Volume 1 — NUMERICAL CATALOGUE, WITH BIOGRAPHICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE NOTES (continued 9)

St. Roch is the patron of the sick and plague-stricken. The legend says that he left great riches to travel as a pilgrim to Rome, where he tended those sick of the plague, and by his intercession effected miraculous cures. Through many cities he laboured thus, until at last in Piacenza he became himself plague-stricken, and with a horrible ulcer in his thigh he was turned out into a lonely wood. He has here laid aside his pilgrim staff and hung his hat upon it, and prepared himself to die, when an angel appears to him and drops a fresh rose on his path. There is no rose without a thorn, and no thorn in a saint's crown without a rose. He bares his thigh to show his wound to the angel, who (says the legend) dressed it for him, whilst his little dog miraculously brought him every morning a loaf of bread.

736. A VENETIAN SENATOR.

Francesco Bonsignori (Veronese: 1455-1519).

Called incorrectly, by Vasari, Monsignori. He was born at Verona, where, in the churches of S. Fermo, S. Bernardino, S. Paolo, and in the Pinacoteca, works by him may be seen. In the grand but not always attractive productions of his earlier style, Bonsignori followed the traditions and manner of the Veronese School. Later in life he went to Mantua, where he settled and was influenced by Mantegna (see Morelli's German Galleries, p. 103, note).

A portrait—remarkable for vigorous execution, and strong individuality—of a senator, from the life, "in his habit as he stood,"—a branch of art in which this painter excelled. He has been called indeed "the modern Zeuxis," after the famous Greek painter whose painted grapes deceived the birds. For so lifelike were Bonsignori's pictures—says Vasari in his entertaining account of this painter—that on one occasion a dog rushed at a painted dog on the artist's canvas, whilst on another a bird flew forward to perch itself on the extended arm of a painted child. The portrait before us is executed in tempera. The study in chalk, for it is in the Albertina collection at Vienna.

737. A WATERFALL.

Ruysdael (Dutch: 1628-1682). See 627.

739. THE ANNUNCIATION.

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

Mary is kneeling in her chamber; while a golden ray from a glory above, piercing the house wall, has struck her head, over which is hovering a dove, the symbol of the Holy Spirit. The angel of the Annunciation is outside in the court, but she cannot see him, for a wall stands between them—"a treatment of the subject which may be intended to suggest that the angel appeared to her in a dream." It also gives the painter an opportunity for introducing an additional display of incident and ornament. Beside the angel is St. Emidius, the patron saint of Ascoli, with a model of the city in his hand. "There could not be better examples of what we may call Crivelli's 'exquisite' style, which is only just saved by its refinement from mere prettiness and affectation. This angel is a poseur if ever there was one." The picture is very characteristic, in two features, of mediæval art. First, it was never antiquarian: it did not attempt to give a correct historical setting (cf. under 294). No mediæval painter made the Virgin a Jewess; they nationalised her, as it were, and painted her in the likeness of their own maidens. So too their scenery was the likeness of their own homes and their own country. Here, for instance, is a picture of an Italian city in gala attire, somewhat idealised, no doubt, in splendour, but otherwise a "perfectly true representation of what the architecture of Italy was in her glorious time; trim, dainty,—red and white like the blossom of a carnation,—touched with gold like a peacock's plumes, and frescoed, even to its chimney-pots, with fairest arabesques,—its inhabitants, and it together, one harmony of work and life" (Guide to the Venetian Academy, p. 21). And secondly, the picture shows the pleasure the painters took in their accessories, and the frank humour—free at once from irreverence and from gloom—with which the Venetians especially approached what was to them a religion of daily life. Notice especially the little girl at the top of the steps on the left, looking round the corner. The whole of this side of the picture shows a naturalistic treatment which forms "a curious accompaniment and contrast to Crivelli's ordinary conventional manner. The group talking with a friar at the house door, the citizen who passes along bent on business, the dandy who shades his eyes from the sun and looks up at the house, the figures on the arch, and the people walking in the open space by the town walls beyond, make up a picture of real life unequalled among Crivelli's works" (Rushworth's Crivelli, p. 63). As a representation of the "Annunciation," the picture should be compared and contrasted with Lippi's (666). The Madonna and the Angel, "though essential to the work from the point of view of the patrons, who commissioned it, were merely its occasion from the point of view of that extraordinarily painstaking and detail-loving creature, its painter. There is endless profusion of decorative work; elaborate arabesques on the pilasters of the Madonna's lordly house, elaborate capitals, elaborate loggias, an elaborate cornice. The grain of the wood on her reading-desk is carefully painted; so are the planks in the wall of her bedchamber.... Besides the endless interest of its decorative work, this picture is useful as marking the difference between the spiritual and ideal motives which dominated Florence, and the worldly motives of richness and splendour which dominated Venice. Compare its purely adventitious detail with the poetical background of Filippo Lippi. In the Florentine, the detail is there for the sake of the picture; in the Venetian, the picture is there for the sake of the detail" (Grant Allen, in the Pall Mall Magazine, July 1895). See under 1139 for further notes on the subject.

The picture is signed and dated, 1486, at the bottom of the pilasters of the Virgin's chamber. On the face of the step below is an inscription between three coats of arms (the Bishop's, the Pope's, and the town's)—Libertas Ecclesiastica, which is of some historical interest. In the year 1482 the city of Ascoli came to an agreement with the Pope, whereby, in return for an annual tribute and the acknowledgment of his suzerainty, the Pope issued a Bull in favour of its citizens, conferring on them municipal Home Rule. A new phrase—Libertas Ecclesiastica, Independence under the Church—was invented to describe the new settlement. The arrival of the Charter on March 25, the Feast of the Annunciation, was celebrated henceforth by ceremonies on that day, in which a procession to the church of the Annunziata was a prominent feature. Our picture was painted for that church, where it remained until 1790.

740. MADONNA AND CHILD.

Sassoferrato (Eclectic: 1605-1685). See 200.

741. THE DEAD ORLANDO.

Ascribed to Velazquez.[175] See under 197.

The closing scene, according to one of the many legends, in the history of that "peerless paladin," Orlando, or Roland, who was slain at the battle of Roncesvalles, when returning from Charlemagne's expedition against the Saracens in Spain. Invulnerable to the sword, he was squeezed to death by Bernardo del Carpio. He lies, therefore, prostrate, but fully dressed and armed, his right hand resting on his chest, his left on the hilt of his famous sword. Over the dead man's feet there hangs from a branch a small brass lamp, the flame of which, like the hero's life, has just expired. On either side are the skulls and bones of other "paladins and peers who on Roncesvalles died."

742. PORTRAIT OF A LAWYER.

Moroni (Bergamese: 1525-1578). See 697.

An excellent example of the painter's third or naturalistic manner. There is an ease of attitude and an absence of constraint which makes the portrait transparently natural.

744. THE "GARVAGH MADONNA."

Raphael (Umbrian: 1483-1520). See 1171.

This picture—known as the "Garvagh Madonna," from its former owner, Lord Garvagh, or the "Aldobrandini Madonna," from having originally belonged to the Aldobrandini apartments of the Borghese Palace at Rome—belongs to Raphael's third or Roman period, and a comparison with the "Ansidei" shows the changes in feeling between the painter's earlier and later manners. The devotional character of the Umbrian School is less marked. In the "Ansidei Madonna" the divinity of the Virgin is insisted on; and above her throne is the inscription "Hail, Mother of Christ." But here the divinity is only dimly indicated by a halo. And as the Madonna is here a merely human mother, so is the child a purely human child. The saints in contemplation of the "Ansidei" are replaced by a little St. John, and the two children play with a pink. The expressions of the children, as indeed the whole picture, are full of sweetness and beauty.[176] Very beautiful too is the pyramidal composition of the group. Of the ultimate significance of the change marked by Raphael's third manner, Ruskin says that it—

"Was all the more fatal because at first veiled by an appearance of greater dignity and sincerity than were possessed by the older art. One of the earliest results of the new knowledge was the putting away the greater part of the unlikelihoods and fineries of the ancient pictures, and an apparently closer following of nature and probability. The appearances of nature were more closely followed in everything; and the crowned Queen-Virgin of Perugino sank into a simple Italian mother in Raphael's 'Madonna of the Chair.' ... But the glittering childishness of the old art was rejected, not because it was false, but because it was easy; and, still more, because the painter had no longer any religious passion to express. He could think of the Madonna now very calmly, with no desire to pour out the treasures of earth at her feet, or cover her brows with the golden shafts of heaven. He could think of her as an available subject for the display of transparent shadows, skilful tints, and scientific foreshortenings,—as a fair woman, forming, if well painted, a pleasant piece of furniture for the corner of a boudoir, and best imagined by combination of the beauties of the prettiest contadinas"[177] (Modern Painters, vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. iv. §§ 12, 13).

It should, however, be remembered that the "Madonna di San Sisto," perhaps the most spiritual of all Raphael's conceptions, was the latest of the series.

745. KING PHILIP IV. OF SPAIN.

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

Few kings have left so many enduring monuments of themselves as Philip IV., whose face figures twice on these walls and meets one in nearly every European gallery. But nowhere, perhaps, has it been more supremely rendered than on this canvas, where the king seems to live and move before us. The picture is "perhaps the finest example of oil-painting accessible to the British student. Though one of the later works of the master, it is constructed out of a carefully wrought and smooth impasto, without any 'bravura' strokes. The lights are nowhere loaded. The hair is painted, not modelled; the jewels on the dress are easily touched in without relief-effect or juggling. The wonder of the thing is the infinite variety over a surface so simply treated. The face is in such broad, even light that one has to adopt some device which brings it freshly into the field of vision—as by turning the head down or looking at it through the hand—in order to see how firm is the modelling. The flesh-tints are simple enough. Yet take almost any square inch of surface on the face—say the upper lip with its moustache—and note the effect of each one of the free brush-strokes which draw the pale, umber hair over the warm rubbing on the flesh; or in the cold, lack-lustre, blue eye, measure the apparent ease of the touches against their firm, incisive clearness. Everything is there—form, expression—in a word, the life; but it has all grown into perfection on the canvas so quietly, so smoothly, as if Velazquez had indeed painted with the will only and not with the hand" (Baldwin Brown: The Fine Arts, p. 319). "Velazquez fuses his colours in a way that baffles painters. They melt into each other by imperceptible gradations, as he deals with plane after plane in his subtly-modelled faces. Observe the action of light on the pallid face of the worn-out king, giving to the skin the breath of life in its delicate transparency" (Quarterly Review, April 1899).

The face is one which, once seen, is not soon forgotten. Velazquez, as we have said, caught its expression at once, and by comparing the face in its youth (1129) with its middle age here, one can almost trace the king's career. In youth we see him cold and phlegmatic, but slender in figure graceful and dignified in bearing, and with a fine open forehead. But the young king was bent on ease and pleasure, and his minister Olivares did nothing to persuade him into more active kingship. The less pleasing traits in his character have, in consequence, come to be deeper impressed at the time of this later portrait. He was devoted to sport, and the cruelty of the Spaniard is conspicuous in the lip—more underhung now than before. In the growth of the double chin and yet greater impassiveness of expression, one may see the traces of that "talent for dead silence and marble immobility" which, says the historian, "he so highly improved that he could sit out a comedy without stirring hand or foot, and conduct an audience without movement of a muscle, except those in his lips and tongue." It is not the face of a great ruler; but it is one which rightly lives on a painter's canvas, for no king was ever at once so liberal and so enlightened a patron of the arts as he. Himself too he was something of an artist; and the best-known piece of his painting tells a pretty story, which it is pleasant to remember in front of Velazquez's portraits of him. Velazquez painted once his own portrait in the background of the king's family (the "Maids of Honour"—Las Meninas—now at Madrid). "Is there anything wrong with it?" Velazquez asked. "Yes," said the king, taking the palette in his hand, "just this"—and he sketched in on the painter's portrait the coveted red cross of the order of Santiago. "In all his portraits Philip wears the golilla, a stiff linen collar projecting at right angles from the neck. It was invented by the king, who was very proud of it. In regard to the wonderful structure of Philip's moustaches, it is said that, to preserve their form, they were encased during the night in perfumed leather covers called bigoteras" (J. F. White, in Encyclopædia Britannica).

746. A LANDSCAPE WITH RUINS.

Ruysdael (Dutch: 1628-1682). See 627.

This picture is signed and dated 1673.

747. ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST AND ST. LAWRENCE.

Ascribed to Hans Memlinc. See 686.

St. Lawrence may nearly always be distinguished by his gridiron—the emblem of his martyrdom. He was a pious deacon of the Christian Church, who was put to death by the Romans. A new kind of torture was, says the legend, prepared for him. He was stretched on a sort of bed, formed of iron bars in the manner of a gridiron, and was roasted alive. "But so great was his constancy that in the middle of his torments he said, 'Seest thou not, O thou foolish man, that I am already roasted on one side, and that, if thou wouldst have me well cooked, it is time to turn me on the other?' Then St. Lawrence lifted up his eyes, and his pure and invincible spirit fled to heaven."

748. MADONNA AND CHILD, WITH ST. ANNE.

Girolamo dai Libri (Veronese: 1474-1556).

Girolamo inherited his surname ("of the books") from the occupation of his father, who was an illuminator of manuscripts. Girolamo himself excelled in this branch of art, but he also became famous as a painter of altar-pieces. He had "a playful fancy, and loved to introduce into his pictures festoons of flowers and fruit, trees of rich green foliage bearing lemons and oranges, and angels singing and playing on musical instruments. He was a true Veronese in his feeling for colour, which in his works is always rich and gay. In his backgrounds are frequently seen distant views of his native city, with her castellated hills and blue mountains" (Layard, i. 269). Girolamo, whose friendship with Francesco Morone (285) is on record, was born in Verona, and it is there that many of his principal works are preserved. In the Pinacoteca are several charming pictures, and there also is a collection of Girolamo's missals. In S. Giorgio Maggiore is a "Madonna Enthroned," dated 1526, which is by many considered the painter's masterpiece. The German artist Ludwig Richter,[178] thus records (in his Lebenserinnerungen) the impression it made upon him:—"I thought that I had scarcely ever seen anything so beautiful and touching. The picture was by Girolamo dai Libri, an old master of whom until then I had never heard, nor, indeed, have I seen any other picture by him since. Here it was that there first arose in me a suspicion of what a depth of spiritual life, and of the heavenly beauty that is born of it, lay in the masters of the pre-Raphaelite period. The master's way of seeing and feeling, his style—and the style is the man—impressed me deeply and permanently, touched me sympathetically. In fact this dear old painter became veritably my patron saint, for he it was who first opened to me the gates of the inner sanctuary of Art" (quoted by Dr. Richter, in the Art Journal, February, 1895).

A picture "with a pedigree," being mentioned by Vasari. "In the church of the Scala (at Verona)," he says, in his life of the painter, "the picture of the Madonna with St. Anna is by his hand, and is placed between the San Sebastiano of Il Moro and the San Rocco of Cavazzola (Morando)." The latter picture (735) and Girolamo's now hang on the same wall of our Gallery. In the composition of this picture one may trace, perhaps, the influence of the dainty work Girolamo was first accustomed to. Thus the trefoil, or cloverleaf pattern, is followed both in the arrangement of the Virgin, St. Anne, and the Child, and in that of the little playing angels below. Notice the pretty trellis-work of roses on either side, and the slain dragon at the Virgin's feet, emblematic (the latter) of Christ's victory over the powers of evil, and (the former) of the "ways of pleasantness" and "paths of peace" that he came to prepare.

749. THE GIUSTI FAMILY OF VERONA.

Niccolo Giolfino (Veronese: painted 1486-1518).

Little is known of this painter except that he was a friend of Mantegna. The façade of his house at Verona was painted with frescoes, the upper part by Mantegna, the lower by Giolfino himself. He was probably a scholar of Liberale, to whose altar-piece in the cathedral at Verona he added the wings. One of his best works is a large altar-piece in S. Anastasia in that city.

Two groups of family portraits, chiefly interesting for studies in costume, originally in one picture, which formed the predella of an altar-piece: hence the upward look of some of the faces.

750. THE DOGE GIOVANNI MOCENIGO.

Lazzaro Bastiani (Venetian: about 1425-1512).

See also (p. xx)

This picture was, until recently, ascribed to Carpaccio, of whom, therefore, some account is here retained. It was once inscribed with Carpaccio's name and the date 1479, but these, having been shown to be false, were removed. The work is now attributed, in accordance with the conclusions reached by Signor Molmenti and Dr. Ludwig[179] to Bastiani.

Lazzaro Bastiani was for many years the victim of one of Vasari's confusions. Carpaccio, we are told by that authority, "taught his art to two of his brothers, both of whom imitated him closely; one of these was called Lazzaro, the other Sebastiano." No such painters existed; but the name of Lazzaro Bastiani is on record as that of a painter already at work in 1449. The presumption is, therefore, that he was not taught by, but the master of, Carpaccio, by which latter painter there is no dated work before 1490. Numerous records of later works by Bastiani from 1449 onwards have been discovered; and there is a public document of December 11, 1508, in which Bastiani and Carpaccio were appointed to value the frescoes executed by Giorgione on the Fondaco dei Tedeschi. Our picture, hitherto supposed to be an early work of Carpaccio, should be compared with the signed and dated (1484) work of Bastiani in the Duomo of Murano, representing a Canon kneeling before the Virgin. Other pictures by him are in the Academies of Vienna and Venice respectively.

Various technical similarities between the work of Bastiani and Carpaccio are pointed out by Sig. Molmenti and Dr. Ludwig, but Bastiani's pictures lack the charm and gaiety of Carpaccio and his chief claim to fame is that which the critics now award him of having been the master of that great painter.

The works of Vittore Carpaccio (about 1450-1522) have of recent years attracted great attention owing to the prominence given to them by Ruskin in all his writings since 1870. Of "The Presentation" in the Venetian Academy (dated 1510) he says: "You may measure yourself, outside and in,—your religion, your taste, your knowledge of art, your knowledge of men and things,—by the quantity of admiration which honestly, after due time given, you can feel for this picture. You are not required to think the Madonna pretty, or to receive the same religious delight from the conception of the scene which you would rightly receive from Angelico, Filippo Lippi, or Perugino. This is essentially Venetian,—prosaic, matter of fact,—retaining its supreme common-sense through all enthusiasm. Nor are you required to think this a first-rate work in Venetian colour. This is the best picture in the Academy, precisely because it is not the best piece of colour there;—because the great master has subdued his own main passion, and restrained his colour-faculty, though the best in Venice, that you might not say the moment you came before the picture, as you do of the Paris Bordone, 'What a piece of colour!' Carpaccio does not want you to think of his colour, but of your Christ.... If you begin really to feel the picture, observe that its supreme merit is in the exactly just balance of all virtue;—detail perfect, yet inconspicuous; composition intricate and severe, but concealed under apparent simplicity; and painter's faculty of the supremest, used nevertheless with entire subjection of it to intellectual purpose." Other powers of Carpaccio are better seen in the St. Ursula Series, also in the Venetian Academy, and since Ruskin's day honourably hung. "They are," says Layard, "masterly works, rich in all that gives value and grandeur to historical art. The rather monotonous history which forms the groundwork of many of them is throughout varied and elevated by a free style of grouping and by happy moral allusions. The colours, notwithstanding injudicious cleanings and restorations, still shine with the purest light. The variety of expression, always lifelike, in the many figures, their beautiful and simple action, and the admirable dramatic representation of the different incidents connected with the story, give these pictures an inexpressible charm. The subject of the dream of the young St. Ursula, in bed in her chamber, with her table and an open book upon it and her vase of flowers, has a purity and simplicity quite unique" (i. 320). These pictures were painted 1490-5. Of later date (1502-1511) is the series in the little church of S. Giorgio degli Schiavoni. They are full of the charm of picturesque reality, the wealth of rich and quaint accessories, the playful fancy and penetrative imagination, which characterise Carpaccio. Occasional works by him are to be seen in various continental galleries (e.g. Milan and Ferrara); but it is only in Venice that any adequate conception of him can be formed. Of his life little is known. He was born either in one of the Venetian islands, or in Istria. He generally signed himself "Victor Carpathius." Vasari calls him Scarpaccia; in old Venetian documents, he is Scarpaza. "He was associated with Gentile Bellini in executing the historical paintings for the Hall of the Great Council in the Ducal Palace, and it has been thought possible that he accompanied Gentile to Constantinople as an assistant. The minute knowledge of Oriental customs and costumes which his works display suggests that he had visited the East, and even those parts of it which were then still under the sway of the Sultans of Egypt" (Burton). Ruskin's criticisms, and descriptions of his principal pictures, will be found in his Guide to the Academy at Venice, St. Mark's Rest (Supplements), and Fors Clavigera, 1872, xx.; 1873, xxvi.; 1876, pp. 329, 340, 357, 381; 1877, p. 26; 1878, p. 182. An earlier reference is in the Oxford Lectures on Art, § 73. Copies from some of Carpaccio's "Schiavoni" pictures are in the Arundel Society's Collection. Copies of the "Ursula" series and other pictures made for Ruskin are in the St. George's Museum at Sheffield.

This is a votive picture commissioned by Giovanni Mocenigo (who reigned over Venice 1477-1485), to be presented by him, according to the custom with reigning doges, to the Ducal Palace. The scene selected represents the doge kneeling before the Virgin and begging her protection on the occasion of the plague of 1478. The gold vase on the altar before the throne contains medicaments, for which, according to the inscription below, a blessing is invoked: "Celestial Virgin, preserve the City and Republic of Venice and the Venetian State, and extend your protection to me if I deserve it." Behind the doge is his patron saint St. John, on the opposite side is St. Christopher. The setting thus chosen for the doge's picture is characteristic. "The first step towards the ennobling of any face is the ridding it of its vanity; to which aim there cannot be anything more contrary than that principle of portraiture which prevails with us in these days, whose end seems to be the expression of vanity throughout, in face and in all circumstances of accompaniment; tending constantly to insolence of attitude, and levity and haughtiness of expression, and worked out further in mean accompaniments of worldly splendour and possession; together with hints or proclamations of what the person has done or supposes himself to have done, which, if known, it is gratuitous in the portrait to exhibit, and, if unknown, it is insolent to proclaim.... To which practices are to be opposed ... the mighty and simple modesty of ... Venice, where we find the ... doges not set forth with thrones and curtains of state, but kneeling, always crownless, and returning thanks to God for his help; or as priests, interceding for the nation in its affliction" (Modern Painters, vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. i. ch. xiv. § 19). The picture was bought in 1865 from the Doge's descendant, Aloise Count Mocenigo di Sant' Eustachio.

751. MADONNA AND CHILD.

Giovanni Santi (Umbrian: about 1440-1494).

This picture is of peculiar interest because it is by Raphael's father. It does not, however, give a full idea of the extent to which Raphael's talent was hereditary, for Giovanni's easel pictures, such as this, are inferior to his wall pictures. The young Raphael had all the advantages of an atmosphere of artistic culture. Giovanni, like his father before him, was a well-to-do burgher, and kept originally a general retail shop, but he afterwards—under the teaching, it is thought, of Melozzo da Forli—took to painting, and his house, if one may judge from Piero della Francesca's visit in 1467, was a resort of painters. At the brilliant court of Duke Federigo of Urbino, Giovanni moreover acquired a taste for literature, and there is a long rhyming chronicle by him extant in which he describes the Duke's visit to Mantua, and amongst other things praises greatly the works of Mantegna, Melozzo, and Piero della Francesca. But to see how much of Raphael's genius was original, one has only to compare this picture by the father with one (say 744) by the son. Giovanni's female heads are not without a mild dignity of their own; but his works lack the soft grace and winning charm that distinguish his son's.

"Worth study, in spite of what critics say of its crudity. Concede its immaturity, at least, though an immaturity visibly susceptible of a delicate grace, it wins you nevertheless to return again and again, and ponder, by a sincere expression of sorrow, profound, yet resigned, be the cause what it may, among all the causes of sorrow inherent in the ideal of maternity, human or divine. But if you keep in mind, when looking at it, the facts of Raphael's childhood,[180] you will recognise in his father's picture, not the anticipated sorrow of the Mater Dolorosa over the dead son, but the grief of a simple household over the mother herself taken early from it. This may have been the first picture the eyes of the world's great painter of Madonnas rested on; and if he stood diligently before it to copy, and so copying, quite unconsciously, and with no disloyalty to his original, refined, improved, substituted,—substituted himself, in fact, his finer self—he had already struck the persistent note of his career" (Pater: Miscellaneous Studies, p. 32).

752. MADONNA AND CHILD.

Lippo Dalmasii (Bolognese: painted 1376-1410).

See also (p. xx)

A picture by a Bolognese artist, of the Giottesque period, Lippo, son of Dalmasius, called also "Lippo of the Madonna," from the many pictures like this he painted: no Bolognese gentleman's family, we are told, was considered complete without one.

753. ON THE ROAD TO EMMAUS.

Altobello Melone (Cremonese: painted about 1500).

There was no native and independent school of Cremona. Melone was a pupil of Romanino at Brescia. He painted some of the frescoes in the nave of Cremona Cathedral.

Two of Christ's disciples are walking after his death and burial to Emmaus. The risen Christ "drew near, and went with them. But their eyes were holden, that they should not know him" (Luke xxiv. 16). The painter makes excuses for the disciples not recognising their Master by naïvely dressing Him as a tourist with an alpenstock.

755. RHETORIC.} 756. MUSIC. }

Melozzo da Forli (Umbrian: 1438-1494).

Melozzo, born at Forli in the Romagna, near Ravenna, is classed with the Umbrian School, both because he studied (it is believed) under Piero della Francesca, and because he worked at Urbino. Giovanni Santi, who was his friend, especially praises Melozzo, "to me so dear," for his skill in perspective; and, like many other artists of these times, he was an architect as well as a painter. In 1472 he was in Rome; he was one of the original members of the Roman Academy of St. Luke, founded by Sixtus IV., and in the book of the Academy he signs his name as "Painter to the Pope." Some of his Roman frescoes are preserved. In the Vatican gallery is a fresco transferred to canvas, commemorating the restoration of the Vatican Library and containing many portraits. This work has been published by the Arundel Society, but Melozzo is more widely known by the figures of angels playing on musical instruments, now in the sacristy of St. Peter's, which have been published by the same Society. These grand figures of youths with abundant flowing hair are "among the most beautiful and masterful creations of the Renaissance spirit, caught up, it would seem, into a certain ecstasy and rapture of divine things." Portions of a fresco, painted for SS. Apostoli, representing the Ascension of our Lord, are now on the staircase of the Quirinal Palace. The work was "one of the most grand and daring feats of foreshadowing that art has bequeathed, and may be considered as the first illustration of that science which Mantegna and Correggio further developed" (Kugler). In this connection we may notice in our pictures that "the steps and the figures thereon are drawn in perspective, as if they were real objects seen from below; they present the earliest example the Gallery possesses of this kind of perspective illusion, which was practised with great success by Mantegna, and carried out on the grandest scale by Michael Angelo in the ceiling of the Sistine chapel" (Monkhouse, In the National Gallery, p. 115). About the year 1480 Melozzo went to Urbino, where he executed the work described below. In Forli itself a few frescoes by Melozzo survive. In the British Museum there are some drawings by this rare master.

These pictures are two of a series of seven, which were painted for the good Duke Frederick to decorate the library of the Ducal Palace at Urbino. The words on the frieze above our pictures are portions of a running inscription describing the Duke's style and titles. He was created "Gonfaloniere of the Church" (756) in 1465 and "Duke of Urbino" (755) in 1474. The series represented symbolically the seven arts—grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy—which, until the close of the Middle Ages, formed the curriculum of a liberal education. Notice in both pictures that the figures of the learners are kneeling—an attitude symbolical of the spirit of reverence and humility which distinguishes the true scholar ("I prayed, and the spirit of wisdom came upon me"); whilst the figures representing the sciences to be learned are seated on thrones—symbolical of the true kingship that consists in knowledge ("And I set her before kingdoms and thrones"), and are clothed about with pearls and other precious stones ("She is more precious than rubies").

In the picture of Rhetoric (755) the youth is being taught not to speak, but to read—"You must not speak," the Queen of Rhetoric seems to tell him, "until you have something to say." Notice, too, that Rhetoric is robed in cold gray. "You think Rhetoric should be glowing, fervid, impetuous? No. Above all things,—cool."

But Music (756) is robed in bright red, the colour of delight. The book now is closed. "After learning to reason, you will learn to sing; for you will want to. There is so much reason for singing in this sweet world, when one thinks rightly of it." Music points her scholar to a small organ—"not that you are never to sing anything but hymns, but that whatever is rightly called music, or work of the Muses, is divine in help and healing" (Mornings in Florence, v. 128, 134). Hanging from the wall on the left, almost above the scholar's head, is a sprig of bay, the Muses' crown. Other pictures of this same series are in the gallery at Berlin and in the Royal Collection at Windsor. The latter is of peculiar interest in the history of the Renaissance. It shows the Duke, his son and the Court, and a black-robed humanist, seated in a sort of pulpit—"the unique representation of a scene of frequent occurrence in the Courts of Italy, where listening to lectures formed a part of every day's occupation" (see the description in Symonds, ii. p. 221).

757. CHRIST BLESSING LITTLE CHILDREN.

Unknown (Dutch: School of Rembrandt).

This is one of the nation's conspicuously bad bargains. It was bought in 1866 as a Rembrandt and at a Rembrandt price (£7000), but was soon recognised as being only a work by some pupil. It is easy to be wise after the event, but it certainly seems strange that the connoisseurs of the time, even if technical differences had escaped them, should not have seen a lack of Rembrandt's power about this work. A writer in the Times (June 24, 1888) has no hesitation in ascribing the picture to Nicolas Maes. He says: "If it was painted by Maes it would probably have been after the series of small works, mostly dating about 1656. Maes was a pupil of Rembrandt in 1650, at the time when the master's treatment of sacred subjects was more direct than in his earlier years. In this picture fanciful costume is discarded, and the figures are painted straight from the life. The figure of Christ is, indeed, weak and conventional, but it is not to be expected that a young man would here be successful in a figure so foreign to his general practice; and, if we admit the supposition that the composition followed the small panels, the relaxation of style pervading the entire work tallies with the known facts of the career of Maes, who between 1660 and 1670 appears to have devoted himself almost entirely to portrait painting; these representations of Dutch and Antwerp burghers, though solid and respectable, possess none of the charm and interest of the earlier works owing their inspiration to the direct influence of Rembrandt." (See, for instance, No. 1277.) Some ascribe the picture with equal assurance to Lievens (see 1095); see an article by Ford Madox Brown in the Magazine of Art, Feb. 1890; others to Eeckhout (see The Athenæum, Jan. 19, 1907).

758. PORTRAIT OF THE COUNTESS PALMA OF URBINO.

Piero della Francesca (Umbrian: 1416-1492). See 665.

Ascribed by Morelli to Paolo Uccello. "The treatment of the hair recalls that of one of the portraits in Paolo's battle-piece (583), while Piero used to represent curls in a thin and thread-like shape. The ornament on the left sleeve of the lady also reminds one of the decoration on the standard" (Richter's Italian Art in the National Gallery, p. 17). "Of purely Florentine origin, and with its hardness of outline and modelling, and its severity of aspect, resembles a Pesellino writ large" (Claude Phillips in the Academy, Sept. 28, 1889).

This and the other profile head once ascribed to Piero (585) "are probably the earliest specimens we have in the National Gallery of pure portraits, i.e. pictures devoted simply to record the likeness of an individual, first introduced as donors into votive pictures, and next as actors in scenes from sacred history and legend. Portraits have at length made good their claim to a separate existence in pictorial art" (Monkhouse: The Italian Pre-Raphaelites, p. 41). To Piero della Francesca also we owe "most precious portraits (at Rimini and in the Uffizi) of two Italian princes, Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta and Federigo of Urbino, masterpieces of fidelity to nature and sound workmanship" (Symonds).

766, 767. HEADS OF SAINTS.

Domenico Veneziano (died 1461).

Though Domenico describes himself as Venetian (as on the signature to 1215), he worked at Perugia and Florence, and his works belie any connection with Venetian art. Between 1439 and 1445 he was engaged in the church of S. Maria Nuova, in which work he was assisted by his pupil Piero della Francesca. These pictures have perished. The works by his hand we possess give no evidence of his being an oil painter, but he is known to have used oil, and indeed was celebrated as one of the earliest Italian painters in that medium. Vasari's story about Andrea del Castagno's jealousy, and his murder of Domenico in consequence, is disproved by documentary evidence showing that Domenico survived his alleged murderer by five years. Domenico's only known works, now extant, are an altar-piece in the Uffizi and the work described below.

These heads are from the niche or tabernacle which contained the Madonna and Child, No. 1215. The work was executed for the Canto (street corner) de' Carnesecchi in Florence. It is thus referred to by Vasari:—

Being invited to Florence, the first thing Domenico did was to paint a tabernacle in fresco, at the corner of the Carnesecchi, in the angle of the two roads, leading, the one to the new, the other to the old Piazza of Santa Maria Novella. The subject of this work is a Virgin surrounded by various saints, and as it pleased the Florentines greatly and was much commended by the artists of the time, as well as by the citizens, this picture awakened bitter rage and envy against poor Domenico in the ill-regulated mind of Andrea (ii. 99—here follows Vasari's rattling and reckless story of Domenico's murder by the jealous Andrea del Castagno).

For centuries Domenico's work was exposed to wind and weather. The heads, Nos. 766, 767, passed into the possession of Sir Charles Eastlake, from whose collection they were purchased for the National Gallery in 1867. The central fresco (No. 1215) was in 1851 detached from the wall and badly restored. It was subsequently acquired by Lord Lindsay, the author of Sketches of the History of Christian Art, whose son, James, Earl of Crawford and Balcarres, presented it to the nation in 1886.

768. ST. PETER AND ST. JEROME.

Antonio Vivarini (Venetian: died 1470).

Antonio da Murano, called also Antonio Vivarini, was the eldest of a family of painters, who played a part in the development of the Venetian School corresponding to that of Giotto and his circle in the Florentine School. The Venetian is, it will be seen, a century later than the Florentine (cf. Introduction). It was at the adjacent island of Murano (where most of the Venetian glass is now made, and which was once the resort of the wealthier Venetian citizens) that an independent school first developed itself, Antonio and his brother Bartolommeo (see 284) being natives of that place. The work of the Vivarini was to impart a distinctively artistic impulse to the conventional craftsmanship which previously prevailed in Venice in accordance with Byzantine traditions. Recently published documents (dated 1272) give a curious insight into the position and work of the earliest Venetian painters (see Richter's Lectures on the National Gallery, pp. 23-29). They were treated merely as artisans. They were engaged for the most part in work which would now be classed as industrial craftsmanship in painting arms and furniture. Paintings, in our sense of the word, were an unimportant and occasional branch of their work. The division of labour which in our own day is a frequent cause of industrial disputes (as, for instance, between builders and plasterers) was then in dispute between painters and gilders. A recorded case was settled as follows: "We judge it just to permit the gilder to use colour, and the painter to use gilding, when the one or the other plays a subordinate part in the finished work. A decision in the opposite sense would seem to us hard; for it would be inconvenient to decree that a work which can be done by one, must be done by two. Thus, though each litigant loses, each is compensated for his loss. The profession of the gilder is gilding, but painting is permitted as an accessory. In like manner painting is the profession of the painter, but gilding is permitted as an accessory." In this picture, St. Peter's key is, it will be seen, embossed in goldsmiths' fashion, and Bartolommeo's picture has a gold background. Antonio Vivarini first worked in partnership with a certain Zuan (Giovanni), who appears to have been a German by birth, and the visitor will notice between the work of the early Venetian School a certain affinity with the contemporary German work of the Cologne School. After 1450 the name of Johannes the German disappears from the inscriptions on Vivarini altar-pieces, and that of Bartolommeo takes its place.

769. ST. MICHAEL AND THE DRAGON.

(Umbrian: 1416-1492). See 665.

Formerly ascribed to Fra Carnovale (Bartolommeo Corradini); but between Piero della Francesca's angels in 908 and the figure of St. Michael here there is a close resemblance, which seems to identify the picture as his.

St. Michael, the angel of war against the dragon of sin, stands triumphant over his foe—emblem of the final triumph of the spiritual over the animal and earthly part of our nature. It is the most universal of all symbols. The victor is different in different ages, but the enemy is always the same crawling reptile. Christian art, from its earliest times, has thus interpreted the text, "The dragon shalt thou trample under feet" (Psalm xci. 13); and in illustrations of Hindoo mythology Vishnu suffering is folded in the coils of a serpent, whilst Vishnu triumphant stands like St. Michael, with his foot upon the defeated monster.

770. LEONELLO D'ESTE.

Giovanni Oriolo (Ferrarese: painted about 1450).

Of Oriolo nothing is known. He was probably by birth a Ferrarese, and was evidently a pupil of Pisano (see 776).

Leonello (of whom also there is a medallion portrait in the frame of the picture just referred to), of the house of Este, was Marquis of Ferrara, 1441-1450. His mild and kindly face agrees well with what is known of his life. The one important action of his reign was that of a peacemaker, when he mediated between Venice and the King of Anjou. "He had not his equal," says Muratori, "in piety towards God, in equity and kindness towards his subjects. He was the protector of men of letters and was himself a good Latin scholar."

771. ST. JEROME IN THE DESERT.

Bono (Ferrarese: painted about 1450).

In the signature of this picture, "Bono of Ferrara" announces himself "a pupil of Pisano's," and the figure of St. Jerome here much resembles Pisano's "St. Anthony" (776). Bono's other known work is a fresco of St. Christopher in the Eremitani Chapel at Padua. "A clumsy and inferior master," says Morelli (German Galleries, p. 11 n.); "an excellent painter," says Sir F. Burton. His style is, at any rate, precise and effective.

St. Jerome (for whom see 773 and 227) is in the desert, deep in thought; his lion couched at his feet keeps his master's thoughts company as faithfully as a scholar's dog. The desert is here shown as the saint's study; notice, especially, the little table that the rock makes behind him for his books. Ruskin says of a similar modification of accessories to express supernatural character, in Bellini's "St. Jerome" at Venice: "The Saint sits upon a rock, his grand form defined against clear green open sky; he is reading; a noble tree springs out of a cleft in the rock, bends itself suddenly back to form a rest for the volume, then shoots up into the sky. There is something very beautiful in this obedient ministry of the lower creature; but be it observed that the sweet feeling of the whole depends upon the service being such as is consistent with its nature. It is not animated, it does not listen to the saint, not bend itself towards him as if in affection; this would have been mere fancy, illegitimate and effectless. But the simple bend of the trunk to receive the book is miraculous subjection of the true nature of the tree; it is therefore imaginative, and very touching" (Modern Painters, vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. ii. ch. v. § 8).

772. MADONNA AND CHILD ENTHRONED.

Cosimo Tura (Ferrarese: 1420-1495).

Cosimo Tura (pronounced Cosmè in Ferrarese) is the first Ferrarese painter of eminence and of native talent whose works have come down to us. He was a well-to-do citizen, and, like Titian after him, dealt in timber. As an artist he was in the service of Duke Borso of Ferrara (whose portrait is introduced in the background of No. 773), and other members of the princely house of Este. The court of Ferrara was then one of the most learned of Italy. A curious instance occurs in this picture, where, on either side of the Virgin's throne, are inscribed the Commandments, in Hebrew characters. Such inscriptions are common in Ferrarese pictures, and point to the presence of some Hebrew scholar or scholars. It was at this court that Cosimo came under the influence of Flemish art as described below, for the house of Este (which was of Lombard origin, and thus had a natural affinity perhaps for northern art) had invited Roger van der Weyden to Ferrara. Tura was "first employed by the Duke of Ferrara in 1451. Between 1452 and 1456 his whereabouts are uncertain. Possibly he was then in Padua among the followers of Squarcione, or else in Venice, to the poor of which city he left by will part of the fruits of his long and industrious life. In 1458 he rose to a fixed appointment in the Ducal service. He made a fortune, risked it in trade, and died a wealthy man" (Catalogue of the Burlington Fine Arts Club's Exhibition, 1894, p. xv.). Some of his works are to be seen at Ferrara, others are in the Berlin Gallery, at Bergamo, and the Correr Museum at Venice. He is one of the most unmistakable and least fascinating, yet most interesting of painters. Of beauty or grace in the human figure he had no perception. His colour schemes are peculiar, and harmonious rather than beautiful. But he had sincerity of purpose and vigour of manipulation. Where his subjects lend themselves to strength, he is impressive, as in the "St. Jerome" (773), but his Madonnas (772 and 905) are both affected and ugly. His patience in the execution of detail, and quaint if superabundant ornament, are always interesting. The picture now before us is thoroughly characteristic of a master who alternately repels and attracts.

The decorative detail here deserves close attention. Compare, for instance, the ornament of the pilasters here with that of the pilasters in Crivelli's "Annunciation" (739), which was painted about the same time. "Crivelli follows the traditional lines common to all such features from later Roman times downwards, while Tura's accessories are full of inventiveness and are evidently designed for this especial picture. Thus the cup, balls, and wing-like appendages in the pilaster are quite original. The general scheme of colour in the picture, also, with its contrasts of red and green, is quite apart from anything existing in contemporary Italian art, and recalls rather a Flemish stained-glass window of the fifteenth century" (G. T. Robinson in Art Journal, May 1886, pp. 149, 150). The musical instruments are also worth notice. "One of the angels, on the left, holds an ornamental viol, having five strings, with a carved man's head; another angel, on the right, holds a similar viol, with a carved woman's head. In the centre is placed a positive organ—that is, a small organ not intended for removal. The player is on the left, in front of the organ; the blower is on the right, behind it. Only natural keys are visible, but there are three stops to be drawn out from the side, in the primitive way, by means of cords attached to them, to control the pipes, of which thirty are visible and three are drones. These pipes are grouped in columnar disposition, like an hour-glass, and not in the order of ranks usual with small organs. It is noticeable that the player uses both hands, held nearly in the modern position" (A. J. Hipkins in The Hobby Horse, No. i. p. 19).

773. ST. JEROME IN THE DESERT.

Cosimo Tura (Ferrarese: 1420-1495). See 772.

and schooling himself into renunciation of the world, the flesh, and the devil. In contrast to the wildness of the surroundings, the painter introduces quite a company of birds and beasts—an owl sits in sedate wisdom above the saint, his familiar lion is walking to the stream for water, and in the crannies and ledges are other animals to keep him company. For it was his union of gentleness and refinement with noble continence, his love and imagination winning even savage beasts into domestic friends, that distinguished St. Jerome and formed the true monastic ideal (see 227).

774. MADONNA AND CHILD.

Unknown (Flemish School: 15th century).

See also (p. xx)

On the Madonna's right is St. Peter; on her left St. Paul, an arrangement common in early art, St. Peter and St. Paul being the two chief apostles on whom the Church of Christ is built. St. Paul offers a pink to the infant Christ. Flowers were consecrated to the Virgin, and the early painters chose those they liked best to be emblems of love and beauty. Notice the design on the stuff fixed at the back of the Madonna's throne; it is a beautiful example of the ornamental work of the time in northern Europe. The picture was formerly ascribed to Van der Goes—an artist whose only certainly known picture is the altar-piece in the hospital of S. Maria Nuova in Florence,—and is by some ascribed to Bouts (see under 783).

775. AN OLD LADY.

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

An old lady, eighty-three years of age (as the inscription shows). This splendid portrait is dated 1634, and was made therefore when Rembrandt was twenty-eight. His mother was from the first a favourite sitter of his, and hence, perhaps, the affectionate fidelity with which he always painted the wrinkled faces of old age. In the British Museum there is an Indian-ink copy of this portrait, from which it appears that the lady's name was Françoise van Wasserhoven. Rembrandt, says M. Michel, "is most individual and moving in those portraits of old women, in which by the accidents of form and feature he so admirably suggests the moral life."

776. ST. ANTHONY AND ST. GEORGE.

Vittore Pisano (Veronese: 1380-1452).

The earliest picture of the Veronese School in the Gallery. "No school of painting in Italy except the Florentine shows," says Morelli, "so regular and uninterrupted a development, from the thirteenth to the seventeenth century, as the graceful school of Verona. If we look, for example, at some of the oldest frescoes at St. Zeno, at the frescoes of the great Pisanello in S. Anastasia of the first half of the fifteenth century, at the pictures of Liberale (1134 and 1336) and Domenico Morone (1211), and of their pupils Francesco Morone (285), Girolamo dai Libri (748), Michele da Verona (1214), Giolfino (749), and Morando (735 and 769), and then to Paolo Veronese and his followers, we find everywhere the same cheerful and graceful character looking out of each of these works of the Veronese School. The Veronese do not penetrate so deep into the essence of art as the Venetians, but they are, with few exceptions, more gracious and serene. And to this day the population of this beautifully situated town is reckoned the cheeriest and gayest in all Italy: Veronesi, mezzo natti" (German Galleries, p. 395). In the National Gallery the development of the Veronese School may, as will be seen from the references inserted above, be well studied. The importance and independence of the Veronese painters are shown by the career of Vittore Pisano, commonly called by the endearing diminutive Pisanello. He was born at St. Vigilio, near the Lake of Garda, and was probably a pupil of Altichiero, an older master of the Veronese School, and was famous as the inventor of a method of casting medals; but though better known now as a medallist, in his own day he was equally famous as a painter. In the frame of this picture are inserted casts from two of his medals, and it will be noticed that the lower one—a profile of himself—is inscribed Pisanus Pictor; Pisano the Painter. The medal above is that of Leonello d'Este, his patron, for whom this picture was probably painted, and whose portrait by a pupil of Pisano is in our Gallery (770). At Bergamo is a portrait of Leonello by Pisano himself (reproduced in the Illustrated Catalogue of the Morelli Gallery by Signor Frizzoni). Another evidence of Pisano's practice as a medallist will be noticed in the gilt embossed work of St. George's sword and spurs. Leonello wrote of Pisano as "the most illustrious of all the painters of this age," and contemporary writers similarly extol his fame. In 1421 he was summoned to Venice. "When, in the beginning of the fifteenth century, great monumental works in painting were to be carried out at Venice, the local school was still so insignificant that no native artist could be entrusted with the commission. They were obliged to summon Vittore Pisano, notwithstanding that he had once been on the list of the politically obnoxious, and as such was liable to penal consequences" (Richter). Pisano was accompanied by Gentile da Fabriano. "The presence of those two eminent artists in the city of the Lagoons gave," says Morelli, "a new impulse to its school of painting. Jacopo Bellini became a scholar of Gentile, and when his master had finished his work at Venice he accompanied him to Florence. During the few years of their stay at Venice, Gentile and Pisanello must not only have instructed Bellini in their art, but their influence on Antonio Vivarini of Murano also seems to me undeniable.... Taking him all in all, I consider that Giovanni Bellini was the greatest painter in North Italy in the fifteenth century, though undoubtedly Pisano was in the first half of the century as great a painter as was Bellini in the second half" (German Galleries, p. 357; Roman Galleries, p. 267). Of Pisano's wall-paintings in the Doge's Palace, in that of the Pope, and in the castles of the foremost princes of the century, no traces remain. His fresco of "St. George mounting for the fight" may be seen in the church of St. Anastasia at Verona. Among his very rare easel-pictures the one now before us is signed and very original in conception; No. 1436 is the most important, and is especially interesting as illustrating Pisano's love of representing animals, and the high reputation he enjoyed for his skill in doing so. "Vittore lived," says Sir F. Burton, "at a time when the traditions and forms of chivalry had not yet died out; and all his works, including his delicate and spirited pen-drawings in the Louvre, have a certain stamp of knightly grace which is singularly attractive: in this respect they resemble the creations of Gentile da Fabriano."

The subject of the picture—a meeting between St. George and St. Anthony, with a vision of the Virgin and Child above—is not to be found in the legends of the saints, and Pisano's conception is quite original. St. George appears to have been a favourite subject with the artist—probably because of the way in which his armour lent itself to medallion-like treatment. There is a good instance of frank anachronism in the large Tuscan hat of Pisano's own day which he quaintly makes St. George wear, "according to the everyday custom of the Italian noblemen at their country-seats in the summer."[181] Perhaps too the painter chose St. George partly because he involved a horse and a dragon, and Pisano, says Vasari, "took especial pleasure in the delineation of animals." This may have given him a weakness for the boar of good St. Anthony—the hermit saint whose temptations have passed into a proverb. The saint carries a bell, for "it is said that the wicked spirits that be in the region of the air fear much when they hear the bells ringen," and a staff, another means of exorcising the devil; whilst the boar, now tamed into service, is symbolical of the demon of sensuality which St. Anthony vanquished. And here perhaps we find the clue to the idea in the picture. For the dragon whom St. George slew represents the same sensual enemy. St. George conquered by fighting, St. Anthony by fasting. The two saints now meet when "each on his course alone" has "worked out each a way." The old man, whose life has been spent in struggle, greets the triumphant youth with curious surprise; and St. George too, with the thoughtful look on his face, will have much to say and learn. But over them both, as to all who overcome, the heavens open in beatific vision; for though there be diversity of gifts, it is the same spirit. The signature of the painter (Pisanus pinxit) is fantastically traced by herbage in the foreground.

777. MADONNA AND CHILD.

Paolo Morando (Veronese: 1486-1522). See 735.

A picture of great beauty, which goes far to justify the title of "the Raphael of the Veronese School" by which Morando has been distinguished. Every visitor will be struck by the unpretentious simplicity of conception, the rich colours and the sweet faces—with just a dash of Raphaelesque affectation. It is interesting to note that Morando was almost exactly contemporary with Raphael, while his art exhibits a maturity developed under totally different circumstances. For Morando never left Verona, and was thus, says Sir F. Burton, "a pure growth of the native Veronese School. His colouring, though often brilliant, is rather cold; the pale flesh-tints, glossy in surface, are shadowed with grey, and even the lake reds introduced in garments tend towards that purplish hue which the best colourists avoid."

778. MADONNA AND CHILD.

Martino da Udine (Venetian: 1470-1547).

Martino of Udine was called also Pellegrino of San Daniele (a village near the former place). According to Vasari, he was a pupil of Giovanni Bellini, who, astonished at the marvellous progress of his pupil, gave him the name of Pellegrino—that is, rare, extraordinary. More probably, however, it should be interpreted merely as a stranger or foreigner at Udine, Martino being of Dalmatian origin (see for a full account and discussion of this painter Morelli's German Galleries, pp. 18-23). He was, says Sir F. Burton, "one of those men who, with little native genius, have yet the capacity of absorbing material from others, and of working it into new forms with success. Thus Pellegrino turned out some works which, while they carry the foreign stamp of Giorgione, Titian, Pordenone, or other great contemporaries, nevertheless show considerable freshness of conception and treatment." His altar-piece, of 1494, in the church of Osopo, shows the influence of Cima da Conegliano. From 1504 to 1512 he was frequently at Ferrara working for the Duke Alfonso. In 1519-1521 he painted a part of the choir of S. Antonio at S. Daniele (the earlier part was painted in 1497); in this, his best work, he appears as an imitator not only of Pordenone but of Romanino. In 1526 he went, apparently for the first time, to Venice, there to buy colours for a large picture which he had engaged to paint for the church of Cividale: that picture shows his study of Palma. Pellegrino combined with painting the business of a timber merchant. "That so mediocre a painter as Pellegrino should have attained high honour in Friuli need," says Morelli, "surprise no one who knows the other painters of that little country. The value of anything in the world is comparative. The Friulan race never manifested the same talent for art as, for instance, their neighbours of Treviso."

On the right of the throne is St. James, with his hand on the shoulder of the donor of the picture; on the left St. George, with the dead dragon at his horse's feet.

779, 780. FAMILY PORTRAITS.[182]

Borgognone (Lombard: about 1455-1523). See 298.

See also (p. xx)

On the left (779) a group of nine men, above them a hand, probably of some patron saint; on the right (780) a group of thirteen women, kneeling (apparently) by the side of a tomb—studies of character drawing. These pictures are painted on silk (now attached to wood), and were originally part of a standard. Mr. Pater says of Borgognone that "a northern temper is a marked element of his genius—something of the patience, especially, of the masters of Dijon or Bruges, nowhere more clearly [seen] than in the two groups of male and female heads in the National Gallery, family groups, painted in the attitude of worship, with a lowly religious sincerity which may remind us of the contemporary work of M. Legros. Like those northern masters, he accepts piously, but can refine, what 'has no comeliness'" ("Art Notes in North Italy," in the New Review, November 1890).

781. RAPHAEL AND TOBIAS.

Florentine School (15th century).

See also (p. xx)

The Hebrew legend of Tobit and his son Tobias (told in the Book of Tobit in the Apocrypha) was a favourite one with the Mediæval Church, and became therefore a traditional subject for painting; see e.g. in the National Gallery, 288, 72, and 48. Tobit, a Jewish exile, having fallen also into poverty, and afterwards becoming blind, prays for death rather than life in noble despair. "To him the angel of all beautiful life (Raphael) is sent, hidden in simplicity of human duty, taking a servant's place for hire, to lead his son in all right and happy ways of life" (Fors Clavigera, 1877, p. 31). Here we see Raphael leading the young Tobias into Media, where he was to marry Sara, his rich kinswoman, the daughter of Raguel. But she was haunted by an evil spirit, who had slain her seven husbands, each on their wedding-day, and the angel bade Tobias take the gall of a certain fish, wherewith afterwards to heal his father's blindness, and its heart and liver wherewith to drive away the evil spirit from his bride. Tobias is carrying the fish, Raphael has a small box for the gall. The "rising step" and the "springy motion in his gait" are characteristic of him who was the messenger of heaven, the kindly companion of humanity—

Milton: Paradise Lost, v. 221.

For the authorship of this picture, see under 296. "This picture," says a critic who gives both to Verrocchio, "may possibly be not entirely from his hand, but there is no doubt that it is essentially his, and that to his fancy for painting boyhood and opening youth we owe that curious misreading of the story of Tobias, representing him as a young lad instead of a grown man, which is to be found through all the numerous Florentine picture of him by the school of Botticelli, by Piero di Cosimo and the rest" (Times, October 26, 1888).

782. MADONNA AND CHILD.

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

See also (p. xx)

Probably only a "school picture." Most of the old masters kept schools, or shops, in which several pupils served as apprentices and worked at pictures under the master's directions. The sale of such pictures under the master's name was (and is) a very common occurrence, and even in those days forged signatures were not unusual.

783. THE EXHUMATION OF BISHOP HUBERT.

Unknown (Early Flemish: 15th century).

This beautiful work was formerly in the collection of Mr. Beckford at Fonthill, where it was described as the Burial of a Bishop by Jan Van Eyck. It has also been ascribed to Gerard Van der Meire (see 1078) and to Thierri Bouts (about 1420-1475). This latter painter—called by early authors Thierry, or Dierik of Haarlem, from the name of his native town, and by modern writers Thierri Stuerbout,—was town's painter of Louvain, and a pupil probably of Roger van der Weyden. His principal works are now in the Brussels Museum. Other pictures in the Gallery attributed to him by some critics are 664, 774, and 943. Van der Meire, Justus of Ghent, and Albert Van Ouwater have also been suggested as the painters of this picture; it closely resembles the "Raising of Lazarus" ascribed to the last-named painter in the Berlin Gallery.

St. Hubert was originally a nobleman of Aquitaine, much addicted to all worldly pleasures, and especially to that of the chase. But one day in Holy Week, when all good Christians were at their devotions, as he was hunting in the forest of Ardennes, he encountered a milk-white stag bearing the crucifix between his horns. Filled with awe and astonishment, he renounced the pomps and vanities of the world, turned hermit in that very forest of Ardennes, was ordained, and became Bishop of Liège. So the legend runs, embalming, we may suppose, the conversion of some reckless lover of the chase, like the wild huntsman of the German legend. And at Liège he was buried, but thirteen years afterwards his body was disinterred, and lo! it was found entire; even the episcopal robes in which he had been interred were without spot or stain. A century later the body was removed from Liège and reinterred in the abbey church of the Benedictine monks of Ardennes. The Emperor Louis le Débonnaire assisted at the translation of the relics, and the day was long kept as a festival throughout this part of Flanders. This is the subject of the present picture, of which the scene is laid in the choir of a beautiful Gothic church. On the altar behind the principal group stands a shrine, on which is a little figure of St. Hubert with his hunting-horn. The royal personage assisting represents Louis le Débonnaire. The picture is of wonderful beauty, finished in every part (abridged from Mrs. Jameson: Sacred and Legendary Art, pp. 431, 432). Though it is thus an historical picture, the artist takes the figures from his own time, and the heads, like miniatures in character and delicacy of expression, are doubtless portraits—the whole scene being a picture of a Flemish Cathedral on some festival day. Notice, as a particularly interesting little piece of life, the man flattening his nose against the screen on the left, with a jeering expression, as if he "didn't half believe it all." It is a piece of living grotesque, exactly such as meets one in the sculptured stones of a mediæval cathedral itself—"peeping round the corner at you and lurking in secret places, like a monk's joke whispered in church" (Conway's Early Flemish Artists, p. 17).

788. AN ALTAR-PIECE.

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

This important picture is one of Crivelli's masterpieces and is very characteristic of his genius and its limitations. The work, it will be seen, is not so much a picture as a collection of panel pictures built up into a gorgeous piece of decoration. The panels in the two lower tiers were painted for the old church of San Domenico, at Ascoli; the central panel of the Madonna and Child is inscribed with the painter's name and the date 1476. The church was rebuilt in 1776, and some years afterwards the picture came into the possession of Cardinal Zelada at Rome, who added the four upper pictures by the same painter. In 1852 the picture passed to Prince Anatole de Demidoff, at Florence, where it was put into its present magnificent frame. Crivelli's artistic aim, it has been said, was the development and perfection of isolated figures for elaborate altar-pieces of this kind, and those before us are among the best he ever did: "in them calm dignity, strength of character, gentleness, and grace, can all be treated by him with perfect success apart from the disturbing elements of emotion and action." The type of the Virgin here is very characteristic, with her high-arched eyebrows, small mouth, and hair tightly drawn back from the forehead. So too are the hands, with very long fingers, in which affectation borders on dislocation. Very natural, on the contrary, is the figure of the infant Christ, "fast asleep with one hand under his head while with the other he grasps his mother's middle finger—a picture drawn from the life." The decorative details are characteristic. Note the dolphins on the base of the throne. The festoons are meant to represent real offerings of fruit, tied with string and fastened with nails. On one side of the Virgin is St. Peter, an impressive figure: his costume shows the use of raised ornaments and imitation gems, which is common in Crivelli's earlier works, but which he gradually dropped. Beyond St. Peter is St. John the Baptist in the wilderness: the hard and severe style of the figure is remarkable. "The landscape in which he stands should not be passed over, with the stream flowing at his feet and the tree-stems broken off so as not to interfere with the gold background which sets off the upper half of the figure." On the other side of the Virgin is St. Catherine of Alexandria, and beyond her St. Dominic—a figure "admirable in its expression of piety and humility and in the personality with which Crivelli has invested it." The half-length figures in the second tier are St. Francis, with the stigmata; St. Andrew, with cross and book—a very grand head; St. Stephen, with the stones of his martyrdom; and St. Thomas Aquinas, with book and the model of a church. In the top tier are St. Jerome, also carrying the model of a church; the Archangel Michael, trampling on the dragon and weighing in a pair of scales a man and a woman who are of light weight; St. Peter Martyr, with the sword of his martyrdom, and St. Lucy, carrying a plate with eyes upon it. The reference is to the legend which relates that in order to discourage the suit of a youth who loved her for the beauty of her eyes, she plucked them out with her own hands and sent them to him in a dish. The youth, struck with remorse, became a Christian, and Lucy's sight was miraculously restored to her.

790. THE ENTOMBMENT OF CHRIST.

Michael Angelo (Florentine: 1475-1564).

Michelangelo (commonly anglicised as above) Buonarroti (which surname, however, is commonly dropped) is the Titan of Italian art. He was the rival of Raphael; and amongst the artists who were present at the unveiling of his great statue of David were Perugino, Botticelli, Lorenzo di Credi, Leonardo da Vinci, and Filippino Lippi. He lived through the fall of Rome and Florence, and survived into the decadence of Italian art. In the many-sidedness of his genius he may be compared to Leonardo da Vinci. He was at once painter, sculptor, architect, and man of action. The greatness of his work was reflected in that of his character. He passed most of his life at Rome, amidst the petty intrigues of a debased Court; but he never placed his self-respect in jeopardy. Filial duty, too, was one of the mainsprings of his life. He lived most sparingly, and sent all the money he could save to support his father's family at Florence. "Whence they must pray God," he says in one of his letters, "that all his works may have good success." He was proud, and would brook no insult; and when Pope Julius left him with unpaid marbles and workmen on his hands, he mounted his horse and rode off to Florence. There are many stories, too, of the quiet sarcasm with which he would "reproach men for sin." "What does the raised hand denote?" Julius asked of a statue of himself. "You are advising the people of Bologna to be wise," was Michelangelo's reply. With all this, however, he was for the most part above the jealousy of other artists. When commissioned to paint the Sixtine Chapel, he urged that Raphael would be a more fit person to execute so great a work; and when he was appointed architect of St. Peter's he refused to permit any material alteration of Bramante's design, though Bramante had perpetually intrigued against him. Michelangelo was a poet also (his sonnets have been translated by J. A. Symonds), his poetry being partly inspired by Vittoria Colonna, widow of the Marquis of Pescara, to whom late in life he became attached, and whose friendship, until her death in 1547, was the solace of his lonely labours.

It is only in Florence and in Rome that the work of Michelangelo can be studied. Our Gallery is fortunate, however, in having two easel pictures, which, whether entirely from his own hand or not, are eminently characteristic of his style. The South Kensington Museum and the Royal Academy each possess one example of his sculpture. His drawings are to be seen in several English collections, especially in that of the University of Oxford. A concise chronological summary may here be useful to recall to the reader's recollection the chief works of the master. At the age of thirteen he was apprenticed for three years to Domenico Ghirlandaio to whom our picture, No. 809, was formerly ascribed. He made rapid advance in the art of painting, and showed also aptitude for sculpture; so that in 1489, before his apprenticeship was out, Domenico recommended him to Lorenzo de' Medici, who had founded a school of sculpture in the garden of his villa. Here, in the society and service of Lorenzo, Michelangelo remained for four years. Lorenzo's unworthy successor Piero employed the young artist only on unworthy commissions, setting him on one occasion, it is said, to make a statue of snow; a tradition which inspires a noble passage in Ruskin's Political Economy of Art, as also in Mrs. Browning's Casa Guidi Windows. In 1493 Michelangelo removed to Bologna, returning in the next year to Florence, where he produced a "Sleeping Cupid," which was sold in Rome as a veritable antique. This induced him, in 1496, to try his fortune in the Papal capital. To this period belong his statue of "Cupid," now at South Kensington, the "Bacchus" in the Bargello at Florence, and the noble "Pietà" in St. Peter's at Rome. By these works he attained the position of the greatest sculptor in Italy, and on his return to Florence in 1501 he executed the colossal statue of "David," now in the Accademia. Works of about the same time are the round marble relief in the possession of the Royal Academy, and our picture No. 809. The circular "Madonna and Child," now in the Uffizi, belongs to 1504. In the same year he received a commission to paint one wall of the Palazzo Vecchio. The painting was never executed; but Michelangelo's cartoon for it,—known as the "Cartoon of Pisa"—excited great admiration for its treatment of the human figure. In 1505 began Michelangelo's stormy relations with the imperious Pope, Julius II. For two years he was employed on a great bronze statue of the Pontiff, which was afterwards cast as a cannon and used against the Pope by the Bolognese. In 1508, being then thirty-three, Michelangelo was commissioned by Julius to paint the ceiling of the Sixtine Chapel. In this great work, which was finished on November 1, 1512, the artist set forth, in the vehicle of the human form, his conception of the creation, and the early history of the world, with reference to man's final redemption and salvation. The frescoes have in our time been admirably photographed, and the figures of the Prophets and Sibyls, who sit enthroned in niches round the vault, are very widely known. The paintings caused Michelangelo to suspend his labour on the mausoleum of Julius—a work which gave him an infinity of labour and vexation, and which was never finished. The great figure of "Moses," now in S. Pietro in Vincoli, and the "Captives," in the Louvre, were designed for this monument. During the nine years' pontificate of Leo X. (1513-22), Michelangelo was mostly employed in the unworthy occupation of procuring marble from the quarries of Pietra Santa for the façade of the church of San Lorenzo at Florence. The short reign of Adrian VI. succeeded, and Michelangelo went on working for a time at the monument to Julius. He was also employed on the works of the Medici Chapel at Florence. In 1523 when Clement VII. succeeded, the artist was put to various architectural works. Stormy years followed, and Michelangelo quitted the Medici statues to defend his native city. He was appointed director of fortifications, and was entrusted also with diplomatic missions. When in 1530 Florence was treacherously yielded to the Medici, Michelangelo lay for some time in concealment. Clement, however, gave him his pardon, and ordered him to resume work on the Medici chapel in San Lorenzo. He worked, as he says, with "morbid haste" but saddened heart, and thus were completed his most impressive productions in sculpture—the four great recumbent figures for the tombs of Lorenzo and Giuliano de' Medici. In 1534 Clement died. Michelangelo flung down his mallet, and set foot in Florence no more. But "a new Eurystheus arose for our Hercules." The artist hoped to complete the mausoleum of Julius. But the new Pope, Paul III., set him to work upon the fresco of the Last Judgment, on the altar wall of the Sixtine Chapel. In this mighty work, containing 314 figures, which occupied him from 1534 to 1542, the painter "devoted his terrible genius to a subject worthy of the times in which he lived." Since he had first listened, while a youth, to the prophecies of Savonarola, the woes announced in that apocalypse had all come true. To Michelangelo, Christ came as an avenger, vindictive and implacable, and the lost souls fall before his wrath in every contortion of nudity. After the painting of the "Last Judgment," one more great labour was reserved for Michelangelo. He was called upon to succeed Antonio da San Gallo as architect of St. Peter's, a post which he continued to hold under succeeding Popes until his death. "The dome of St. Peter's, as seen from Tivoli or the Alban hills, like a cloud upon the Campagna, is his; but he has no share in the façade which screens it from the Piazza." His last poem declared the vanity of the art which was his glory, and his dying words to his household were these; "In your passage through this life remember the sufferings of Jesus Christ." His body was taken, as he had desired, to Florence, and he lies in Santa Croce.

To the artistic genius of Michelangelo, a few out of innumerable tributes may here be mentioned. Raphael "thanked God that he was born in the days of Michelangelo," and Sir Joshua Reynolds says, in his Discourses, that "to kiss the hem of his garment, to catch the slightest of his perfections, would be glory and distinction enough for an ambitious man." His knowledge of the human body and his power of representing it were supreme. "If a combination of the most exquisite finish in drawing and modelling which allows the work to bear the closest inspection in its details, with the utmost simplicity, breadth, and clearness of effect in a distant view, constitute, as I believe they do, the elements of perfect work, I must assert positively," says Sir Edward Poynter, "that Michelangelo is the most perfect of workmen." This workmanship was employed with consummate dramatic effect. "He considered figures the highest means of telling a story; he concentrated his powers on the single important point of expression, so that he had no need of accessories to help him out with his story" (Lectures on Art). But above all the work of Michelangelo was the expression of "a vast imaginative gift, the stormy poetry of his mind." His works, says Ruskin, "have borne and in themselves retain and exercise the same inexplicable power—inexplicable because proceeding from an imaginative perception almost superhuman, which goes whither we cannot follow, and is where we cannot come; throwing naked the final, deepest root of the being of man, whereby he grows out of the invisible, and holds on his God home" (Modern Painters, vol. ii. "Of Imagination Penetrative"). "About the qualities of his genius," says Symonds, "opinions may and will, and ought to differ. It is so pronounced, so peculiar, so repulsive to one man, so attractive to another, that, like his own dread statue of Lorenzo de' Medici, 'it fascinates and is intolerable.' There are few, I take it, who can feel at home with him in all the length and breadth and dark depths of the regions that he traversed. The world of thought and forms in which he lived habitually is too arid, like an extinct planet, tenanted by mighty elemental beings with little human left to them, but visionary Titan-shapes, too vast and void for common minds to dwell in pleasurably. The sweetness that emerges from his strength, the beauty which blooms rarely, strangely, in unhomely wise, upon the awful crowd of his conceptions, are only to be apprehended by some innate sympathy or by long incubation of the brooding intellect. It is probable, therefore, that the deathless artist through long centuries of glory will abide as solitary as the simple old man did in his poor house at Rome" (Life of Michelangelo, ii. 373). On his successors the influence of Michelangelo was not happy. They could imitate his mannerisms, but not his manner. They had not his imagination, but they could copy the violent attitudes in which he clothed his Titanic thoughts. The anatomical studies which with him were the groundwork for his imagination to build upon became in their hands the final object of their art. (Among those who have been alternately fascinated and repelled by Michelangelo was Ruskin. His case against Michelangelo is contained in the pamphlet entitled The Relation between Michael Angelo and Tintoret. But some of Ruskin's critics forget that the pamphlet was meant to be read in conjunction with his own earlier praise in Modern Painters, and with Mr. Tyrwhitt's appreciation in Christian Art and Symbolism. "These lectures," said Ruskin, in his preface to that book, "show throughout the most beautiful and just reverence for Michael Angelo, and are of especial value in their account of him; while the last lecture on sculpture, which I gave at Oxford, is entirely devoted to examining the modes in which his genius itself failed, and perverted that of other men. But Michael Angelo is great enough to make praise and blame alike necessary, and alike inadequate").

One of the many unfinished works, which, as Vasari tells us, Michelangelo left behind him in painting as in sculpture. Its history is interesting. It was formerly in the gallery of Cardinal Fesch, which was sold and dispersed after his death. From its unfinished state and neglected condition it attracted little attention, and was bought literally "dirt cheap" by Mr. Macpherson, an English gentleman established as a photographer in Rome. After the dirt upon its face had been removed, it was submitted to competent judges, who unhesitatingly pronounced it to be the work of Michelangelo. The discovery caused a great sensation. A law-suit was instituted against Mr. Macpherson for the recovery of the picture, which was sequestrated pending the decision of the Roman courts. After some years he obtained a judgment in his favour, removed the picture to England, and sold it to the National Gallery for £2000. Peter von Cornelius, the eminent German painter, in evidence in the law-suit declared it to be "una cosa preziosa—un vero originale di Michelangelo."[183]

However this may be, the picture is entirely characteristic of the school of Michelangelo. What we notice in it most is not the features of the Maries, but the rendering of the corpse, in all its flaccid limbs and muscles:—

"Take the heads from a painting of Angelico,—very little but drapery will be left;—drapery made redundant in quantity and rigid in fold, that it may conceal the forms, and give a proud or ascetic reserve to the actions of the bodily frame. Bellini and his school, indeed, rejected at once the false theory and the easy mannerism of such religious design, and painted the body without fear or reserve, as, in its subordination, honourable and lovely. But the inner heart and fire of it are by them always first thought of, and no action is given to it merely to show its beauty. Whereas the great culminating masters, and chiefly of these, Tintoret, Correggio, and Michael Angelo, delight in the body for its own sake, and cast it into every conceivable attitude, often in violation of all natural probability, that they may exhibit the action of its skeleton and the contours of its flesh. Correggio and Tintoret learn the body from the living body, and delight in its breath, colour, and motion. Michael Angelo learned it essentially from the corpse, and had great pride in showing that he knew all its mechanism. The simplicity of the old religious art was rejected not because it was false, but because it was easy; and the dead Christ was thought of only as an available subject for the display of anatomy" (Modern Painters, vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. iv.; Relation between Michael Angelo and Tintoret, passim).

The ideal of the painter has in fact changed. The picture is in its essence not a devotional work: it is a study in the dead nude.

794. A DUTCH COURTYARD.

Pieter de Hooch (Dutch: 1630-about 1677).

Hooch (or Hooghe)—"the indoor Cuyp," as he has been called, and "one of the glories of the Dutch School—is also one of the glories of England," for it was here that his great merits were first discovered, and that three-fourths of his pictures are now preserved. "There are," says Ruskin (Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. viii. § 11), whilst tracing the general insensitiveness of the Dutch School, "deeper elements in De Hooghe, sometimes expressed with superb quiet painting." He chose the simplest subjects and used apparently the simplest means. But his figures are always placed with the utmost skill, and the details, so carefully wrought, are all made contributory to the general idea of the picture. In producing an effect of serenity, Hooch is unsurpassed. Of his life nothing is known except that he was at Delft 1653-56, and that afterwards he resided at Amsterdam. In his own country, a fine picture by him so late as 1765 brought only 450 florins. In 1817 it fetched 4000 florins, whilst in 1876 the Berlin Gallery paid £6000 for one of his pictures. At the Secrétan Sale in 1889 an "interior" by De Hooch fetched £11,040. The present picture was bought in Paris in 1869 for £1722. No. 834 fetched in 1804, £220; No. 835, in 1810, £187.

The whole picture, in its cheerful colour and dainty neatness, seems to reflect the light of a peaceful and happy home, in which everything is done decently and in order. They are no rolling stones, these Dutch burghers, but stay-at-home folk, whose pride is in the trimness of their surroundings. Every day, one thinks, the good housewife will thus look to see that the dinner is duly prepared; every day the husband will thus walk along the garden, sure of her happy greeting. The picture is signed, and dated 1665.

796. A VASE OF FLOWERS.

Jan van Huysum (Dutch: 1682-1749).

Jan was the son and pupil of Justus van Huysum, a painter of Amsterdam. By close study Jan attained great fame as a flower-painter. The principal florists of Holland supplied him with their choicest productions as subjects, and his reputation soon spread throughout Europe. "Whilst still young he became rich and honoured, and reached the summit of fortune. The prices noted in the sale catalogues of the eighteenth century, which are altogether out of proportion to those realised by other works, reveal to us with what infatuation this finished master, so delicate, erudite, and careful, was regarded" (Havard: The Dutch School, p. 264). He usually arranged his flowers in elegant vases, of which he finished the ornaments in the most careful manner. He was fond also of introducing a bird's nest with eggs. Both of these characteristics may be seen in the picture before us. The care with which he rendered every detail is remarkable. "As to you, dear old Jan Van Huysum," writes an artist of our own day, "you have edified me beyond expression. You teach me that a man can't be too careful as to his work, be it what it may. Your pearly dewdrops on the fresh gathered green things of the earth refresh me. Your tiny ants on the petals of the pink teach me in their minute contemplation to be like the star, Ohne Hast, Ohne Rast. How cool, and calm, and cheerful, and confident you are, Jan!" (Letters of James Smetham, p. 173). "The world is so old," says Ruskin, "that there is no dearth of things first-rate; and life so short that there is no excuse for looking at things second-rate. Let us then go to Rubens for blending, and to Titian for quality, of colour; to Veronese for daylight, and Rembrandt for lamplight; to Buonarroti for awfulness, and to Van Huysum for precision. Any man is worthy of respect, in his own rank, who has pursued any truth or attainment with all his heart and strength" (Letter to Liddell in the Memoir of the Dean, by H. L. Thompson, p. 224). Other pictures by Jan Van Huysum may be seen in the Wallace Collection and the Dulwich Gallery.

Signed, and dated 1736-1737. Notice the bird's nest, with the greenfinch's eggs.

797. A MAN'S PORTRAIT.

Cuyp (Dutch: 1620-1691). See 53.

This excellent portrait serves to remind us that, unlike most of his fellow landscape painters, Cuyp could paint his own figures. Indeed we have seen that he sometimes painted them in other landscapes, see No. 152. The picture is signed "Aetatis suae 56, 1649. A. Cuyp fecit." Cuyp is one of the most various of all the Dutch masters. "What universality in the hand that could paint skies more glowing than those of Both, clouds as vaporous as those of Van de Cappelle, water more luminous than Van de Velde's, cattle as true to nature as Paul Potter's, horses better than Wouverman's, horsemen more distinguished than Vandyck's! Sometimes, too—and there is a noble example in our National Gallery—we find Aelbert Cuyp painting portraits, not in the stiff precise way that the father painted them, but with a freedom of touch and a brilliancy of colour that place him between Van der Helst and Rembrandt" (Quarterly Review, October 1891, and Fromentin's' Les Maitres d'autrefois, "Hollande," ch. viii.).

798. CARDINAL RICHELIEU.

Philippe de Champaigne (French: 1602-1674).

A painter of historical subjects and portraits, he was born at Brussels, but went to Paris at the age of 19. He was employed by Du Chesne, the painter royal, to work at the Luxembourg in concert with Nicolas Poussin. Du Chesne was of mediocre talent and jealous disposition, and Champaigne and Poussin soon left him. The two men were mutually attached, and in after years Champaigne discoursed at a session of the Academy on the merits of his friend Poussin. Champaigne returned to Brussels, but was recalled in 1627 to succeed Du Chesne. He executed many works for the churches and royal residences and also for Cardinal Richelieu's palace. He became an original member of the French Academy in 1648, of which he was also Professor and Rector. Towards the end of his life, his fame began to pale before that of Le Brun. His religious and historical works, of which there are several in the Louvre, are apt to leave the modern spectator cold; but his portraits are excellent.

This picture was painted for the Roman sculptor Mocchi to make a bust from, hence the two profiles as well as the full face. Over the profile on the right are the words (in French), "of the two profiles this is the better." In this profile the compressed lips, the merciless eyes, the iron-gray hair and prominent nose, bespeak the great Cardinal Minister of Louis XIII., and the maker of France, who summed up his policy and his character in the words, "I venture on nothing without first thinking it out; but once decided, I go straight to my point, overthrow or cut down whatever stands in my way, and finally cover it all up with my cardinal's red robes." In the full face one sees rather the man who was also a princely patron of the arts and artists (of De Champaigne amongst their number), and the founder of the French Academy.[184] The central head here was clearly used as a study for the full-length portrait, No. 1449.