parties, with his plume and squirrel's tail and fur muff, in all the modest pleasantness of boyhood" (Imaginary Portraits, p. 92).

1138. THE CRUCIFIXION.

Andrea del Castagno (Florentine: 1390-1457).

There is a rough vigour in this picture which agrees well with what we know of the painter. His father was a labouring man. Left an orphan in his boyhood, Andrea herded the cattle of an uncle at the hamlet of Castagno (whence the painter's name). He was first stimulated to study art by chancing to come across an itinerant painter at work on a rustic tabernacle. He began to draw upon the walls with charcoal or his knife, and showed therein so much ability that he attracted the notice of Benedetto de' Medici, who took the youth to Florence and placed him under proper tuition. Such is Vasari's story. But Benedetto's patronage did not save Andrea from a hard struggle with adversity. At the age of forty he is found declaring that he had neither bed, board, nor lodging in Florence, and was so poor that in illness he had to take shelter in a public hospital. These declarations were made, however, in a taxing return. Subsequently Andrea received various commissions in the palaces and churches of Florence, and from the Government. For the latter he painted on the wall of the palace of the Podestà the gibbeted bodies of those who were declared rebels on the recall from banishment of Cosimo de' Medici. Most of Andrea's works have perished; the few that remain in Florence display "a rude and coarse energy and an independent and original spirit, but are seldom attractive, either in form or colour" (Kugler). He is said to have painted in oil, but no work by him in that medium exists. Vasari's story in this connection, that he assassinated Domenico Veneziano, is demonstrably false (see under 766).

This picture is impressive in its solemn gloom. The impenitent thief writhes in agony, the suffering Christ casts his last glance at his mother, who, with St. John the beloved disciple, stands below in speechless grief. "The most beautiful in colour of all early works" (Ford Madox Brown in Magazine of Art, 1890, p. 134). Andrea's treatment of the subject, as also Antonello's (1166), is remarkable for simplicity and realism. In most representations of the Crucifixion the central tragedy is partially lost in the large groups of bystanders (e.g. 718, 1048, 1088), and various symbolical figures are introduced—as, for instance, flying angels around the cross. Even in Giotto's fresco at Padua this feature is introduced. Indeed "in all the pictures of the Crucifixion by the great masters, with the single exception perhaps of that by Tintoret in the church of San Cassiano at Venice, there is a tendency to treat the painting as a symmetrical image, or collective symbol of sacred mysteries, rather than as a dramatic representation" (Ruskin's Giotto, p. 149). For an example of a symbolic representation, in contrast to the severe simplicity of the picture before us, see No. 1478.

1139. THE ANNUNCIATION.

Duccio (Sienese: about 1260-1340). See 566.

This picture shows us the side of Duccio on which the early School of Siena still adhered to the traditions of Byzantine art. For instance, the Greek method of symbolising light on drapery is seen in the gold lines of Mary's dress, a decorative method which Duccio was the last to use. So, too, in the gold background, which was universal in Byzantine mosaics. This survival may be seen in all the early Sienese pictures in the Gallery. In 1188, for instance, all the landscape background is gold; so in 1140 are all the spaces between the houses; whilst 1113 resembles a brilliant mosaic with gold for its groundwork.

We have here the earliest representation in our Gallery of one of the most frequent subjects in mediæval art, and a few remarks on its development may be interesting. The subjects which artists had at their disposal in those days were prescribed to them by religious uses and religious conventions. Not in novelty of subject, but in individuality of treatment, was scope for the artist's ingenuity to be found. Hence a comparison of pictures of the same subject by different artists and different schools affords a suggestive study in the evolution of art. One may trace by such comparisons something of the same process of "descent with modification" that Darwin has exhibited in the case of fish and insect, fern and flower.[222] Thus we may compare the present picture—the earliest and simplest "Annunciation" in our Gallery—with Crivelli's (739), which is the most ornate, and which was painted 200 years later. Two pictures of the same subject could hardly be more unlike. Duccio's is severe and simple; Crivelli's, florid and picturesque. The one is rigidly confined to the main matter in hand; the other is crowded from corner to corner with dainty detail and lively incident. Halfway, as it were, between the two stands Lippi's "Annunciation" (666); there also there is much lovely detail, but we see in a moment that "in the Florentine, the detail is there for the sake of the picture; in the Venetian, the picture is there for the sake of the detail." Crivelli's picture shows us the furthest point of departure from the original type. Yet observe how much of the original survives. First, and this point is absolutely fixed in all mediæval representations of the subject, the angel Gabriel occupies the left-hand side, and the Blessed Virgin the right-hand side of the picture. Often (as in Giotto's frescoes in the Arena at Padua) the subject is divided into two halves by the intervention of the choir arch. In Italy, the Annunciation was always the subject employed for the decoration of the main entrance of church. For this purpose, the convenient architectural arrangement was to place a relief of the angel on one side, a relief of the Madonna on the other, and the doorway between them.[223] Similarly inside, the Annunciation was constantly employed to decorate the blank space beside an archway, and hence arose the custom of dividing the treatment. We may see examples in our Gallery in the wings (interior side) of the "Coronation" by Justus of Padua (701), and in the terminal panels of Landini's altar-piece (580A). To this peculiarity is perhaps due the wall, barrier, or column which so often marks off the figure of the Virgin from that of the angel. We find it here in the Duccio; also in Fra Angelico's picture (1406), and again in Crivelli's. Sometimes, however, there is no such division. See, for instance, Lippi's picture (666), and Manni's (1104). There is a reason for this difference. Lippi's, no doubt, was painted to fill the space over a doorway; Manni's was the apex of an altar-piece. The decorative function of the pictures governed their composition. Returning to the Duccio, we may notice as a third and nearly constant element, the angel's lilies—Annunciation lilies, as the Italians call them. Sometimes they are in a vase as here; sometimes (as in the Crivelli), the angel bears a lily in his hand. Next, it is noticeable that the action almost invariably takes place in a loggia—an arcade or cloister. The lectern or prie-dieu, which in Crivelli's picture and in very many others of the subject stands beside the Madonna, is a refinement on the earliest type as seen in Duccio and Fra Angelico. But whether with lectern or without, the Virgin is always represented with a book engaged in her devotions. Visitors who desire to trace the evolution of this subject should conclude their studies at the Tate Gallery, where, in Rossetti's "Ecce Ancilla Domini" and Mr. Hacker's "Annunciation," modern versions of the old subject are given. Rossetti's is one of the most imaginative in the whole range of art (see Ruskin's analysis cited in vol. ii. of this handbook, No. 1210).

1140. CHRIST HEALING THE BLIND.

Duccio (Sienese: about 1260-1340). See 566.

The departure from conventional forms, which was characteristic of Duccio, is conspicuous in this picture. Each of the disciples has an individual character, the entire group representing not conventional forms but living types of men. There is a piece of symbolism in the blind man who has already been healed which should not escape notice. Duccio is not content to represent the bare act of healing, but insists further upon the efficacy of the touch of Him who was the Light of the World, by making the blind man drop the staff of which he has no longer need. There is another piece of symbolism in the gradated scale by which he draws attention to the respective dignities of his characters—Christ being the tallest in the picture, the blind man the shortest (A. H. Macmurdo in Century Guild Hobby Horse, 1886, p. 119).

1141. SUPPOSED PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST.

Antonello da Messina (Venetian: 1444-1493). See 673.

A portrait in Antonello's second or Venetian manner. The portrait is the more interesting from the probability that it is of the painter himself. The inscription which so stated is said to have been sawn off by a former owner to fit the picture into a frame.[224] "It is the likeness of a man who is entirely self-possessed, nowise an idealist, yet one who would never be prompted to impetuous action. He has plenty of intelligence; nothing would escape those clear gray eyes;—scarcely, however, do they seem as if they would penetrate below the outward show of things. Considered from a technical point of view, the same subdued feeling is apparent. In the Louvre masterpiece (which this picture at once recalls), Antonello evidently braced himself for a supreme effort; in the National Gallery portrait we have an excellent example of his powers at his best period" (Times, May 31, 1883).

1143. THE PROCESSION TO CALVARY.

Ridolfo Ghirlandajo (Florentine: 1483-1561).

Ridolfo Bigordi, called Ghirlandajo, was the son of Domenico Ghirlandajo (see 1230), who gave him his first instruction in art. On the death of Domenico, Ridolfo was taken charge of by his uncle David, and perhaps received instruction also from Domenico's favourite pupil, Granacci. In 1503 Leonardo da Vinci came to Florence, and seems to have exercised a strong influence on the young Ridolfo. To this Leonardine period of our artist, the present picture, executed in 1505, belongs: some of the heads (which are of great force and beauty) seem to have been copied or imitated from Leonardo. To the same period and influence Morelli ascribes the "Annunciation," No. 1288 in the Uffizi, there attributed to Leonardo himself, and the "Portrait of a Goldsmith," similarly attributed in the Pitti. In Ridolfo's works after 1506 the influence of Raphael is discernible. Raphael was his fellow-student and contemporary, and between the two congenial youths an ardent friendship, Vasari tells us, sprang up. Raphael employed Ridolfo to fill in part of the blue drapery of the "Belle Jardinière", and invited him to Rome; but Ridolfo, "who had never, as the saying is, 'lost sight of the cupola' (of the Duomo), and could in no wise resolve on living out of Florence, would accept no proposal which might compel him to abandon his abode in his native place." At Florence Ridolfo found ample and congenial employment, not only in the production of pictures, but in artistic catering for the pageants of the Republic, and in the service of the Medici. He did not disdain, says Vasari, "to paint banners, standards, and matters of similar kind. He was an exceedingly prompt and rapid painter in many kinds of work, more particularly in the preparations for festivals; when the Emperor Charles V. arrived in Florence, he constructed a triumphal arch in ten days, and another arch at the gate of Prato was erected by this artist in a very short space of time, this work being constructed for the marriage of the most Illustrious Lady the Duchess Leonora." Among his pictures, the "St. Zenobio restoring a boy to life" and the burial of the same saint, in the Uffizi, are considered Ridolfo's masterpieces; they are remarkable for force of colour, and fine modelling in the heads. Ridolfo employed a number of young painters, and from this workshop issued many pictures which were sold to England, Germany, and Spain. He lived to be nearly eighty years old; and "though heavily afflicted with the gout, he still bore much love," says Vasari, "to all connected with art, and liked to hear of, and when he could to see, whatever was most commended in the way of buildings, pictures, and other works." He was buried with his forefathers in S. Maria Novella.

One of the pictures in the Gallery which are additionally interesting from being mentioned and praised by Vasari—who, by the way, was himself a friend of Ridolfo:

"In the Church of S. Gallo he depicted our Saviour Christ, bearing his Cross and accompanied by a large body of soldiers; the Madonna and the other Maries, weeping in bitter grief, are also represented, with San Giovanni and Santa Veronica, who presents the handkerchief to our Saviour; all these figures are delineated with infinite force and animation.[225] This work, in which there are many beautiful portraits from the life, and which is executed with much love and care, caused Ridolfo to acquire a great name; the portrait of his father is among the heads, as are those of certain among his disciples, and of some of his friends—Poggino, Scheggia, and Nunziata, for example, the head of the latter being one of extraordinary beauty" (v. 5).

It is interesting in this connection to notice that the procession to Calvary was one of the regulation subjects with mediæval painters (see for a picture of it, some two hundred years earlier, 1189), and familiarity bred contempt for the pathos of the scene; it became a mere opportunity for variegated compositions, and curiously enough two of the brightest pictures in the Gallery (this and 806) are of this subject. For the story of St. Veronica see 687.

1144. MADONNA AND CHILD.

Bazzi, called Il Sodoma (Lombard: 1477-1549).

The confusion in the use of the word "school" is illustrated in the case of Giovanni Antonio Bazzi (sometimes wrongly given as Razzi), called also Il Sodoma. He spent most of his life at Siena, and is often grouped therefore with the Sienese School. But he was born at Vercelli, in Piedmont—being the son of a shoemaker—and "ripened into an artist during the two years he spent at Milan with Leonardo da Vinci" (1498-1500). Sodoma is therefore, says Morelli (German Galleries, p. 428), to be reckoned as one of the Milanese-Lombard School. "Nay, I believe I should not be far wrong were I to maintain that the majority of the better works ascribed to Leonardo in private collections are by him.... Young Bazzi while at Milan seems to have taken Leonardo for his model, not only in art, but even in personal appearance and fancies. All his life he loved to play the cavalier, and, like Leonardo, always kept saddle-horses in his stable, and all kinds of queer animals in his house."[226] Vasari gives an amusing, though probably apocryphal, account of his excesses, and represents him as a lewd fellow of the baser sort, with whom no respectable person would have anything to do. But Raphael so respected Bazzi and his work that he introduced his portrait (erroneously called Perugino's) by the side of his own in his celebrated fresco of the "School of Athens." But at any rate Sodoma was a careless, jovial fellow—dividing his time between the studio and the stable; and when cash ran short or a horse ran wrong, he would meet his liabilities with a hastily dashed-off picture. This very Madonna may perhaps have paid off a racing debt.

"Sodoma," says a distinguished German critic, "had a poetic soul, full of glowing and deep feeling, a richly endowed creative mind, but no inclination for severe earnest work" (Jansen). His execution is unequal, but at his best he is one of the most attractive of all the Italian painters. No one will deny this who recalls the fresco, in the upper floor of the Farnesina Palace, of "The Marriage of Alexander and Roxana"—"one of the most enchanting pictures of the whole Renaissance," or who has studied the painter's work in the churches, the Gallery, and the Palazzo Publico of Siena. The figure of "St. Ansano" in the latter place may be taken as an example of the dignity which Sodoma was capable of imparting to his types. The "Christ bound to the Column" in the Siena gallery is a fine example of his power as a colourist and his command of pathetic expression; while in the figure of Eve in the "Limbo" in the same gallery, and in more than one Holy Family, we may see his innate sense of feminine beauty and grace. It is supposed that Sodoma went as a young man to Milan and there imbibed the influence of Leonardo da Vinci, but this theory (maintained by Morelli) of a close connection between Leonardo and Sodoma is not accepted by all critics. In 1501 he went to Siena, where, in the stagnation of the local school, he found ample openings for his abilities. To this period belong the series of frescoes representing the history of St. Benedict in the Convent of Monte Oliveto. In 1507 Sodoma was taken by the Sienese merchant, Agostino Chigi, to Rome. He began to decorate the Camera della Segnatura in the Vatican, but the Pope transferred the commission to Raphael. Sodoma was again in Rome in 1514, when he painted for Chigi the frescoes already referred to. In the interval he had returned to Siena, where he married the daughter of an innkeeper. From 1515 onwards he made Siena his headquarters. Copies of some of the works mentioned above may be seen in the Arundel Society's Collection.

This picture, which is hardly a satisfactory example of the painter, is one of those supposed by some critics to have been painted in the years 1518-20, during which he is believed to have revisited Milan. Others place it later in the artist's career. "Probably one of his late 'pot-boilers.' It was originally in the Rossini Collection at Pisa, and may have been painted there during the last years of the artist's life, while he was working at the choir decorations in the cathedral" (Sodoma, by the Contessa Priuli Bon, 1900, p. 92).

1145. SAMSON AND DELILAH.

Andrea Mantegna (Paduan: 1431-1506). See 274.

Samson, whose giant's strength lay in his hair, fell into the toils of Delilah (Judges xvi.), who delivered him to his enemies by cutting off his hair as he lay asleep. On the trunk of the olive tree behind, Mantegna has carved the moral he drew from the tale: "Foemina diabolo tribus assibus est mala peior" (woman is a worse evil than the devil by the three pennies which bind you to her).[227] But though Mantegna has taken his subject from the Bible, his treatment of it is in the classical spirit. "Apart from the fact that her attention is directed to the mechanical operation, Delilah's expression is one of absolute and entire unconcern. Look of cunning, or of deceit, or of triumph there is none. Mantegna was not the man to shirk expression when he deemed the subject required it; probably, therefore, he left the features impassive in obedience to the formula of a certain school of antique sculpture, that all violent emotion should be avoided" (see Times, June 18, 1883).

1147. HEADS OF NUNS.

Ambrogio Lorenzetti (Sienese: died about 1348).

Ambrogio, the younger brother of Pietro Lorenzetti (see 1113), was the greatest of the early Sienese painters. His series of frescoes in the Sala della Pace in the Palazzo Publico of Siena, typifying good and bad government, are known to every traveller. They are full both of artistic beauty and historical interest (see the description by Symonds in his Sketches and Studies, iii. 43). The heads of many of Ambrogio's allegorical figures are of great beauty and grandeur—especially that of Peace, which is of classical dignity and may possibly have been modelled on the lines of some antique sculpture.

The work before us is a mere shattered fragment of fresco (from a church in Siena), but it is enough to show the artist's feeling for the true portraiture that identifies character with likeness. The nuns' faces are typical of the strong yet tender qualities developed in a life of seclusion and self-sacrifice.

1148. CHRIST AT THE COLUMN.

Velazquez (Spanish; 1599-1660). See 197.

An intensely dramatic rendering of the central lesson of Christianity. The scene depicted is an episode from the Passion between the scourging and the crowning with thorns—a scene not given in the Gospels, and invented to produce a more vivid effect than representations of familiar scenes. The absence of all decorative accessories concentrates the attention at once on the figure of the Divine sufferer—bound by the wrists to the column. His hands are swollen and blackened by the cords; the blood has trickled down the shoulder—so terrible was the punishment—and the scourges and rod have been flung contemptuously at his feet. Yet abnegation of self and Divine compassion are stamped indelibly on his countenance, as he turns his head to the child who is kneeling in adoration. The guardian angel behind bids the child approach the Redeemer in prayer (hence the alternative title that has been given to the picture, "The Institution of Prayer"). From the wise and prudent the lessons of Christianity are often hidden, but Christ himself here reveals them unto babes. "He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed." A thin white line, a ray, reaches from the position of the heart to the Saviour's ear—

The angel is a portrait (a preparatory study from a model is included amongst the collection of drawings made by Cean Bermudez). The downcast eye, the slightly pouting lips, as if about to weep, betray the harrowing expression of the moment. This expression shows fine invention, for it might have been more natural for the eye to follow the hand directing the child's attention to the figure. But the angel fears himself to look, lest he be overcome with grief. The tone of the picture is in keeping with its theme. There probably exists no other painting executed in such a decidedly gray, blackish-gray tone, although it is by no means colourless, as seen in the orange-brown and dull crimson of the angel's costume, which are peculiar to Velazquez. It is as if, after the terrible event that has here taken place, mourning Nature had strewn the scene with a fine shower of ashes, as after some tremendous volcanic outburst (Justi's Velazquez and his Times, pp. 241-248).

1149. MADONNA AND CHILD.

Marco d'Oggionno (Lombard: about 1470-1530).

Marco, called Oggionno from the village near Milan in which he was born, was one of the pupils and imitators of Leonardo. He made several copies of the master's "Last Supper," one of which is in the collection of the Royal Academy. His best original work on a large scale is the "Triumph of the Three Archangels over Satan," in the Brera. Among his smaller works, the "Infant Christ caressing St. John," at Hampton Court, is more successful than most. His works, says M. Müntz, "are wanting in vivacity of feeling and purity of drawing, and intensity of colour does duty for intensity of sentiment."

This is a characteristic example of the painter's work. He succeeded in catching a little of Leonardo's smile, "chilled as it were on the way" (Logan). The study in chalk for the Virgin's head is in the Dyce Collection in the South Kensington Museum.

1150. PORTRAIT OF A MAN.

Ascribed to Pontormo (Florentine: 1494-1557). See 1131.

1151. THE ENTOMBMENT.

Unknown (German: 15th Century).

A copy, in colour, of an engraving by Martin Schongauer (see 658).

1152. ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST.

Martino Piazza (Lombard: early 16th Century).

Martino and his brother Albertino were painters at Lodi, where they worked both together and separately; there are many altar-pieces in the churches of that place by them. This picture is a signed work of Martino alone. The brothers belonged to the school which was established in Milan and its neighbourhood before the arrival of Leonardo; but in many of Martino's work the new influence is discernible. "The curly hair, his high finish and chiaroscuro, derived from a study of Leonardo, are distinctive traits" (Catalogue of the Burlington Fine Arts Club's Exhibition, 1898, p. lxxvi.).

Compare the type of countenance and form of the rocks with those in Leonardo's picture, 1093. For the subject of this picture see under 25.

1154. GIRL WITH A LAMB.

Greuze (French: 1725-1805). See 206.

An unfinished study—characteristic of the touch of affectation often visible in Greuze's pictures of simplicity. Children fondling pet lambs are a favourite motive in art, but its treatment is seldom free from affectation. See, for instance, Murillo's St. John, 176.

1155. THE ASSUMPTION OF THE VIRGIN.

Matteo di Giovanni (Sienese: 1435-1495).

Matteo, the son of Giovanni di Bartolo (a mercer),—called also Matteo di Siena—was the best Sienese painter of his time, and in this picture, which is perhaps his masterpiece, we have an epitome of all the most characteristic qualities of the earlier Sienese school—"its warm, delicate, and transparent colouring, its graceful outline, its religious sentiment, and its somewhat miniature-like execution. Matteo was the last of the series of painters who developed the art of Duccio, adhering to the traditions of the school of which that great master was the founder" (Layard). In the expression of passion and dramatic action that school was never successful, struggling to disguise weakness by overstraining expression. This weakness is conspicuous in Matteo's pictures of the "Massacre of the Innocents" (in S. Agostino and S. Maria de' Servi in Siena), and is not absent from his "Ecce Homo" and "St. Stephen" in this Gallery (247 and 1461). His best pictures at Siena are the "Madonna della Neve" in the chapel of that name, and the "Coronation of S. Barbara" in S. Domenico. He also designed one of the Sibyls (the Samian) on the marble pavement of the Duomo.

A picture in which the artist concentrates all he could command of gaiety and joyousness in colour, expression, action, and sentiment; and thus typical of the personal feeling, approximating to that of a lover to his mistress, which entered into Madonna worship. These pictures of coronations and assumptions of the Virgin are not merely tributes of devotion to the mother of God, but are poetic renderings of the recognition of women's queenship, of her rule not by force of law but by tenderness and sacrifice—

One may read the same spirit, perhaps, in the legend of St. Thomas and the Madonna, introduced in this picture—of St. Thomas, who ever doubted, but whose faith was confirmed by a woman's girdle. For the story is that the Virgin, taking pity on his unbelief, threw down to him her girdle, which he is here raising his hands to catch, as it falls from her throne, in order that this tangible proof remaining with him might remove all doubts for ever from his mind—

D. G. Rossetti: Early Italian Poets.

1157. THE NATIVITY.

Bernardo Cavallino (Neapolitan: 1622-1654).

This painter was a pupil of Massimo Stanzioni (a rival of Spagnoletto), and showed such ability that "at first he created a jealous feeling in Massimo himself. Finding afterwards that his talent lay more in small figures than in large, he pursued that department and became very celebrated in his school. In the galleries of the Neapolitan nobility are to be seen by him, on canvas and copper, subjects both sacred and profane. Life was alone wanting to him, which he unfortunately shortened by his irregularities" (Lanzi, ii. 41).

A characteristic work in the "naturalistic" manner.

1159. THE CALLING OF ABRAHAM.

Gaspard Poussin (French: 1613-1675). See 31.

A very impressive picture in spite of the somewhat grotesque angel who accosts Abraham and points him to the Almighty seated in the clouds above (Genesis xii.). And indeed it is in his skies that Gaspard points us to the Infinite—in the open sky, stretching far away into that yellow horizon. To what does this strange distant space owe its attractive power?

"There is one thing that it has, or suggests, which no other object of sight suggests in equal degree, and that is—Infinity.... For the sky of night, though we may know it boundless, is dark; it is a studded vault, a roof that seems to shut us in and down; but the bright distance has no limit—we feel its infinity, as we rejoice in its purity of light.... Of the value of this mode of treatment (i.e. the rendering of open sky) there is a farther and more convincing proof than its adoption either by the innocence of the Florentine or the ardour of the Venetian, namely, that when retained or imitated from them by the landscape painters of the seventeenth century, when appearing in isolation from all other good, among the weaknesses and paltrinesses of Claude, the mannerisms of Gaspar, and the caricatures and brutalities of Salvator, it yet redeems and upholds all three, conquers all foulness by its purity, vindicates all folly by its dignity, and puts an uncomprehended power of permanent address to the human heart upon the lips of the senseless and the profane"[228] (Modern Painters, vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. i. ch. v. §§ 5, 12).

1160. THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI.

School of Giorgione (Venetian: early 16th century). See 269.

See also (p. xx)

This picture—ascribed by Morelli and others to Catena (see 234)—is by some connected with the name of Giorgione. It displays, says Sir Edward Poynter, "the qualities which we should expect to find in a picture by Giorgione, and does not seem so far removed from the only absolutely authenticated work by him—the altar-piece at Castelfranco—as to make it impossible to attribute it to his hand. In qualities of drawing and composition it is superior to what we know of the work of Catena" (The National Gallery, i. 23). "The figures are Bellinesque, yet with that added touch of delicacy and refinement which Giorgione always knows how to impart. The richness of colouring, the depth of tone, the glamour of the whole, is far superior to anything we can point to with certainty as Catena's work; and no finer example of his 'Giorgionesque' phase is to be found than the sumptuous 'Warrior adoring the Infant Christ' (234) which hangs close by. Catena's work seems cold and studied beside the warmth and spontaneity of Giorgione's little panel" (Herbert Cook's Giorgione, p. 54). "Whoever painted it, it is worth many much larger canvases. The simple, flowing cast of the drapery, the general scheme of colour, and the quality of individual tints, such as the mellow yellow shaded with red, and the greenish-blue of the Virgin's mantle, are not like what I know of Catena. The lively, well-drawn child, with its supple limbs; the faces of the women, with full faces, short noses, and square jaws; the straight-necked horses, and many other things in this charming picture,—seem to me to proclaim a distinct, if unknown, master. Above all things distinct, perhaps, is the particular tone of reverence—naïve, quiet, but deep—that pervades the picture, a feeling which can scarcely have been imitated, but must have proceeded from the very character of the painter himself" (Monkhouse, In the National Gallery, p. 224).

1165. ST. HIPPOLYTUS AND ST. CATHERINE.

Il Moretto (Brescian: 1498-1555). See 299.

Two saints who were not divided in the manner of their martyrdom, and who are united therefore on the painter's canvas. Each holds the martyr's palm. St. Catherine places her left hand on the hilt of a sword—the instrument by which she was ultimately beheaded, whilst her foot rests upon the wheel on which she was to have been torn to death, had not an angel from heaven broken it. St. Hippolytus's death was not unlike that which had been devised for St. Catherine. He is clad in armour, for he was the soldier stationed as guard over St. Lawrence (see 747), but he is represented as bareheaded, and with his face upturned in reverence, for that "he was so moved by that illustrious martyr's invincible courage and affectionate exhortations that he became a Christian with all his family." Wherefore he was tied to the tails of wild horses and torn to death. On the fragment of stone in the foreground is an inscription in Latin, telling by what death the two saints glorified God—"Membris dissolvi voluerunt ne vinculis divellerentur aeternis:" they chose to be torn limb by limb rather than by renouncing their faith to be thus torn hereafter by eternal chains. The members of the body are the chains of the soul, and the martyrs freed themselves from temporary fetters rather than submit to the fetters of everlasting punishment.

1166. THE CRUCIFIXION.

Antonello da Messina (Venetian: 1444-1493). See 673.

Signed, and dated 1477, two years later than the very similar picture at Antwerp. Notice the harmonious colouring, and the expression of abandon and lassitude, following more poignant grief, in the Virgin's attitude, with her arms falling down on each knee. "The subject was never more truly felt, and the little figure of the Virgin at the foot of the cross contains in it an expression of concentrated grief I never saw equalled. The eyes are shut, the hands simply rest on the knees, but this very simplicity gives it a truth which far surpasses the extravagant attitudes of the later painters" (from a letter by Louisa, Lady Waterford, from whom the picture was purchased in 1884; see Hare's The Story of Two Noble Lives, iii. 77). This picture shows, says Mr. Gilbert, "the dawning loveliness of Venetian colour, as distinguished from the vivid beauty of the early Flemish. Instead of the minute definition of every object characteristic of the Van Eyck School, we find, spread over a scene of the utmost simplicity, a delicious silvery haze, melting into the warm tones of a shadowless foreground. In this small picture we may see already what Venice owed to Flanders—how Venice would enrich the gift" (Landscape in Art, p. 311).

1168. PORTRAIT OF A JESUIT.

Willem van der Vliet (Dutch: 1584-1642).

Works by this artist are rare and very little known. He belonged to Delft—a town as active in painting as in pottery. This picture is signed and dated 1631.

An admirable portrait. The Jesuit father, here depicted with so much quiet truth and skill, is a good representative of the great order which had at that time saved the Papacy. He is a student, but the crucifix is ever on his books. "The Jesuits appear," says Macaulay, "to have discovered the precise point to which intellectual culture can be carried without risk of intellectual emancipation." But he turns round from his book and looks with a smile of tender sadness on the spectator—he is ready to read your heart and to give you sympathy in return for confidences.

1169. MRS. ROBERT HOLLOND.

Ary Scheffer (French-Dutch: 1795-1858).

An artist who once enjoyed a great vogue (a version of this picture was bought in 1845 by the ex-Queen of the French for £1000), and whose pictures are historically interesting for their extraordinary absence of the colour-sense. Ary Scheffer's pictures, says Ruskin (Academy Notes, 1858, p. 40), are designed "on the assumption that the noblest ideal of colour is to be found in dust," and what he said in 1846 of the German School is equally true of Ary Scheffer:[229] "Brightness of colour is altogether inadmissible without purity and harmony; and the sacred painters must not be followed in their frankness of unshadowed colour, unless we can also follow them in its clearness. As far as I am acquainted with the modern schools of Germany, they seem to be entirely ignorant of the value of colour as an assistant of feeling, and to think that hardness, dryness, and opacity are its virtues as employed in religious art; whereas I hesitate not to affirm that in such art, more than in any other, clearness, luminousness, and intensity of hue are essential to right impression" (Modern Painters, vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. ii. ch. v. § 15). Ary Scheffer, whose father was court painter at Amsterdam, was born at Dordrecht. On the death of his father in 1809 his mother removed to Paris, and he became a pupil of Pierre Guérin. In 1826 he became drawing master in the Orleans family, and for the rest of his life he was attached to them. In 1830, in company with Thiers, he brought Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans, to Paris; in 1848 he helped the king to fly, and went with him to Brussels. The events of the next few years shocked him so much that for a time he "could neither paint, eat, nor sleep," and he ceased altogether to exhibit. His best known works are "Paolo and Francesca" (1822), and "Dante and Beatrice" (1839). The former of these sold in 1842 for over £2000; but at the posthumous exhibition of his works, held shortly after his death, his reputation suffered greatly, and at subsequent sales the prices paid for his pictures went down with a rush. Their sentimentality made them popular for a while, but it could not save them from the condemnation due to their commonness of thought and poverty of colour.

A portrait of the lady—an English resident in Paris, and a friend of Ary Scheffer—who sat to him for St. Monica. The two pictures were bequeathed to the Gallery by her husband.

1170. ST. AUGUSTINE AND ST. MONICA.

Ary Scheffer (French-Dutch: 1795-1858).

To illustrate the popularity which Ary Scheffer enjoyed forty years ago, it may be interesting to cite what Mrs. Jameson said of this picture: "I saw in the atelier of the painter, Ary Scheffer, in 1845, an admirable picture of St. Augustine and his mother Monica. The two figures, not quite full-length, are seated; she holds his hand in both hers, looking up to heaven with an expression of enthusiastic undoubting faith;—'the son of so many tears cannot be cast away!' He also is looking up with an ardent, eager, but anxious, doubtful expression, which seems to say, 'Help thou my unbelief.' For profound and truthful feeling and significance, I know few things in the compass of modern art that can be compared to this picture" (Sacred and Legendary Art, 1850, p. 186).

1171. THE "ANSIDEI MADONNA."

Raphael (Urbino: 1483-1520).

The genius of Raphael Santi (or Raffaello Sanzio, as the modern Italians write his name) is an example of the force alike of hereditary transmission of gifts and of surrounding circumstances. He was the second son (born April 6) of Giovanni Santi (see 751), a painter and poet of Urbino. The son inherited the father's aptitude for painting; but as Giovanni died when Raphael was only eleven, the boy's actual teacher was Timoteo Viti, of whom there is a portrait in chalks by Raphael in the British Museum. The young Raphael's hereditary gifts were nurtured by the artistic atmosphere in which he lived. Urbino, the Athens of Umbria, was at this time one of the chief centres of artistic and intellectual life in Italy; the ducal palace contained a fine collection of pictures both by Italian and Flemish painters. Amongst the latter were some by Van Eyck, and it is perhaps to this influence that we may attribute the miniature-like care of Raphael's earliest work, which is conspicuous in the "Vision of a Knight," and may be seen again in the jewel painting here. An intense power of assimilation—of learning all things from all men—characterised Raphael throughout his life, and is one of the main causes of the width of range and catholicity of taste to which he owes his universal popularity. Thus when he went (probably not before 1500) to study under Perugino, he so quickly assimilated the style of that master that he has been credited with some of the design and even of the work in Perugino's masterpiece, just as some of his pictures were, says Vasari, mistaken for Perugino's. In 1504 he went to Florence, which was his headquarters for the next four years. He at once took a leading part in the artistic fraternity there, and put one great artist after another under contribution for some special power of drawing, beauty of colour, or grace of composition. Thus from Signorelli and Michelangelo he learnt to study the human form; it was at Florence, says Vasari, that Raphael began to study the nude and to make anatomical drawings from dissected corpses. From Leonardo da Vinci (sketches from whom by Raphael may be seen at Oxford) he learnt soft beauty of expression, and it is to this master's influence perhaps that the smile of his Madonnas may be traced. In 1508 Raphael was invited by the Pope Julius II. to Rome, and there he spent the greater part of his life—painting, besides innumerable altar-pieces and cabinet pictures, his famous cartoons and frescoes. And yet he was only thirty-seven when he died. His time was partly occupied too with portraiture, in which he excelled. In 1514 he accepted the responsible office of architect of St. Peter's, left vacant by the death of his friend Bramante. A year later he was installed as director of the excavations then in progress among the ruins of ancient Rome, and flung himself into the work with devoted ardour. In the heavy and multifarious work thus crowded upon him, Raphael employed many assistants, among whom were Giulio Romano, Giovanni da Udine, and Perino del Vaga, and in some of the pictures of his Roman period the master's own hand executed little more than the finishing touches. All that we know of Raphael's private life and character reflects that innate love of beauty which fused all he borrowed into something of his own. "All were surpassed by him," says Vasari, "in friendly courtesy as well as in art; all confessed the influence of his sweet and gracious disposition, which was so replete with excellence and so perfect in all the charities, that not only was he honoured by men but even by the very animals, who would constantly follow his steps and always loved him." In morals he was pure, and might indeed be called almost immaculate, judged by the lax standard of his age. The Cardinal Bibiena designed his niece for Raphael, but—