1 liOUND UY K.NtLSON. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2014 https://archive.org/details/fineartstheirnatOOg tCJje fint arts THEIR NATURE AND RELATIONS By M. GUIZOT. TRANSLATED WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF THE AUTHOR By GEORGE GROVE. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS DRAWN ON WOOD BY GEORGE SCHARF, Jun. LONDON: THOMAS BOSWORTH. 1855. PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1851. HE Study of Art possesses the great and peculiar charm that it is abso- lutely unconnected with the affairs and the contests of ordinary life. By private interests, by political questions, and by philosophical problems, men are deeply divided and set at variance. But beyond and above all such party strifes, they are attracted and united by a taste for the beautiful in Art; it is a taste at once engrossing and unselfish, which may be indulged without effort and yet has the power of exciting the deepest emotions ; a taste able to exercise and to gratify both the nobler and the softer parts of ur nature— the vi PREFACE. imagination and the judgment, love of emotion and power of reflection, the enthusiasm and the critical faculty, the senses and the reason. The very diflferences and debates arising from an intellectual exercise at once so varied and so animated have the rare advantage that they may be eager without becoming angry, that in their pertinacity there is nothing of rancour, and that while they rouse the passions, they at the same time disarm them of their bitterness. Such power has beauty over the mind of man, that the contemplation of it can efl^ace, or at any rate materially weaken, impressions which would lessen the delight afforded by it. It is the high privilege of Art, that it has fallen to its lot to contribute to the happiness and prosperity of men in the most different epochs and states of society. Whether under republic or monarchy, liberty or despotism, whether the minds of men be at rest or in agi- tation — in every case but where suffering or oppression has crushed and frozen the whole body of society, a love for Art has been able to develop itself with effect. Art shed its splen- dours both over the Roman empire and the CONTENTS. Page I. PAINTING, SCULPTURE, and ENGRAVING: THEIR Relations and Differences . . . . i II. DESCRIPTIVE CRITICISMS OF PICTURES of THE Italian and French Schools : I. ITALIAN SCHOOL. Raffaelle. Portrait of Leo the Tenth 53 Portrait of Joanna of Aragon . . . '57 The Madonna di Foligno 61 The Holy Family 66 Saint George and the Dragon .... 70 The Five Saints .74 GiULio Romano. The Triumph of Vespasian and Titus . . -7^ Holy Family ....... 82 CORREGGIO. The Marriage of St. Catherine .... 86 St. Jerome (II Giorno) ..... 9° Andrea del Sarto. Charity 95 Andrea Sguazzella. Our Lord taken down from the Cross . • • 99 X CONTENTS. Andrea Solari. The Virgin and Infant Christ Bassano. Christ taken down from the Cross Paul Veronese. The Holy Family Palma (the younger). Venus and Cupid ..... LoDOvico Caracci. The Virgin and Child .... Annibale Caracci. The Virgin and Child with St. John, (Le Silence) The Nativity Domenichino. The Communion of St. Jerome The Ecstasy of St. Paul .... The Triumph of Cupid .... Orazio Lomi. The Annunciation ..... GuiDo Reni. Our Lord and the Woman of Samaria Caravaggio. The Death of the Virgin .... Cristofano Allori. Judith ....... GUERCINO. The Enchantress Circe .... PlETRO DA CORTONA. Faustulus bringing home Romulus and Remus PREFACE. vii Greek commonwealth, and flourished equally in the bosom of the turbulent republics of the middle ages and under the majestic sway of Louis the Fourteenth. It was between the years 1808 and 18 14, — at a time when Europe was distracted by war, and when France, weary at home and too busy abroad, had ceased to think of liberty — it was then that I learned to admire, to love, and to understand those marvels of Art which our victorious armies in their march over the world had amassed and brought back with them to the metropolis. I have now collected some of the enquiries which I then made on this sub- ject ; A critical examination of the Salon of 18 10, — one of the most brilliant exhibitions of the French school ever held ;* An Essay on the relations and differences of the Fine Arts, — an important subject at the present time, when a confused and inconsiderate habit of imita- tion is very apparent in the Arts ; and lastly. Descriptions of certain historical pictures. * This, for obvious reasons, has not been translated. viii PREFACE. These last might have been extended by the ad- dition of the descriptions of some Landscapes and pictures of genre ^ written at the same time ; but it is necessary to guard against such par- tiaHty for our own works as would lead to their indiscriminate reproduction at a distance of many years from their first appearance. I have therefore chosen from among my studies on the works of the great masters those only which I believe still possess interest, either from the celebrity of the Pictures described, or because they illustrate some points in the history of Art. And this is surely sufficient, especially in days like the present, when men and things disappear and are forgotten so swiftly. GUIZOT. Val Richer, October^ 185 1. CONTENTS. xi Salvator Rosa. Saul and the Witch of Endor Page 7 Carlo Dolci. St. Elisabeth and the Infant St. John 175 II. FRENCH SCHOOL. NiCOLO POUSSIN. Arcadia 181 The Death of Sapphira 187 Fauns, Satyrs, and Hamadryads . . . .191 EUSTACHE LeSUEUR. The Mass of St. Martin . . . . • ^95 Jean Baptiste Santerre. Susanna . . . . . ' . . . 200 Laurent de La Hyre. St. Francis of Assisi 205 Carl Vanloo. The Marriage of the Virgin .... 209 Letter of RafFaelle 215 Table of Authorities referred to . . • .216 Appendix Letter of Michel Angelo 214 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS DRAWN ON WOOD FROM THE ORIGINALS BY GEORGE SCHARF, Jun. Page MiLO AND THE LiON, by Pierre Puget . . . • 1 7 Engraved by P. H. Delamotte. The Fall of Man, by Michel Angelo ; Capella Sistina . 2 1 Engraved by Dalziel. Jason, Antique . . . . . , . • 3' Engraved by P. H. Delamotte. Laocoon, Antique . . . . . . . 39 Engraved by P. H. Delamotte. Portrait OF Leo THE Tenth, by RafFaelle . . '54 Engraved by J. Cooper. ■ La Madonna di Foligno, by RafFaelle . . . .63 Engraved by Alfred Williams. Holy Family (of Francis the First) by RafFaelle . . 67 Engraved by Alfred Williams. -"■'The Five Saints, from the Engraving by Marc Antonio after RafFaelle's Drawing ...... 76 Engraved by J. Cooper. "^HoLY Family, by Giulio Romano ..... 85 Engraved by Alfred Williams. ILLUSTRATIONS. xiii St. Jerome (II Giorno) by Correggio Engraved by J. Cooper. ' The Virgin and Child with St. John, called * La Silence by Annibale Caracci ...... Engraved by S. Williams. The Communion of St. Jerome, by Domenichino Engraved by S. Williams. ' The same, by Agostino Caracci .... Engraved by S. Williams. The Death of the Virgin, by Caravaggio Engraved by J. Cooper. Arcadia, by Nicolo Poussin ..... Engraved by J. Cooper. -'The Mass of St. Martin, by Lesueur Engraved by Dalziel. -'The Discovery of the Body of St. Francis, by La Hyre Engraved by W. Dickes. 92 125 134 »34 158 184 197 206 PAINTING SCULPTURE AND ENGRAVING: THEIR RELATIONS AND DIFFERENCES. PAINTING, SCULPTURE, AND ENGRAVING, ETC. ROM a shapeless block of marble, a xhemateri Sculptor, — possibly Scopas — brings into suits"oVthe being that divine Apollo, whofe beauty ^'""^p'"'' surpasses the beauty of any living thing. Thus at the call of a man has a God come forth from a stone. RafFaelle takes a piece of canvas and a few colours ; the Painter on that very canvas does the Archangel Michael him- self, the chief of the celestial hosts, descend ; there before us he vanquishes the Prince of Darkness, and then retraces his flight to the skies. Elsewhere, the same great Painter has perpetuated for us, in the Persons of the Virgin Mother and Her Divine Son, all that is most touching and most im- posing in the Maiden, the Mother, the Child, and the God. B 2 PAINTING, SCULPTURE, AND ENGRAVING. But this masterpiece exists as it were in a corner of the world, visited and studied comparatively but by and the En- few. Edelinclc is one of those few ; he sees the pic- graver, ture, a copper plate and a graving needle enable him to reproduce it, and the masterpiece is no longer a luxury for the few ; — the whole world is able to admire and enjoy it. Results This union of the Arts, so fruitful in great re- liiousTs' suits, would seem a miracle, if it were not of ?nfir^st^wk- daily occurrence. We may imagine what would be them"^ the surprise and delight of a being, a stranger to the race of man, and ignorant of our capabilities, but gifted with the richest intellectual endowments, and susceptible to every emotion, who should be sud- denly placed before some of these wonders of human genius. On learning our history, and tracing the development of our arts and industry, or witnessing the methods and processes by which they are prac- tised, his surprise would cease he would then dis- cover that the principles and the agents of man's power reside in his nature and faculties ; but his admiration would not be diminished by this discovery, or by the power which it would give him of appreci- ating our masterpieces ; he would still behold them with the keen delight which springs from novelty. Since, however, novelty no longer exists for us, our admiration is less enthusiastic, and we lack that INTRODUCTION. 3 are more rapturous and engrossing feeling which the first sight of the works of such great artists as Scopas, Raffaelle, or Edelinck should excite. But when reflection and study have enabled us to apprehend all their points admire?'' of excellence, and emotions analogous to those which TlltT inspired the artist himself are awakened in our minds, the imagination kindles, the feelings are roused, we admire with enthusiasm, and genius has its revenge. To sustain this sensibility, and at the same time to The aim to form a taste which, while it is keenly alive to beauty vi'ewby'" shall yet appreciate it with discrimination, must be ^'eplne''" the aim of a treatise on the Fine Arts, and it will not be out of place to attach to it enquiries into the nature and history of art, the lives of artists, and in short whatever can interest those who love and study the men or their works ; so as to give the intelligent student an opportunity of considering in their rightful connexion all the most important questions and most puzzling facts ; that he may be led, by reflection on the hidden nature of art and the laws to which it is subject, to admire the excellences which may be achieved when those laws are obeyed, and as clearly to recognize the errors consequent on their neglect. It would be impossible in the present limited space and that at- to investigate either the history or the nature of all the present such questions ; I shall therefore content myself with indicating the principal points of view from which the Fine Arts must be observed if they are to be intelli- 4 PAINTING, SCULPTURE, AND ENGRAVING. gently and correctly appreciated. It will be my en- deavour, from the nature, aims, and processes, of each of these Arts, to deduce the laws to which it is subject, and thus to lay the first steps of that ladder which is mounted with rapid strides by genius, and leads at last to that height of perfection which is at once the object and the result of her most daring attempts. My reward will be ample, if, in what I now pro- pose, I should succeed in laying bare some of those hidden principles of which the mind is often uncon- scious even when acting on them ; for I shall thus be increasing the admiration which is excited by the works of genius, and the respect due to those laws on the observation of which success mainly depends. The relative ©^vQ^'^ ^ timQ whcn men posscsscd more zeal 7scu^5Le ^^p^ g^"^"^ ^^^^ judgment, the arts of \ng of dd a ^[^^^ Sculpture and Painting were the subjects subject of q£ Iq^ot and hot disputes. The object of the contest dispute J or j was to determine to which of the two supremacy belonged, and it was waged with the deepest contempt and the most jealous fury : Painters and Sculptors wearied themselves in vain subtleties to discover in the history, objects, and processes of their own art, some principles of superiority to that of their rivals ; and thus the men of the Middle Ages, too prone to disregard the correctness of an argument, provided it INTRODUCTION. 5 were but ingenious, lost their time in worthless dis- putes, on which they set great value. In the present day it would create much astonish- often on the ment to hear a Sculptor prove the excellence of his grounds! art, by praising the wisdom of the man who, having to construct statues of sculpture and of painting, made the former of gold, and the latter of silver, and then placed them respectively on the right and left hand ! Nor would our surprise diminish if we heard a Painter, in his anxiety to refute this cogent argument, reply that the famous golden fleece was but the clothing of a silly sheep, and that therefore Sculpture was possi- bly nothing but a miserable art, even though its statue were of gold! Such, however, are the arguments which seriously engaged the ingenuity of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and which occupy a consider- able space in the Raccolta di letter e sulla Pitturay Scultura, etc. of Bottari.* Vasari felt it necessary to report them in detail, and although he has had the good sense to express disapprobation of them, yet he does so with the most appropriate gravity, and offers his opinion as if the matter were of the most serious nature.f * An interesting letter, comparing Painting and Sculpture, from Michel Angelo to Benedetto Varchi, in Bottari's Collection, is re- printed in the Appendix. t As, for example, in the following passage from the Proemio to his Works. " Echequestointendimento loro si prova similmente da* maggior 6 PAINTING, SCULPTURE, AND ENGRAVING. ^ ^.^^^ Like many other important questions, this one of course to superioHtv still remains undecided, but it has at least enquire into ^ the grounds been abandoned. Sculptors and Painters no doubt still and limits ^ of each. prefer the art which they practise to that of which they are ignorant, but they do not still consider it necessary to uphold its pre-eminence. We do not in these days concern ourselves with the enquiry, whether Sculpture be a nobler art than Painting, but it does concern us to discover wherein the two agree, and in what they differ, what they can or can not borrow from each other, what is the peculiar province of each, what are the boundaries which divide them, and what is the particular goal for which each should strive, and which neither can with safety lose sight of. The dis- cussion of these really important questions appears to me likely to throw some light on the nature of Art, and thus be of use to Artists seeking to attain the perfection peculiar to the art which they practise, and to Amateurs desirous to base their criticism on solid and reasonable grounds. JAhrstudy ^^^K FTER having, for more than sixty years^ t^^o^t ^^P^ exercised over the Arts an influence due Sculpture, as much to his moral as to his intellectual pregi citati, particolarmente da Plinio, dagli amori causati dalla " maravigliosa bellezza di alcune statui, e dal giudizio di colui che " fece la Statua della Scultura d'oro, e quella della Pittura d'argento, " e pose quella alia destra, e questa alia sinistra." SCULPTURE. 7 greatness, Michel Angelo died, leaving many disci- ples, recognized as such, and fully determined to follow in the steps of the great man who had so long led them. In Florence, the seat of this school, there were but few pictures of their master; oil-painting he had always despised because it was as he said "an art for women, and for lazy people his great fres- coes were in Rome, and the famous Cartoon which he had designed in competition with Lionardo da Vinci on the had been destroyed either by accident or through the piore^l jealousy of Baccio Bandinelli ; so that his statues were almost the only models to which these worshipping, disciples, — content to remain always his scholars, — could find access. f These they studied with ardour, feeding their imaginations on them, and forming their * " Avendo riposto Michelangiolo che non voleva faria se non a fresco, e che colorire a olio era arte da donna e da persone agiate e infingarde." — Lanzi, torn. i. p. 138. f The Cartoon spoken of in the text is of course the well known one of ^Soldiers bathing in the Arno.* Baccio Bandinelli is accused by Lanzi of having torn up this Cartoon, either to prevent others from profiting by it after he had himself made use of it, or else because as a partisan of Lionardo he was anxious to destroy such a. proof of the superiority of Michel Angelo, Lionardo's rival. " II cartone di cui si e finora parlato, peri ; e n'ebbe mala voce " Baccio Bandinelli, incolpato di averlo fatto in pezzi, o perche " altri non ne potesse cavar profitto, o perche favoreggiando il ** Vinci e odiando il Bonaruotti volesse torre dogli occhi un con- ** fronto che stabiliva la riputazione di questo sopra di quello." Lanzi y tom. i. p. 135. 8 PAINTING, SCULPTURE, AND ENGRAVING. taste upon them ; and in consequence, producing paintings with all the stiffness of marble, from which nothing but the study of nature could have preserved them. In some of their pictures," says Lanzi, " you see a crowd of figures huddled one above the " other ; faces which say nothing ; half-naked figures, " whose only object appears to be to display, like " Virgil's Entellus, ^ magna ossa lacertosque.' In place " of the lovely blues and greens hitherto employed you " find a pale brownish colour, whilst thin and shallow " colouring takes the place of the strong and bold " impasto of the great masters, and the important art " of reliefs so much studied to the time of Andrea " del Sarto, seems totally neglected."* Such results — and they have occurred again and again in the history of Art — are enough to prove that an instance the imitation of Sculpture exposes the Painter to the effect%7the danger of falling into grave mistakes. It was not sTuiptu"e°^ from the study of the statues of Michel Angelo, in particular, that the Painters of the Florentine school de- rived the faults which we have just enumerated ; they * " Vedrete in certi lor quadri una folia di figure Tuna sopra Taltra posate non si sa in qual piano ; volti che nulla dicono, ** attori seminudi che nulla fanno, se non mostrare pomposamente ** come I'Entello di Virgilio magna ossa lacertosque. Vi vedrete al " bello azzurro e al bel verdi che gia si usava, sostituito un languido " color di ginestra ; al forti impasto le tinte superficiali ; e sopra " tutto ito in disuso il gran rilievo tanto studiato fino ad Andrea." Lanziy torn. i. p. 185. SCULPTURE. 9 possibly acquired from him some exaggeration in the display of their anatomical knowledge ; but their great mistake was in having studied and copied statues at all. This fact, — acknowledged by the Italians them- selves, — if properly understood, will serve as a starting point in our examination of the causes which have produced similar effects ; effects which have their origin in the very nature of the Arts, and in the con- sequences inevitably resulting therefrom.* It is continually said that the aim of Sculpture is to The paths represent the form of figures, that of Painting to re- Painter and Sculptor quite dis- * Lanzi's remarks on this subject, in speaking of the Roman School after the time of RafFaelle, are as follows : Avezzi i giovani a disegnare statui e bassirilievi, e ad aver sem- ** pre sott' occhio si fatti oggetti, ne trasportano facilmente le forme <* in tavola o in tela. . Quindi il lor disegno ha dell' antico il bello «* ha deir ideale piu che altrove. Questo che fu un vantaggio in *< chi seppe usarlo, divenne per altri un detrimento, conducen- " dogli a formar figure che tengono dello statuino, belle ma intere e " non animate a bastanza." Tom. ii. pp. 85-6. The young Artists, who were expert in copying statues and bassirilievi and who had these objects always before their eyes, easily transferred their forms to the canvas. Hence their style is formed on the antique, and their beauty is more ideal than that of other schools. This circumstance, which was an advantage to those who knew how to use it, became a disadvantage to others, since it led them to give their figures the air of statues— beautiful, but isolated, and not sufficiently animated. Roscoe's Translation. ^ See also some observations on the style of Pietro da Cortona in torn. i. pp. 272 and 274. lo PAINTING, SCULPTURE, AND ENGRAVING. produce their general appearance. This formula ap- pears to me far from exact. It cannot be said that the Painter does not deal with form^ since he draws the outline of his figures, and, in his endeavour to make them project from the canvas, is compelled to give them all the appearance of actual relief. Thus there is much similarity in the aim of both arts : but there are also important differences, and the means at their command being totally distinct, their paths are different, never either crossing or lying together. The Sculp- The Sculptor takes a mass of clay ; his model is manner of prcscnt to his cjcs as according to Plato that of the proceeding. ^j.^}^g|.yp^] j^^^ ^g^g ^j^g crcativc mind of God : he walks in spirit round it, examines it on all sides, and takes its dimensions thoroughly. He is acquainted too with its frame work, with the form, the length, and the thickness of the bones ; he knows how they are connected, and what the muscles are which clothe and move them. His first act is to set up in imagina- tion this scaffolding of bones ; he then covers it with muscles, to which he gives the attitude and degree of motion necessary for his statue, and finally envelopes all with the flesh which is to give the proportions and the living form of man. It is thus that the gems of antiquity show us Prometheus over his awful work. When marble has been substituted for clay and has been impressed by the hand of the master with the PAINTING. delicate form of the human features ; when its surface has assumed the gentle undulations of flesh, and those forms which conceal, while they allow us to conjec- ture, the shape of what is below ; when this is done, the man of stone will be found to differ from his liv- ing prototype only in substance, colour, and weight, and in fact to possess even in detail all the outward characteristics of the human body. It is the aim of the Painter, on the other hand. The Paint- with the aid of colours, to place upon a plane surface has to^/o,^* figures which shall appear to the spectator as they would in reality if seen from a distance. Now the eye sees at once only one side of an object, and that side not a plane surface, but the part of the figure which is directly opposite to the eye, the outline of which is formed by the wavy line separating the visible or front side of the figure, from the back part, which is out of sight. At that outline the domain of the Painter ends, it constitutes the form of his object, and henceforth his art consists in conveying to the portion of canvas contained within it, the same ap- pearance that in the real object is presented by the contents of the corresponding outline. Thus Painting rests on the same optical laws which, in nature, enable us to judge of the distance, form, and prominence of things, from the changes of their outline, and the play of light and shade. 12 PAINTING, SCULPTURE, AND ENGRAVING. and how. Further, it is by distributing the lights and shadows as he finds them in nature ; by placing his colours as they appear in the original, and by modifying the lights and shadows by the colours on which they fall, or the colours by the light which brightens and the shade which obscures them, — and which thus give all the varieties of tint — it is by these means that the Painter attains to that faithful and lifelike repre- sentation which is the object of his efforts, and at the same time the ultimate aim of the art which he prac- tises. Since, then, they have so little in common. what are the objects which be- long pecu- liarly to each ? Such, then, is the nature of the two arts, such the peculiar province of each, and the means at their command. We have found that the only thing com- mon to them is Design : but with this difference, that in Sculpture design has to do with the entire figure in its three dimensions of height, breadth, and depth ; while with the Painter it limits itself to the two first ; the depth, or amount of projection being represented by shadows, light, and colour. Having thus determined wherein the essential na- ture of the two arts consists, we have next to enquire what objects are more particularly appropriate to each. It would be indeed absurd to pretend to lay down rigid and unvarying limits for them : we cannot say to Art as the Creator said to the sea, * thus far shalt SCULPTURE. 13 ^ thou come and no farther;' but although the re- sources of genius are immense, and although she must be left free to attempt whatever she may conceive, and to soar as high as her wings will carry her, yet it is necessary that she be taught how to direct her flight. Each of the Fine Arts has a definite nature and limits, with which it is necessary that the Artist should be acquainted, in order that he may know the danger which he will run if he disregards them. If he should disregard them, and, notwithstanding, still produce beautiful effects, this will not be because he has trans- gressed them, but because, even in its irregularities, genius is always genius : mediocrity, however, must be taught to avoid mistakes for which she has no such excuse to offer. mm HE plastic arts are able to represent either sculpture t 11 J • deals with ^ actions, or what may be callea situa- 'situations tions in which are included all the aspects with under which man and nature present themselves to them. It is not difficult to perceive that the Painter has to deal more especially with the former ; the Sculptor with the latter.* * " La Pittura altro non e che rimitazione dell' azioni humane." An observation of Nicolo Poussin, quoted by Bellori : Hte dei Pit- tori, &c. p. 460. 1 4 PAINTING, SCULPTURE, AND ENGRAVING. The Sculp- tor must at- tempt beau- ty, rather than truth : he has only one means of repre- senting ex- pression, The Sculptor has to represent Form, and his success will be according to the truth and beauty of his repre- sentation. It is useless for him to endeavour to attain to a kind of truth out of his reach ; but there is no limit to his attainment of beauty, for in the legitimate resources of his art he has the means of reaching the highest perfection of beauty ; this end, therefore, being peculiarly his own, he ought never to lose sight of, for in the pursuit of it his greatest triumphs will be gained. The Sculptor, accordingly, must ever bear in mind that truth is to be united with beauty, or even rejected, whenever its adoption would involve a sacrifice of beauty. No alteration of form by which the beauty of his subjects is at all dimi- nished can be tolerated, for he has no power of making up for such a loss by those illusive counter- feits of reality which often please, even when the subject itself is unpleasing. Shut out from the power of employing the rich colours which are at the com- mand of his rival, and unable to depict those fiery glances in which the meaning of an action is so vividly manifested, the only means at his disposal for recording such strong expression is that of altering the form of the subject of it. When a man acts, everything in him concurs in the action, his colour heightens, and the character of his look alters ; and in these changes the spectator loses sight of the alteration in the form of the features which necessarily accom- SCULPTURE. 15 panics the action. The Painter being able to repre- sent these changes of colour and complexion, and thus to give the effect of reality, has no occasion to make much alteration in form, or to sacrifice beauty to ex- pression. No one who saw only the distortion of features which accompanies the tears of a lovely wo- man in distress would think her beautiful ; the flitting colour, the transparent complexion, the hue and ex- pression of the eye, these are the things which charm us in such a case ; things which the sculptor has no which wUi means of rendering, and for which, if he would reach cessftluf not an equal degree of truth and force of expression, he "aJe."^'^^ must substitute an alteration of form extremely dis- agreeable to the eye. Sculpture has, further, a less capacity than Painting His material for the representation of motion. The known weight representa- of marble, and its want of colour, prevent the imagi- ['n't °Jol. nation from being deluded, even for a moment, into a belief in the movement of sculptured figures. When the life of a man is not shown in his movements, it manifests itself in his complexion and colour, which seem to say that, though at rest, he is on the point of moving. To a certain degree this is the case with a painted figure ; for although lifeless and immoveable, the painter has imparted to it all the characteristics of vitality ; but marble cannot be made to receive any of these characteristics, and is therefore unsuited for the representation of any kind of action ; and if the 1 6 PAINTING, SCULPTURE, AND ENGRAVING. Sculptor has attempted to make it take one of those violent expressions which are sometimes seen in na- ture, the action partakes in execution of the hardness and rigidity of the material, and appears stiffer, more permanent, more eternal, if I may be allowed the word, than it would in a picture. Now, since every violent action is transitory, and since it is desirable as far as possible to avoid fixing that which should be quickly over. Sculpture is less than any other art suited to this kind of expression, because the very material in which the Sculptor works gives a certain amount of heaviness and rigidity to his performance. Example of All violcnt cxprcssion is thus clearly out of the of^the^s?^*^' province of the Sculptor ; and Puget fell into a seri- a group b/" mistake if he imagined that in the Laocoon he had authority for his group of Milo of Crotona. Action is indeed depicted in the Laocoon, ay, and that of terrible intensity ; but still it is not the preva- lent expression ; the especial intention of the artist appears to have been to represent a man undergoing great external violence, but though suffering greatly he is still calm, and the state of the muscles indicates that he is enduring rather than resisting, for their whole action is one of contraction, and not at all of tension. But in the Milo it has been the aim of the Sculptor to represent action of the most violent kind, or rather two simultaneous actions ; the one hand being en- SCULPTURE. gaged in attempting to free itself from the tree, while the other is repelling the lion. In order completely to effect what he had in view, Puget should have put his whole statue, from head to feet, in a state of extreme tension ; the arms should have been at full stretch — the left in its at- tempt to free itself, and the right in its conflict with the lion; no muscle, in such a complicated strug- gle, should have been idle. But the artist appears to have given up representing one of these two efforts ; Milo of Crotona. 1 1-1 In the * Salle de Puget' of the Louvre, the arm caught m the tree is not violently attempting to free itself, it is supple and languid, with hardly a trace of tension ; the other arm, too, is but feebly repelling the lion ; while it is in the lower extremities, the thighs, knees, muscles of the calf, and feet, that all the effort and tension is shown. The unsatisfactory result is, in my opinion, readily explained by the nature of the subject ; had it been faithfully realized, the effect would have been only disagreeable, and Puget, seeing this, and knowing that one of the two actions in which Milo is engaged must be neglected, has yet failed to devote himself i8 PAINTING, SCULPTURE, AND ENGRAVING. The action represented must be sim- ple and in- telligible J and the ac- tors few. entirely to the other. In the head and arms there is more suffering than resistance ; in the lower extremi- ties more resistance than suffering.* This example is enough to make us suspect that complicated action is naturally unfit for sculpture. I need not insist on the difficulty, I had almost said the impossibility, of bringing together and grouping all the figures necessary for the representation of an action of this nature. Are they apart ? How is the neces- sary connexion to be made between them ? Are they near, or in close contact? How give the marble the elasticity of flesh, so that the limbs which are in con- tact shall be altered in shape as they would be if really pressed together ? f Lastly, how is the difficulty to be overcome of giving to all the figures necessary for the expression of an important action, that variety which consists not merely in differences of stature * Pierre Paul Puget was born at Marseilles in 1621. Many of his finest works are at Genoa. The group criticised in the text ; that of Andromeda and Perseus, executed for Louis XIV. ; and a relief of Diogenes and Alexander, are in the Saloon of the Louvre which bears the name of Puget. See the Revue des deux Mondes, 1 5 Aug. 1852. f This contact causes an alteration in the form of the contiguous parts highly disagreeable, and difficult to deal with, in sculpture ; accordingly, we find in the group of the Laocoon, that the artist has been very careful not to represent the legs and arms of the children as being crushed or distorted by the coils of the serpents. Diderot, Salon de 1765. (Euvres, t. xiii. 324. SCULPTURE. and figure, but in colour, gesture, dress, in short, in a thousand other circumstances with which Sculpture is wholly unable to deal ? When the Sculptors of antiquity represented the Muses, they never attempted to unite or group them in combined action ; but they gave each Muse sepa- rately, with, her appropriate accessories ; each statue formed an independent whole, and it was left to the Painter to combine the nine in one picture. It is unnecessary to say that there are many sub- jects which naturally refuse to accommodate them- selves to Sculpture, while they are susceptible of forming masterpieces in the hands of the Painter : such, for example, as those of which the scene is not laid on earth. The Assumption of the Virgin, and The Vision of St. Paul, are the subjects of two noble pictures by Poussin ; but how could a Sculptor treat them, or what could he make of the Rape of Gany- mede ? On the other hand, the most appropriate subjects for the Sculptor, those which afford him room for the display of all the beauties of his art, without the risk of exposing its inherent defects, are those which consist of fixed and individual positions rather than actions: if he attempt to represent action, it should be of a simple and easy kind ; of which the Jason tying his Sandal, is a good example. The long cata- 20 PAINTING, SCULPTURE, AND ENGRAVING. logue of the masterpieces of antiquity fully bears out this assertion. The pro- It is Confirmed, too, by the very nature of the CCSS6S of tHc Art alien to proccsses by which the Sculptor works, which are too sentation of tedious to allow of their accommodating themselves rapidity, subjects requiring energetic and fiery treatment. When the Painter has seized in imagination the ex- pression or the character of countenance, required for the embodiment of some violent action, or of the complicated passions and actions of the various per- sons of his story, he is able, in a few strokes, to transfer it to his canvas, and thus to profit by a happy, though transitory, inspiration. Take as an instance the Rape of the Sabines, by Poussin ; * is it possible that those intense and varied expressions of alarm, rage and passionate grief, were the result of long and painful study ? No, in that wonderful sketch it is impossible not to acknowledge the pre- sence of that genius, the flashes of which are so sudden and so transitory, that unless the artist seize it on its flight it is lost for ever. But with the Sculptor it is quite otherwise ; his subjects must be those which he can calmly and quietly develop, and which require rather depth of feeling than brilliancy or fire : subjects, the consideration of which will awaken in him that sustained enthusiasm which * In the Gallery of the Louvre. MICHEL ANGELO. THE FALL OF MAN. • From the Ceijjng of the Sistine Chapel. SCULPTURE. treasures and broods over an expression before repro- ducing it, rather than that lively excitement which must put its ideas into form as rapidly as they arise.* Michel Angelo himself, even with his burning genius, even in the was not able to throw so much fire into his statues ukhtf as into his frescoes ;t the slowness of the process effectually forbade his doing so. The ancient sculp- tors have often represented the passion of grief, but never that of rage, because the former is an abiding emotion, capable of being observed and pondered at leisure, while the latter is transitory, and must be seized and fixed at a stroke. And it is evident from those of their works which have come down to us, and from the acknowledged soundness of their judg- ment, that the masters of antiquity made no useless efforts in this direction. What but laughter could be excited by the sight of a statue in violent wrath ^ The most important and definite result of the fore- simplicity, therefore, is gomg considerations is that the main essential in the main requisite in ~ Sculpture. * " La Sculpture suppose un enthousiasme plus opiniatre et plus " profond, plus de cette verve forte et tranquille en apparence, plus " de ce feu couvert et cache qui bout au dedans. C'est une Muse ** violente, mais silencieuse et secrete." (Euvres de Diderot y torn, xiii. p. 320. f What that fire was, and Vi^ith what wonderful grace and beauty it was often combined, an idea may be formed from the illustration on the opposite page, which is taken from the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. 22 PAINTING, SCULPTURE, AND ENGRAVING. Sculpture is simplicity : simplicity in the choice of subject, in expression, in form, and in attitude : this is the fundamental law to be observed by the sculp- tor, who not only would produce fine works, but would avoid perpetrating absurdities. First, in ex- gy ^ simplicity in expression* is meant that the pression. ^ Sculptor should restrict himself to portraying one emotion or passion (if indeed a passion can be por- trayed), or at most a few emotions of so kindred a character that they will combine without difficulty. For how is he to represent at the same time emotions which are very different or contradictory ? Their struggle produces in the form of the features an inde- finiteness which he is bound to avoid, because he has no means of relieving and modifying it by the glances, colours, and general accompaniments of a great action. As I have before said, the Sculptor can only deal with forms ; these are modified in the most varied manner by the various emotions, while the means at his command for representing them remain The Apollo, always the same. If the artist of the Apollo has succeeded in combining on the countenance of the god, pride, satisfaction, and contempt, it is because those emotions are more or less related, and readily find expression in one and the same look : for while contempt dwells on the brow and lips, a proud satis- faction lights up the rest of the features, and shows itself in the carriage of the neck and the attitude of SCULPTURE. 23 the whole figure. On the other hand, the assertion that in the head of Laocoon an expression of fatherly The Lao. love is to be seen contending with the totally dis- similar one of suffering, appears to me groundless ; I can see nothing there but intense and overwhelming suffering, with no moral element but perhaps the consciousness that his strength is of no avail, and his resistance fruitless. And so with all the masterpieces of antiquity : each one presents some one simple, strongly defined expression, in accordance with the nature and capabilities of the art. With regard to ' simplicity of form,' every one Secondly, in knows how essential it is to beauty, for the straight lines, regular contours, and square features in which it delights have a character of grandeur which is felt at the first glance. But it has not, perhaps, been suffi- ciently remarked what an intimate connexion there is between this simplicity and the very nature of the art which we are considering, and the means at its com- mand. Were the Sculptor to attempt to imitate na- ture in minor details, he would fail to produce the effect which she produces, while he would miss that which is within his reach. Thus the great masters of Method of the ancients antiquity treated the hair of their statues m masses, in treating ^ 1 , /. 1 J . the hairj because they felt that the nature of marble forbade its being divided into detached filaments, and that any attempt to produce actual lightness by such means would result in an opposite effect, while by disposing 24 PAINTING, SCULPTURE, AND ENGRAVING. it in broad and well defined masses, and by attention to light and shade, all the appearance of lightness and the eyes, could be obtained. Thus, too, they put no pupils into the eyes of their finest statues, because as the pupil is not really a projection, there would be in the small cavity necessary to mark it, a mean appearance inconsistent with a grand ejffect : they also probably wished to avoid giving the eyes a fixed and unnatural look. Their But, unless I am deceived, the main cause of the oAhlifffcts simplicity and breadth of surface which we observe in of hght, ^j^^.^ statues, is to be found in the knowledge which these Sculptors had of the effects of light and shade. The surface of the human body is doubtless much more uneven and broken up than that of a statue; the irregularities and markings of the skin far more numerous, and there are a greater number of minute projections and recesses. In statues intended to be looked at from a distance, not only would these de- tails be lost labour, but they would injure the general which iiiu- effect. The light as it falls on marble, does not illu- minates the . . . . 1 1 Ml • human bo- mmatc It m the same manner that it would lUummate a living figure under the same circumstances. The transparence of the skin, the colour of the blood cir- culating below, the continual play of the elastic sur- face, all these things diminish at once the brilliancy of the lights and the depth of the shadows, while they more or less blend the various hues of the surface. SCULPTURE. and thus prevent the innumerable minute inequalities of the surface of the body from producing any harsh contrasts of light and shade. But on the stone, all in a different the lights are brilliant and the shadows black, and if marble, the light be continually interrupted by small details, alternately bringing into prominence minute projec- tions, and losing itself in as minute recesses, it will produce only a harsh and inharmonious effect, and the appearance of the statue will be any thing but agreeable. It is therefore necessary greatly to sim- plify the surface of the body by treating it in large and well combined masses, so that the light may pro- duce broad and harmonious effects, and may bring out gradually, and without harshness or wiriness, the curvature of simple forms. This will be readily seen on comparing a statue, like the Apollo, in which the veins are not marked, with one like the, so called. Gladiator, in which they are ; the effect of the former is the more charming and harmonious, because there is nothing to break up the masses of light, or interfere with the gradual lowering of the half tints which pre- cede the deep shadows. Lastlv, ' simplicity in attitude* is a natural con- Lastly: J > ir J . Simplicity in dition in those subjects which are really suited to attitude. Sculpture. A calm and even state of mind, a simple and quiet action, give rise to no unusual or uneasy attitudes ; these are the result of the heat of passion and the expression of strong emotion. The one rule 26 PAINTING, SCULPTURE, AND ENGRAVING. to be observed with regard to this, — and it is a rule common both to Painting and Sculpture, is, that the attitude should directly arise out of the action or the condition of mind which it is designed to represent : all attitudinizing, by which is meant a theatrical dis- play of the limbs for the sake of such display, must be for ever banished. Of this the ancients have left us no single example ; in those of their statues which represent action, as the Gladiator, the Discobolus, or the Jason, the attitude is entirely the result of the act which is being performed, and of nothing else ; while their other works always show simple and easy posi- tions, such as would naturally and unconsciously be assumed by a figure in repose. The range of Painting much wider than that of Sculpture, embracing everything in nature. in the life of our Lord, |F, after this hasty glance at the kind of subjects to be preferred by the Sculptor, and the principles which should regulate his treatment of them, we turn to the Art of Painting, a richer and a wider field opens before us. Every- thing in nature, that is to say, everything obvious to the sense of sight, is within the reach of Painting. The most extensive landscape has no distances, no outlines, how vague and devious soever they may be, which she cannot enable us to perceive or conjecture ; the most eventful life no occurrences of which she cannot avail herself. The Painter takes our Lord in PAINTING. 27 his cradle or in the arms of his mother, follows him into Egypt, discovers him teaching in the Temple, surrounded by his disciples, or seated at their last supper ; hence she conducts him to Calvary, through his crucifixion and death to the holy sepulchre, wit- nesses his resurrection from that brief sleep, and the astonishment of the doubting Saint Thomas, and finally views his ascension in glory from the midst of the Apostles and the multitude. And as with the life of our Lord, so with that of or of the an earthly hero : Alexander, whether at the Gra- men."^ nicus, on the plains of Arbela, or in his tent, has achieved nothing great that Lebrun has not appropri- ated ; the exploits, the clemency, and the triumphs of the Hero are brought before our eyes ; localities, actors, and accessories are reproduced with all the vividness of reality, and with no sacrifice of the detail of the history, or of the personal beauty or peculiari- ties of the individual actors. But, before this eminence can be reached, what But the dif- obstacles must be surmounted, and what mastery over fh" Painttr materials attained ! Difficulties of every kind accu- SX ex- mulate before the Painter of History; if his subjects Jangef are numerous, it is all the more difficult to make a wise selection from them ; if the means at his com- mand are many, it is the more necessary that he have skill to use them aright, where none are unimportant : in Sculpture, mediocrity is rarely tolerated, success is 28 PAINTING, SCULPTURE, AND ENGRAVING. the reward of the highest merit only ; but a second- rate painting often produces a prodigious effect ; and partly by this, and partly by the natural lustre which invests the art, and her various means of pleasing the eye, painters are led astray ; the brilliant colourist relies on the magic of his brush ; another, clever in composition, on his happy arrangement, and thus the combination of all is rarely achieved, when so much may be done without attempting it ; but the painter who has not only conceived an historical picture of the highest excellence, but has neglected nothing in order successfully to realize his conception — it is from him alone that we can learn the labour and pains, the perseverance and care, which such a work demands from its author.''^ To combine all these requirements is perhaps be- yond the power of man ; but he is able to do so in imagination, and if it is the characteristic of his intel- lect to attempt more than his hands can perform, his * La peinture est encore agreable meme lorsqu'elle est de- ** pourvue de renthousiasme et du genie qui la caracterisent, mais *' sans Pappui de ces deux bases, les productions de la Sculpture ** sont insipides." Falconet ; Reflexions sur la Sculpture, Si la Sculpture ne soufFre point une idee commune, elle ne " soufFre pas davantage une execution mediocre. Une legere incor- " rection de dessin, qu'on daigneroit a peine appercevoir dans un " tableau, est impardonable dans une statue." Diderot, Le Salon de 1765. (Euvres, torn, xiii. p. 320-1. PAINTING. 29 duty is always to keep in sight that pitch of perfection which he will never approach if he cease to strive thitherward. What subjects are best suited to the Painter of history ? How must he treat them ? The province of painting is so vast, that to pretend ofthesub- 1 • }^^^^ t»est accurately to survey its extent would be absurd, and fuitedtothc the means which she employs are so numerous, that it would be equally impossible to lay down rules for the use of them all. My aim here is to define the boundaries which divide her domain from that of Sculpture ; and it is in this spirit only that I shall give expression to some ideas on the fittest subjects for the painter, and on the principal rules to be ob- served by him in executing them. I have already said that preference should be given UnUke the J & Sculptor, he by the sculptor to a state of repose, or, at most, to must not 1-1 • -nr - confinehim- quiet and simple action. But far greater latitude is self to single allowable to the painter. The effect of single figures will be much less in his hands than in those of the Sculptor, because he has not like him the power of exciting pleasure and interest in his spectators by presenting to them the human form in all its beauty and fulness. Besides, compelled as he is, by the na- ture of his art, to give his figures all the signs of life — animated glances, brilliant colours, details of fea- 30 PAINTING, SCULPTURE, AND ENGRAVING. ture and of complexion, the effect would be displeas- or quiet ac- ing indeed, if, with all these, their position were one ' of rest or inaction. Where we see the signs of life, there we look naturally for its results, and require action from that which appears capable of it. This the Painter possesses every means of representing. He has the power of conveying to his canvas whatever extent he requires, of grouping numerous figures upon it in any manner he may choose ; he is able to multiply the planes of his picture, and by the aid of perspective to prolong the field of view to any extent ; he can collect or separate at will the actors of his scene, and by taking advantage of their various posi- tions, foreshortened or in retreat, can concentrate on one point and unite in the same intention any number of limbs or heads ; — in a word, he is possessed of a thousand resources for varying the character and cos- tume of his figures ; and he is thus bound, practising as he does an art of such wealth and such power of display, to present to us the most vivid and animated aspects of nature, and human beings in all their different forms of action, varied as they are by the circumstances that surround and the passions that impel them. but can take This, then, is the true province of the Painter, the from\°ny^ cxtcnt of which is Sufficiently indicated by the mere Jory °^ words ^ historical painting.' It is his calling to bring to new life and to pass before us that long series of PAINTING. 31 actions of which history is composed. He can select at pleasure from those great scenes the memory of which is there preserved. From the death of Euda- midas to the battles of Alexander, the richest and the simplest subjects are alike at the command of his pencil ; and his skill will be shown in reproducing alike their simplicity and their wealth, without suf- fering the one to degenerate into coldness and poverty, or the other into riot and confusion. The Painter, then, has no need to borrow from he therefore has no need the Sculptor either the composition of his picture or to borrow . . ^ ^ from the the attitudes of his figures. A figure, when at rest, Scuiptor. naturally and unconsciously takes the position best suited to the development of its characteristic forms, simply be- cause the physical structure, and the relative weight of the parts, determine the manner in which they dispose themselves. If the action is a simple one, and re- stricted to one figure, the attitude will be equally simple and the natural result of the action: the artist will give his figure the position it would assume in order to the action in question, the forms developing themselves according to that ac- tion. Examples of this are the sitting Menander, 32 PAINTING, SCULPTURE, AND ENGRAVING. the reposing Faun, the sleeping Ariadne, the Jason, the Discobolus, &c. The reia. But let the action be one in which several figures figuresL concur, then the place and attitude of each will be combina- determined by the part which it plays, because by ceasing to be isolated each one loses the right of being represented and considered as an individual ; it is no longer to the actors y but to the actions of his picture, that the artist must draw attention ; he must sacrifice any peculiarity of attitude which would unduly arrest the attention and distract it from the general effect, even though by so doing single figures should suffer. His main endeavour will be now no longer to develop the forms of his figures in the best manner ; he will no longer place them just as he chooses ; but he will give them those positions which they ought to occupy as coadjutors in a joint action.* All imitations of Sculpture are therefore wrong; because the Sculptor, having only one figure to repre- sent, can deal with it alone, and, in the attitude * " The composition of a picture," says Diderot, " should strike one as being the only arrangement possible for the subject : a " figure, in action or at rest, should be so posed, that it could not be " imagined otherwise." " Une composition doit etre ordonnee de maniere a me persuader " qu'elle n*a pu s'ordonner autrement ; une figure doit agir ou se " reposer de maniere a me persuader qu'elle n*a pu agir autrement." Diderot, CEuvres completes, tom. xv. p. 192. PAINTING. 33 ones. which he chooses, has only the interest of his single actor to consult : while the Painter must sacrifice that interest to those of his general subject. Hence it is that in pictures for which Sculpture has been studied the figures are isolated, and without any natural and unmistakeable connexion with those around them, and thus have a theatrical air never found in the animated and harmonious scenes which are brought before our eyes in nature. A person accustomed to observe those scenes, and The atti- tudes of able to conceive them vividly, will at once agree, combined that in the motion and variety of a lengthened action ing different the actors take attitudes entirely different from those of single assumed by single figures, the action of which is con- fined to themselves. For example, a swordsman ex- ercising his weapons before a wall, would neither attack nor defend himself as he would if opposed to an antagonist. A man heaving a stone for the sake of exercise or practice, will not assume the attitudes or make the motions that he would if he were hurl- ing it at an enemy ; because, in both cases, though the act is the same, the intention is difl?erent, and the intention changes the manner of the act. There is something in an energetic impassioned action, in the scenes to which it gives rise, and the attitudes which spring from it, so vivid and so varied, that though Painting may represent it. Sculpture can give no idea of it. In rapid motion, or a fierce struggle, the body, D 34 SCULPTURE, PAINTING, AND ENGRAVING. in its flexibility, takes forms which the sculptors of antiquity rarely attempted to represent in high relief, because their art would not permit of it ; forms which the Painter must study in nature, if he would transfer them to his canvas with truth and force. And even if the Painter should discover sculptured figures in positions analogous to the action which he wishes to cannot be depict, his discovery will be of little use to him ; for Sculpture, if he imitates these models, his figures will be stiff, with ho-^^^^ they will seem to have no connexion with the action lated figures. i^^^id, and the result will be ineffective and inhar- monious. , Such an exclusive and minute treatment of each separate figure will seriously interfere, too, with a department of the Painter's art, which cannot be held in too much importance or studied too carefully, that, namely, of Relief and Perspective. The art of At first sight, it would appear that the art of relief, rentiyX^s^t SO essential to the success of a picture, would be most Scdpt^uJe; naturally studied in Sculpture. Owing to the ab- sence of colour, that particular disposition of light and shade by which a figure is caused to stand out, is shewn so clearly in marble, that such models would seem eminently fit to teach the means to be adopted for producing similar effects on the canvas. But the fallacy of this hasty conclusion will be evident on a little reflection and experience. And first : it is easy PAINTING. 35 to remark that young artists who have studied from but not so Sculpture attend almost exclusively to outline, and cause that only slightly to the effects of light and shade. They SSte are very right to attach great importance to the S%"to former, but as wrong to neglect the latter; for ofiighflnd though it is doubtless a great thing to have drawn a figure with correctness and grace, yet if it remain flat on the canvas, if the painter is unable to give it pro- minence by a happy contrast of flesh tints, half lights, and shadows, how shall it perform its part in the picture ? or if by dint of studying the effects of light on Sculpture he has succeeded in giving his figure relief, what will this avail if he is still unable to detach it from the background ? And this is what the study of antiquity itself can hardly teach ; a statue may be observed from all its points of view and under the most various lights, but the student will fail to pay attention to that part of it which he does not see, and to the distant background : the side nearest him is that on which he bestows his labour, and thus, so small an amount of projection is obtained, that many painted figures look like copies of bas-reliefs stuck on a flat ground, although their upper surface is at the same time well rounded. The art of relief, however, will not be satisfied and of at- with such imperfect results as these. A figure must be surrounded with air, and must look as if it could be walked round : the eye must be tempted into the 36 SCULPTURE, PAINTING, AND ENGRAVING. A living figure stands out from the atmos- phere quite differently from a statue. Perspective too, belief that it is standing out from the canvas, or rather, that the canvas is far back from it. This is the power which was possessed by Paul Veronese, by Guido, Caravaggio, the Carracci, and Correggio ; a power which is only to be acquired by the study of nature, — that nature in which the scene of the picture is laid, and which is to form its background. Again, the outlines of statues are not detached from the surrounding atmosphere in the same manner as those of the living body or of its garments ; about the latter, especially, there is something flexible and easy, which seems to make them blend much more perfectly with the atmosphere in which they are float- ing : just as a living figure, when standing alone, has a less hard and severe look than a statue. On these grounds, it is to be feared, that painters who study in a school of Sculpture will be as unable to give atmosphere to their compositions, as to avoid an unnatural hardness and stiffness. It is also to be feared that they will acquire a very imperfect knowledge of perspective, the important and difficult art by which each object in a picture is placed in its due position, and by which form, size, and colour are modified according to the distance or the position of the observer, as well as many planes and an indefinite space represented on a surface of limited size, consisting of one plane only. It is after looking at such a picture as the Mar- PAINTING. 37 riage at Cana of Paul Veronese, with its wonderful extent of space, and its multitude of figures, filling it, as they do, without confusion, — because each one is represented exactly as it would appear in nature, both as to actual and relative position, — it is then that we become aware, by seeing what has been done, how far the talent of the historical painter can reach. No study of Sculpture can teach this : on the con- can only be trary, the habit which that study induces of treating from'''^ figures singly, and lavishing too much attention on each, to the neglect of its share in the general effect, is really a serious interference with that truth of per- spective on which some of the greatest effects in Painting depend. Such, then, is the hurtful side of the influence which a too exclusive study of Sculpture, even in its masterpieces, will exercise on the arrangement, the composition, and the general effect of a Painting. And if from these we turn to the element of Ex- of the pression, we shall acknowledge that here again mu- Sc'llpture as tual imitation will not lead painters and sculptors to efp^Son. successful rivalry of each other. Forms of expression borrowed from Sculpture, whether servilely or not, will in Painting appear either cold and stiff, or ex- jy^^j^^^^s aggerated. It is not difficult to explain the cause of the former; the features of a statue possess none of that richness and ever-varying play which are seen 38 SCULPTURE, PAINTING, AND ENGRAVING. in the life; the very genius of the art, as much as the subjects to which it is confined, forbids its being otherwise ; and therefore when a countenance, the expression of which has been borrowed from Sculp- ture, is endued by the Painter with colour and warmth, the coldness and rigidity of the original marble will be very observable in those features which ought to bear the hue and air of life. The very contrast increases the rigidity of look, and will even counter- balance and destroy the effect of great beauty, or, if the And if, again, the Painter should borrow one of copied be a those violent expressions which are indicative of strong violent one, . ^ . i i • i • exaggerated, passion or oi somc transient mental or physical action, he will, by the use of colours and of the other means at his command, increase the effect of the exaggera- tion, which it had been both necessary and lawful for the Sculptor to employ. Furnished as he is with a thousand means, unknown to the Sculptor, of depicting the stronger emotions, it behoves the Painter to be very cautious to avoid any such exaggeration, which even if necessary would always be painful. But if he neglects these his peculiar advantages, and employs them only to heighten the effect of that which is the sole method of his rival, the result will be a distortion which it is as possible as it is desirable for him to avoid. This is what Lanzi means, when he blames the scho- lars of Michel Angelo for having " imported into their PAINTING. 39 " pictures that strength of limb^ that anatomical pre- " cision in the marking of the muscles, the stern fea- " tures and peculiar attitudes which characterise the terrible style of their mighty master."* No doubt in imitating these peculiarities they had exaggerated them ; but if not, the mere fact of painting them would have been sufficient to do so, because painting gives increased promi- nence and effect to everything which it has to do with. I do not hesitate to say, that if the head of the Lao- coon, the wonderful ex- pression of which does not in the statue appear at all exaggerated, were to be faithfully copied, with the livid hue of suffering on the complexion, the expression of anguish in the upturned eyes, the deepened colour of the veins, and all the other life-like touches which a painter The Laocoon. * « Trasferivan poi nelle proprie composizioni quella rigidezza « statuaria, quella membratura, quell' entrare ed uscir di muscoli, « quella severita di volti, quelle attitudini di mani e di dita, che for- " mano il suo terribile." Lanziy vol i. p. i68. 40 SCULPTURE, PAINTING, AND ENGRAVING. would add, the eifFect would be one of unnatural, not to say distressing exaggeration. The Painter It is plain then that the Painter has nothing to to study na- i ^ i • ^ • • tureonly, Dorrow from sculpture, either as to expression, atti- tude, or composition. His field is a far wider one, and his resources far more numerous ; and since the ejfFect which he produces is of necessity totally differ- ent from that of the Sculptor, so must be his manner both in conception and execution. The Painter muft study nature ; from her he must acquire that facility, grace, simplicity, and truthfulness of which indeed ad- mirable examples may be found in sculpture, but which can hardly be said to be borrowed thence, even by him who imitates them, because possession of these rare excellences is only to be obtained by the observation of living forms.* and to learn Thus, too, and thus only, is the Painter to acquire from hef, ^ Warm and life-like manner of colouring, such as that of Vandyck or of Correggio. It is needless to attempt to prove that an exclusive study of Sculpture * We must make," Antoine Coypel used to say, " the figures *' in our pictures living models of the antique statues ; not let the " statues be the originals of our painted figures." Faisons, que " les figures de nos tableaux soient plutot les modeles vivants des statues antiques, que ces statues les originaux des figures que nous " peignons." PAINTING. 41 must close the mind to the sense of colour ; I shall only mention one fact not sufficiently noticed, namely, that Painters of portrait are rarely bad colourists, while great Painters of history frequently are so. The well-known saying of Salvator Rosa is sufficient testimony to the importance of colouring; when asked which was to be preferred, colour or drawing, he replied that he had seen many a picture by Santi di Tito for sale in the streets for a mere nothing ; but never one by Bassano : * and if it should be said that the personal interest of Salvator had something to do with his reply, it is at least certain that though drawing is the first and the indis- pensable study for a Painter, colour is his most bril- liant and efficient instrument, since, without it, he is able to produce neither great effect, nor great truth of representation. In order therefore that the Painter may derive un- wherein the study of mixed good from the study of Sculpture, he must Sculpture may be beneficial. * E verissima la osservazione di Salvator Rosa, chi richiesto se piu si deggia apprezzare il colorito, o il disegno, rispose di aver trovati molti Santi-di-Tito ne' muricciuoli, vendibili a poco prezzo ; ma di non averir trovato verun Bassano. — Lanzi, torn. i. p. 202. Santi di Tito, or Santi Titi, belonged to the later Florentine school, — the imitators of Michel Angelo, — and was a scholar of Bronzino. His pictures, though not without merit in design, are feeble and ineffective in colour, p. 107. For some notice of Bassano, see posteay page 107. 42 SCULPTURE, PAINTING, AND ENGRAVING. confine himself to gaining from it the sense of Form, and power of drawing, together with that feeling for the beautiful and that sentiment of the ideal, without which no really great works are produced. Let him approach the masterpieces of ancient art that he may be imbued with the sentiments and character which they breathe forth so sensibly, and which are rarely to be met with in nature in the same degree ; in so doing his enthusiasm will be kindled, and feel- ings of the same kind as those expressed by the masterpiece before him will awaken in his breast, which he will hasten to transfer to his canvas with the truth and fire which real inspiration alone can give. Nor are such results of the study of the antique to be despised ; for by them alone can the right road be gained ; but that is all in their power ; the study of nature must do the rest. Once for all, I repeat, these two Arts have seldom the same aim, and never the same means of reaching it ; and seeing that the results of the two are invari- ably so different, I would have substituted for the motto of the old Academie Roy ale de Peinture et de Sculpture, ' Arnica quamvis amula^ one which, while very similar, appears to me truer, ' Arnica fotiusquam ENGRAVING. 43 T the time that the Sculptors of modern ofEngrav- Europe began to follow in the steps of the ancient masters of their art, and paint- ings were being produced of an excellence of which the old artists had probably no conception, an art arose devoted to the reproduction and multiplication of the works of Sculptors and Painters. The near coincidence of the time of the discovery of Engraving with that of the invention of Printing, seems naturally to suggest the true explanation of its aim. " The art of Engraving," says Algarotti, " is contempo- raneous with and has like beneficial results with Its corres- " that of Printing. Every Painter should have in TkhX^ his studio a collection of the prints of the best En- Printing. " gravers, from which he may learn the history and " progress of his art, and gain acquaintance with the characteristics of the various styles which have from time to time been most in favour. The chief " of the Roman school himself did not disdain to study carefully the engravings of Albert Diirer, or " to make as complete a collection as possible of " drawings from the antique statues and reliefs."*' * "S^Tg-^/i? fopra la pittura, p. 130. The beneficial influence of Marc Antonio's engravings after Raffaelle, on the taste of Europe, is thus noticed by Lanzi : — Ma tutte queste cose non sarrano state utili in quegli anni fuori di 44 SCULPTURE, PAINTING, AND ENGRAVING. The Engraver, then, being called by the very na- ture of his art, by the example of Raffaelle, and by the voice of experience, to minister at once to the studies of artists and the amusement of amateurs, must never lose sight of his own peculiar and honourable voca- tion. An engraving is by no means a copy, in the strict sense of the word, because the Engraver has not the same means at command as the Painter and Sculptor, and therefore cannot produce the same The En- effccts I it has been called a translation^ a comparison graver a translator, which appcars to me much more exact, although it is not approved of by some who are good judges ; for the Engraver does in fact speak a different tongue from the Painter, since he addresses the eye in a dif- ferent manner ; like other translators he is bound to adhere scrupulously to the forms and style of his original, and, indeed, he has the advantage over them that his version is more literal than any verbal one. To carry on the comparison to its limit, we may say Roma, se RafFaello non trovava modo di comunicarne I'idea anche agli esteri merce delle stampe. Abbiamo gia scritto di Marcantonio Raimondi, ed abbiam mostrato, che questo grande incisore fu accolto cortesemente, e fu dipoi ajutato dal Sanzio, onde far copia a tutto il mondo de' disegni e delle opere di tal maestro. Cosi il gusto ve- locemente si propago per I'Europa, e in moltissime bande si commin- cid a premere il bel sentiere di RafFaello : questo in poco tempo divenne il gusto dominante, e se le sue massime non fossero state alterate mai, la pittura italiana non saria stata in onore per meno secoli di quello che fosse gia la scultura greca. — Tom. ii. 67, 68. ENGRAVING. 45 that the Engraver having, like all translators, the disadvantage of not being able to render the spirit and magic of his original, must do all he can to preserve its character. And this, while it is that which he must seek to do, is also within his power : his means for effecting it are drawing, and contrast of light and shade. He will probably learn better from the study of the antique than from that of pictures, how the lights and shadows. Light and 1*1 ^ rr r i* i i shade to be which are the effects of light, occur, and how they studied by mix with one another; in this respect an Engraving graver in ^ , - Sculpture : IS a more exact representation or a statue than or a painting, because the lights and shadows on the marble are of precisely the same nature as those produced with black ink on white paper. This branch of the art therefore must be studied in Sculpture ; but, since different colours modify light differently, and these modifications may be expressed in the Engraving, even when the only materials for it be black and white, the artist, in engraving a painting, must carefully avoid giving the lip;hts and shadows the but even J <-><-> CP ^ colours may same uniform character that he would in engraving a be ex- pressed. piece of sculpture. For example, the black hair of a painted figure will be engraved of a different tone from the dark shadows of the face, much more so than in the case of a piece of sculpture in high relief: and the same of the draperies, the flesh, and even the outlines of the figures, which, in an engrav- 46 SCULPTURE, PAINTING, AND ENGRAVING. ing after a painting, should have a softer and less abrupt character than in an engraving of a statue. Indeed, there are many other differences between engraving from marble and from a picture ; differ- ences all worthy of study, but so numerous that I am only able here to point out the chief. Lastly, the engraver must especially endeavour to become thoroughly acquainted with the peculiar Importance manner in which each Painter lays on and distributes kig^the^'^^ his colour, since on this will depend the particular various ori- character of each of his works : every one knows that giiiais. ^j^^ nature of the lights and shadows of a picture is entirely changed by the colour being more or less thickly laid on, or by a greater or less degree of energy in the handling. Poussin must not be en- graved in the same style as Caravaggio ; and had these masters even painted the same subject after the same design, with the composition and expressions identical, engravings of the two pictures ought to present very noticeable differences. ^ * En qualite de traducteur d'un peintre le graveur doit montrer le talent et le style de son original * * * * Lorsque le graveur a ete un homme intelligent, au premier aspect de I'estampe, la maniere du peintre est sentie. Diderot ; CEuvres, torn. xiii. 356. CONCLUSION. 47 HAVE endeavoured, m this discourse, to point out the real connection of the Fine Arts : on the ground of the nature of each, and of the relations or differences which unite or separate them. In whatever work he is engaged, the artist is sub- ject to laws which are founded in his nature as a man, and in the nature of the substances with which he deals. To trace these laws will be the endeavour of every true philosophy of the Fine Arts. The stu- dent must commence his task by humbly following the steps of genius and patiently examining into her methods of action ; he will thus endeavour to dis- cover the direction in which she is tending, and when he is satisfied that he knows what genius is, the height she may attain to, and the methods by which she must reach that height, he will dare to take his place at her side, and illuminate her path with that torch, which, but for her, he would never have been able to kindle. II DESCRIPTIVE CRITICISMS OF CERTAIN PICTURES OF THE ITALIAN AND FRENCH SCHOOLS. E I ITALIAN SCHOOL. I PORTRAIT OF LEO THE TENTH. Raffaelle. I^he Pitti Palace, Florence. T has been the fortune of many obscure persons to have their features immortal- ized by great painters ; but, on the other hand, painters have been often tempted to give to the countenances of celebrated men an expression too much in conformity with their idea of the mind of their sitters. The likenesses of Dante, Boc- caccio, and others, have come down to us, not perhaps entirely free from this kind of untruth. Not so, however, with that of Leo the Tenth ; Raffaelle has not only given it faithfully in pictures solely devoted to it, but has reproduced it in several of his other works, such, for example, as the corona- tion of Charlemagne, where he has painted Pope Leo the Third under the likeness of Leo the Tenth, 54 RAFFAELLE. thereby causing Vasari to mistake that picture for the Coronation of Francis the First. Of all the portraits of this Pope this is at once the most celebrated and the most perfect. To his con- temporaries the likeness appeared so striking that they revived in its favour the anecdote related about Titian's portrait of Paul the Third — that the picture having been placed, during varnishing, in the sun on a terrace, was mistaken by the passers-by for the Pope himself, and saluted by them accordingly.. Whether or not this really happened to the present picture, it is easy to recognize in it a most individual character of life and truth. There is something in it answer- ing perfectly to the idea which is naturally formed of Leo — a man of wit, taste, and pleasure, the magnifi- cent and affable patron of the arts, rather than the wise leader of Christendom. The Pope is sitting at a table upon which is a book ; standing at his right, and not less a likeness, is the Cardinal Giulio de' Medicis — afterwards Clement the Seventh — who seems to be waiting for instruc- tions : behind the Pope, leaning on the back of his chair, is Cardinal de' Rossi ; the chair, the dresses, and the pontifical ornaments, have been equally with the figures the subjects of admiration, which places this picture among the masterpieces of RafFaelle. Its fame has been increased by the following singular circumstance : — Four or five years after the death of RAFFAELLE. LEO THE TENTH. PORTRAIT OF LEO THE TENTH. 55 RafFaelle, Frederick duke of Mantua, who had pre- viously seen the portrait in the ducal palace at Flo- rence, requested Clement the Seventh — then the head of the Medici family— to give it him. Clement, anxious to meet his wishes, wrote on the subject to Octavius-the-magnificent, guardian to the young Me- dicis, Alexander and Hippolytus. Sorely distressed at the Pope's order, Octavius resolved to evade it, and, while pretending to delay only so long as was neces- sary for making a sufficiently good frame, he caused the picture itself to be re-painted by Andrea del Sarto, who copied it so exactly that when the copy was sent to Mantua, (the original being meantime carefully hidden), Giulio Romano,— at that time the painter and engineer of the duke, who had worked at the original portrait, under the eye of his master RafFaelle, — had not the least suspicion of the ex- change, and believed himself to be examining the work of his own hands. Nor was he undeceived till some years after, when Vasari, who, as Andrea del Sarto's pupil, had been witness to the fact, told him of it, and, as a proof, showed him the painter's name written on the edge of the picture. * This precious copy went to Naples with the gallery of the dukes of Parma. Cardinal Bottari, who saw it there about the middle of the last century, while bear- * See this story in Vasari; Fita d'' Andrea del Sarto. 56 RAFFAELLE. ing witness to the remarkable degree of resemblance between the two pictures, was tempted, with several other amateurs, to give the preference to the copy, not only because it had preserved its freshness more perfectly, but because its colours were in better im- pasto, and were more delicately treated. Cardinal Bottari's preference is, perhaps, explained by the charge made against RafFaelle, of having been less careful of the colouring of his later pictures, under Leo the Tenth, than of those which he executed for Julius the Second ; but, on the other hand, this portrait is espe- cially remarkable for the wonderful beauty of its co- louring. JOANNA OF ARAGON. Raffaelle. ^he Gallery of the Louvre. OANNA of Aragon, sister of Ferdinand the Catholic, and Vice-queen of Spain, was one of the most beautiful women of her time. The well known love of Francis the First for beauty, whether in the arts or the human face, doubt- less suggested to Cardinal Medicis that the portrait of Joanna, by Raffaelle, would prove an agreeable gift to the king ; he therefore had it painted, and presented it to him. The head alone is the work of Raffaelle, the rest is said to be by Giulio Romano. The beauty of the hands, however, is so striking, that it is difficult to believe that they were not painted by the master him- self, notwithstanding the assertion of Mengs, tliat Raffaelle was not successful in painting hands, especially 58 RAFFAELLE. thofe of women, giving as his reason, that since most of the statues are mutilated in the hands, he was un- able to study them in antique models, while but few fine hands are to be found in nature.^ Raffaeile loved to paint from living models ; in one of his letters to Count Castiglione he complains of the dearth of fine women," and that, in their absence, he is obliged to make use " of a certain ideal which was in his mind."f Perhaps, in the hands of Joanna of Aragon, he found the model which, up to a certain point, he required to enable him to reach the perfection he desired ; one is induced to think so, by the care with which they are painted. The head, also, is one of great beauty, with much of the cha- racter of Raffaelle's heads in general, which a certain hardness of outline, in some parts, has not been able to destroy. With regard to the rest of the picture, Giulio Rom- ano was, during the life-time of his master, the exact imitator of his manner, both in design and execution. It was not till after RafFaelle's death that he allowed himself to follow his own bent, which, says Lanzi, led him to work rather in a conventional manner, than after the study of nature and truth. 1^ Thus the pic- * Tom. i. p. 174. f This letter will be found in the Appendix. X Tom. iv. p. 12. JOANNA OF ARAGON. 59 tures which he painted in concert with his master may be said to be the works of RafFaelle, since he himself was so, and since it is RafFaelle's manner which they display. In the present case, that manner is mainly shown in the treatment of the materials of the dress, which are singularly intractable for painting, and dif- ficult to manage with taste ; the mass of red velvet in which the queen is clothed, accumulated especially in the sleeves, must have made it very difficult to preserve the real form of the body, and to make it apparent that he was dealing with a human figure, in- stead of a mere mass of velvet and folds. It is impossible not to admire the thoughtful skill shown by Raffaelle in the treatment of his draperies, which has been pointed out by Mengs with great force and discernment. " He saw that the ancient " artists disposed their draperies, over the broader " parts of their figures, in folds of equal width, never " breaking up those broad surfaces by any minute de- " tail : or else, if obliged by the nature of the dress " to do so, they made the folds so small and so flat " that they could not be supposed to form the out- " line of a principal part of the figure. Following " this example, Raffaelle made his draperies broad ; that is to say, with no unnecessary undulations, ar- " ranging the folds in the joints of the limbs, so as " never to interfere with the figure. The form of the " folds he regulated by the lines of the figure below; 6o RAFFAELLE. " but when the. drapery was free, that is to say, had nothing below it, he was careful to give it equal breadth of form with that which was supported by " a limb; always, either by some hollow places, or by " large interruptions to its flow, giving it a different " form from that of a limb." It is thus that, through the enormous body of velvet which encases the arms of the queen, and through those huge folds which reach from her girdle to her knee, the painter has pre- served the figure so perfectly, that the lines of the form are never interfered with, nor the eye once at a loss to discover the regularity of the drawing. The velvet sleeves are slashed the whole way down, and clasped at intervals, so as to show beneath a deli- cate chemise, finely plaited, and fastened at the wrist by a richly embroidered band. The arms are orna- mented with bracelets ; and the hat — also of red vel- vet — is enriched with pearls and diamonds. In her right hand she holds a fur mantle, which is falling from her shoulders. Near her is a dais, surmounting a kind of throne. In the background is a balcony, upon which a female attendant is leaning ; and above it are seen gardens, a conservatory, and trees. MADONNA DI FOLIGNO. Raffaelle, In the Vatican. 'HIS picture, which is also known as the Vierge au Donataire, was painted for 'Gis- mondo Conti, secretary to Pope Julius the second, who placed it over the high altar of the church Ara Coeli at Rome, whence it was removed in i^^Si after his death, by his niece Anna Conti, to Foligno, to the convent de* Contessi, in which she was a nun. The date of this celebrated picture is in all proba- bility the year 1509 or 15 10, a time at which the last traces of the old style, which Raffaelle had acquired from his master Perugino, disappeared from his works. This was in the earlier part of his stay in Rome, where he appears to have first arrived at the end of 1508, Such was the marvellous rapidity of 62 RAFFAELLE. his progress at this time, that in the first fresco which he painted in the Vatican, — that of ^ Theology,* or ' La Disputa di Sacramento,* — having begun the pic- ture at the right side, before he reached the left, says Lanzi, he was evidently a greater painter.* The subject of the picture was probably suggested to RafFaelle by the donor himself ; it savours some- what of the taste of the time, from which the compo- sition is perhaps not altogether free. It was then generally the rule to represent the Virgin surrounded by Saints. RafFaelle had already, in some of his youthful productions, broken loose from the custom which prescribed that these saints, standing and crowned with golden nimbi, should form a regular circle round the Virgin ; and, already, by varying the expressions and attitudes of the figures, had placed the stamp of his original genius on a subject of com- mon occurrence. In the present picture, the Virgin is seated on clouds in the midst of a brilliant glory, holding her Son, who seems to wish to cover himself with her veil ; around the glory a number of cherubs are sporting, half hidden amongst light clouds. Below is a rich landscape, over which the glory spreads * " Si e pure osservato, che RafFaello lo commincid da man ** destra, e arrivato al lato sinistro era gia pittore piu grande." Tom. ii p. 57. I RAFFAELLE. MADONNA DI FOLIGNO. MADONNA DI FOLIGNO. 63 in the form of an arch, and in the foreground kneels the Donor with clasped hands ; he is apparently being offered and recommended to the care of the Virgin by Saint Jerome, who stands behind him in the habit of a cardinal, accompanied by his lion. On the other side is Saint Francis, also kneeling, his eyes lifted, and in the attitude of adoration, while behind him is Saint John the Baptist pointing out and an- nouncing the Holy Child to the world. Exactly in the middle between these two groups, and seen in front, stands a little angel holding a tablet, which, with his eyes cast upwards, he is offering to the Virgin. This tablet once contained an inscription, but it is now entirely effaced by time. The tablet, the inscription, the cardinal's dress of Saint Jerome, the symmetrical arrangement of the four figures on either side of the picture, — separated as they are into two corresponding groups by means of the little angel, exactly in the centre, standing upright, and facing the spectator,— these things would seem to recal somewhat of that conventional style which Raffaelle had already discarded for one of his own, and probably indicate a prescription still obeyed in pictures of this class. But the class and the subject being given, it was for Raffaelle alone to combine them in a^ masterpiece. The Vierge au Bonataire is indeed one of the most, if not the most, lovely of those Madonnas which are 64 RAFFAELLE. the peculiar creations of his genius, and are known by his name, the pure and heavenly beauty of which caused Carlo Maratti to say, that were he to see one of them without knowing of the existence of RafFaelle, he must believe it to have been painted by an angel.* The Holy Child unites the most charming grace of figure, with an almost imposing simplicity of face, in which the consciousness of majesty and power are already visible. The head of Saint Jerome is grave, noble, and full of force and energy, with the air rather of the doctor than of the recluse ; while that of the Donor is the very perfection of truth and nature. The countenance of the Baptist has a very striking and uncommon expression of rustic sincerity, and of bold, fervid, inflexible honesty. His whole figure bears the impress of penitence, and that no timid or undecided feeling, but passionate and earnest, em- braced with the most ardent faith and love, and pursued with unflinching determination. By his gesture he is announcing the Redeemer, but not with the air of a master who would teach or aflirm. No ! the true Master is there ! who can doubt in His pre- * Carlo Maratti was employed in the early part of the eighteenth century to clean the frescoes in the Stanze of RafFaelle, and to re- store the paintings in chiaroscuro round the lower part of the rooms, a task which he performed with conscientious care. See Kugler, Translation, 1851; p. 344. MADONNA DI FOLIGNO. sence ? It is enough for His faithful servant to point him out, and this he does with a severity of look which seems eager to challenge even an incredulous thought. The countenance of Saint Francis is filled with fervent love, and the figure of the little angel holding the tablet is perhaps after all the most extraordinary thing in the whole composition for its beauty and expression. This picture was originally painted on wood, but it has since been transferred to canvas. F THE HOLY FAMILY. Raffaelle. 1016 Gallery of the Louvre, MONG the many Holy Families of Raf- faelle this one seems as the chief of all to have taken exclusive possession of the title. It is called simply " The Holy Family," and needs no other designation for its recognition. Re- markable as it is amongst all its fellows for the size and number of the figures it contains, it is still more so for their wonderful beauty. The care which Raf- faelle has evidently bestowed on this picture is easily explained, if the story be true that Francis the First, in his delight at the St. Michael, which RalFaelle had painted for him, paid for it far beyond the agreed price, or rather, added to that price a considerable pre- sent ; upon which, Raffaelle, touched with such a mark of favour, and anxious to show his gratitude by an ap- propriate return, painted this Holy Family, and pre- THE HOLY FAMILY ' of Francis the First.' THE HOLY FAMILY. 67 sented it to Francis as a free gift. The story is cre- dible from the well-known characters of the men, and it is pleasant to believe it while looking at the picture. It falls to the ground, however, if, as Vasari affirms, it was Clement VII, when cardinal Giulio de' Medicis, who had the Saint Michael painted as a present to Francis; but the apparent contradiction is explained by the fact that there exists in France another and much smaller picture of Saint Michael, also by Raf- faelle, of a much earlier date (1504), which is quite likely to have been the one presented to Francis by the cardinal.''^ The date of The Holy Family is 1 5 1 8, two years before the death of RafFaelle, and the period of his greatest glory and his greatest power. No other of his compositions, perhaps, is so pure in style, so lofty and holy in expression. All the persons of the pic- ture are evidently filled with heavenly thoughts. One would almost say that the natural love of a mother had no place in the heart of the Holy Virgin, ab- sorbed as she is in the Infant whom she has brought into the world, not for herself, but for the world. She is kneeling on one knee to take up her Son, who is springing from his cradle into her arms : but we are not left to conjecture whether it is as a mother, or as a servant of the God before her, that * Both these pictures are in the Louvre. 68 RAFFAELLE. she has chosen the pious attitude to which the expres- sion of her whole person corresponds. Never has Raf- faelle represented her of such tender age ; never more grave and dignified. Nowhere else is the character of holy virginity and matronly reserve so marked in her whole air : her downcast eyes conceal the look which she casts on her child ; no smile dares to hover on her lips ; she would seem almost to be keeping herself back from the embraces of her adorable Son ; whom she will adore only as that Lord commands, who has put into her care such a precious charge. On the other hand, the Child has nowhere else been made to show his mother such sweet and natural tenderness ; with his childish grace he has more the air of encouraging her caresses than of soliciting them. Behind the Holy Child, who is entirely occu- pied with His mother, is Saint Elizabeth on Jier knees joining the hands of Saint John, who is content to be unnoticed, and whose devotional expression adds a charm to his act of adoration. The same character of love tempered by reverence is seen in the two angels; Saint Joseph, whose figure is one of great beauty, is meditating with his head on his hand, on the future so long promised to the earth. Thus the scene is filled by two persons only — the Mother and the Child : but the mother, centering as she does her whole being in her Son, becomes no more than the chief witness, the principal accessory. THE HOLY FAMILY. 69 to His greatness. Above all other painters, Raffaelle possesses this power of concentrating himself on an idea, simple in its relation to the present, but bril- liant as regards both past and future ; on some ex- pression at once pure, simple, and full of meaning, in which he makes even the minutest details of his com- position meet and assist. " Raffaelle," says Mengs, in the invention of his pictures, attaches himself " above all to expression to such a degree, that he has never given to a limb a movement which is " not precisely necessary for it, or which does not convey some expression ; nor has he ever bestowed " one touch on any figure, or any limb of a figure, " without its having a direct relation to the main ex- " pression ; from the general structure of man to the " smallest movement. Everything in the works of " Raffaelle has reference to the chief intention of the picture ; everything unconnected with it is rejected." At the same time, Mengs further remarks, " he gives " a different expression to each of the persons of his " picture, according to its place in the general idea." " For he had," says Lanzi, " a power of seizing, " with the most rapid perception, and in a kind of in- " spiration, the appearances caused by the momentary " actions of passion." This picture, like the preceding, has been trans- ferred from wood to canvas. SAINT GEORGE AND THE DRAGON. Raffaelle. In the Gallery of the Louvre. T. GEORGE has always been looked upon as the patron of chivalry ; her honours were bestowed in the name of God and of St. George. The old saying, " Monte comme un Saint George/' shows that the horse of the saint has, from a very early period, played a main part in his history ; a fact confirmed by the account of Nice- phorus Gregoras, a Greek chronicler of the fourteenth century. He relates how that, in the reign of Andro- nicus the Elder, the grand Logothetes Theodorus, " assisting, on a time, with divers persons of the " court, at the nocturnal office, which it was their " custom to celebrate on the first Saturday in Lent, " to the memory of the orthodox emperors departed, " a messenger came from the Emperor to Theodo- SAINT GEORGE AND THE DRAGON. rus — with whom at that time Nicephorus was — " who then told him that, at the hour at which the " soldiers of the guard were used to retire, on a sud- " den there was heard an exceeding great neighing, " which took every one present by surprise, more especially since there were not in that place any " horses, all having been before night taken to their " stables, at a great distance off. And hardly was " the noise abated, when they perceived it afresh, " issuing with great loudness from the very apart- " ments of the emperor himself, who thereupon sent " one of his servants, that he might discover the cause: " but the servant returning, affirmed that he could " discern nothing, and that the noise appeared to pro- " ceed out of a wall over against the chapel of our Lady of Victories, upon which, a long time before, " the famous limner Paul had drawn the holy St. " George on horseback." Upon this news, the grand logothetes made haste to seek the emperor, and felicitate him upon the triumphs foretold to his arms by the miraculous neigh- ing of the warlike horse of St. George : upon which the emperor, sighing, said, " Indeed, I see plainly that " the truth is not revealed unto you ; inasmuch as it " is delivered us, by those who lived before us, that " that horse neighed in the manner he hath now, when " Baldwin, prince of the Latins, was driven forth of " this city by my father." 72 RAFFAELLE. The known superstition of Andronicus, and the terrors in which he passed his hfe, render very pro- bable, if not the miraculous neighing, at least his be- lief of it : but the story contains nothing to account for the presence, in the picture, of the dragon, who most certainly would not have failed to bear his part in this marvellous adventure. It is thought, by some, that the dragon was at first introduced in the pictures of St. George only as an allegorical repre- sentation of the devil, who was vanquished and confounded by the sanctity of the holy martyr ; but the legend treats it as a reality, and relates as fol- lows : " George, tribune of Cappadocia, came into " the province of Libya, to a city called Silena, hard " by a lake like to a sea, wherein dwelled a dra- gon, the breath whereof was so poisonous, that, " when the dragon came near to the walls of the city, " great numbers died, the which obliged the men of " the city to give him, day by day, two sheep to ap- " pease his rage. And, when the sheep began to fail, " then they gave to the dragon one sheep, and with " it a man." This went on until women were given up, then girls, and at last the daughter of the king. We have here quite enough to recall the end of the story — the incidents which have always been adopted when Saint George is represented as a knight, and which RafFaelle has accordingly made use of in this picture. SAINT GEORGE AND THE DRAGON. 73 St. George is on horseback, and armed at all points : his sword arm is in the air, in the act of dealing a tre- mendous blow at the dragon, which is darting at him, though already pierced with the spear of the knight, a piece of which is seen in the dragon's throat. Fur- ther back in the picture is a young girl, with a crown on her head, flying across the rocks. St. George is a handsome youth, with a fair complexion : it is thus that he was always shewn by the early painters ; and it was thus he appeared in sleep to Elpidia. His action is animated, but the expression of his face calm. His horse is rearing and neighing ; the head, chest, and the whole of the fore part are of great beauty. This charming picture has been somewhat injured by time, but not so as to conceal the won- derful grace of its design, and the rare finish of its execution. The landscape is quite in Raffaelle's early manner. ' THE FIVE SAINTS.' Raffaelle. T'he Gallery at Parma. N the thirty-seven years of his short Hfe, Raffaelle traversed a distance equal to that which usually lies between separate epochs of art. He gained his earliest triumph when he equalled Perugino ; his latest is^ that he has hitherto remained unequalled, even by the greatest of his suc- cessors. Others had, before him, laid the foundation of the glory of painting ; but its full blaze was concentrated on him. Whether he was assisted by the intercourse and advice of Lionardo da Vinci, or whether — as is affirmed by Vasari, though denied by most other cri- tics — he profited by the study of the works of Michtl Angelo ; in either case, he gained the advantage which a man of genius will always gain from truth, accord- ing to the saying of Moliere, " Je prends mon bien 'THE FIVE SAINTS.' 75 " partout ou je le trouve ?" Vasari says of RafFaelle, that he was molto eccellente in imitare," with a rare power of imitation ; but^ indeed, there was nothing about him which was not entirely his own, excepting, perhaps, the faults of his early manner, which were implanted in him unconsciously by his education, not derived from himself His was a mind endowed with the rare good fortune, the portion only of the few, of being, in regard to his art, in perfect harmony with the age in which he lived ; rich in the power of acqui- sition, at a time when the germs of all things were bursting into life with an incredible vigour ; pre-emi- nent in the faculty of discrimination, at a time when there was no need but to choose ; at once the swiftest in the race in which the spirits of men were then hur- rying on, and the most steadfast and unswerving in that illustrious career in which success was certain, if only errors were avoided. Among the very many pictures left by Raffaelle, it is highly interesting to endeavour to fix the period to which each belongs, and the record which it gives of his progress ; but it often happens that, in the absence of all definite information, the critic has to decide from examination of the picture itself Thus the pic- ture which I am now describing, though so famous as to have acquired the special name of " The Five Saints," under which it is known in all the cata- logues ; and though, moreover, reproduced in an 76 RAFFAELLE. engraving by Marc Antonio, has, notwithstanding the tradition by which its name is preserved, de- scended to our times without any information re- garding either the period or the circumstances of its execution. Examination leads to the supposition, that it belongs to RafFaelle's second style ; to the pe- riod when, although he had shaken off the trammels of the school, he yet retained some traces of its in- fluence. The Saviour, his arms raised and extended over the world, is sitting on clouds in the midst of a glory, through the rays of which are discerned a host of an-, gels. ^ On his right and left, supported by the same clouds, are the Holy Virgin in the act of adoration, and the Baptist pointing to the Saviour of the world. Below, and in a landscape stretching into the back- ground of the picture, are, on one side, St. Paul, standing, with a drawn sword in his hand, and, on the other, St. Catherine of Alexandria on her knees, lean- ing on the wheel of her martyrdom, her eyes lifted to the Virgin, as if beseeching her to recommend to Christ the palm which she has obtained. * The accompanying illustration is taken from the engraving by- Marc Antonio of RafFaelle's drawing, in which there are some varia- tions from the painting as it exists in the Gallery at Parma. This has been thought right, because the original of Marc Antonio's en- graving was doubtless by RafFaelle, whereas it is now pretty cer- tainly ascertained that the picture is only executed after his design — probably by Giulio Romano. The Angels, mentioned in the text, are not found in the engraving. RAFFAELLE. * THE FIVE SAINTS.' From Maic Antonio's Engraving. ' THE FIVE SAINTS.' 77 This composition recalls that of the Vierge au Bo- nataire, and of many pictures of the time. We recog- nize in it a little of that symmetry of arrangement which RafFaelle was the first to relinquish. Thus the figures to the right and left of our Lord, although different in attitude, contain lines exactly correspond- ing. The cherubs are placed within the rays of the glory with singular regularity. The body of Christ, with the exception only of a slight movement to the right in the lower part, is seen exactly in front, and his arms are in similar positions. The upper por- tion of the figure is somewhat thin, and preserves a little of the meagreness of form of the old styles. But the head, with its sweet and noble sadness, expresses both the sorrows and the joys of that sacrifice, the marks''^ of which in his hands He is displaying. The two female heads are of charming purity and simpli- city. That of St. John has only lost so much of its wild character, as would be removed by the other world'; while that of St. Paul is remarkable for its singularly determined expression. It would be diffi- cult to connect this last figure with the rest of the pic- ture, placed as it is like a sentinel, if it did not seem to shew that, while the Baptist is announcing its mas- ter to the world, Paul is about to march to the con- quest of it for Christ, and in His Name. * Another of the variations alluded to in the note on the preced- ing page. THE TRIUMPH OF VESPASIAN AND TITUS. GlULIO PiPPI, CALLED GlULIO RoMANO. '^he Gallery of the Louvre. HEN Vespasian ascended the throne of Rome, he left to his son Titus the con- duct of the war in Judaea. The young prince gained the affections of the soldiers to such a degree, that, after the taking of Jerusalem, they sa- luted him as Emperor ; and, on his quitting the pro- vince, wished to compel him " either to remain with " them, or to take them all with him.""^ Such accla- mations were ordinarily the signal of revolt. Suspi- cions of the loyalty of Titus were not wanting at Rome ; and they had been confirmed by the circum- stance of his having worn the diadem in Egypt, at the * Aut remaneret, aut secum omnes pariter abduceret." Sueto- nius, Vita Titi. cap. v. TRIUMPH OF VESPASIAN AND TITUS. ceremony of the consecration of the Bull Apis. On hearing these rumours, Titus hastened his return, gained in a trading vessel the port of Rhegium, — now Pozzuolo, — went with all speed to Rome, and, presenting himself unexpectedly before his father, ad- dressed him in the following words, at once tender, simple, and respectful : " I am here, my father ; I am here."^ From this fidelity sprung an union, between father and son, of the closest and freest description, and the two celebrated their triumph together. It was the first time that a father and son had triumphed at the same time, and the display was magnificent in the extreme ; a triumphal arch, which is still standing, was erected in honour of Titus ; while the spoils of the Jews were employed, by Vespasian, in the con- struction of a temple sacred to Peace. In this temple the emperor deposited the greater part of the pic- tures, statues, and other works of art which had survived the civil wars ; it was the great place of meeting for the artists and men of science of Rome, and on its site a great number of antiquities have been discovered. Giulio Romano's picture would have been a noble ornament to the vestibule of this temple, represent- * Inopinanti patri, velut arguens rumorum de se temeritatem, V eni inquit, pater y vent. 8o GIULIO ROMANO. ing as it does the very pageant which preceded its erection. Vespasian and Titus are in the same cha- riot, their attitude indicating their intimate union ; there is a striking resemblance between the two, the only difference being that the expression of Vespa- sian's face is calm, while that of Titus is full of joy — his honours are newer to him, and, as a young man, he enjoys them with more excitement than his father. A winged figure of Victory, designed with infinite lightness and grace, is floating over the pair, in the act of crowning them ; the chariot is guided by two officers on foot, while a captive Jewess, with her head sunk on her breast, and an expression of grief in her face, is led by her hair, by a Roman sol- dier, in front of the car. Before her are seen three branches of the famous seven-branched candlestick, taken from the Temple, and the back of the soldier who is carrying it ; and the procession is closed by two persons, one in the background, the other in front. In the distance are seen the course of the Ti- ber, a landscape, and some of the buildings of Rome. This composition, though perhaps too simple for the gorgeous triumphal ceremony, in which a nation of conquerors exults over the humiliation of another nation, its captive, is yet full of effect, spirit, and dignity. The perspective is managed with truth and skill, giving great extent to the picture ; the TRIUMPH OF VESPASIAN AND TITUS. 8i horses are not crowded together, and although some- what heavy in form, there is much dignity in their movement. There is a degree of stiffness and mo- notony in the heads, but this is atoned for by the draperies, which are arranged and painted in the easy, bold, broad style so characteristic of the scholars of Raffaelle — the folds dignified and graceful, the out- lines without either hardness or mannerism : while the science of the painter is evident throughout, there is no appearance of labour ; in fact, as in almost all the works of this master, the chief merits of the present picture are clear and simple arrangement, easy and vigorous execution, and great freedom and purity of drawing. It is to be lamented that the colour has failed, and does not at first sight strike as truthful : we recognize those red and black tones, which the contemporaries, and even the friends, of Giulio Romano found fault with, and which have here been deepened by time. THE HOLY FAMILY. GiuLio Romano. ^he Gallery of the Louvre, OWEVER great the variety of the ex- ternal forms assumed by nature, they would be quickly exhausted by the Painter, were it not that he has the power of penetrating into the recesses of thought, and thus opening himself a road to the infinite. Though barren when confined to the treatment of subjects presenting but one sim- ple, obvious, and unvarying sentiment, his art re- covers her creative power when the task is laid upon her of unfolding those mysterious emotions which the heart seldom displays but in part, and which the highest genius does no more than indicate even when it would seem to be revealing them in full. " Par-dela tous ces cieux le Dieu des cieux reside." The source of the greatness and of the marvels of THE HOLY FAMILY. 83 Art is indeed divine, lying far beyond the noblest efforts of the artist ; his strength will be shewn in the nearness of his approach to that source, and his richest rewards will be gathered on the paths which are open for his access to it. These paths, however, are only discoverable after deep search : the mere aspect of the emotions aroused in the human mind by a simple circumstance, will furnish the Painter with effects easily seized, but wanting in force, and in power of moving the soul of the spectator, or of exciting him to those thoughts which should be roused in his mind by a fine work of art. Thus a representation of fear, of desire, or of bodily suffering, may strike from its truthful ness,+ but that which contains nothing more than can be taken in at a glance, will not be sufficient to detain the eye ; and thus pictures of battles or similar subjects have never placed a painter in the first rank. On the other hand, his Holy Families alone would be suffi- cient to raise Raffaelle to that rank ; the heads of his Virgins have become universal models ; the originals, so to speak, of all subsequent portraits of the Mother of our Lord, — all conceived in the same spirit, though all different, according to the differing genius of the painters. Raffaelle revealed the existence of a secret which each in succession has expressed in his own peculiar manner, the lovely Virgin of Ludovico Caracci being akin to those of Raffaelle, as the boy, 84 GIULIO ROMANO. while possessing its own individual character, is evi- dently the child of its father. RafFaelle only taught his scholars to take a wider and more intelligent view of nature; he gave them but a deeper insight into truth. Thus it has been remarked that no two of them acquired the manner of their master, but that they all learned from him to form one for themselves. Giulio Romano is the only one of them in whose works we may be said to be able to read the name of Raffaelle, the only one who has preserved any perceptible trace of his teaching and his inspiration, — a natural result of that close friendship which was the fruit of the sweetness of manner and elevation of character which both alike possessed. Valued as he was by his master, and chosen above others to assist him in his works, Giulio would naturally endeavour to maintain a per- fect harmony between his own work and the compo- sition given him to finish ; and in this he has suc- ceeded so perfectly that his work can never be said to deteriorate that of Raffaelle, since it can scarcely be distinguished from it. This accordance with the style of his master, mani- fest as it is even in many of his own compositions, is the more remarkable on account of the natural difference in the genius of the two artists. Giulio Rqmano was less keenly alive to beauty than RafFaelle, but he threw himself into the difficulties of his work GIULIO ROMANO. THE HOLY FAMILY. THE HOLY FAMILY. 85 with a boldness and vigour which sometimes cooled in the process of execution. His leaning is towards the fierce and terrible, and this he sketched with vigorous touches which required but little to com- plete them ; but he wanted the calm and sustained inspiration necessary for the production of graceful forms. Not unfrequently the depth of shade shews that he has attempted to make up by labour for the absence of a sentiment which has too quickly es- caped him ; but that the sentiment of his works is always natural and exalted, a strong proof is given by this Holy Family. The figure, attitude, and ex- pression of the Virgin, all breathe an air of simplicity at once graceful and dignified. She is standing, and holds a book out of which she is teaching her son to read. The Holy Child sits in front of her upon a projection covered with cushions : he has his two hands on the book, and seems to be pointing to the word which he is saying, looking up at the same time at his mother with a charmingly sweet and attentive expression. The expression of Saint Joseph is well suited to him, as the venerable protector of the family which God has put under his care. THE MARRIAGE OF SAINT CATHERINE OF ALEXANDRIA. Antonio Allegri, called Correggio. The Gallery of the Louvre. E are told by her biographer that Cathe- rine was the daughter of a king of Alex- andria ; " she was fair and proud, and learned in all the wisdom of the philosophers ; but marriage she held in much contempt, neither " would she suffer that any should speak to her of " the faith of Christ. Howbeit her curiosity was much moved by a certain Hermit, who promised unto her an husband that should be in all things " better than she, one indeed above all other crea- " tures; and because she desired much to see him, she agreed, in order thereto, to pray before an " image of the Holy Virgin holding her son on her " knees. And after she had prayed it came to pass THE MARRIAGE OF ST. CATHERINE. 87 that she fell asleep, and saw in a vision our blessed " Saviour, and His beauty was indeed beyond that " of all others. His mother would have given him " as a husband to Catherine, but Catherine would not " suffer it, saying that she was not fair enough. " Then, when she awaked, she was full of love, and " fell sick even to death. Then the hermit, when he knew what was done, began to instruct her in the faith, and at the last did baptize her. And the next night, after that Catherine had again " prayed, she slept, and in a dream she again saw " Christ, and all about him He had angels, and was brighter than the sun ; and when His mother led " Catherine to him He accepted her, placing on her finger a divine ring, which indeed she found to be " there when she awaked." It is not as a child that the Painters have repre- sented Cupid given in marriage to Psyche ; but it is always as a child that they have represented Christ putting the ring on the finger of St. Catherine. There is, however, nothing in the account of the Bishop of Jasolo, Catherine's biographer, to prevent their placing this circumstance at another period of the life of the Saviour. They could have shown him as a little older than He was when He sate in the Temple and astonished the doctors both by his beauty and his wisdom ; and in the divine beauty of his boyish years, 88 CORREGGIO. combined with the virgin purity of his mother, they would have had materials for the loveliest pictures imaginable. Or they could have shown Him in glory seated by the throne of his father, and at the prayer of Mary looking down to his lowly bride. And indeed this would appear to be the idea of the legend ; but the genius of the Painters has perhaps guided them aright, it has made them feel that rightly to represent such a subject, it was necessary to get rid of everything that might confine the mind to the idea of an earthly marriage ; and thus, by representing the Saviour as an infant, the mystical nature of Cathe- rine's love has been fully preserved, because we are left in uncertainty as to whether it is excited by the sensuous object, or is a purely ideal passion. In this delightful picture, the expression of St. Catherine's face is that of the ingenuous devotion of a girl. The upper part only of her figure can be seen, but it is plain that she is kneeling before the Virgin, who is seated, and holds her child in her lap. Cathe- rine is timidly looking down at the hand of the child, while he with childish eagerness is holding her finger, concerned only in putting the ring upon it. The Virgin holds their two hands in one of her own, and with the other appears to be guiding her son. Ca- therine is leaning on a wheel with a sword passed through it, those being the instruments of her double martyrdom. Behind her is St. Sebastian holding THE MARRIAGE OF ST. CATHERINE. 89 some arrows, and contemplating what is passing with an air of joy and satisfaction. According to the legends Sebastian was martyred under Diocletian, while Catherine's conversion happened in the time of Maxentius. If the picture were historical, the pre- sence of the two would be an anachronism, but in a mystical subject confusions in time, and in the natures of the persons, are equally allowable. Whatever rea- sons induced Correggio to bring together these two Saints in one picture, there is nothing in the fact to interfere with propriety ; any more than there is any sacrifice of historic probability in his having antici- pated the future, so far as to place by the side of St. Catherine, at the moment of her marriage, the wea- pons by which she was put to death ; or, still more, in the martyrdom of the two Saints being repre- sented, on either side, in the distance of the wide- spread landscape which forms the background of the picture. SAINT JEROME. IL GIORNO. CORREGGIO. ^he Gallery of Parma. F all the works of Correggio/' says Raf- faelle Mengs, " this is the finest." Al- garotti also gives it the preference, not only over all the pictures of the master, but even over all that he was acquainted with. Annibale Carracci never spoke of it but with excessive admiration, and after he had seen it, wished to abandon all other models, and study Correggio only. The history of this picture has been preserved with the greatest care. It was painted in 1524 for the Signora Briseis Colla, widow of Ottaviano Bergonzi, a gentleman of Parma. Correggio received for it forty- seven ducats, and his expenses during the six months in which he was engaged on it, although he cannot SAINT JEROME (IL GIORNO). have given up all his time to this picture, since he was then executing his great works in the church of San Giovanni. It is said that when the picture was finished, the Signora added to the price agreed on, a present, consisting of two loads of wood, a fat hog, and several measures of wheat ; a trifling present indeed, but in conformity with the custom of the times, and with the well-known moderation of the painter. Even if the fortunes of Correggio were not so unfavourable as they are commonly supposed to have been, it is at least certain that the simplicity and reserve of his character kept him for the whole of his life in an inferior position, a position from which even talent and genius will not raise a man, if he do not also possess that happy audacity, which, so to speak, takes fortune by storm. The Saint Jerome was presented by Signora Briseis to the members of the convent of Saint Antony in Parma. In the year 1749 it was bought by the Infant Dom Philip, to prevent its being sold by the monks to the king of Portugal, who was said to have offered for it four hundred and sixty thousand francs ; Philip deposited it in one of the rooms of the Aca- demy of Fine Arts which he had just founded. The subject, like that of the preceding picture, is one of a kind very common in that day, in which the painter was prompted by his individual feeling of devotion, to bring together in one picture the objects 92 CORREGGIO. of his veneration, without much regard to the order of time. Saint Jerome is not more conspicuous than any of the other persons. He stands at the extreme left of the picture, — his knees sHghtly bent, as if to take off somewhat from his great height; he is accom- panied by his Hon, and is as naked as if still in his de- sert retreat ; he is offering his works through an angel to the infant Saviour, who sits in the centre of the picture in the lap of his mother. To the right is Mary Magdalene on her knees, leaning her head and arm on the Virgin ; she has taken the foot of the holy child, and is bringing it caressingly near her cheek; behind her is an angel holding, and appearing to smell the odour of, the box of spikenard which Mary is at a future day to pour over the feet of her Lord. Correggio had a wonderful power of depicting the soft, tender, and graceful feelings, and in this famous composition he has shown his peculiar characteristic in the very highest degree. The whole picture is filled with the charm diffused by the adorable Infant. , The angel, who holds open the works of the saint, and points to a place in the page, is smiling just as a grown child does over another less than itself, of which it is accustomed to take care, and that so naturally," says Vasari, " that one is compelled to smile with it,"* The look of the Child is very * " II quale par che rida tanto naturalmente, che muove a riso CORREGGIO. SAINT JEROME. * II Giorno.' SAINT JEROME (IL GIORNO). merry and lively ; he is pointing with his hand as if he understood ; in the face of the Virgin there is a gleam of pleasure like that of a mother amused by the play of her child. The austere St. Jerome is quite absorbed in the contemplation of this happy picture : the slight cast of melancholy which is thrown over the lovely figure of the Magdalen, is perhaps indicative less of any presentiment of the fate of the child whom she caresses with such unre- strained affection, than of the fact that she is lavishing her tenderness on an infant who cannot compre- hend it. The angel behind the Magdalen is a charming figure ; indeed the grace which pervades the whole of the female figures is highly characteristic of Cor- reggio, and causes them to contrast admirably with the manly form of Saint Jerome, in which, if there be anything to criticise, it is that his attitude displays a little too much of that undulation of line to which Correggio was so much attached. Connoisseurs are accustomed to extol the figure of Saint Jerome as a prodigy of painting, even for Cor- reggio, for though the colouring is more thickly laid on than in any of his other pictures, it has preserved its transparence in an almost incredible degree, while ** chi lo gaarda, ne lo vede persona di natura malinconica, che non " si rallegri." — Fita Antonio da Correggio. 94 CORREGGIO. the tints are so liquid that they " have not the ap- pearance of being laid on with a brush, but are as if melted together, like wax before a fire."* This picture has been often engraved, but even Agostino Carracci has failed to render it in all its beauty. * Raf. Mengs, torn. ii. 157. CHARITY. Andrea Vannuchi, called Andrea del Sarto. "The Gallery of the Louvre. CARCELY had Francis the First mounted the throne when he invited to his court all those whose presence could be an or- nament and an honour to it ; philosophers, scholars, poets, architects, sculptors, painters, — in short, talent in whatever shape, — partook alike of his patronage and his protection. No sovereigns have set more store by renown acquired in this manner than the kings of France, or have given more marked and liberal proofs of their interest in arts and literature ; an interest by no means limited to distinguished men among their own subjects, but extending itself beyond the prejudices of the age, and beyond national dis- tinctions. Francis the First especially delighted in lavishing the marks of his esteem on the great men 96 ANDREA DEL SARTO. of all countries. On Andrea del Sarto they were ac- cumulated. About the year 151 8 he was called to Paris, where he was already known by several pic- tures which he had sent thither. He was first em- ployed upon the portrait of the newly born Dauphin, and then painted this picture of Charity, which added to his fame, and was the occasion of fresh marks of favour from the king. Like all the works of An- drea del Sarto, it was painted on wood, and with the Dauphin's portrait was soon attacked by the worms. Picault made an attempt to transfer the latter to canvas, and succeeded so well that the same thing was done to the Charity. Thus secured from further injury, it was exhibited in 1750, in the gallery of the Luxembourg, whence it passed from the collec- tion of the king to the Gallery of the Louvre. This picture is considered by Lomazzo to be one of the finest works of the master ; both the subject and the manner of its treatment are in accordance with what we know of his genius — natural, simple, sweet, and full of feeling. Charity is represented by a beautiful woman of great stature, seated ; she is clothed in drapery of red and blue, and holds two naked infants in her arms ; to one she is giving suck, while the second is showing her with childish glee some walnuts which it has picked up at her feet ; a third is sleeping at her side upon one of the folds of her dress. This last is not seen by Charity, but from CHARITY. 97 her sweet satisfied expression it is plain that she is re- joicing in the good she is doing ; and there is some- thing very remarkable in her look — it is not at all that of a happy mother surrounded by her children, but has a devotional gravity which seems to indicate that she is fulfilling a duty, allied with a meditative air, as if she were reflecting on other duties of the same kind — other infants as much in need of her care as those she is relieving, — and on the way in which her benevolence is to reach them. The result is a calm, grave dignity, fulfilling the true idea of Charity, and adding much to the touching nature of the action. It is evident that Andrea del Sarto's attempt has been not only to represent one act of benevolence, but to convey the entire character of religious charity ; he has painted simply a woman nourishing and cherishing three children, but his ima- gination would not rest until it had realised all the feelings of a soul devoted to the utmost exercise of a holy duty, and his aim has been to show these forth in the expression of his figure, and thus to make it re- present not a charitable woman, but a personification of Charity. And this he has done without symbols or allegory, by the mere force of expression. This is the true method of genius — to use the most simple means, and to find them in the subject itself rather than in accessories which are almost always cold and ineffective, because their relations to the H 98 ANDREA DEL SARTO. subject are not evident till after consideration, and because when recognized, they are more or less un- connected with the sentiment intended to be conveyed by the whole. The arrangement of the hair of the principal figure is unpleasing ; by its being drawn back until the roots are visible, not only -is the effect of the head-dress lost, but the beauty of the face is seriously interfered with : nevertheless, the features are fine, and the head is the part of the picture which has best preserved its colour. The neck has become very dark, and the draperies, wonderfully distributed as they are, and disposed in dignified and yet easy folds, have lost somewhat of their brilliancy. The children are lovely; the one is sucking with an eagerness which shows his want of such help, the other is giving his walnuts with a childish glee, and seems to be thank- ing his benefactress by his trusting gladness ; the atti- tude of the sleeping infant is full of natural grace. The only symbols of charity visible are some fruits springing at her feet. A well executed landscape forms the background of the picture, which is as complete in effect as it is simple in composition. OUR LORD TAKEN DOWN FROM THE CROSS. Andrea Sguazzella. The Gallery of the Louvre. NDREA Sguazzella was a pupil of An- drea del Sarto, who followed his master into France in the time of Francis the First, and never returned to Italy. History has trans- mitted to us no details of the life of Sguazzella ; we only know that his pencil was always well employed, and that Cellini, when in France, worked for some time at his studio. The difficulty of procuring the pictures of del Sarto, induced several persons to ap- ply to his pupil, and Sguazzella was thus often called to assist in the works of his master, as well as to execute them in his stead. He was employed by the unfortunate Semblan^ay to paint several pictures for the chateau of that name, near Troyes ; amongst lOO ANDREA SGUAZZELLA. others, those of the Israelites collecting Manna in the Desert, and Moses striking the Rock, which were afterwards removed to the house of the Jesuits, in the Rue Saint Antoine. There is sufficient resemblance between his manner, and that of his master, to allow of the works of the one having been attributed to the other, on more than one occasion ; and, on this point, connoisseurs are in doubt in the case of the present picture. Some have imagined that, in the city in the background, they recognized Florence, and have therefore attributed it to Sguazzella, whose native place Florence was. But this proof is of little value, for Andrea del Sarto was born at the town of San Sepolcro, which is distant only three miles from Florence, and lived habitually in that city ; and he therefore might, equally with Sguazzella, have indulged his fancy by placing it in the corner of his picture. Another, a very distinguished connoisseur, believes that he has discovered in this painting marks of the style of Otto Venius, the mas- ter of Rubens ; a conjecture which, however, does not rest on any tradition, and appears to me very im- probable. In my opinion, the character of the heads, and the style of expression, indicate clearly that it belongs to the school of del Sarto. It is more difficult to decide between the master and scholar ; but even here a little coldness in the execution, and a slight formality in the attitudes, OUR LORD TAKEN DOWN FROM THE CROSS, loi graceful though they be, incHne me to think that Sguazzella is the real author of this picture, which is admirable for its happy composition and dignified style, for the feeling shown in the expression, and the propriety of the part given to each of the actors in the sad scene. With the exception of one apostle, who supports the Virgin in her swoon, all are kneel- ing ; and the painter has contrived to vary this uni- form attitude, with much grace and effect. The Magdalen has thrown herself with her face on the ground, at the feet of her divine Master, covering Him with her long hair, and bathing him in her tears. Saint John is looking at her, with all the emo- tion caused by the sight of grief from which the be- holder is also suffering. In the countenances of the beloved disciple, and of the holy woman who is as- sisting to sustain the Virgin, there is a wonderful mixture of pity for her maternal agony with their own private sorrow. The body of our Lord is stretched out and fully displayed, not, perhaps, with- out some stiffness of attitude, but still with uncom- mon beauty ; while the heads of the three women are models of grace, in the expression of deep grief. The draperies are broadly and well arranged, parti- cularly that of the Holy Virgin. This picture, which is painted on wood, belonged, before the Revolution, to the church of Notre Dame de Villeneuve-sur-Tonne J to which it had come from 102 ANDREA SGUAZZELLA. the family of More4e-MenUy who had received it as the inheritance of M. Belostier, colonel of the regi- ment of Picardy. It was bought for the Musee by the Government, who gave in exchange for it an Adoration of the Shepherds, by M. Menageot. It has been engraved, with some alterations, and under the name of RafFaelle, by ^Eneas Vicus. THE VIRGIN AND INFANT CHRIST. Andrea Solari, called Del Gobbo. In the Gallery of the Louvre, HE Brothers Cristoforo and Andrea Solari, the one a Painter and the other a Sculp- tor, both bore the surname of Del Gobbo, or the Hunchback. It would be singular enough if each had acquired the name from being simi- larly deformed : but the prefix del makes it likely that they simply received it from their father. They both lived at Milan early in the sixteenth century, and both appear to have been well known, at least in their native country. Vasari relates that some Lombards, — whose know- ledge of things seems to have been confined to their own native place, — were once going through the church of St. Peter's at Rome, and seeing the Mater Dolo- rosa of Michel Angelo in the chapel of the Virgin, 104 ANDREA SOLARI. one of them asked the other by whom it was. " By whom but our Gobbo ? " replied he : as if so fine a thing could have been done by no one else. Michel Angelo was present ; he said nothing, but a few nights afterwards he returned and cut his name on the girdle of the Virgin ; a thing which he has not done in any other of his works. Andrea, the Painter, was one of the best scholars of Gaudenzio Ferrari, an artist, who according to Lanzi is not esteemed as he deserves, since Vasari, whose works are almost the only authorities con- sulted out of Italy, has not done him justice.^ Ferrari belonged to the old Milanese school, which at that time was inclining to that of Lionardo da Vinci, though it never entirely became merged in it. He enjoyed, — in addition to the advantage which the Milanese school in general possessed in the study of Lionardo's works, and in intercourse with that high- minded and amiable man, — the special privilege of an intimate connexion with Raffaelle. During a visit which he made to Rome, he took lessons from that great master, and even assisted in the execution of some of his pictures, particularly that of the story of Psyche. He returned from Rome with a better manner, and a style of drawing at once bolder and more graceful than that of the old Milanese school : * See Lanzi, vol. iv. p. 212. THE VIRGIN AND INFANT CHRIST. 105 but that which is peculiar to him and which he per- haps most particularly studied, is the rendering of expression ; he painted souls better than bodies."* Whatever other excellences Andrea Solari may have derived from his master, the charming picture be- fore us gives ample proof in what a high degree he possessed those of grace and expression. The fore- ground is occupied by a kind of balcony supporting a cushion of green stuff, on which the Infant Christ is lying. The Virgin is leaning over him and raising him with her right hand, while with her left she presses the milk from her breast. The Child has his mouth open, and his foot in his hand, and is looking at the Virgin as children look only at the mother who nurses them ; her eyes reply with an expression of the fondest maternal love, — intent on nothing but her sweet task. As Lanzi says, in speaking of Gau- denzio, " never were faces more striking, never were " positions and expressions at once so natural and so " full of graceful beauty." The figure of the Virgin is in a fine style, and that of the Child charming : the red robe, white veil, and blue mantle of the Virgin are richly painted ; the colours, especially in the lower part of the body of the Child, are still fresh, and the hair is admirably * ** Meglio anche de' corpi, se e lecito dirlo, ritraca gli animi." — Lanzi, vol. iv. p. 211. io6 ANDREA SOLARI. executed ; both bearing out the opinion of Vasari, who speaks of Solari as a painter full of harmony, neglecting no detail for the perfection of his work. The perspective, as in all the pictures of the Milanese school, is very correctly kept. The careful marking of the different levels of the ground-plan of the pic- ture indicates a period of art when all attempt to conceal means is forgotten in delight at the attainment of success. One of Solari's finest and largest works is an Assumption of the Virgin, which he painted for the Certosa at Pavia, but which was not completely finished at the time of his death. CHRIST TAKEN DOWN FROM THE CROSS. GlACOMO DA PONTE, CALLED BaSSANO. ^he Gallery of the Louvre. HE chief characteristics of the Venetian School are great brilliancy of colour, happy management of light and shade, charming freedom of handling, and truthful treat- ment of the figure and attitude ; general qualifica- tions, to which the different masters of the school have each added their own peculiar excellencies. Bas- sano carried them to great perfection, while he com- bined with them a simple unstudied grace, drawn from the only models at his command, — those in the lower grades of life. His father, Francesco da Ponte, was his first instructor ; a painter whose productions were not above the common run of his time. Some say that he afterwards took lessons from Titian, io8 BASSANO. whose manner he imitated in his early pictures : but his chief studies were at Venice, under a painter named Bonifazio, who was so unwilling to communi- cate the secrets of his art to his scholars, that Bassano never saw him at work but through the keyhole of his studio. The death of his father, and family affairs, obliged him, however, to return to Bassano, his native place, which his narrow means never allowed him again to quit ; and here, — in a country rich in the beauties of nature, but destitute of the pleasures and occupations of refined society, — the young artist was debarred from the acquisition of that familiarity with ele - gance and dignity, which he would have enjoyed in more cultivated scenes. Shut out equally from artistic models and from the society of painters, his imagination rested at the level of the dull realities which surrounded him. But to reproduce these faithfully, all his efforts were directed. His paint- ings are numerous, but little varied in subject ; very frequently markets or fairs, and for sacred subjects, the Return of Jacob, Noah's Ark, our Lord at the house of Martha, or of the Pharisee, the Adoration of the Magi, or the arrival of the Queen of Sheba. He preferred subjects which gave him an opportu- nity of introducing a great many animals, or rich or- naments and brasen vessels, which last he painted with surprising effect. In others, which he has often re- CHRIST TAKEN DOWN FROM THE CROSS. 109 peated, such as our Saviour on the Mount of Olives, or that of the present picture, he represented torch light, and produced the most striking effects, by a strong but not discordant contrast of colour, " so that," says Algarotti, they glitter as if really alight." The attitudes of his figures are often greatly con- trasted with one another ; this he did, in order that their mutual resemblance, arising from his taking the members of his family as models, might not be be- trayed. And by this various treatment, he has ma- naged to extract from a very small number of things, all that they contained as objects of imitation ; for nothing will smother the fire of genius, but, if hin- dered at one outlet, it will burst forth by another. Bassano has been reproached with drawing in bad perspective, an error very rare in the Venetian school; and it has been said that, not being able to paint hands and feet, he has generally been at pains to con- ceal them. Some of his pictures show what he could do, though it is certain that he did not always paint as well as he was able. Obliged to paint for a livelihood, he sent his pictures to the most frequented fairs ; but their number did not detract from their reputation, even Courts overwhelmed him with their commissions, and Paul Veronese sent his son to him as a scholar. The picture now described is a dead Christ, repre- sented by torchlight, as are almost all Bassano's pic- tures from the subjects of this kind ; the torchlight is I lO BASSANO. thrown strongly on the limbs and chest of our Lord, and on some of his features, which are seen in reverse, the head supported in the arms of St. Joseph of Ari- mathea ; a singular, though not unnatural, effect is produced by the bald forehead, white beard, and red drapery of Joseph, combined with the light hair of the Magdalen, and the white veil of Mary. The three women are at the feet of the corpse ; in the background is Saint John, who appears to have just entered, and on the other side is a man who has assisted in lowering our Lord's body, still holding the ladder. In all the figures grief is strongly marked, their expression is quiet, but deep and true ; there is much beauty in the details, and the colour is of ad- mirable warmth. THE HOLY FAMILY. Paolo Cagliari, called Paul Veronese. In the Gallery of the Louvre, AUL Veronese has left some original ob- ' servations on the various ways in which , he would propose to treat the favourite and often-painted subject of The Holy Family. The variations which he describes are very different from those of Raffaelle. " Had I," says he, " the time, I should like to paint a grand entertainment in a superb gallery, at " which I would introduce the Virgin, the Saviour, " and Saint Joseph. They should be waited upon " by the most glorious company of angels that one " could conceive of, who should be presenting them the choicest viands and the most rare and costly " fruits, on dishes of gold and silver. Others should be pressing upon them the most delicious beverages I I 2 PAUL VERONESE. " in transparent crystal, and in brilliant golden ves- sels, showing thereby how eager such happy spirits " are to serve their Master." Elsewhere it is to be our Lord as an infant, lulled to sleep by the music of angels ; or else, as was the case in a picture which he describes as having painted for his own house, where, amongst the angels surrounding the Saviour, were the sun, the moon, and the stars, showering on the earth the fruits of the seasons ! This luxuriance of imagination, so conspicuous in all the compositions of Paul Veronese, was the subject of much admiration and loud praise from his contempo- raries. In some verses by Zuccari, Painting is made to express her gratitude towards the great Artist, who, she says, " has adorned her with a necklace of " the richest eastern gems, and a large pendant of " snowy pearls." " E di candide perle un gran pendente." But the taste of Paul was purer and loftier than that which dictated the raptures of Zuccari, and his magnificence was never wanting in dignity. The gorgeous vases, rich robes, and superb buildings with which the greater number of his pictures are deco- rated, are only accessories indispensable for the fulfil- ment of his conception. The vastness of his genius is shown much more in the subjects which he under- THE HOLY FAMILY. 113 takes and the space which he fills, than in the manner in which he carries them out, and is still more re- markable when contrasted with the small amount of labour that such works cost him. It seems in fact as if he had only to imagine any amount of magnificence in order to produce it, so easily and naturally do all the parts of his composition arrange themselves, and so rapid has evidently been their execution : the harmony of all the parts of the picture, — numerous, brilliant, and bold as they are, — as plainly telling of its being the result of a single effort, as it speaks to the mind at a single glance. Such a peculiar talent as this is one of those happy gifts of nature, those possessions of genius, which cannot be bequeathed or inherited ; and the saying of Zannetti is quite true, " that no one should dare to imitate the manner of Paul Veronese who is not " sure that he was born under his star." Suited as this style is to the treatment of very large pictures and of extensive perspectives, Paul Veronese has succeeded in employing it also in some works of very small size ; and in these his daring spirit is all the more astonishing, because it is engaged on things which seem as if they would not bear any but the most minute treatment. A story is told of some monks for whom he had painted a small picture of Paradise, and who, in disgust at the want of finish apparent in it, made all haste to get rid of it to a I 114 PAUL VERONESE. Flemish painter, who gave them in exchange one of his own, and immediately sold that of Paul Veronese for a large sum. And no doubt the same fate would have befallen the present picture had it unfortunately belonged to the same good fathers : for it seems to have been painted merely with a few touches, though it sparkles with all the rich details which this painter so loved to introduce. Here, at least, he could introduce them without impropriety. The Holy Child, who from the knees of His mother is giving his hand to be kissed by a nun presented to him by Saint Joseph, is no longer the Infant born in a manger : He is the God of Christendom, the object of mystical imagination, who not only may, but must, be represented with all the symbols of majesty, not of poverty. The Nun is probably the holy foundress of some order ; she holds a palm, the symbol of martyrdom. Saint Elizabeth is weaving her a crown, and the Magdalen gives her the hand of the Holy Child. VENUS AND CUPID. PaLMA, ^ THE YOUNGER,* I HERE is no loftier, as there can be no more solid encouragement for the fine arts, in an age able and willing to appre- ciate them, than public taste, provided that the public be not taken to consist in the number of indi- vidual amateurs, but in their united judgment. The taste of the artist is formed in accordance with the general opinion of his judges, and in the concurrence of their voices stands his success. Attention to the judgment of individuals and to isolated criticisms will produce a larger number of artists, and will multiply their works, but it is not thus that great geniuses are called into action ; and it is undoubtedly true that whenever art is made to minister to the gratification or self-love of individuals, rather than to the pleasure and glory of the general public, it will degenerate into a mere trade, in which competition in labour will ii6 PALMA THE YOUNGER. take the place of rivalry of talent, and men will aim, not at excelling, but at supplanting each other. The marvellous works of the great Greek artists were, without exception, consecrated to the public service ; individuals, however affluent, did not dare to appropriate them, for the nation alone was counted worthy to possess them ; and accordingly, under the influence of a people full of enthusiasm for beauty and delicate feeling for truth, the arts of Greece pro- duced works which have become models for the imi- tation of the whole world. The rapid career through which, in modern days, the arts have risen towards perfection, has been in most cases the result of the patronage of enlightened princes. In this case the splendour which a great person sheds on the arts is in reality borrowed from the public ; and his protection is all the more valua- ble, because it is thrown around those whom the public has honoured by its praise. Attempts are now made, by exhibitions of paint- ing and sculpture, to bring before the notice of the public, works produced to gratify the taste or the al- lowable self-indulgence of individual amateurs, and the result of such exhibitions has been an abundant testi- mony to the reality and power of the principle on which they are based. This most important principle appears to have been greatly lost sight of in the Venetian School to- VENUS AND CUPID. wards the commencement of the seventeenth century. After the death of Paul Veronese and of Tintoretto, there was no longer any centre able to attract, and at the same time to lead the taste of the numerous lovers of art ; and the painters being overwhelmed with de- mands, and not stimulated at the same time by criti- cism, found it more their interest to produce a large number of works than to attend to the improvement of their style. Giacomo Palma (called the younger to distinguish him from his uncle, Palma the elder, a contemporary and scholar of Giorgione,) is accused of having helped to begin this decline. Palma was born in 1544, and brought up in the company of the greatest painters of his school, so that, according to Lanzi, he may be looked on as belonging either to the end of the good period or the beginning of the bad. His ability and industry might well have en- titled him to take a less equivocal position. A clever designer and a good colourist, he combined, in the outset of his career, great application and care, with a rare facility of style, and great boldness of touch. Tintoretto and Paul Veronese being, however, at tlie head of their profession, and in possession of almost all the important and lucrative commissions, Palma found but little employment. At last, by dint of ingenuity, he succeeded in ingratiating himself with Vittoria, an architect and sculptor of great name, in charge of most of the great public works of the city and republic ii8 PALMA THE YOUNGER. generally, who was dissatisfied at the little considera- tion shewn him by Tintoretto and P. Veronese, Un- der the advice and protection of this man, Palma succeeded in obtaining employment, and after the death of his formidable competitors all that had been in their hands came to him. He was now obliged to paint pictures in such numbers that he could give little attention to their quality. Those really worthy of him could only be obtained at exorbitant prices ; and thus it happens, that out of the large number of his pictures there are very few which have really added to his reputation. That now described is certainly one of those few. In front of a rich curtain — doubtless intended to con- ceal her from lawless gaze — Venus has interrupted her toilet to play with Cupid, who hovers over her head. She is half seated ; with the right hand she is trying to hold Cupid, and the left leans on a table covered with a carpet, on which is a mirror and a vase of perfume. The name of the painter is written on a rich casket at her feet. The body of Venus is full of beauty and grace, the colouring warm and beautiful, and the accessories painted with care. VIRGIN AND CHILD. LuDovico Caracci. ^he Gallery of the Louvre, HE impulse given to any department of art by a man of genius is not unfrequently followed by a period of stagnation arising from the excessive admiration which he has excited. The eyes of men have been so exclusively fastened in admiring imitation on their great model, that they have become blind to all besides, not remembering that beauty well worthy of attention is to be found elsewhere than in him, and that in ceasing to enrich their art from fresh sources they are really impover- ishing it, because while neglecting to seek in nature for those fresh beauties which are legitimately within the province of art, they will infallibly lose sight of those which are already in its possession. After the death of Michel Angelo, painting, in I20 LUDOVICO CARACCI. Italy, and especially in Florence, fell into a state of languor and decline. The artists were occupied with mere copying or at the best with imitation, an en- tirely conventional manner had taken the place of invention and observation of nature ; and reform, or rather revolution, was inevitable. The task of con- ducting this movement was attempted at Florence by Cigoli, while it was successfully undertaken by Ludovico Caracci at Bologna, a centre whence its effects were quickly diffused throughout the whole of Italy. Possessed of an earnest disposition, a mind at once observant and thoughtful, and a sincere feeling for truth, Ludovico Caracci was little likely to make progress in a school of art whose only principles were certain traditional rules, the falsehood of which in- creased with their distance from those in whom they had originated : and accordingly he appeared to ad- vance so little that he was advised by Fontana and Tintoretto, who were successively his masters, to give up painting altogether ; while his fellow-students in scornful comparison of his slowness with their own facility of acquisition, always called him ^ The Ox.' However, the ox made his furrow, and in the end reaped from it the fruit of his patient application. Ludovico Caracci set himself earnestly to compare the rules of his art with nature : he resolved to dis- VIRGIN AND CHILD. 121 cover the real meaning of what he met with, and boldly to reject everything which appeared to be con- trary to truth : at the same time he bound himself to do whatever he did, well ; being convinced that only by so doing is real facility to be attained. After a time he travelled, with the view of study- ing, in the works of the great masters, the various beauties which they had discovered in nature, — nature which was equally his model and theirs ; and he re- turned home rich in the results of observation and of imagination. He was not, however, able to make head alone against the authority and custom which had possession of all the schools. He felt that he wanted the young men on his side, and he therefore began his efforts by moulding and associating with himself his talented cousins, Agostino and Annibale. From their united labours arose that school of which they were the bril- liant leaders, and among the members of which were Guido, Domenichino, Albano and many more : a school distinguished from others precisely in this, that it taught no peculiar manner and was wedded to no system ; but that, basing itself on the beautiful and the true, it allowed its followers free liberty of choice amongst the infinite variety of forms in which beauty and truth manifest themselves ; the result being that from the school of the Caracci pro- 122 LUDOVICO CARACCI. ceeded almost as many difFerent styles as individual men of genius. Dignity and propriety however are characteristics common to them all ; wholesome restraints on the extravagances of genius, and preservatives from the danger in which truth often lies, of being overwhelmed in the license too often mistaken by a heated imagina- tion for the freedom of nature. The art of colouring, which had all but expired in the hands of the copyists of Michel Angelo, revived in the frescoes of the Caracci ; and though, in this respect, their oil paintings are somewhat inferior to their frescoes, still they are free from coldness or insipidity. The painting now under consideration is very re- markable for the grace of the handling, and the bold- ness and harmony of its colouring. In point of cor- rectness of drawing and dignity of style it is worthy of the greatest masters. The Virgin, with her right hand on a book, supports with the other her Son, who is standing : the two figures are of wonderful grace, both in attitude and expression : in the head of the infant Saviour there is an air of command tempered with sweetness, and in that of His mother a modesty full at once of dignity and of humility, which an- nounce the Master of the universe, and the happy mother, who, when chosen to bear him in her womb. VIRGIN AND CHILD. 123 answered the angel who proclaimed her high call- ing — " Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it " unto me according to thy word." This picture is on wood and circular in form, and is without contradiction one of the finest works of this master in the collection of the Louvre. THE VIRGIN WITH THE INFANT CHRIST AND ST. JOHN, CALLED ' SILENTIUM,' OR ' LE SILENCE/ Annibale Caracci. The Gallery of the Louvre. MODERN English Poet, in addressing sleeping child, speaks as follows : — " Art thou a thing of mortal birth, " Whose happy home is on our earth ? " Does human blood with life imbue " Those wandering veins of heavenly blue, " That stray along thy forehead fair " Lost *mid a gleam of golden hair ? " Oh, can that light and airy breath " Steal from a being doomed to death ? " Those features to the grave be sent *' In sleep thus mutely eloquent ? ' LE SILENCE.* 125 " Or art thou what thy form would seem, " The phantom of a blessed dream ?" ****** ** Oh, that my spirit's eye could see ** Whence burst those gleams of ecstacy ! " That light of dreaming soul appears " To play from thoughts above thy years ; Thou smiFst as if thy soul were soaring " To heaven and heaven's God adoring : '* And who can tell what visions high ** May bless an infant's sleeping eye?" * It is as if these lines had been written on the infant Saviour in this picture of Caracci. Jesus is asleep ; there is the deepest quiet in his features, limbs and attitude ; the grace and freshness of childhood give his figure the most perfect sweetness and simplicity ; its proportions are perhaps a little too stout for his age and for the mould of his mother, but this inac- curacy — with which Annibale Caracci is often charge- able, — gives the Holy Child an air of grandeur, still more evident in the expression of the head, which is really imposing. To use the words just quoted, " That light of dreaming soul appears ** To play from thoughts above his years," with an expression which recalls the whole after-life of our Lord, His sweet and grave manners, and His * ' To a sleeping Child.' Poems by John Wilson. 1825. ii. 23. 126 ANNIBALE CARACCI. teaching so simple, yet so deep ; and thus adds to the beauty of the painting all the charm of the associa- tions of that pure and holy life. The beauty of the figure of the Virgin is such that it would be remarkable even by the side of those of RafFaelle. She has not perhaps the unconscious sim- plicity of the Belle Jardiniere^ nor the grace of the Madonna della Sedia, but her expression is full of sweet serenity ; and with this her action is quite in agreement, the little Saint John touches the leg of the infant Jesus, and is about to break his rest, but the Virgin does not push him off ; she contents herself with putting her finger on her lips and thus making him a sign to remain quiet, as if she feared to move. Saint John is one of the most charming figures ever painted, full of delicacy, nature, and childish grace; he is most anxious to touch the sleeping Infant, and looks at the Virgin with an inquiring look, as if to find out how far he may go, and whether she really means to forbid him. And though he obeys and does no more, yet he remains in the position he was in when she made her sign to him, without going away. Few painters have succeeded in combining so well in the head of a child all those little eager, mis- chievous, and yet timid ways which are found in children, accompanied with so much simplicity, ease, and quickness. ' LE SILENCE.' 127 Annibale Caracci has often treated this subject with the same persons in the composition. Three engravings of it^ from his own hand, are also known, — two etchings, the third executed with the graver. THE NATIVITY. Annibale Caracci. ^he Gallery of the Louvre, T is difficult to understand, especially in the presence of this picture, how Mengs can have denied to Annibale Caracci the possession of ^ philosophic reflectiveness.'* Reflec- tiveness was the great characteristic of the school of the Caracci ; it was by applying thought and reason to the service of their art that they led it back to nature, after she had been driven away by the conventionali- ties of the mannerists. They found, in thoughtful sentiments and deep-seated emotion, the source of the pure and simple expression, which they opposed so successfully to the exaggeration of the unskilful imitators of Michel Angelo. Although the three * ' Riflessione filosofica.' THE NATIVITY. 129 Caracci entered on the same path, they certainly pursued it in very different manners. In the pictures of Ludovico we are most struck by variety and intensity of expression, in those of Agostino by in- genuity of conception, while Annibale has surpassed them both in purity and grace. But the productions of all three are alike in the great depth of thought which they evince. The attention is seized, in spite of itself, by the natural and apparently simple ex- pression ; but the simplicity is not meagreness, on closer inspection it is found to contain a depth of order and hidden treasures of truth, which do but increase in number and value the more they are ex- amined. The first impression made by this picture is that of much movement, a rare thing with the Caracci. Their pictures do not commonly contain more than a dozen figures ; but this one represents an event of universal interest — Christ is born, and all things are moved in heaven and earth ; the sky opens, and we see the clouds peopled with angels, and, above them, all the minstrelsy of Heaven." Some of these, in all the beauty of youth, are celebrating the advent of the Redeemer with hymns and music of instruments, aided by the voices of angel children ; and one in the centre of the picture holds a streamer, on which is inscribed, in letters of gold, the triumphant words, " Gloria in excelsis," Below these hover others K ANNIBALE CARACCI. showering down flowers on the group of mortals be- neath, with whom again more angels are mingled, thus completing the chain of mercy and good will which, from the time of the coming of the Son of Man, is to connect heaven and earth. This lower group is composed of three shepherds, the Virgin, Saint Joseph, and three angels, all kneeling round the Holy Child, who lies in the middle on the straw of the manger, and forms, as it were, the luminous point in which the looks and the aspirations of those around Him are alike concentred. This fine work is as remarkable for the richness and harmony of its execution, as for the unity and variety of its design. In the upper group — almost symmetrical in arrangement and formed of beings of the same nature, the same age, and the same sex, all filled with the same sentiment — we have a striking example of the art of the painter in managing the lines of his composition without confusion or mo- notony, and in varying the form and character of beauty. The expression of the faces is as varied as their features, and yet all have the same look of heavenly love and self abandonment, — joy undis- turbed and unaccompanied by any movement to shew that they are out of their usual condition ; — their present occupation might well be that of their whole existence. The delight and adoring won- der of the shepherds is manifested with an eagerness THE NATIVITY. 3 which serves perfectly to distinguish them from the angels who are mixed with them. The figure of the Child is intelligent and dignified, and in the midst of the group the Virgin — her hands folded on her breast, her eyes on her Son and her heart lifted to heaven — appears full of a feeling which none can share with her, inasmuch as to her alone belongs the high destiny to which she is devoting herself with all the deep love of a mother. THE COMMUNION OF ST. JEROME. DOMENICO ZaMPIERI, CALLED DoMENICHINO. The Gallery of the Vatican, E have here one of the marvels of paint- ing, a picture to which Poussin said that he could find no superior, or even equal, but that of the Transfiguration. It is not to be wondered at that it should have undergone, and have triumphed over, the attacks of jealous rivals : it is more remarkable, that these attacks were not with- out real grounds, and yet that the picture should be, notwithstanding, as highly valued as ever; a fact which is a sufficient reply to many a weighty criti- cism. It is well known in what dislike the quiet and re- served Zampieri was held by his competitors, who were all the more jealous of his abilities that they misunderstood his disposition, and who were annoyed at finding in each successive picture of his, an evi- THE COMMUNION OF ST. JEROME. 133 dence that however superior they might be to him in the ordinary affairs of life, in art he was their master. Superiority is forgiven only by those who are actually vanquished by it ; as long as it may be questioned, it will be resisted with enmity. In the present case the outcry of envy so far succeeded in keeping down the voice of truth, that at the age of thirty, and with several of his best pictures painted, Domenichino had hardly any reputation. At this time, an ecclesiastic of his acquaintance employed him to paint, for fifty Roman crowns, this picture of the last Communion of St. Jerome, for the high altar in the Church of that name at Bologna. His enemies being now no longer able to dispute his success, did their utmost to detract from it. They accused him of having copied a picture which Agostino Caracci, one of Domenichino's masters, had painted on the same subject for the Church of the Carthusians, at Bologna. Lanfranco, his most rancorous enemy, copied the picture of Caracci, and had it engraved. The imitation is evident and undeniable : Domenichino himself, with his usual candour, confessed that he had borrowed from his master certain things which he believed to be unimportant, and which in reality are so, since the peculiar beauties of his great work are independent of them.* * As the points of correspondence between these two pictures are very interesting, they have both been engraved. 134 DOMENICHINO. They are most observable in the composition of the picture. In both paintings the saint is almost naked, has very nearly the same drapery, and is turned three- quarters round to the spectator : in both he kneels on the steps of the Altar, crouching back through weak- ness upon his heels, and supported from behind. The attitude of the priest who stands before him, in the act of administering the Communion, is in both almost exactly the same. Each painter too has placed behind the saint a spectator in a Jewish turban, to indicate that the locality of the scene is Bethlehem. The architecture of the background is similarly com- posed of columns and pilasters, with a centre archway, beyond which is seen a rich landscape ; while through the arch, child angels borne on clouds are entering the church. In fact the resemblance between the two pictures extends even to the countenance of the saint. Some of these imitations probably arose from a natural and praiseworthy feeling of respect for a work which had already become classical, and would be especially so in the eyes of the pupil of Agostino Ca- racci. Others will have presented themselves to Do- menichino — a man naturally without much power of invention — as a certain given arrangement, suggestive to him of impressions and sentiments of an entirely different cast from those embodied by his master. And in fact, the two pictures are entirely distinct in idea. That of Agostino Caracci represents the last AGOSTINO CARACCI. DOMENICHINO. THE COMMUNION OF S. JEROME. • THE COMMUNION OF ST. JEROME. act in the life of St. Jerome ; that of Domenichino is filled with the idea of his death. Agostino, with more of a poet^s imagination, has seized the marvel- lous side of the transaction, while Domenichino, more sensitive and thoughtful, is occupied with its devo- tional side. The picture of the former is ahve with all the impressions naturally excited by an occurrence so likely to rouse curiosity and conjecture ; several of the persons present are eagerly gazing upwards at the angels who are come to celebrate the last Com- munion of the saint ; a second is writing down what passes ; whilst others, by their positions and move- ments, give the idea that they are eager to spread abroad the marvels they are witnessing. Domenichino, on the other hand, puts aside all thought of what may follow, in order to concen- trate attention on the few moments granted to the departing spirit, for its one last effort on earth. The soul alone lives in the attenuated and motionless body ; in the picture of Caracci, the saint has been able to cross his hands on his breast, and his body, drooping rather than entirely dead, appears to be suffering more under the weight than the feebleness of age ; but here he has in vain striven to raise his arms, they have fallen the length of his body rigid and powerless, and though a pious matron lifts one of them, and is reverentially kissing it, it evidently yields to her without any participation. Four men 136 DOMENICHINO. who are gathered round the Saint, appear afraid lest they should allow the utterly helpless and immoveable frame to escape from their grasp ; watching and fast- ing have quite wasted it, the skin is no longer held up by the withered muscles, but loose and flaccid gives way to the least pressure of support. The head has fallen on the breast : the eyes alone speak, and though too weak even to look up to the Host, they are eagerly craving from it a last boon, towards which the feeble remains of life are reaching forth, before the soul quits this earth for the bosom of the angels, some of whom hover above, awaiting the moment which is so soon to end the scene. But neither those Angels, nor the lion crouching at the feet of his master with all the grief of an old servant, can attract one look from the assistants ; as tributes to the importance of the chief person con- cerned such marvellous incidents are well calculated to add weight to the event, but they are unable to draw attention from the main action, or to interrupt the solemn silence through which we almost expect to hear the sacramental words passing from the lips of the celebrant to the soul of the dying saint. No movement breaks the stillness but that caused by the pious care, and tender pity of the attendants, not to be distinguished from the devotion excited in them by the two-fold sacrifice which is being offered. It is impossible to exhaust the significance of this THE COMMUNION OF ST. JEROME. 137 picture, for like all other grand things, it has part with the infinite. At the same time the execution is as nearly as possible perfect. The composition is throughout of the highest order, while the adherence to nature is so close that it is difficult to say whether some of the figures do not owe their dignity of look entirely to the sentiment which they express. Arrangement and harmony of colour are displayed in an astonishing degree. The brightest light falls on the white vestment, boyish figure, and fair hair of a young priest in front. The body of the saint is entirely illuminated, but the light is so lowered as to prevent the colouring, which de- notes the gradual approach of death, and which is rendered with striking truth, from being at all offen- sive. The shadow cast by the celebrating priest throws the figures behind him into a half light, which gives them their due position, while it brings them out into proper relief. These figures are arranged without confusion, and there is atmosphere round each of them : while nothing can surpass the beauty of the perspective, and the clear arrangement, close connec- tion and easy transition of the several planes of the picture. THE ECSTASY OF ST. PAUL. DOMENICHINO. ne Gallery of the Louvre. KNEW a man in Christ, above fourteen years ago, whether in the body I cannot tell, or whether out of the body, I cannot tell, God knoweth : such a one, caught up to the third heaven : and I knew such a man (whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell, God knoweth ;) how that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter. — i Cor, xii. 2, 3, 4. The above forms the subject of this picture by Domenichino, as it does also that of one by Poussin.''^ It is easy to understand its inviting aspect to two men of thoughtful mind, capable of conceiving, and giving * Also in the Louvre. THE ECSTASY OF ST. PAUL. ^39 outward shape to the wonders of the imagination. In the ecstasy of meditation, and lost in mental contem- plation of the depths which are revealed to him, the Apostle has forgotten his earthly existence, heaven has opened to his view, and he is "caught up" into it; but " whether in the body or out of the body he cannot " tell ; God knoweth." In that ecstatic trance, he has so far lost the consciousness of his bodily existence, that it was not in his power to say whether it did, or did not, take part in the act — whether the revelations which were then made to his spirit were made through his bodily senses, or independently of them. But his spiritual vision has retained all its clearness; he has brought back from those regions no mere impression of a vague dream, or of some confused sensations : he heard mysterious wordsy which were still fresh in his memory at the time that he declared that it was not lawful to utter them. On these two circumstances of the occurrence, each of the two painters has founded his own conception — the one totally differing from the other. It is the earnest searching of the soul after deep and hidden truths that is brought most prominently forward in Poussin's picture : the idea of the surrender of the whole man to ecstasy pervades that of Domenichino. In the depth of the sky, out of sight of the earth, and in the midst of space, the man of God has given himself up to the impulse which draws him on to 140 DOMENICHINO. his Creator ; he has put off that which before kept him from the heavenly place whither he is now rising, and to which he makes his way without hinderance or interruption, " whether in the body or out of the body " he cannot tell — God knoweth : " all earthly gross- ness is now gone, or if not gone giving way before the vast moral power apparent in that head, those arms, and those eyes so steadfastly gazing up into heaven. Standing before this picture, it is impossible not to say with Bellori, that Domenichino has the power of painting, or rather drawing the form'^ of the spirit. The spirit, and the spirit alone, is visible; whether the body is or is not there is of little import- ance : it has obeyed the commands of its superior, and, merged in the spirit, flies and rises with it ; f and the angels who surround Saint Paul, almost in- fants as they are, are rather following than support- ing him. In the angels with which Poussin has surrounded the Apostle we find a greater appearance of strength ; the painter has intended them to be really in action, and they are so. While in the picture of Domenichino they are more or less hidden, in that of Poussin their limbs are displayed, and that so variously as to in- crease the apparent number of persons ; hence the * * Delineare.* f The movement of the left leg indicates positively that the body is rising of itself. THE ECSTASY OF ST. PAUL. group is somewhat complicated, and the attention is drawn off from the spiritual aspect of the subject. It is as if the persons of the picture were not so far on their heavenward journey but that they retained some- thing of the earth so lately quitted by the Apostle. But the heavenly vision has begun, and the Apostle's attention is fixed on it ; an angel is pointing it out to him, and he looks ; he speaks, and Paul listens ; his bodily senses are all in action, and directed to their proper objects; the Saint Paul of Poussin is still a mortal man. This manner of treating the subject is very much in conformity with the reflective habit of Poussin, and perhaps, too, with the argumentative method characteristic of the Apostle's general teaching : nor is it difficult to understand what caused Poussin to adopt it. But, on the other hand, Domenichino would seem to have occupied himself with the act of a moment. His picture is the representation of a condition or state of being or feeling, abstracted from the individual who is the subject of it : a realization of that ardent love which we are told by Saint Teresa lifted her off the ground.* In the picture of Poussin heaven is the * But at other times it was altogether impossible for me to hinder *'it; for, my soul would be carried absolutely away, and ordinarily, ** even my head, as it were, after it, so that I could not stay " it ; yea, and sometimes my whole body so, as to be raised-up 142 DOMENICHINO. source of the miracle, of which man is merely the subject. Domenichino has made the man himself the seat of the miracle, and has made us feel that it is there. In the former case, our wish is that we could accompany the Apostle, and be partakers with him of the sublime truths which he is beginning dimly to behold in manifestation ; in the latter we are ourselves caught up together with St. Paul. " from the ground. This last hath happened rarely to me ; but " once it was on the very point to arrive, whilst we were assembled " together in the Quire ; and I being then upon my knees (as at the " point to receive the Blessed Sacrament) it put me to extream " trouble ; because it seemed to me a very extraordinary thing, and which presently would be much noted ; and so I commanded my " Religious-women (for at that time I was Prioress) that they should " not fpeak of it. But at other times, when I began to discern that our Lord was going about to do the same, (and once in par- ticular, when divers ladies were present ; and it was upon the " Feast of our Vocation, when there was a Sermon) I did even spread myself all along upon the ground ; and though the Reli- gious-women came then about me to keep my Body down, yet the thing was easily perceived." — The Life of the Holy Mother Teresa, 4to. 1761. Parti. Chap. xx. « THE TRIUMPH OF CUPID. DOMENICHINO. TLhe Gallery of the Louvre, F truth of representation were not the main element of success in all styles, it would perhaps be astonishing that flower painting should have owed its first successes in Italy to Cara- vaggio. Bellori speaks of a vase of flowers of his painting which were remarkable for the dewy fresh- ness of the flowers, and for the transparence of the water and of the vase in which a window was reflected. After him, at the end of the sixteenth and commence- ment of the seventeenth centuries, Tomasso Salini painted flowers in jars, arranging them very happily with their leaves, and introducing insects and other accessories. Like all pleasant novelties, flower paint- ing quickly rose in estimation. It became the custom to arrange the flowers so as to form frames or gar- 144- DOMENICHINO. lands, within which small subjects were painted by other artists. On the authority of Bellori we learn that the Triumph of Cupid was painted in this manner by Domenichino, within a garland which had been presented to his friend and patron, Cardinal Ludovisi, nephew of Gregory the Fifteenth. This kind of embellishment, which was as much a favourite with the Flemish painter, as with the Italians, must have remained in favour for a considerable time ; for Passeri relates that after the death of his master Domenichino, he pronounced his eulogy in a hall of the cancellaria at Rome, and that in the hall was placed a portrait which he had painted of the deceased artist, hung with black drapery, and encircled by a garland of cypress with silver berries, " the effect of " which," says Passeri, " was to give a certain charm " to that ornament." In paintings of this kind there is frequently a want of agreement between the subject and the embellish- ment which surrounds it. Thus we are told that one of the many pictures destroyed when the church of the Jesuits at Antwerp was burnt, was a Saint Igna- tius Loyola by Rubens, surrounded by garlands of flowers by Daniel Seghers, one of the most noted flower-painters of his day, who was known by the name of the Jesuit of Antwerp. Other subjects equally inconsistent, such as the Holy Family (amongst others one by Rubens), a boy blowing bubbles, by THE TRIUMPH OF CUPID. HS Teniers, are to be found surrounded by the nose- gays of Seghers, Breughel de Velours, and others. Good taste however demands a unity of intention in the composition of a picture which is wanting in such as these, but which could hardly be missed by so thoughtful and skilful an artist as Domenichino. The infant Cupid is here seen sitting in a little car, suited to his tiny size and to that of the young doves who are drawing him over a light cloud. Above are two other winged infants showering on him flowers plucked from the garland which sur- rounds them ; thus the subject itself is not only suited to its position among the flowers, but they are made to form part of it, instead of being mere extra- neous or accidental ornament. The scene is purely allegorical, and the painter has been therefore under no necessity of making his actors conform to the ma- terial conditions under which all, even mythological persons, must be brought when forming part of an epic action. As the husband of Psyche, Cupid must have a definite stature and manly proportions, but Cupid with his bow and arrows crossing the sky in a garland of flowers is no being subject to the laws of nature, he may be shewn under any aspect which pleases the painter or the poet. It is of little consequence that these winged infants are so out of proportion to the flowers as only to be able to seize the smallest buds. They are the children of the Gods, and who dare pro- L DOMENICHINO. nounce on their stature ? Did not Anacreon's Cupid hide himself in the petals of a rose ? The flowers in this picture are attributed by some to Seghers, who was at Rome in the time of Domeni- chino, and by others to Nuzzi Mario, called Mario de' Fiori, the most celebrated Italian flower-painter of his day. The latter supposition is strengthened by the fact, that the colours in Mario's pictures have very much faded ; for the garland which encircles the Tri- umph of Cupid is so much effaced as to bring out in strong contrast the beauty of the flesh tints, which have preserved their freshness wonderfully, and are of a sweetness and harmony so unusual in Domenichino, ^ that he would seem to have been specially inspired by the subject. If these flowers are the work of Mario de* Fiori, he must have painted them at an early age ; since he was born in 1603, and Domenichino left Rome in 1629. THE ANNUNCIATION. Orazio LomIj ' De' Gentileschi.' HE revolution which, towards the end of the sixteenth century, was headed in the Florentine school by Cigoli, Pagani, and Passignano, spread rapidly in the schools situated in the towns which were either neighbouring or dependent on Florence, as Pisa, Lucca, &c. At Pisa Aurelio Lomi, who had been the scholar first of Bronzino and then of Cigoli, was the chief introducer of the new style, in which harmonious and rich colouring, magnificence of costume and orna- ment, and careful details, took the place of the bold and laboured, though often hard and exaggerated manner of the imitators of Michel Angelo. The pictures with which he decorated the Duomo, and a St. Jerome in the Campo Santo of his native town, are ORAZIO LOMI. the most esteemed of his works. He was the brother and instructor of Orazio Lomi, who was born at Pisa in 1563, and who took from one of his maternal uncles the name of Gentileschi. After commencing his studies at Pisa under his brother, Orazio went to Rome, where he had instruction from Agostino Tassi, with whom he contracted a firm friendship, and in whose works he assisted. The first pictures which he painted at Rome in the Quirinal Palace and the Chiesa della Pace, have not the sweet and brilliant colouring of his later productions. After he had painted pictures in the Borghese Palace, and for the collection of the king of Sardinia at Turin, he jour- nied to England, where he lived to the age of eighty- four, beloved and valued by Van Dyck, who gave his portrait a place in the gallery of illustrious men. His daughter, Artemisia, followed the steps of her father, and became celebrated for her portraits : she lived almost entirely at Naples, where she was the friend and scholar of Guido Reni. The Annunciation is one of the pictures which were painted by Lomi for the king of Sardinia. On his knees, holding a spray of lilies, the Angel Gabriel is announcing her high calling to the Virgin, at the same time pointing with his finger to the Holy Dove which is flying through an open pane in the casement. The Virgin receives the angelic messen- ger with a mixture of humble astonishment and pious THE ANNUNCIATION. 149 modesty ; there is a charming reserve in her whole attitude — in the indination of her head, the gesture of her hand, and her downcast eyes ; the angel's pro- clamation of her high mission appears to strike her with awe and confusion — weak and timid mortal that she is, she trembles to accept the honour for which the purity and elevation of her soul render her worthy. There is much that is both natural and graceful about the drapery of the Virgin ; her mantle is blue and her under garment red ; behind her is a bed of antique form, with a large curtain of dark purple filling up the background of the picture with great richness. The figure of the Angel has less beauty than that of the Virgin, but it is simple and noble in expression, and his attitude is not ungraceful, although in the upper part of the back there is something awkward and constrained, which it is hardly possible to avoid in a large winged figure seen in profile. The upper part of the Angel's drapery is of deep blue and pink, and the tunic yellow. Some inaccuracies of drawing are apparent in this picture, especially in the hands and feet of the figures, but the colouring is so charming and so warm, the ornaments and the background have so brilliant a tone, and the countenances are so full of sweet expression that it is impossible not to admire it. The works of this master are not common. They are interesting not only from their intrinsic merit. I50 ORAZIO LOMI. but also from the fact that they are the productions of a school which, though it produced no first-rate artists, yet worked a revolution in the Florentine school which history cannot pass over. OUR LORD AND THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA. GuiDo Reni. l^he Gallery of the Louvre. ESUS left Judea, and departed again into Galilee ; and he must needs go through Samaria. Then cometh he to a city of " Samaria, which is called Sychar, near to the parcel " of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now " Jacob's well was there, Jesus therefore, being wea- " ried with his journey, sat thus on the well ; and it " was about the sixth hour. There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water : Jesus saith unto her. Give me to drink. For his disciples were gone " away unto the city to buy meat. Then saith the " woman of Samaria unto him. How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman " of Samaria } (For the Jews have no dealings with 152 GUIDO. the Samaritans). Jesus answered and said unto her, "If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that " saith to thee. Give me to drink ; thou wouldest have ^* asked of him, and he would have given thee living " water. The woman saith unto him. Sir, thou " hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep : " from whence then hast thou that living water ? Art " thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us " the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children " and his cattle ? Jesus answered and said unto her, " Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst " again ; but whosoever drinketh of the water that I " shall give him shall never thirst ; but the water that " I shall give him shall be in him a well of water spring- " ing up into everlasting life. The woman saith unto " him. Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, nei- " ther come hither to draw." — St, John^ iv. 3 to 15. This passage describes one of those simple scenes of which an inferior artist could make nothing, so devoid is it of incident, or material interest. The representa- tion of a martyrdom, a combat, or any similar striking occurrence, has in it something to rouse the curiosity and fix the attention ; but here there is no action ; two figures only, one sitting and one standing ; and unless the painter has in himself the power of creating real and evident relations between them, and of bringing out in their looks and gestures the conversation which OUR LORD AND THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA. 153 is going on, his work will remain uninteresting and insignificant. All will depend on the rendering of this conversa- tion, — of the character of the speaker, and the impres- sion which He is producing on his hearer. The ex- pression of the face and figure of our Lord, and of the Samaritan woman, ought to convey to us the im- port of the words which He is uttering, and she is hearing ; the whole interest of the event lies in those words, since they constitute the only connexion be- tween the two persons : the painter has not to depict an action, but to render audible a conversation ; a conversation of the most high and moving kind, but containing nothing of life or action to give rise to any such striking gestures as attract immediate attention, and indicate that something out of the common is taking place. Guido had too much ability and delicacy of feeling, not to rise to the level of a subject requiring so much of both. The general features of the picture are pre- scribed by the story ; and to these he has added nothing, while he has certainly missed no point of any significance. The attitude of our Lord is easy, and natural : His head is turned towards the woman, and is full of noble sweetness, and of earnest, dignified expression ; she is listening with a look in which delight at 154 GUIDO. the words she hears^ and inclination to believe, are struggling with doubt and difficulty. Notwithstanding her pitcher, it is plain that she is to receive the living water, and that our Lord is to be the giver. The face of the Saviour is full of compassionate tender- ness, characteristic of his mission and his doctrines. The moment chosen by the Painter appears to be that in which our Lord has ceased speaking, and the woman is asking Him to give her the water which should spring up in her to eternal life ; — that in fact, in which the two are in the closest connexion : Guido has not attempted to give the woman's head any un- common beauty or dignity ; she is good looking, but not remarkably so ; and this seems to me to be very consistent treatment. The draperies have a very good effect ; they are broad and flowing, disposed with much art, but with- out any apparent effort. The landscape in the back- ground is rich. In short, although the colours of this charming little picture are so darkened by age, that a careful examination is wanted to discover its merits ; it offers an excellent example of what may be made by a man of genius of a very simple subject, if he be but completely in possession of the ideas and sentiments which are associated with the story, and which his picture should awaken in the beholder. V THE DEATH OF THE VIRGIN. Michel Angelo Amerigi, called Caravaggio. T^he Gallery of the Louvre, M^^^P ARAVAGGIO is a striking instance of the |l fact that almost any fault will be pardoned for the sake of truth and originality. He was born in 1569, at Caravaggio^ in Lombardy, and although the son of a mason, and following that craft for some time himself, the impulse which urged him towards painting was so strong as to triumph over the obstacles opposed by poverty, want of time, and ab- sence of instruction. He went to Venice, and thence to Rome, where he worked in the studios of several painters, amongst others of the Cavalier Giuseppe d Ar- pino, called Giuseppino. He soon became famous, and was the founder of the school known in Italy under the name of the Naturalists, whence he exercised an influence on the style of the two greatest artists of 156 CARAVAGGIO. his time, Guercino ^ and Guido. He might have long and happily enjoyed his renown, but for his violent temper and irregular profligate habits, owing to which he was constantly obliged to fly from the cities in which he lived, and at last to quit Rome, after kill- ing one of his friends in a gambling fray. He then went to Naples, and afterwards to Malta. At the latter place he was desirous to obtain the cross of that order, which was bestowed on him after he had painted the portrait of the Grand Master Alfonso di Vigna- court, whom he introduced in a fine picture of the beheading of Saint John the Baptist.f After this, quarrelling with one of the knights, he was put into prison, but he soon escaped, and made his way through Sicily back into Italy. Here he had hardly landed when he was seized by a Spanish guard, in mistake for a person for whom they were on the watch ; he was quickly set at liberty, but too late to allow of his rejoining the felucca on board which were his clothes and all his property ; and so, wandering in despair on the shore, under a burning sun, he was struck down by a malignant fever, which ended his life at Porto-Ercole. He died in 1 609, " a disastrous year for painting," says Bellori, for in that same year also died Annibale Caracci and Frederico Zuc- caro." * See p. 164. f Now in the Louvre. THE DEATH OF THE VIRGIN. >57 In reading the life of Caravaggio, it is not possible to help remarking a strong analogy between the cha- racter of his mind and the style of his paintings. Both were burning and impetuous, full of life and spirit, but both were also sadly incorrect and deficient in dignity, and in regard to propriety and consistency ; he studied nature, it is true, but without discrimina- tion or selection — nature as she shews herself in the streets and market places, gross and uncultivated, clumsy in form, dull in feeling, violent in passion, rough and coarse in expression, rude and unrefined in gait and complexion. It was from such as these that Caravaggio selected his models ; for his Virgins he had the young women of the lowest orders, his saints he procured from the taverns ; and if he is ever led on by his subject to infuse a higher sentiment than usual into his figures, through the sudden and transitory outbreak of a higher nature, there is always perceiv- able the vulgarity from which he was never able to dissociate truth, because it was in that connexion that he most often met with it. " Caravaggio's manner," says Bellori, " corres- ponded with his physiognomy and figure. He had a very brown complexion : his eyes too were brown, and his hair and eyebrows black, with a dark, fierce look, altogether very like his pictures." Although in much favour, Caravaggio had to put up with several rebuffs; he had more than once to 158 CARAVAGGIO. see his pictures taken down from the altars of the churches for which he had painted them, on account of indecorous attitudes and expressions. Thus his Saint Matthew was banished from the church of Saint Louis of France, at Rome, and he was obHged to repaint it. This very picture of the death of the Virgin was not allowed to remain in the Church Delia Scala, because it was said that the Virgin was nothing more than a woman dead of dropsy.^ In this criticism there is, perhaps, some truth ; but on looking at the whole of the picture, it is certainly rather harsh : for the attitudes are so easy and natural, the expression of grief so deep and yet so unaffected, and the colouring so warm and truthful, that the lovers of art cannot be as severe in their judgment as were the good Fathers of La Chiesa della Scala. * Bellori, pp. 205 — 213. Lanzi, torn. ii. p. 162. CARAVAGGJO. THE DEATH OF THE VIRGIN. JUDITH WITH THE HEAD OF HOLOFERNES. Cristofano Allori. I^he Pitti Palace, Florence. ^^^RISTOFANO ALLORI, who was born H^^^^' at Florence in 1577, and died in 16 19, ^^f^s^^ was the son of Alessandro Allori, from whom he received his earliest instruction in paint- ing. Alessandro had been the pupil of Bronzino, and was therefore one of that school, which after the death of Michel Angelo, devoted itself to the imitation of the works and the style of their great master; he had much knowledge of anatomy, great spirit and expression, but he wanted ease, harmony and power of colouring. About the time that his son Cristofano began to think for himself, and was seeking a style to suit him, a revolution broke out in the Florentine school. Ludovico Cigoli, Gregorio Pagani and Domenico de Passignani, having by chance i6o ALLORI. seen some pictures of Baroccio, were so charmed by their rich and sweet colouring, and their delicate and graceful handling, that they set themselves to study in the works of this painter, and still more in those of Coreggio, the science of colour and of light and shade, and at last abandoned in favour of the more pleasing style of these masters, the frigid energy of the succes- sors of Michel Angelo. " Had they only succeeded,'' says Lanzi, " in giving their figures more of the ele- gance of Greek art, and more refinement of expres- sion, the honour of the reform of painting which took place at this time in Italy, would have belonged to Florence as much as to Bologna."* Cristofano Al- lori joined the party of the reformers, of whom he became perhaps the most distinguished. ^^When I consider," says Lanzi, "the degree of perfection which he reached in so short a life, I cannot but call him the Cantarini of his school. In beauty, grace, and finish, they are much alike, only in the works of Cantarini there is more ideal beauty, and in those of Allori the colouring of the flesh is more happy. This is the more remarkable, because he knew neither the Caracci nor Guido ; he made up for his loss by keen discernment, and by the most unremitting appli- cation, never allowing his brush to quit the canvass till his hand had faithfully realized the conception of his mind."f * Lanzi, torn. i. p. 227. t Ibid. p. 236. JUDITH. i6i Alessandro never forgave his son for having aban- doned his style for another ; it occasioned them end- less quarrels : Old age sees everything in the past, and is loath to lose its recollections ; Youth looks at things in the light of the future, and will not sacrifice its hopes. Alessandro clung to his old style with its rugged energy, as Cato to the severe forms of the old Roman institution ; but, says Montaigne, the wind is always fair for youth, and the school of Cigoli, Passignano, and Cristofano Allori gained the day, and from it dates an epoch in the history of painting at Florence. The Judith is one of the finest works of the master. It exhibits however no expression especially suited to the subject ; the painter has not endeavoured to render the remarkable enthusiasm which possessed this Jewish woman, and made her capable of an action which as the fruit of devoted patriotism, might well be hailed as heroic by a rude people in a rude age. In the head of his Judith there is nothing savage and uncultivated, no trace of fanatical delight, — she is calm, dignified, and of a severe lofty style of beauty. There is a slight cast of melancholy in the face, but for which her black hair and eyes, harsh cold mouth, and grave quiet bearing in the midst of an action so dreadful, would have been almost repulsive. She manifests no emotion or excitement, and carries M l62 ALLORI. the head of Holofernes much as Catherine de* Medicis received that of Coligny. " Medicis la re9Ut avec indifference ** Sans paraitre jouir du fruit de sa vengeance, " Sans remords, sans plaisir, maitresse de ses sens." * The execution is throughout admirable, the colour- ing of the flesh full, easy, and velvetty ; and the fea- tures painted with a degree of finish which gives a great effect of truthfulness, without degenerating into unnecessary details ; the hair in particular has extreme flexibility and a charming effect. A singular anecdote is related in connection with this picture. It is said, that being tormented by the caprices of his mistress. La Mazzafirra, Allori allowed his beard to grow, and painted her as Judith and him- self as Holofernes ; a piece of revenge which curiously reveals the licentious life of the painter, of whom Lanzi says, " that licentious habits too often seduced him from his work, so that his pictures are ex- " tremely rare and he himself little known." * Voltaire ; Henriade, Chant ii. THE ENCHANTRESS CIRCE. Giovanni Francisco Barbieri, called Guercino. The Gallery of the Louvre, O painter had ever more fire, more fertility of invention, and more versatility, than Guercino ; his frescoes in the cathedral of Piacenza, in the Ludovisi Villa at Rome, and in the Zampieri Palace at Bologna, have given him a high place amongst fresco painters ; they are even finer than any of his works in oil. Guercino has left two hundred and fifty pictures, of which a hundred and six are altar pieces, and the remaining hundred and forty-four large compositions ; and in addition to these are all his landscapes. Madonnas and half-length figures. In Cento, his native town, his works are to be found at every step ; churches, palaces, and private houses, are alike full of them. He changed his style three times ; and though his peculiar 164 GUERCINO. manner is seen in each, yet they all shew a facility and an ease of handling seldom met with in the same degree. His first manner," says Lanzi, " is " the least known ; it abounds in deep shadows and " brilliant lights, the features and the extremities are " less carefully painted, and the flesh tints yellower, " than in his later works ; of this his St. William of " Aquitaine at Bologna is the best example." After this he became connected with Caravaggio, and finding that his style — bold, warm, and in spite of some triviality, effective — was one which suited his genius, he gave himself to it, with all the more ardour that it allowed his imagination and hand full play, without condemning him to long study and laborious essays. At this time his compositions were animated, the figures full of life, the flesh well coloured, the light strong and concentrated, the expression truthful and full of energy, and he well deserved the title which the English have since given him, of ' The ' Magician.' After this, seeing the success which had attended the grace, freshness and ease of the works of Guido, he attempted to imitate it, by giving more lightness to his figures, and by varying his heads and refining their expressions. This was his third manner. The old saying, that the men and women of one painter had been brought up on meat, and those of another on roses, has been applied to these two, and Guercino CIRCE. is said to have attempted to mix some roses with the meat on which his figures had fed. " It has " been said," says Lanzi, " that this change in his style " took place at Guido's death, at which time Guercino " quitted Cento for Bologna, hoping to take the lead " there ; but this is refuted by the fact, that there exist several pictures in this manner painted while Guido was still alive. Some even say that Guido himself " remarked the change, and that he boasted of it, say- " ing, that Guercino was seeking to imitate his style, " while he on the contrary, was doing all he could " to avoid that of Guercino." It would seem as if ' the Magician,' Guercino, could have found no work more congenial to his pencil than a picture of the enchantress Circe ; nor any finer opportunity for the exercise of his power than in the representation of her rich warm beauty, glowing with the subdued but intense light which he and Caravaggio knew so well how to employ, and with energy and passion slum- bering in her face. He would of course omit neither her vase of poisons, her magic wand, nor her myste- rious book — all so suggestive to the imagination of the hidden witchcraft of which her passions and power, let them be roused and irritated, will not hesitate to make a terrible use. But in this picture Guercino has given us nothing more than graceful beauty, and his Circe is more tempting than tempted. Her expression is sweet and GUERCINO. serene, her magic wand and her jar of poisons, are evidently no more to her than an ordinary wand and jar ; true, we are told that she is about to do murder, but there is nothing to shew it, any more than in her charming head there is anything to designate her as more impassioned or more wicked than others of her sex. Her dress is that of a Sarmatian woman, in accord- ance with a legend of antiquity, which states that Circe married a Sarmatian king, whom she afterwards poisoned. By Sarmatia is probably intended Colchis, or some district on the shores of the Black Sea, a region which, from the earliest times, was peopled by the ancients with Magicians. FAUSTULUS BRINGING HOME ROMULUS AND REMUS. PlETRO BeRETTINI DA CoRTONA. In the Gallery of the Louvre. lETRO da Cortona Is a striking example of a great artist whose misfortune it has been to found a bad school. The faults of a man of ability are almost always in close relation to his peculiar talents, very often are the means of bringing those talents into strongest relief. If he falls into error, it is generally from having looked exclu- sively at one side of truth, which then appears in his works, invested with an undue prominence and splen- dour, so great as to prevent the absence of other equally important principles being remarked.^' " There are," * This is no less true in morals than in Art. " It being almost a definition of heresy that it fastens on some one statement as if the whole truth, to the denial of all others, and as the basis of a new- Faith, erring rather in what it rejects than in what it maintains." — Newman, Sermons before Univ. of Ox. See too some remarks in the Preface to vol. i. of Arnold's Sermons on Christian Life. i68 PIETRO DA CORTONA. says Mengs, "two classes of compositions : the first that " of RafFaelle, which may be called the expressive. * *