B. THE COLLECTIONS (continued 2)

Again, Mantegna was a pupil of Squarcione of Padua, who practically founded the Paduan school. Now Squarcione had travelled in Greece and formed a collection of antiques, from which his pupils made drawings and studies. Also Donatello (the great Florentine sculptor of the early Renaissance, of whose work you can find some beautiful examples in the Renaissance Sculpture rooms of this museum) had executed several bronzes in the church of Sant’ Antonio, the great local saint of Padua; and these likewise Mantegna studied; so that much of his work bears traces of the influence of sculpture and especially of bas-relief. He is particularly fond of introducing reliefs, festoons of fruit or flowers, and classical detail into the accessories of his pictures: and these peculiarities are well marked in the Mars and Venus, the Crucifixion, and the Madonna della Vittoria in this collection. Compare all these closely with one another till you think you have formed a fair idea of Mantegna’s powerful drawing, strong realism, love of the antique, solemnity and dignity, clear-cut style, and perfect mastery of anatomy and technique. Notice his delicate, careful, conscientious workmanship; the precision and perfection of his hands and feet; the joy with which he lingers over classical costume and the painting of armour. Everything is sharp and defined as in the air of Italy, yet never hard, or crude, or angular. Observe, also, the sculpture-like folds of his carefully arranged draperies, and his love for shot colours and melting tints on metal or marble. The St. Michael in this picture, and the Roman soldiers in the Crucifixion, are admirable examples of this tone in his colouring. If you wished to characterise Mantegna in a single phrase, however, you might fairly say he was the most sculpturesque of painters.

As to date, the Crucifixion (in the Salon Carré) which formed one piece only of the predella, or series of small pictures at the base of the great Madonna in the Church of San Zeno at Verona, is the earliest example of Mantegna’s work here. It displays the delicate and exquisite finish of his youthful period: but it is much more mediæval in tone—has far less freedom and conscious artistic power—than the Madonna della Vittoria, which belongs to the latest epoch of the great painter’s development. Observe the early severity of the figures in the Crucifixion, and the firmness of the drawing: each personage stands out with statuesque distinctness. But note, too, that at this early stage, Mantegna’s expression of emotion was still inadequate: in his striving to be powerful, he overdid the passions, sometimes almost to the verge of grotesqueness. On the other hand, do not overlook the dramatic force of the picture, as shewn, for example, in the vivid contrast between the anguish of the Madonna, with her attendant St. John, &c., and the callous carelessness of the soldiers casting lots for the Redeemer’s raiment. The Mars and Venus, once more, of his middle period, represents an intermediate stage between the two styles. What is meant by a predella, again, you can see by looking at Fra Angelico’s Coronation of the Virgin, and other similar pictures in this room—the little figures of St. Dominic and his miracles beneath the main altar-piece being examples of this adjunct. The Crucifixion formed the central picture of three such minor episodes: the Agony in the Garden and the Ascension, to right and left of it, are now in the Museum at Tours. Napoleon I had carried off the entire work from Verona: at the Restoration, the Madonna was returned to San Zeno, but the three pieces of the predella were retained in France and thus distributed. If you go to Tours or Verona, recollect the connection of the various fragments.

Next, what was the occasion for painting this Madonna della Vittoria? You will remember that in 1494, Charles VIII of France, invited by Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, invaded North Italy, and conquered a large part of it, including Florence, Pisa, and Rome itself. Marching then on Naples, the boy king achieved a further success, which turned his own head and that of his army. (Read up all this episode in any good French history.) But Venice, trembling for her supremacy, formed a league against him; and soon after, all Italy, alarmed at his success, coalesced to repel the invader. The little Republics united their forces under Giovanni Francesco Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua, and met Charles, on the 6th of July, 1495, at the pass of Fornova, on the Taro. The French king, it is true, forced his way through the hostile army, and made good his retreat: but the allies, though baffled, claimed the victory, and, as a matter of fact, Charles immediately concluded a treaty of peace and returned to Lyons. In commemoration of this event, the Marquis Gonzaga in gratitude erected a church at Mantua as a votive offering to the Madonna, and dedicated it under the name of Santa Maria della Vittoria.

At that time and for some years previously Mantegna had been in the service of the Gonzaga family at Mantua, where he lived for the greater part of his artistic life. In the Castello of that town, he executed several frescoes, illustrating domestic events in the history of the Gonzagas, which are still among the most interesting objects to be visited in Mantua. It was natural, therefore, that he should be invited by Giovanni Francesco Gonzaga to paint the altar-piece for the high altar of the church to commemorate this victory. The picture must have been finished about the year 1498 or 1500. It stood in the building for which it was painted till Napoleon I brought it from Italy to Paris, where it has ever since remained.

These circumstances sufficiently explain the collection of saints who figure in the picture. In the centre is the Madonna of Victory herself, to whom Gonzaga vowed the church in case he should be successful. She is enthroned, as usual. The garlands of flowers and fruit, and the coral over her head, are favourite accessories with Mantegna: they occur again in the (much earlier) Madonna at San Zeno, Verona, of which the Crucifixion here formed part of the predella. The figures of Adam and Eve, in imitation of relief, on the pedestal, are thoroughly characteristic of Mantegna’s style, and recall the Paduan school of Squarcione, and the master’s dependence on the work of Donatello. The overloading of the picture with flowers, festoons and architectural decoration is also a Paduan feature of the same school: it comes out equally in the works of Carlo Crivelli—not well seen in this collection. On his knees in the foreground is Gonzaga himself, with his villainous Italian Renaissance face, as of a man who would try to bribe Our Lady with presents. And indeed Our Lady stretches out her friendly hand towards him, as if to assure him of favour and victory. Notice that the Marquis wears his armour: he is giving thanks, as it were, on the field of battle.

As often with Mantegna, the minor characters and saints are fuller of life than the two central divine personages: his Madonnas have frequently a tendency to be insipid. On the left of the picture, flanking the Virgin, stands St. Michael the Archangel, the “warrior of God,” as representing the idea that the Lord of Hosts fought on the side of the Italian confederacy. This beautiful figure, clad in refulgent heavenly armour, is one of the noblest and loveliest that Mantegna ever painted. Compare it with the two St. Michaels by Raphael, the early one in the Long Gallery: the later in the Salon Carré: note the general similarity of type, with the divergence in treatment. A little behind, again, half seen, stands St. Andrew, who was both Andrea Mantegna’s own namesake, and also one of the patrons of Mantua. He has an important church dedicated in his honour in that town—a Renaissance church, by Leon Battista Alberti: and in this church of his patron, Mantegna himself is buried. For the altar-piece of this same church, which he had doubtless selected beforehand for his own last resting-place, the great artist also painted a representation of the risen Saviour, with St. Andrew holding the cross of his martyrdom on one side, and St. Longinus (of whom more shortly) with his spear on the other. Thus there was every reason both why St. Andrew should be represented in a picture painted for the Marquis of Mantua, and why he should more particularly appear in a work by Andrea Mantegna. As one of the patron saints of town and painter, he naturally had his share in the thanksgiving for the victory. His features in this picture and in the one at Mantua are closely similar. Mantegna, indeed, imitated an older type, which he made his own, and reproduced like a portrait. Note that St. Andrew bears a cross as his symbol.

On the other side of the Madonna, St. Elizabeth kneels in the foreground, representing, I think, the patron saint of the Marchesa, Gonzaga’s wife, who was Isabella d’Este, sister of Duke Alfonso of Ferrara. (Isabella and Elisabeth are always regarded as variants of the same name.) Now in the chapel of St. Longinus in the church of St. Andrea at Mantua, aforesaid, where Mantegna is buried, he also painted a Madonna, with this same St. Elizabeth, holding the infant St. John Baptist, while the child Christ blesses him: no doubt a votive offering from Isabella. Here again we have a type of St. Elizabeth repeated in this picture. Behind St. Elizabeth stands the exquisitely wistful St. George, the patron saint of the Venetian territory, representing the part borne by Venice and her dependencies in the war of expulsion: the patron receives the thanks of his faithful votaries. (Mrs. Jameson thinks this figure is St. Maurice, another military saint, and patron of Mantua: comparison with various St. Georges and St. Maurices elsewhere makes me disagree with her. Besides, St. George’s lance is often broken, as here: you can note it so in the Raphael of the Long Gallery.) In the background stands St. Longinus, a Roman soldier, distinguishable by his lance and antique helmet. According to tradition, Longinus was the centurion who pierced the side of Christ: you see him so in the famous Rubens (called the Coup de Lance) at Antwerp, and in almost every mediæval Crucifixion or Calvary. (Look out for him in future.) When he saw the wonders which accompanied the Passion, we are told in scripture that he exclaimed, “Truly this man was the Son of God.” Later legend made him be converted, after being afflicted with sudden blindness, and undergo a singular voluntary martyrdom. His relics were brought to Mantua in the 11th century, and he has ever since been the chief patron saint of that city. Mantegna painted him often, and sometimes made a type of him. In the picture already described in the chapel of St. Longinus, he answers, as here, to St. Andrew, and wears a classical costume, on which the painter has lavished his usual care and minute accuracy of drawing. Notice him also in the foreground of Mantegna’s Crucifixion in the Salon Carré, bearing his spear—where, however, the type is not followed as usual. Thus not one of the characters grouped around the Madonna in this exquisite picture is without its full relevancy and meaning.

Do not overlook in this military votive offering the preponderance of soldier saints, and their appearance under arms, to commemorate the victory.

Observe also the way in which St. George and St. Michael hold the Madonna’s mantle, so as to enclose or embrace Gonzaga and his wife’s patroness, St. Elizabeth. This is a symbol of the Madonna’s protection: in what is called a Madonna della Misericordia Our Lady’s robe thus shelters numerous votaries. So, at Cluny, you will find a sculptured St. Ursula (in Room VI) sheltering under her mantle as many of the 11,000 Virgins as the sculptor could manage—as she also does in the Memling at Bruges.

On the æsthetic side, note once more the marked distinction which Mantegna draws between the historical portrait of the kneeling Gonzaga—a most ruthless ruffian—and the ideal figures of saints by whom he is surrounded. Remark, again, the angelic sweetness of the round-faced St. Michael, contrasted with the purely human look of longing and strife, and the guarded purity in the countenance of the St. George—who almost foreshadows Burne-Jones and Rossetti. Observe, too, how this romantic saint serves as a foil to the practical Roman Longinus, with his honest and sober face, and his soldierly sense of duty. Study the melting tones of colour throughout, and contrast the simple devotional calm of this religious work with the rapidity and movement of the mundane Mars and Venus beside it. Do not overlook a single detail; every hand and foot, every surface of metal, every fruit and flower is worthy of attention.

As always, I have only tried here to explain this picture, not to make you admire it. But the longer you look at it the more you will be charmed by its wonderful colour, its poetic grace, and the exquisite beauty of its drawing and composition.

Now, still in the same connection, go on into the Long Gallery, and look, near Andrea del Sarto’s Holy Family, at a mannered and theatrical picture of the Nativity by Giulio Romano. This is not a Nativity simple, but one with selected saints looking on: it was painted for the altar-piece of the altar of the Chapel of St. Longinus in Sant’ Andrea at Mantua—the same in which Mantegna had earlier painted the Longinus pictures noted above. The central portion of this altar-piece consists of a tolerably conventional Nativity, with the adoring shepherds, Raphaelized by Giulio Romano (who was Raphael’s favourite pupil) in accordance with the ideas of the early 16th cent. (It is interesting to note, by the way, the nature of these modifications.) In the background is the herald angel appearing to the shepherds: this scene, prior in time to the other, was often so represented in the same picture or carving: look out for it elsewhere, and also for such non-contemporaneous episodes in general. But the attendant saints, to right and left, looking on at the sacred scene, are St. John the Evangelist (known by his chalice and serpent) and St. Longinus. The last-named holds in his hands a crystal vase—a pyx or reliquary, containing the sacred blood of Christ, which Longinus caught as it fell, and which was brought with the rest of the relics to Mantua, and preserved in the very chapel for which this picture was intended. Compare this dull Longinus with the two by Mantegna in this collection: and when you visit Mantua, remember that these pictures came from these two churches. By thus interweaving your facts, you will get a far clearer conception in the end of the connection of art than you can possibly do if you regard the various works in pure isolation.

But what was Giulio Romano doing at Mantua? After Raphael’s death, his pupils were dispersed; and this his favourite follower settled down in the service of Duke Federigo Gonzaga (the first Duke—the earlier lords were Marquises), for whom he decorated the Palazzo del Tè, with its grotesque Titans. Primaticcio and Niccolo dell’ Abbate, pupils again of Giulio’s, were educated at Mantua, and afterwards summoned by François I^er to France, where they became the founders of the School of Fontainebleau. They thus passed on the Raphaelesque traditions into the French capital. It is partly for this reason that I have selected for my first examples this particular Mantuan group of paintings, in order that you may realise the close interaction of French and Italian politics, and the continuity of the Italian with the French Renaissance.

It is worth while, too, to enquire how the different pictures came into this collection. The Madonna della Vittoria, we saw, was brought as a trophy of war from Italy by Napoleon. The Giulio Romano, after hanging for some time in the chapel at Mantua, for which it was painted, was shortly annexed by the Duke of Mantua, who sold it to Charles I of England. That king formed a noble collection of Italian and Flemish works, which, after his execution, was sold by the Commonwealth for a very small price to a dealer named Jabach, who in his turn disposed of most of the pictures to Louis XIV; they formed the nucleus of the Louvre collection. Look out for these works of which Puritan England thus deprived herself, and see how considerable a portion they form of the earlier treasures of this Gallery.

Lastly, return once more to the Mantegnas in the Salle des Primitifs, and notice that the so-called Parnassus—that is to say, the Mars and Venus discovered by Vulcan—as well as the Vices conquered by Wisdom, and the companion pieces by Perugino and Costa, were all painted for Isabella d’Este-Gonzaga, to decorate her boudoir at Mantua. Of these works, I think Mantegna’s are the oldest, and struck the keynote for figures and treatment. For after Mantegna’s death, the Ferrarese painter, Costa, was invited from Isabella’s home to become court-painter at Mantua: and the Perugino is one in that master’s latest manner, most tinged with the Renaissance. Giulio Romano, again, succeeded Costa. If you will now compare Mantegna’s two works in this series with his others in this Gallery, you will be able to form a clearer conception of his admirable fancy, his unvarying grace, and his perfect mastery of execution: while if you contrast them with those by the two contemporary artists—the Umbrian Perugino and the Ferrarese Costa—you will be enabled to observe what was the common note of these early Renaissance masters, and what their distinctive individual characteristics. In particular, you may notice in these works, when looked at side by side with those of earlier painters, the enormous advance Mantegna had made in anatomy and in perspective. He is the scientific painter of Upper Italy, as Leonardo is the scientific painter of Florence.

These four pictures again made their way to the Louvre by a different route. They were captured at the sack of Mantua in 1630, and originally came to France to decorate the château of Cardinal Richelieu.

Once more, Duke Alfonso d’Este, Isabella’s brother, is the person whom you see in the portrait by Titian in the Salon Carré, together with his mistress Laura Dianti, painted about 1520. Familiarity with such facts alone can give you any adequate idea of the extraordinary rapidity in the development of art and the modernization of Italy in the 16th century.

For my next example I will take a quite obscure and unnoticed picture, also in the Salle des Primitifs, Giovanni Massone’s altar-piece in three compartments, number 261.

Savona is an unimportant little town between Nice and Genoa, chiefly noteworthy at the present day as the junction for a branch line to Turin. But in the 15th and 16th centuries it was a flourishing place, which gave employment to many distinguished Piedmontese and Lombard artists, the most famous of whom were Foppa and Brea. It also gave birth to two famous popes, Sixtus IV and Julius II, the latter of whom is familiar to most of us from the magnificent portrait by Raphael, three replicas of which exist, in the Uffizi and the Pitti Palace in Florence, and in the National Gallery in London. Sixtus IV erected for himself a superb sepulchral chapel in his native town of Savona: go and see it, if you pass by there, as well as the modern statue of the pope erected by his fellow-citizens. From that chapel this picture, by an otherwise unknown artist, has been abstracted and brought here. We know its author merely by the signature he has placed on a cartellino or strip of paper in the picture itself: Joh[ann]es Mazonus de Alex[andri]a pinxit—shewing that he was born in the Piedmontese town of Alessandria. For the rest, he is a mere name to us.

The picture itself, by no means a masterpiece, has in its centre the Nativity, designed in the usual conventional fashion, and in a somewhat antiquated Lombard style. The Madonna and St. Joseph have very solid haloes: the action takes place in a ruined temple, as often, symbolising the triumph of Christianity over heathendom. In the background are a landscape, and some pleasing accessories. But the lateral subjects give it greater interest. In the compartment to the L stands St. Francis of Assisi, in his usual brown Franciscan robe, as protector of Sixtus IV, who kneels beside him. Notice this way of marking the name of a donor, for the pope was Cardinal Francesco della Rovere. Observe too the stigmata, as far as visible, and compare this much later figure of St. Francis with those in the picture by Giotto and its two imitators. On the R stands a second Franciscan saint, also in the coarse brown garb of his order—the same in whose church Andrea Mantegna studied Donatello, and whom we have seen more than once during our Parisian excursions holding in his arms the infant Christ—St. Antony of Padua. He lays his hand on the shoulder of a second votary—the Cardinal della Rovere, afterwards the stern and formidable pope, Julius II. If you know the National Gallery and the Vatican, see whether you can recognise an earlier stage of the same features which occur in the famous portrait, and also in the figure of the pope, borne on the shoulders of his stalwart attendants into the temple at Jerusalem, in a corner of the famous fresco of the Expulsion of Heliodorus.

Recollect, again, that it was for the tomb of this same Pope Julius II that Michael Angelo produced the two so-called Fettered Slaves, which you have seen or will see in the Renaissance Sculpture Room of this collection. Weave your knowledge together in this way, till it forms a connected whole, which enables you far better to understand and appreciate.

I call your special attention to this picture, among other things, for its historical rather than its artistic value. But I want you also to realise that the man who was painted in this rude and antiquated style in his middle age was painted again in his declining years by Raphael at the summit of his powers, and was a patron of the mighty Michael Angelo at the zenith of his development. This will help to impress upon you better than anything else the necessity for carefully noting chronology, and will also supply a needed caution that you must not regard any work as necessarily early on no better ground than because it is comparatively archaic in style and treatment.

Next inspect the two little companion pictures of St. George and St. Michael by Raphael, on the R wall of the First Compartment in the Long Gallery. These two small works are rare examples of Raphael’s very earliest pre-Peruginesque manner. Morelli has shewn that the great painter was first of all a pupil of Timoteo Viti at Urbino, his native town. If you have not visited Bologna and Milan, however, this will tell you little; for nowhere else can you see Timoteo to any great advantage; and I may observe here that the best time to visit the Louvre is after you have been in Italy, where you ought to have formed a clear conception of the various masters and their relations to one another. But you can see at least, on the face of them, that these two simple and graceful little works are quite different in style and manner even from the Belle Jardinière, and certainly very unlike the much later St. Margaret which hangs close by them. They are still comparatively mediæval in tone: they have a definiteness and clearness of outline which contrasts strongly with the softer melting tones of Raphael’s later work: they show as yet no tinge of the affected prettinesses which he learned from Perugino—still less of his later Florentine and Roman manners. They are painted on the back of a chess or draught board, and were produced for Duke Guidobaldo of Urbino about the year 1500.

Look first at the St. George. The subject here is the Combat with the Dragon; and Raphael, in representing it, has strictly followed the conventional arrangement of earlier painters. No earlier picture for comparison with his treatment exists in this Gallery, though there are plenty elsewhere: but if you will look downstairs at the majolica relief of the same subject in the Della Robbia Room of the Renaissance Sculpture Gallery, you will see how closely Raphael’s work corresponds with earlier representations of the same pretty myth. As you will now have learned, there is always a regular way to envisage every stock subject: whoever produced a Combat of St. George with the Dragon was compelled by custom and the expectations of his patron to include these various elements—a St. George in armour, on horseback, the horse usually white, as here: a wounded dragon, most often to the right: the Princess running away in terror in the distance, or at least crouching abjectly. There is a Tintoretto of this subject, indeed, in the National Gallery, where some critics have blamed the great Venetian painter for making the Princess look away in terror, instead of turning with gratitude to thank her brave preserver. But the conventional representation demanded that the Princess should flee or cower: people were accustomed to that treatment of the theme, and expected always to see it repeated. It was their notion of a St. George. We must set down a great deal in early art to this sense of expectation on the part of patrons. Tintoretto, who came much later than Raphael, after the mighty Renaissance painters had accustomed the world to put up with, or even to look for, novelty of composition, often ventured very largely to depart from traditional motives. In his picture, therefore, the Princess occupies the foreground—a most revolutionary proceeding—while the action itself is relegated somewhat to the middle distance. But if you compare the three representations of this scene to be found in the Louvre—this picture and the two reliefs by Della Robbia and Michel Colombe respectively—you will see that the Princess in earlier times is always represented quite small in the distance, and is usually running away, or at best kneeling with clasped hands in abject terror.

In the Raphael, the dragon is already wounded: but he has broken the saint’s lance, with part of which he is transfixed, while the remainder lies in fragments on the ground behind him. St. George on his prancing steed is drawing his sword to finish off the monster. In the Michel Colombe, on the other hand (downstairs in the French Renaissance Sculpture), the dragon is biting at the lance, which explains why it is broken here, and also why the St. George in Mantegna’s Madonna holds a broken shaft as his emblem or symbol. Observe, however, that while the French sculptor, with questionable taste, makes the dragon occupy the larger part of the field, so as somewhat to dwarf St. George and his steed, the Italian sculptor, and still more the Italian painter, have shewn greater tact in treating the dragon as a comparative accessory, and concentrating attention upon the militant saint, combating with spiritual arms the evil demon. In this picture, as Mrs. Jameson well observes, the conception is on the whole serenely allegorical and religious in spirit. But Raphael himself painted a second St. George, at a later date, for the Duke of Urbino to present to Henry VII of England. In this other picture, which is now in the Hermitage at St. Petersburg, St. George is treated rather as the patron saint of England than as the Champion of Right—to mark which fact he wears the Order of the Garter round his knee, with its familiar motto. As Champion of England, he is rushing on the monster with fiery energy: the picture is in this case more military than spiritual. The moment chosen is the one where he is just transfixing the dragon with his lance: the rescued Princess is here again in the background.

Note once more that these various works are pictures of the combat of St. George with the Dragon. In devotional pictures of the Madonna, St. George frequently stands by Our Lady’s side, in accordance with the wishes of the particular donor, as patron saint of that person himself, or of his town or family. In Venetian pictures, as we have seen, he is very frequent, being one of the patron saints of Venice, and more particularly of the Venetian army and the conquered territory. You will find it interesting, after you have finished the examination of the two Raphaels, to go round the devotional Italian pictures in the Salle des Primitifs, the Long Gallery, and the Salon Carré, in order to note his various appearances. He is usually marked by his lance and his armour: the absence of wings (a point not always noticed by beginners) will enable you at once to discriminate him from St. Michael—as man from angel. The more you learn to look out for such recurrences of saints, and to account for the reasons for their appearance, the more will you understand and enjoy picture galleries, and the more will you throw yourself into the devotional mediæval atmosphere which produced such pictures.

Now turn to the second little Raphael. This represents the closely cognate subject of St. Michael and the Dragon—the angelic as opposed to the human counterpart. The two ideas are at bottom identical—the power of good overcoming evil; the true faith combating heathendom. It is a world-wide myth, occurring in many forms—as Horus and Typhon, as Perseus, as Bellerophon. Hence Michael and George, the superhuman and the human soldier of right, often balance one another, as in these two pictures: you have seen them doing so already in the Madonna della Vittoria: look out for them elsewhere in this conjunction. Both are knights; both are in armour; but one is a man and the other an angel. In this second little picture, St. Michael is seen, clad in his usual gorgeous mail, treading on the neck of the dragon and menacing it with his sword. The dark and lurid landscape in the background contains many fearful forms of uncertain monsters: condemned souls are plagued in it by demons, while a flaming town flares murkily towards heaven in the far distance, the details being taken, as in many such works, from Dante’s Inferno. Or rather, they and the Inferno represent the same old traditional view of Hades. (The figures weighed down with leaden cowls are the hypocrites, while the thieves are tormented by a plague of serpents.) Close comparison of these two little works will give you a good idea of Raphael’s earliest Urbino manner. This fantastic picture, however, though full of imagination, is by no means so pleasing as the dainty St. George beside it.

Go straight from this combat to the Great St. Michael, also by Raphael, in the Salon Carré. It bears date 1518. Pope Leo X commissioned Raphael to paint this picture as a present for François I^er: the painter—to whom he left the choice of subject—chose St. Michael, the military patron of France, and of the Order of which the king was Grand Master. (You will find a bronze bust of François, wearing the collar and pendant of St. Michael, in the Renaissance Sculpture.) He chose it also, no doubt, because it enabled him to show his increased mastery over life and action. This great and noble picture, one of the finest as regards dramatic rapidity ever painted by Raphael, is celebrated for the instantaneous effect of its movement. (Compare the demoniac boy in the Transfiguration at the Vatican.) The warrior archangel has just swooped down through the air, and, hovering on poised wings, is caught in the very act of setting one foot lightly on the demon’s shoulder. The dragon, writhing, tries in vain to lift his head and turn on his conqueror. The noble serenity of the archangel’s face, the perfect grace of his form and attitude, the brilliant panoply of his celestial armour, the sheen of his wings, the light tresses of his hair floating outward behind him (as of one who has traversed space on wings of lightning) cannot fail to be remarked by every spectator. This is Raphael in the fulness of his knowledge and power, yet far less interesting to the lover of sacred art than the boy Raphael of Urbino, the dreamy Raphael of the Sposalizio at Milan, the tender Raphael of the Gran Duca at Florence, or of the Belle Jardinière in this same apartment. Notice that with the progress of Renaissance feeling the demon is now no longer a dragon but a half-human figure, with horns and serpent tail, and swarthy red in colour. He is so foreshortened as not to take up any large space in the composition, which is mainly filled by the victorious figure of the triumphant archangel. The more classical armour bespeaks the High Renaissance. The longer you compare these two extreme phases of Raphael’s art, the more will you note points of advance between them—technical advance, counterbalanced by moral and spiritual retrogression.

End by comparing this St. Michael with Mantegna’s, and with the playful Leonardesque archangel in the Vierge aux balances, the last point in the degeneracy of a celestial conception.

Raphael is one of the painters who can best be studied at the Louvre, with comparatively little need for aid from elsewhere.

Pay a special visit to the Louvre one day in order to make a detailed study of Madonnas. Before doing so, however, read and digest the following general statement of principles on the subject.

[People who have not thrown themselves, or thought themselves, or read themselves into the mental attitude of early art, often complain that Italian picture galleries, and museums like Cluny, are too full of merely sacred subjects. But when once you have learnt to understand and appreciate them, to know the meaning which lurks in every part, you will no longer make this causeless complaint. As well object to Greek art that it represents little save the personages of Greek mythology. As a matter of fact, though the Louvre contains a fair number of Madonnas, it does not embrace a sufficient number to give a perfectly clear conception of the varieties of type and the development of the subject—not so good a series in many respects as the National Gallery, though it is particularly well adapted for the study of certain special groups, particularly the Leonardesque-Lombard development.

The simplest type of Madonna is that where Our Lady appears alone with the Divine Infant. This modification of the subject most often occurs as a half-length, though sometimes the Blessed Virgin is so represented in full length, enthroned, or under a canopy. Several such simple Madonnas occur in the Gallery. In the earliest examples here, however, such as Cimabue’s, and the cognate altar-piece of the School of Giotto, the Madonna is seen surrounded by angelic supporters. This forms a second group—Our Lady with Angels. Very early examples of this treatment show the angels in complete isolation, as a sort of framework. (See several parallels in sculpture in Room VI, ground floor, at Cluny.) Grouping as yet is non-existent. No specimen of this very original type is to be found in the Louvre; but in the Cimabue of this Gallery the angels are superimposed, so to speak, while in the Giottesque example close by an elementary attempt is made at grouping them. In later works, the angels are more and more naturally represented, from age to age, singly or in pairs, or else grouped irregularly on either side of Our Lady. You will note for yourself that as the Renaissance developes, the nature of the grouping, both of angels and saints, deviates more and more from the early strict architectural symmetry.

A slight variant on the simple pictures of the Madonna and Child are those, of Florentine origin, in which the infant St. John Baptist, the patron Saint of the City of Florence, is introduced at play with the childish Saviour. This class—the Madonna and Child, with St. John—is well represented in the Belle Jardinière, and several other pictures in the Louvre.

Most often, however, the Madonna is seen enthroned, in the centre of the altar-piece or composition, and surrounded by one, two, or three pairs of saintly personages. The Madonna with Saints thus forms a separate group of subjects. These saints, you will by this time have gathered, are never arbitrarily introduced. They were selected and commissioned, as a rule, by the purchaser, and they are there for a good and sufficient reason. Often the donor desired to pay his devotion in this fashion to his own personal patron; often to the patron of his town or village, of the church in which the picture was to be deposited, or of his family or relations. Frequently, again, the picture was a votive offering, as against plague or other dreaded calamity: in which case it is apt to contain figures of the great plague saints, Roch and Sebastian. Ignorant people often object that such sets of saints are not contemporary. They forget that this is the Enthroned Madonna, and that the action takes place in the Celestial City, where the saints surround the throne of Our Lady.

As regards grouping, in the earlier altar-pieces the selected saints were treated in complete isolation. Most often the Madonna and Child occupy in such cases a central panel, under its own canopy; while the saints are each enclosed in a separate little alcove or gilded tabernacle. Reminiscences of this usage linger long in Italy. Later on, as art progressed, painters began to feel the stiffness of such an arrangement: they placed the attendant saints at first in regularly disposed pairs on either side the throne, and afterwards in something approaching a set composition. With the High Renaissance, the various figures, instead of occupying mere posts round the seat of Our Lady, and gazing at her in adoration, began to indulge in conversation with one another, or to take part in some more or less animated and natural action. This method of arrangement, which culminates for the Florentine school in Fra Bartolommeo, degenerates with the Decadence into confused and muddled groups, with scarcely a trace of symbols—groups of well-draped models, in which it is impossible to see any sacred significance. The Florentine painters preferred, as a rule, such rather complex grouping: the Venetians, influenced in great part by the severer taste of Giorgione and of Titian, usually show a more simple arrangement.

Any one of these various types of Madonna may also be modified by the introduction of a kneeling donor. Thus, Van Eyck’s glowing picture of the Chancellor Rollin adoring Our Lady is an example of the simple Madonna and Child, enthroned, accompanied by the donor; though in this case, the composition is further slightly enriched by the dainty little floating angel in the background, who places an exquisitely jewelled crown of the finest Flemish workmanship on the head of the Virgin. The Madonna della Vittoria, again, which we have so fully considered, is essentially a Madonna and Saints, with the kneeling donor. In very early pictures, you will observe that the donors are often painted grotesquely small, while Our Lady and the Saints are of relatively superhuman stature, to mark their superiority as heavenly personages. In later works, this absurdity dies out, and the figure and face of the donor become one of the recognised excuses for early portrait painting. Indeed, portraiture took its rise for the modern world from such kneeling figures.

Another point of view from which it is interesting to compare these various Madonnas is that of the Nationality or School of Art to which they belong. The early Italian representations of Our Lady are usually more or less girlish in appearance, refined in features, and comparatively simple in dress and decoration. The Flemish type is peculiarly insipid, one might often say, even with great artists, inane and meaningless; in the hands of minor painters, it becomes positively wooden. The face here is long and rather thin; the features peaky. The Madonna of Flemish art, indeed, like the Christ of all art, is a sacred type which is seldom varied. Early French Madonnas, once more, are regal and ladylike, sometimes even courtly. They wear crowns as queens, and are better observed in the Louvre in sculpture than in painting. This Gallery hardly suffices to note in full the peculiarities of the sub-types in various Italian schools; but they may still be recognised. Of these, the Florentine are spiritual, delicate, and strongly ideal; the Lombard, intellectual, like well-read ladies; the Venetian, stately and matronly oligarchical mothers, degenerating later into the mere aristocratic nobility, soulless and materialised, of Titian and his followers. The Umbrians and Sienese are distinguished for the most part by their pure and saintly air of fervent piety.

Do not confound with any of these devotional Madonnas, with or without select groups of saints, various other classes of picture which somewhat resemble them. Each of these has in early art its own proper convention and treatment: it was a recognised species. A Holy Family, for example, consists, as a rule, of a Madonna, the Infant Christ, St. Joseph, St. Elizabeth, and the child Baptist. Like the other subjects, it is sometimes complicated by the addition of selected Saints as spectators or assessors. A Coronation of the Virgin, again, is an entirely celestial scene, taking place in the calm of the heavenly regions. The Madonna is usually crowned by her Son, but sometimes by angels or by the Eternal Father. (Several interesting examples of this, for comparison, occur in Room VI, ground floor, at Cluny.) Nativities, of course, belong rather to the group of pictorial histories, such as the Life of Christ, or the Seven Joys of Mary. The sculptures in the ambulatory at Notre-Dame give one a good idea of such continuous histories.

One interesting set of Madonnas, largely exemplified here, to take a particular example, is the later Lombard type of the School of Leonardo. This type, well distinguished by its regular oval features, its gentle smile of inner happiness, and its peculiar waving hair with wisps over the shoulders, is usually regarded as essentially belonging to Leonardo himself and his immediate followers. It is foreshadowed, however, by Foppa, Borgognone, and other early Lombard painters, specimens of whom are not numerous in the Louvre. Leonardo, when he came to Milan to Ludovico Sforza, adopted this local type, which he transfused with Florentine grace and with his own peculiar subdued smile, as one sees it already in the Mona Lisa. From Leonardo, again, it was taken, with more or less success, by his immediate pupils, Beltraffio, Solario, Cesare di Sesto, and others, as well as by Luini, who was not a pupil of Leonardo himself, but who was deeply influenced by the master’s methods and his works in Milan. The number of these Leonardesque Madonnas in the Louvre is exceptionally great, while Leonardo himself can here be better estimated than in Italy. Nowhere else perhaps, save possibly at Milan, can this type as a whole be compared by the student to so great advantage.

While the Madonna herself usually occupies the central panel of votive pictures, it sometimes happens that some other saint is, on his own altar-piece, similarly enthroned; and in that case he is flanked by brother saints, often more important in themselves, but then and there subordinated to him. This special honour under special circumstances is well seen in the case of the St. Lawrence at the far end of the Salle des Primitifs. Particular local saints often thus receive what might otherwise appear undue recognition. For the same reason, minor saints in the group surrounding a Madonna often obtain local brevet-rank (if I may be allowed the simile) over others of far greater general dignity, which they could not lay claim to in any other connection. Thus, in the Nativity by Giulio Romano, to which I called attention in connection with Mantegna’s Madonna, St. Longinus (with his crystal vase) stood on Our Lady’s R, while St. John was relegated to her L—a subordination of the greater to the lesser saint which would only be possible in a chapel actually dedicated to St. Longinus, and where he receives peculiar honour. I now propose to escort you round a few rooms of the Louvre, again calling attention very briefly, from this point of view, to certain special Madonna features only.]

Now, go to the Louvre and test these remarks. Begin at the far end of the Salle des Primitifs. The Cimabue and the Giottesque of the Madonna and Angels we have already considered. Compare them again from our present standpoint. Close to them on the R, beneath the large Giotto of St. Francis, are two pretty little Madonnas, 1620 (I now give the large upper numbers alone) and 1667. The first of these exhibits below two tiny votaries—the small-sized donors—a Franciscan monk and a Dominican nun, with the robes of their orders; the centre consists of St. Paul and St. Catherine, as the attendant saints on the large Enthroned Virgin. The second has the choir of angels, both surrounding and beneath the throne, with St. Peter (keys), St. Paul (sword), St. John Baptist (camel-hair) and St. Stephen or St. Vincent (robed as deacon). St. Peter and St. Paul in 1625 are similar figures, once surrounding a central panel, with the Madonna now missing. Compare with this 1666, with its Enthroned Madonna of the early almond-eyed type, its group of angels round the throne, and its two saints at the base, John Baptist and Peter. Observe that the types of these also can be recognised. Each saint has regular features of his own, which you can learn to know quite as well as the symbols.

Higher up, 1664, another Madonna and Child, Enthroned, with similar angels, but with the addition of the figure of St Catherine of Alexandria, on whose finger the Christ is placing a ring. This is an early intermediate type of the Marriage of St. Catherine, hardly yet characterized. Most of these Madonnas have the characteristic softness and peculiar cast of countenance of the early School of Siena.

1279, Gentile da Fabriano, is almost a simple Madonna and Child, but for the addition of the smaller donor, Pandolfo Malatesta, Lord of Rimini. This picture shows the bland and round-faced Umbrian type which is closely allied to that of Siena. Both Schools are remarkable for the fervent pietism which blossomed out in full in St. Francis of Assisi and St. Catherine of Siena.

In the beautiful Perugino above, 1564, note the complete transformation in the later Umbrian school of the adoring angels into a graceful pair, and the beginning of an attempt to group in comparatively natural attitudes the accompanying saints, Rose and Catherine.

This feature is still more marked in 1565, also Perugino, (but later) where the Baptist and St. Catherine, well composed, are thrown into the background behind the Madonna. Observe that while earlier piety drapes the Child, in Gentile and still more in Perugino, the growing love for the nude begins to exhibit itself. A study of haloes is also interesting.

On the opposite or R side, 1315 is a good example of the simple Enthroned Madonna of the School of Giotto. Compare it with that next it, 1316, where the angels are grouped with some attempt at composition.

1397, by Neri di Bicci, is also a characteristic half-length simple Madonna, with the Child still draped after the earlier fashion affected by this belated follower of Giottesque models.

1345, beneath it, by Filippo Lippi or his school, shows a characteristic type of features which this painter introduced,—a modification of the older Florentine ideal: the face is said to be that of his model Lucrezia Buti, the nun with whom he eloped and whom he was finally permitted to marry. The angels in the background show well the rapid advance in the treatment of these accessories. Observe, as you pass, their Florentine lilies. Their features are like those of the Medici children, as seen in numerous works at Florence.

In 1295, by Botticelli, we get that individual painter’s peculiar mystical and somewhat languid type, while the angels are again like Medici portraits. Study these Botticellis for his artistic personality.

1344, by Filippo Lippi, next to it, exhibits Filippo’s very rounded faces, both in Madonna and angels. The type is more human. Here, again, we have the Florentine lily borne by the adoring choir, whose position should be compared as a faint lingering reminiscence of that in the Giottesques and the great Cimabue. Observe, at the same time, the division of the painting as a whole into three false compartments, a suggestion from the earlier type of altar-piece. At the Madonna’s feet are two adoring saints, difficult to identify—Florentine and local, probably. Do not fail to gaze close at the characteristic baby cherubs, perhaps Lucrezia’s. This picture should be compared in all its details with earlier pictures of angel choirs. It is a lovely work. Its delicate painting is strongly characteristic. The relief of the faces should be specially noted.

The Botticelli next it, 1296, introduces us to the infant St. John of Florence whom we meet again in the Belle Jardinière of Raphael’s Florentine period. Another young St. John close by is full of suggestions of Donatello in the Sculpture Gallery.

493, above the last but one, is a very characteristic Madonna of the Florentine school, closely resembling the type of Botticelli. This once more is a simple Madonna and Child, without accessories.

In 1662, the sanctity has almost disappeared and we get scarcely more than a purely human mother and baby.

On the opposite side, 4573, is a half-length by Perugino, the affected pose of whose neck and the character of whose face you will now recognise; the Madonna floats in an almond-shaped glory of cherubs, which indicates her ascent to heaven. Several similar subjects exist in sculpture at Cluny.

1540, Lo Spagna, is again a simple half-length Madonna, whose purely Umbrian type recalls both Perugino and the earlier examples. Compare the Peruginos, Raphaels, and Lo Spagnas here, and form from them some conception of the Umbrian ideal.

Of the Bellini beside it I have already spoken sufficiently. Observe, here, the absolute nudity of the Child, and the reduction of the angels to sweet little cherub heads among clouds in the background. The graceful arrangement of the attendant saints strikes a Bellini keynote: it was followed in later developments of this subject by Venetian painters. Such half-lengths are common among the School of Bellini.

The treatment by Cima, 1259, introducing landscape, and the peculiarly high Venetian throne, is one of a sort also very frequent for full-length Madonnas at Venice and in the Venetian territory. The grouping of the saints, also, is here transitional. Compare it with the exquisite Lorenzo di Credi opposite.

On the opposite wall, 1367, by Mainardi, shows us a Florentine face, the St. John of Florence, and the typical sweet-faced Florentine angels, holding lilies; in the background, a view of the city.

Cosimo Rosseli’s, 1482, has again the almond-shaped glory of cherubs, the nude Child, the typical Florentine face (which you may now recognise) and also characteristic Florentine angels; but its St. Bernard and the Magdalen are introduced on clouds after a somewhat novel fashion. The St. Bernard is writing down his vision of the Madonna.

I have already called attention to the beautiful grouping in 1263 by Lorenzo di Credi; but observe now that the exquisite attendant saints, almost statuesque in their clear-cut isolation, still show a reminiscence of the earlier arrangement in tabernacles by the Renaissance archways at their back, combined with the niche in which the Madonna is enthroned. Only by the light of Giottesque examples can we understand the composition of this glorious picture. We do not know the circumstances under which it was produced: but St. Julian was the patron saint of Rimini, as St. Nicolas was of Bari. Both these towns were great Adriatic ports: and I believe it was painted for a merchant of the neighbourhood.

Do not be content in any of these cases with observing merely the points to which I call definite attention; try to compare each work throughout in all its details with others like it. The evolution of the grouping, in fact, will give you endless hints as to the history and development of the art of composition. This picture of Lorenzo’s may be regarded as exemplifying the finest stage in such works: those of later date are less pure and severe—show a tendency to confusion.

This will be quite enough to occupy you for one day. Another morning, proceed into the Long Gallery, where you can similarly compare the High Renaissance types and the Leonardesque Madonnas of the later School of Lombardy.

In the little Madonna of the School of Francia, 1437, observe the position of the attendant saint, the new type of face proper to the art of Bologna, and the way in which, as often, the infant Christ is poised on a parapet.

1553, by Garofalo, shows a later and softer development of a somewhat similar (Ferrarese) type; but the Child, instead of blessing with his two fingers as in most early cases, here displays the growing Renaissance love of variety and novelty: he is asleep in his cradle. Observe his attitude in this and other instances. With all these changes, however, you cannot fail to be struck by the fairly constant persistence of the red tunic and the blue mantle of the Madonna, as well as by the nature of her head-dress in each great School. Never fail to observe the characteristic head-dresses in the various Schools of Italian art. They will help you, like the faces, to form types for comparison.

1353, by Luini, introduces us at once to the Lombard-Leonardesque class of face and hair. Compare it closely with the Madonnas in the frescoes in the Salle Duchâtel. The introduction of Joseph makes this in essence a Holy Family. Note Luini’s development of the halo of Christ, cruciform in early cases, or composed of a cross inscribed in a circle, into a cross-like arrangement of rays of light.

The two works by Marco da Oggiono, close by, betray similar types, far inferior to Luini’s, with further loss of primitive reverence.

In 1181, Borgognone’s Presentation, an earlier Lombard work, the Madonna faintly foreshadows this Leonardesque type, though the Leonardesque features are far less markedly present than in many other examples by this silvery painter.

1530, by Solario, the famous Madonna of the Green Cushion, may be compared with those by Marco da Oggiono, which it resembles in motive.

In 1599, La Vierge aux Rochers, we get Leonardo’s own personal type, which is also seen in the Madonna and St. Anne of the Salon Carré. Compare all these with the Mona Lisa, for touch and spirit. Then continue your examination through the rest of this room with the Leonardesque types: after which, turn to the School of Venice, beyond them, and note the evolution of the Titianesque types from the primitive Venetians.

On the opposite side of the same room, observe, once more, how Fra Bartolommeo and his School arranged their extremely complex groups of saints into a composition resembling a state ceremonial. From this point on in the evolution of the Santa Conversazione you will see that the arrangement of the saints entirely loses all sense of sacred meaning. Artificial ecstasies replace natural piety. An attempt to be artistic, and a desire to introduce a mode of treatment fitter for the theatre than for the church, at last entirely obscure the original meaning of these groups, which are so full of ardour in Fra Angelico, so full of stateliness in Lorenzo di Credi.

Another day may well be devoted to the quaintly girlish Madonnas of the Flemish School. Begin by observing carefully the Van Eyck of the Salon Carré, which is a Madonna with donor, and the Memling of the Salle Duchâtel, which is a Madonna with donors, not one with saints; the patrons here being merely brought in to introduce the votaries to Our Lady’s notice. From these, proceed to the Early Flemish section of the Long Gallery, and note in detail the evolution of the type in later pictures. I need hardly call attention to the Flemish love for crowns, jewellery, and costly adjuncts. These reflect the wealthy burgher life of Bruges, Ghent, and Antwerp. The translucent colour of the Flemish painters, too, lends itself well to these decorative elements.

The best example of an Early French Madonna is the beautiful one which hangs by the R hand side of the door in the Salon Carré, leading into the Salle Duchâtel. This exquisite figure, a true masterpiece of its School, should be compared with later French developments in painting, as well as with the admirable collection of plastic works of this School in the Renaissance Sculpture Gallery down stairs. With these may also be mentioned, as a typical French example, the famous miracle-working Notre-Dame-de-Paris, a statue of the thirteenth or fourteenth century, which stands under a canopy against the pillar by the entrance to the choir in the south transept of Notre-Dame, and is popularly regarded as the statue of Our Lady to which the church is dedicated. The close connection between royalty and religion in France, well exemplified in the number of saints of the royal house at St. Germain l’Auxerrois, St. Germain-des-Prés, St. Denis, and elsewhere, is markedly exhibited in the extremely regal and high-bred character always given to French Madonnas. The Florentine, which form in this respect the greatest contrast, are often envisaged as idealised peasant girls, full of soul and fervour, but by no means exalted.

Finally, note as far as is possible with the few materials in this collection, the round-faced, placid type of the German Madonna—placid when at rest, though contorted (as the Mater Dolorosa) with exaggerated anguish. The fine wooden statue in the room of the Limoges enamels at Cluny will help to strike the key-note for this somewhat domestic national ideal. The early German Madonna is as often as not just a glorified housewife.

Many other subjects for similar comparative treatment may be found in the Louvre. Pick out for yourself a special theme, such as, for example, the Adoration of the Magi, the Nativity, the Presentation in the Temple, or the Agony in the Garden, and try to follow it out through various examples. Choose also a saint or two, and pursue them steadily through their evolution. Do not think that to examine paintings in this way is to be absorbed by the subject rather than by the art of the painter. Only superficial observers fall into this error. You will find on the contrary that the characteristics of each School and of each artist can best be discovered and observed by watching how each modifies or alters pre-existing and conventional conceptions. In order to thoroughly understand any early picture, you must look at it first as a representation of such-and-such a given subject, for which a relatively fixed and conventional set of figures or accessories was prescribed by tradition. The number and minuteness of the prescribed accessories will grow upon you as you watch them. You have then to observe how each School as a whole treats such works; what feeling it introduces, towards what sort of modification in style or tone it usually tends. Next, you must consider it relatively to its age, as exemplifying a particular stage in the progress of the science and art of painting. Last of all you must carefully estimate what peculiarities are due to the taste, the temperament, the hand, and the technique of the individual artist. For example, Gerard David’s Marriage at Cana is thoroughly Flemish in all its details; while Paolo Veronese’s is thoroughly Venetian. You may notice the Flemish and Venetian hand, not merely in the figures and the composition as a whole, but even in the extraordinarily divergent treatment of such details as the jars in the foreground, which for David are painted with Flemish daintiness of detail, though coarse and rough in themselves; while Veronese approaches them with Venetian wealth of Renaissance fancy, both in decoration and handling. But the David, again, is not merely Flemish: it has the distinctive marks of that particular Fleming, and should be compared with his lovely portrait of a kneeling donor with his three patron saints in the National Gallery: while the Veronese is noticeable for the voluptuousness, the over-richness, the dash and spirit, of that large free master of the full Renaissance, the Rubens by comparison among the Venetians of his time. So too, if you study attentively the Botticellis in the Salle des Primitifs, you can notice a close similarity of type in many of his faces with the types in certain pictures by Filippo Lippi and still more in those by other Florentines of the same period; while you are yet even more distinctly struck by the intense individuality and refined spiritual feeling of this very original and soulful master.

In order to study the Louvre aright, in short, you must be continually comparing. In a word, regard each work, first, as a representation of such-and-such a subject, falling into its proper place in the evolution of its series: second, as belonging to such-and-such a school or nationality: third, as representing such-and-such an age in the historical evolution of the art of painting: fourth, as exhibiting the individuality, the style, the characteristics, the technique, and the peculiar touch of such-and-such an individual painter. Only thus can you study art aright in this or any other gallery.

Try this method on Van Eyck’s Madonna, on Titian’s Entombment, on Sebastiano del Piombo’s Visitation, and on Memling’s little John Baptist, which is one attendant saint from a triptych whose Madonna is missing.

Some other time, consider in detail the two delicately luminous frescoes by Luini, in the Salle Duchâtel. Before doing so, however, read on the spot the following remarks.

I have spoken here for the most part from the point of view of those visitors who have not travelled much in Italy or the Low Countries. And, as a matter of fact, the Louvre is the first great picture gallery on the Continent visited by nine out of ten English or Americans. In reality, however, since this collection contains several isolated masterpieces of all the great schools, together with several unconnected pictures of minor artists, it requires, almost more than any other great gallery, to be seen by the light of information acquired elsewhere. It ought, therefore, to be examined after as well as, and even more than, before visits to other countries. This collection, for example, includes works by Van Eyck, by Memling, by Giotto, by Fra Angelico. But Van Eyck can only be fully understood by those who have visited Ghent; Memling can only be fully understood by those who have visited Bruges: it is impossible really to comprehend Giotto unless you have seen his great series of frescoes in the Madonna dell’ Arena at Padua: it is impossible really to comprehend Fra Angelico unless you have examined the saintly and ecstatic works at San Marco in Florence. Thus you have to bear in mind that the works in the Louvre are only stray examples of masters and schools with whom an adequate acquaintance must be obtained elsewhere. It was for this reason that I began these notes with special examples of Mantegna, because he is one of the very few artists, other than French, of whom you can form some tolerably fair conception in Paris alone, to be pieced out afterwards by observation in Italy.

Furthermore, it must be recollected that many artists can only be seen to advantage under the conditions amid which their works were produced. This is especially the case with the Italian painters of the 14th and 15th centuries. They were a school of fresco-painters. Their altar-pieces and other separate panels give but a very inadequate idea of their powers, and especially of their composition. Giotto and Fra Angelico, in particular, cannot possibly be estimated aright by any of their works to be seen north of the Alps. The altar-pieces, being more especially sacred in character, were relatively very fixed in type: they allowed of less variation, less incident, less action, than the histories of saints which frequently form the subjects of frescoes. You can judge of this to a slight extent in the Louvre itself, by comparing the Madonnas at the far end of the Salle des Primitifs with Giotto’s St. Francis which hangs by: for the Madonna was the most sacred and therefore the most bound by custom of any type. You will at once observe how much freer and more naturalistic is the treatment in the episode of the Stigmata than in the comparatively wooden figures of Our Lady by which it is surrounded. Still more is this the case when we come to compare any of these altar-pieces with frescoes such as those of the Arena at Padua, or Santa Croce at Florence. Similarly with Fra Angelico: the little crowded works which he produced as altar-pieces give a totally different conception of his character and powers than that which we derive from the large and relatively spacious frescoes at San Marco, or in Pope Nicolas’s Chapel at the Vatican. In such works, we see him expand into a totally different manner. Now frescoes, by their very nature, cannot easily be removed from the walls of churches without great danger. Therefore, the school of fresco-painters—that is to say, the Early Italian school—is ill represented outside Italy.

Now Luini, though he belongs to the 16th century, and though he produced some of his most beautiful works as cabinet or panel pictures, was yet almost as essentially a painter in fresco as Fra Angelico or Ghirlandajo. He can best be appreciated in Milan and its neighbourhood. And I will add a few notes here for the benefit of those who know Italy, and who can recall the works they have seen in that country. At the Brera in Milan, an immense number of his frescoes, cut out from churches, can be seen and compared to great advantage. Everybody who has visited that noble gallery must recall at least the exquisite figure of St. Catherine placed in her sarcophagus by angels, as well as the lovely Madonna with St. Antony and St. Barbara, where the face and beard of the aged anchorite somewhat recall the treatment of the old bearded king in the Adoration of the Magi in this gallery. Still better can Luini’s work be understood by those who know the Sanctuary at Saronno, where a splendid series of his frescoes still exists on the wall of the great church in which they were painted. The two frescoes here in the Salle Duchâtel are not quite so fine either as those at Saronno or as the very best examples among the collection at the Brera. Nevertheless, they are beautiful and delicately-toned specimens of Luini’s work, and, if studied in conjunction with other pictures by the same artist in the adjoining rooms, they will serve to give a tolerably just conception of his style and genius.

Luini is essentially a Leonardesque painter. He was not actually a pupil of Leonardo; but like all other Lombard artists of his time, he was deeply influenced by the temperament and example of the Florentine master. If you wish to see the kind of work produced by the Lombard school before it had undergone this quickening influence of Leonardo,—been Tuscanised and Leonardised—look at the Borgognones in the Long Gallery. These, again, are not at all satisfactory specimens of that tender, delicate, and silvery colourist. To appreciate Borgognone as he ought to be appreciated, however, you must have seen him at home in the Certosa di Pavia: though even those who know only his exquisitely spiritual altar-piece of the Madonna with the two St. Catherines (of Alexandria and Siena) in the National Gallery will recognise how inadequately his work is represented by the specimens in the Louvre. Nevertheless, these examples, inferior though they be in style and feeling, will serve fairly well to indicate the point to which art had attained in Lombardy before the advent of Leonardo. I need not point out their comparatively archaic character, and their close following of earlier methods and motives. Again, if you compare with Borgognone the subsequent group of Leonardesque painters,—Solario and his contemporaries,—whose works hang close by on the left-hand wall of the Long Gallery, you will see how immense was the change which Leonardo introduced into Lombard art. From his time forward, the Leonardesque face, the peculiar smile, the crimped wisps of hair, the subtle tones of colour, and as far as possible the touch and technique of the master, are reproduced over and over again by the next generation of Milanese painters. Among them all, Luini stands preeminently forward as the only one endowed with profound original genius, capable of transfusing the Leonardesque types with new vitality and beauty of his own conceiving. The others are imitators: Luini is a disciple.

These attributes are well seen in the two beautiful frescoes of the Salle Duchâtel. They came to Paris from the Palazzo Litta, that handsome rococo palace in Milan which stands nearly opposite the church of San Maurizio, itself a museum of Luini’s loveliest frescoes, including the incomparable Execution of St. Catherine. The Adoration of the Magi is the most satisfactory of the two. In it the kings,—Caspar, Melchior, Balthasar,—representing, as ever, the three ages of man and the three old continents,—are treated with a grace and soul and delicacy which Luini has hardly surpassed even at Saronno. The eldest king, as most often, kneels next to the Madonna, who occupies the conventional R hand of the picture. He has removed his crown, also an habitual feature, and is presenting his gift, while the others are caught just before the act of offering theirs. The exquisite face of this eldest king is highly typical; so is the gently-smiling Leonardesque Madonna. The youngest king is represented as a Moor, as always in German, Flemish, and North Italian art, though this trait is rarer, if it occurs at all, in the Florentine and Central Italian painters. I take it that the notion of the Moor was derived from Venice; for the Three Kings were great objects of devotion in Lombardy and the Rhine country. Their relics, which now repose at Cologne, made a long stay on their way from the East at Milan; and it is to this fact, I fancy, that we must attribute the exceptional frequency of this subject in the art of Northern Italy, as of the Rhenish region. In the background, the usual caravans are seen descending the mountain. Such long trains of servants and attendants are commonly seen in Adorations of the Magi. Camels and even elephants frequently form part of them. Recollect the charming procession in the exquisite Benozzo Gozzoli in the Riccardi Palace. A study of this subject, from the simple beginnings in Giotto’s fresco in the Arena at Padua (where a single servant and a very grotesque camel, entirely evolved out of the painter’s imagination, form the sole elements of the cortège; beyond the Three Kings), down to the highly complex Ghirlandajo in the Uffizi at Florence, (a good copy of which may be seen at the École des Beaux-Arts,) and thence to Luini, Bonifazio and the later Italians, forms a most interesting subject for the comprehension of the historical evolution of art in Italy. Go straight from this picture to the Rubens in the Salon Carré in order to observe the way in which the theme has been treated, with considerable attention to traditional detail, yet with highly transformed feeling, by the great and princely Flemish painter.

The Nativity, in Luini’s second fresco, is also full of traditional features,—a beautiful work in the peculiar spirit of this gentle artist. Note every one of the accessories and details, observing how they have come from earlier pictures, and also how completely Luini has subordinated them to his own art and his delicate handling. Comparison of these two with the other Luinis in other rooms will give you some idea of his varying manners in fresco and oil-painting. Note that the frescoes represent him best, and are fullest of Luini.

Another picture, which in a wholly different direction exemplifies the need for knowledge of works of art elsewhere, and especially under the conditions in which they were originally painted, is to be found in Carpaccio’s Preaching of St. Stephen, on the R hand wall, shortly after you enter the Salle des Primitifs. This is one of a series of the Life of St. Stephen,—a form of composition of which the only good example in the Louvre is Lesueur’s insipid and colourless set, recounting the biography and miracles of St. Bruno. In Italy, such histories of saints are everywhere common, as frescoes or otherwise. Those who know Venice, for example, will well remember Carpaccio’s own charming series of the Life of St. Ursula, now well arranged round the walls of a single room in the Venice Academy. Still better will they understand the nature of these works if they have seen Carpaccio’s other delicious series of the Life of St. George, in San Giorgio dei Schiavoni, where the pictures still remain, at their original height from the ground, and in their original position, on the walls of the church for which they were painted. Only in such situations can works of this kind be properly estimated. That they can less easily be understood in isolation, you can gather if you look at the four cabinet pictures from the boudoir of Isabella d’Este, by Mantegna, Perugino, and Costa, which hang not far from this very St. Stephen in the same room of the Louvre. The size of the figures, in particular, is largely dictated by the shape of the room, the distance from the eye, and the character of the space which the painter has to cover.

This St. Stephen series, again, once existed entire as five pictures, all by Carpaccio, in the Scuola (or Guild) of St. Stephen at Venice. Similar sets of other saints still exist in the Scuola di San Rocco and other Guilds in the city. The first of the group, which represents the saint being consecrated as deacon by St. Peter, is now in the Berlin Gallery. The second, the Preaching of St. Stephen, is the one before which you are now standing. The third, St. Stephen disputing with the Doctors, is at the Brera in Milan. The fourth, the Martyrdom of St. Stephen, is at Stuttgardt. The fifth and last, St. Stephen Enthroned, between St. Nicolas and St. Thomas Aquinas, has disappeared from sight, or at least its present whereabouts is unknown to me. It is interesting to look out for such companion works in widely separated galleries.

Rightly to understand this picture, once more, one should know Carpaccio. And fully to know him one must have spent some time in Venice. But even without that knowledge, it is pleasant here to remark the familiar acquaintance with oriental life, which is equally visible in the neighbouring picture of the School of Bellini representing the reception of a Venetian Ambassador at Cairo. The mixed character of the architecture and the quaint accessories are all redolent of Carpaccio’s semi-mediæval and picturesque sentiment. The pellucid atmosphere, the apparent realism, the underlying idealism, the naïveté of the innocent saint in his deacon’s robes, counting his firstly, secondly, and thirdly on his fingers, irrespective of persecution, and the glow and brilliancy of the Venetian colouring, here approaching its zenith, all combine to make this daintily simple picture one of the most attractive in this part of the Louvre. Recollect it when you go to Milan and Venice, and let it fall into its proper place, in time, in your mature conception of the painter and the epoch in which he lived.

Nor is this all. It must be borne in mind that while the Louvre is one of the noblest collections of pictures in Europe, it differs from most other fine collections in the fact that its most important and valuable works are not of native origin, nor of one race, school, or period. The pictures at Florence are almost all Florentine: the pictures at Venice are almost all Venetian. At Bruges and Antwerp we have few but Flemish works: at the Hague and Amsterdam, few but Dutch. In the Louvre, on the contrary (as at Dresden and Munich), we get several masterpieces of all the great schools, with relatively few minor works of the groups to which they belong, by whose light to understand them. In short, this is a gallery of purple patches. The gems of the collection are the Raphaels, the Titians, the Leonardos, an exquisite Van Eyck, a splendid Memling, a few fine Murillos, a number of great Rubenses. To understand all these, we must know something of Florentine art, Umbrian art, Venetian art, Flemish art, Spanish art, and so forth. The finest pictures of any in the collection are not French at all, and cannot wholly be comprehended by the light of works in this gallery alone. Therefore it is best, if possible, to return to the Louvre after visiting every other great school of art in Europe. On the other hand, a few great artists are here very amply represented; among them I may particularise Raphael, Titian, Mantegna, Leonardo and the Leonardesque school, Gerard Dou, and Rembrandt.

As a further example of the light cast by pictures elsewhere on those in this Gallery, however, I prefer to take a single little subject from the predella of Fra Angelico’s glorious Coronation of the Virgin: I mean the compartment which represents St. Dominic and his brethren being fed by angels in the monastery of St. Sabina at Rome. Anybody who looks at Fra Angelico’s painting, even in these smaller works, can recognise at once his tender, saintly, and devout manner. He is permeated by a spirit of adoring reverence, which comes out in every one of his angels and martyrs. Fewer people, however, note that the angelic friar was also a loyal and devoted Dominican. Whatever he paints is to the glory of God: but it is also to the glory of St. Dominic and of the order that he founded. This beautiful altar-piece, for instance, was produced by the Dominican painter of Fiesole for the Dominican church of St. Dominic at Fiesole. The saint himself, with his little red star, is everywhere apparent: and those who have visited Fra Angelico’s own Dominican monastery of San Marco at Florence will recollect that the founder and his red star similarly occur in almost every fresco in that beautiful building. They will also recollect that this very subject of the brethren fed by angels forms the theme for a beautiful but much later fresco by Sogliani in the Great Refectory of the same monastery. Such an episode is admirably adapted for one of those large pictures representing a repast of some sacred character which it was usual to place on the end wall of conventual dining halls. Compare it also with a Spanish treatment of a similar miracle by Murillo, in the Cuisine des Anges. Note the simplicity and sobriety of the Early Italian work, as contrasted with the strained feeling and insistence upon mere effects of luminosity and glory in the showy Spanish painting. The moral of all such half-allegorical miracles is clearly this:—Our order is sustained by God’s divine providence.

I have said already that a German Last Supper in this collection (German Room) betrays the influence of Leonardo’s great fresco on the wall of the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie at Milan, of which an early copy by a pupil of Leonardo’s exists in the Louvre (L wall of the Long Gallery). But in order thoroughly to understand Leonardo’s Last Supper, again, we must similarly compare it with many previous representations of the same sacred scene. The type, in fact, was begun among nameless Byzantine and early Christian artists, whose work can best be studied in Italy. It found its first notable artistic expression in Giotto’s fresco at Santa Croce at Florence, where the traditional type is considerably transformed: and this Giottesque Last Supper was repeated over and over again by many copyists, who each introduced various modifications. Ghirlandajo once more transformed the type at San Marco and the Ognissanti; and from Ghirlandajo, Leonardo borrowed part of his arrangement, while transfusing it with an entirely new element of life and action, at a dramatic moment, which marks this great painter’s style, and is a distinct move forward in the art of composition. Each work of art down to the end of the 16th century can thus only be fully understood by considering it in its proper place, as one of a continuous evolutionary series. Every painter took much from those who went before: his individuality can best be gauged by observing how he transformed and modified what he borrowed.

Now take Ghirlandajo’s Visitation in the Salle des Primitifs as an example of a work which in quite a different way, requires to be understood by light from elsewhere. Note how admirably the figures here are balanced against the sky and the archway in the background. In itself, this is a beautiful and striking picture; but it is also a good illustration of those subjects which cannot adequately be understood by consideration of works in this Gallery alone. The attitudes and costumes of the two principal personages are strictly conventional: nay, if you compare the St. Elizabeth in this Visitation with the same saint in the Mantegna almost opposite, you will see that her dress and features remain fairly typical, even in two such very distinct schools as the Paduan and the Florentine. The relative positions of the Madonna and her elder cousin have come down to Ghirlandajo from a very remote antiquity: they were adopted, with modification, by Giotto, in his fresco of this subject in the Madonna dell’ Arena at Padua. But Giotto also introduced an arch in the background, which persists in almost all later representations. His arch, however, is blind—you do not see the sky through it. So is Taddeo Gaddi’s, in his closely similar Visitation at Santa Croce in Florence: but the figures here still more nearly approach the positions of the Ghirlandajo, and they stand more directly framed, as it were, by the arch behind them. Skipping many intermediate examples, each of which leads up to this picture, we come to this beautiful embodiment of Ghirlandajo’s, which, while retaining the simplicity of composition in the earlier examples, shows a fine artistic instinct in the way in which the chief characters are silhouetted in the gap of the archway. Ghirlandajo accepted the older tradition, while transforming it with the skill and taste of the early Renaissance after his own fashion. Those who have visited Florence will remember how Pacchiarotto, in his admirable presentation of the same subject, now in the Belle Arti in that town—which, like this one, is a Visitation with selected saints as spectators—has closely followed Ghirlandajo’s treatment with still further modifications: while the noble embodiment of the same scene by Mariotto Albertinelli, in the Uffizi, consists of the two central figures in the Ghirlandajo or the Pacchiarotto, cut out, as it were, and presented separately with noble effect against a background of sky seen through the archway. In such a case we see distinctly how the individual work can only fairly be judged as a development of motives borrowed from others which have preceded it, and how in turn it gives rise later to still further modifications of its own conception. If you have not yet visited Florence, bear in mind this work when you see the Pacchiorotto and the Albertinelli. It is a good plan for the purposes of such comparison to carry about photographs of other pictures in the same series. You may go straight from the Ghirlandajo here to the Sebastiano del Piombo in the Salon Carré; and thence again to a copy of Pontormo’s Visitation in the Long Gallery (R side, near the Fra Bartolommeo), which is interesting as showing a survival of the arch, treated with far less effect, and thrown away as an element in the composition. Here the attendant saints have become a confused crowd, and the degradation of Fra Bartolommeo’s balanced grouping is very conspicuous. Make one picture thus cast light upon another.

II. SCULPTURE

[The Sculpture at the Louvre falls into three main divisions, each of which is housed in a separate part of the building. The Classical Sculpture is approached by the same door as the Paintings, and occupies the basement floor of Jean Goujon’s part of the Old Louvre, with the wing beneath the Galerie d’Apollon. The Renaissance Sculpture is approached by a separate door in the eastern half of the same side, and occupies the corresponding suite opposite the Classical series. The Modern Sculpture is also approached by a special door in the north wing of the W side in the old Cour du Louvre, and occupies the suite beyond the Pavillon de l’Horloge.

The importance of these three divisions is very different. Without doubt, the most valuable collection, intrinsically and artistically speaking, is that of the Classical or Antique Sculpture: and this should be visited in close detail by all those who do not contemplate a trip to Rome, Naples, and Florence. Nobody can afford to miss the “Venus of Milo,” the “Diana of Gabii,” or the Samothracian Nikè. On the other hand, these exquisite Greek and Roman works, models of plastic art for all time, including two or three of the greatest masterpieces which have come down to us from antiquity, have yet no organic connection with French history, or even, save quite indirectly, with the development of French art. At the same time, thoroughly to understand them is a work for the specialist: those who have little or no classical knowledge, and who desire to comprehend them, must be content to buy the new official catalogue (not yet issued), to follow closely the excellent labels, and also to study the subject in detail in the various excellent handbooks of antique sculpture, such as Lübke’s or Gardner’s.

The discrimination of the different schools, and the evidence (usually very inferential) as to the affiliation of the various works on the great masters or their followers, are so much matters of expert opinion that I do not propose to enter into them here. I shall merely give, for the general reader, a brief account of the succession and evolution of antique plastic art, as exemplified in the various halls of this gallery, referring him for further and fuller details to specialist works on the subject.

The Renaissance Sculpture, on the other hand, is largely French; and, whether French or Italian, it bears directly on the evolution of Parisian art, and has the closest relations with the life of the people. Every visitor to Paris should therefore pay great attention to this important collection, which forms the best transitional link in Western Europe between Gothic Mediævalism and the modern spirit.

The collection of Modern Sculpture, again, is both artistically and historically far less important. It may be visited in an hour or two, and it is chiefly interesting as bridging the lamentable gap between the fine Renaissance work of the age of the later Valois, and the productions of contemporary French sculptors.]

I. ANTIQUE SCULPTURE

[Few or none of the most famous masterpieces of the great classical artists have come down to us with absolute certainty. The plastic works which we actually possess are for the most part those which have been casually preserved by accidental circumstances. Almost all the greatest productions of the greatest sculptors have either been destroyed or else defaced beyond recognition. We therefore depend for our knowledge of ancient sculpture either upon those works which were situated on comparatively inaccessible portions of huge buildings like the Parthenon and other temples, and which have consequently survived more or less completely the ravages of time, the mischief of the barbarian, and the blind fury of early Christian and Mahommedan fanatics; or else upon those which have been preserved for us in the earth, under the débris of burnt and ruined villas and gardens, or in the ashes of buried cities like Pompeii. Under these circumstances, the wonder is that so much of beautiful and noble should still remain to us. This is mainly owing to the fact that in antiquity a fine model, once produced, was repeated and varied ad infinitum,—much as we have seen at Cluny and in the paintings upstairs each principal scene from the Gospels or the legends of the saints, once crystallized by custom, was reproduced over and over again with slight alterations by many subsequent artists. The consequence is that most of the statues in this department fall into well-marked groups with other examples here or elsewhere. We have not the originals, in most cases, but we have many copies; and few of these copies are servile reproductions: more often, they show some touch of the individual sculptor. The best antiques are therefore generally those which happen most nearly to approach in spirit and execution a great and famous original. (See later, for example, the Apollo Sauroctonus.) You must compare these works one with another, in this collection and elsewhere, in this spirit, recollecting that often even an inferior variant represents in certain parts the feeling of the original far better than another and generally finer example may happen to do. Nay, such splendid works as the so-called Venus of Milo itself must thus be regarded rather as fortunate copies or modifications of an accepted type by some gifted originator than as necessarily originals by the best masters. With the exception of the few fragments from the Parthenon by Pheidias and his pupils, hardly anything in this gallery can be set down with certainty to any first-class name of the very best periods. But many statues can be assigned to groups which took their origin from certain particular famous sculptors: we know the school, though not the artist. And several are judged by the descriptions of ancient writers to be copies or variants of works assigned to sculptors of the first eminence.

Many of the statues found in the Renaissance period, and up to the close of the eighteenth century, have been freely and often injudiciously restored: others have really antique heads, which do not however in every case belong to them. Not a few have been considerably altered and hacked about in the course of restoration, or of arbitrarily supplying them with independent faces. This reprehensible practice has not been followed in more recent additions such as the “Venus of Milo” and the Samothracian Nikè.]

Enter by the same door as for the paintings. Proceed along the corridor (Galerie Denon) and dive, right or left, under the great staircase. (Good new room to the R, containing excellent Roman mosaics from French North Africa.) Pass some good sarcophagi and other objects, and enter the Rotonde, which contains for the most part works of a relatively late period. In the centre, the *Borghese Mars (or, in Greek, Ares), a celebrated statue, less virile than is usual in figures of this god. Round the room are grouped many fairly good statues, not a few of them almost duplicates. Among them should be noticed (beginning from the door) on the R a fine Melpomène; then, the Lycian Apollo, with harmless serpent gliding from a tree-trunk; and especially the famous *Silenus nursing the Infant Bacchus, of the School of the great sculptor Praxiteles—perhaps the most pleasing of the many representations of Faun and Satyr life which antiquity has bequeathed to us. This work should be studied as showing that later stage of easy Greek culture when sculpture was not wholly religious and monumental, but when the desire to please by direct arts and graces was distinctly present. Close by are two or three good draped female figures; and another Lycian Apollo, which should be closely compared with the one opposite it, as indicating the nature of the numerous copies or replicas commonly made of famous works of antiquity. Beside this, a couple of Hermæ, or heads on rough bases, in later imitation of the archaic Greek style, with its curious stiff simper: the type was doubtless too sacred to be varied from: a portrait-statue of a lady with the attributes of Ceres; a charming Nymph, carrying an amphora; excellent figures of athletes, etc. Many of the statues in this and succeeding rooms are much restored, and in some cases with heads that do not belong to them. They are interesting as showing the general high level of plastic art among nameless artists of the classical period.

The next room, **the Salle Grecque, or Salle de Phidias, is interesting as containing a few works of the great artist after whom it is called, as well as many specimens of archaic Greek art, before it had yet attained to the freedom and grace of the age of Pheidias. In the centre are fragments of the early half-prehistoric figures (6th century B.C.) commonly known as Apollos, but more probably serving in many cases merely as funereal monuments—a man in the abstract, to represent the deceased, like a headstone. They exhibit well the constrained attitudes and want of freedom in the position of the arms and legs, which are characteristic of the earliest epoch. These very old features are still more markedly seen in the mutilated draped Herè in the centre; it well illustrates the starting-point of Hellenic art. The admirable *bas-reliefs from Thasos on the entrance wall, on the other hand—removed from a votive monument to Apollo, the Nymphs and the Graces, and still retaining the dedicatory inscription graven over their portal,—exemplify the gradual increase in freedom and power of modelling during the early part of the 5th century B.C. This improvement is very noticeable in the Hermes with one of the Graces on the first of these reliefs. Still somewhat angular in movement, they herald the approach of the Pheidian period. From this time forward the advance becomes incredibly rapid.

Next, examine the work of the perfect period. Above is a mutilated fragment of Athenian girls ascending the Acropolis to present the holy robe to Athenè, from the frieze of the Parthenon, of the great age of Pheidias (not a century later than these archaic attempts): with portions of a Metope of the same temple. The first may be possibly by Pheidias himself: the second by his pupil Alcamenes. Close by, Metope of the temple of Zeus at Olympia (about 450 B.C.), whose subjects are sufficiently indicated on the labels: almost equal in power to the Athenian examples. The fine bas-relief of Orpheus and Eurydice, of the best period (falsely named above, later) should also be observed. (But the works of the archaic and transitional periods are far better exemplified at Munich and in London; while the fragments of Pheidias cannot of course compare with the magnificent series in the British Museum. See the copies of both in the École des Beaux Arts.) By the next window, lion and bull, somewhat recalling remote Assyrian influence; with numerous small reliefs of the best age, which should be carefully studied. These, for the most part of the finest early workmanship, admirably illustrate the extraordinary outburst of artistic spirit during the age which succeeded the wars with Persia. The reliefs on the end wall, chiefly from Athens and the Piræus, as well as those by the last window, belong in most instances to this splendid age of awakening and culminating art-faculty. I do not enumerate, as the labels suffice; but every one of the works in this room should be closely followed. Do not miss the charming, half-archaic, funereal relief of Philis, daughter of Cleomedes, from Thasos.