Volume 1 — NUMERICAL CATALOGUE, WITH BIOGRAPHICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE NOTES (continued 8)

Here the traditional legend of the Annunciation is faithfully adhered to, and there is much "unusually mystic spiritualism of conception" in the dove, the Spirit of God, proceeding in rays of golden light from the hand of an unseen Presence; but the painter delights to elaborate also every element of human interest and worldly beauty. Note, for instance, the prettiness of the angel's face, the gracefulness of his figure, the sheen of his wings, and the dainty splendour of the Virgin's chamber.

667. ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST AND SAINTS.

Fra Filippo Lippi (Florentine: 1406-1469). See 666.

Lippi's general characteristics, noticed above under the companion picture (666), may again be seen here. The "other saints" are Sts. Francis (on the spectator's right, with the stigmata), Lawrence, and Cosmas; on the left Sts. Damianus, Anthony, and Peter Martyr—this last a particularly "human" saint. Lippi was a monk himself, and drew his saints in the human resemblance of good "brothers" that he knew. "I will tell you what Lippi must have taught any boy whom he loved. First, humility, and to live in joy and peace, injuring no man—if such innocence might be. Nothing is so manifest in every face by him as its gentleness and rest." It is characteristic of Lippi, too, that the saints should be represented sitting in so pretty a garden. Secondly,—"a little thing it seems, but was a great one,—love of flowers. No one draws such lilies or such daisies as Lippi. Botticelli beat him afterwards in roses, but never in lilies" (Ariadne Florentina, vi. § 9).

668. THE BEATO FERRETTI.

Carlo Crivelli (Venetian: painted 1468-1493). See 602.

Gabriele Ferretti (to whose family Pope Pius IX. belonged) was Superior of the Franciscans in the March of Ancona, and died in 1456. Thirty years later his body was found incorrupt, and was deposited in a sarcophagus in the church of S. Francesco ad Alto at Ancona. It is conjectured that the present picture was painted for that church in commemoration of the discovery of the body. The artist shows us the holy man in enjoyment of the vision of the beatified. "The Beato (in Franciscan habit) has been reading or praying, at the entrance of a cave near a church, in a quiet country spot from which a road leads to a town in the distance. Suddenly in the sky the Virgin and Child appear (surrounded by the Vesica glory, see No. 564). He has laid down his book, put off his sandals, and kneels in prayer and adoration.... The masterly treatment of the drapery, the perfection of the forms, the architecture, the sense of spaciousness in the landscape, all point to the maturity of Crivelli's art.... The landscape, for general effect, is one of his best, though the treatment of the rocks and of the foreground is still conventional. The most striking objects in it are the leafless tree-stems, the counterpart, as it were, of the hard and bony human figures of which he was so fond, and therefore an illustration of his love for anatomical forms. His seeking after realism again appears in the two ducks painted with minute precision. In contrast to them we get the festoon of fruit at the top of the picture, illustrating the conventional and decorative aspect of his art. No picture of his suggests more completely both the range and the limitations of Crivelli" (G. M. Rushforth: Carlo Crivelli, pp. 65, 87).

669. ST. SEBASTIAN, ST. ROCH AND ST. DEMETRIUS.

L'Ortolano (Ferrarese: died about 1525).

Giambattista Benvenuti, called L'Ortolano (the gardener) from his father's occupation, is still a problem in art history, details of his life being so uncertain that even the existence of him is disputed by some critics. There is, however, documentary evidence which proves his existence. This noble picture was, until 1844, the altar-piece of the parochial church of Bondeno, near Ferrara, where it was generally considered the painter's masterpiece. His life and works are generally confounded with those of Garofalo, to which painter Morelli ascribes the present work. "Garofalo's characteristics are apparent in the form of hand, the brown flesh-tints, the drapery, the landscape, and the small stones in the foreground" (Italian Painters: The Borghese and Doria-Pamfili Galleries in Rome, p. 208). On the other hand, Venturi has drawn up a list of works, showing common characteristics and common differences from Garofalo, which he therefore attributes to Ortolano. To this list should be added Lord Wimborne's "St. Joseph presenting the Infant Christ." Among the characteristics noticeable in our picture are houses planted on posts; long, straight streaks in the background turning to white; trees with large, sparse, yellowing leaves. "Garofalo never achieved the rapt expression of St. Demetrius" (see the argument of Venturi quoted in Burlington Fine Arts Club's Catalogue, 1894).

In the centre is St. Sebastian, tied to a tree, and pierced with arrows; whilst in the foreground is a cross-bow, lying uselessly. For the story is that Sebastian was a noble youth who was promoted to the command of a company in the Prætorian Guards by the Emperor Diocletian:

"At this time he was secretly a Christian, but his faith only rendered him more loyal to his masters; more faithful in all his engagements; more mild, more charitable; while his favour with his prince, and his popularity with the troops, enabled him to protect those who were persecuted for Christ's sake, and to convert many to the truth. Among his friends were two young men of noble family, soldiers like himself; their names were Marcus and Marcellinus." And when they were tortured for being Christians, Sebastian, "neglecting his own safety, rushed forward, and, by his exhortations, encouraged them rather to die than to renounce their Redeemer. Then Diocletian ordered that Sebastian also should be bound to a stake and shot to death with arrows. The archers left him for dead; but in the middle of the night, Irene, the widow of one of his martyred friends, came with her attendants to take his body away, that she might bury it honourably; and it was found that none of the arrows had pierced him in a vital part, and that he yet breathed. So they carried him to her house, and his wounds were dressed; and the pious widow tended him night and day, until he had wholly recovered" (Mrs. Jameson: Sacred and Legendary Art, 1850, pp. 343, 344).

This legend was one of the special favourites with the mediæval painters: "the display of beautiful form, permitted and even consecrated by devotion, is so rare in Christian representations, that we cannot wonder at the avidity with which this subject was seized" (ibid. p. 346). It is instructive to compare the noble use of the subject made in this picture, in which the great technical skill of the painter is subordinate to the beautiful display of a sacred legend, with the "St. Sebastian" of Pollajuolo (292), in which, as we have seen, the subject is used solely—and painfully—for the display of such skill. With St. Sebastian is here represented, on his left, his contemporary, St. Demetrius. He is clad in armour, for he also served under Diocletian, being Proconsul of Greece, and like St. Sebastian used his high office to preach Christ. On the other side is St. Roch (for whose legend see 735). He is a much later saint (about A.D. 1300), and is associated with St. Sebastian as another patron of the plague-stricken. Arrows have been from all antiquity the emblem of pestilence; and from the association of arrows with his legend, St. Sebastian succeeded in Christian times to the honours enjoyed by Apollo, in Greek mythology, as the protector against pestilence.

670. A KNIGHT OF ST. STEPHEN.

Angelo Bronzino (Florentine: 1502-1572). See 649.

See also (p. xx)

He wears the robes of his order (with a red cross bordered with yellow), an order established by Cosimo, Duke of Tuscany, and charged with the defence of the coasts against pirates. The knight is a good specimen of the courtier aristocracy with which Cosimo surrounded himself. The knights of St. Stephen afterwards won much honour by their prowess, but they were men of culture also: notice that this one holds a book in his hand, which rests on a table richly carved in the taste of the time. This portrait was presented to the nation by Mr. Watts, R.A.

671. MADONNA AND CHILD ENTHRONED

Garofalo (Ferrarese: 1481-1559). See 81.

This fine picture was originally the principal altar-piece of the church of San Guglielmo (St. William) at Ferrara. Hence the introduction of that saint (on our left)—a beautiful face, into which the artist has put, one may think, all his local piety. The saint is in armour, for William—the institutor of the hermit order of Guglielmites—was originally a soldier, and was "given," says one of his biographers, "unto a licentious manner of living, too common among persons of that profession." It was to escape from such temptations that he became a holy penitent, and fought thenceforward in mountain solitudes, as a soldier of Christ against the flesh and the devil. Beside him stands St. Clara, "the very ideal of a gray sister, sedate and sweet, sober, steadfast, and demure." She gazes on a crucifix, for she too had renounced the pomps and vanities of the world. Her wealth of golden hair was cut off, it is said, by St. Francis; her fortune she gave to hospitals, and herself became the foundress of the Order of "Poor Clares." St. Francis stands on the other side of the throne, and besides him is "good St. Anthony" (see under 776).

672. HIS OWN PORTRAIT.

Rembrandt (Dutch: 1606-1669). See 45.

"This portrait, dated 1640, describes the man well—strong and robust, with powerful head, firm and compressed lips and determined chin, with heavy eyebrows, separated by a deep vertical furrow, and with eyes of keen penetrating glance,—altogether a self-reliant man, who would carry out his own ideas, careless whether his popularity waxed or waned" (J. F. White in Encyclopædia Britannica).

673. "SALVATOR MUNDI."

Antonello da Messina (Venetian: 1444-1493)

A picture of special interest as being the earliest known work (it is dated 1465) of Antonello, of Messina in Sicily, who is famous as the man by whom the art of painting in oils, as perfected by the Van Eycks (see 186), was introduced into Venice. Vasari's story is that Antonello saw, on a visit to Naples, a picture by John Van Eyck, in which the brilliancy and fine fusion of the tints so struck him that he forthwith set out for Flanders, ingratiated himself with Van Eyck, and learnt from him the secret of his method. But the dates do not agree with this story. For Van Eyck died in 1440, and Antonello must therefore have been born early in the century, whereas, on the contrary, Vasari expressly states that he died in 1493, aged forty-nine. More probably Antonello learnt the Flemish technique from the painters of that school who are known to have been at Naples in the middle of the fifteenth century. In his native town, in the church of S. Gregorio, is a triptych by him, dated 1473. In the same year he was at Venice, where he remained until his death. "His practical mastery of the new method, still unknown in the city of the Lagoons, of glazing in oil colours a ground laid in tempera, must have given Antonello a higher status at Venice than his intrinsic merits as an artist would have warranted. We see that he is at once honoured with a commission from the wardens of S. Cassiano. Unhappily the altar-piece there, so highly praised by Matteo Collaccio and Sabellico, and signed with the year 1473, has long since disappeared. And not only did the church dignitaries of Venice patronise him, but the patricians were eager to have their likenesses taken on the new principle practised by Antonello; and, to judge by the number of portraits he turned out in those years, he must for a time have been the most popular portrait painter in Venice" (Morelli). Of his portraits there is a good example in our Gallery (1141). The splendid portrait in the Louvre is dated 1475; that in the Berlin Gallery, 1478. The "Crucifixion" in our Gallery is dated 1477. "It is evident to me," says Morelli, "that Antonello gradually formed himself by studying the works and seeking the society of the great Venetian masters, till he reached that degree of perfection which we miss in his early Ecce Homos and admire in his portraits of 1475-78. His Italian nature gradually works its way through the Flemish shell in which his first master had encased his hand as well as mind. In this transformation of Antonello as an artist Giovanni Bellini had obviously the greatest share. Whoever visits the churches of Messina, and of the towns and villages along that eastern coast of Sicily as far as Syracuse, will still find in many of them Madonnas, whether in colour or in marble, that remind him of Antonello and Giambellino. And not only did Antonello act powerfully on his own Sicilian countrymen; we also discern his influence in several portraits by painters of Upper Italy—for instance, those of Solario." No. 923, for example, the portrait of a Venetian Senator, by that master, is strongly reminiscent of Antonello's style. In fact, as Sir F. Burton says, "to Antonello and his Flemish education is due that type of portraiture which we find among the Venetian and North Italian painters of his time, and which, under a southern sun, and in the hands of a Titian, expanded itself in the noblest form." (The above account of Antonello follows Morelli: see his Italian Masters in German Galleries, pp. 376-390).

Christ as the "Saviour of the World," stands with his finger on the edge of a parapet, giving the blessing and gazing into eternity. The picture, being dated 1465,[164] must have been painted by Antonello in his twenty-first year. Both in conception and in the ruddy complexion peculiar to the school of Van Eyck (see 222 and 290) it suggests a Flemish influence. Notice also the pentimenti (or corrections): the right hand and border of the tunic were originally higher, and their forms, obliterated by the painter, have now in course of time disappeared. This again shows the hand of an experienced artist.

674. PORTRAIT OF A LADY.

Paris Bordone (Venetian: 1500-1570). See 637.

A splendid specimen of this painter's portraits, and a type of the face which meets one in nearly every Gallery of Europe; for Bordone, who had (as we have seen) a great vogue as a lady's portrait painter, had yet a way, says Ridolfi, of making such works appear more like fancy portraits than individual portraits. This one is of a girl of the Brignole family, aged eighteen, according to the inscription. In the Brignole Palace at Genoa (now the property of the town) are two magnificent portraits by Bordone. The type here is that of a cruel and somewhat sensual beauty—the eyes, especially, being, "like Mars, to threaten or command"—

Swinburne: Dolores.

Since the above note was written, Mr. H. Schütz Wilson has suggested, with some plausibility, that the portrait is of Bianca Cappello (1542-1587), "as pre-eminent in sumptuous voluptuous loveliness, as she was in the crime of her day in Italy." "In the deadly calm of the almost inscrutable lineaments of this remarkable portrait, in which charm and grace are shown behind so much that is terrible, so much that is earthly, sensual, devilish, in those awful eyes, and in that cruel 'red mouth, like a venomous flower,' we see, as I fancy," says Mr. Wilson, "not an obscure girl of a noble family of Genoa, but the counterfeit presentment of the romantically wicked Renaissance heroine, the fair and evil Grand Duchess of Tuscany" (Pall Mall Gazette, November 22, 1888).

679. THE PORTRAIT OF AN ASTRONOMER.

Ferdinand Bol (Dutch: 1616-1680).

Bol was the most distinguished of Rembrandt's pupils in portraiture. He was born at Dordrecht, and settled at Amsterdam, where he acquired burgess rights in 1652. One of Bol's portraits in the Louvre has attained the honour of being hung in the Salon Carré. His "Four Regents of the Leprosy Hospital" at Amsterdam is the painter's masterpiece, and one of the finest works of the Dutch School. Bol's pictures are remarkable for a prevailing yellow tone. Up to about the year 1660 he seems to have remained the pupil of Rembrandt. "Unfortunately he did not remain faithful to his early teaching. He made sacrifices to the taste of his time, and abandoned the sober and grave figures, the severe and sustained method of painting, the powerful light and shade of his school, to seek a fresh source of success in overwhelming allegory and in the imitation of Rubens. This was his ruin. His later works, painted in full light, are very inferior to those of an earlier date; their colouring is hard, glaring, and discordant, and in composition they are frequently bombastic and pretentious" (Havard: The Dutch School of Painting, p. 93).

The sitter is conjectured to be an astronomer, from the globes on the table before him and from the look on his face as of a man dwelling among the clouds. The picture is signed, and dated 1652.

680. THE MIRACULOUS DRAUGHT OF FISHES.

Van Dyck (Flemish: 1599-1641). See 49.

Painted by Van Dyck from the large picture by Rubens at Mechlin, for an engraver to work from. "One of the too numerous brown sketches in the manner of the Flemish School, which seem to me rather done for the sake of wiping the brush clean than of painting anything. There is no colour in it, and no light and shade;—but a certain quantity of bitumen is rubbed about so as to slip more or less greasily into the shape of figures; and one of St. John's (or St. James's) legs is suddenly terminated by a wriggle of white across it, to signify that he is standing in the sea" (Art of England, p. 44). Ruskin notices the picture as an example of the art which was assailed by the Pre-Raphaelites. A word-picture of the same scene in the Pre-Raphaelite manner, with its literal and close realisation, will be found in Modern Painters, vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. iv. § 16.

685. SHOWERY WEATHER.

Meindert Hobbema (Dutch: 1638-1709).

Hobbema, who disputes with Ruysdael the place of best Dutch landscape painter, was a friend of the latter, and perhaps his pupil: certainly works of the two are sometimes remarkably alike. Thus it has been pointed out that Hobbema's No. 996 shows the influence of Ruysdael, whilst Ruysdael's No. 986 recalls Hobbema's. Often, too, they painted the same country; compare e.g. No. 986 with Hobbema's No. 832. Like Ruysdael, too, Hobbema was a painter without honour in his own country, and nine-tenths of his known works are in England, where he was first appreciated, and where he was the means of influencing many of our landscape painters, notably Nasmyth. His pictures were often ascribed to other painters, now considered greatly his inferiors, in order to obtain better prices. It has been remarked as a curious fact that until the middle of the eighteenth century no engraver thought it worth while to reproduce any of Hobbema's pictures; and Sir Joshua Reynolds in his Tour in Holland (1781) makes no reference to Hobbema, though he must have seen some of his pictures. Even a hundred years ago they were not much sought after; now they are more valued than those of any landscape painter and fetch very large prices at auctions. Recently one of them sold for as much as £8820. This appreciation is due in part to the fact that Hobbemas are very rare; the known works by him number hardly more than a hundred. Of Hobbema's life very little is recorded. His name (like that of Alma Tadema) betokens Frisian origin. His birthplace is unknown, but he appears to have been born at Amsterdam, and to have been the scholar of Jacob Ruysdael in landscape painting. Ruysdael was the witness at his marriage. This was in 1668. In the same year he was appointed one of the sworn gaugers for the excise of the town. "Thus, a century before Burns, fortune played upon one of the greatest of landscape painters the same trick that she played in his case upon the most spontaneous of poets." Hobbema was not the only painter of his time who had to eke out a bare subsistence by employment more lucrative than the production of masterpieces. Salomon van Ruysdael was also a frame-maker; Van Goyen speculated in houses, picture-dealing, and tulips; and Jan Steen was an innkeeper. The coincidence of Hobbema's marriage and his appointment as gauger of wines and oil was not by chance. The archives throw a curious light upon the public morals of Amsterdam at the time of its greatest prosperity. By a deed executed in the month of his marriage, Hobbema admits that he owes his appointment to the influence of a companion of his wife, like her a servant in the employment of the burgomaster, and in consideration of this he agrees to pay her, so long as he holds the place, an annual sum of 250 florins. Posterity owes this servant of the burgomaster a grudge, for after taking up the appointment, Hobbema scarcely painted any more. The post cannot, however, have been lucrative, for he died in evil circumstances—in a house directly opposite to that in which Rembrandt had died forty years before. The painter of works, any one of which is now worth a small fortune to its possessor, was buried in a pauper's grave.

In spite of the resemblance to Ruysdael above noted, Hobbema's best and most characteristic works are quite distinct. Ruysdael is the painter of the solitude of nature, of rocks and waterfalls; Hobbema of the Dutch "fields with dwellings sprinkled o'er." The pervading tone of Ruysdael is dark and sombre; that of Hobbema is drowsy and still. A second characteristic of Hobbema is his fondness for oak foliage, and a certain "nigglingness" in his execution of it. See e.g. 832, 833. "They (Hobbema and Both) can paint oak leafage faithfully, but do not know where to stop, and by doing too much, lose the truth of all, lose the very truth of detail at which they aim, for all their minute work only gives two leaves to nature's twenty. They are evidently incapable of even thinking of a tree, much more of drawing it, except leaf by leaf; they have no notion nor sense of simplicity, mass, or obscurity, and when they come to distance, where it is totally impossible that leaves should be separately seen, being incapable of conceiving or rendering the grand and quiet forms of truth, they are reduced to paint their bushes with dots and touches expressive of leaves three feet broad each." "No word," Ruskin elsewhere adds, "has been more harmfully misused than that ugly one of 'niggling.' I should be glad if it were entirely banished from service and record. The only essential question about drawing is whether it be right or wrong; that it be small or large, swift or slow, is a matter of convenience only. But so far as the word may be legitimately used at all, it belongs especially to such execution as this of Hobbema's—execution which substitutes, on whatever scale, a mechanical trick or habit of hand for true drawing of known or intended forms." A second objection to Hobbema's method may be mentioned besides its "trickiness." His "niggling" touch is extended from the foreground to objects farther off, and thus "a middle distance of Hobbema involves a contradiction in terms; it states a distance by perspective, which it contradicts by distinctness of detail" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. ii. ch. v. § 17, sec. vi. ch. i. § 22; vol. v. pt. vi. ch. v. § 6). In spite, however, of such defects, the works of Hobbema have an enduring charm for their incisiveness of touch, and warmth of light. He had not Ruysdael's variety nor his depth of poetic feeling. The forest glade and the watermill are almost all he paints. But these he paints so firmly and decisively that they live for ever, and upon them he casts a warm and golden tone which never fails to please.

686. THE VIRGIN AND CHILD.

Hans Memlinc (Early Flemish: 1430-1494).

It is only in the Hospital of St. John at Bruges that the art of this exquisite painter can be properly studied. There, as among the Fra Angelicos at San Marco in Florence and the Giottos at the Arena in Padua, one may see the great works of a mediæval painter in the very surroundings which first produced them. (Copies of some of Memlinc's works at Bruges and elsewhere are included in the Arundel Society's collection.) The Hospital is, as it were, a shrine of Memlinc. Around this fact legends grew. In one of the pictures, it was said, a portrait of the artist might be discovered; on the sculptured ornaments of a porch enframing one of its subjects, an incident of the master's life might be traced,—his danger as he lay senseless in the street, his rescue as charitable people carried his body to the hospital. It came to be told how the great artist began life as a soldier who went to the wars under Charles the Bold, and came back riddled with wounds from the field of Nancy. Wandering homeward in a disabled state in 1477, he fainted in the streets of Bruges, and was cured by the Hospitallers. Unknown to them and a stranger to Bruges, he gave tangible proofs of his skill to the brethren of St. John, and showed his gratitude by refusing payment for a picture he had painted. Unfortunately all this is a myth. Of his real life little is known, but it is enough to refute the legends that for so long passed current. In 1477 he was under contract to furnish an altar-piece for the guild chapel of the booksellers of Bruges; this picture, preserved under the name of the "Seven Griefs of Mary," is now one of the principal treasures of the Gallery of Turin. His many pictures for the Hospitallers were painted in 1479 and 1480. He was born at Mayence on the Rhine. His name (which should not be spelt Memling) was probably derived from the town of Memmelinck (now Medenblik) in the north-east of Holland, to which place his family presumably belonged. He is known from the town records to have been settled in Bruges in his own house in 1479. He must have been a citizen of some wealth, for in the next year he was one of those who contributed to a loan raised by Maximilian of Austria to push hostilities against France. In 1487 he lost his wife. In 1494 he died, his children being still minors, and was buried in the Church of St. Giles (see a document cited in the Athenæum of 2nd February 1889).

This is all that documentary evidence has disclosed about Memlinc's life. If the evidence of his pictures may be taken, his life must have been gentle and peaceful. For Memlinc's place in the history of art is among the leaders of the "Purist" School (see under 663). He was, we may say, the Fra Angelico of Flanders. In technique he used the methods perfected by the Van Eycks. "In drawing a comparison between Memlinc and his predecessors and contemporaries,[165] he is found inferior to John Van Eyck in power of colour and chiaroscuro, as well as in searching portraiture; to Van der Weyden in dramatic force; to Dierick Bouts and Gheeraert David in beauty and finish of landscape" (Weale's monograph on Memlinc, published by the Arundel Society). But Memlinc had a sentiment and an ideal of his own to which none of his Flemish contemporaries attained. "Van Eyck saw with his eye, Memlinc begins to see with his spirit. The one copied and imitated; the other copies, imitates,—and transfigures. Van Eyck, without any thought of an ideal, reproduced the virile types which passed before his eyes. Memlinc dreams as he looks, chooses what is most lovable and delicate in human forms, and creates above all as his feminine type a choice being who was unknown before his time, and has disappeared since. They are women, but women seen according to the tender predilections of a spirit in love with grace, nobility, beauty." Memlinc's men, on the other hand, do not compare advantageously with Van Eyck's. There is more vigour in the latter, more framework, more muscle, more blood. "Memlinc's art is very human, but there is in it no trace of the villainies and atrocities of his time. His ideal is his own. It foreshadowed perhaps the Bellinis, the Botticellis, the Peruginos, but not Leonardo, nor the Tuscans, nor the Romans of the Renaissance. Imagine in the midst of the horror of the century a privileged spot, a sort of angelic retreat where the passions are silenced and troubles cease, where men pray and worship, where physical and moral deformities are transfigured, where new sentiments come into being and sweet usages grow up like the lilies: imagine this and you will have an idea of the unique soul of Memlinc and of the miracle which he works in his pictures" (Fromentin: Les Maitres d'Autrefois).

In front is a portrait of the donor of the picture. On the Virgin's left is St. George with the dragon—not a very dreadful dragon, either—"they do not hurt or destroy" in the peaceful gardens that Memlinc fancied. Notice how the peaceful idea is continued in the man returning to his pleasant home in the background to the left. The Virgin herself is typical of the feminine idea in early Flemish art. "It must be borne in mind that the people of the fifteenth century still lived in an age when the language of symbols was rich and widely understood.... The high forehead of the Virgin and wide arching brows tell of her intellectual power, her rich long hair figures forth the fulness of her life, her slim figure and tiny mouth symbolise her purity, her mild eyes with their drooping eyelids discover her devoutness, her bent head speaks of humility. The supreme and evident virtue which reigns in all these Madonnas is an absolute purity of heart" (Conway's Early Flemish Painters, pp. 109, 110).

687. ST. VERONICA.

Meister Wilhelm of Cologne (Early German: living in 1380).

A work of interest as being by the first artist who emerges in the North as an individual painter—painting before his time being a mere appendage of other arts and the work solely of guilds. This "Master William," who is mentioned in an old chronicle as having "painted a man as though he were alive," was a native of Herle, near Cologne, and attained a prominent position in the latter town.

The subject of this picture is the compassionate woman whose door Christ passed when bearing his cross to Calvary. Seeing the drops of agony on his brow she wiped his face with her napkin, and the true image (Vera Icon: hence her name) of Christ remained miraculously impressed upon it—the Christ-like deed thus imprinting itself and abiding ever with her. The subject of the picture gives it a further historical interest as being suggestive of the mystics, the "Friends of God," as they called themselves, who were preaching in the Rhine Valley at this time, and under whose influence this early school of painting arose. "The mystic is one who claims to be able to see God with the inner vision of the soul. He studies to be quiet that his still soul may reflect the face of God"—even as did the cloth of St. Veronica (Beard's Hibbert Lectures).

690. "HIS OWN PORTRAIT."[166]

Andrea del Sarto (Florentine: 1486-1531).

The cabinet pictures of Andrea del Sarto, "the faultless painter," are well known to all visitors in the great galleries of Europe. There is a certain mannerism in them which makes them very easy of recognition. His type of Madonna is constant, for it was taken from the beautiful wife whom he loved so well, and who requited his love so ill. In his angels there is a delicate, misty beauty; and over all his works there is "that peculiar softness, harmony, and delicacy of colouring which the Italians call morbidezza, and which is to be seen in its perfection in the 'Madonna di San Francesco' in the Uffizi." That Holy Family (painted in 1517) is generally considered his masterpiece, and may be taken as the supreme type of similar pictures in all the galleries. Another typical work is the "Charity" of the Louvre (painted 1518). But it is only in Florence among his frescoes—now unhappily fading, but preserved in part by copies in the Arundel Society's collection—the frescoes of the Santissima Annunziata, the convent of S. Salvi, and, above all, the cloister of the Scalzo, that a full conception of Andrea's power can be obtained. "There only," says Mr. Swinburne, "can one trace and tell how great a painter and how various he was. There only, but surely there, can the influence and pressure of the things of time on his immortal spirit be understood.... In the little cloister of the Scalzo there is such exultation and exuberance of young power, of fresh passion and imagination, that only by the innate grace can one recognise the hand of the master whom hitherto we knew by the works of his after life, when the gift of grace had survived the gift of invention. This and all other gifts it did survive; all pleasure of life and power of mind. All these his charm of touch, his sweetness of execution, his 'Elysian beauty, melancholy grace' outlived and blossomed in their dust" (Mr. Swinburne's eloquent piece on this painter's works is in the first series of Essays and Studies, where also are some notes on the master's drawings in the Uffizi collection).

The painter's life is told in great detail and with much vivacity by Vasari, to whose pages every reader should turn. He was the pupil of Piero di Cosimo, and the friend and fellow-worker of Franciabigio. All their spare, time, we are told, was spent in drawing from the cartoons of Michelangelo and Leonardo. "After the exhibition of Michelangelo's celebrated 'Cartoon of Pisa,' in 1506, he became a decided imitator of that painter in design: in colour and light and shade Fra Bartolommeo appears to have been his model." His celebrated frescoes in the convent of the Annunziata (not completed till 1514) were among his earliest works. Those in the Scalzo were done in 1514. In 1517 he married, and in 1518 he went to Paris, returning to Florence in the following year. The story that he embezzled sums of money given him by the king for the purchase of pictures is open to suspicion, since the accounts of the king have been discovered. No trace of such moneys occurs, nor did the king ever make any effort to obtain restitution. Andrea died of the plague at the early age of forty-five.

Browning's poem, in which he sets forth the pathos of the artist's life, is the best commentary on this beautiful portrait—so masterly in workmanship, so rich in suggestion of character. The real name of Andrea del Sarto—"Andrew of the Tailor," so called from his father's trade—was Andrea d'Agnolo: his monogram, formed of two inverted A's, may here be seen on the background to the left. The Italians called him "the faultless painter": faultless, they meant, in all the technical requirements of painting—

But men may be "faultily faultless"; and what he lacked was just the one thing needful—the consecration and the poet's dream, which lift many works by less skilful hands than his into the higher region of imaginative art—

And the self-reproach was not less bitter for the knowledge of "what might have been." There is a story that Michael Angelo visited his studio, and said afterwards to Raphael—

Yet Andrea himself too was once pricked on by kings. Two pictures of his had been sent to Francis I., who thereupon invited the painter to his court. And there for a time he worked and was honoured; but in the midst of it all he sat reading the letters which Lucrezia, his wife, sent him to Paris. "You called me and I came home to your heart." It is her face which we see everywhere in Andrea's Madonnas, and if at any time he took his model from any other face, there was always a resemblance to hers in the painting—

But Lucrezia served as his model, not his ideal. She had been married before to a hatter, but was remarkable, says Vasari, who worked in Andrea's studio and had a grudge against her, "as much for pride and haughtiness, as for beauty and fascination."[167] And

It is in some such mood of communing with himself that we seem here to see the painter; yet there is a certain undercurrent of contentment below the look of melancholy. "The force of a beautiful face carries me to heaven": so sang Michael Angelo. Lucrezia dragged her husband down; his rivals overcame him—

691. "ECCE HOMO!"

Ascribed to Lo Spagna (Umbrian: painted 1503-1530).

See 1032.

602. ST. HUGO OF GRENOBLE.

Lodovico of Parma (Parmese: early 16th century).

Said to have been a scholar of Francia.

The crozier shows him to be a bishop, and it is inscribed S. VGO. This is St. Hugo (died 1132), who was Bishop of Grenoble when St. Bruno founded the Chartreuse, and who often resided amongst the Carthusians. Doubtless he was not an unwelcome visitor, for he had the power, it is said, of converting fowls into fish, which it was lawful to eat. For forty years, it is further told of him, he had haunting doubts on the old, old question of the origin of evil. The good bishop referred them at last to Pope Gregory VII., who greatly comforted St. Hugo by assuring him that such doubts were only sent to try his virtue and faith in the providence of God in permitting evil in the world.

693. ST. CATHERINE OF ALEXANDRIA.

Pinturicchio (Umbrian: 1454-1513).

Bernardino di Betto, or the son of Benedetto, was commonly called Pinturicchio, "the little painter." He is not strongly represented in our Gallery. His principal works are the decorated ceiling and frescoes in the Library of Siena, which represent the life of the Pope Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (Pius II.). A drawing of this Library and copies of some of the frescoes are in the Arundel Society's Collection. Pinturicchio, says Symonds, is "a kind of Umbrian Gozzoli, who brings us here and there in close relation to the men of his own time. His wall-paintings in the library of the Cathedral of Siena are so well preserved that we need not seek elsewhere for better specimens of the decorative art most highly prized in the first years of the 16th century. These frescoes have a richness of effect and a vivacity of natural action which, in spite of their superficiality, render them highly charming. The life of Pius II. is treated like a legend. Both Pope and Emperor are romantically conceived, and each portion of the tale is told as though it were a part in some popular ballad. So much remains of Perugian affectation as gives a kind of childlike grace to the studied attitudes and many-coloured groups of elegant young men" (Renaissance, iii. 220). In the foreground of one of the frescoes is a charming figure, supposed to be a portrait of the young Raphael. Vasari states and subsequent writers have repeated that Pinturicchio was assisted in these frescoes by Raphael. This supposition rests on three drawings attributed to Raphael, but now proved to be by Pinturicchio, who bound himself to execute the whole work with his own hand. Morelli's attribution to Pinturicchio of the so-called "Raphael's sketch-book" at Venice is one of the most important of that critic's discoveries. "If (says Morelli) in representing serious religious subjects, he does not come up to Perugino as regards proportion, finish, and the filling of space; if his forms are not so noble, and the expression of religious sentiment not so deep as in Pietro; yet, on the other hand, Pinturicchio is, to my mind, less conscious, more fresh and racy than Perugino, and does not so often fatigue us by monotony and that conventional sweetness which, especially in the productions of his last twenty years, makes Pietro positively wearisome. And, as an imaginative landscape-painter, Pinturicchio surpasses almost all of his contemporaries" (German Galleries, p. 285). Pinturicchio's frescoes at Siena occupied him from 1502 to 1509. He probably studied first under Fiorenzo di Lorenzo (No. 1103); afterwards he entered into partnership with Pietro Perugino. He went to Rome in 1479 and was honoured by commissions from cardinals and popes. Among his works in Rome are frescoes representing the stories of the Virgin and St. Jerome in S. Maria del Popolo; frescoes in the Appartamenti Borgia in the Vatican, and frescoes of S. Bernardino of Siena in the Bufalini Chapel, S. Maria Aracoeli. Morelli attributes to him also two of the frescoes in the Sixtine Chapel (the Baptism of Christ and the History of Moses). In 1500 he commenced the beautiful series of frescoes, now much disfigured, in the collegiate church at Spello (see Arundel Society's copies). That he was held in high esteem by his fellow-citizens is shown by his having been elected in 1501 Decemvir of Perugia in place of Pietro Perugino. Unlike Perugino, he never mastered the use of oil, but painted in tempera. Vasari, who did not like Pinturicchio, describes him as somewhat of a hack, and still more of a lover of money. "Among other qualities he possessed that of giving considerable satisfaction to princes and nobles because he quickly brought the works commanded by them to an end." As for his love of money, he died of vexation, Vasari assures us, "because a certain trunk which he had insisted on being removed from his painting-room in Siena was afterwards found to be full of gold pieces." According, however, to a contemporary writer, his wife left him alone in his house when ill, and he was starved to death.

St. Catherine of Alexandria was of all the female saints next to Mary Magdalene the most popular: she meets us in nearly every room in the National Gallery, and even in London, churches and districts once placed under her protection still retain her name. Her general attributes are a book, a sword, and a wheel. The meaning of these will be seen from the legend of her which crusaders brought from the East. She was the daughter of a queen, and of marvellous wisdom and understanding. And when the time came that she should govern her people, she, shunning responsibility and preferring wisdom before sovereignty, shut herself up in her palace and gave her mind to the study of philosophy. For this wilful seclusiveness her people wished her to marry a husband who should at once fulfil the duties of government and lead them forth to battle. But she, to prevent this repugnant union, made one more spiritual by her mystical marriage with Christ. And for this and other unworldly persistencies, the heathen tyrant Maximin would have broken her on a wheel, but that "fire came down from heaven, sent by the destroying angel of God, and broke the wheel in pieces." Yet for all this the tyrant repented not, and after scourging St. Catherine with rods beheaded her with the sword, and so having won the martyr's palm, she entered into the joy of her Lord.

694. ST. JEROME IN HIS STUDY.

School of Giovanni Bellini.[168] See under 189.

Besides translating the Bible, St. Jerome (see 227) is famous as one of the founders of the monastic system, "of the ordered cell and tended garden where before was but the desert and the wild wood," and he died in the monastery he had founded at Bethlehem. This picture shows us the inside of monastic life. St. Jerome, with the scholar's look of quiet satisfaction, is deep in study; his room has no luxury, but is beautiful in its grace and order; the lion, who seems here to be sharing his master's meditation, and the partridge peering into the saint's slippers, speak of the love of the old monks for the lower animals; and the beautiful landscape seen through the open window recalls the sweet nooks which they everywhere chose and tended for their dwelling. The effect of the whole picture is to suggest the peaceful simplicity of the old religious life in contrast to the "getting and spending" with which we now "lay waste our powers."

The picture belongs to what Ruskin has called the "Time of the Masters," who desire only to make everything dainty and delightful. "Everything in it is exquisite, complete, and pure; there is not a particle of dust in the cupboards, nor a cloud in the air; the wooden shutters are dainty, the candlestick is dainty, the saint's blue hat is dainty, and its violet tassel, and its ribbon, and his blue cloak, and his spare pair of shoes, and his little brown partridge—it is all a perfect quintessence of innocent luxury—absolute delight, without one drawback in it, nor taint of the Devil anywhere" (Verona and other Lectures, § 26). For another specimen of this "pictorial perfectness and deliciousness," see 288 (especially the compartment with Raphael and Tobit).

As for the partridge, this is frequently introduced into sacred pictures, especially those of the Venetian School. There is a pretty legend of St. John which perhaps accounts for it, and which makes its introduction very appropriate in the picture of a recluse. St. John had, it is said, a tame partridge, which he cherished much, and amused himself with feeding and tending. A certain huntsman, passing by with his bow and arrows, was astonished to see the great apostle, so venerable for his age and sanctity, engaged in such an amusement. The apostle asked him if he always kept his bow bent. He answered that would be the way to render it useless. "If," replied St. John, "you unbend your bow to prevent its being useless, so do I thus unbend my mind for the same reason" (Mrs. Jameson: Sacred and Legendary Art, p. 100).

695. MADONNA AND CHILD.

Andrea Previtali (Bergamese: about 1480-1528).

This painter (whose personality is in some art-histories merged in that of Cordelle Agii, see 1409) was one of Bellini's numerous pupils—a provincial from Bergamo, "a dry, honest, monotonous" painter (see Morelli's German Galleries, pp. 178-181, and under 1203). "As regards technique, Previtali is certainly very eminent; in brilliance of colouring he is not behind any of Bellini's pupils, and the landscapes in the background of his pictures are for the most part neatly and faultlessly executed. But he lacks the main attributes of a great artist—invention and the power of original representation." Whilst painting in Venice, he signed his pictures Andreas Bergomensis; on his return to Bergamo, Andreas Previtalus. His pictures at Bergamo are numerous; the best is the altar-piece in S. Spirito.

A characteristic example of the painter. The figure of the monk in adoration is somewhat hard. The landscape background is pleasant.

696. MARCO BARBARIGO.

Unknown (Flemish: 15th century).

See also (p. xx)

He was Venetian Consul in London in 1449, and holds in his hand a letter addressed to him there. He was subsequently elected Doge, but died (in 1486), after holding the office for six months. It is recorded of him as Doge that he was a specially mild-tempered and good man—a character which is not belied in this portrait of him in his earlier days. This portrait was formerly ascribed to Gerard van der Meire (see under 1078). It is now by some attributed to Petrus Cristus.

697. PORTRAIT OF A TAILOR.

Moroni (Bergamese: 1525-1578).

Giambattista Moroni is one of the greatest of the Italian portrait-painters, and this picture is perhaps his best-known and most popular production.[169] The works of Moroni appeal alike to the general public and to the painter. He gave to his figures a vitality and ease, and impressed upon them a verisimilitude which appeal to every spectator. His works (adds Sir F. Burton) "will always be highly estimated by the painter, as they exhibit rare technical merits, perfect knowledge and command of means, facility of execution without display of dexterity, truth of colour, and the finest perception of the value of tones." "No portrait-painter ever placed the epidermis of the human face upon canvas with more fidelity, and with greater truth than Moroni: his portraits have all a more or less prosaic look, but they must all have had that startling likeness to the original which so enchants the great public, who exclaim 'The very man! just how he looks!' And it was with the eyes of the great public that Moroni did look at his subjects; he was not a poet in the true sense of the word, but a consummate painter. Yet, now and then, he manages to go beyond himself, and to pierce the surface till he reaches the soul of the sitter. In such cases his portraits may rank with those of Titian" (Morelli's German Galleries, p. 48). His colouring varied at different periods of his life. For examples of his manner before he came under Il Moretto's influence see 1023 and 1316—the reddish hue of his flesh-tints being characteristic. In his second period he adopted the "silvery" manner of Il Moretto: seen here and in 1022; whilst for his third, or naturalistic manner see 742. Moroni is a distinguished ornament of the school of Bergamo—a provincial school characterised, says Morelli, by "manly energy," but also by "a certain prosaic want of refinement." See, for other Bergamese painters, Previtali (695) and Cariani (1203). Palma Vecchio, the greatest of them, is represented by the "Portrait of Ariosto," 636. Giambattista Moroni was a painter without honour in his own country, and when people from Bergamo came to Titian to be painted, he used to refer them to their own countryman—no better face painter, he would tell them, existed. Moroni is believed to have entered the studio of Moretto at Brescia when fifteen years of age. His religious pictures are inferior reflections of his master's. Upon one of them, still preserved in the church of Gorlago (between Bergamo and Brescia) he was engaged at the time of his death. No admirer of Moroni should omit to visit Bergamo: a splendid series of his portraits is to be seen in the Carrara gallery of that town. There too, as also in the gallery at Verona, is a pretty portrait by him of a little girl.

A "speaking portrait." "The tailor's picture is so well done," says an old Italian critic, "that it speaks better than an advocate could." A portrait that enables one, moreover, to realise what was once meant by a "worshipful company of merchant tailors." Tagliapanni—for such is his name—is no Alton Locke—- no discontented "tailor and poet"; neither is he like some fashionable West-End tailor, with ambitions of rising above his work. He is well-to-do—notice his handsome ring; but he has the shears in his hands. He does the work himself, and he likes the work. He is something of an artist, it would seem, in clothes: his jacket and handsome breeches were a piece of his work, one may suppose; and the artist has caught and immortalised him, as he is standing back for a minute to calculate the effect of his next cut.

698. THE DEATH OF PROCRIS.

Piero di Cosimo (Florentine: 1462-1521).

A very characteristic work, and the most interesting of those extant, by Piero, called di Cosimo, after his godfather and master, Cosimo Rosselli. Piero's peculiarities are well known to all readers of George Eliot's Romola, where everything told us about him by Vasari in one of his most amusing chapters is carefully worked up. The first impression left by this picture—its quaintness—is precisely typical of the man. He shut himself off from the world and stopped his ears; lived in the untidiest of rooms, and would not have his garden tended, "preferring to see all things wild and savage about him." He took his meals at times and in ways that no other man did, and Romola used to coax him with sweets and hard-boiled eggs. His fondness for quaint landscape ("he would sometimes stand beside a wall," says Vasari, "and image forth the most extraordinary landscapes that ever were") may be seen in this picture; so also may his love of animals, in which, says Vasari, he took "indescribable pleasure." Piero accompanied his master, Cosimo Rosselli, to Rome in 1480, and painted the landscape to that master's "Sermon on the Mount" in the Sixtine Chapel. He painted several altar-pieces, but his true bent was towards mythological subjects and quaintly decorative treatment. Vasari describes in detail a Carnival triumph devised by Piero. This and the adornment of dwelling-rooms and marriage-chests were the forms in which his fantastic originality found the most congenial expression. He was also a good portrait-painter: No. 895 in this gallery has recently been recognised as his work.

The subjects of Piero's pictures were generally mythological. In Romola he paints Tito and Romola as Bacchus and Ariadne; here he shows the death of Procris, the story in which the ancients embodied the folly of jealousy. For Procris being told that Cephalus was unfaithful, straightway believed the report and secretly followed him to the woods, for he was a great hunter. And Cephalus called upon "aura," the Latin for breeze, for Cephalus was hot after the chase: "Sweet air, O come," and echo answered, "Come, sweet air." But Procris, thinking that he was calling after his mistress, turned to see, and as she moved she made a rustling in the leaves, which Cephalus mistook for the motion of some beast of the forest, and let fly his unerring dart, which Procris once had given him.

Piero's treatment of the theme is, it should be noted, romantic, rather than classical; in which respect his picture is characteristic of the earlier Renaissance. "In creating his Satyr the painter has not had recourse to any antique bas-relief, but has imagined for himself a being half human, half bestial, and yet wholly real; nor has he portrayed in Procris a nymph of Greek form, but a girl of Florence. The strange animals and gaudy flowers introduced into the landscape background further remove the subject from the sphere of classic treatment. Florentine realism and quaint fancy being thus curiously blended, the artistic result may be profitably studied for the light it throws upon the so-called Paganism of the earlier Renaissance. Fancy at that moment was more free than when superior knowledge of antiquity had created a demand for reproductive art, and when the painters thought less of the meaning of the fable for themselves than of its capability of being used as a machine for the display of erudition" (Symonds's Renaissance, iii. 187). Piero seems to have taken his background from Lake Thrasymene.

Piero's poetic fancy in this picture has aroused a responsive echo in the poets of our own day. The lines quoted above are from "The Death of Procris; a version suggested by the so-named picture of Piero di Cosimo in the National Gallery," in Mr. Austin Dobson's Old World Idylls. Another version of the picture may be found in Michael Field's Sight and Song:—

Mr. Ruskin also has written a piece around our picture, which he reads with a different eye from "Michael Field,"[170] seeing in it not so much the inapprehensiveness of nature as the pathetic fallacy whereby the moods of nature are made to sympathise with human joy or sorrow:—

"The next best landscape (to Bellini's 'Peter Martyr') in the National Gallery is a Florentine one on the edge of transition to the Greek feeling; and in that the distance is still beautiful, but misty, not clear; the flowers are still beautiful, but, intentionally, of the colour of blood; and in the foreground lies the dead body of Procris, which disturbs the poor painter greatly; and he has expressed his disturbed mind about it in the figure of a poor little brown (nearly black) Faun, or perhaps the god Faunus himself, who is much puzzled by the death of Procris, and stoops over her, thinking it a woful thing to find her pretty body lying there breathless, and all spotted with blood on the breast" (Lectures on Landscape, § 94).

699. AGOSTINO AND NICCOLO DELLA TORRE.

Lorenzo Lotto (Venetian: 1480-1555).

To this great painter full justice has scarcely been done by writers on art—an omission which in recent years Morelli and still more Mr. Berenson, in his elaborate monograph, have sought to repair. Lotto led a wandering life, which took him much away from Venice; hence his pictures are comparatively little known. Again, as Sir F. Burton points out, "great versatility and remarkable impressibility are among the chief characteristics of Lotto, who certainly was possessed of genius but whose development was oscillating and affected by many influences. Only by extremely careful study and comparison can his hand be traced throughout in works, which at first sight exhibit little or nothing in common. Were none of Lotto's works signed or otherwise attested they would certainly bear very various attributions, as indeed many of his unsigned pictures have done, and as it is likely some do still." The portrait, for instance, of Andrea Odoni at Hampton Court was for several centuries attributed to Correggio, but recent cleaning has uncovered Lotto's signature and the date 1527. Of his power as a portrait-painter visitors to the National Gallery can form a good idea. His works in this sort will bear comparison with the best of his contemporaries. They have, says Morelli, "all that refined, inward elegance of feeling which marks the culminating point in the last stage of progressive art in Italy, and which is principally represented by Leonardo da Vinci, Lotto, Andrea del Sarto, and Correggio; whereas the elegance of Bronzino in Tuscany, and of Parmigiano in North Italy, is an outward affected one, which has nothing to do with the inner life of the person represented, and therefore characterises the first stage of declining art." His sympathetic nature enabled him to seize the finer traits of his sitters, and they in turn "look out from his canvasses as if begging for the sympathy" of the spectator. No. 1047 in our Gallery is especially characteristic. Lotto's altar-pieces, which were numerous, must be studied at Treviso, Recanati, Jesi, Bergamo, and Trescorre (frescoes), near the latter place. His pictures at different periods (they are for the most part dated) show strong resemblances to different painters—to Bellini and the Vivarini, to Palma, to Titian, to Giorgione, and to Correggio. He was born at Venice, and, according to Vasari, was a disciple of John Bellini. Mr. Berenson, on the contrary, maintains on internal evidence that Lotto must have belonged to the rival school of Alvise Vivarini. Of Palma, he was, according to Vasari, the friend and companion. With Titian he was on friendly terms, though if we may judge from a letter by Pietro Aretino, the attitude of the worldly Titian coterie to the gentle Lotto, was not unmixed with some contempt. "O Lotto," he writes, "as goodness good, and as talent talented, Titian from Augsburg, in the midst of the high favour everybody is eager to show him, greets and embraces you by the token of the letter which I received from him two days ago. He says that it would double the pleasure that he takes in the emperor's satisfaction with the picture he is now painting, if he had your eye and your judgment to approve him. And indeed, the painter is not mistaken, for your judgment has been formed by age, by nature, and by art, with the prompting of that straightforward kindliness which pronounces upon the works of others exactly as if they were your own. Envy is not in your breast. Rather do you delight to see in other artists certain qualities which you do not find in your own brush, although it performs those miracles which do not come easy to many who yet feel very happy over their technical skill. But holding the second place in the art of painting is nothing compared to holding the first place in the duties of religion, for Heaven will recompense you with a glory that passes the praise of this world.—Venice, April 1548." The resemblance between Lotto and Correggio was founded on no personal intercourse or artistic "influence," but on similarity of temperament. It is most conspicuous in the works of Lotto's "Bergamask period" (1518-1526). But whereas Correggio's sensitiveness is to impressions of outward joy and beauty, Lotto's is attuned rather to states of the human soul. Titian's sitters, it has been well said, are as if on parade, and his religious pictures tell of the pomp or rapture of public services. Lotto's sitters commune rather with their own souls, and in his devotional pieces he aims at a personal interpretation of religious motives. "As a colourist," says Burton, "Lotto remained throughout a Venetian. His flesh tints are true, and various as the age, sex, and temperament of the persons depicted." All that we know of his life suggests a reserved, sensitive, and unworldly nature. Unlike so many of his contemporaries, he never sued the favour of the mighty. In his account book recently discovered at Loreto he speaks again and again of having done excellent work for people who remunerated him with pence where if a contract had been made they would have had to pay him in pounds. He lodged sometimes with friends, sometimes with monks. His life was that of a lonely wanderer, very industrious, but laying up no store. In 1554 he made over himself and all his belongings to the Holy House at Loreto, "being tired of wandering and wishing to end his days in that holy place." During the last years of his life he had almost entirely lost his voice. In one of his wills is a reference which shows us the temperament of the man. Among his scanty possessions were a number of antique gems. These he speaks of lovingly, because they were engraved with mystic symbols for the spirit to brood upon (see Lorenzo Lotto: an Essay in Constructive Criticism, by Bernhard Berenson, 1895; and Morelli's German Galleries, pp. 31-40; Roman Galleries, p. 301).

Agostino was Professor of Medicine in the University of Padua; he holds a copy of "Galen," the most celebrated of the ancient medical writers, in his hand. It was for Niccolo, however, according to the inscription, that the picture was painted in 1515; and Signor Morelli (its former owner) thinks that Agostino's portrait must have been inserted at a later time, for "it is placed very awkwardly in the background" (German Galleries, p. 37 n.). "No one with a feeling for composition can doubt for an instant that Agostino was originally intended to be alone on the canvas, as he occupies all of it that a single bust ought to occupy. Morelli's inference seems thus to be well founded that Lotto, on his return from Venice to Bergamo, stopped at Padua and painted the portrait of Agostino, which he brought to Niccolo at Bergamo, who thereupon had his own portrait added.... Lotto's sitters were in no way remarkable. Nevertheless, he gives them a look of refinement and innate sweetness of nature which brings us very close to them" (Berenson, pp. 138, 321).

700. THE HOLY FAMILY.

Bernardino Lanini (Lombard: about 1508-1578).

Lanini was a native of Vercelli, and a scholar of Gaudenzio Ferrari. Subsequently he approached more to the manner of Leonardo, as in this picture dated 1543. His works are frequent at Turin and Vercelli. There is an altar-piece by him at Borgo Sesia, near Varallo; his principal works are frescoes in the Cathedral at Novara.

Mr. Pater bids us notice in this picture the "pensive, tarnished silver sidelights, like mere reflections of natural sunshine" ("Art Notes in North Italy," New Review, Nov. 1890).

701. THE CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN.

Justus of Padua (died 1400).

A picture of interest as being the oldest by any North Italian painter in the Gallery—the date inscribed on the plinth below is 1367. Justus (Giusto di Giovanni) was a native of Florence, who in 1375 settled in Padua and founded his style upon the works of Giotto in that town. The frescoes at Padua formerly ascribed to him are now said to be the works of his scholars, Giovanni and Antonio da Padova.

None of the pictures in our Gallery by followers of Giotto is so satisfactory as this; "exquisite both in design and colour, though on a very small scale, it has," says Sir E. Poynter, "all the largeness of style which characterises the great Florentine fourteenth-century frescoes" (The National Gallery, i. 258). "The Virgin is of a fresh type, pretty and noble also. Amongst the saints in the centre picture that of St. Paul (on the extreme right) is distinguished by its natural bearing. There is, however, vigour and a sense of beauty and proportion throughout this charming little work." In the panel to the left, with the Nativity, "may be noticed the spirit of alertness in the attendant waiting to wash the child, and the statuesque design of St. Joseph"; in that to the right, with the crucifixion, "the figure of St. John, at the foot of the Cross, with its fine expression of grief, and beautifully-designed drapery" (Monkhouse, Italian Pre-Raphaelites, p. 23). Above is the Annunciation, with regard to which see notes on No. 1139. On the reverse side of the wings are other incidents from the life of the Virgin.

This and the pictures following (701-722) were presented by Queen Victoria to the National Gallery "in fulfilment of the wishes of H.R.H. the Prince Consort." They formerly belonged to the collection of H.I.H. Prince Louis of Oettingen-Wallerstein, and afterwards became the property of Prince Albert. It was his intention from the first to present them to the nation, but the gift was delayed owing to the uncertainty with regard to the site of the proposed new National Gallery. The Prince's purpose remained unaccomplished, but not forgotten, at his death, and in 1863 the best pictures from the collection were presented by Queen Victoria to the nation.

702. MADONNA AND CHILD.

Unknown (Umbrian: 15th-16th century).

Formerly ascribed to L'Ingegno. See 1220.

703. MADONNA AND CHILD.

Pinturicchio (Umbrian: 1454-1513). See 693.

704. COSIMO, DUKE OF TUSCANY.

Angelo Bronzino (Florentine: 1502-1572). See 649.

See also (p. xx)

A contemporary portrait of the great Medici, the first "Grand Duke" of Tuscany (ruled 1537-1564), who was regarded in his day as the very incarnation of Machiavelli's Prince, "inasmuch as he joined daring to talent and prudence," and though "he could practise mercy in due season," was yet "capable of great cruelty." No one, who notices here that large protruding under lip of his, will doubt this last element in his character.

705. STS. MATTHEW, CATHERINE, AND JOHN.

Ascribed to Stephan Lochner (Early German: died 1451).

"Meister Stephan" was a native of Constance, who settled in Cologne, and whose work has the stamp of the early Cologne School (see 687). His chief work is the so-called Dombild, now in Cologne Cathedral: "Item. I gave two white pennies," says Albert Dürer in his diary, "to see the picture that Master Staffan of Cologne painted." This famous altar-piece has been published by the Arundel Society. "Italian Art," says Sir F. Burton, "has seldom produced a group so beautiful as that of the crowned Madonna in its central panel." Another exquisite little picture ascribed to Meister Stephan is in the Cologne Museum.

Three figures full of innocent fervour and graceful sentimentality. St. Matthew as an evangelist holds a book and a pen, and is attended by the symbolic angel. St. John is attended by the eagle, which is the constant symbol of this evangelist, because he soared upwards to the contemplation of the divine nature of the Saviour.

706. PRESENTATION OF CHRIST IN THE TEMPLE.

The Master of the Lyversberg Passion (German: died about 1490).

A picture by the unknown painter of a series of Passion pictures, formerly belonging to Herr Lyversberg of Cologne, but now in the Museum of the city. He painted also a series of eight subjects from the Life of Mary. Of these six are in the Pinacothek at Munich, a seventh is in the German Museum at Nuremberg, and our picture is the eighth.

Characteristic of the German School after the Flemish influence. The sky background is gilt as in the old German pictures, but the types of the figures are Flemish. Notice the quaint pointed shoes, and the touch of realism in making the foot of Simeon, as he advances to receive the child from its mother, come half out of his slipper.

707. ST. PETER AND ST. DOROTHY.

Master of the Cologne Crucifixion (Early German School: early 16th century).

Part of an altar-piece, the rest of which is in the Munich Gallery, by an artist whose name is unknown, and who is therefore called after his principal works (now in the Cologne Museum). It has been well said of him that "he succeeded in giving an intense expression of transient emotion to the faces; but by endeavouring to lend a sympathetic action to the whole figure, he has exaggerated the action into distortion" (History of Painting, from the German of Woltmann and Woermann, ii. 224). This is conspicuously the case here. Look, for instance, at the comic contrast between St. Peter's big foot and St. Dorothy's pointed little shoe—between what is almost a leer on his face and the "mincing" affectation on hers. St. Peter is distinguished of course by the keys; St. Dorothy by the basket of flowers—the flowers which she sent to Theophilus in token of the truth of the faith in which she died: "Carry these to Theophilus, say that Dorothea has sent them, and that I go before him to the garden whence they came and await him there" (see Mrs. Jameson; Sacred and Legendary Art, p. 336, ed. 1850).

708. MADONNA AND CHILD.

Unknown[171] (Early Flemish: 15th century).

The Madonna offers Christ an apple—symbol of the forbidden fruit, and thus of the sin in the world which he came to remove.

709. MADONNA AND CHILD.

Unknown (Flemish School; 15th-16th century).

See also (p. xx)

"In Flemish pictures the varnish was incorporated with the surface colours, and cannot be removed without destroying at the same time the very fabric of the work. For this reason all attempts to, what is called, restore, or clean pictures of the Flemish School, result only in the destruction of the work, and by this means many fine pictures have, for all practical purposes, perished.... (This picture) is a lamentable example" (Conway's Early Flemish Artists, p. 119).

710. PORTRAIT OF A MONK.

Unknown[172] (Early Flemish: 15th century).

711. "MATER DOLOROSA."

712. "ECCE HOMO!"

Roger van der Weyden (Flemish: 1400-1464). See 664.

"It was a common custom with Roger's followers to copy single heads out of their master's large groups. Such single heads always have gold backgrounds, usually dotted over with little black dashes" (Conway's Early Flemish Artists, p. 275). These companion panels are perhaps instances, and the heads selected for reproduction are typical of the overstrained pathos of this school. Notice how prominently the tears in the sorrowing mother, and the blood and tears in the "Ecco Homo" are made to stand out.

713. MADONNA AND CHILD.

Jan Mostaert (Early Dutch: 1474-1555).

See also (p. xx)

Mostaert, a native of Haarlem, was for eighteen years painter to Margaret of Austria, Regent of the Netherlands. A picture ascribed to him is preserved in the church of Notre Dame at Bruges, but no known pictures bear his signature. A large number of his works perished in the great fire at Haarlem in 1571.

One of the few specimens in the Gallery of the first period of Dutch art, when it was still following the traditions of the Early Flemish School.

714. MADONNA AND CHILD.

Cornelis Engelbertsz (Dutch: 1468-1533).

See also (p. xx)

Engelbertsz was one of the earliest oil painters at Leyden, and is said to have been the master of Lucas of Leyden. Most of his important religious works were destroyed by the Dutch iconoclasts of the sixteenth century.

715. THE CRUCIFIXION.

Joachim Patinir (Early Flemish: died 1524).

See also (p. xx)

Patinir (born at Dinant, but settled in Antwerp) was styled by Albert Dürer, who stayed with him when in Antwerp, drew his portrait and attended his wedding, "Joachim the good landscape painter." What distinguishes his landscape is its greater expanse, as compared with earlier works. The Flemish painters preceding him were mostly content with the narrow domestic scenery of their own Maas country. But Patinir's pictures "embrace miles of country, and open on every side.... Some far-away cottage by the river-side, some hamlet nestling against a remote hill-slope, some castle on a craggy peak, blue against the transparent sky—such objects were a joy to him.... Moreover, with Patinir the fantastic element was of much importance. He wished his landscapes to be romantic.... He would have precipitous rocks.... His river must pass through gorges or under natural archways; his skies must be full of moving clouds; his wide districts of country must present contrasts of rocky mountain, water, and fertile plains.... He saw also the grandeur of wild scenery, and strove, though not with perfect success, to bring that into his pictures, showing thereby the possession of a foretaste of that delight in nature for her own sake, the full enjoyment of which has been reserved for the people of our own century" (Conway's Early Flemish Artists, pp. 299, 300). "His figures," says Sir F. Burton, "while retaining old Netherlandish characteristics, are good, expressive, and even noble in conception." Most of the Galleries contain pictures by Patinir. Madrid is particularly rich in them.

"A high authority on early Flemish art, M. Henri Hymans, has stated that the figures in the 'Crucifixion' given to Joachim Patinir, and of which the landscape is undoubtedly his, are by the painter's friend, Quentin Matsys. Unquestionably these figures differ much in colour and execution from those contained in such other examples of Patinir in the National Gallery as the 'Nun' (945), or 'The Visit of the Virgin to St. Elizabeth' (1082)" (Claude Phillips in the Academy, September 28, 1889).

716. ST. CHRISTOPHER.

Joachim Patinir (Early Flemish: died 1524). See 715.

One of the earliest attempts in painting to tell the beautiful legend of Christopher (the Christ bearer), the hermit ferryman, who, "having sustained others in their chief earthly trials, afterwards had Christ for companion of his own." The best account of the legend of St. Christopher is to be found in Miss Alexander's Roadside Songs of Tuscany, edited by Ruskin, illustrated with "the most beautiful and true designs that have ever yet been made out of all the multitude by which alike the best spiritual and worldly power of Art have commended to Christendom its noblest monastic legend."

717. ST. JOHN ON THE ISLAND OF PATMOS.

Joachim Patinir (Early Flemish: died 1524). See 715.

The evangelist on the island of Patmos, writing the revelations out of an ink-horn held by an eagle, which an imp is attempting to steal. In the sky above are the revelations themselves: "And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.... And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads" (Revelation xii. 1, 3).

718. CHRIST ON THE CROSS.

Ascribed to Hendrik Bles (Flemish: about 1480-1550).

Bles, called by the Italians "Civetta" (the owl), on account of the owl which he often adopted as his monogram, was an imitator of Patinir (see 715). Van Mander says that his nickname was Met de Bles (with the forelock), but as he signs himself Henricus Blessius, it is probable that Bles was his real name.

719. THE READING MAGDALEN.

Ascribed to Hendrik Bles (See last picture).

For the subject see No. 654.

720. A "REPOSE" (see No. 160).

721. PORTRAIT OF A LADY.

Jan van Schorel (Dutch: 1495-1562).

Schorel, so called from his birthplace, belongs to the second period of Dutch art, and was one of the most successful of the "Italianisers"; but neither of these pictures is a good or indeed a certain specimen. He was a poet and musician as well as a painter, and studied under Albert Dürer at Nuremberg. He afterwards visited Venice, whence he went to Jerusalem, returning by Rhodes to Rome. In 1522 he was made by his countryman, Pope Adrian VI., Keeper of the Art Collection of the Vatican. He afterwards returned to Utrecht, where he died a Canon of St. Mary's. He was the master of Anthony Mor.

722. A LADY'S PORTRAIT.

Unknown (German: 15th-16th century).

Formerly ascribed to Sigmund Holbein (1465-1540). A German housewife—with a characteristic mixture about her of sentimentality (for she holds a forget-me-not in her hand) and of austerity (for there is something forbidding, surely, in these terribly angular fingers of hers).

724. "OUR LADY OF THE SWALLOW."

Carlo Crivelli (Venetian: painted 1468-1493). See 602.

Full of the dainty detail which characterises the Venetian pictures of this time. Notice the fruit placed everywhere about the Virgin's throne; and above, the vases of flowers and the swallow—hence the name of the picture, "Madonna della Rondine." Notice also the beautiful dress patterns and the rich hanging brocades. The Virgin's dress is a lovely silk brocade, of a design which might well be copied for muslins and curtains. In this picture, however, "Crivelli's gift of characterisation has been overpowered by his interest in the accessories. St. Jerome, indeed, is a noble and dignified figure, but who could believe in the St. Sebastian? As a study of costume the figure is interesting, reproducing every detail with minute fidelity, and bringing before us the model of a well-dressed young man of Crivelli's time. But the features are of an ignoble type, and the attitude is suggestive only of self-conscious vanity. Instead of a devout attendant at the throne, we seem to get a dandy posing for the admiration of the spectator." The scenes of the predella, on the other hand, are full of animation, of feeling, and of force (Rushforth's Crivelli, p. 72). The picture is signed by Carolus Crivellus Miles, so that it is one of his later works. In the centre of the step is the escutcheon of the Odoni family, for whose chapel in the church of the Franciscans at Matelica the picture was painted.

726. CHRIST'S AGONY IN THE GARDEN.

Giovanni Bellini (Venetian: 1426-1516). See 189.

An early work of the master, painted probably about 1459 (nearly half a century earlier than the Doge's portrait, 189), but interesting as showing the advance made by him in landscape. "We see for the first time an attempt to render a particular effect of light, the first twilight picture with clouds rosy with the lingering gleams of sunset, and light shining from the sky on hill and town—the first in which a head is seen in shadow against a brilliant sky" (Monkhouse: The Italian Pre-Raphaelites, p. 73). "In the figures of the Apostles, especially in the one on the left, the repose of sleep is expressed in so admirable and convincing a manner, that it would be difficult to name a second painter of the quattro-cento who could compare with Bellini in this respect" (Richter). Nor is the advance one in the technique of art only. The picture is one of the earliest in which art made use of what Ruskin calls "the pathetic fallacy"—in which, that is, art represents nature as sympathising with human emotion. Bellini "called in nature," says Mr. Hodgson, R.A. (Magazine of Art, 1886, p 215), "to sympathise with human sorrows, or rather he was the first to point out that nature takes her colouring and her aspects from the conditions of our passions and sentiments.[173] That sombre sky, with its gleam along the horizon, that long dark hill, the wild plain over which the traitor and his accomplices are stealing, have exactly the aspect which they would present to one who stood there knowing that a horrible treason was going to be perpetrated." Compare, for this "pathetic fallacy" in painting, Titian's "Noli me tangere" (No. 270). Bellini's picture should be compared with Mantegna's of the same subject in an adjoining room (1417). Mantegna seizes only the sublimity of the idea of the Agony, Bellini's penetrating sympathy renders its infinite pathos. Mantegna's picture is in some technical respects the more accomplished; "but in all that concerns the imaginative conception of the subject, in the harmonising of all the accessories to produce a single profound impression on the emotions, above all in the large and reposeful spaciousness of the composition, Bellini is surely the more to be admired" (Roger Fry: Giovanni Bellini, p. 22). Both pictures may be profitably compared with Correggio's of the same subject, in which we are introduced to a new order of ideas (See notes on No. 76).

727. THE TRINITY.

Francesco Pesellino (Florentine: 1422-1457).

This accomplished master was called Pesellino to distinguish him from his grandfather Pesello, by whom he was brought up. He is "entitled to one of the highest places in the ranks of the Florentine School of the fifteenth century. His compositions are distinguished by their lively grace, and the beautiful and truthful expressions of the persons portrayed" (Kugler). In beauty of colour and dignity of design the work before us is his masterpiece. He was a pupil of Fra Filippo Lippi, and subsequently opened a workshop in Florence in partnership with a certain Piero di Lorenzo. He died at the early age of thirty-five, leaving a widow and several children in penury. His works are very rare. Two compartments of a predella by him are in the Accademia at Florence, a fourth being in the Louvre. The collection of Morelli (now in the Public Gallery of Bergamo) contains three charming little pictures by him, which strongly recall the style of Fra Filippo (Morelli's account of the painter is in his Roman Galleries, pp. 253-58). "In the Torrigiani Palace at Florence are two remarkable panels from cassoni, there ascribed to Gozzoli, but by modern criticism more justly to Pesellino; they bear out Vasari's remark as to this painter's skill in delineating animals" (Burton).

This picture is perhaps the finest version extant of the conventional Italian representation of the mystery of the Trinity. The Son on a crucifix is supported by the Father, whilst the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove hovers over the head of the Son. The head of the First Person of the Trinity is a very majestic conception. "In this face, so full of beauty and power, of intensity and calm, as well as the careful modelling of the pathetic figure of Christ upon the cross, Pesellino touches heights which Lippi could not reach; but in the charming cherubim and seraphim with which the severity of the subject is softened and decorated, and in the beauty of the colour (though that has suffered much) we may recognise the influence of his master. We have only to compare this picture with the representations of the same subject by Landini (580a) and Orcagna (570) to show how the power to render the most august subjects had been increased by progress in technical accomplishment and the liberation of the artist's imagination, even when the elements and arrangements of the composition remained virtually unchanged from the traditional type" (Monkhouse, In the National Gallery, p. 62). The picture is referred to by Vasari: "At Pistoja is a work by Pesello, representing the Trinity, with figures of San Zeno and San Jacopo" (ii. 115). On the suppression of the religious congregation to whom the church of the Holy Trinity at Pistoja belonged, the picture was sold, and passed into the collection of Mr. Young Ottley. The side panels referred to by Vasari are still in private collections.

728. MADONNA AND CHILD.

Beltraffio (Lombard: 1467-1516).

Giovanni Antonio Beltraffio came of a noble family in Milan (his epitaph is in the Brera) and filled public offices in his native town. He fell under the influence of Leonardo, and when that master settled at Milan, Beltraffio lodged in his house, and became his ardent disciple. "His most ambitious creation, where he lamentably fails, is the Louvre altar-piece, the redeeming features of which are the fine portraits of the Casio family, his friends and patrons. When he confined himself to portraiture he was often strikingly successful, and the older Milanese families still possess a number of ancestral portraits by him, some of which are of great charm. He seems to have become the pet artist of the society of his day, often painting the portraits of his friends in the guise of a St. Sebastian, or as Sta. Barbara. He accompanied Leonardo to Rome in 1514. Although not a great artist, and entirely lacking in imagination and dramatic power, he exhibits singular refinement. His cultured intellect enabled him to appreciate, and in a measure reflect, the fastidious spirit of his master. His works charm by their high finish, and by the absence of all vulgarity or display. His portraits do not reveal much penetration, and he never caught the subtleties of character or the intellectual qualities of his sitters" (Catalogue of the Burlington Fine Arts Club Exhibition, 1898, p. lviii.). His pictures are for the most part on a small scale. Good specimens are to be seen in the Morelli collection at Bergamo, and the Poldi-Pezzoli collection at Milan. To delineate the human figure on a large scale, or human passions, was not his forte; he succeeded better in expressing naïve innocence in children, and gentle grace in the Mother of God, or devoted women (Morelli's German Galleries, pp. 425-48; Roman Galleries, p. 163).

Of Beltraffio's powers in the respect last mentioned this charming picture is perhaps the best specimen extant. The child with its quaint belly-band, and still more the noble but slightly languishing grace of the mother, at once recall Leonardo.

729. THE ADORATION OF THE KINGS.

Vincenzo Foppa (Lombard: about 1425-1492).

Foppa—Il Vecchio as he is called, to distinguish him from a younger Foppa of the Brescian School[174]—is an important person in the history of art. Born at Brescia, but removing in early manhood to Milan, he "holds both in the School of Brescia, and especially in that of Milan, the same place that the mighty Mantegna does at Padua, and Cosimo Tura at Ferrara," representing that early period of development when force of character is more insisted on than beauty of expression. In relation to the Milanese, Foppa was the founder of the school which prevailed before and up to the time of Leonardo da Vinci. He was already an artist of repute in 1456, when he was employed to decorate the Medici Palace at Milan with frescoes. These works, and many others executed by him in Milan and the neighbourhood, have perished. His best remaining frescoes are those of the Four Fathers of the Church in S. Eustorgio at Milan. Foppa was also employed in Genoa and Savona. Late in life he returned to Brescia, where he received a renewed grant of citizenship, and a pension, and where also he died. Of his extant works, the earliest is a Crucifixion in the Bergamo gallery. This is dated 1456, and supports the statement of old writers that Foppa had studied under Squarcione at Padua. His latest work is the altar-piece, now in S. Maria di Castello at Savona. This belongs to the year 1490, and agrees in style with our National Gallery picture. Foppa is said to have written on perspective, and many painters of the Lombard School studied under him.

Traces of the older style of work, from which Foppa freed his school, may here be seen in the embossed ornaments in gilt stucco. Notice the daintiness of the picture throughout: the pretty flowers in the foreground, the splendid brocades of the kneeling king, the birds and weeds in the ruined stable. In the background are the star and city of Bethlehem. "The general effect is dark and heavy, relieved by an abundant use of red; the flesh tones, as usual, are of ashen hue. The Madonna is of Foppa's characteristic type, of solid build. It is interesting to find that there is little or no direct trace of Leonardesque influence, a fact which shows that Foppa was too advanced in years to modify perceptibly his style on the advent of the mighty Florentine in 1481" (Catalogue of the Burlington Fine Arts Club Exhibition, 1898, p. xxviii.).

732. A CANAL SCENE.

Aart van der Neer (Dutch: 1603-1677). See 152.

The figures in the picture are supposed to be by Lingelbach (see No. 837).

734. A MILANESE LAWYER.

Andrea Solario (Lombard: about 1460-1520).

Andrea belonged to an artist family, the Solari (of Solaro, a village near Saronna); one of his brothers, Christopher (nicknamed "Il Gobbo," the hunchback), was an architect and sculptor, and from him perhaps Andrea learnt his superb modelling of the head—a point which is conspicuous in this picture, and in which he surpassed all his contemporaries. His repute in his own time is attested by the journey he made to France in 1507. The Cardinal George of Amboise desired to entrust the decoration of a chapel to Leonardo; but Leonardo was too much taken up with hydraulic works at Milan to accept the commission, and the Cardinal's representative sent Andrea in the great man's place. It is not known with whom Solario studied painting, but his subject-pictures prove conclusively that he came within Leonardo's sphere of influence. "Although by birth and training a Lombard artist, Solario was so much in Venice that his native style was largely modified. There is no historical evidence that he ever met Antonello da Messina, but his works bear such close resemblance to that master's productions that it cannot be doubted they were acquainted. The portrait No. 923 is obviously Venetian in character; indeed, it passed not long since under Bellini's name. It seems unnecessary to suppose [with Morelli] that he paid a visit to Flanders. The Flemish traits so conspicuous in his work could well be derived from contact with Antonello. To the end of his life he painted with the utmost finish and delicacy. The brilliance and warmth of his colour compensate for the somewhat cold ivory pallor of his flesh tones. His landscapes are remarkably picturesque and full of incident. That behind the figure of Longono in the National Gallery portrait is of the greatest delicacy and charm" (Catalogue of the Burlington Fine Arts Club Exhibition, 1898, p. lxi. See also Morelli's German Galleries, pp. 63-68; Roman Galleries, pp. 170-176). Subject-pictures by Solario may be seen in the Brera and the Poldi-Pezzoli Gallery at Milan, and in the Louvre. His last work was a large "Assumption of the Virgin" for the Certosa of Pavia (now in the Sacristy), which his death prevented him from finishing.

A portrait (dated 1505) of the artist's friend, a Milanese lawyer, whose name, John Christopher Longono, is written on a letter in his right hand. He wears the gown and cap (not unlike that still worn by French "advocates") of his profession. Observe the landscape background—here quaintly peopled with prancing dogs and horses on the left, and servants in red pushing off boats on the right—with which the old painters, like some of our modern photographers, were fond of flattering their subjects. But in this case the subject is well entitled to his "setting," for he is a nobleman as well as a lawyer, and the background is perhaps studied from his country seat. On the bottom of the panel is a Latin inscription which, literally interpreted, runs, "Not knowing what you have been or what you may be, may it for long be your study to be able to see what you are," i.e. by looking at this picture of yourself—a neatly-turned compliment at once to the painter and his subject: the picture is to last for many a long year, and the lawyer for many a long year is to grow no older. Or is the inscription also meant to describe the lawyer's character in words, as the portrait does in colours—a man not troubled overmuch with what has been or what may be hereafter, but one who is keenly alive to what he is, and who pours all his powers into the tasks and interests of the present?

735. ST. ROCH WITH THE ANGEL.

Paolo Morando (Veronese: 1486-1522).

Paolo Morando, otherwise known as Cavazzola (his father was Taddeo Cavazzola di Jacobi di Morando), was a pupil of Morone (see 285). He "infused a higher life, and a fine system of colouring into the Veronese School, making thus a great advance upon his contemporaries, and preparing the way for Paul Veronese.... He shows, as Dr. Burckhardt has justly observed, 'a marvellous transition from the realism of the fifteenth century to the noble free character of the sixteenth, not to an empty idealism'" (Layard, i. 270). His masterpieces are still in his native Verona, and nowhere else, except in the National Gallery, can he be studied.