' : ' ffi ; S jjm -. ' i SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING WITH AN APPENDIX ON THE PRINCIPAL GALLERIES OF EUROPE. BY A. G. RADCLIFFE. ILL US TRA TED. NEW YORK: D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 549 AND 551 BROADWAY. 1876. ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1876, By D. APPLETON & CO., In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. Annex NX) 50 CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGAN PAINTING. PAGB Painting less enduring than Sculpture. Invented by Egyptians'. Tombs and Temples. Painting in Egypt. Painting in Assyria. Painting in Greece. Zeuxis and Apelles. Mosaic Pavements. Greek Relic in Cortona. " Aldobrandini Marriage." Painting in Etruria. Painting in Rome. Mural Remains of Pompeii. De- cline of Pagan Painting I CHAPTER II. RISE OF CHRISTIAN ART. Revival of Art in Catacombs. Early Symbols. Primitive Christian Paintings. Portraits of Christ in the Catacombs. Profile of Christ. Letter of Lentulus. Abgarus Portrait of Christ. The " Archi- rotopeton." Handkerchief of St. Veronica. Portraits of Virgin Mary. Madonnas of St. Luke. Types of St. Peter and St. Paul. Accession of Constantine. Basilicas and Mosaics. Mosaics of Rome and Ravenna . . . . . . . .II CHAPTER III. BYZANTINE AND MINIATURE PAINTING. Empire of Constantine. Greek Ecclesiastical Art. Early " Crucifix- ions." Byzantine Stiffness and Splendor. Byzantine Mosaics. Panel and Altar Pictures. Emblems of Father, Son, and Spirit. Sacred Art-Manufactories. Miniature Painting in Fourth and Fifth Centuries. MSS. of the Vatican. French Illuminations. German Miniatures. Anglo - Saxon MSS. Miniatures of San Marco . . . . . . . . . . ,21 i v . CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV. EARLY ITALIAN PAINTING. PAGE Roman Mosaics of Ninth Century. Early Roman Frescoes. Roman Mosaics of Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries. Andrea Tan. Revival of Art under Cimabue. His Predecessors. Guido of Sienna. Giunta Pisano. Margaritone of Arezzo. Life and Works of Cimabue. St. Francis, and his Church at Assisi. Duccio of Sienna. Life and Works of Giotto. Pupils of Giotto. Simone Memmi. Andrea Orcagna. Campo Santo of Pisa. Bernardo Orcagno. Spinello Aretino and his " Lucifer." Life and Death of Fra Angelico 29 CHAPTER V. TRADITIONS OF PAINTING. Religious Nature of Mediaeval Art. Fresco and Tempera Painting. Ancient Altar-Pieces. Significance of Colors. Old - Testament Tradition. Angels and Archangels. Sibyls. St. John Baptist. Legends of the Virgin Mary from her Conception to her Corona- tion. Life and Legends of Christ. His Nativity, Adoration, Pre- sentation, and Flight into Egypt ; Transfiguration, Last Supper, and Incidents of Passion, Crucifixion, and Burial. Legend of Descent into Limbus. Resurrection and Ascension. Last Judg- ment. Attributes of the Apostles. Legends of the Magdalene, of the Early Fathers, of St. Christopher, St. Sebastian, and St. Lawrence ; of St. Catharine, St. Margaret, St. Agnes, and St. Ce- cilia. Books of Reference 58 CHAPTER VI. ITALIAN PAINTING IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. The Renaissance. Culture and Changes. Florentine Influences. Ghiberti and his Gates of Bronze. Paolo Uccello. Masolino. Masaccio and the Brancacci Chapel. The Artist-Monk, Filippo Lippi. Benozzo Gozzoli. Cosimo Roselli. Antonello da Mes- sina, the First Italian Oil-Painter. Andrea Castagno. Andrea Mantegna and the Paduan School. Verocchio, Master of Da Vinci. Signorelli. Ghirlandajo. Botticelli. Filippino Lippi. The School of Bologna, and Francia. Decline of Siennese Art and Rise of Umbrian. Gentile da Fabriano. Alunno. Perugino. CONTENTS. v PACK Pinturrichio and the Father of Raphael. Savonarola at Florence. His Artist-Adherents. Fra Bartolomeo. His Friend Alberti- nelli. Raffaellino del Garbo. Lorenzi di Credi . . . .93 CHAPTER VII. LEONARDO DA VINCI AND MICHAEL ANGELO. Genius of Leonardo. Scarcity of his Works. His Youth and Educa- tion. His Medusa Shield. Versatility of his Talents. His Re- moval to Milan. His Equestrian Statue. Art Labors and Writ- ings. " The Last Supper." His Return to Florence. Journey to Rome. Friendship with Francis I. Death at Amboise. His Pictures and Pupils. Bernardino Luini. Michael Angelo. His Birth and Vocation. Patronage of the Medici. Genius as a Sculptor. The Colossal " David." Rivalry with Leonardo. Visit to Rome. Mausoleum of Pope Julius. Quarrels with the Pope. Sistine Chapel. Medici Sacristy. Florentine Vicissitudes. " Last Judgment." Vittoria Colonna. Old Age and Death. Daniele da Volterra 124 CHAPTER VIII. RAPHAEL AND CORREGGIO. Childhood of Raphael. Studies with Perugino. Early Works. " Marriage of the Virgin." Sojourn at Florence. Florentine Madonnas. Invitation to Rome. Frescoes of the Vatican. Stanze and Loggie. Cartoons and Tapestries. Farnesina Fres- coes. Portraits and Easel-Pictures. " The Fornarina." Roman Madonnas and Holy Families. Altar -Pieces. "The Transfig- uration." Fame and Fortune. Illness and Death. Birth of Cor- reggio. His Youthful Genius and Secluded Life. Frescoes at Parma. Classical Pictures. " II Giorno " and " Santa Notte." " The Reading Magdalene." Remaining Works. Character ofCorreggio -. 157 CHAPTER IX. PAINTING IN VENICE. Rise of Painting in Venice. The Vivarini. The Bellini Family. Gentile and Gian Bellini. Giorgione, the Master of Color. Birth of Titian. First Employment with Giorgione. Mythological and vi CONTENTS. FACE Religious Paintings. Meeting with Charles V. Celebrated Por- traits. Venetian Life. Summons to Rome. Enumeration of his Works. Last Years at Venice. Death, of the Plague. Palma Vecchio and his Daughter Violante. Pordenone. Sebastian del Piombo. Bonifazio. Moretto. Moroni. Paris Bordone. Tin- toretto. Paul Veronese and his Feasts. The Bassano Family. Canale and Canaletto 187 CHAPTER X. LATER ITALIAN PAINTING. Andrea del Sarto. Francia Bigio. Pontormo. Bronzino. The Al- lori Family. Vasari, the Artist-Author. II Sodoma. Giulio Ro- mano and other Pupils of Raphael. Garofalo. The Brothers Dossi. Parmagianino. Baroccio, Zuccaro, and the Later Romans. The Eclectics of Bologna. The Carracci. Domenichino. Guido Reni. Albani. Guercino. Lanfranco. The Xaturalisti or Tenebrosi. Caravaggio. Salvator Rosa. Luca Giordano. Artists of Seventeenth Century. Sassoferrato. Carlo Dolce. Carlo Maratta. Romanelli. Battoni. Close of Painting in Italy. 219 CHAPTER XI. EARLY GERMAN AND FLEMISH PAINTING. Art in the North. German MSS. Requirements of Gothic Archi- tecture. School of Bohemia. School of Cologne. Meister Wil- helm and Meister Stephan. School of Flanders. The Brothers Van Eyck. Invention of Oil-Painting. Adoration of the Lamb. Margaret van Eyck. Ancient Flemish Painters. Roger van der Weyden. Memling. The Shrine of St. Ursula. Mabuse. Bernard van Orley and Michael Coxie. Quintin Matsys . . 247 CHAPTER XII. GERMAN PAINTING IN THE FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH CENTURIES. Martin ScMJn. The School of Nuremberg. Wohlgemuth. Albrecht Dttrer. His Wife and Works. Wanderings in Italy. Influence on his Style. Paintings and Woodcuts. " The Knight, the Devil, and Death." " Melancolia." Later Pictures. Death at Nurem- berg. Followers and Pupils. Artists of Ulm and Augsburg. CONTENTS. v ii PAGE The Holbein Family. Hans Holbein the Younger. His Eng- lish and German Portraits. The " Meyer Madonna." The " Dance of Death." Lucas Cranach, the Painter of the Reforma- tion , 268 CHAPTER XIII. LATER FLEMISH AND GERMAN PAINTING. Sustermann. Frans Floris. The Pourbus Family. Birth of Land- scape-Painting in the Netherlands. Matthew and Paul Bril. The Breughel Family and Genre Painting. Peter Paul Rubens. His Fertility and Success. Snyders, the Animal - Painter. Jordaens. Vandyck. Portraits by Vandyck. Teniers. His " Temptation of St. Anthony " and other Pictures. Van der Meu- len. Philippe de Champagne. Dennar. Dietrich. Raphael Mengs. His Pupil Angelica Kaufmann. Future Revival of Ger- man Art ........... 288 CHAPTER XIV. PAINTING IN HOLLAND. Founding of Dutch School. Cornelis Engelbrechtsen. Lucas of Ley- den. Dutch Landscape-Painting. Pictures of Cuyp. Mierevelt's Portraits. Frank Hals and his Apprentice Brauwer. Gerard of the Night. Rembrandt van Rhyn. Peculiarities of Light and Shade. " The Night - Watch." Poetic Sacred Scenes. Pupils of Rembrandt. Gerard Dow. Terburg. Van der Heist. Pa- tient Genre Painters. Van Ostade. Steen. Mieris. Schal- ken. Netscher. Van der Werff. Ruysdael's Landscapes. Berg- hem. Wouverman. Paul Potter and his Animals. Van de Velde's and Backhuysen's Marine Views. Painters of Interiors and Exteriors. Jan Weenix. Hondekoeter. Kalfs Kitchen- Scenes. Flower and Fruit Pieces. De Heem, Van Huysum, and Rachel Ruysch 310 CHAPTER XV. PAINWNG IN SPAIN. Peculiarities of Spanish Art. Religious Element. Spanish MSS. National Schools of Painting. Age of Charles V. Luis de Var- viii CONTENTS. PAGE gas. Juan Joanes. The Divine Morales. Coello's Portraits. El Mudo. Cespedes, the Poet. Roelas. Zurbaran. Pacheco, the Inquisitor. Alonzo Cano. School of Valencia. The Ribal- tas and Ribera. Velasquez. His Appointment as Court-Painter. "Las Meninas." His Death at Madrid. Murillo and his Works. Vald6s Leal. Decline of Art in Spain. Foreign Paint- ers. Luca Giordano and Raphael Mengs. Francisco Goya. Dispersion of Spanish Pictures 336 CHAPTER XVI. PAINTING IN FRANCE. French Illuminations. Ancient Frescoes. King Rene\ of Anjou. Jean Cousin. Clouet. Francis I. and Fontainebleau. Simon Vouet. Callot. Poussin. Landscapes, of Claude Lorraine. " Arcadian Shepherds." Caspar Dughet. Le Sueur, the French Raphael. Charles Le Brun. Mignard. Rigaud. Watteau and the " Pompadour Genre." Vernet's Marine Views. Greuze. Vien. New Era in Art. David, the P^pter of the Empire. Trioson, Gros, Ingres, and Ge'rard. Prudhon. Madame Lebrun. Isabey. Granet. Horace Vernet. GeVicault. " The Raft of the M6duse." Leopold Robert 369 CHAPTER XVII. PAINTING IN ENGLAND. Progress of Art in England. Foreign Portraits. Collection of Charles I. Sir Peter Lely. Sir Godfrey Kneller. Italian Importations. English Taste. Thornhill. Hogarth. Sir Joshua Reynolds. Romney. Gainsborough. West. Copley. Fuseli. Barry. Northcote. Opie. Flaxman. Blake. Portraits of Raeburn and Lawrence. English Landscapists. Turner. Constable. Cal- cott. Collins. " High Art." Haydon. Wilkie. Nasmyth. Mulready. Etty. Eastlake. Leslie. Stanfield. Roberts's Spanish Views. Water-Colorists 39! CHAPTER XVIII. PAINTING IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. Art-Revival in Germany. Cornelius. Overbeck. Schadow. Kaul- bach. Sympathy in France. Ary Scheflfer. Paul Delaroche. CONTENTS. j x PAGE Delacroix. Recent and Living Artists. Ge*r6me. Eastern Scenes. Decamps. Landelle. Bonnat. Hamon. Fleury. Boulanger. Dore". Meissonier. Bouguereau. Breton. Millet. Frere. Merle. Henriette Brown. Cabanel. Genre Painters. Landscapists. Constantine Troyon. Auguste and Rosa Bon- heur. English School. Landseer. ^Maclise. Egg. Pre-Rapha- elites. Holman Hunt. Millais. British Landscapists. Watts and Leighton. Portrait-Painters. Sacred Subjects. Genre Paint- ers. Frith and Faed. J. F. Lewis. Scottish Artists. Book-Il- lustrators. Water-Colorists. American Art. Allston. Stuart. Leutze. 'Huntington. American Portrait-Painters. Genre and Figure Painters. Church, Bierstadt, Kensett, Cole, and other Landscapists. Marine Painters. Bradford's Icebergs. Catlin's Indian Pictures 421 CHAPTER XIX. SCHOOLS OF PAINTING. Review. Progress of Art. National Characteristics. Byzantine Art. Italian Schools. Schools of Sienna, of Pisa, of Florence. List of Florentine Artists. Subdivisions. The Lombard School. The Umbrian School. The Roman School. The Venetian School. The Eclectics. The Naturalisti. Painting in the North. School of Bohemia ; of Cologne. Flemish School. German School. Dutch School. Spanish School. French School. Eng- lish School. American School. Modern Painting . . . 448 CHAPTER XX. WORLD-PICTURES. Raphael's " Transfiguration." " Sistine Madonna." Michael Ange- lo's " Last Judgment." Domenichino's " Last Communion of St. Jerome." Volterra's " Descent from the Cross." Leonardo da Vinci's " Last Supper." Titian's " Assumption of the Virgin." Correggio's " Nativity, or Santa Notte." Guide's " Aurora." Guide's Portrait of " Beatrice Cenci." Murillo's " Immaculate Conception." Rubens's " Descent from the Cross " . . . 464 x CONTENTS. APPENDIX. PAGB GALLERIES OF FLORENCE. Academy of Fine Arts The Uffizi The Pitti 489 GALLERIES OF ROME. The Vatican The Capitol Private Galleries The Doria Sciarra Borghese Corsini .... 501 GALLERY OF VENICE 510 GALLERY OF MADRID 517 GALLERY OF THE LOUVRE 524 GALLERY OF LONDON 534 GALLERY OF DRESDEN . 542 GALLERY OF MUNICH 553 GALLERY OF BERLIN \ ... 560 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. CHAPTER I. PAGAN PAINTING. THE golden age of Painting lies in the Christian centuries. The legacies of Beauty and Art which have come down from the Old World exist in undecaying stone, not in fading color or transitory light and shade. Sculpture glories in the an- tique, but pagan pictures were only born to die. Some charm- ing fragments indeed remain, such as the frescoes of Pompeii and other mural decorations; but the materials of the art were too perishable, and the art itself too lightly rooted, to be spared by Time. Yet the history of painting is coeval with the Pyramids ; and the curious mummy-cloths which we may examine in our museums, and the tomb-pictures, of which travelers tell us, in the ruins along the Nile, are still left us as the records of the alphabet of the art. According to Pliny, the Egyptians boasted that they had invented painting six thousand years before it passed into Greece. Making all due allowance for the poetic license of such a statement, it is at 2 SCHOOLS AND MASTEKS OF PAINTING. least certain that the earliest pictorial attempts among all nations were outline figures, traced in profile upon walls, and that they were first introduced as the adornments of Egyptian tombs and temples. These figures were probably sketched, with a reed or rush, in red and black. The next advance was to fill the outlines with a flat, uniform tint without any shad- ing. An appreciation of the harmony of colors is intuitive in Oriental lands, and was peculiarly felt by the ancient Egyp- tians, whose favorite combination was red, blue, and green. Black and yellow were also put in juxtaposition. The blue had the brilliancy of our modern " smalt," and was composed of fine glass ; the green was also a glass powder, mixed with a little ochre. Chalk-white and ivory-black gave strong and decided tones. Pink, purple, orange, and brown, were known to them, though not so often employed. " Different colors were used for different things; but almost invariably the same color for the same thing. Thus men and women were usually red, the men several shades darker than the women ; water blue, birds blue and green, and so on." The first subjects of these mural pictures were principally battle and hunting scenes, intended to impress the mind with the majesty and authority of warlike and despotic rulers. Such are still to be found in the temples of Thebes. In the tombs were also sacred representations, suggestive of the des- tiny of the soul after death, and many sketches descriptive of the private life, trades, manners, and customs of the people. The mode of drawing the human figure was strictly conven- tional, and could not deviate from certain rules established by the priests. The faces were in profile, but with a front view of the eye and shoulders. The expression of the features never PAGAN PAINTING. 3 varied. " Every portion of a picture was conceived by itself, and inserted as it was wanted to complete the scene; and when the walls of a building where a subject was to be drawn had been accurately ruled with squares, the figures were introduced and fitted to this mechanical arrangement. The members were appended to the body, and these squares regu- lated their form and distribution, in whatever posture they might be placed." Under such limitations it is easily understood that Egyp- tian art could have neither depth nor progress. A few pict- ures on wood were indeed attempted. Herodotus relates that Amasis sent a portrait of himself to Cyrene ; and Wil- kinson mentions a subject, discovered at Beni-Hassan, dating about nine hundred years before the siege of Troy, repre- senting an artist painting on panel a calf and antelope over- taken by a dog. It must, however, be remembered that sculpt- ure and painting were entirely subservient to their colossal and wonderful architecture. The temple and the tomb were the culmination of Egyptian life, and the adornment of these was the glory of the nation. From the ruins of naked granite which remain to us we can form but little idea of the true aspect of Egyptian buildings. They were colored, we are told, within and without, even the bass-reliefs and the statues of the sphinxes being painted. The stone was covered with stucco, richly overlaid with brilliant designs ; the ceilings were blue, and studded with stars to represent the firmament ; while gilding was occasionally employed to heighten the effect of the other decorations, as in the temple at Kalabshee in Nubia. Thus the universal passion for ornament found ex- pression, and the primeval monuments of the world's civili- 4 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. zation had their own splendor as well as their own sub- limity. In the Egyptian collections which are preserved in most national museums the paintings upon the mummy-cloths and cases will be of great interest to the student. The colors of these mostly blue, green, red, and yellow are still fresh and bright, and the designs take us back to the days of the Pharaohs. The faces are frequently intended as portraits of the deceased, while the emblems and hieroglyphics usually relate to the state of the departed soul. Sometimes the goddess Isis is seen throwing her arms around the enswathed feet ; sometimes the dead is being carried, in the spirit-boat, across the sacred lake; sometimes there are judgment-scenes and funeral-rites, depicted not only on the mummy-cloths, but on the papyri and vases which were deposited in the tombs. In the British Museum are also a color-box, some pallets, fragments of colors and brushes, such as were used by Egyptian painters. Our own collection, made by Mr. Ab- bott, now in the rooms of the Historical Society, New York, though not large, is worthy of careful examination. The art of Assyria was of a character similar to that of Egypt ; but its architecture, being mostly of unbaked brick, has so entirely disappeared that we have only the traditions of the magnificence of Babylon with its gayly-painted palaces, whose sole relics are the ruined heaps and fragments of tiles still elaborately covered with figures of animals and flowers. Layard also found remains of pictures on the walls at Nim- roud and Khorsabad, and traces of color are yet to be seen upon the Assyrian bass-reliefs preserved in London and at the Louvre. In this connection it is curious to notice the PAGAN PAINTING. 5 words of the prophet Ezekiel, chapter twenty-third, verse fourteenth, who speaks of "men portrayed upon the wall; the images of the Chaldeans portrayed with vermilion." The painting of vases and statues seems to have been an early employment of color among the Greeks. They were at first executed in monochrome, and, as art advanced, were arranged in imitation of real life. Color and gilding were sometimes used in architecture, as appears from the vestiges on the temple of Theseus at Athens. Even the Parthenon " presents remains of painting on some members of the cor- nice ; many colored devices remain on the upper part of the walls in the interior ; and the ground of the frieze, contain- ing the reliefs of the Panathenaic procession, was blue." Recent excavations have also shown traces of elaborate coloring in the temple of Diana at Ephesus ; yet the Greek artist, whose mission was to realize the beautiful everywhere, no longer held painting as a mere adjunct of architecture, but richly multiplied pictures on wood, of historical or my- thological subjects. Pliny informs us that encaustic paint- ing, in colors boiled in wax and oil, was known before the epoch of Aristides. There is a tradition of a picture of the battle of the Magnesians, executed about 700 B. c., for which the King of Lydia paid its weight in gold ; but the most fa- mous of the early Athenian masters was Polygnotus, who lived about the year 462, and adorned the temples of Athens with his genius. He painted at Delphi the " Taking of Troy " and the " Visit of Odysseus to the Under World ; " and although he only worked in outline, in four unshaded colors, on a colored ground, yet his reliefs were extolled " for clear, har- monious composition, for delicacy of drawing, for fullness of 6 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. expression in the figures, and nobleness in the forms." In- deed, it was said of his Polyxena that " the whole Trojan War lay in her eyelids." In the next generation succeeded Apollodorus of Athens, who, from his skillful management of light and shade, re- ceived the name of the " Shadow-Painter." After the Pelo- ponnesian War the city of Ephesus became the centre of art, and Parrhasius and Zeuxis the masters of the period. It was one of these who painted grapes at which the birds pecked ; while the other executed a curtain so well as to deceive his rival himself. The pride of Zeuxis was equal to his genius. In his later years he would present his pictures to his friends, because he considered nobody rich enough to pay for them sufficiently. Sometimes persons complained of the slowness with which he worked. " It is," he replied, " because I work for immortality." He is reported to have died of laughing over the likeness of an old woman which he had painted. But to the great Apelles, who flourished in the latter half of the fourth century, the palm of classic painting properly belongs. Any thing attempted by this Raphael of antiquity, whether portraits, or heroic or mythological subjects, seems to have roused in his countrymen the greatest enthusiasm. Grace and beauty were the constant attributes of his pencil. His most celebrated work was the famous Venus, " Aphrodite emerging from the waves, and wringing out with her hands the moisture and foam of the sea." Pliny tells us of his portraits of Alexander the Great, especially the one in the character of Jupiter holding the thunder-bolts, designed for the temple at Ephesus. He painted another of Alexander mounted on Bucephalus, which at first did not give satis- PAGAN PAINTING. 7 faction ; but a mare, accidentally passing, began to neigh at the sight of the charger, and the artist, addressing the hero, said to him, " Is it possible that this animal is a better judge of painting than the King of Macedon ? " A number of the pictures of Apelles were long held as treasures in the palaces of the Roman emperors. They were also preserved in Grecian art-galleries, such as that of the Acropolis at Athens. Liibke refers to some fragments of the works of other artists of this period which still exist in the tombs of Psestum, and in the remains of Psestum which have been carried to the museum at Naples. After the age of Alexander painting declined to such representations of ordinary life and domestic scenes as are known in modern days by the name of genre pictures. An- other branch of art, however, seems to have then developed in the mosaic floor and ceiling decorations, popular among both Greeks and Romans, many of which have come down to the present day, and may be seen in the Roman collec- tions, and in the ruins of the baths of Caracalla and the palace of the Caesars. They were composed of bits of pre- cious marbles or vitreous pastes, in varied colors and designs. One of the most curious was at Pergamos, and was called " The Unswept House," because the floor ingeniously rep- resented the remains of food, and all that is generally swept away. Another interesting relic is to be found at the town of Cortona, Italy, in whose museum is preserved, according to Jarves, a most valuable example of Grecian easel-painting. " It is the head and bust of a young girl, one-third life-size, holding a lyre, painted in a wax medium, on a fragment of 8 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. slate. It was discovered in the last century by a peasant, in the earth of his farm. Supposing it to be a votive Ma- donna he gave it an honorable position in his cottage ; but when told by a priest that it was an idol, he used it to stop a hole in his oven. In this position it was seized by his land- lord, and after various adventures was given to the museum, on condition of being perpetually kept at Cortona." Among the treasures of the Vatican is still to be seen the famous fresco of the Nozze Aldobrandini, one of the rarest specimens of ancient art in Rome, representing, in a composition of ten figures, a Greek marriage-ceremony possibly the nuptials of Peleus and Thetis. It was found on the Esquiline Hill, near the arch of Gallienus, early in the seventeenth century, and became the property of Cardinal Aldobrandini; but was finally sold to Pope Pius VII., for more than ten thousand dollars, in the year 1818. Passing into Italy, we come to many Etruscan tombs ; as well as to numberless vases, whose graceful designs are famil- iar to all travelers, but whose workmanship is suggestive of Grecian skill. The tomb-paintings were generally colored outlines, sometimes of gay and pleasant scenes, with green branches placed between their compartments ; sometimes of serious and tender subjects, such as death-bed farewells, where children embrace their dying parents, and by-standers mournfully watch the parting. "A spirit-horse for a man, and a chariot for a woman, are depicted quietly waiting out- side, with their winged attendants, until they are needed to carry the departed to their new land." Copies of several of these wall-paintings may be studied in the Etruscan Museum of the Vatican. In some of them horses are represented in PAGAN PAINTING. 9 bright red or bright blue, or black and red. There is also a tradition of an Etrurian artist, who, previous to the founding of Rome, painted at Ardea the cupola of the temple of Juno, which retained its colors till the first Christian century. Among the Romans native talent found comparatively small encouragement, their intercourse with the Greeks en- abling them to supply themselves with much better paintings than their own artists could produce. Early Roman work was principally decorative, though portraits were also in favor. If we rely upon Pliny's authority, we may believe that their landscape-painting was " invented " in the time of Au- gustus. The Roman emperors were often liberal patrons of art. Julius Caesar is said to have paid nearly two hundred thousand dollars of our money for two pictures of Ajax and Medea; and Nero ordered a portrait of himself to be exe- cuted on a canvas more than 120 feet high. This painting was afterward destroyed by lightning. Remains of Graeco-Roman art are, however, the most accessible of all antique labors. The mural beauties of Pom- peii are so bright and fresh, and so well known everywhere through photographs and copies, that they seem almost to belong to modern times. The brilliant reds and soft yellows of their backgrounds show us capacities of vivid coloring among the ancients which we should never have imagined. Floating dancing girls, lovely as Raphael's " Hours," legen- dary representations, Grecian myths, fantastic animals, and genre sketches, mingled, indeed, with many designs degrading to all true art, still live for us in that buried city, or fade into dimness in the museum of Naples. The Parting of Achilles and Briseus, the Battle of the Amazons, Perseus and Andro- 10 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. meda, Medea and her Children, and many Homeric subjects, may be particularly specified. D'Anvers observes : " The leading peculiarity of all these paintings is the intensity of their coloring, accounted for by the Italian custom of darken- ing rooms in the daytime : the lower portions of the walls are always painted in the strongest colors, and the upper in white or very faint tints, thus affording a sense of repose to the eye which can be better felt than described." Similar mural decorations are being discovered among Roman ex- cavations, as in the baths of Titus, in the house of the brother of Tiberius on the Palatine Hill, and in villas dug out in the old suburbs, where the richness and beauty of what Time has preserved hint to us the splendors which Time has destroyed. Exposure to the air soon ruins such fresco or distemper ; but we know not what treasures may yet lie hid in the soil of Italy, nor what the enterprise of the present may yet reveal to us of the lost arts of the past. Practically, however, painting may be said to have died in the darkness of heathenism, and to have been born again in the light and life of a Christian world. Very feebly born and very slowly nurtured, its struggles and triumphs were to be upon a dif- ferent field ; and the first efforts of its new mission was to appeal through the senses to the things beyond the senses, and thus to link perception to imagination and faith. RISE OF CHRISTIAN ART. II CHAPTER II. RISE OF CHRISTIAN ART. THE burial-place of the primitive Christians was the cradle of Christian art. The faith which struggled in the early cen- turies with the old paganism held the germ of all the beauty which later culture has developed ; but the life of the saints was first to be lived afterward painted ! The martyrs of the Catacombs had little need of visible symbols to express or stimulate their devotion. They were even at first suspi- cious of such symbols, and disdained the wisdom and the grace of this world, so associated with profligacy and idol-worship. A pictured image and a graven image stood practically in the same category,' and the second commandment seemed a warning against both. But the natural tendency of the re- ligious instinct to avail itself of some external signs could not be long repressed. On the graves of believers began to be carved the cross ; the Alpha and Omega ; the X. P., or mono- gram of the name of Christ ; the Vine, of which his followers are the branches ; the Fish, whose letters contained the initials of " Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour ; " the Palm, emblem of the martyr's victory ; the Dove, which represents the Holy Ghost ; the Peacock and Phoenix, types of eternity and the resurrection ; and the Ship, which signified the Church. Rudely sculptured or rudely sketched, these were 12 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. the infant efforts of religious art. Soon came the delineation of Christ as the Good Shepherd, mild and youthful, with the rescued lamb in his arms or upon his shoulders ; but no actual scenes from his life are represented till a few years later. Events from the Old Testament were earlier and more freely painted. These were all intended to have some alle- gorical meaning the sacrifice of Isaac, Jonah and the whale, Daniel in the lions' den, the history of Elijah, and the history of Moses, being regarded as furnishing types of Christian truths. Indeed, in the Catacombs of both Rome and Naples subjects from the Old Testament are far more frequent than from the New. Even classic mythology is interpreted in ac- cordance with the rising faith. Some remarkable paintings have been found of Christ in the character of Orpheus, sur- rounded by wild beasts who listen entranced to the sound of his lyre, and who are supposed to signify the wild and hea- then nations of the earth, subdued by the power of Christi- anity. As the early prejudices against art began to soften, the picturesque and touching details of the life of Christ be- came the natural theme of the painter, while the old symbols multiplied, and their meaning extended. The four beasts of the Apocalypse represented the four Evangelists the human face for St. Matthew, because he begins with the human gener- ation of our Lord ; the lion for St. Mark, in allusion to his clear account of the resurrection ; the ox for St. Luke, be- cause he dwells upon the Saviour's sacrificial character ; and the eagle for St. John, because of the apostle's lofty contem- plations and undazzled gaze upon truth. These four were occasionally combined into one mysterious emblem, called a Tetramorph. From the crosses then drawn or cut four rivers S FVDEN 1 IAN PAINTING FROM THE CATACOMBS. RISE OF CHRISTIAN ART. ! 3 are seen flowing, typifying the four Gospels ; or sometimes these are baptismal crosses, where the forth-springing waters of baptism are overshadowed by the holy dove. " On one side stand the lambs of the Christian congregation, while on the other is the stag, an emblem of the outer Gentile world desir- ing baptism." The Agnus Dei, or Lamb of God, was also a favorite design of this period sometimes seen upon the altar, or standing in the centre of twelve sheep, who are intended for the Twelve Apostles. The nativity, the adoration of the Magi, and the miracles of Christ especially the raising of Lazarus are repeatedly delineated. Lord Lindsay forcibly remarks : " Not a thought of bitterness or revenge expressed itself in sculpture or painting during three centuries ; not a single instance has been recorded of the tortures or martyr- doms which have furnished such endless food for the pencil in later ages. Even the sufferings of Christ are alluded to merely -by the cross borne lightly in his hand as a sceptre of power rather than a rod of affliction : the agony, the crown of thorns, the nails, the spear, seem all forgotten in the full- ness of joy brought by his resurrection. This is the theme, Christ's* resurrection, and that of the Church in his person, on which, in their peculiar language, the artists of the Cata- combs seem never weary of expatiating." It is one of the privileges of our own day to be able to trace, by means of photographs, taken by magnesium-light from these very walls, the records of primitive centuries, and thus see for ourselves the Catacomb interiors, with their sarcophagi and frescoes. The Vatican and Lateran Museums at Rome also contain many relics brought thither from their original places. I4 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. It will be interesting in this connection to notice the por- traits of Christ and the Virgin Mary which have been handed down to us by tradition. The earliest pictures purporting to be portraits of our Lord were discovered in the Roman Cata- combs, and are considered as dating from the third or fifth century. One of the best preserved is thus described by Liibke : " The noble oval of the countenance is shaded by long brown hair, parted in the middle ; the eyes are large and thoughtful, the nose long and narrow, the mouth serious and mild, and the beard almost youthfully tender. The left hand holds the open book of life, and the right hand is raised as if for solemn invitation and warning." Such portraits, as well as the profile lately photographed, professing to be taken from one cut in an emerald by command of Tiberius Caesar, and restored to Pope Innocent VIII. by the Emperor of the Turks as a ransom for his brother, were founded upon the type set forth by ancient writers, as in the famous letter of Lentulus to the Roman Senate. Lentulus was an officer supposed to have been attached to the person of Pilate, but the letter is really a forgery of a later date, though it em- bodies the existing traditions : " A man of stately figure, dignified in appearance, with a countenance inspiring ven- eration and which those who look upon may love as well as fear. His hair, rather dark and glossy, falls down in curls below his shoulders, and is parted in the middle, after the manner of the Nazarenes. The forehead is smooth and re- markably serene ; the face without line or spot, and agree- ably ruddy. The nose and mouth are faultless ; the beard of the color of the hair, not long, but divided ; the eyes bright and of a varied color." Another version of the letter RISE OF CHRISTIAN ART. l e adds that " his hair was the color of the hazel-nut ; the eyes grayish-blue, and full of light." A curious early legend relates how "Abgarus, King of Edessa, lay grievously sick, and sent a messenger to the Saviour, enjoining him to bring back either Christ or his portrait. The messenger, who arrived while Jesus was preaching, endeavored to sketch his features, but the divine light that streamed from them rendered it impossible ; where- upon Christ, taking a piece of linen, wiped his face with it, and handed it to him with the impression of his countenance upon it. This passed into the hands of the Emperor of Constantinople, and was said to have been afterward brought to Italy, where its true possession is claimed in various localities. A copy called the Nazaraeum is pre- served in the Latin convent at Nazareth." An equally miraculous origin is invented for the great portrait held authentic by the Romish Church, called the "Archiro tope ton," or the "picture made without hands." It is inclosed in a silver tabernacle, in the chapel of the Sancta Sanctorum, where it was placed A. D. 752. Hare repeats the legend : " The apostles and the Madonna, meeting after the Ascension, resolved to order a portrait of the Crucified, for satisfying the desire of the faithful, and commissioned St. Luke to execute the task. After three days' fasting and prayer such a portrait was drawn in outline by that artist, but, before he had begun to col- or, the tints were found to have been filled in by invisible hands." Among other legendary portraits is a so-called miniature of our Saviour, still shown at Easter among the relics of the t <5 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. church of St. Prassede, Rome, said to have been given by St. Peter to the daughters of Pudens. Another legend, having its source in the middle ages, is the handkerchief or veil of St. Veronica, upon which the feat- ures of Christ were imprinted. The veil is exhibited at Rome, but a wonderfully fine picture, painted from the tra- dition, and crowned with thorns, is ascribed to Correggio, in the Museum of Berlin. The Council of Ephesus in 431 defined the manner in which the Virgin Mary was to be represented by art ; and the ecclesiastical historian Nicephorus thus gives the tradi- tion of her personal appearance : " She was of middle stature, though some assert her to have been somewhat taller. She had a pale tint, light hair, piercing eyes, with yellowish olive- colored pupils. Her brows were arched and modestly black ; her nose moderately long, her lips fresh, and full of amiability when speaking. Her face not round or pointed, but oval ; hands and fingers fairly long. She spoke little, but she spoke freely and affably. She was not troubled in her speech, but grave, courteous, tranquil. Her dress was without ornament, and in her deportment was nothing lax or feeble." In the Catacombs of Santa Priscilla is a very ancient seated figure of the Virgin, " her head partially covered with a short, light veil, and with the Holy Child in her arms. Opposite her stands a man clothed in .the pallium, holding a volume in one hand, and, with the other, pointing to a star which appears above and between the figures." Many pictures of the Madonna which are shown to trav- elers are ascribed to St. Luke. Indeed, in the church of Santa Maria, in Via Lata, on the Corso, Rome, visitors are led MADONNA OF ST. LUKE. p. 17. RISE OF CHRISTIAN ART. iy to a little chamber, which, they are told, is the identical studio where the apostle painted with his own hand her likeness ; and there is a German " Kunst-Lexicon " in which the biog- raphy of St. Luke is given as the first Christian artist. Most of these so-called portraits are, however, considered to have been executed by a monk named Luca, who flourished about the eleventh century, when it became the fashion to paint the Virgin's complexion of the deepest brown or even black, in allusion to the passage in Canticles : "I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem ! " It is these black Virgin pictures which always gain the reputation of working miracles. Ancient types of St. Peter and St. Paul existed in the time of the Emperor Constantine. St. Peter is a robust old man, with a broad forehead and rather coarse features, an open, undaunted countenance, short gray hair, and short thick beard, curled and of a silvery white. " The priestly tonsure is said to have originated in the shaving of his head by the Gentiles, in order to bring him into derision. The keys in his hand appear as his peculiar attribute about the eighth century. He usually carries two keys, one of gold and one of silver to absolve and to bind." The portrait or image of St. Paul was known, according to St. Augustine, in the second century. Chrysostom speaks of himself as owning such a portrait, but gives no description of it. But tradition endows him with " a small and meagre stature, aquiline nose, high forehead, and sparkling eyes." He wears a white mantle over a blue tunic. His attribute is a sword, and he commonly carries a book or roll, in allusion to the Epistles. X 8 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. With the accession of Constantine and the triumph of Christianity, art assumed a grandeur more proportionate to the grandeur of the faith. The Church emerged from the Catacombs, and magnificent basilicas were built, requiring a corresponding style of decoration. Fortunately for us, most of these decorations were in mosaic, and have thus often sur- vived ruin and decay. The materials employed for this work were not merely bits of marbles, but also small cubes of stone and vitrified substances, such as may be examined to-day in the Pope's mosaic manufactory at Rome, where pictures are still extensively prepared. Some idea of the patience re- quired may be gained from the statement that ten men labored for nine years on the mosaic copy of Raphael's Trans- figuration, now to be seen in St. Peter's. The earliest, though much-damaged, mosaic remains which have come down to us date from the fourth century, and are discoverable on the vaulted roof of Santa Constanza, Rome, erected as the funeral chapel of the daughter of Constantine. They represent Christ and the apostles, while the ornaments of the arches are vine- tendrils with little genii and symbolic signs, on a white ground. But it is in the churches of Ravenna that we see the most ancient yet satisfactory specimens of the art. The baptistery of that city is peculiarly remarkable. Baptisteries are a special feature in Italian ecclesiastical architecture. They are circular or polygonal buildings, placed beside the cathe- drals, and surmounted by cupolas whose vaulting is richly adorned with appropriate subjects. In the Ravenna bap- tistery is a singular representation of the baptism of our Lord, executed in the fifth century. Christ is standing in the water, RISE OF CHRISTIAN ART. ! 9 with the lower part of his figure visible through the waves, " while the river Jordan, under the form of a river-god, rises on the left in the act of presenting a cloth." Below the cen- tral figure are twelve colossal apostles on a blue background. The mosaics of SS. Nazaro e Celso, also at Ravenna, are ex- tremely interesting ; so are those of San Vitale, about A. D. 547, and of San Apollinare Nuovo. In the new church of St. Paul without the walls, at Rome, are preserved some precious mosaics of the fifth century, rescued from the burning of the old basilica, portraying Christ adored by the twenty-four elders and four beasts of the Apocalypse. Mosaics of the same century, though con- siderably restored, may be studied at Santa Maria Maggiore. Over the arch of the tribune in the Lateran is a head of the Saviour, surrounded by seraphim. " Below is an ornamented cross, above which hovers a dove, from whose beak, running down the cross, flow the streams which supply the four rivers of Paradise. Harts and sheep flock to drink of the waters of life. In the distance is the New Jerusalem, within which the Phoenix, the bird of Eternity, is seated upon the Tree of Life, guarded by an angel with a two-edged sword. Beside the cross stand the Virgin and saints. All these per- sons are represented as walking in a flowery paradise, in which the souls of the blessed are sporting, and in front of which flows the Jordan." But the finest mosaics of ancient Christian Rome may be inspected in the old church of SS. Cosmo e Damiano, near the palace of the Caesars. There is the figure of Christ which has been called one of the grandest conceptions of primitive ages. He is coming in the clouds of sunset. " Countenance, 20 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. attitude, and drapery, combine to give him an expression of quiet majesty which for many centuries after is not found again in equal beauty and freedom." Most of these mosaics are laid upon a blue ground. The transition to a gold ground gradually leads us to a change of style which marks what is termed the Byzantine period. BYZANTINE AND MINIATURE PAINTING. 2 J CHAPTER III. BYZANTINE AND MINIATURE PAINTING. AFTER the establishment of the Byzantine Empire by Constantine, with Constantinople as its capital, a school of painting began to rise, destined to supersede for a time all Roman art, which was apparently falling into premature de- cay. It was a school which flourished from the fifth to the thirteenth century, and was exclusively under the influence of the early priests and monks, many of whom were them- selves artists. Its works display a singular contrast of intense and often extravagant symbolism with the stiffest and most conventional execution. Ecclesiastical art had now rooted itself as a power in the Church ; but it was a power not with- out opposition. The decoration of churches and the growing splendor of Christian services had originated the charge of idol-worship, and roused the zealous anger of iconoclasts. One of the emperors even conceived the idea of entirely abolishing both pictures and statues ; and the fierce conflict of a hundred years resulted in the triumph of painting, but the suppression of sculpture. It was regarded as a matter quite important enough for the legislation of general coun- cils ; and these councils considered not only whether sacred subjects should be represented at all, but also prescribed, in many instances, the mode of their representation. The Coun- 22 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING, cil of Constantinople, held in 692, decided that the lamb, formerly used as the symbol of our Lord, should give place to the humanity of Christ ; and from the time of this decision we may date the pictures of the crucifixion which soon became so universal. At first they portrayed a fully-clothed and generally youthful figure, standing, with open eyes and calm features, erect upon the cross ; but very soon followed the drooping head, contorted muscles, and agonized face, where all traces of the divine are painfully absent. This delineation of a suffering Saviour, "with no beauty that we should desire him," suggested the ideal for suffering and ascetic saints. Spirituality was expressed by meagreness and meanness of form, and gloom or severity of countenance. Madonnas grew "black" and most uncomely; flesh-tints darkened into deep brown, or a hideous olive-green ; tall, narrow figures stiffened into rigidity; and eyes looked out from under frowning brows with a spectral stare. Dra- peries, on the other hand, were voluminous and gorgeous. These morose martyrs shine in rich vestments of cloth of gold. Wealth of ornament and jeweled embroidery are lavished upon the folds of their garments. Indeed, the whole Byzantine school is characterized by a sort of barbaric splen- dor, whose costly accessories were intended to dazzle the beholder, and conceal artistic ignorance. Its best remains are its early mosaics, all usually done on a gold ground, the most interesting of which are those of San Apollinare in Classe, at Ravenna, and of St. Mark's, Venice. Those of St. Mark's are peculiarly worthy of study, because the period of their execution extends from the tenth century down to the time of Titian, and necessarily embraces a variety of styles, and a BYZANTINE AND MINIATURE PAINTING. 2 3 wide range of subjects. "Here we find that remarkable As- cension where the Saviour is represented mounting over the riven gates of Hades, with the banner of victory in one hand, and drawing Adam upward with the other, while on each side the apostles are lifting up their hands in prayer. Here we see the guests of the feast of Pentecost, each two and two in their respective costumes, the Jews in pointed hats, the Par- thians with bow and arrow, the Arabians almost naked, and so on." Curious Byzantine mosaics of the Emperor Justinian adoring the enthroned Redeemer have been recently brought to light in the church of St. Sophia at Constantinople. The same peculiarities of the age are embodied in the panel and altar pictures. A conventional type of counte- nance belonged to each character. No variation of expres- sion was attempted, but, instead of this, scrolls were often painted, issuing from the mouth or held in the hands of the different personages, with sentiments suitable to the occasion. Gold grounds were universally employed, magnificent draper- ies were finished and polished with the most careful minute- ness. The glory, nimbus, and aureole, were of pagan origin, and only adopted by Christians about the fifth century, but came into more general use with the Greek artists. A glory round the whole person is only appropriate to Christ and the Virgin, or occasionally to ascending saints. The aureole, or nimbus encircling the head, is the common emblem of sanc- tity. From the fifth to the twelfth century it was shaped like a plate, and laid in solid gold. The Latin nimbus is a simple circle, the Greek nimbus has a red cross included within the circle. A square nimbus indicates that the saint so adorned was living when the work was painted. Sometimes the glory 3 24 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. is composed entirely of seraphs, with their six wings arranged according to the vision of Isaiah : " With twain he did cover his face, with twain he did cover his feet, and with twain he did fly." The color of seraphs in ancient art is always red, to express their ardent love ; that of cherubs is blue, to sig- nify their profound knowledge. The earliest emblem of God the Father is a hand, visible among clouds at the top of the picture. This is seen in the Roman and Ravenna mosaics, especially in a mosaic of the Transfiguration in San Apollinare in Classe. The dove ap- pears as the symbol of the Holy Ghost, while God the Son is represented as standing in majestic manhood, surrounded by his apostles, or as a child in the arms of his enthroned and resplendent mother. But still more significant of this period are the scenes from the passion of our Lord, never till now delineated, and the blood-streaming crucifixes and harrowing martyrdoms, so suggestive of the gloom and terror which in the tenth century were overspreading Christendom. Through the eleventh and twelfth centuries we have in- teresting remains of Byzantine altar-pieces, sometimes on a single panel, sometimes in two or three parts, called diptychs or triptychs, the folding side-pieces being united by hinges and termed "wings." They represented the same subjects as in former years, treated in the same style. Painters fre- quently worked together. "One designed the compositions, another drew the heads, a third the draperies, a fourth the ornaments, a fifth the inscriptions, while others prepared the gold ground and colors according to written directions." Thus Byzantine art degenerated into almost Egyptian formal- ism. " Under such conditions the school survives even to BYZANTINE AND MINIATURE PAINTING. 2 5 this day, and still supplies the present pictures of the Greek Church. Its principal workshop is Mount Athos in Greece, which is a province of monks. As a school of painting it has continued to exist in a uniform and unbroken career for thirteen hundred years. It has nine hundred and thirty-five churches, chapels, and oratories, nearly all of which are paint- ed in fresco, and crowded with sacred pictures on wood." The art of miniature-painting, which seems to have been partially known among the Greeks, began to be applied to Christian uses in the fourth and fifth centuries, and it is sin- gular to observe how often the modest parchment, which was the material for this labor, has been quite as enduring as massive mosaics of imperishable stone. The fineness and delicacy of touch here necessary developed a genius which could never have adapted itself to vast or imposing forms. Yet, the illuminator shared the spirit of his age, and advance and change of style are as perceptible in his compositions as in larger works. The hermits of the Thebai'd and Syria first ornamented their holy books, and wrote the verses in let- ters of gold upon purple-tinted parchment ; but the earliest manuscripts which we are now able to examine are treasured in the library of the Vatican especially a roll of thirty feet in length, with miniatures executed in water-colors, descrip- tive of the life of Joshua. In the same library is a manu- script "Virgil," probably of the fifth century, whose groups have apparently been studied after the antique ; while in the Ambrosian Library at Milan is a similar " Homer," some of whose figures still shine in warm and transparent coloring. Yet the art does not seem to have progressed with much rapidity till nearly the ninth century, when it was practised 2 6 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING, by many Byzantines, either in their own compositions or in copies made by them of older Roman works. A very inter- esting psalter of the ninth century shows us David sur- rounded by allegorical figures "Melody" leaning on his shoulder, " Clemency " hovering over him, and " Vain-glory " fleeing behind Goliath. Of the same century is the " Chris- tian Topography of Cosmos," also in the Vatican. The Vati- can " Menologium," a calendar of the eleventh century, has four hundred and thirty splendid miniatures, all on gold backgrounds, representing animals, temples, houses, furniture, arms, instruments, and architecture. The " Klimax " of the eleventh or twelfth century exhibits, in miniatures of delicate finish, an allegory of the Virtues and Vices, with the Vices all depicted as negroes. The Royal Library of Paris is rich in illuminated manu- scripts. One of the earliest and most important is the "Commentaries of Gregory of Nazianzus " though later works, of the thirteenth century, are in better preservation, and of almost equal interest to the student. From that period date the celebrated " Romances " so famed in song and story. Whoever inspects the miniature of the " Four Sons of Aymon on their good steed Bayart " will have a fair idea of the manuscript art of France about the year 1250. The family likeness of the " Four Sons " and the anatomy of the " good steed " will doubtless receive their full share of admiration. But steady improvement went on in this direc- tion through the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth cen- turies, till the later " Romaunts " and the French " Books of Hours " became the most beautiful specimens of mediseval illuminations. None can be more curious than a " Corona- CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN (Foucquet). BYZANTINE AND MINIATURE PAINTING. 27 tion of the Virgin," in a prayer-book, by Jehan Foucquet, where the Three Persons of the Trinity are present. The earliest German miniatures are to be found in the Royal Library at Munich some of the Byzantine, and some of the Carlovingian period. Probably the most ancient is 'a manuscript from the Convent of Wessobrunn, A. D. 814 or 815, illustrating, in rude designs, the Recovery of the True Cross, and containing the "Wessobrunn prayer." The same library is well supplied with native manuscripts of the Gospels, of the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries mostly of Gothic stiffness. A Netherland " Evangelarium " of the eleventh century, formerly at Treves, has a primitive paint- ing of the " Last Supper," where Judas is taking the sop offered to him by Christ, while at the same time Satan, in the form of a bird, is flying into his mouth. Soon succeeded the age of romance, marked by many manuscripts of the troubadours or minnesingers, the most celebrated of which, dating about 1300, is in the Library of Paris, and contains portraits of each poet. Still more interesting are the works of the Flemish painters of the fifteenth century. The de- scription of a manuscript, also in the Paris Library, by Pol von Limberg, 1410, will give some idea of their abilities. " The Saviour stands in a rose-colored mantle, supported by angels on pedestals, uniting Adam and Eve under a rainbow. The waters of life well out, in 'front of the group, from an octagonal fountain, swarming with fishes, and bathing a bank alive with quadrupeds." Curious Anglo-Saxon manuscripts may be seen at Oxford and in London. Some of these are of very early Irish origin, for the Irish monks were particularly fond of this form of art, 2 g SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. and excelled in calligraphy, though they made comparatively little use of gold or splendor of coloring. A device known as the " Runic knot " is as peculiar to their penmanship as is the familiar " Grecian chain " to Eastern borders. Rude and grotesque as are many of their designs, they often evince great originality and native force. A Saxon " Book of the Gospels " is kept in the British Museum, written and orna- mented by Endfrith, Bishop of Lindisfarne, " for God and St. Cuthbert," about the year 700. Some of the " Psalters " are remarkable for their extraordinary and fantastic Heads of Christ ; while in a paraphrase of the Pentateuch, which is the chief specimen of the eleventh century, is a singular render- ing of the " Fall of the Rebel Angels," where Lucifer, as the Prince of Hell, is encircled by an almond-shaped glory which the vermilion-colored dragon is biting with his tail. In a manuscript of the fourteenth century, also in the British Museum, the cross of Christ at the crucifixion is planted in the grave of Adam; and from this tomb rises Adam himself, holding up a chalice to catch the blood of the Redeemer. But nowhere do we examine this style of painting with more satisfaction and delight than in the old monastery of San Marco, Florence, now converted into a National Mu- seum. Psalters, gospels, missals, and books of prayer, illu- minated principally in the fifteenth century, by the brother of Fra Angelico and his pupils, with the most elaborate care and the richest coloring, are constantly laid open for public inspection, and still bear witness to the universal love of beauty and consecration of every variety of talent which for several centuries characterized the progress of mediaeval art, both in Italy and the North. EARLY ITALIAN PAINTING, CHAPTER IV. EARLY ITALIAN PAINTING. WHILE the Byzantine school was nourishing at Constan- tinople, Italian art seemed to have preserved just enough vitality to keep itself from extinction, and to transmit from generation to generation a germ of genius destined to a later development. Mosaists still worked at Rome, though not with the old spirit and power. In the church of St. Agnes without the walls are some remains of the seventh century, showing St. Agnes standing between Popes Honorius and Symmachus. The figures are on a green ground. In the des- olate old church of San Stefano Rotunda, renowned for its frescoes of horrible martyrdoms, are some mosaic fragments of the same century. Elaborate mosaics of the ninth century decorate the church of St. Prassede. They represent the New Jerusalem, shaped like a polygon, with a gate at each angle, guarded by angels. The hand of the Father holds a crown over the Saviour, who stands within, the twelve apos- tles under the symbol of twelve sheep below him, while toward the gates advances a procession of white-robed mar- tyrs with crowns in their hands. Ninth-century mosaics are also found in the church of St. Cecilia. The year 1000 was the epoch at which all Christendom expected the end of the world ; and in the terror and agita- 3 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. tion of that period art was neglected and mosaic-work aban- doned, not to be resumed again, except by some Greek artists in Sicily, till the twelfth or thirteenth century. Meanwhile a few frescoes, much ruined or restored, attest the slow prog- ress of wall-painting. These frescoes are so called because executed upon fresh, damp plaster, in colors mixed with water and some glutinous substances. Some of them, of not later date than the eighth or ninth century, are still found in the lower church of St. Clement, Rome. Among them is a "Crucifixion," with the Virgin and St. John standing beside the cross. But it is very unsatisfactory to inspect these by the dim light of wax-tapers, and the only time when they can be seen to advantage is at the illumination of the church on the festival of the saint. Curious though almost obliterated fres- coes are also traceable in the little chapel of San Sylvestro, Rome. One of them is a "Crucifixion," "where an angel is taking off the crown of thorns, and putting on a real crown an incident nowhere else introduced in art." Wall and ceiling paintings, dating about 1200, exist in the baptistery at Parma. But such early frescoes are generally so injured and defaced that we can scarcely judge of their excellence. More interesting are the twelfth-century Roman mosaics of Santa Maria in Trastevere, and the upper church of St. Clement, as well as rich mosaics of the thirteenth century, still brilliant in color, in the churches of the Lateran and Santa Maria Mag- giore, executed by Jacobus Torriti. In those of Santa Maria Maggiore is said to be the earliest example of the Coronation of the Virgin. The family of the Cosmati were also cele- brated mosaists at Rome during the thirteenth century. About the same period Andrea Tafi became renowned at EARLY ITALIAN PAINTING. 3 ! Florence, and adorned the baptistery of that city with mo- saics of great merit, which still shine along the entire height of the dome. Gaddo Gaddi, and other Tuscan artists, worked in the same building. Vasari commences his lives of the painters with a biography of Tafi, and grows ardent in his praise. There is little, however, calculated to interest the reader of to-day except his labors as a mosaist, and the fact that he first represented angels playing on the violin, and first painted the outsides of cabinets for the reception of bridal gifts. The thirteenth century witnessed the great revival of Italian art by Cimabue ; yet he had not been without pred- ecessors, who had striven, according to their small abilities, to infuse some force and beauty into the old Byzantine types. But their names and their works have mostly perished, and posterity is well able to bear the loss. The earliest men- tioned are one Giovanni, who flourished in 960, and Petrolino, who is reported to have lived about the year noo. The different Italian cities each aspired to produce a school of painting, rendering more or less honor and patronage to their artists, who began to form themselves into societies or "guilds," soon to grow renowned and profitable. Sienna seemed at first to give the highest promise of excellence. She encouraged art with much liberality and discretion, and took care not only of the prosperity but of the respectability of her architects and painters, who were, for the most part, gentle, contemplative, and holy. No immoral person was allowed to work upon her magnificent cathedral then build- ing. Purity and delicacy, faith and joy, were the characteris- tics principally sought. Lord Lindsay speaks of the drooping 3 2 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. bend of the neck of their Madonnas, so humble and so meek ; of the caressing intercourse between the Virgin and the Child; of their rich yet simple coloring, and their love for flowers and birds and every thing sweet, and pure, and fresh, in creation. The city was devoted to the Virgin, and she was of course the painters' chief subject. It is of inter- est to examine the pictures of this school, kept in the Siennese Academy ; but to our educated eyes they will seem stiff and feeble, and still bound by the old Byzantine trammels so destructive to beauty. The drawing of hands and feet was also a hopeless problem to the artists of that day. Guido of Sienna is the first well-authenticated personage in the history of Italian painting. They show you, in the church of San Domenico, his " Enthroned Madonna," heavi- ly draped and seated under an arch, with three angels hover- ing above her. The infant Saviour, in robes of yellow and gold, is in her lap, and holds up two fingers of his little hand in the attitude of benediction universally adopted. The flesh-tints are not quite so dark as among the Greeks, but they can scarcely be called much fairer than olive-green. At the bottom of the panel is this inscription in Latin, with the date 1221 : "I, Guido of Sienna, upon whose soul may Christ have mercy, Have painted this in pleasant days ! " In the early school of Pisa, Nicolo Pisano produced as wonderful a revolution in sculpture as Cimabue and Giotto in painting. Sculpture was therefore its favorite department, leaving pictorial art less practised ; but reliable mention is made of one Giunta Pisano, who is said to have painted about EARLY ITALIAN PAINTING. 33 1230, in the church of St. Francis at Assisi. Some half- obliterated frescoes are there ascribed to him, especially a " Crucifixion," in which a dead Christ, of a repulsive Byzantine type, rises above a crowd of grave and motionless figures* arranged as in ancient congregations the men on one side, the women on the other. At the foot of the cross is a much- damaged figure of St. Francis. He executed at the same time a small, full-length, mild-faced figure of St. Francis, which is now preserved in the sacristy of the church, and has almost the authenticity of a portrait. A little panel pict- ure, also ascribed to Giunta, very old, very black, and very ugly, is in the Dresden Gallery. It will not excite a burning desire in the beholder for a further research into his works. A family of artists, called the Berlinghieri, dwelt at Lucca in the commencement of the thirteenth century, but most of the primitive Lucca paintings are only crucifixes, after the most disagreeable models. St. Francis was also an occa- sional subject for their brush; but the peculiar devotee of this saint was Margaritone of Arezzo, born in 1236. He was, moreover, an architect and sculptor, and his native city Arezzo still preserves some efforts of his skill, all in Byzan- tine taste and style. He has an altar-piece in the English Gallery, representing " the Virgin and Child in an elliptical glory, supported by angels, with the symbols of the evan- gelists ; and, on the sides, scenes from the lives of St. John, St. Benedict, St. Catharine, and St. Margaret." The com- plexions are dusky bronze, with vermilion spotted cheeks. According to Vasari, he died aged seventy-seven. Into this faint twilight dawning of a day of beauty and progress was born, in 1240, Giovanni Cimabue. He was a 34 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. native of Florence, and of a proud and noble family. His own character is reported to have been haughty and disdain- ful, yet lofty in aim and patient in labor. He could not brook a fault in his pictures, but aspired far beyond the at- tainments of his age, and achieved a fame which, according to his enthusiastic biographer Vasari, entitles him to be called the "father of modern painting." This reputation may seem to rest upon slight foundations ; but we must remember that what now appears to us painful feebleness and formalism in art, and crudeness in color, was then a daring advance upon all received standards. Until the time of Cimabue, painting had never been considered as in any real sense an imitation of Nature. It is true that under his hands it did not proceed very far in this direction, but he at least perceived the ideal, though it was reserved for his pupil Giotto to illustrate, both by precept and example, the new theory of art. Cimabue changed the Byzantine system of color, and introduced an- other method of flesh-tints, giving warm shadows, and a light instead of a dark undertone. He also emancipated draperies from their Greek rigidity, and caused them, though still vo- luminous, to fall in more natural and tasteful folds. He avoided the round eyes of his predecessors, and gave a faint touch of sweetness and grandeur to the severe and repulsive faces which had formerly disfigured both Virgin and saints. His knowledge of perspective was of course small, of anat- omy still less, and kindness forbids us to allude to his attempted hands and feet ; but the soul of the picture began to struggle through, and art was no longer mechanical. Whether he had been instructed by Greek masters is a dis- puted question, but he must at least have studied their paint- EARLY ITALIAN PAINTING. 35 ings and felt their deficiencies. His earliest work was a " St. Cecilia " no inspired musician, but a heavily-draped matron, seated on a throne, with a book of the gospels in one hand and a palm-branch in the other. In the Florence Academy is preserved a large " Madonna and Child," originally intend- ed for the monks of Vallambrosa, with three adoring angels on each side, on a gold ground. Several saintly heads at the bottom are the finest part of the picture; yet when we con- trast it with a Byzantine " Magdalen '' which hangs close by we can form a better opinion of Cimabue's real progress . es- pecially if we subjoin a description of this Byzantine penitent, who is spoken of by a distinguished spectator as possessing " wooden hands, projecting ears, and the figure and pose of a mummy." Two red daubs ornament her cheeks, and her appalling length is enveloped in a dark reddish-brown gar- ment. She stares fixedly before her, and holds the conven- tional scroll. When put into competition with such representations as these, we begin to comprehend the rapturous admiration which was universally accorded to the colossal Madonna afterward painted by Cimabue for the church of Santa Maria Novella. This was the largest altar-piece Florence had ever seen. It was carried to its destined abode by a festive pro- cession with music and banners, and the artist realized for the moment all his dreams of fame. It still remains in the Rucellai Chapel of the venerable church. " The Virgin, in a red tunic and blue mantle, with her feet resting on an open- worked stool, is sitting on a chair hung with white drapery, flowered in gold and blue, and carried by six angels, kneeling in threes above each other. A delicately-engraved nimbus 36 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. surrounds her head and that of the infant Saviour on her lap, dressed in a white tunic and purple mantle shot with gold." But years have sadly dimmed its splendors, and I doubt if many travelers of the present day would have joined the procession. Another " Madonna and Child " from the hand of Cima- bue is at present in the Louvre, but has been much injured and restored. A " Crucifixion " ascribed to him is in the Florentine church of Santa Croce. But his most extensive works are the frescoes, now falling into decay, in the church of St. Francis at Assisi. The best of these are on the roof of the nave of the upper building, and on the walls of the nave in a line with the windows. The subjects on the left- hand side are taken from the Old Testament ; on the right from the life of Christ, especially the scenes of the Betrayal, and the Deposition from the Cross. Before proceeding further it will be necessary to give a somewhat full description of this remarkable church, in re- gard to which Crowe and Cavalcaselle observe that its paint- ings " comprise and explain the history of the revival of Italian art," and that this edifice is undoubtedly " the most important monument of the close of the thirteenth century." To understand the reason of its erection we must refer to the legend of the saint it was intended to commemorate. St. Francis, often termed the Seraphic, was the founder of the Franciscan order of friars. He was a native of Assisi, and was baptized Giovanni, but called Francisco, the Frenchman, from his early knowledge of that language. He was always noted for a sweet and benevolent disposition, but his youth was given over to the pursuit of pleasure, till a long illners, EARLY ITALIAN PAINTING. 37 at the age of about twenty-five, produced more serious thoughts, and the determination to devote himself wholly to religion. His father bitterly opposed this resolution, and be- sought a friendly bishop to dissuade his son from such a course. But the bishop was moved with joy and reverence at Francis's holy fervor, gave him a beggar's cloak, and en- couraged him in his vocation. He first assumed the charge of a lepers' hospital, cared for the poor and sick, and lived in ragged penitence, prayer, and fasting, supporting himself only by begging alms. Instead of a girdle he wore a rope about his waist, from which peculiarity his followers are sometimes termed Cordeliers. The three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, he held to be indispensable to all Christian perfection. Crowds were converted by his preach- ing, and marvelous stories were told of his penances, his gen- tleness, his tenderness, and piety. The birds were friends with him, and the beasts of the field followed him like chil- dren. " Hares and pheasants sought refuge in the folds of his robe, and his heart overflowed with love toward all living creatures." A pet lamb was his frequent companion. He went upon missions to heathen countries, was rapt in trances and ecstasies ; and finally, in a cave upon Mount Alverna, he saw the vision of a seraph, with six shining wings, and re- ceived in his hands, and feet, and side, the marks of the wounds of our Saviour. This subject has been painted under the title of " St. Francis receiving the Stigmata." Two years after his death he was canonized, and became the most popular saint of Italy. Over his tomb a church was dedicated in his honor early in the thirteenth century. The architecture of this church was Gothic, and its ar- 3 8 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. rangement peculiar ; " two churches of almost equal extent being built, one over the other : " the lower to cover the sepulchre of St. Francis, the upper intended for the religious uses of the monastery. " The great veneration in which this place was held was evinced by the quantity of paintings with which the walls were covered in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. First, Grecian masters, and after them, it is sup- posed, Giunta Pisano, executed considerable paintings, of which little, however, is now recognizable." Cimabue and his pupils continued the work, and afterward Giotto, as we shall see, left in these remains some of his most characteristic frescoes. The present condition of the church of St. Francis at Assisi is thus strikingly described by Taine, in his volume upon Italy : " Over the body of the saint, which the people regard as ever living and absorbed in prayer at the bottom of an inac- cessible cave, the edifice has arisen and gloriously flowered, like an architectural shrine. Here is a crypt, dark as a sepulchre, into which the visitors descend with torches ; pil- grims keep close to the dripping walls, and grope along in order to reach the grating. Here is the tomb, in a pale, dim light, similar to that of limbo. A few brass lamps, almost without light, burn here eternally, like stars lost in mournful obscurity. The ascending smoke clings to the arches, and the heavy odor of the tapers mingles with that of the cave. The guide trims his torch, and the sudden flash in this hor- rible darkness, above the bones of a corpse, is like one of Dante's visions. " But that which cannot be represented by words is the EARLY ITALIAN PAINTING. 39 middle church, a long, low spiracle, supported by small, round arches curving in the half-shadow, and whose volun- tary depression makes one instinctively bend his knees. A coating of sombre blue and of reddish bands, starred with gold, a marvelous embroidery of ornaments, wreaths, delicate 'scroll-work, leaves, and painted figures, covers the arches and ceiling with its harmonious multitude. On one hand is the choir, surcharged and sown with sculptures ; yonder a rich, winding staircase, elaborate railings, a light marble pulpit, and funereal monuments ; here and there, haphazard, a lofty sheaf of slender columns, a cluster of stone gems whose arrangement seems a fantasy, and, in the labyrinth of col- ored foliage, a profusion of ascetic paintings, with their halos of faded gold ; all this vaguely discernible in a dim, purple light, amid dark reflections from the wainscotings. " On the summit, the upper church shoots up as brilliant, as aerial, as triumphant, as this is low and grave. It tapers its columns, narrows its ogives, refines its arches, mounts upward and upward, illuminated by the full day of its. lofty windows, by the radiance of its rosaces, by the stained glass and golden threads of stars, which flash through the arches and vaults that confine the beatified beings and sacred per- sonages with which it is painted from pavement to ceiling. Time, undoubtedly, has undermined them ; several have fallen, and the azure that covers them is tarnished ; but the mind immediately revives what is lost to the eye, and it again beholds the angelic pomp such as it first burst forth six hun- dred years ago." Contemporary with Cimabue, in the then prosperous city of Sienna, Duccio, called Duccio di Buoninsegna, was slowly 40 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. beginning to learn that the teachings of Nature are a safer guide in art than the traditions of the East. The time for the aesthetic freedom of Italy was fully come, and the mas- ter minds in all provinces were preparing for the change. Duccio was independent of Cimabue, as Cimabue of Duccio, but the same spirit was stirring in each. We have no posi- tive record of his birth, though a picture marked 1278 is ascribed to him in the Museum of Nancy, as is also a Virgin and Child of somewhat later date, now in the London Gal- lery. But his greatest work, and one most instructive to his countrymen, was the grand altar-piece, fourteen feet long and seven high, which he completed for the Sienna Cathedral. This was painted on the front with a Madonna and Child encompassed by saints, and on the back with twenty-eight small scenes from the passion of Christ, beginning with the entry into Jerusalem. It has since been sawed in two, and the parts placed at the ends of the cathedral-transept. Below the Madonna he wrote : " Holy Mother of God, grant peace to the people of Sienna, grant life to Duccio, since he has thus painted thee ! " It was finished in 1310, and the Siennese were as much excited by it as the Florentines had previously been by the Virgin of Cimabue ; so that similar honors were lav- ished on it, and a similar procession bore it from the studio to its magnificent altar. The little paintings on the back, which the citizens doubtless thought far inferior to the highly-ornamented Madonna in front, are now the valued evidences of Duccio's skill. They are beautifully finished, finely grouped, and unexpectedly natural and impressive. His touch may be less free and noble than that of Cimabue, but he displays refinement and elegance. Yet he must, in EARLY ITALIAN PAINTING. 4I turn, give place to Giotto, whom all acknowledge to have been the first true " lord of Painting's field " an artist, as Vasari expresses it, "by the gift of God." The events of Giotto di Bordone's life have so often been narrated that it may seem tedious to repeat them, yet none can be omitted from a history of art. He was born at Vespignano, not far from Florence, in 1276 ; and every one has heard how, when he was a shepherd-lad of ten years old, Cimabue came riding through the valley, and saw him mak- ing a drawing of his sheep with a piece of stone upon a rock. With quick perception and sympathy, he recognized the genius of the child, took him to his own home, and edu- cated him as a painter. Growing to manhood, Giotto be- came the friend of Dante, of Petrarch, and of Boccaccio : his enthusiasm was roused and his ambition fired, while at the same time his abilities were properly trained and regulated. He was appreciative, yet practical ; his nature was inventive, fertile, and varied ; " though born in a mystic century, he was himself no mystic." He looked on Nature with keen, com- prehensive eyes, and boldly aimed to reproduce what he saw. With himself, the result was originality; with his critics, amazement and admiration. They were filled with wonder to perceive that human passions could be painted on pictured faces that the melancholy figures should really look sorrow- ful, or the happy glad. Giotto's acquirements were not only those of an artist, but he was liberally educated in the various accomplishments of the period. His literary attainments were great, and he was even himself somewhat of a poet as in the lines which he penned upon " Poverty." Of his powers as a mosaist we have 42 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. ample proof in the famous mosaic of the " Navicella," much defaced and repaired, but yet preserved in the porch of St. Peter's, at Rome, representing the ship of the Church, manned by the apostles, and tossed upon the sea, while St. Peter, in the foreground, is being rescued by Christ from the waves. As an architect he has left us the matchless Campanile of Florence to speak his praise. Personally he was genial, witty, and popular, but far from handsome. His eight children were so ugly that Dante commented upon their appearance in most unflattering terms. The poet of " Paradise " and the " Inferno " had been himself a scholar of Cimabue, though the only notice we have of his progress is in language which he himself uses when, in speaking of Beatrice, he says, " Whiles I thought of her, I drew an angel." But he always continued his regard for his fellow-pupil, and many of Giotto's most forcible ideas were probably due to his suggestion. Counter- balancing this, we may remark that it is to Giotto we owe the finest and most favorable portrait of Dante, discovered within the last forty years, among some frescoes which had been whitewashed over, in'the chapel of the Palace of the Podesta, Florence. It was much damaged, but shows us a youthful and noble figure, with a red hood and vest, and green under- waistcoat, bearing in the right hand " a stem with triple fruit, possibly emblematic of the three great poems of which he is the author." This photographs admirably, and is quite dif- ferent from the better-known but less agreeable likeness on the north wall of the cathedral, which depicts him standing in a robe of red, with head crowned with laurel, holding in his hand an open book. As a painter, Giotto's chief excellences were the natural- EARLY ITALIAN PAINTING. 43 ness and life-like expression which have been already com- mended delicate carnation flesh-tints, flexible attitudes, and simple and graceful draperies. His defects were igno- rance of anatomy and perspective, oblique and half-closed eyes, flatness of form, and want of correct method in fore- -shortening. The frescoes in the church of Assisi, illustrative of the life of St. Francis, are among his earliest efforts. His scholars of course assisted in their execution, but many in the lower church are known to be from his own hand. All these fres- coes are very interesting ; some are most curious, and clearly display the novelty of his style. For instance, in the painting of St. Francis causing water to flow from a rock in answer to his prayers, we perceive a thirsty man stooping to drink the first example of so common an incident in ordinary life being introduced into art. Another singular fresco depicts St. Francis preaching to the birds. The good friar is earnestly exhorting his feathered congregation who, gathered under the shade of a very symmetrical tree, turn up their little heads and listen with profound attention ; for St. Francis ex- tended his loving spiritual care to all creation, and, when he heard the songs of the larks, was wont to say, " Our sisters, the birds, are praising God ; let us sing with them ! " By far the best, however, of this series of wall and ceiling paintings are the four compartments of the vault of the lower choir, representing the espousals of St. Francis to poverty, chastity, and obedience. First we behold the fortress of Chastity which the monk is scaling; in the second, the angel of Obe- dience, draped in black, lays the yoke upon his neck ; in the third stands Poverty as a bride, while Francis places a ring 44 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. upon her finger, and the Saviour blesses the union ; and in the fourth we see the apotheosis of the saint enthroned in glory and' honored by angels. Realism blends with tradition and poetry in many trifling details ; as where " a dog barks at the feet of Poverty, a child goads her with a stick, and a boy throws stones at her." Pope Boniface VIII., who was, like his wealthy successors, a patron of rising art, soon summoned Giotto to Rome ; and with this visit is connected the familiar story of the papal envoy who asked from the painter a proof of his ability. "Whereupon Giotto, who was very courteous, took a sheet of paper, and a pencil dipped in red color ; then, resting his el- bow on his side, with one turn of his hand he drew a circle so perfect and exact that it was a marvel to behold. This done, he turned to the courtier, saying, ' There is your draw- ing ! ' ' The amiable Pope appears to have been quite satis- fied with this effort, and it is still perpetuated in the Italian proverb, "rounder than the O of Giotto." No remains of his works are now discoverable in Rome, except the mosaic of the Navicella, some old panels in the sacristy of St. Peter's, and a fragmentary fresco in the church of St. John Lateran, in which Pope Boniface announces from a balcony the open- ing of a jubilee. Returning to Florence in 1300, he ornamented the Palace of the Podesta, or Bargello, with frescoes of the " Inferno " and " Paradiso x " in which occurs the portrait of Dante mentioned a few pages back, as well as other contemporary likenesses. The same room contains almost obliterated paintings from the lives of St. Mary Magdalen and Mary of Egypt. The passion for whitewash which concealed these valuable pict- CHRIST ADORED (Giotto). p. 44- EARLY ITALIAN PAINTING, 4 e ures was similarly exercised in the chapels of Santa Croce and other Florentine churches, and artistic treasures long lay hid under such coarse covering. A " Last Supper," either by himself or his scholars, the earliest large representation of this important subject, has been found in an old refectory of Santa Grace, since degraded into a carpet-manufactory. Other fine frescoes also adorn the church ; and an altar-piece of the " Coronation of the Virgin " is particularly to be ad- mired. In his pictures of the Madonna, Giotto generally placed the angels kneeling before her throne, singing to her or waiting on her as her celestial ministrants. In 1305 the artist made a journey to Padua, and there completed his celebrated frescoes from the lives of the Virgin and the Saviour, in the Scrovigni Chapel of the church of the Arena. These are full of expression and energy, espe- cially a figure of St. John about to throw himself on the body of Christ. Several of them have been chromo-lithographed by the Arundel Society. He also visited Ravenna and other parts of Italy, but, though he may have gone to Naples, it has been ascertained that the "Seven Sacraments" in the church of the Incoronata, in that city, formerly ascribed to him, is not genuine ; ne'ither is he now believed to have worked in the Campo Santo of Pisa ; but many of his panel and altar pieces are collected in the Florentine galleries. Giotto's crucifixes may be said to have marked, in a minor way, an era in art. All who have passed through Southern Europe must recollect the innumerable "Crucifixions," carved or painted, which decorate churches, chapels, convents, or wayside shrines. In the fourteenth century these were even more reverenced, and their early style was assuredly not 46 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. calculated to attract the beholder to the cross. Wounded and harrowing figures, with emaciated limbs, despairing countenances, and streaming jets of blood, were their best conceptions of the Saviour of the world. But Giotto so im- proved upon this ancient type as to convey some expression of suffering majesty, heavenly love, and resignation, and thus to furnish a new incentive to devotion, which his successors were eager to adopt and copy. Popular and beloved in life, Giotto was no less honored in death. He was buried in 1336 in the cathedral of Flor- ence, where a monument was erected to his memory, near the tomb of Cimabue. His pupils and immediate followers were entitled "the Giotteschi." None of them possessed extraordinary ability, but the most talented was Taddeo Gaddi (1300-1366), to whom Giotto had stood godfather. His principal frescoes are in the church of Santa Croce, and his panel-pictures exist in Berlin, in London, and in the Florentine Academy of Fine Arts. Indeed, some of the works attributed to Giotto were probably painted by Gaddi. He was also an architect, and continued his master's labors upon the Campanile. Like the rest of his school, he had a pen- chant for long, slender figures, and architectural backgrounds. Tommaso di Stefano, called Giottino, or the Little Giotto, born in 1324, appears to have been a melancholy recluse, who died early of consumption. He, too, has pictures in Santa Croce, Florence, from the legend of St. Sylvester. His father was so good an imitative painter that he was spoken of as "// Scimia delta Natura" the "Ape of Nature," a term in- tended to be highly complimentary. While Florence was thus gaining supremacy in the fine EARLY ITALIAN PAINTING. 47 arts, Sienna did not yield her renown without a struggle. She possessed a rival painter, though posterity no longer allows him to cope with Giotto. Simone Martini, often called Simone Memmi, was born in 1283, and in 1324 married the daughter of one Memmi, a painter, whose name has thus been trans- - ferred to him. His brother-in-law, Lippo Memmi, was his associate, but ranked far below him in merit. Simone excelled in the old Siennese characteristics of delicacy, purity, and re- pose. His pictures shine with the beauty of holiness. One of his large early frescoes is exhibited in the hall of the Public Palace of Sienna, while in the chapel of St. Martin at Assisi is a series of fresco illustrations from the life of that saint, in- cluding the familiar subject of Martin dividing his cloak with a beggar. The frescoes of the Spanish chapel in the church of Santa Maria Novella, Florence, which were for many years ascribed to Simone Memmi and Taddeo Gaddi, are now ascertained to be the work of but second-rate artists. After the removal of the papal court to Avignon, Simone was in- vited thither, but his labors in that city have been ruined by time and decay. There he resided as the friend of Petrarch who wrote two sonnets in his praise, and there he completed the portrait of Laura which has unfortunately perished. There, too, he died in 1344. He is more celebrated for his frescoes than his panel-pieces, though an "Annunciation" is to be found in the Uffizi, Florence, the joint work of himself and Lippo ; also a " Madonna and Child," at Berlin ; and a " Find- ing of the Saviour in the Temple," in the Liverpool Gallery. The figures in this last production display much grace and gentleness, and are elaborately modeled, but covered with most cumbersome drapery. In addition to his other talents, 4 8 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. Simone was quite eminent as a miniaturist, and is also said to have painted the first equestrian portrait known in Italian art. After his death the reputation of the Siennese painters declined, though Taddeo di Bartolo, who flourished about the close of the fourteenth century, is in some degree worthy of note. Frescoes on the " Death of the Virgin " in the chapel of the Public Palace at Sienna, and a few pictures at Perugia, and in the Louvre, are his principal remains. Andrea Orcagna, or Andrea Arcagnuolo di Cione, born in 1329, was the son of a Florentine goldsmith, and became pro- ficient as an " architect, goldsmith, sculptor, painter, mosaist, and poet." Orcagna is a corruption of his second name, which, in its primary meaning, signified "archangel." His talents as a sculptor will be best appreciated by an inspection of his " Tabernacle " in the church of Or San Michele, Florence ; while the Loggia di Lanzi, in the same city, a stately gather- ing-place for the old public assemblies, testifies to his powers as an architect. But he is most interesting to us from his famous frescoes in the Campo Santo. This Campo Santo, or burial-place of Pisa, is a remarkable spot, with many curious associations. Ships which, shortly before the year 1200, sailed from Jerusalem to Pisa, brought fifty-three loads of sacred earth from Mount Calvary, which were deposited in a small inclosure near the Pisan cathedral, and planted with cypress-trees. An arcade, very like cloisters, with adjoining chapels, was built around it. On one side of this arcade were many windows, looking upon the holy field, while the opposite side was decorated with appropriate frescoes by the best artists. This process of decoration was continued for two hundred years. Dampness and time soon discolored and EARLY ITALIAN PAINTING. 49 defaced the pictures, but when in good preservation they were unique of their kind. Conspicuous among all were Orcagna's " Last Judgment " and " Triumph of Death." Their authenticity has been often questioned, but the balance of probabilities is yet in its favor. The " Last Judgment " is a large and powerful composition, in which Christ, accom- panied by the Madonna, decides the destinies of the rising dead. Mrs. Jameson observes that the attitudes of Christ and the Virgin were afterward borrowed by Michael Angelo in his celebrated " Last Judgment," but that even he could not equal this old fresco in dignity and grandeur. The other yet more singular and terrible wall-painting is the " Triumph of Death," of which I add Lord Lindsay's description : " It is divided by an immense rock into two irregular portions. In that to the right Death, personified as a female phantom, bat-winged, claw-footed, her robe of linked mail, and her long hair streaming on the wind, swings back her scythe in order to cut down a company of the rich ones of the earth. Castruccio Castracani and his gay companions, seated under an orange-grove, are listening to the music of a troubadour and a female minstrel ; little genii or Cupids float in the air above them ; one young gallant caresses his horse, a lady her lapdog Castruccio alone looks abstractedly away, as if his thoughts were elsewhere. But all are alike heedless and unconscious, though the sand is run out, the scythe fall- ing, and their doom sealed. " Meanwhile the lame and the halt, the withered and the blind, to whom the heavens are brass and life a burden, cry on Death, with impassioned gestures, to release them from their misery, but in vain ; she sweeps past and will not hear 5 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. them. Between the two groups lie a heap of corpses, already mown down in her flight kings', queens, bishops, cardinals, young men and maidens, huddled together in hideous confu- sion : some are dead, others dying angels and devils draw their souls out of their mouths. The whole upper half of the fresco, on this side, is filled with angels and devils carrying souls to heaven or to hell ; sometimes a struggle takes place, and a soul is rescued from a demon who has unwarrantably appropriated it. The angels are very graceful, and their in- tercourse with their spiritual charge is full of tenderness and endearment ; on the other hand, the wicked are hurried off by the devils and thrown headlong into the mouth of hell, represented as the crater of a volcano belching out flames, nearly in the centre of the composition. These devils exhibit every variety of horror in form and feature. " Below the volcano, a tract of mountain-country extends to the left extremity of the compartment, representing, appar- ently, the desert of Egypt, crowned by a monastery, and peo- pled by hermits. A hermit is seated, reading, in front of the monastery; another, leaning on two crutches, stands beside him both are full of truth and character ; a third, to the left, milks a doe ; a fourth gazes downward after the fifth, St. Macarius, who has descended the mountain, but from whom attention is distracted by a gallant cavalcade of lords and ladies who ride past below him, their falcons on their wrists, returning from the chase, and headed by Uguccione, Signer of Pisa, and by the Emperor Louis of Bavaria. They issue from a narrow gorge of the mountains ; the hermit, St. Maca- rius, stands on the lowest declivity, and invites their attention to three open coffins laid beside the road, in which are seen EARLY ITALIAN PAINTING. c x three human corpses in three stages of decomposition. They look eagerly down upon them, Uguccione holding his nose. The lady on the right hand seems touched with the spectacle, but the rest are indifferent ; and the exhortation of the hermit passes by like idle wird they scarcely heed him. " Nothing can be more admirable than the action of the animals in this procession the horror, especially of the horses, shying back, and yet eagerly peering forward as they scent the carrion nor are the attitudes and action of their riders less graphic. Verses explanatory of the subject are dispersed in scrolls, in semi-Byzantine taste, throughout the composition." Let nobody, however, fancy that we can see all this to- day, at a single glance, in the great hall of the Campo Santo. Its paintings are mutilated and injured, and it needs intelli- gence and patience to correctly trace them out ; but, as excel- lent engravings of them were long since taken, and as photo- graphs are easily procurable, all may judge for themselves of the power of this original and impressive artist. Bernardo, the brother of Orcagna, added a third fresco to the series a representation of " Hell," in which Satan sits as a frightful, fiery giant, with flames bursting from him in all directions. Bernardo also assisted in Andrea's frescoes of " Hell " and " Paradise," in the Strozzi Chapel of Santa Maria Novella, Florence. A number of other artists were employed in the Campo Santo, among whom may be mentioned one Spinello Aretino, of Arezzo (1328-1400), who executed scenes from the life of St. Ephesus. Unluckily for himself, he did not confine his labors to that edifice ; but, probably stimulated by the exam- 5 2 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. pie of Bernardo, painted a " Fall of the Angels " for a church of his native city, in which he depicted Satan as so unutter- ably and appallingly hideous, that he is said to have become insane over his own conception, and to have died distracted. This may be a legend without foundation, but we can only wonder why a similar fate did not befall many old masters who indulged without restraint in such demoniacal imagina- tions. It is pleasant to turn from these creators of the horrible to the mild, peaceful, and seraphic Fra Angelico " the St. John of art." So appropriate and universal is his surname of Angelico that few are aware it never rightfully or even monas- tically belonged to him. He was born in 1387, in the prov- ince of Mugello, and christened Guido Petri. At the age of twenty he entered the Dominican convent at Fiesole near Florence, under the title of Fra Giovanni. Here his vocation soon manifested itself. Learned monks might write of heaven, zealous monks might preach of heaven, but his peculiar call- ing was to paint heaven before the eyes of all. He began his labors as a miniaturist, working with his brother Benedetto, who was also an illuminator of choral books and missals ; but the agitations of thz times disquieted even the dwellers on the heights of Fiesole, and the brethren were sent for a season to Cortona, where we still find Angelico's early works a "Madonna with Saints and Angels," an "Annunciation," and " Scenes from the Lives of the Virgin and St. Dominic." Returning to Fiesole, he remained for some years in his old abode, till, upon the acquisition of the Florentine monastery of San Marco, the order removed him thither. With the history of this monastery, one of the most interesting spots EARLY ITALIAN PAINTING. 53 in Florence, his name will ever be intimately connected. There he dwelt in saintly calm ; humble, holy, devout ; work- ing with all diligence at the command of his prior ; taking no gain or payment for himself; altering nothing, because he believed his first inspiration to be direct from God ; painting Christ and Mary, according to Montalembert, "only on his knees, and his crifcifixes amid floods of tears ; " adorning the cells of the friars with those marvelous frescoes which now shine, faintly faded, "less like a picture at all than some celestial shadow on the gray old walls." An eloquent writer has thus imaged his convent-life : " Around him all actions were prescribed, and all objects colorless ; day after day uni- form hours brought him the same bare walls, the same dark lustre of the wainscoting, the same straight folds of cowls and frocks, the same rustling of steps passing to and fro between refectory and chapel. But amid this monotony his heart involuntarily summoned up and contemplated the con- course of divine figures. Glittering staircases of jasper and amethyst rose above each other up to the throne on which sat celestial beings. Golden aureoles gleamed around their brows ; red, azure, and green robes, fringed, bordered, and striped with gold, flashed like glories. All was light ; it was the outburst of mystic illumination." No observer of to-day need consider such language ex- aggerated if he carefully notes the peculiar merits of this master. His range is narrow, but within its own limits comes as near perfection as human art can ever reach. He painted only sacred subjects, and those only in the most sacred man- ner. His forms were always closely draped a fortunate cir- cumstance, when we consider his ignorance of anatomy ; his 54 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. coloring was clear, pure, and tender beyond the power of words to describe ; and the expression of his faces so inno- cently radiant, so exalted, and so heavenly, that a glance at their beauty is like a glimpse into another world. No wonder that after regarding his holy throngs he should be ever known as Fra Angelico, and almost canonized in addition as " II Beato," so that in Italian catalogues he is Usually entered as "Beato Angelico." His deficiencies were what might natu- rally be expected. His chief gift being imaginative spirituality, he failed in delineating the real and the actual. His drawing is often faulty, and his proportions incorrect. He could depict repose, but not action ; and when he attempts to portray the workings of any evil or malignant passions the result is almost ludicrously weak. All his sinners " look like sheep in wolves' clothing." Even if he tries to paint foul fiends an effort into which I regret to say his gentle nature was on rare oc- casions beguiled they are only very ugly but very tame hob- goblins, with scarcely any flavor of the genuine devil in their composition. In America Fra Angelico is most widely known by the angels on gilded panels which are so generally imported into every city. These are copied from the originals in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, where they are painted in the frame of a large picture, styled a "Tabernacle," representing a Madonna and Child, with attendant saints. The angels, playing on in- struments, stand, in the size and colors in which we see them, on the gilt ground of the frame, entirely surrounding the in- terior picture. A much smaller but most exquisitely finished painting of a similar subject, similarly grouped, a standing Madonna and Child, called the " Madonna della Stella," with EARLY ITALIAN PAINTING. 55 figures of miniature proportions, rests upon an easel in one of the apartments of San Marco. This building also contains, besides the frescoes in the cells already alluded to, and sev- eral other wall-paintings in the corridors and cloisters, Fra Angelico's largest but by no means most pleasing work a -"Crucifixion" or "Adoration of the Cross," in the chapter- house, made the scene of the interview between Savonarola and Romola in George Eliot's novel. This immense com- position covers the' whole side of the room, and shows us Christ on the cross, with the two thieves near him, and St. Mark, the patron saint of the convent, and many life-sized Fathers, founders and heads of orders, gathered in worship- ing rows below. " The main event goes for nothing, but Jerome and Augustine, Francis and Dominic, with faces more real than our own, have carried on a perpetual adoration ever since, and never drooped or failed." In the Florentine Academy of Fine Arts we discover a few other specimens of the painter's skill, especially a " Last Judgment," an extraordi- nary piece, whose centre represents a long pavement of tombs, out of which rise the dead, having thrown off the stone slabs which marked their burial-place. Above them we perceive Christ the Judge with descending angels. At his left is hell, with demons seizing the condemned; while at his right is paradise, a fair, flowery meadow lit with stars, and thronged with angels who press forward to receive the just. They meet; they embrace; golden halos gleam upon their, heads, and hand-in-hand they glide along, through the bright per- spective, toward a distant ' gate-way luminous with rays of glory. Monk though he was, the artist distributed his rewards and punishments with singular impartiality ; for many a friar, 5 56 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. and even bishop, meets our gaze in his assembly of the wicked. The other picture, usually placed upon an easel be- side it, is the " Descent of Christ into Hades. " This cannot boast of beauty, but is very interesting and grotesque. Ha- des, or " Limbus," as it was then called, is a dark, rocky cave. Christ, bearing the banner of the cross, has burst open its heavy door; in fact, the door has literally fallen down, and a howling devil lies under it, crushed perfectly flat. Re- joicing souls rush to greet the Redeemer, and Adam seizes him by the hand. In the corners of the cavern, or up among the black rocks, ugly little imps look on with disappointed rage. A more beautiful and celebrated composition of Fra An- gelico hangs at present in the Louvre. It is a " Coronation of the Virgin," a subject in which he particularly delighted. But of all his Coronations this is the gem. August Schlegel, the German critic, has written a whole volume in its honor. An enthroned Saviour sets a diadem upon the head of the Madonna, who bends meekly forward. A chorus of twelve angels play their harps, viols, and other instruments, in har- monious concert ; below them a crowd of holy figures ador- ingly behold the scene, and several lovely saints, among them St. Catharine with her wheel, St. Agnes with her lamb, and St. Cecilia crowned with roses, kneel around. Seldom shall we find a picture which can give more pleasure than this rich and varied piece. So clear and brilliant, yet so soft in color, its sweet, serene faces full of joy and calm, we may still say of it what Vasari wrote, more than three hundred years ago, when he declared himself convinced that those blessed spirits could look no otherwise in heaven itself. EARLY ITALIAN PAINTING. S7 Thus praying and painting, the course of Fra Angelico's cloister-life flowed on most tranquilly for nearly forty years. But his fame had reached to Rome, and in 1446 the then reigning pope desired his presence at the Vatican, where he decorated a chapel with frescoes from the histories of Saints Lawrence and Stephen. This is his only work now existing in that city, except three small pictures ascribed to him in the Corsini Gallery. During a short stay at Orvieto, he began a " Last Judgment " in the cathedral, which was afterward finished by Luca Signorelli. The purity and elevation of his nature so excited the admiration of the pope that he offered him the archbishopric of Florence as soon as it became vacant; but Angelico refused, saying that he did not feel himself capable of ruling men, and requested that another might be appointed. He died in Rome, in 1455, at the age of sixty-eight, and is buried in the church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva. On the simple slab which serves as his mon- ument is a Latin inscription which has been thus translated : " It is no honor to be like another Apelles, but rather, O Christ, that I gave all my gains to Thy poor. One was a work for earth, the other for heaven. A city, the flower of Etruria, bare me, John ! " SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. CHAPTER V. TRADITIONS OF PAINTING. To properly comprehend the rise and progress of paint- ing during the middle ages, something more is necessary than mere biographies of the painters. We must be able to enter somewhat into the spirit of the times, to understand what thoughts and aspirations were likely to find expression in art, what subjects were best calculated to reach the popular mind, and in what form and through what technical methods they were conveyed. The brief history of the earliest mas- ters, detailed in the few preceding chapters, suffices to show that the Church, and the traditions of the Church, were the first motive powers in art as well as in literature. A certain framework of faith was the very basis upon which all civilized society rested. We may differ in our estimate of the quality and value of that faith, but the fact is indisputable. To set forth its truth, and illustrate its legends, was long held to be the chief end of the human intellect. Even the Real was for many centuries kept in rigorous subjection to the Ideal, or considered as its antagonist; and it was only very slowly that their true relation began to be appreciated. Painting was first entirely sacred ; subsequently the historical and clas- sical elements were added ; now we understand that all fields are open, and that it may gather its laurels where it will. TRADITIONS OF PAINTING. ^ But during the fourteen Christian centuries in which we have been at present interested, and, in a modified degree, for some time afterward, all art was ecclesiastical in sentiment and expression. Its usual aim was to portray in the most graphic manner, and with the most emotional results, the various scenes in the life of Christ, of the Virgin Mary, and of the favorite saints ; together with such representations of doctrines or holy mysteries as best tended to the instruction of the people. Whatever embellishments of these events or doctrines had been supplemented by tradition were unhesi- tatingly accepted and embodied with the original facts. Symbolism was an important part of the artistic creed ; even different colors had a different significance. We shall there- fore devote some pages to ascertain what were the main events within whose limits the painter labored, and how and with what accessories he was accustomed to depict them. So only can we appreciate and explain the numberless pictures of the old masters which we find, not only in all European galleries and churches, but in the very engravings and photo- graphs which we hang in our own houses. And first we must remember that oil-painting, as we now see it, was in those days unknown. Pictures were either fres- coes, executed in large proportions on the outer and inner walls of churches, palaces, and public buildings, with colors ordinarily light in hue, laid quickly on the plaster while still damp and fresh (hence the name fresco) ; or they were done in distemper (a tempera), upon panels pf wood, with colors mixed, not with oil, but with fig-juice, gum, or white of egg. Sometimes the same preparation was used on a ground of lime, polished "as white as milk, and as smooth as ivory." 60 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. When these were small in size they might be called panel or easel pictures ; yet they were not intended to ornament the dwellings of citizens, but adorned cathedrals, churches, or private chapels; or possibly the doors of sacristies, or the presses and chests in which the robes of the priests and the sacramental vessels, or even occasionally a maiden's bridal gifts, were kept. If large in dimensions they were employed as altar-pieces, and were often architecturally arranged. "In the centre was the main painting, above which the frame formed pointed arches, each containing pictures of single saints, while below was a platform, called a predella, which was ornamented by small designs relating to the principal subject. When the altar-piece was in two parts, united by hinges, it was called a diptych, when in three parts a triptych, whose sides or doors could open and shut, and were spoken of as 'wings.' On these wings the Annunciation to the Vir- gin, or the portraits of the donors of the altar-piece, might be painted. In after-years, when removed from the churches for which they were constructed, these altar-pieces were taken apart, so that the predella and upper pieces were fre- quently lost, or carried away separately." These being the uses to which painting was as yet applied, we are less inclined to wonder that it was confined to reli- gious themes. Before particularizing the number and treat- ment of those themes, it will be well to quote the standard explanation of the mystic meaning of the colors with which the artist worked : " White was the emblem of religious purity, joy, or life. The Saviour generally wears white after his resurrection. The Virgin wears white only in the Immaculate Conception TRADITIONS OF PAINTING. 6 1 and the Assumption. Her proper dress is a blue mantle, with a star in front, long sleeves, red tunic, and head veiled. " Red signifies divine love, fire, creative power, and roy- alty. "White and red roses, as worn by Saints Cecilia and Dorothea, imply love and innocence, or love and wisdom. " In a bad sense red implies hatred, blood, war, and pun- ishment. Red and black were the livery of hell and the devil. " Blue, or the sapphire, is heaven, truth, and fidelity. St. John the evangelist wears a blue tunic and red mantle. " Yellow, or gold, was the symbol of the sun, goodness of God, marriage, faith, or fruitfulness. St. Peter wears a yel- low mantle over a blue tunic. In a bad sense it means in- constancy, jealousy, or deceit. A dirty yellow is the livery of Judas. " Green, or emerald, signifies hope or victory. " Violet, union of love and truth ; passion and suffering. Hence it was worn by martyrs. Mary Magdalen, as patron saint, wears a red robe ; as a penitent, violet and blue. Red and green with her signify love and hope. The Virgin wears violet after the crucifixion ; and sometimes the Saviour after the resurrection. " Gray is the hue of mourning, humility, and innocence accused. Black refers to darkness, mourning, wretchedness ; white and black together, to humility and purity of life. They are the colors of the Carmelites and Dominicans." The traditions of painting range through the history of the Old and New Testaments ; yet the principle of selection has been shown here as well as elsewhere, and after the period 62 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. of the Catacombs we find the events of the Old Testament comparatively neglected. Such artists as wished to conform to the standard sacred chronology were willing to begin their pictorial records by representations of the fall of Lucifer and the rebel angels, which, they were taught, took place just before the creation. This was the correct order, not only for ecclesiastical art but for ecclesiastical literature, of which we have an example in Milton's " Paradise Lost." In many cases, the degree of ugliness in these angels " is proportioned to their relative distance from heaven or hell," Lucifer being the most hideous of all; as we see in the fresco of Spinello Aretino, mentioned in the last chapter. Michael Angelo wished to execute the " Fall of the Angels " on the wall of the Sistine Chapel opposite " The Last Judg- ment," that the beginning and end of the world's history might so be visible : but never carried out his intention. Of good angels, powerful and lovely attendants of the Saviour, the Madonna, and mankind, all painters were roman- tically fond. These were first introduced into mosaics, colos- sal in height, and rather severe in aspect, and their ministry was afterward suggested on all suitable occasions. They an- nounce the birth of our Lord ; hymn his nativity ; wait upon his mother, and on all the scenes of his life and passion ; mourn' his crucifixion ; guard his tomb ; proclaim his resur- rection ; bear up the Virgin and the saints to heaven ; com- fort the sorrowing; guide the wandering; and conduct the blessed to the joys of Paradise. Strictly speaking, they should have no sex ; but in primitive art are masculine, " with the feminine attributes of beauty and purity." Female angels were quite unheard of till the fifteenth and seventeenth cen- TRADITIONS OF PAINTING. 63 turies. Among the seven traditional archangels, St. Michael (whose name signifies "who is like unto God "), the Captain of the Hosts of Heaven, Overcomer of Lucifer, Lord of Souls, and Separator of the Wicked from the Just at the Resurrection; Gabriel (God is my strength), the Herald of - the Divine Will, and Messenger of the Annunciation to the Virgin ; and Raphael (the medicine of God), the Chief Guar- dian Angel, are familiar to Christian art. " Michael bears the sword and scales ; Gabriel the lily ; and Raphael the pilgrim's staff and gourd full of water, as a traveler." The creation of the earth, Adam and Eve, the expulsion from Eden, and the lives of the patriarchs, have been indeed artistically treated, but were rarely selected as subjects be- tween the tenth and fifteenth centuries. Adam and Eve found most favor among the German painters ; the religious avoidance of the nude being sufficient reason for their early neglect in Italy. The prophets were more frequently deline- ated ; grand old figures, whose aged heads afforded fine scope , for sublimity of form and expression. Sibyls were looked upon as semi-Christian candidates for art, " heathen prophet- esses who predicted the coming of Christ to the Gentiles as the prophets did to the Jews." They were supposed to have lived at different periods, and to have been twelve in num- ber ; but they are scarcely incorporated into sacred themes till the time of Michael Angelo. John the Baptist, the prophet of the New Testament, is the first historic character who appears as a universal favor- ite. In many ancient mosaics and in many baptisteries he simply takes the character of the baptizer, standing in the Jordan, beside our Saviour, in water which sometimes 64 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. scarcely covers his feet, and sometimes rises up in heaping waves to his very shoulders. He has a staff and shell from which the water is poured ; kneeling angels hold the garments or cloths. Often too he is seen beside the Madonna and Child, wrapped in a hairy mantle, and bearing a reed cross or scroll inscribed "' Ecce Agnus Dei." On such- occasions he is tall and gaunt, with a look of austerity and age. Occasion- ally he is portrayed as one of the patron saints of Florence. A few large frescoes are entirely devoted to representations of his life, from birth to death ; such as those of Ghirlan- dajo in the church of Santa Maria Novella, Florence, and those of Filippo Lippi in the cathedral of Prato. Some of the latter are very beautiful, especially where, still a child, he takes leave of his parents to retire to the wilderness, or prays, a lonely, devout boy, amid the rocky desert. His death is of course included in such series, but it did not become popular as a separate subject till about the six- teenth century, when we have the fine picture, by Luini, of the daughter of Herodias with the head of St. John the Baptist, a composition subsequently adopted by artists of all nations. Neither does his introduction as a child into the group known as a " Holy Family " occur till nearly the same period. Around the history of the Virgin Mary so many traditions have congregated, and have been so eagerly embodied, that it is scarcely possible to condense them into a single chapter. Yet it is very desirable to know, at least in outline, what are the motives of a class of pictures so numerous and varied ; and it will therefore be necessary to quote largely from float- ing legends and from the apocryphal gospels. TRADITIONS OF PAINTING. 6 5 The first authentic delineation of the Virgin displays to us the mother holding the infant Christ. Some indeed assert that a female figure, praying with outstretched arms, found in the Catacombs, and generally alluded to as an " Orante," was intended as a portrait of Mary ; 'but critics seldom uphold this idea. At the close of the fifth century the Virgin and Child were represented together ; not in reference to any divine element in the mother, but to express a belief in the humanity as well as the divinity of the Son, which had been questioned by Nestorian heretics. The reverence paid to the one was, however, soon extended to the other, till both were honored and at last worshiped. In early pictures of Byzan- tine origin the Virgin sometimes stands alone, a veiled, ma- jestic figure, with spreading hands, as in seventh-century mosaics in Rome and Ravenna. By the fourteenth century she is enthroned in solitary state, both by Italian and Flemish painters, with diadem and halo, and gorgeous raiment. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries she becomes the crowned Madonna of mercy, shielding and saving the human race, and protecting them under the folds of her ample robe, as in the pictures of Filippo Lippi and Fra Bartolomeo at Berlin and Lucca. Her half-length figure, as the Mater Dolorosa, belongs properly to the sixteenth century, and to the later Italian and Spanish schools which followed ; but the " Stabat Mater," or Mary beside the cross, is of muqh earlier date, and is given us by Fra Angelico and other devo- tional painters. The Immaculate Conception, as a subject of art, is quite modern, and originated in Spain, where Murillo did his best to perpetuate it. But it is the group of the Madonna and Child which most 66 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. excites our attention. This was built into Byzantine and Italian mosaics, and we have seen that it is so frequently depicted by every early painter that, if any of their works remain, a Virgin and infant Christ is sure to be among them. Such ancient Virgins are seated, and always carefully draped in a red tunic with blue veil and mantle : the Child also was at first invariably draped, a white tunic being the orthodox garb ; by-and-by this garment disappeared. Saints and an- gels were sometimes added ; while the patron saints of the city, church, or convent, for which the picture was painted, often stood adoringly near. The historical life of the Virgin traditionally begins with the meeting of her parents, Joachim and Anna, and ends with her assumption and coronation. Many series of frescoes have been painted to illustrate such legendary scenes. All these frescoes show us the birth of the Virgin in a stately apartment (for her family was " exceedingly rich "), where St. Anna lies beneath a canopy, or sits up in bed to receive the congratulations of the noble ladies who come to visit her. Attendants wash the new-born babe, and bring in refresh- ments. Examples of this subject are found by Taddeo Gad- di, in the Baroncelli Chapel of Santa Croce, Florence; by Ghirlandajo, in Santa Maria Novella, Florence ; afterward by Andrea del Sarto, in the church of the Annunziata in the same city ; and by Pinturrichio, in the fifteenth century, in the church of Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome. Her presentation in the temple, as a very young girl, is next in order. She is dressed in blue or white, with flowing hair, and ascends the fifteen steps of the temple, sometimes holding a taper in her hand. The aged high-priest stands TRADITIONS OF PAINTING. 67 waiting to receive her, and a crowd of maidens and followers form a procession behind. This, too, is among the frescoes already mentioned ; and is given by several other artists, par- ticularly in the Venetian school by Carpaccio, Titian, and Tintoretto. Titian's large painting in the Venice Academy is one of the most attractive instances. Now succeeds her marriage, which tradition fixes at the age of fourteen or fifteen. According to St. Jerome's legend, her suitors were required to deposit wands or rods in the temple overnight, that whichever should blossom into leaves and flowers might indicate the appointed husband. In the frescoes and pictures we behold Joseph and Mary standing before the priest, who joins their hands. Maidens attend the Virgin, while the disappointed suitors look silently on. In Giotto's composition at Padua, one of them is about to strike Joseph, while another breaks his useless wand across his knee. This last incident occurs again in Raphael's celebrated Sposalizio at Milan. Giotto, Angelico, Perugino, and Ra- phael, as well as Taddeo Gaddi and other Florentines, have attempted this marriage-scene. Joseph is commonly repre- sented as at least middle-aged, and often very old. In some ancient German pieces he is almost in his dotage, and is wrapped "in furs and an embroidered gown." The Annunciation follows, treated either historically or as a mystery. The event was supposed to have taken place on an evening in the month of March, at the hour after sunset called the "Ave Maria." Mary's bedroom was considered on the whole as the most suitable spot for its representation ; and we repeatedly see her kneeling at a " Prie-Dieu," with a pot of lilies, her symbolical flower, near her, and a work- 68 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. basket, or even a spinning-wheel, close by. The archangel Gabriel enters at the door, bearing a spray of lilies, or, in some antique specimens, an olive-branch. His drapery is usually rich and full, while his wings may be peacock-eyed, or ornamented with gold. Sometimes the angel kneels be- fore the Virgin, sometimes the Virgin before the angel. The dove of the Holy Spirit should of course be present. Often the Eternal Father is introduced as a majestic and venerable form, looking benignly from the clouds, and sending forth the dove. Most painters, from the early Siennese school down to modern times, have delighted in this theme, varied in atti- tudes and other unimportant particulars. The scene of the Mystery has been also changed. In some compositions we find the Madonna in a cloister ; in others, standing on a green hill, or seated enthroned under a canopy, or even in a rose-garden, in allusion to the verse in Canticles, " A garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse ! " The Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth, in which the two women meet and embrace, holds its rank among the frescoes, and is also the subject of separate easel-pieces. The three most famous examples are by Mariotto Albertinelli, 1474, in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, where they salute each other under an Italian archway; by Ghirlandajo in the Louvre, and by Raphael at Madrid. The legends from the nativity to the resurrection and ascension of our Lord we shall presently touch upon while noticing the treatment of the life of Christ. In describing what followed the resurrection, quaint old writers have re- corded that Christ, after rising from the dead, appeared first of all to his mother, who was praying in the solitude of her TRADITIONS OF PAINTING. 69 chamber; "while she prayed, a host of angels surrounded her, singing ' Regina Coeli : ' and then came Christ, partly clothed in a white garment, having in his left hand the stand- ard of the cross ; and with him came the patriarchs and prophets whose long-imprisoned spirits he had released from -Hades." This, however, was seldom painted till the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The poetical tradition relating to the death and assump- tion of the Virgin, I repeat in substance from the " Christian Art " of Lord Lindsay, who copied it from its ancient source : " The Virgin dwelt, for twenty-four years after the ascen- sion, in her house beside Mount Zion. One day the angel Gabriel came and reverently saluted her, and told her that after three days she should depart from the flesh, and reign with him forever. He gave her also a palm-branch from Paradise, which he commanded should be borne before her bier. And the palm-branch was green in the stem, but its leaves were like the morning star." Then the apostles were miraculously summoned to be with her when she should die. "And when the Virgin beheld the apostles assembled round her, she blessed the Lord ; and they sat around her and watched, with lights burning till the third day. " And toward nightfall, on the third day, Jesus came down with his hosts of saints and angels, and they ranged themselves before Mary's couch, and sweet hymns were heard at intervals, till the middle of the night. Then Jesus called her softly, twice, that she should come to him, and she an- swered that she was ready joyfully to yield her spirit. And 70 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. thus her spirit quitted the body and flew into the arms of her Son ; and she neither suffered pain, nor her body corruption. " And straightway there surrounded her flowers of roses, which are the blessed company of martyrs ; and lilies of the valley, which are the bands of angels, confessors, and vir- gins. " And when the body was laid on the bier, Peter and Paul uplifted it, and the other apostles ranged themselves around it. And John bore the palm-branch in front of it. And Peter began to sing, ' In Exitu Israel de Egypto,' and the rest joined softly in the psalm. And the Lord covered the bier and the apostles with a cloud, so that they might be heard and not seen ; and the angels were present, and sing- ing with the apostles ; and all the city was gathered to that wondrous melody. " And the apostles laid the body of the Virgin in the tomb, and they watched beside it three days. And on the third day the Lord appeared with a multitude of angels, and raised up Mary, and she was received, body and soul, into heaven." Another slightly different version makes the saluting angel not Gabriel, but Michael, the lord of souls, who carries either a starry palm or a taper. Byzantine artists, as well as Italian, have left us many such compositions. Cimabue painted the miraculous death at Assisi; Giotto, Angelico, and others in every age reproduced it ; frescoes of Mary's life rivaled each other in depicting it ; while Taddeo Bartolo devoted the wall of the chapel of the Public Palace at Sienna to its commem- oration. Pictures of the Virgin's Assumption are easily recognized. ENTHRONED VIRGIN (Gitido A'cut). p. 70. TRADITIONS OF PAINTING. ?I Their characteristics are nearly uniform. She is draped, and upborne by angels ; sometimes her robes are spangled. The expectant Saviour waits above. Seven centuries have thus represented her. The old wall-paintings of Giunta Pisano at Assisi may be ruder but are not less expressive than the float- ing forms of Guido or Murillo. But the " Assumption " by Titian at Venice throws all others into the shade, and stands preeminent as one of the marvels of art. With the legend of the Assumption is connected the story of the Girdle. It is said that St. Thomas was not present at the Madonna's ascension, and on being told the tale refused to believe it. He desired the tomb to be opened ; it was done, and found filled with lilies and roses. " Then Thomas, looking up to heaven, beheld the Virgin bodily, in a glory of light ; and she, for the assurance of his faith, flung down to him her girdle, the same which is to-day preserved in the cathedral at Prato." Of course the cathedral of Prato has illustrated this event in a set of frescoes, which travelers may examine, after contemplating the girdle ! The Coronation of the Virgin is another splendid picto- rial tribute to this queen of tradition. But it is not seen till the twelfth or thirteenth century, when we find it in mo- saics in Rome and Florence. Giotto and the painters of the fourteenth century imparted to it a charm of purity and sweetness, as in Fra Angelico's " Coronation " in the Louvre to which we have previously referred. The Virgin is cus- tomarily seated, veiled, and magnificently draped. She in- clines her head with humble and modest mien, while Christ himself places the crown upon her brow ; or, in rarer exam- ples, she kneels before him. The figures may be surrounded 6 7 2 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. by a glory of seraphim. A few cases exist where God the Father gazes down from above, or where the Trinity unite in the coronation. In the life of Christ the statements of the Bible are in like manner filled out by tradition, and painted with equal fer- vency. The scriptural descriptions of the nativity are so minute that the help of imagination is scarcely needed. The time is a winter midnight, the scene a stable. In the earliest pictures this stable is a rocky cave, where the Virgin either re- clines on a sort of couch, or more commonly sits holding the Child ; Joseph remains near, in meditation. Three seraphs, afterward increasing to an angelic chorus, sing the " Gloria in Excelsis," while the ox and ass are wondering or even ador- ing spectators of the mystery. This ox and ass are necessary accessories and never omitted, for the one animal typifies the Jews, and the other the Gentiles. Mrs. Jameson alludes to some old German pictures in which " the Hebrew ox is quiet- ly chewing the cud, while the Gentile ass lifts up his voice and brays with open mouth as if in triumph." Somewhat later the scene was varied from a cavern to a wooden shed, not far from the mouth of the cave, as in Taddeo Gaddi's fresco in Santa Croce, Florence. Then come the shepherds, sometimes with shepherdesses, pipes, and songs. The mother displays the Babe to their astonished eyes. This scene is very familiar, and all have probably had an opportunity to study at least one example of it in an engraving of Correg- gio's celebrated " Nativity," where the dazzling light which floods the picture radiates solely from the holy Child. From a survey of Italian and German galleries we should infer that every artist, from the time of the Byzantine Empire TRADITIONS OF PAINTING. 73 to the seventeenth century, had painted at least one " Adora- tion of the Magi." The conclusion would of course be un- warranted, yet their number is legion. The treatment differs, but certain points and incidents must be always introduced. The place of reception is frequently changed. The Virgin, holding the Infant, should be seated ; but she may sit at the entrance of a temple, or under a shed, or enthroned beneath a canopy. Over this shed or canopy often hangs the star, sometimes looking as if it had been nailed on the roof. Three kings approach and adore. Tradition proceeds to say that the first of these kings was the venerable " Caspar," who presented gold from Tarsus; the second, the middle-aged " Melchior," who brought frankincense from Arabia; and the third, the negro "Balthasar," who offered myrrh from Ethio- pia. In return, the Saviour bestowed upon them matchless gifts. " For their gold he gave them charity and spiritual riches ; for their incense, perfect faith ; and for their myrrh, perfect truth and meekness." He is pictured as receiving them graciously, holding up two fingers of his little hand in the act of benediction ; or, less appropriately, taking some gold-pieces from the coffer. The wise men may be alone, but it is much more common to see them accompanied by an Eastern train of pages, followers, horses, dogs, camels, and even elephants. Joseph may be absent, or, if present, should modestly stand aside. I remember an old Florentine com- position in which one of the Magi is shaking hands with him in the most friendly manner. A different though pleasing worship of the Child is also found in the class of paintings entitled " The Madre Pia," or "The Infant Saviour adored by his Mother." Here the Babe 74 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. reposes on the ground, or reclines upon a wheat-sheaf, which signifies the bread of life. He lays his finger on his lip, as if to say, " I am the Word ! " while the Virgin and Joseph kneel a short distance off. An angel, too, may kneel and hold a crown, while other angels are occasionally seen in the sky, holding a cross, with the instruments of the passion. This was a favorite theme with Perugino, Francia, and Lorenzo di Credi. The " Presentation in the Temple " originated among the Byzantines, and could not greatly change its style. Mary gives the Child to the aged Simeon ; Anna, the prophetess, stands by. Nothing could be finer than Fra Bartolomeo's rendering of this subject at Vienna. It is also displayed to advantage in the Venetian school. The Flight into Egypt is likewise known. The holy family journey through the country; a flight by boat is an innovation of later artists. Sometimes friends and attendants are with them, as in the Arena frescoes by Giotto in Padua ; but more commonly the three are alone. The ox and ass accompany them, the Virgin generally riding the ass; and the palm-tree bends its branches in homage. The aspen re- fused to bow, and the Infant cursed it for its pride, where- upon it began to tremble, and trembles to this day. The kindred scene of the Repose in Egypt does not seem to have been depicted till the fifteenth or sixteenth century. Here the sacred group have stopped to rest. A fountain springs up beside them, and angels bring refreshments, and dance before them, or minister to their wants. Joseph also waits on them in various ways, or leans like a pilgrim on his staff; in a curious Dutch painting he is shaking his fist to silence the TRADITIONS OF PAINTING. 75 ass, who, while Mary and the Child slumber, has opened his mouth to bray. The many Holy Families where Jesus abides with his parents at Nazareth tell their own story ; as does the subject of Christ among the Doctors, sought and found by his mother. Of the Baptism we have written in the history of St. John Baptist. The Marriage at Cana is almost peculiar to the Venetians. Paul Veronese has immortalized it archi- tecturally in his splendid picture in the Louvre. The Raising of Lazarus existed even in the Catacombs ; but the other miracles and the parables did not become popular till near modern times. The representation of the Transfiguration is almost as ancient as Christian painting itself. It is singular to observe in a small picture in the Florentine Academy, executed either by Giotto or one of his disciples, a treatment identical with that of Raphael's great composition. Christ is upraised above, while the amazed apostles below hide or shade their eyes from his dazzling glory. The incidents of the Passion, beginning with the details of Palm-Sunday, furnish copious materials for the painter. We have lately spoken of Duccio's altar-piece at Sienna, adorned on one side with twenty-eight such representations. His " Entry into Jerusalem " is very graphic and excellent. An animated crowd throngs forth to meet the Redeemer, who rides with dignity upon the traditional ass. Figures in the trees throw down branches to strew the way. A legend of the times tells us that " the dark line down the back and across the fore-quarters of the ass, forming the shape of a Latin cross, was the heritage of the race from that day." 7 6 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. Pictures of the Last Supper have been multiplied in all Christian countries. The earliest instance in which it is pre- sented to us is in embroidery upon a deacon's robe of the eighth century, shown in the Vatican. Byzantine art re- produced it, both in sculpture and painting. Giotto, or one of his pupils, has given us an example of its Italian treatment in the old refectory of Santa Croce, Florence; and his successors, Ghirlandajo, Luca Signorelli, Andrea del Sarto, Raphael, and others, adhered substantially to the same type. The subject was called " II Cenacolo," or " La Cena," and was very popular as a fresco for convent refec- tories. There is always a long table at which Christ and the apostles are seated. The Saviour is generally blessing or dis- tributing the elements. Sometimes other food, such as cher- ries, apples, or fish, is lying on the table. In the position of Judas we find the principal variation. He is either among the group of the apostles, only distinguishable by action and expression, or, as is often the case, especially among the early Florentines, he sits alone in front, villainously ugly and mean. He may clutch the bag, or receive the sop ; in a few instances a demon crouches near him. Occasionally he is stealing out of the door, or is even absent altogether. Every one will here recall Leonardo da Vinci's famous " Cena " at Milan, which in a later chapter will be fully described. The Agony in the Garden, though often attempted, is ever most inadequately rendered. We meet it in an old picture, ascribed to Giotto, in the Uffizi Gallery, called " Christ on the Mount of Olives," which is quaint but quiet. But in almost every case, particularly in later centuries, the dramatic element introduced makes it painful in the ex- TRADITIONS OF PAINTING. 77 treme. The same remark applies to the Scourging of Christ, and to the subject known as " Ecce Homo," though many critics would make -an exception in favor of Sodoma's " Christ bound to the Pillar," at Sienna, or of Guido's celebrated Head. The Procession to Calvary seeks to depict the super- human sufferings of the Redeemer with more or less success ; but divine expression is too often wanting. The agony of the Virgin, who so hopelessly longs to aid him, has been most forcibly given, as in Raphael's wonderful " Lo Spasimo di Sicilia," at Madrid. Upon the Crucifixion itself artists have concentrated all their powers. In early times angels are always waiting on the scene, to lament, comfort, or adore. They catch the precious blood-drops in golden chalices, or kiss the lifeless hands, or hover, in wondering grief, above; or speed away to bear to heaven the tidings of the finished sacrifice. The cross is frequently placed upon the summit of a hill, with the two thieves on either side. Tradition mentions the names of these thieves as Dismas and Gestas. The penitent in- clines his head toward our Lord, the impenitent turns his face away. The souls of the dying thieves are sometimes in- dicated by little naked bodies coming out of their mouths St. Michael receiving the forgiven, and a fantastic demon the condemned spirit. This is most interestingly portrayed in a large fresco by Luini, in a church at Lugano on the Italian lakes, as well as in a number of other instances. The face and figure of the Saviour himself in his last moments have been .given with every variety of conception. Few, however, can be satisfied with the result ; but the group attendant at 78 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. the crucifixion is often touching and tender. St. John stands below on the left, and the Virgin, usually with the other Maries, on the right, while the Magdalen 'embraces the foot of the cross. Other saints or spectators may be added, while kneeling mediaeval votaries have, on some occasions, been painted in. The soldier, traditionally named Longinus, who pierced the Saviour's side with the spear, and was converted, is present, in historical compositions, with the rest. In the frescoes of the Spanish chapel of the church of Santa Maria Novella, Florence, he appears " in a rich suit of black-and- gold armor." The next subject, the Descent from the Cross, is equally familiar, especially in the renowned painting by Volterra. The Western Church had always its prescribed mode of rep- resentation. Joseph of Arimathea mounts a ladder to the right of the Redeemer, and draws the nail from his hand. Nicodemus then draws the nail from the left hand, and gives it to St. John. Afterward Nicodemus descends and takes the nails from the Feet, while Joseph supports the partially relieved body. The apostles assist, and the Virgin holds the right hand of Christ, embracing and weeping over it. A Crucifixion containing only the solitary figure of Christ was a subject legitimately descended from ancient earrings and sculptured crosses, but reappeared in modern art in the six- teenth century. A most noble and beautiful example will be found in Guide's altar-piece in the church of San Lorenzo in Lucina, Rome. We see nothing but the form of the dying Saviour standing out alone against the stormy darkness of a sunset sky ; but his look of unutterable love, and sorrow, and majesty, never fades from our minds. TRADITIONS OF PAINTING. 79 The " Pieta," or " Dead Christ in theArms of his Mother," is dear to the Italian heart. We meet it everywhere, with the same general rendering. The Virgin holds the lifeless body, while the Magdalen and St. John remain with her to mourn. The intensity of the expressions depends upon the genius or 'the conception of the artist. In other existing compositions the dead Christ is sustained and mourned by angels. The Entombment affords material for a scene dramati- cally given. In some old representations of the age of Giotto and his followers, the apostles, aided by the Virgin, deposit the body in a sarcophagus ; but customarily there is a rock-hewn tomb to which they are carrying their sacred burden. Raphael, Titian, and more modern painters, adopt a similar treatment. The muscular efforts of the bearers are too frequently made disagreeably visible ; a criticism which is applicable even to Raphael's much-admired picture in the Borghese Palace, Rome. The Descent of Christ into Hades or Limbus was too graphic a tradition to be left unembodied. The event was supposed to have been related by the sons of Simeon, who, it is said, were among those who rose again after his resur- rection, and " appeared unto many." I make an abridg- ment of the legend quoted by Mrs. Jameson. It was the traditional conclusion of the crucifixion, as affecting the dead not less than the living : " Being with the fathers in the depths of hell, in the blackness of darkness, suddenly there appeared the color of the sun like gold, and a thick purple light, enlightening the' place ; whereupon Adam and all the patriarchs and prophets rejoiced, as understanding who it was that thus cast the rays 8o SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. of his glory before him. And Isaiah the prophet cried out and said, ' This is the light of the Father and of the Son of God, according to my prophecy when I was alive upon earth.' " And then Simeon said, ' Glorify the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, whom I took up in my arms when an infant in the temple.' " Then, while all the saints were praising God, Satan, the prince and captain of death, addressed Lucifer, the prince of hell, bidding him prepare to receive him who still hung upon the cross. But the prince of hell replied in consternation, and adjured Satan not to bring the Crucified One to his keep- ing, for he should have no power to hold him, and would even lose them whom he now held in bondage. " And while they were thus in altercation there arose on a sudden a voice as of thunder, and the rushing of winds, say- ing, ' Lift up your gates, O ye princes, and be ye lift up, O everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in.' At which the prince of hell desired Satan- to depart, or, if he were a warrior, to fight with the King of glory. And then he said to his impious officers, ' Shut the brass gates of cruelty, and make them fast with iron bars, and fight courageously.' But 'the mighty Lord entered, in likeness of a man, and en- lightened those places which had ever before been in dark- ness. And Death and all the legions of devils were seized with horror and great fear, and confessed that never before did earth send them a man ' so bright as to have no spot and so pure as to have no crime.' " Now Jesus, turning to the saints, took hold of Adam by his right hand, saying, 'Peace be to thee, and to all thy righteous posterity.' On which Adam, casting himself at the TRADITIONS OF PAINTING. 8 1 feet of the Lord with tears, magnified him with a loud voice. And, in like manner, all the saints prostrated themselves, and uttered praises. Then David, the royal prophet, boldly cried out, and said, ' sing unto the Lord a new song, for he hath done marvelous things ! ' And the whole multitude of saints answered, ' This honor have all his saints : praise ye the Lord ! ' And then the prophet Habakkuk spoke, and in like manner all the others. And the Lord, still holding Adam by the right hand, ascended from hell, and all the saints followed him." Not only was this legend considered a perfectly proper theme for painting, but it was also perpetuated in sculpture, especially on the doors of old cathedrals, where it was in- tended to signify, " Thou didst open the kingdom of heaven to all believers." Representations of the Resurrection were more scriptural, but scarcely less fanciful. In Giotto's small seiies of the " Life of Christ " in the Florentine Academy we behold the Roman soldiers asleep before a rocky tomb, out of which steps the Lord, bearing a banner. In another work of the sixteenth century, in the same gallery, the Saviour soars up out of a stone sarcophagus in the foreground, while one of the guards lies screaming beneath the cover of the sarcophagus which has fallen on him. The other soldiers run terrified away. Perugino's painting in the Vatican has nearly the same arrangement, with the addition of adoring angels. The Re- deemer always holds the white banner of victory crossed with red. So, too, we find delineations of Christ appearing to the Magdalen, a subject known as ''''Noli me tangere" Here imagination has strangely sought to reconcile Mary's 8 2 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. supposition that she beheld the gardener with the divine character of the risen Jesus. The scholars of Giotto show him shouldering a spade, Raphael adds a pickaxe, a gar- dener's hat, and a halo ; while the German, Albrecht Diirer, puts the sacred banner in one hand and a spade in the other ! Early Ascensions are more simple and grand. Angels encircle the blessing and departing Christ ; apostles are ranged below in different attitudes of ecstasy or grief. The Virgin should be prominent, with outstretched arms. In Giotto's fresco at Padua angels are omitted. The cupola of a cathedral was often chosen to display this subject. A peculiar composition, styled a " Trinity," was popular in Italy from the twelfth to the seventeenth century. We discover it particularly among antique Florentine pictures. The Son of God hangs upon a cross, just above and be- hind which is a venerable form, typifying the Father. The Dove of the Spirit proceeds from the lips of the Father, and touches the head of the Son. The ends of the cross may be held by angels, The Last Judgment is usually thought to date back to the most primitive Christian ages. But in early mosaics it is not the Last Judgment as an historical fact, with the accessories of the righteous and the wicked, but principally Christ as the judge of the world, which is represented. The scene of the judgment appears to have been first depicted in some sacred compositions carried about in the ninth century to convert the heathen. It was soon after introduced into sculpture and mosaic. By the Giotteschi and the artists of the Campo Santo, as well as by early German painters, it was occa- TRADITIONS OF PAINTING. 83 sionally executed. We shall soon find it terribly and power- fully delineated by Michael Angelo in the Sistine Chapel. The lives of the apostles have also been illustrated and embellished. We have not space to enter into details, but will merely mention the attributes by which they may be recognized : " St. Peter, the keys or a fish. " St. Andrew, the transverse cross which bears his name. " St. James Major, the pilgrim's staff. " St. James Minor, a club. " St. John the chalice with the serpent is the proper at- tribute of the apostle ; but the eagle, which is his attri- bute as an evangelist, is sometimes seen when he is with the apostles. " St. Thomas, generally a builder's rule ; rarely a spear. " St. Philip, a small cross on a staff, or crozier surmounted by a cross. " St. Bartholomew, a knife. " St. Matthew, a purse. "St. Simon, a saw. " St. Thaddeus, a halberd or lance. " St. Matthias, a lance. " Sometimes St. Paul, St. Mark, and St. Luke, are repre- sented with the apostles, and some others are left out, as the number is always twelve. In such cases St. Paul bears either one or two swords." The legends of the Magdalen are a treasure to art. Tra- ditions of the Western Church insist upon her identity with Mary of Bethany, and go on to tell us that she owned a castle on the sea of Galilee, and was, with Martha and Laza- 84 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. rus, descended from a noble race. Beautiful and young, she became luxurious and dissolute, and was possessed by the seven deadly sins, which Christ cast out as seven devils. Many Venetian pictures present to us " Christ in the house of Martha," seated in a kitchen whose disorder Martha vainly seeks to remedy, while Mary sits tranquilly by, and a servant- maid, " Marcella," is cooking at the fire. After the resurrec- tion, the whole family " were by the heathen set adrift in a vessel without sails, oars, or rudder ; but, guided by Provi- dence, were safely braught to the harbor of Marseilles, in the country now called France." Here they preached ; and when the people were converted, and Lazarus was made bishop, Mary retired to a desert, where she lived for thirty years, in fasting, penance, and prayer. Angels came and bore her in trances into heaven, or watched over her soli- tary death-bed, and carried her to the skies, as we perceive in the paintings of her death and assumption. The box of ointment is her attribute ; disheveled golden hair and very scanty drapery fix her identity. Every valuable art-col- lection in Europe has one or more of these lovely, but not always repentant, Magdalens ; none is more exquisitely fair than that by Correggio at Dresden. Neither can the early fathers or saints complain of being neglected in art. Very often we encounter St. Jerome, the great doctor of the Church, and the first Western monk, whom we recognize by his usual robe of red, and his pet lion. He is frequently clad as a cardinal, and takes his place among other dignitaries ; yet we see him again as a hermit in the wilderness, to which he often retreated when wearied with the tumults of the Church and the world, translating the TRADITIONS OF PAINTING. 85 Bible, or engaged in djevotion. The accompanying lion prob- ably symbolizes his fiery, enthusiastic nature ; but tradition preserves the tale of a lion from whose foot he extracted a thorn with such skill and tenderness that the grateful creat- ure would never leave him. St. Augustine and St. Gregory are similarly commemo- rated. They are, however, less common than St. Christopher, " the Christ-Bearer " the old giant who had been employed by many masters, but who was always seeking the service of the strongest, and desired to make himself acceptable to Jesus Christ, though it was not in his line to fast or pray. A holy hermit bade him dwell near a river that he might aid such as must struggle with the stream. One night he heard the voice of a little child who called, " Come forth, Christo- pher, and carry me over." And, as the child was very small, he took him on his shoulders and stepped into the stream. But the waves and the winds buffeted him sore, and the babe became so heavy that he could scarcely reach the land. When he had gained the bank he said, "Who art thou, child, that hath put me in such peril ? Had I carried the whole world on my shoulders, the burden had not been heavier." And the child replied : " O Christopher, thou hast not only borne the world, but him who made the world. I have accepted thy service ; therefore plant thy staff in the ground, that it may bring forth leaves and fruit." And he did even so, but the holy child vanished. And Christopher became a Christian, and a martyr of the Lord. At his death he prayed that those who looked on him and trusted in Christ " might not suffer from tempest, earthquake, or fire." It soon became a custom to paint his image in very large 86 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. proportions, sometimes even thirty feet high, on the outside of churches and houses, where it might be seen a long way off; and many, beholding it, might reap the benefit of his prayer. Such effigies still exist in Germany, France, and Italy. As a subject for easel-pieces or engravings St. Chris- topher was more popular in Germany than at the South ; but a chapel was frescoed in his honor by Andrea Mantegna at Padua. The martyrs St. Sebastian and St. Lawrence also become ere long well known to travelers. St. Sebastian is usually a nude, youthful figure, bound to a tree or column, and pierced with arrows ; St. Lawrence rests, without much sign of dis- comfort, on a gridiron. In the legends Sebastian is a Roman soldier whom neither persuasions nor threats can induce to abandon the Christian faith. He is therefore sentenced to be shot with arrows on the Palatine Hill, at Rome. His sen- tence is executed, and he is left for dead ; but the friends who would bury him find that he still breathes, and through their care he revives and lives ; yet only to be seized again by his enemies, and beaten to death with clubs. Perugino, Luini, Mantegna, and many other painters, have given us his story. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries he be- came the model for masculine beauty of form, as the Mag- dalen for sensuous female loveliness. Guido was enthusiastic over him. St. Sebastian was a patron saint against the plague, and one of the ancient basilicas of Rome was built in his honor. A similar basilica was erected to St. Lawrence or Lorenzo. St. Lawrence was a deacon at Rome ; and when commanded by the heathen prefect to deliver up the treasures of the church, he brought him the sick and poor, saying, TRADITIONS OF PAINTING. 87 " Here are our treasures ! " Then the prefect ordered that he should be tortured, and roasted on a gridiron ; but his constancy was no way shaken, and he died in glorious faith A series of frescoes, ending with his martyrdom, once orna- mented his basilica. Another like series, however, by Fra Angelico, may be seen in a chapel of the Vatican. His single figure is sometimes found in galleries, with the gridiron as his emblem ; and he often stands in company with groups of saints. The Escorial at Madrid was dedicated to him by Philip II. Of St. Francis, so beloved in the middle ages, we have already spoken in describing his church at Assisi, and it is therefore unnecessary to repeat his legend, which art has copiously illustrated. Among female saints and martyrs, St. Catharine, St. Mar- garet, St. Agnes, and St. Cecilia, are most frequently met with. St. Catharine of Alexandria was the daughter of the half- brother of Constantine the Great and of Sabinella, Queen of Egypt. She was carefully educated in all branches of Eastern learning, and' in the philosophy of Plato, but knew nothing of Christianity. At the age of fourteen her father's death left her heiress of the kingdom. Her subjects were discontented with her passion for study, and begged her to marry; but she replied that she must first find a prince so noble that all should worship him, so great that she should never think she had made him king, so rich as to surpass all others, so beauti- ful that the angels should long to behold him, and so benign as to forgive all offenses. Her counselors and her mother were utterly discouraged at such conditions ; but the Virgin Mary sent a hermit to tell her that her Son was the husband she desired, for he perfectly met all her requirements. She 7 gg SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. looked upon the picture of the Saviour which the holy man had left with her till her heart became so filled with love that all else wearied her. Then she dreamed that angels pre- sented her to him, but he turned away his face, saying, " She is not fair enough for me ! " Upon waking she wept, and, requesting instruction in the Christian faith, was con- verted and baptized. The following night she slept again, and in her vision the Virgin herself led her to her divine Son, who smiled on her with favor, plighted his troth to her, and placed a ring on her finger. In the morning the ring was still upon her hand; and thenceforth she looked upon herself as the bride of Christ, and despised all earthly vanities. After Sabinella's death the tyrant Maximin came to Al- exandria to persecute the Christians. Catharine argued with him, and coufuted all his philosophers ; but, refusing to sub- mit to him, he commanded that she should be stretched upon four sharply-pointed revolving wheels, and torn in pieces. But she prayed, and the angels of God came down and broke the wheels into fragments, which flew among the people and killed thousands of her persecutors. Then the tyrant caused her to be beheaded ; and when all was over, angels took her body, carried it across the desert and the sea, and laid it in a marble tomb on the summit of Mount Sinai, where a monastery was afterward built above her revered remains. Of this picturesque tradition many painters availed them- selves. Eastern artists were proud of such a saint, and she was declared patroness of learning and philosophy, and also chosen as patroness of Venice. Ruined frescoes, illustrative of her fame, were discovered in the church of St. Francis at TRADITIONS OF PAINTING. g g Assisi, another series by Masaccio, better preserved and restored, exists in St. Catharine's Chapel in the church of San Clemente, Rome. Francia, Perugino, and the scholars of Giotto and of Leonardo da Vinci, perpetuated her mem- ory; and all Venetians claimed her as their favorite, and decked her with splendid drapery and royal jewels. A wheel should always be near her, to indicate her martyrdom. It is very conspicuous in Raphael's valuable " St. Catharine " in the National Gallery, London. The Marriage of St. Catharine, where the infant Jesus, on the lap of his mother, espouses her with the nuptial ring, is excellently depicted. The two pictures by Correggio,. in the Louvre, and at Naples, convey a sufficient idea of its treat- ment. Another very brilliant and very remarkable com- position by Paul Veronese may be viewed at Venice. Titian also painted it. Her Burial by the Angels is charmingly rendered by Luini, in the Brera, Milan ; but we are better acquainted with engravings of this subject from modern German paintings at Vienna and Berlin. St. Catharine of Sienna, a Dominican ^nun, who, like St. Francis, traditionally received the stigmata, must not be con- founded with St. Catharine of Alexandria. St. Margaret was the daughter of a priest of Antioch. The governor of that city wished to make her his wife ; but she rejected his offer, and declared herself a Christian. She was tormented, and cast into a dungeon, where Satan ap- peared to her as a frightful dragon. He opened his mouth to destroy her, but she held up the cross, and he fled before it. In one version of the legend he is said to have swallowed 9 o SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. her, but she came forth from his jaws unhurt. By the sight of her constancy so many were converted that it was deter- mined she should be beheaded, and she suffered martyrdom in the fourth century. In her pictures she holds a palm- branch or cross, but is identified by the dragon. Raphael's beautiful "St. Margaret," in the Louvre, robed in blue and carrying the palm, is one of the sweetest, purest, and most heavenly faces in the whole realm of art. This saint was also represented by the schools of Bologna and Germany. In a painting by Lucas van Leyden she stands meek and calm, with a cross between her folded hands, upon a hideous mon- ster, whose tail twists into her hair. St. Agnes is probably 'the most interesting of the early virgin martyrs. Churches and shrines have been consecrated in her honor. She was a young Roman maiden, whom the son of the heathen prefect of the city sought for his bride, but she would not yield to his solicitations, for she told him she was affianced to the Lord. Sempronius, the prefect, ordered that, if she did not marry his son, she should become a vestal virgin. To this proposal she would not listen ; and finding her obstinate he had her dragged to a place of in- famy and stripped of her clothing. But in answer to her prayers her hair grew long and shining, and fell around her like a golden veil, and she saw a white and radiant garment which she put on with praise to God. The youth who wooed her was struck with blindness ; she cured him by a miracle ; but the people demanded her destruction, and she was led to the stake. Yet the flames refused to burn her, though the fiery heat killed her executioners, till one ascended the blaz- ing pile and slew her with the sword. TRADITIONS OF PAINTING. She is the patronness of maidenhood, and her attribute is the lamb, although in the mosaics which ornamented her ancient basilica the lamb was omitted, and flowers were springing at her feet. Domenichino frequently painted her, as did the artists of Venice, and Andrea del Sarto, who has - left a very pleasing picture in the cathedral of Pisa. In Northern art her hair is fair and flowing. St. Cecilia, the last of whom we shall speak, was a noble Roman lady of the third century, who sang and played on many instruments with such entrancing sweetness that the very angels stooped to listen. She invented the organ, and is the patron saint of music. She converted her husband and her husband's brother, and the three devoted themselves to a holy and charitable life, till the Roman ruler, desirous to secure her wealth, accused her as a Christian. She refused to sacrifice to the gods, and was borne back to her house, where she was thrown into her own bath which had been filled with boiling water. It did her no harm, and a soldier was commanded to behead her. He wounded her three times in the neck, and left her half dead. For three days she continued to live and proclaim Christ, and at her death directed that her dwelling should be turned into a church. Her body was buried in the Catacombs, and afterward re- moved to the present church of St. Cecilia, in Trastevere, Rome, where her bath, with its stones and pipes, is still to be visited. When her coffin was opened in 1599, her remains were found quite perfect, and in the same graceful attitude now copied in the recumbent statue which lies before her altar. In the Catacombs was discovered a drawing of a half- 9 2 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. length female figure inscribed with her name. Mosaics also immortalized her, and we have seen that she was the subject of Cimabue's early picture. In Raphael's famous piece at Bologna musical instruments are scattered at her feet, while she ecstatically pauses at the sound of the angels' song. Moretto, Garofalo, Parmagianino, Domenichino, and Carlo Dolce, all give us her lovely ideal as the patroness of music. Older frescoes upon the events of her life once adorned her church. Francia decorated the walls of her chapel at Bologna, and Domenichino illustrated her legend at Rome, in scenes which portray her distributing alms to the poor, crowned with roses by an angel, refusing to adore the idols, and wounded by the sword of the executioner. A wreath of red and white roses, a martyr's palm, a roll of music, or a harp or organ, indicate her character and history. Even modern art retains her as an attractive and graceful subject. If the brief sketch of the traditions of painting which this page closes has roused a desire for further investigation of so interesting a topic, I commend my readers to the writ- ings of Mrs. Jameson, Lord Lindsay, and Mrs. Clement, from which I have gleaned many legendary materials. Meanwhile we shall continue our study of the masters of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, with a more intelligent appreciation of their works. ITALIAN PAINTING FIFTEENTH CENTURY. CHAPTER VI. ITALIAN PAINTING IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. WITH the fifteenth century began what is called the period of the Renaissance. This word " Renaissance " signi- fies "re-birth," and is applied to the different style of art which gradually arose, partly produced by a study of the old classic models so long neglected, but still more by a close attention to real life and natural objects, and a blending of the ideas thus obtained, and of individual conceptions and individual modes of treatment, with the traditions and cus- toms peculiar to the middle ages. This change extended to architecture as well as to sculpture and painting. In fact, it found in architecture its widest range, and grace and beauty were grafted upon Romanesque strength. The development of art which thus took place when, being firmly fixed on the mediaeval basis, it began to reach freely in all directions for new ideas of beauty, truth, and progress, culminated in the following century with the maturity of Michael Angelo and Raphael; but meanwhile it is very interesting to notice the mixture of quaintness and originality, formalism and fresh- ness, in the artists who come between. Some cling tenacious- ly to the old methods, and suspiciously turn their backs upon any temptation to " free-thinking ; " others take refuge in the "ideal," and seldom venture beyond its limits; others pour 94 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. their new wine into the old bottles, regardless of the fermen- tation of public opinion thus occasioned ; while still others profess themselves so enamored of the " antique " that they would give their figures the muscles and rigidity of a statue rather than copy a living model. Yet all these elements con- tributed toward the results which we to-day enjoy. We shall also perceive that not only the scope of thought but the sphere of painting itself extended. With the revival of letters came a knowledge of history and antiquity which introduced historical and classic pictures ; the study of mathematics led to an accurate acquaintance with form and perspective ; portraiture grew much more common, and even the beauties of landscape were imperfectly anticipated. The discovery and use of oil-colors was another most important advance, though it was long before distemper was quite aban- doned. The necessity for large frescoes in architectural adornment demanded grandeur and boldness of conception and treatment, and the intellectual culture of Italy was nobly expressed in art. To such culture the circumstances and influences of the times were extremely favorable. Florence was the centre of Italian power and prosperity, and the merchant-princes who held its government were ever ready to patronize literature, learning, sculpture, building, and painting. Rival guilds gave superb orders, and paid superb prices. No magnificence was too costly to ornament the city ; no luxury too lavish for its festivals and palaces. With the ascendency of the Medici family came still greater liberality and still greater pomp. Talent was everywhere recognized, and everywhere recom- pensed ; and, though morals languished, aesthetics flourished. ITALIAN PAINTING FIFTEENTH CENTURY, S J At the commencement of the century, however, this climax had not been reached, though the appreciative Floren- tines were moved to enthusiasm by the success of their own young sculptor, Lorenzo Ghiberti, who had cast, at their request, new gates of bronze for their splendid baptistery. The old gate, executed about 1330, by Andrea Pisano, had been thought so wonderfully fine that none could ever hope to equal it ; but this youthful Ghiberti, who had been edu- cated as a goldsmith, surprised his countrymen and the world by master-pieces of art so perfect that Michael Angelo declared them worthy to be the gates of paradise, while our present age but echoes his judgment. The first illustrated the " history of Redemption from the Annunciation to the Ascension ; " the last represented the events of the Old Tes- tament from the creation to the reign of Solomon. More than forty years were required for their completion. They were modeled in most florid yet most natural style, in very high relief, and with entire conformity to the rules of per- spective. Their study and imitation were most instructive to the rising painters, some of whom were Ghiberti's pupils. Foremost among these we read of Paolo di Dono (1396- 1479), known as Paolo Uccello, from his passion for birds. He was possessed with a yet greater passion for perspective, and practised it so incessantly that his wife remonstrated at his unquenchable ardor. He decorated the houses of the nobles with fantastic fables of bipeds and quadrupeds, and has left us some few relics on the entrance-wall of the ca- thedral, and in the cloisters of Santa Maria Novella, Florence ; as well as an old battle-piece, now in the National Gallery, London. He is less familiar to posterity than his contem- 9 6 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. porary Masolino (1383-1430), who was long believed to be the master of Masaccio, and the originator of the celebrated frescoes in the church of the Carmine, Florence. But later investigations prove the last supposition incorrect, and Maso- lino must now retire to the obscurity of his only positively authentic works in the church and baptistery of Castiglione di Olona, not far from Milan. This but increases the fame of Masaccio, the pioneer of the Realists. He was born at Castel San Giovanni, in the valley of the Arno, near Florence, in 1402 ; and, though rightfully named Tommaso Guidi, the lazy habits of his boy- hood were amply avenged by handing him down to our knowledge as Masaccio, or "Slovenly Tom." But he was certainly no slovenly painter. He was the first to introduce intelligently the study of the nude; while his groups are at once so correct in proportion, so dramatic in action, and so excellent in perspective and color, that the greatest artists of the sixteenth century never wearied of contemplating his magnificent frescoes on the life of St. Peter, in the Brancacci Chapel of the church of the Carmine, Florence, repairing thither like pupils to the studio of a master. He copied on every available occasion from real life, and astonished all spectators by the vigor and animation of his figures. The " Preaching of Peter," and the " Presenting of the Tribute- money," are the scenes most admired by competent critics. In coloring he was accustomed to employ " transparent tints over a white undertone ; " yet the effect was grave and power- ful. He also planted his men and women firmly on their feet, instead of poising them on the end of their toes, as had been too often the earlier habit. More juvenile frescoes from the ITALIAN PAINTING FIFTEENTH CENTURY. history of St. Catharine exist in the church of St. Clement, Rome, but they are less remarkable. Panel-pieces, such as the " Head of an Old Man " in the Uffizi, Florence, and other " Heads," called his own portraits, in the London and Mu- nich Galleries, are occasionally ascribed to him; yet their genuineness is uncertain. The manner of his death was mysterious, but it is thought that he was poisoned at Rome about 1429. His Brancacci frescoes were unhappily left in- complete, but were afterward finished by Filippino Lippi. The father of this coming Filippino, whose name, Filippo Lippi (1412-1469), is so similar to that of his son, was edu- cated in the monastery of the Carmine, Florence, belonging to the same church for which Masaccio labored, and had the benefit of constantly seeing those works before him, which so incited his progress as to lead many to affirm that " the spirit of Masaccio had entered into the body of Fra Filippo." The story which Vasari relates of him is far from creditable ; but Vasari's / stories must often be taken with grains of allowance. It is said that to escape a religious life he ran away from the convent, and fled to Ancona; was seized by pirates, and sold as a slave into Barbary, where his master was so de- lighted with a portrait which his talented captive drew of him that he set him free, and sent him home enriched with many gifts. This may be only a romantic legend, but it is certain that Lippi subsequently settled at Florence, where he painted many pictures under the patronage of the Medici. His Florentine career, though possibly not so profligate as has been represented, was by no means ascetic. Tradition, which may be unreliable, goes on to mention that he eloped with a nun, Lucretia Buti, from the convent at Prato, where 9 8 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. he had been employed to paint a Madonna, and was finally poisoned by her family, in revenge for her dishonor. But, whatever may have been his faults as a man, as an artist his merits are many ; he was a brilliant colorist ; firm, free, and graceful in outline, and eminently cheerful and vivacious in expression. Yet he carried his realism to the extent of grouping undignified, fantastic, and even sensuous figures into the most sacred compositions ; and his feeling for beauty was so much stronger than his sense of reverence that he never hesitated to paint the Virgin or the saints from the face of any pretty woman with whom he chanced to be in love. A Madonna, now in the Pitti Palace, Florence, is thought to be the portrait of Lucretia Buti, and the same is probably true of others. His best efforts are the frescoes from the histories of Sts. Stephen and John Baptist, in the cathedral of Prato. He also worked in the'Duomo of Spo- leto, and several easel or altar pieces are preserved at Flor- ence, Berlin, Munich, and London. Benozzo Gozzoli, or Benozzo di Lese di Sandro, born in Florence, 1424, though drawn by natural inclination toward the style of the Realists, was yet so modified by association with Fra Angelico that he presents us with an agreeable mixture of the real with the ideal. He loved beauty and splendor, and was innocently gay. In composition he was fond of architectural vistas, rich landscape backgrounds, gilding, and embroidery. He accompanied Fra Angelico to Rome and Orvieto, and was employed in a number of Italian churches. A picture of the "Triumph of St. Thomas Aqui- nas," once in the cathedral of Prato, now hangs in the Louvre; the London Gallery possesses a large Florentine altar-piece, ITALIAN PAINTING FIFTEENTH CENTURY. and a very small panel of the " Rape of Helen ; " while the Riccardi Palace, Florence, the old palace of the Medici, is decorated by his " Adoration of the Magi." But none of these can interest us in comparison with his long series of frescoes in the Campo Santo, Pisa, beginning with the story of Noah, and ending with the Queen of Sheba's visit to Solo- mon. They are unfortunately injured, but gave such de- light to the Pisans of the fifteenth century that upon the completion of the work, in 1484, they gratefully and unani- mously bestowed upon him a tomb in their holy ground, which, however, he did not occupy till after 1496. His friend Cosimo Roselli, born at Florence in 1439, was a pupil of Fra Angelico, but far below Gozzoli in originality. He worked in the cloisters of the Annunziata, Florence, and assisted, with other Tuscan artists, in frescoing the Sistine Chapel, where we may see his " Destruction of Pharaoh," " Adoration of the Golden Calf," and " Sermon on the Mount." Of Melozzo da Forli, his contemporary, we have but slight records ; yet the grand and graceful angels found among his fragmentary frescoes, and lithographed by the Arundel Society, prove his boldness and power. He seems to have painted only in Rome, where he was knighted by the pope. We now reach the time when the invention or application of oil-pairiting afforded, both to Italy and Germany, new and wonderful facilities for art. Experiments in oils and various mediums had, indeed, been previously made, but none were practically successful till the brothers Van Eyck, in Flanders, discovered how oil and resin could be so simply used as to supersede all former varnishes, and avoid the old and trouble- I00 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. some necessity of drying pictures in the sun. Antonello da Messina, a native of Sicily, who went to the Netherlands about the middle of the fifteenth century to study under Flemish masters, learned the secret from Jan van Eyck, and returned again to Italy, where he practised the new method, and communicated it to the artists of Venice. Antonello's best pictures are at Berlin ; but the Academy of Antwerp has secured a remarkable "Crucifixion," where the two thieves are bound, not to crosses, but to tree-trunks twisted into cru- ciform shape. A " Bust of Christ " in benediction, is in the London Gallery ; a " Weeping Nun " at Venice ; and a fine " Head," small and dark, in the Grand Salon Carre" of the Louvre. Antonello died at Venice about 1493, and was most honorably buried. A painter of that republic, Domenico Veneziano, was called to Florence, where he is said to have instructed Andrea Castagno in the mixture and use of colors. The character of Castagno is one more subject for " his- toric doubts." Vasari, the only critic who has written of him at any length, begins his biography by a short dissertation upon envy and murder, and lets his story point the moral. The facts which he asserts pretend to show that Andrea dal Castagno, born at the close of the fourteenth century, in the province of Mugello, being found to possess uncommon talents, was brought up as a painter, aided by Bernardetto de' Medici, and given several important Florentine commissions. Domenico Veneziano being associated with him in those commissions, and treated with more deference on account of his proficiency in oil-painting, Andrea, actuated by the mean- est motives, sought his friendship, gained a knowledge of his ITALIAN PAINTING FIFTEENTH CENTURY. IOI method, and then perfidiously stabbed him a deed which earned him the title of " Andrea the Assassin ! " But other documents have since proved that Domenico survived Andrea three or four years ; therefore this theory of depravity cannot be sustained. Yet the pictures of Castagno, exhibited at Florence, though powerful, seem coarse and unpleasing, and are generally models of ugliness ; as, for example, his " Peni- tent Magdalen " in the Academy, and some of his portrait frescoes in the Palazzo del Podesta, or National Museum. Another Andrea, in another city, has connected his name much more influentially with the growth of Italian art. The Tuscan school had thus far surpassed all others ; but the University of Padua, which was foremost in the revival of classical learning, developed new tastes and new aspirations among painters as well as professors. Francisco Squarcione conceived a passion for ancient sculpture, and made the tour of Italy and Greece, purchasing precious fragments, and tak- ing valuable casts and drawings, which he brought back to his native city, where he founded an Academy of Painting and a Museum of Antiquities. His own abilities to execute were but second rate, but he proved an admirable teacher of more than a hundred scholars. His generous care in the education of Andrea Mantegna has had its reward, for the honor of the pupil, has been reflected upon the master. Andrea, who was humbly born near Padua in 1431, was adopted as the foster-child of Squarcione when but ten years old. This affectionate relation lasted till manhood, when Andrea is said to have married the daughter of Jacopo Bellini, Squarcione's Venetian rival, and to have thus incurred the bitter enmity of his benefactor. Under these circumstances 102 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. Squarcione mercilessly criticised his pupil's work, yet the severity of his judgment was useful in the correction of earlier faults. Mantegna had so long studied from statuary that he had fallen into rigidity of attitude, stiffness of composition, and coldness of color ; but he now sought to overcome these defects, to combine classic grace with classic accuracy, and to catch a little of the glowing tones of the Bellini. In this effort he succeeded sufficiently to astonishingly improve his former style, and to secure the admiration of all Italy and the imitation of many followers. Giovanni Santi, the father of Raphael, who composed a poem on the artists of his day, thus writes of him : " Great the delight it gave him to admire Mantegna's wondrous paintings, splendid proof Of his high genius. . . . For than his No brighter banner waves, no name more knowji Even of our glorious age." Yet he never conquered his predilection for sculpturesque form and arrangement of pictures ; he could not display much depth of feeling,' for his nature was purely intellectual and not at all emotional; he colored and composed upon scientific rather than natural principles, was sharp and precise in finish, luxuriant in ornament, dignified and refined in expression, realistic, but never life-like. The frescoes on the lives of St. James and St. Christopher in the church of the Eremitani are his best paintings in Padua. About 1460 he entered the service of the Marquis of Mantua, who gave him very liberal orders ; but in the subsequent sack of that city in 1630 most of his works were destroyed or carried away. The traveler should, however, see the graceful frescoes of the Castello di ITALIAN PAINTING FIFTEENTH CENTURY. O Corte, representing the life and family of Lodovico Gonzaga. The famous cartoons of the " Triumph of Csesar," now at Hampton Court, England, were intended for stage-decora- tions of the theatre of the castle of Mantua. They are in nine compartments, executed in water-colors on twilled linen, and were purchased from the Mantuan collection by Charles I. of England. These compartments show a superb procession, with standard-bearers, statues, and armor, trophies, and at- tendant captives ; and lastly the conqueror in his car, followed by the triumphal banner, "Vent, vidi, via." While at the court of Duke Gonzaga, Mantegna accepted the invitation of Pope Innocent VIII. to paint a chapel in the Vatican ; but the frescoes no longer exist. One of his fine altar-pieces will be found in the church of San Zerio at Verona. A " Triptych of the Adoration of the Magi, the Circumcision, and the Resurrection," and also a portrait of " Elizabeth of Mantua," are in the tribune of the Uffizi, Flor- ence. The London Gallery contains an enthroned " Ma- donna," and an interesting classical picture. One of his master-pieces, a " Dead Christ bewailed by Angels," is owned by the Berlin Museum ; while at the Louvre we have a repre- sentation of " Parnassus," a " Wisdom victorious over the Vices," a "Crucifixion," and especially a " Madonna of Vic- tory," one of his later and best productions, originally de- signed in commemoration of the victory of the Duke of Man- tua over the French. Andrea Mantegna was not only a painter, but an eminent engraver. He was the first artist who ever engraved his own works ; and some of his plates yet remain. His last years were less prosperous than his youth and middle life. Family 8 I04 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. troubles and comparative poverty appear to have afflicted him, but his industry was still great, and his renown perma- nent. He died in 1506, and is buried in the church of San Andrea, Mantua. The classical style which he so affected became extremely popular in all the provinces of Italy. The Florentines united it with what was fast becoming an intense realism. Sculpture and anatomy, plastic precision, and perfection of muscle, were the favorite study of the schools. Many were sculptors as well as painters, as, for example, Andrea Verocchio (1432- 1488), whose main interest to us lies in the fact of his having been the instructor of Leonardo da Vinci. There is an anec- dote that Verocchio was given a commission for a " Baptism of Christ," which he treated after the traditional manner, affording an opportunity to Leonardo, then a youth in his studio, to paint in one of the kneeling angels. But when fin- ished Leonardo's part of the piece was seen to be so much better than the rest, that Verocchio, disgusted, threw away his palette, and returned to his statues. This picture now hangs in the Academy at Florence, and all guide-books are sure to point out which is Leonardo's angel, though the ob- server will not be likely to discern any such overwhelming difference. About this same epoch shone a galaxy of Tuscan painters whose works foretokened the brilliancy of the coming masters. Signorelli, Botticelli, and Ghirlandajo, were the heralds of Da Vinci and Michael Angelo. Luca Signorelli, or Luca Egidio di Ventura, often called Luca di Cortona, was born at Cor- tona in 1441. Several of his altar and panel pieces are pre- served at Cortona, and in Italian and German galleries, par- ITALIAN PAINTING FIFTEENTH CENTURY. IO , ticularly in the Uffizi. He was employed during his youth, with the most promising artists of Florence, in the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel, Rome, where his " Moses's Journey into Egypt " and " Death of Moses " are dramatically and forci- bly conceived. But he is seen to best advantage in his grand frescoes of the " Resurrection," " Hell," and " Paradise," in the cathedral of Orvieto, begun by Fra Angelico many years before. " Beneath the pure and blessed figures of Fiesole which look down from the vaulted ceiling the powerful crea- tions of Signorelli cover the walls like a race of mighty be- ings struggling against the universal annihilation. In the appalling ferryman who transports the dead across, while various naked figures are wandering along the shore, we rec- ognize the idea which Michael Angelo subsequently adopted in his ' Last Judgment.' " The devils are fiercely strong and horrible, but we are compensated for their terror by a most beautiful group of angels crowning the blessed. Though Signorelli's manner of painting was thus severe and majestic, with a special delight in the nude, and in active physical development, his conversation is reported to have been amiable and fascinating, his mode of living sumptuous, and his attire magnificent. Lttbke speaks of other frescoes from the life of St. Benedict, in the monastery of Monte Oli- veto near Sienna ; but they are not so deserving of attention. His death took place in 1523 or 1524. Domenico Ghirlandajo, or not to rob him of his baptis- mal heritage Domenico di Tommaso Curradi di Doffo Bi- gordi, born in 1449, since known as Ghirlandajo, or "the garland-twiner," from his own or his father's skill in fashion- ing the gold and silver garlands which women then wore in I0 6 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. their hair, exhibited still more strikingly the peculiar genius of Florence. His father desired his son to become a gold- smith like himself, and so brought him up for twenty-four years ; but with the youth's unusual talents a transition to a higher branch of art was natural and inevitable. His style was not so muscular and mighty as Signorelli's, but he de- lighted in large, free compositions, bold yet full of grace in their arrangement ; embellished by portraits, architectural backgrounds, picturesque costumes, and antique, broken dra- peries. He was very ambitious, and often wished he were able to fresco the entire walls of the city. His works, which show the fruits of his study of Masaccio, are well finished and exceptionally pleasing in tone, for the tendency of the age was to glorify form and neglect color. His female figures are elegant and aristocratic, and Jarves calls his angels "ladies with wings." His finest frescoes are the wall-paintings from the lives of the Virgin and St. John the Baptist in the choir of Santa Maria Novella, and from the history of St. Francis in the Sassetti Chapel of Santa Trinita, Florence. In the most remarkable picture of the latter series, on the death of St. Francis, we may perceive " an old priest at the foot of the bier, chanting the litanies for the dying, with spectacles on his nose the earliest known representation of those useful instruments." Indeed, all his compositions are crowded with contemporary portraits, contemporary buildings, and contem- porary landscape. We also find an impressive " Last Supper " in the refectory of San Marco, Florence, and a " Calling of Peter and Andrew," in the Sistine Chapel, to whose adorn- ment he too contributed. He was an enthusiast for mosaic work, which he called" " painting for eternity," but his repu- ITALIAN PAINTING FIFTEENTH CENTURY. Io - tation rests principally upon the frescoes just mentioned, and upon his excellent easel-pieces, such as " The Adoration of the Magi " in the Uffizi, a subject which he frequently treated ; an " Adoration of Shepherds," at the neighboring Academy ; a "Visitation," at the Louvre, a " St. Lawrence," and a "Vir- gin with St. Michael and St. Dominic," at Munich, and a " Virgin and Saints " at Berlin. As Ghirlandajo advanced in life his works advanced in power; but -while yet in the prime of strength and success he was cut off by fever, 1494, in the forty-fifth year of his age. He was the teacher of Michael Angelo, and probably no master of that period, except Signorelli, was better calculated to direct such a scholar. The favor which he enjoyed among the Florentines was afterward extended to his son Ridolfo (1483-1560), who could not be by any means compared with his father, but who was popular for ready and fertile inven- tion, and willingness to carry out the designs of his patrons, the Medici, in their perpetual processions, shows, and festi- vals. The best examples of Ridolfo 's manner are his " Mir- acles of St. Zenobius " in the Uffizi, and his frescoes of the " Assumption," and " Gift of the Girdle," in the cathedral of Prato. Sandro Botticelli (1447-1515), whose family name was Alessandro Filipepi, another able Florentine artist, appre- ciated by the Medici, was a pupil of Filippo Lippi, upon whom he modeled his style, though his tone of feeling was evidently sadder and tenderer than that of the vivacious monk. His small religious works vibrate between stiffness and sweetness, generally inclining to the former ; but he was one of the first to introduce classical easel-subjects, as in the I0 8 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. " Birth of Venus," rising from the ocean in her shell, and the allegorical " Calumny " in the Uffizi. In another picture in the Uffizi, an " Adoration of the Magi," the king kissing the feet of Jesus is the first Cosmo de Medici, while the other two kings are his son and a relation. Two of his groups of the " Virgin and Infant Christ " are in the Louvre, and a very few other specimens in the great German galleries. But he appears on a larger scale in the frescoes of " Moses killing the Egyptian," "The Extermination of Korah," and the " Temptation of Christ," in the Sistine Chapel, where he was likewise commissioned to execute the portraits of twenty- eight popes between the windows. Botticelli repaid his obligations to Fra Filippo by educat- ing Lippo's illegitimate son Filippino, who inherited all his father's gifts, but added to them a more virtuous and modest character. Crowe and Cavalcaselle think Filippino may pos- sibly have been Filippo's nephew, and not his son, but 'it is a vexed question. Be he whom he may, he was considered so promising that the important task of completing Masaccio's frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel was intrusted to him, and most admirably performed. "The King's Son restored to Life," and " St. Peter and St. Paul before the Judge," are particularly worthy of praise. His manner is realistic and less simple than that of Masaccio, with great fondness for decoration; while his other frescoes in the Strozzi Chapel of Santa Maria Novella, containing scenes from the acts of the apostles, are rich, expressive, and warmly colored, as are also his frescoes in the Caraffa Chapel in the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, Rome. His panel-pieces are not so rare as those of Botticelli, and are collected, not only in Con- ITALIAN PAINTING FIFTEENTH CENTURY. IO g tinental galleries, but in England, where a " Madonna with St. Jerome and St. Dominic " and a glowing " Adoration of the Wise Men " amply illustrate his talents. He survived the fifteenth century, and died in 1505. Meanwhile the school of Bologna, so prominent in later Italian history, rejoiced in the birth of its first great painter, Francesco Raibolini, " II Francia," b'orn in 1450. Like the celebrated Florentines whose biographies we have just re- corded, he was trained as a goldsmith and medal-coiner, and did not abandon the trade till middle life. His earliest work is a " Madonna and Six Saints," at Bologna, dated 1490 or 1494. This was followed by an altar-piece for the Benti- voglio Chapel in the church of San Giacomo in the same city. This, too, was a " Madonna," accompanied by St. Sebastian, St. John, and two musical angels. The execution of these pictures was such as to delight all who saw them ; their soft, rich color, quiet fervency, and holy peace, appeared to breathe around them an atmosphere of sacred rest. Francia had found his vocation, and henceforth he appears as one of those painters ordained " by the gift of God," whose mission is to bring down faith, repose, and hope. The technical qualities of his work, purity and depth of tone, delicacy of finish, finely-wrought backgrounds, and serene and beautiful figures, were such as to correspond with their elevation of sentiment. He was most successful in oil-colors, but has left an able series of frescoes in the church of St. Cecilia in Bologna. His works were eagerly sought in Lombardy and Tuscany, and have, in later years, found numerous pur- chasers. An excellent altar-piece is owned by the National Gallery, London, displaying in one part a " Pieta " in the ! I0 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. other the "Virgin and Child with Saints." At Dresden is a very lovely and wonderfully-finished little picture of the "Adoration of the Kings." Every detail is most richly and exquisitely rendered ; even the high lights in the foliage being laid in with gold. Three or four are at Berlin and Vienna, while Munich possesses another which Mrs. Jameson pronounces the most charming he ever painted. " It repre- sents the infant Saviour lying on the grass, amid roses and flowers ; the Virgin stands before Jiim, looking down with clasped hands, in an ecstasy of love and devotion, on her divine Son. The figures are rather less than life." Many public or private collections contain his half-length Ma- donnas with the Child ; easily recognizable from the one type of countenance in which all are cast mild, soft-eyed, and devoutly calm. As a man, we learn that Francia was no less attractive than as a painter. We are not surprised to hear that he was very gentle and obliging, and had great nobility and earnest- ness of soul. Though he was more than thirty years older than Raphael, the two became sincere friends, corresponding, and exchanging sketches. The St. Cecilia which Raphael executed for Bologna was sent to Francia's care, and, so far from being jealous, he received it with enthusiasm and joy. The time of his death has been disputed, but it is asserted that state documents, which speak of him as the Master of the Mint at Bologna, fix the date of his decease on the 6th of January, 1517. Many scholars endeavored to imitate his style, the most talented of whom was Lorenzo Costa, of Fer- rara. His son Giacomo, and his cousin Giulio, were also artists, and their pictures are occasionally attributed to him. ITALIAN PAINTING FIFTEENTH CENTURY. Ill The school of Sienna, which in the fourteenth century displayed such promise and aspiration, had nevertheless dis- appointed the expectations of the age. Depending only upon sentiment and tradition, it had refused to appropriate the new vitality and thought which were inspiring the Floren- tines, and so had worn out its own fervor. Nobody appeared to revive its declining power till the time of Sodoma, whom we cannot yet notice, as he was rather the contemporary of Michael Angelo and Raphael. But the religious element so strongly pervading Siennese art, and so natural to a region familiar with the story and spirit of St. Francis of Assisi, found other interpreters and a fresh home in Umbria, whose painters were slowly rising into repute. Oderisio, of Gubbio, had, in the days of Giotto and Dante, distinguished himself by his miniatures; Guido Palmerucci had labored, about 1300, upon frescoes, now dilapidated, which exhibit the long, slen- der bodies, small heads, and ill-drawn hands of the period. Other artists of Gubbio continued their feeble though deli- cate efforts, only to give place to Ottaviano Nelli, whose best wall-pieces have perished ; and to the brilliancy of Gentile da Fabriano, an inhabitant of the adjacent town of Fabriano. This Gentile di Nicolo di Giovanni Massi, whom some consider Fra Angelico's pupil, was no saintly ascetic, but a gay, genial, romantic, and accomplished person, whose char- acter was reflected in his painting. Born about 1370, his successful career of eighty years was by no means confined to Umbria, but was passed in different cities of Italy. He was highly esteemed in Venice, where he worked in the hall of the Grand Council, and became the teacher of Jacopo Bellini, the founder of the Venetian school. His coloring 112 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. was rich and splendid, and profusely heightened by golden ornament. Much admiration has been expressed for him by the masters of Italy and Flanders. Michael Angelo is re- ported to have remarked that his hand in painting resembled his name. His frescoes have perished, though a " Madonna with St. Catharine " in the cathedral of Orvieto is still attrib- uted to him. Some of his panel-pictures are found in Ber- lin, Milan, Fabriano, and Florence ; but the Florentine Acad- emy of Fine Arts possesses his chef-d'oeuvre, an " Adoration of the Magi," which introduces his own portrait, and of which Jarves says : " The landscape of this picture is filled with every thing pleasant to gaze upon. A magnificent sweep of sunlit hills, distant, peaceful sea, flourishing cities, and signs of stirring, prosperous life, occupy the background. Far off begins the journey of the Magi, whose retinue winds among flowers, forests, and trees laden with luscious fruit, until it reaches the foreground, where the kings dismount before the Virgin Mother to offer their gifts and to worship. They have come in truly royal guise, as Christian knights, bringing with them those mediaeval appendages of rank, dwarfs, monkeys, and dogs; horses richly caparisoned, a train of animals laden with presents, and comely young men. But the eye centres on those handsome kings, resplendent in attire, whose pride of rank and condition fits them most gracefully, and whose countenances, as they adore the infant Saviour, are lighted up as by a prophetic consciousness of the incoming triumph of the new faith thus ushered upon earth through the instru- mentality of heaven." As Gentile da Fabriano had been in many ways a debtor ITALIAN PAINTING FIFTEENTH CENTURY. Ir - o to Fra Angelico, so Nicolo Alunno, of Foligno, was thrown into contact with Benozzo Gozzoli, and then became the predecessor, or possibly the master, of Perugino, who was in turn the instructor of Raphael. Thus we see how the schools of Italy, spite of their different characteristics, link together, and fuse each other's merits into common beauties. The style of Alunno is usually judged by the altar-pieces and Madonna preserved in Rome, in the Vatican and the Colonna Gallery. These are antique and reverent in treat- ment, somewhat rigid in form, and subdued rather than in- tense in expression. He painted in distemper, with deep- brown shading, and loved to embody the old conception of angels hovering about the crucifixion, catching the sacred blood-drops in their holy cups. Better altar-pieces hang in the Brera Gallery, Milan, and in the church of Santa Maria Nuova, Perugia. The announcing angel appearing to Mary, in the latter composition, " with crisp, wavy hair bound by a crimson cincture," is particularly graceful. Pietro Vanucci, or, as we call him, Perugino, born in the village of Citta della Pieva, in 1446, is, however, the true exponent of the Umbrian ideal. The name of Perugino was not given him till he had reached maturity, and been made a citizen of Perugia. His father was a respectable peasant, but, having several children to support, sent this little son, at nine years old, to be articled to a painter of Perugia, who, though not of much ability himself, had the good sense to advise all his pupils to study at Florence as soon as circum- stances would permit. To Florence, therefore, Pietro event- ually bent his steps, though so poor that he was obliged to sleep in a chest instead of a bed. There he was admitted to II4 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. the studio of Verrochio, the teacher of Leonardo da Vinci, and had every opportunity to study the masterly frescoes with which the city abounded. His friend Leonardo doubt- less fixed his attention upon perspective, and scientific rules^ of composition, while both indulged their natural inclination toward pure, harmonious color, fineness of touch, and smooth- ness of finish. Some pictures at Perugia, and a panel of the "Virgin and Child" in the Louvre, painted in tempera, are among his early labors, and already illustrate his peculiarities. The Virgin, gorgeously dressed and attended by richly-ap- pareled saints and meditative angels, sits in innocent calm- ness " on a throne partitioned off from a pleasant wilderness by parapets of stone." Every tint is bright and fair; every shadow soft and warm. Here we have an example of all his future method. Dreamy gentleness, elegant tranquillity, re- fined and often melancholy mysticism, with slender shapes, nun-like placidity of faces, pure color, and great precision and elaboration of detail, were its main features. It is very difficult to reconcile this spirituality of style in Perugino the artist, with the appearance and reported character of Peru- gino the man. His portrait in the Uffizi shows us " a plump countenance, with small, dark eyes under a fleshy brow ; a short but well-cut nose, and sensual lips; broad cheeks, a bull-neck, and bushy frizzled hair" while his biographers unite in their testimony to the moral defects of his later years. Between 1480 and 1486 Perugino was employed by Pope Sixtus in the Sistine Chapel, where he was assisted by his friend Pinturrichio. Many of his frescoes have been since effaced, but the "Moses and Zipporah," the "Baptism of ITALIAN PAINTING FIFTEENTH CENTURY. IIs; Christ," and " Delivery of the Keys to Peter," remain. After the completion of the chapel in 1486 he returned to Florence, and by 1492 had abandoned his previous practice of dis- temper, and habituated himself to the use of oils. One of his successful attempts with the new medium was the " Pieta," now in the Academy of Arts, though this does not equal the " Pieta " of the following year which we may admire in the Pitti. After the death of Lorenzo de Medici, Perugino re- moved to Perugia, where he was commissioned to prepare elaborate frescoes for the Audience Hall of the Guild of the Cambio. Here we see the " Nativity," the " Transfiguration," the "Triumph of Religion," and the "Cardinal Virtues," with classical ceiling-designs painted in by his pupils from their master's sketches. The artist was at this epoch very prosperous. He married a young wife so beautiful that he delighted to deck her with rich and picturesque garments; his pay was certain and sufficient, and his studio was thronged with scholars, among whom soon came the young Raphael, who was greatly indebted to Perugino for his early style. In fact, all who will observe Raphael's picture of the " Marriage of the Virgin," at Milan, cannot but remark that it is almost a reproduction of Perugino's painting on the same subject, now in the Museum of Caen, France. The arrangement is identical the high-priest in the centre; the group of Joseph and his friends, and Mary and her attendants, only changed in their relative position from left to right; the rejected suitor breaking his wand across his knee, and the octagonal temple in the background. It is true that Raphael's faces are much sweeter and more expressive than Perugino's, and his high-priest more venerable and dignified ; but the com- H6 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. position is so little modified that superficial gazers might even consider it a copy. Space will not allow us to catalogue Perugino's numerous works. They will be found especially at Perugia and Flor- ence, and in every important gallery. As one of the most celebrated, we may mention the " Resurrection " of the Vati- can, where Christ, with his banner and an almond-shaped aureole, is soaring from a sarcophagus placed conspicuously in the midst of a landscape. Three sleeping guards sit near the tomb, while one awakened soldier flies terrified away. Tradition describes the latter as the portrait of Perugino, and gives to the slumbering watchman on the right the likeness of Raphael ; but the spectator can only imagine such resem- blances. Yet this picture cannot equal the triptych of the " Madonna adoring the Child, with the Archangel Michael on one side, and the Archangel Raphael leading Tobit," on the other, painted for the Certosa of Pavia, but now transferred to the London Gallery. Its coloring is surpassingly brill- iant and tender, and its sentiment simple, tranquil, and holy. A duplicate of the central part hangs in the Pitti Palace, Florence. The Florence Academy retains another excellent altar- piece of the " Assumption of the Virgin," from the con- vent of Vallambrosa. The Belvedere, Vienna, possesses, among other specimens, a " Madonna and Saints," one of his first efforts in oil-painting; while the Pinakothek, Munich, best represents him in the " Appearance of the Virgin to St. Bernard." For his native town, Citta della Pieva, he exe- cuted a fresco of the " Adoration of the Magi," which has been chromo-lithographed by the Arundel Society, as has ADORATION OF THE VIRGIN (Perugino). p. ii 6. ITALIAN PAINTING FIFTEENTH CENTURY. II? also a " Crucifixion " from Santa Maria Maddalena de Pazzi, of much earlier date. In 1507 he was invited to Rome by Julius II. to fresco the Stanza dell' Incendio del Borgo of the Vatican. But, upon acquaintance with Raphael, the unceremonious pope coolly ordered Perugino's work to be obliterated and renewed by his more gifted scholar. Raphael endeavored to soothe his mortification by leaving the ceiling medallions, which por- tray the Eternal Father in various attitudes and glories ; but Perugino's star was on the wane. The advance of age in- creased his avarice and decreased his power. He constantly repeated himself, produced picture after picture of inferior quality, or sold the hasty copies of his scholars as his own. Not only do historians describe him as mean and mercenary, but Vasari even accuses him of disbelief in the immortality of the soul. Yet he undertook only sacred subjects; the one exception being the allegorical " Combat between Love and Chastity," in the Louvre. Let us hope for the interests of psychology that the contradictions of his nature may be harmonized through further researches. Many sensational stories have been told of his refusal of the last sacraments, and his burial in unconsecrated ground ; but facts appear to show that he perished of the plague in 1524, and was so hastily interred that no one knows of his resting-place. His early pupil or assistant, Bernardino Pinturrichio, of Perugia (1454-1513), had died some years before. He seems to have been a partner of Perugino, accompanying the latter to Rome, aiding him in his labors in the Sistine Chapel, and receiving a third of the profits. Indeed, Pinturrichio's most u8 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. popular frescoes must all be sought at Rome, as he there came under the patronage of the Borgia family and other nobles, and was employed in many churches. The most ex- tensive of these wall and ceiling frescoes exist in the different chapels of Santa Maria del Popolo ; others, much modernized and restored, and of rather dubious authenticity, are in Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, and the Ara Coeli. He worked chiefly in tempera, with many Umbrian characteristics, but with occasional coarseness of feeling and execution. Yet he abounds in gilded ornament and minute detail, though with- out much soul or tenderness. His figures are slight, but not graceful, with crisp, luxuriant hair ; his draperies heavy, with rich bordering; and his colors sometimes dark and some- times glaring. Some good altar-pieces still remain, but the easel-pieces ascribed to him in various galleries are commonly of inferior merit. One of the most interesting is a small panel at Dresden, called the portrait of Raphael as a boy; but though the picture may be genuine, the likeness is prob- ably a myth. Yet we find that Raphael was on friendly terms with Pinturrichio, and perhaps assisted him in the frescoes of the Piccolomini Library of the Duomo of Sienna, portraying scenes from the life of one of the Piccolomini who became Pope Pius II., finished in 1507, and compara- tively well preserved. These frescoes were undertaken after Pinturrichio had changed his abode from Perugia to Sienna, in which city he is said to have died of hunger from the neglect of his heartless wife Grania during his last illness. It is of course superfluous to observe that among all the successors of Pinturrichio, or followers formed by Perugino, Raphael holds the first rank. Yet while we defer him to ITALIAN PAINTING FIFTEENTH CENTURY. Iig future consideration, it will not be inappropriate to briefly notice his father, Giovanni Sanzio or Santi, of Urbino, an artist of very respectable abilities, though he modestly be- ' lieved himself unqualified to educate his son. He was evi- dently a man of earnestness, refinement, and culture, and has left us a poem, full of generous appreciation, upon the art of his times. His paintings are quiet, careful, pure, and elevated in sentiment, but often stiff in outline, and weak or leaden in color. Lubke thinks the frescoes in the Dominican church at Cagli his best and most attractive efforts. There is also an " Annunciation " in the Brera, Milan, and an " Enthroned Madonna " at Berlin. Travelers through Urbino will be likely to visit the house which saw the infancy of Raphael, and will there find relics of Giovanni, especially a " Madonna with a Sleeping Child," painted on the wall. No records of Raphael's fellow-pupils need cumber our pages, with the exception of an allusion to Giovanni di Pietro, mentioned as "Lo Spagna," or "the Spaniard," from the country of his birth, whose elaborate altar-piece of the " Ador- ation of the Magi," mystically treated, in the Museum of Berlin, and paintings at Spoleto, where he married and re- sided, indicate some original genius and much imitation of his famous colleague. From this digression into Umbria we return to Florence, and the favorites of the Medici. The agitating period of Savonarola's preaching was approaching, and no better de- scription can be given of the times than that furnished by George Eliot in the novel of " Romola." The readers of that story may possibly recollect the character of the misan- thropic Piero di Cosimo (1441-1521), the scholar of Cosimo 9 I20 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. Roselli, and the master of Andrea del Sarto. He was still more noted for his eccentricities than for his pictures, and would shut himself up in his room undisturbed for days, eating only hard eggs which he boiled by fifties in his glue- pot. His tints were raw and harsh, even when he aimed at clearness and polish; but his classical paintings, of which there are fair specimens in "The Rescue of Andromeda," in the Uffizi, and the " Death of Procris," in the London Gal- lery, are superior to his sacred pieces at Florence, and to his " Coronation of the Virgin " in the Louvre. He liked to introduce grotesque animals and ornaments, and was invalu- able in preparing triumphal cars, and other fantastic novel- ties, for carnival festivals and processions, but is utterly eclipsed as an artist by Roselli's more renowned apprentice, Baccio della Porta. " Baccio " being the Tuscan diminutive for Bartolomeo, and " della Porta " having been added from the circumstance of his dwelling while a student near one of the gates of Florence, we shall probably recognize this painter by his monastic title of Fra Bartolomeo, or, as he is simply styled by the Italians, " II Frate." He was born about 1469, in the small town of Savignano, not far from Florence. We have no detailed narrative of his youthful life, except that he was soon brought under Roselli's tuition, where he formed a close friendship with his associate student Mariotto Albertinelli, and showed such natural and artistic proclivities toward " sweetness and light," that the beauty of his Madonna-faces, and the sunny fervor of his coloring, won the approbation even of the critical Florentines. Yet nothing of these years is now discoverable ; his first extant work being a likeness of ITALIAN PAINTING FIFTEENTH CENTURY, I2I Savonarola, which he long afterward reproduced in the panel portrait kept in the Florence Academy. This eloquent man. so impressed Bartolomeo that he not only became his dis- ciple, but testified to his sincerity by burning all his nude studies and worldly designs in the carnival fires which the Piagnoni (or adherents of the monk) were wont to kindle to consume the earthly vanities that hindered the progress of his followers toward holiness. We cannot imagine that any of Bartolomeo's sketches could have been indecent, and must therefore regret such precipitate enthusiasm ; but his appre- ciation of the ideal being more intelligent than conventual strictness approved, he took pains to gain a knowledge of anatomy, and sometimes outlined his Madonnas nude before covering them with drapery, in order to obtain proper form and folds. He also invented what we call lay-figures, to serve the same purpose, so jointed that he could arrange them in various positions. Before the persecution of the Dominicans had reached a climax, Bartolomeo was commis- sioned to fresco a " Last Judgment," now exceedingly dam- aged, in the cemetery of Santa Maria Nuova. Here his refined feeling improved upon past conceptions. His Christ is majestic, yet tender, and encircled by a glory of very love- ly cherub-heads. His apostles do not attitudinize, but are calmly seated in perspective rows. The figures and gestures are noble and gentle, and it is suggestive of the sympathies of the artist that the part which he left till the last, and finally abandoned incomplete, so that it had to be finished by Albertinelli, was the representation of the condemned. Not hat such abandonment was premeditated, but the arrest and death of Savonarola, which just then occurred, so powerfully 122 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. affected his mind that he vowed to consecrate himself to a religious life, and, leaving every thing behind, was received, in July, 1500, by the Dominicans of Prato, and in a few months entered the same monastery of San Marco at Florence which had been the home of Fra Angelico and Savonarola. Yet, with insight rare among the priesthood, his superiors per- ceived that the monotony of the cloister, however congenial to his temperament, was not suited to his talents ; and after four or six years' quiet he was persuaded to resume his brush, painting by the direction of the prior, and for the profit of the order. Two little gems, of the " Nativity " and " Circum- cision," at present in the Uffizi, are supposed to be the first fruits of this renewed activity. These were quickly followed by the much-restored " Vision of St. Bernard " in the Acad- emy. His old friend Albertinelli was engaged to help him, and thenceforth the life of the gentle friar was not only tranquil but truly happy. We see his affection for his con- vent in the frescoes with which he occasionally adorned its walls, particularly a touching " Providenza " in the refectory, where the monks are patiently seated at an empty table, till two angels hasten forward to reward their faith and bring them food. But these examples are insignificant compared with the. greater works which were ordered far and wide, and which largely extended his fame. A visit to Venice, in 1508, influenced his coloring; and another visit to Rome, in 1514, perfected his style, and led him to an ampler practice of the new rules of composition. Many pictures were executed between these two periods, the most important of which are a " Marriage of St. Catharine," now hanging in the Louvrt, and the unfinished " Conception " of the Uffizi. But it is in ITALIAN PAINTING FIFTEENTH CENTURY. I2 , his later days, when his mind had broadened and strength- ened, and his touch grown firm, that we find such master- pieces as the " Pieta " of the Pitti the most purely beautiful Pieta ever painted; the "Presentation in the Temple," at Vienna; the "Madonna della Misericordia," or "Virgin of Mercy," at Lucca, where the mother of Christ, with uplifted, beseeching face, intercedes with her Son for the suppliant crowd who are sheltered by her robes ; and the grand " Res- urrection of the Saviour," and seated " St. Mark," which also hang in the Pitti Gallery. From these and many other specimens we soon learn to identify Fra Bartolomeo's pict- ures. Holy without absolute unearthliness, and pure without insipidity, their charm is enhanced by a brilliancy and soft- ness of color which suggest both the splendor of Venice and the spirituality of Umbria. A glowing but not gaudy red is their prevailing tone, while arches, thrones, and canopies, contribute to the effectiveness of his backgrounds. Biographers always dwell upon the intimacy between Fra Bartolomeo and Raphael, begun soon after the former had entered the monastery. It was, of course, productive of much good to both. To Bartolomeo it gave not only a lively im- pulse, but much active knowledge and energy ; while it so affected Raphael's manner that one of his early pieces, the " Madonna del Baldacchino " in the Pitti, often engraved, is hardly to be distinguished from the works of Bartolomeo. The friendship was sadly terminated by the death of the ar- tist monk at Florence, of a malignant fever, October 8, 1517. Another, less eminent friend of Bartolomeo, Mariotto Albertinelli, has been alluded to. He was of a gayer dis- position, and versatile though not profound genius. Born I24 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. at Florence in 1474, he too was instructed by Cosimo Roselli, but preferred the party of the Medici to the leadings of Savonarola. Yet he was deeply attached to Fra Bartolomeo, and gladly assisted him even after he had become " II Frate ; " till at last he grew disgusted with art, declared his preference for a roving life, and went to keep a tavern ! After a while, however, he returned penitently to painting, and died at the age of forty-one. He has left some able pictures, particularly the " Visitation," or " Salutation," in the Uffizi, and an " Annunciation " and a " Trinity " in the Florence Academy. The easel-pieces of his contemporary, Raffaellino del Garbo (1476-1524), are sometimes valued in collections, es- pecially at Berlin ; though the generality of observers will be most interested by his quaint " Resurrection " in the Academy at Florence. His coloring is clear, but hard ; and his style not so pleasing as that of another Florentine, Lo- renzo di Credi (i459~ I 537), the fellow-pupil and friend of Leonardo da Vinci. Lorenzo was a good artist, and a still better man ; but his sphere was narrow, and his powers limited. He bestowed much labor on his work, finishing with such extreme delicacy that his pictures are sometimes mistaken for Leonardo's ; though the invariable expression of the countenances of his Virgins might always correct such an error. He never cared to fresco, but attempted only altar and easel paintings, upon sacred subjects, having cast, like Fra Bartolomeo, his profane drawings into Savonarola's bonfire. His favorite theme was the " Nativity," or the " Virgin adoring the Child ; " and very charming instances of its treatment exist in the Uffizi VISITATION (Albertinelli). p. 124. ITALIAN PAINTING FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 125 and Academy at Florence, while a fine " Holy Family " is in the Borghese Palace, Rome, and a "Madonna with Saints " at the Louvre. Indeed, Di Credi's style is so close an imitation of Leonardo's that he well serves to introduce us to the golden epoch of Da Vinci and Michael Angelo, Raphael and Correggio. 12 6 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. CHAPTER VII. LEONARDO DA VINCI AND MICHAEL ANGELO. ITALIAN history of the sixteenth century is best studied in biographies. Nowhere are the political, social, and reli- gious aspects of the time more faithfully mirrored than in the lives of Leonardo da Vinci and Michael Angelo. Leonardo especially represents its highest type of intellect, refinement, and cultivation. If any person in our day be an eminent artist, scientist, or poet, we are apt to lionize him as a re- markable genius ; but what are we to think of one who was so admirable a mathematician, mechanic, engineer, chemist, author, architect, musician, and sculptor, that painting was regarded as one of his minor accomplishments ? Seldom, if ever, has the world beheld s\ich a combination of gifts; and seldom, if ever, has it beheld them so fitly embodied as in the handsome, high-bred, reflective, and dignified man whose noble portrait of himself is left us in the gallery of the Uffizi. The life of Leonardo da Vinci has been often written, and its leading facts are easily impressed upon the memory. Its events were few, its industry versatile, its experiments pro- digious, yet its results but meagre. What he was seems only a hint of what he might have been ; but posterity has appreciated his possibilities, and we judge him rather by DA VINCI AND MICHAEL ANGELO. 12 ~ what he could have done than by what he actually did. A ruined and almost obliterated fresco ; three or four female heads, smiling mysteriously out of their dreamy shadow; a very few Madonnas and Holy Families ; the enthusiastic " St. John " of the Louvre ; the unfinished " Adoration of the Magi," and his own portrait at Florence are the only paintings of whose authenticity we are absolutely certain : yet upon this slight foundation is built a fame which has never been sur- passed and farely equaled, and whose secret must be sought in the quality and not in the quantity of his works, and in the capacities and not the achievements' of his intellect. Born in 1452, as the natural son of a notary, Piero da Vinci, in the valley of the Arno, the prospects of Leonardo could not, in his infancy, have been thought very brilliant. But Piero's wife was kind, and had no children of her own, and the boy was brought up in his father's house, so pre- cocious in beauty and learning, so active a rider, dancer, and fencer, so sanguine and clever in all kinds of skillful experi- ments, and so passionately fond of the arts of design, that all fear as to his future fortunes was soon at rest. It seemed a pity, indeed, that the great and discriminating Cosmo de Medici should have died when this young genius was but twelve years old> yet talents like his were beyond the need of patronage, and Florence could well afford to spare one artist to Milan and Northern Italy. No princely favor was lavished on his youth ; but his father took him, like any other art-apprentice, to the studio of Andrea Cione or Andrea Ver- rochio, by whom Perugino and Lorenzo di Credi were also educated. Verrochio's lessons extended to sculpture and perspective, as well as to painting ; and, though there is an I2 8 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. anecdote of Leonardo's having excelled his master in an adoring angel kneeling beside the Saviour in a " Baptism of Christ," yet there is no doubt of Verrochio's ability as an in- structor in technical methods of art, however dry and soulless he may have been in execution. At all events, Leonardo re- mained with him till the age of twenty-five, amusing himself at intervals with mathematics, natural philosophy, mechanical contrivances and inventions, botany, astronomy, anatomy ; modeling heads in terra-cotta and wax ; studying his draper- ies from clay figures covered with wet linen ; perfecting him- self in exactness yet softness of drawing, shading, and relief ; till his style became so entirely formed that future years needed only to develop, but never to alter it. The large but uncompleted " Adoration of the Kings," in brown color, in the Uffizi Gallery, is supposed to have been executed soon after his quitting Verrochio. But the most famous work of his early Florentine days was the painting of the shield known as the " Rotello del Fico " (from rolello, a buckler, and fico, a fig-tree). This shield had been cut by a peasant from the trunk of a fig-tree on his farm, and brought by him to Piero da Vinci, with the request that something might be painted on it. Piero handed it to his son, with a repetition of the request. Leonardo conceived the idea of imitating the traditional shield of Perseus, which was supposed to have been ornamented with a Medusa-head that petrified all his enemies. In order to carry out this scheme, he collected the most frightful reptiles, bugs, serpents, bats, scorpions, hedge- hogs, and all noxious animals that swamps or dens could fur- nish, which, as Vasari says, " filled the room with a mortal fetor ; " and combined all their hideousness into one horrible DA VINCI AND MICHAEL ANGELO. monster, which he painted so vividly and appallingly that his father fled from its sight in terror. Leonardo was quite satis- fied with the effect produced ; and Piero considered his per- formance so extraordinary that he presented the countryman with another shield, nicely adorned with a heart and arrow, while his son's passed eventually into the possession of the Duke of Milan, but has since perished. This story will recall the " Medusa " still to be seen in the Uffizi, which is another very remarkable production, either from Leonardo's own hand, or copied from a lost original. It is simply the head of the Fury, severed from her body, and most ghastly in death, with the hair turning into serpents, yet with a strange, weird fascination of beauty amid all its horror. Geometry, architecture, and engineering, appear, however, to have more fully occupied Leonardo's mind, during the first thirty years of his life, than either sculpture or painting. He proposed many daring projects to his fellow-citizens, such as lifting the baptistery bodily, by means of levers, to a higher level, or cutting a canal from Florence to Pisa ; and invented all sorts of machines, from cannon and compasses to tread-mills, camp-stools, and wheelbarrows. But, not find- ing this likely to bring him much honor or profit in Florence, he wrote a singular and characteristic letter to the Duke of Milan, Lodovico Sforza, then called " II Moro," in which he enumerated all he could do to commend himself to such a patron. The letter still exists, and is often quoted. He tells the duke of the many destructive engines he can contrive for attacking his enemies, and, after describing these as the matters of importance, adds, as trifling items : " In time of peace I believe I can equal any one in architecture, in con- I3 o SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. structing buildings, and in carrying water from one place to another. I can execute sculpture, whether in bronze, marble, or terra-cotta ; also in painting I can do as much as another, be he who he may." II Moro was evidently pleased with this prospectus, and gave him an appointment with a fixed salary, at a date as yet unsettled, but supposed to be 1482 or 1483. Vasari declares that the duke valued him chiefly as a musician and an im- provisatore, and that Leonardo took with him a charming lute which he had invented, made of silver and shaped like a horse's head. So accomplished and attractive a man natu- rally became a favorite at the court, where he was commis- sioned to model a large equestrian statue in memory of Francesco Sforza, Lodovico's father. To this he devoted immense pains, but worked so slowly that it was sixteen years before the horse was finally completed in clay. He began by pen-and-ink drawings, made anatomical sketches, engravings, and designs, which have been more enduring than the monu- ment itself. It was never cast in bronze, and the colossal clay model was either broken by the French in 1499, or after- ward destroyed in some unknown way, while the sketches and etchings are still preserved, and have been photographed and published. All traces of any casts or statuary by Leo- nardo have long since disappeared, and the proof of his abilities in that direction is supplied solely by his fragmentary drawings, and by history and tradition. While the statue was in tardy progress, Leonardo made some few but valuable essays in painting. He had so studied the beauties of expression, particularly in female faces, that none could excel him in the loveliness and seductiveness of DA VINCI AND MICHAEL ANGELO. j-, his portraits. The strange, enchanting smile by which we have learned to know him, was already one of the peculi- arities of his style, and the duke soon called on him to im- mortalize the charms of his many mistresses. The Ambrosian Library at Milan contains two likenesses commonly thought to be those of II Moro himself and the fair Beatrice d'Este, or else of Galeazzo Sforza and Isabella of Aragon; while " La Belle Ferronniere," in the Louvre, is, if rightly named, another lady; beloved by Francis I., and termed Ferronniere because she was the wife of an iron-merchant (ferronnier). The same sweet calmness and dreamy tenderness are more appropriately visible in the Virgins and children- of some " Holy Families," also painted at Milan. Depth of shadow and melting light, roundness of outline, and most minute 4 and enamel-like finish, are the invariable qualities of all these fine pictures, imitated over and over again by numerous pupils, whose labors are confused with those of their master. By the patronage of the duke an art academy was estab- lished at Milan, of which Leonardo was head. For this academy he wrote the celebrated treatise entitled "Tratta- to della Pittura," which has been translated into several lan- guages, and is sold by booksellers to-day. It has 450 chapters, and many excellent and suggestive maxims. He remarks, for example : " A painter should never imitate another, or he will be called the nephew, and not the son, of Nature." Or, again : " A painter should be universal. He must study all he sees ; but he should only take that which is best and most perfect for his work." Or, as a practical hint to young artists: "Contrive that your figures receive a broad light from above, particularly in portraits ; because we see people I 3 2 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. in the street receive all the light from above. It is curious to observe that there is not a face ever so familiar but would be recognized with difficulty were it lighted from beneath." Multiform manuscripts, sketches, and literary works, were prepared for the same academy. All are written in his pe- culiar manner, from left to right. An enormous folio, called the " Codice Atlantico," is kept in the Milan Library, from which copious extracts were made in an admirable work prepared for the Italian Government on the inauguration of the Da Vinci monument. This codex was taken from Milan on the invasion of Italy by Napoleon, who was so delighted with its possession that he carried it to his hotel himself, exclaiming with enthusiasm, " This is mine ! " It was finally restored to its proper place, but twelve manuscript volumes are yet retained by the French; and many drawings and studies of Leonardo, principally in red and black chalk, are in the various collections of Europe. The Royal Library at Windsor Castle contains manuscripts, drawings, and a number of his scores for music. But the crown and glory of Leonardo's Milan labors was the famous " Last Supper," painted, by command of the duke, on the wall of the refectory of Santa Maria della Grazia. This is his true memorial, the point at which his genius cul- minated. Every one has heard of its past history, and its present ruin. For its premature decay both Lodovico and Leonardo are responsible Lodovico for insisting upon its execution in so damp and wretched a building, and Leonardo for experimenting in oil mediums and untried preparations, instead of employing the good old method of ordinary fresco. It represents the scene of the Eucharist, not in its usual DA VINCI AND MICHAEL ANGELO. J33 phase of calm repose, but at the dramatic moment when Christ announces his approaching betrayal, and each disciple starts fonvard to express his grief and horror, and repel any implied accusation. Judas uplifts both hands; St. Peter beckons to John to ask the Lord of whom he spake ; Philip lays his hand on his heart ; Bartholomew, at the end of the table, rises in agitation from his seat. Notice here especially the expression of the hands, as well as of the faces and figures ; and then pass on to consider the marvelous head of Christ, which has passed almost into a type of divinity, and which is certainly the only instance in which any painter has been able to combine, in the features of the Redeemer, dignity, solemnity, and majesty, with sweetness, resignation, and gentleness. The sketch for this head, in black and white chalk, is still at Milan. Ten similar studies of the apostles were purchased by the King of Holland. An original draw- ing of the whole composition is at Paris. There was long a tradition that the prior of the convent had served as a model for the head of Judas, but such a story is only mythical. The fate of this renowned fresco is forcibly told in a late article in the Edinburgh Review : " The misery and destruction of Italy fell heavily on the great ' Cena,' as upon every good and beautiful thing. Fifty years after its completion its glory had already departed. A painter called it a mere blotch of color, a cardinal called it a mere relic. Then came the monks, and pierced the feet of the Saviour afresh, and broke the legs of the disciples. Quack doctors followed, who professed to know a healing secret, and who anointed and painted over the wounds with gaudy colors, till, in the opinion of the Milanese people, it I34 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. was far more beautiful than when it issued from the master's hand. Half a century later, in 1770, the small remains of original epidermis were carefully scarified, and a new restorer is believed to have given the coup-de-grdce. From time to time, also, the waters rose and soaked the walls to which so precious a surface had been imperfectly attached. Finally the horses of Napoleon's cavalry were stabled in its august presence, innocent at all events of the sanctuary they defiled. And when wars had ceased and the map of Europe had been rearranged, the new masters of Lombardy paraded their possession of the majestic ruin by nailing the wretched em- blazonry of their imperial house directly above the head of the Saviour. To this day, perhaps of necessity, a species of tinkering under the plea of preservation is always going on, and every fresh visit to it shows fresh dilapidation." In- numerable copies have, however, been made, the best of which, by Marco d'Oggione, a pupil of Leonardo, is now in England. A splendid engraving, by Raphael Morghen, pre- serves still more perfectly the expressions of the original. It has also been twice copied in mosaic. After the capture of Milan by the French, in 1499, Leo- nardo returned to Florence, where he received a commission for an altar-piece in the church of the Serviti. This was to be a " Holy Family with St. Anne," but it was never finished, and all that is left of it is the cartoon in the London Academy. A more celebrated cartoon of a battle-scene, intended to adorn the council-hall of the Palazzo Vecchio, has entirely vanished. Leonardo and Michael Angelo prepared designs for this apartment, and each exerted himself to produce a masterpiece. Leonardo's was exhibited two years before his MONA LISA (Leonardo da Vinci). P-34- DA VINCI AND MICHAEL ANGELO. ,-- competitor's ; but he experimented with such poor materials that it fell to pieces as he painted it, and the cartoon was finally destroyed and lost. Rubens discovered a small frag- ment of it, from which he made a drawing, at present in the Louvre. An engraving has been taken from this drawing, ^called the "Battle of the Standard." Michael Angelo and Leonardo were not congenial companions. Leonardo had been too long supreme in Milan to brook a rival in Florence, and, when he quarreled with Buonarotti, contemptuously remarked to him, " I was famous long before you were born." He found Michael Angelo's style of painting prom- inent muscles and harsh outlines so especially disagreeable that he declared his figures to look more like " a sack of wal- nuts " than human forms. Very little artistic work was done by Leonardo during his sojourn in Florence, except the superb portrait of Mona Lisa, the wife of his friend Gio- condo, hence called " La Joconde." Upon this he labored for four years, touching and retouching it, but never satisfied with the result. It was afterward purchased by Francis I. for about nine thousand dollars, and now hangs in the Louvre. All its beauties, specially its sweet, vague smile, have been frequently described ; but it is sadly injured, and I doubt if anybody looks upon it with as much real pleasure as upon his own fine portrait of himself among the artists of the Ufnzi. A journey to Rome, in 1513, did not secure him the honors he expected. Michael Angelo and Raphael were then diligently painting for Pope Leo X., and no place seemed ready for Leonardo. The .pope did indeed give him a com- mission, but made such uncomplimentary remarks in regard 10 136 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. to his slowness and procrastination that he soon withdrew to Milan. The '* Madonna " now shown at San Onofrio, Rome, as a specimen of Leonardo's labors, is thought to have been executed during an earlier visit to that city. Francis I. of France, whose conquests in Italy had in- creased his passion for art, became at last his appreciative patron. Not only did Francis profoundly admire his talents, but he was personally very fond of him, and delighted with the ingenious toys which Leonardo, still true to the tastes of his youth, loved to provide for his entertainment. Mention is particularly made of his constructing an automaton lion, which walked into the king's presence, opening its breast, and disclosing bouquets of lilies. No record is left of any pictures undertaken in these declining years spent at the court of the French monarch. An illness of some months closed this illustrious career. Vasari tells us that in his last sickness Leonardo sought to acquaint himself with " the good and holy path of the Catholic religion," having previously been more of a philosopher than of a Christian. His life had always been calm, temperate, and entirely moral never en- thusiastic, never self-sacrificing, never spiritual. His will, written April 18, 1518, in a strain of mingled devotion and courtliness, recommends his soul " to the Lord Jesus, to "the glorious Virgin Mary, to Monsignor my Lord the Archangel Michael, and all the blessed angels, saints, and saintesses of paradise." He died at the chateau of Cloux at Amboise, May 2, 1519, and was long believed to have expired in the arms of Francis I. ; but an entry in the king's journal shows that Francis, with his court, was that day at St.-Germain-en- Laye, and the tradition is thus proved to be unfounded, DA 'VINCI AND MICHAEL ANGELO, . though it has been often repeated, and Angelica Kaufmann has embodied it in a large picture. Much dispute and much uncertainty have prevailed in regard to the authenticity of the paintings attributed to Leo- nardo. Such questions cannot yet be regarded as entirely settled; but it is hoped that the researches of Crowe and Cavalcaselle will throw more satisfactory light upon the sub- ject. Meanwhile it is certain that many popularly ascribed to him are really by his pupils, or imitations taken in some cases from Leonardo's rough sketches. Such as are most clearly by himself have been already noticed. Catalogues of galleries cannot be trusted, as the matter requires very criti- cal discrimination. Four of the five pictures at the Louvre are considered authentic; but the pretty "Vierge aux Ro- chers " is probably only a copy of one of Leonardo's designs. Scarcely any thing, except the " Last Supper " and the two portraits in the Ambrosian Library, is left at Milan. A Ma- donna, called the " Litta Madonna," has been secured from Lombardy for the Hermitage at St. Petersburg. Florence has his portrait, the " Medusa-Head," and the half-finished "Adoration" of the Uffizi; but the male portrait, and the " Nun," of the Pitti, are merely of his school. Liibke doubts the genuineness of the "Vanity and Modesty," in the Sciarra Palace, Rome, and of the celebrated "Vierge au Bas-relief." The German galleries possess almost nothing of value. The half-length " Christ disputing with the Doctors," in the Na- tional Gallery, London, is from the brush of Bernardino Luini. Viardot observes that, if it represents an incident during the childhood of Christ, the painter has made him too ofd, as it is evidently a figure of twenty years of age. " If jjg SCHOOLS ANQ MASTERS OF PAINTING. he wished to depict him during his work, and before the Pharisees, he has made him too young and also too richly dressed ; a silk garment covered with jewels is scarcely suit- able to the humble life of the preacher who chose fishermen for his disciples." That such cases of " mistaken identity " should so fre- quently have occurred, convinces us that the scholars of Leonardo must have been artists of unusual excellence. Their master was most thorough and accurate in his own work, and imparted the same merits to his pupils. They were taught a careful and laborious finish, a tender and \\\- minous' c/u'aro-oscurv, a delicate polish of surface, and a per- fect avoidance of sharply-outlined lights and shadows. These qualities, joined with their perpetual imitation of Leonardo's gentle, languid smile, so invariably characterize them that travelers soon learn to classify at sight the paintings of "Leonardo's school." Bernardino Luini was so talented and promising a pupil, that beside any one else but Leonardo he would be termed a master. He was born on Lake Maggiore ; and the town of Lugano still displays with pride, in the church of the Fran- ciscans, some small pieces by his hand, and a large and ad- mirable fresco of the " Crucifixion," crowded with figures, and very interesting in detail. Many of his frescoes have been removed to the Brera Gallery, Milan, not escaping in- jury in the process. Their Madonnas and angels are ex- ceedingly graceful. His frescoes from the history of the Virgin, in the church at Saronno, executed about 1530, are still more pleasing. All must be charmed with the specimen, now chromo-lithographed, of the " Finding of Jesus," or the DA VINCI AND MICHAEL ANGELO. *sy " Preaching of the Saviour in the Temple." His easel-pieces are also noble, richly-colored, and expressive. Kugler attrib- utes to him the Sciarra " Vanity and Modesty," and also the beautiful " Herodias with the Head of St. John the Baptist," in the tribune of the Uffizi. He appears to great advantage at Milan, not only in the Brera, but in the Ambrosian Li- brary, where we find his curious fresco of the " Crowning with Thorns." Christ is seated in the centre: two rows of Mi- lanese citizens, each reverently holding his cap in his hand, kneel on either side. The scene takes place under an arcade whose pillars are wreathed with gilt thorns. Francesco Melzi is more distinguished as the friend than as the scholar of Leonardo. He has given an account of Da Vinci's death, and inherited many of his studies and manu- scripts. His principal painting is the " Vertumnus and Po- mona," at Berlin. Andrea Salaino, whose style is soft and graceful, with reddish flesh tints ; Marco d'Oggione, the successful copyist of the " Cena," and Cesare di Sesto, who endeavored to unite the manner of Raphael with that of Da Vinci, are the only remaining members of the school whom it is necessary to mention ; with the exception of Andrea Solario, another Milanese, surnamed "Del Gobbo," and Gaudenzio Ferrari (1484-1549), Leonardo's followers, but not his immediate disciples. Gaudenzio is noted for his peculiarly beautiful bands of angels in the dome of the church at Saronno. Other paintings of the " Crucifixion " and " Last Supper " are in Piedmont and at Milan. A " Martyrdom of St. Catharine," in the Brera, and a group lamenting over the dead Christ, in the Royal Gallery of Turin, are among his best easel-pieces. I 40 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. The Titanic genius of Michael Angelo Buonarotti found a fitter expression in sculpture than in painting; but the mighty measure of his mind displays itself in the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel as powerfully as in his seated " Moses " or colossal "David." Utterly unlike Leonardo, and yet still more original, both his character and his works range them- selves upon a level too high for ordinary comprehension. In comparing the influential masters of this epoch it has been justly said : " Leonardo and Raphael were men of the world ; supple, courtier-like, swimming with the stream ; Michael Angelo was stern, upright, and always in conflict with it. Leonardo was the greater genius ; Michael Angelo the nobler spirit; Raphael the happier man." The family of Michael Angelo was of noble, and, accord- ing to his own belief, even of princely descent. Their prestige had, however, faded, and their fortunes dwindled by the middle of the fifteenth century. But the father of the artist, though poor, had an honorable position as governor of two little cities in the valley of the Singarna ; and there, on the 6th of March, 1475, Michael Angelo was born. Grimm in- forms us that his name was properly Michael Agnolo, instead of Angelo, but custom has fixed the orthography. In the year 1476 his father, Lodovico Buonarotti, returned to Flor- ence, but left his infant son at the town of Settignano, with the wife of a stone-mason, till he imbibed a love for the marble with his nurse's milk. This did not suit the plans of the father, who wished him to become a scholar ; but the spirit of determined opposition was as strong in the boy as in the man, and at the age of fourteen he gained his point, and was permitted to enter the Florentine studio of Ghirlandajo, DA VINCI AND MICHAEL ANGELO. I4I to whom he was apprenticed for three years. There he exe- cuted his first painting, an enlarged copy in colors of a "Temptation of St. Anthony," etched by a quaint German artist, Martin Schongauer. This was a favorite subject in the Netherlands, but had the charm of novelty to the young Ital- ian, who worked with enthusiasm on the tormented saint and his fishy demons. Ghirlandajo praised it, but was not pleased with the growing talents of his pupil, who, he feared, might prove superior to the master ; and before the stipulated three years were over their contract was broken, and Michael An- gelo left free to enter for himself upon his life of art. His opening prospects were sunshiny and splendid. The Medici were supreme in Florence, and Lorenzo the Magnifi- cent had adorned the gardens of San Marco with statuary, cartoons, and pictures. To this delightful spot Michael Angelo obtained admission through his friend Francesco Granacci, and soon attracted the attention of Lorenzo. The story runs that while the youthful sculptor was modeling the mask of a faun, Lorenzo passed by, and jestingly told him so old a faun ought to have lost some of his teeth ; and that Michael Angelo listened, and struck one out so skillfully, leaving the mouth with such a natural gap, that Lorenzo became much interested in his talents, inquired into his history, gave his father a government office, and took the young man into his own palace, where he made him permanently at home, and treated him with great honor and affection. An incredulous critic declares that in this piece of sculpture, which is still preserved in the- gallery of the Uffizi, under the name of " Head of an Old Satyr," there is no place visible where any tooth could have been knocked out, and that the tale is all a 142 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. pleasant fable. But, whatever may be the truth of this, life in the Medici Palace must have been an agreeable reality : though even there Michael Angelo seems to have sometimes shown himself sarcastic and passionate; and so quarreled with one of his companions, Torregiano, that the latter struck him in the face with his mallet, and broke his nose. His at- tention as a student was principally called to the works of Donatello and Masaccio, and his preference for sculpture was plainly evident. The death of Lorenzo ended these peaceful labors ; for, though his successor, Piero de Medici, was kind, yet he had not the ability or disposition to be so liberal a patron as his father. Political troubles which followed soon broke up all Florentine interest ; and upon the overthrow of the Medici Michael Angelo temporarily escaped from the city, and fled to Bologna, where he remained a year, pre- vented by the jealousy of the Bolognese artists from under- taking any important work. When he returned to Florence Savonarola was at the zenith of his popularity, and deeply impressed him by his zeal and patriotism. Not that, like his fellow-artists, Bartolomeo and Lorenzo di Credi, he was prepared to burn his designs and drawings, for no earthly power could have subdued Michael Angelo 's affection for the nude ; but he became an adherent of the monk, and long remembered his preaching. Mean- while he modeled a Cupid so perfectly that it was bought by a Roman cardinal as a veritable antique. When the secret of its authorship was discovered, the artist was invited to Rome, and there accomplished two statues, very different in character, the " Drunken Bacchus," at present in the Uffizi, and the marble " Pieta " in St. Peter's Church. The latter DA VINCI AND MICHAEL ANGELO. ,,- " have a place. In contrast with these are studies of apes, eagles, dogs, cats, village-scenes, hawking-parties, etc., etc." His sons, however, both of whom were artists, far eclipsed their father. He had trained them as enthusiastic followers of his own profession, and was delighted to see them sur- passing himself. Gentile Bellini, born in 1421, early became eminent as a portraitist, and, when the Council of Ten decided to replace Gentile da Fabriano's frescoes in the Hall of State with pictures executed in oils, he was given charge of the I9 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. work. This brought him into such favor that when the Sultan of Turkey dispatched a request to the Venetian Gov- ernment that one of their best painters might be sent to him, Gentile was unanimously selected. Mohammed II., quite re- gardless of the curse of the Prophet against every image of a living person, not only employed Gentile to paint his own portrait and that of a sultana, but took the deepest interest in all his practice of art. This Turkish visit came to a hasty termination when, upon the exhibition of a picture of a head of St. John Baptist in a charger, the sultan found fault with the appearance of the severed neck, and, perceiving that Gen- tile did not yield to his criticisms, immediately decapitated a slave that he might see for himself the proper working of the muscles under such circumstances. The artist was instantly convinced, and seized the first opportunity to escape such practical instructions. But his foreign experiences stored his memory with many effective incidents of Turkish life, which he used in his future compositions ; as, for instance, in the example preserved in the Louvre of the " Reception of a Ve- netian Embassador at Constantinople." His large paintings in the Venice Gallery of the " Procession through the Piazza of San Marco," and the " Recovery of a Relic fallen into the Grand Canal," are very quaint and valuable. His last pict- ure, the " Sermon of St. Mark," was left unfinished by his death in 1507. It was completed by his brother Gian, and is now in the Brera, Milan. Giovanni or Gian Bellini (1422-1516) is the true leader of art in Venice. He had been taught as a youth the old manner of tempera-painting, but availed himself, as soon as possible, of the new oil medium. Indeed, ancient historians PAINTING IN VENICE. have a story that he gained admittance in disguise to the studio of Antonello da Messina and stole his Flemish secrets; but this is only a fiction, and a very unnecessary one, for Antonello did not hesitate to impart his knowledge to those who wished to learn. The use of oil-colors was particularly adapted to Gian's tastes, and allowed him scope for his love of brilliant hues, strong in tone, but softly blended into beautiful gradations of tint. A moment's reflection will show us how naturally Venetian surroundings led up to such style of color. The location and climate of the city gave its inhabitants through most of the year an atmosphere bathed in sunshine, half veiled at sunrise and sunset by golden or rosy mists which magically melted into the deep-blue sky and sparkling blue water that reflected every thing in changeful and transparent lights and shadows. Snowy marble palaces, gilded domes and columns, gleaming mosaics, and richly- decorated architecture, all contributed to the splendid pano- rama ever before the eye and imagination of the painter, and ever ready to be reproduced on his canvas. The great diffi- culty was to acquire such skill in handling the brush as to be able to copy faithfully from Nature's model. This Giovanni Bellini was the first to accomplish. A " Transfiguration," at Naples, is considered to be his earliest very successful effort in oils, but specimens almost equally excellent are found in the Venetian Gallery and churches. His subjects were usually sacred, whereas those of his brother Gentile had been anecdotal or historical in character. Gian's Madonna-faces are so nearly alike that it is plainly evident a type of the Virgin was fixed in his ima- gination, and never varied. Serious, pure, and gentle, she 192 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. sits upon her throne, and looks placidly down upon her wor- shipers. Architectural backgrounds and admirable land- scapes form the vistas of his pictures, in which we also see the pleasing musical angels which were a favorite feature of the Venetian school. He was engaged, like Gentile, on the grand paintings of the Council-Chamber, recording the wars of the Venetians with the Emperor Barbarossa, and the Doge Ziani receiving from the pope the ring with which he was to wed the Adriatic. His best work was done after the age of sixty, and is most fitly represented in Venice by the large altar-piece of " Christ at Emmaus," the property of the church of San Salvatore, but now temporarily consigned to the Gal- lery of Fine Arts. The influence of Gian Bellini upon the art of his times was very powerful, not only in Venice, but throughout Italy and Germany. He was extremely popular with his fellow- citizens, painting the portraits of doges and nobles, living in affluence, and receiving flattering attentions at home and from abroad. Albrecht Diirer has left an account of a visit to his studio, near the close of Bellini's long and prosperous life, which ended on the 2pth of November, 1516. He is buried beside his brother, in the church of San Giovanni e Paolo. Many of his so-called compositions should really be at- tributed to his pupils, especially those in distant collections. Venice, of course, contains the greatest number of his pict- ures. An early and not attractive " Pieta " is in the Brera, Milan. The same subject, very brown in tone, is repeated in the Vatican. Several oil-paintings are ascribed to him at Berlin. A remarkably good portrait of the old Doge Lore- PAINTING IN VENICE. y*j dano, the founder of the state Inquisition, is in the London Gallery. His last pictures were a " Madonna," at Padua, and the "Venus," dated 1515, of the Belvedere Gallery, Vienna. The painting in the Louvre of two young men in one frame, one with fair complexion and red hair, the other dark-haired, catalogued as " Gentile and Gian Bellini," is now conceded not to be genuine, but is probably from the hand of an artist of Bergamo. Gian's own portrait at Munich, display- ing him as a man near middle age, in a black cap and dark vest, is thought to have been executed by his brother Gentile. Before quitting this early period we must notice Carlo Crivelli, born between 1430 and 1440, and surviving till the end of the century. He was a contemporary of the Bellini, but far behind them in enterprise and talent, though sharing somewhat of Gian's feeling for color. While every one else was experimenting in oils, he always adhered to tempera- painting on wood. Yet his stiff and ugly compositions were not without vigor and expression, and gained him sufficient reputation to deserve the honor of knighthood from Prince Ferdinand of Capua. His style appears to have been modeled in some degree upon that of Andrea Mantegna. Strange to say, he may now be studied to best advantage in the London Gallery, where his finest altar-pieces are collected. A " Vir- gin and Child," by his obscure relative, Vittorio Crivelli, is in the Kensington Museum. Of much- more decided genius were Vittore Carpaccio (about 1455-1525), and Cima da Conegliano (about 1460- 1518), followers, but not pupils, of the Bellini. The exact date of their birth and death has not been ascertained, but is I 94 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. approximately given frbm French authorities. Carpaccio is little known out of Venice, but our interest in him there is strongly excited by his noble and charmingly colored " Pre- sentation of the Infant Saviour," hanging in the Academy with the aged Simeon standing in the midst of superb archi- tecture, and ready to sing his " Nunc Dimittis " in a cardinal's gorgeous mantle, held up by two servants behind him, while a couple of musical angels below prepare to play the accom- paniment ; also by his large and curious series of pictures on the story of St. Ursula, so oddly imaginative, yet so graphic and well-arranged. Giam Battista Cima, surnamed da Conegliano from his native town, has somewhat wider celebrity. His style was rather simple than grand ; but he is most correct, precise, and symmetrical in form, lustrous in tint, and enamel-like in finish. Kugler says that his coloring sometimes "glistens like jewels." Fine Madonnas by him are preserved in the Venice churches and Academy; but his most pleasing com- position is the majestic standing figure of the Saviour, at Dresden, so generally but wrongfully attributed to Gian Bel- lini. Madonnas are also to be found at London, in the Louvre, and in other European collections. Cima's pictures may occasionally be identified by a little rabbit painted in the corner as his signature. As a rabbit is coneglio in Italian, this was intended as a play upon his name. But as yet we have only lingered on the threshold of Ve- netian art-history. The close of the fifteenth century brings us to Giorgione and Titian, the illustrious pupils of Gian Bellini, and the great world-masters of color. Giorgio Barbarelli, born at Castelfranco, in 1477, the same INCREDULITY OF ST. THOMAS (Cima). p. 194. PAINTING IN VENICE. y o year as Titian, received his title of Gwrgione, which means George the Great, from his tall, commanding figure, inherited from a patrician father. His mother, however, having been only a poor country-girl, the child was never acknowledged, but was left to make his own way in the world. This he did quite effectually, as he was "of distinguished presence, spir- ited character, kindly, and of good manners, adored by women, an admirable musician, a welcome guest in noble houses," and, above all, a most powerful and original painter. Yet an undercurrent of melancholy seemed natural to his temperament, and is often very subtly visible in his romantic pictures. While still a boy, he was placed in the Bellini studio, but made such progress that the scholar eventually excelled the master, and Gian Bellini was glad to catch from his pupil a more glowing intensity of coloring, and greater harmony and depth of tone. After quitting his studies, one of his first independent tasks was to fresco, with Titian, the outside of a public hall of exchange, which he adorned so beautifully that he was soon occupied with many similar commissions for other Venetian buildings and palaces. The dampness of the sea has long since destroyed all such splendors. Doubtless they were surpassed by the rich oil-paintings still left us, which many regard as superior even to Titian's in their deep and fiery color, their profound sentiment, their luminous glow and mysterious shadow, their breadth of outline, and pastoral poetry. The rivalry with Titian was only too brief, being terminated by Giorgione's early death, at the age of thirty-four. He has been made the hero of a love-story, in which he is reported to have perished of grief at the loss of 196 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. his mistress through an unfaithful friend; but facts appear to prove that he died of the plague in 1511. Much discussion has arisen in regard to the genuine- ness of many of Giorgione's pictures. Even the few existing at Venice have been doubted. Crowe and Cavalcaselle ques- tion the authenticity of the " Tempest," in the Academy, and of others in the Manfrini Palace, including the celebrated "Horoscope," or "Astrologer." One of his finest and most characteristic works is the "Chaldean Sages," at Vienna, probably referring to the journey of the Magi, and represent- ing three men in a wild, extended landscape. " The first, very aged, in an Oriental costume, with long gray beard, stands holding in his hand an astronomical table ; the next, a man in the prime of life, seems listening to him ; the third, a youth, seated and looking upward, holds a compass." Far on the horizon the mystic star is just rising. Another master- piece, at Dresden, is the " Meeting of Jacob and Rachel," under the most pastoral circumstances. The surroundings of Jacob certainly mark him as a shepherd, but Rachel is more Venetian than Biblical. The half-length " Concerts " of the Pitti and the Louvre indicate his musical tendencies. That of the Pitti is decidedly the best ; composed of a monk playing the piano, and two by-standers, so graphically and truthfully rendered that a copy of it in the Doria Palace, Rome, was designated as the portraits of Melanchthon, Lu- ther, and Catharine von Bora. The Louvre " Concert " is chiefly remarkable for its sumptuous and lovely landscape. The Pitti Gallery has also a " Nymph chased by a Satyr," over which Taine grows eloquent. A " Knight of Malta " is in the Uffizi, and a "Knight in Armor" at Vienna. A PAINTING IN VENICE. "Madonna," and a fine portrait of himself, noble, handsome, and energetic, exist at Munich; while several compositions are ascribed to him at Madrid, particularly a " Madonna with Saints," and a half-length " Family Portrait." An early altar- piece is shown at Castelfranco, and a much-ruined " Burial - of Christ" at Treviso, depicting the body of our Saviour poetically entombed by youthful angels. The study of color, thus happily introduced at Venice, was carried on to perfection by Tiziano Vecellio, who, dur- ing his long life of ninety-nine years, has been described as " the most fortunate and healthy of his species ; Heaven having awarded to him nothing but favors and felicities." Born in 1477, at Cadore, in the Friulian Alps, he began to paint almost as soon as he began to breathe ; and there is a pretty little legend to the effect that he used no prosaic chalk or charcoal, but that the juices of flowers formed his childish colors. To the beautiful horizon of hills which encircled his birthplace we can trace back his un- wearied partiality for fine, bold landscape, deep-blue skies, and mountain scenery, so often visible in the background of his pictures. An uncle in the not distant city of Venice appears to have first taken charge of his education, and to have entered him when very young as a pupil in the studio of Gian Bellini, where he was more impressed with the genius of his fellow- student Giorgione than with that of his master. Giorgione's style was eminently attractive to a nature like Titian's; though we see in their paintings the character of the two men in contrast : Giorgione's more intense, Titian's broader and more ample. Jealousy finally terminated their friendship; 198 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. yet they were employed together on the exterior frescoes of the Hall of Exchange at Venice where, however, Titian's work was most admired. But it was easel-painting and not fresco which best dis- played Titian's .talents. The earliest pictures in oil ascribed to him by modern critics are a "Visitation of St. Elizabeth," a small "Adoration of the Kings," and a portrait of one of the Barberigo family, all executed in 1512, the year in which he married. We know nothing of his wife, except that she was named Lucia, or Cecilia, and died in 1530. In 1514 he spent some time at the court of Ferrara, made famous to us by its associations with Tasso and his Leonora. There he met Ariosto, and other men of brilliancy and learn- ing ; and there he painted for Duke Alphonso the picture of "Christ and the Tribute-Money" (Cristo della Monetd), now to be found at Dresden. The flesh-tints of the face of our Saviour, its finely-rendered hair and beard, and the calm, piercing majesty of its expression, as he turns toward the crafty Pharisee, are the points for which it has been most praised. But the duke, who was a patron of pleasure, as well as of the arts, found mythological and sensuous subjects more to his taste, and ordered from the painter two Bacchanalian scenes one the "Bacchus and Ariadne," at present in the London Gallery ; the other the " Arrival of Bacchus in the Isle of Naxos," since removed to Madrid, as is also a more celebrated companion-piece, the "Sacrifice to the Goddess of Fertility," where fair young girls offer fruit and flowers before the statue of Venus, and some sixty figures of children and Cupids sport in most graceful attitudes through the charming landscape. Portraits of Duke Alphonso's wives, PAINTING IN VENICE. , 99 and of other court beauties, who may have been models for the Venuses in which the artist so delighted, likewise belong to this epoch. It must be confessed that Titian painted this class of subjects con amore, and was much more familiar with the material than with the sacred or spiritual. Yet there is a grand, calm beauty about his human forms, a splendor of life and luxury, which, with all his power of color, does not de- generate into Rubens's coarseness. His magnificent women appear as far above ordinary life as they are below heavenly sainthood; yet they seem to grow as naturally under his brush as glowing flowers in tropical sunshine. We perceive this particularly in his portraits those, for instance, of Catharine Cornaro, Queen of Cyprus ; of the " Bella," at the Sciarra Palace, Rome, and the Pitti, Florence; of the " Flora," at the Uffizi; and the " Maitresse de Titien," at the Louvre. In 1516 we again find Titian at Venice, engaged upon his great " Assumption of the Virgin," in which he shows him- self in the full maturity of talent, complete master of every secret of color. TJie " Presentation of the Youthful Virgin in the Temple," a much larger piece in the same Venetian gallery, probably dates a little earlier, as does also the " Vierge au Lapin," or, "Madonna of the Rabbit," from the white rabbit in the foreground, now hanging in the Louvre. Public work at this time demanded much of his attention, as he was appointed to continue or superintend the paintings in the ducal hall of the Grand Council. All these splendid efforts perished by fire, which has been peculiarly fatal to Titian's labors, as it also destroyed, about ten years ago, his superb altar-piece of the " Death of St. Peter Martyr," belonging to 14 200 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. the church of the Frari. This was one of Titian's finest compositions. It is still well known through engravings. The saint represented was not the Apostle Peter, but a Do- minican monk, Peter of Verona, who, returning from a coun- cil of the Church, was slain by an assassin in a lonely wood. The painter depicted the moment when the murderer seized his victim, whose companion fled in terror from the spot. The surrounding landscape, with its tall, mysterious trees, its fading light, the deep-purple hills on its horizon-line, and the angels waiting in the open heavens to receive the martyr's soul, formed a scene which has been extolled as one of the sublimest in art. The celebrated " Entombment," whose original is in the Manfrini Palace, Venice, but which is re- peated by Titian's own hand, in the Louvre, is in the same forcible style, but more conventional, and therefore less im- pressive. Among the political events of this exciting century was the meeting of the powerful Charles V. and Pope Clement VII. at Bologna, in the year 1530. Thither Titian was invited by the pope's relative, Cardinal de Medici, and both emperor and pontiff sat to him for their portraits. These portraits still remain to us : that of the emperor on horseback, in the Gallery of Madrid ; that of Clement, in the Bridgewater col- lection, London ; while the two likenesses of Cardinal de Me- dici, in the Pitti Gallery, Florence, and in the Louvre, were doubtless executed on this same occasion. The emperor was delighted with the artist, who ever after enjoyed his most lavish patronage, and a very irregularly-paid pension. But it did not need such imperial favor to testify to the fact that Titian was the greatest portrait-painter the world has ever PAINTING IN VENICE 2OI produced. Every distinguished man of the age was eager to secure a likeness from his brush. Such as the King of Spain and Emperor of Germany, the popes, doges, and cardinals, are easily recognizable ; but many others are now without a name, and have so changed owners that we can no longer tell whom they were meant to delineate ; yet their dignified and eloquent faces, instinct with physical and intellectual life, seem as real and striking as though they were men of yesterday. The same may be said of his fresh, youthful, and splendidly- developed females, so warmly colored, and full of all the joy of existence, yet so vigorous, majestic, and serenely calm. Taine has given us, in his " Italy," a vivid description of Venetian life in the sixteenth century. We can thus imagine Titian, in the midst of wealth and splendor, with his friends, the magnificent and licentious Aretino and the architect Sansovino, " eating and drinking daintily and heartily, ap- preciative of music, of elegant luxury, and the society of pleasure-seeking women. . . . Around him beauty, taste, edu- cation, the talents of others, reflect back on him, as from a mirror, the brightness of his own genius. His brother, his son Orazio, his two cousins Cesare and Fabrizio, are all ex- cellent painters. His daughter Lavinia, dressed as Flora, with a basket of fruit on her head, furnishes him with a model in the freshness of her carnation, and in the amplitude of her admirable form. Daily he designs something in chalk or charcoal. A supper with Sansovino, or Aretino, makes the day complete." This luxurious existence continued with little variation for more than half a century ; for there is no reliable evi- dence that Titian ever went to Spain; and his occasional 202 SCHOOLS AND AIASTERS OF PAINTING, journeys to Ferrara or Urbino, where he painted the Venus in the tribune of the Uffizi, were not long enough to break in seriously upon his Venetian pleasures; while his sojourn with the Emperor Charles, at Augsburg, was but a repetition, on a grander scale, of his domestic gayeties. Still he never aban- doned himself to profligacy or idleness. Painting was the business of his life, and he pursued it with diligence ; grow- ing in excellence as he grew in age. In the autumn of 1545, Pope Paul III. summoned Titian to Rome, to paint his portrait. The pope was terribly ugly ; with pinched-up features, keen, snake-like eyes, and fingers like bird-claws ; and assuredly Titian's hand was too faithful for flattery yet the pontiff was much pleased with the pict- ure, which represented him between his two nephews, the Duke Ottavio and Cardinal Farnese. It is now at Naples. Other paintings were completed at Rome : a " Venus and Adonis," repeated in the National Gallery, London ; the " Sacred and Profane Love," of the Borghese ; and a " Danae in the Golden Shower," which Michael Angelo was compelled to admire, though he qualified his praise by re- marking that Titian did not know how to draw. In truth, the Roman artists were jealous of the great Venetian, re- ceived him very coldly, and were glad when he returned to more appreciative neighbors. He evidently did not waste his best work upon lukewarm patrons. 'The fine " St. Sebastian," now in the Vatican, was not done to the order of the pope, but came from the church of the Frari, Venice. A majority of the masterpieces of Titian's later years were executed for Charles V. and his son Philip, who kept them ST. SEBASTIAN (Titian). PAINTING IN VENICE, 2O3 carefully treasured at Madrid ; though fire has attacked some chefs-d'oeuvre in Spain as well as in Venice. Among the forty- two which still hang in the Madrid Gallery we may count a number of portraits, principally of the art-loving emperor, his successors, and the royal families. The first portrait of Charles on horseback has been previously mentioned; but another, more mature in age, in a standing position, with one hand resting on the head of a favorite dog, is an even finer and f more stately likeness. Philip II., who lives to posterity through Titian's faces and Motley's history, stands before us with pale, melancholy, and effeminate features ; and after we are wearied of contemplating Spanish celebrities we may pause to look at Titian's own likeness of himself in dignified old age. Among the mythological representations for which, in spite of the censures of the Inquisition, the Castilian monarchs had an unconcealed fondness, we shall see the ubiquitous " Venus ; " joyous and highly-colored " Baccha- nalian Scenes ; " " Diana and Calisto ; " " Diana surprised by Acteeon ; " the " Goddess of Fertility ; " " Venus and Adonis;" and "Prometheus." These are counterbalanced by some sacred pieces, such as a " Madonna," " Ecce Homo," "Entombment," "St. Margaret," "Daughter of Herodias, "Penitent Magdalen," and "Original Sin," in which the serpent, coiled round the tree of life, watches the action of Eve who presents the fruit to Adam. The most remark- able, however, of these subjects is " The Apotheosis of the Imperial family," where Charles V., Philip II., and their wives, are presented in heaven to the Trinity. God the Father, Christ, and the Virgin, all draped in long blue man- tles and attended by the dove of the Holy Spirit, graciously 204 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. welcome the royal comers, who are admitted by angels to the celestial court. Such a picture appeared neither incongruous nor irreverent to the Spanish mind! The list of Madrid paintings here briefly indicated must close with the " Battle of Lepanto," a large historical composition finished by Titian at the age of ninety-four. This commemorates the Spanish victory at Lepanto, yet does not give the combat itself, but rather its results in allegory ; with a chained Turk and Orien- tal trophies on one side, and King Philip holding up his in- fant son in thanksgiving on the other, while the Goddess of Fame brings a crown and palm-branch. Another marvelous production of Titian's declining years was the " Martyrdom of St. Lawrence," much injured by time, in the church of the Jesuits, Venice. This colossal altar-piece, a work of his eighty-first year, thought by Kugler to excel " St. Peter Martyr," displays some wonderful effects of color, being lighted by the mingled glow of the pans of burning pitch beneath the gridiron, the fire of a tripod blazing before a heathen statue, and the heavenly radiance of a de- scending angel to whom the martyr is stretching out his hands. Another Venetian altar-piece of earlier date, in the church of the Frari, must not be left unnoticed. It is styled the " Ma- donna of the Pesaro Family," and may be taken as a repre- sentative of a class of subjects which Titian, like other Ve- netians, frequently attempted, and examples of which will be found in many galleries, showing an entire family presented to the Virgin by some patron saint or saints. But time, which ends all things, brought at last the clos- ing days of this eminent and fortunate man. One of the last records of his brilliant career was the visk of Henry III. PAINTING IN VENICE. 2O5 to his house, while passing through Venice on his way from Poland. He came with his lords and princes to pay his re- spects to the painter. " The aged artist received him with dignity, and with those easy and noble manners which were peculiar to him, and talked to him a long time about the vicissitudes of his own life. In the mean while, he caused his domestics to give a splendid entertainment to the courtiers of his majesty, and the train who accompanied him ; so that they seemed to be in the palace of a great prince instead of in the house of an artist. Nor was the generosity of Titian confined to this ; for, being asked by the king the price of some pictures that pleased him, he entreated him to accept of them as a gift." Titian's final labors were devoted to altar-pieces intended for Venetian churches and monuments. His vigor and skill, even at that advanced period, were most extraordinary ; but his coloring grew heavy and somewhat gloomy, as may be seen by his last composition, an " Entombment," now in the Gallery of Venice, finished by Palma after the master's death. He had survived his friends Aretino and Sansovino ; had outlived his beautiful daughter Lavinia, who had married and left behind her six children ; and was still in Venice, with his artist-son Orazio, when the plague of 1576 began its ravages. Both father and son were taken ill and died. Old historians tell us that he was robbed upon his death-bed by a band of ruffians, who broke into his house and carried off his jewels and pictures before. his eyes. His only remaining child, a worthless son Pomponio, who had entered the priesthood and lived in profligacy, came post-haste from Milan to Venice, sold the rest of his property, and soon squandered all his 206 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. inheritance. Titian's body was interred in the church of the Frari the Senate, in consideration of his renown, having de- parted from the usual rule of refusing honorable burial to the victims of the plague but his grave remained unmarked for many years. A splendid monument to his memory has been now erected in the church of the Frari, opposite the tomb of Canova. His pictures have within the last three hundred years been widely distributed over Europe. Scarcely more than thirty are left in Venice. Most of the remainder are in Spain and Italy. Many have been just specified, especially those in the Venetian churches and galleries, the great num- ber at Madrid, and the few at Rome. In the Uffizi, Flor- ence, we see his two famous figures of " Venus ; " a " Flora," very lightly draped, holding flowers in her hand ; a " Holy Family," and " Madonnas ; " and a few portraits, especially that of Catharine Cornaro, and his own likeness in the Saloon of the Painters. The Pitti Palace is rich in oortraits, includ- ing those of Aretino, Cardinal de Medici, and a bright young girl with auburn tresses and robes of blue and violet embroid- ered with gold, called Titian's "Bella." The more generally known " Bella " is, however, in the Sciarra Palace, Rome ; but is now supposed by some critics to have been painted by Palma Vecchio instead of Titian. The Pitti also possesses one of his many " Magdalenes," a most lovely but not very penitent head, with tearful eyes raised to heaven, and mag- nificent hair veiling her neck and bosom. This was one of his favorite conceptions ; repeated at Madrid, St. Peters- burg, and elsewhere. The St. Petersburg " Magdalene " is quite as beautiful as, and less bold than, the Florentine. A PAINTING IN VENICE. 2O - " Danae " and some portraits are at Naples ; a few portraits and sacred pieces at Munich ; and a large collection, not all genuine, at Vienna ; though we there find an " Entombment," " Woman taken in Adultery," and repetitions of other sub- jects previously painted. Dresden has his youthful " Christ and the Tribute-Money ; " some female portraits, particularly the Queen of Cyprus as a widow, and his daughter Lavinia, grown fat and middle-aged ; a Venetian family presented to the Virgin ; and the most beautiful of all his Venuses, a du- plicate of one at Cambridge, England, representing a reclin- ing female, thought to be the Princess Eboli, crowned by Cupid, and listening to a lover playing on a lute, to whom are ascribed the features of Philip of Spain. In the Berlin Museum are Titian's own portrait, and the celebrated painting known, par excellence, as " Titian's Daughter." She stands, in superb womanhood, with her face turned toward the gazer, holding above her head a plate of fruit. Titian, who loved to represent his daughter, has immortalized her in another picture, owned by Lord de Grey, where she bears a jewel-box instead of the fruit, and also in the " Daughter of Herodias " at Madrid, with the head of St. John Baptist. In the Louvre are four " Holy Families," among which only the " Vierge au Lapin " is certainly genuine. The " Entomb- ment," the " Christ crowned with Thorns," and the " Supper at Emmaus," are other fine sacred subjects. Several excellent portraits ; a " Jupiter and Antiope," called the " Venus del Pardo ; " and the figure of a woman combing out her hair be- fore a mirror which a man is holding, sometimes catalogued as " Titian's Mistress," complete the list. The National 208 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. Gallery, England, possesses an admirable head of " Ariosto," "Venus and Adonis," and "Bacchus and Ariadne." Some valuable portraits are at Hampton Court and Windsor Castle; while the " Three Ages of Man " is to be found in the Bridgewater Gallery, London, as well as in the Manfrini Pal- ace, Venice. Jacopo Palma, or Palma Vecchio (1480-1528), was the friend and imitator, but scarcely the pupil, of Titian, as he was only three years his junior. He has the same soft, rich coloring, and amplitude and beauty of female forms. Indeed, his works are often mistaken for Titian's. His masterpiece is a full-length " St. Barbara," the central figure of an altar- painting in the church of Santa Maria Formosa, Venice. He is represented in the Venice Academy by an " Assump- tion," the " Raising of the Son of the Widow of Nain," and a "St. Peter with Saints." Many of his "Holy Families" and " Holy Conversations " are in Continental collections, es- pecially the " Virgin in a Vine- Arbor " at Munich. His pict- ure of his daughters, at Dresden, called the "Three Graces," or the " Three Sisters," is very interesting from the story that Titian was deeply in love with the central sister, named Vio- lante, whose features may be traced in his " Flora " and other faces. Violante's single portrait, by her father, is in the Bel- vedere, Vienna. Palma Vecchio is often confounded with his nephew, the younger Palma, a later artist of much less ability, whose best painting is " The Three Horsemen of the Apocalypse," in the Venice Gallery. But, though Palma never pretended to rival Titian, his contemporary Pordenone (1484-1539), or rather Giovanni Antonio Licinio Regillo, called Pordenone from his birth- PAINTING IN VENICE. 209 place, aspired to that honor. It is difficult to see on what qualities the competition was founded, for though he painted life-like and rich-toned portraits, and grouped his composi- tions in a spirited manner, he is not by any means to be com- pared with Titian, of whom he professed himself in such dread that he painted with his shield and poniard lying at his side. His best productions are his portraits, renowned for their tender flesh-tints ; his altar-pieces in the Gallery of Venice; and his "Woman taken in Adultery," in the Mu- seum of Berlin. Sebastian del Piombo (1485-1547), another Venetian artist whose life was mostly spent at Rome, claims our atten- tion from the fact that Michael Angelo thought him worthy to compete with Raphael for the favor of Pope Leo X. He was a pupil or follower of Giorgione, whose intensity of coloring he partially acquired, but never learned to design correctly. Coming early to Rome, he gained celebrity, and entered into intimacy with Michael Angelo. The following have been given as their points of congeniality : " They were alike in temperament, impulsive and realistic ; they loved Nature alike ; they hated Raphael together ; they equally detested monks and friars ; they both loved out-door sketch- ing for a recreation ; they were alike in their muscular forms, and both were left-handed." Sebastian's "Raising of Laza- rus," now in the National Gallery, London, was executed in rivalry with Raphael's " Transfiguration." Michael Angelo is said to have assisted in its outlines. After Raphael's death Sebastian was universally praised and flattered. Clement VII. appointed him keeper of the Piombi, or seals of the Roman Chancery, on which account he is entitled " del Pi- 210 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF PAINTING. ombo," his real name being Sebastiano Luciano. Together with the "Raising of Lazarus," his most forcible paintings are " The Scourging of Christ," a fresco in St. Pietro in Montorio, Rome, repeated on a small scale in the Borghese collection ; a " Descent into Hades," at Madrid ; the " Mar- tyrdom of St. Agatha," in the Pitti Palace, Florence ; and a " Holy Family," at Naples. The Naples Gallery also con- tains some admirable portraits, for which' he was deservedly famous. One of Andrea Doria, at the Doria Palace, Rome, and another of Cardinal Pole, at St. Petersburg, are peculiarly excellent. Singularly enough, he has scarcely a single picture in Venice. The " Dream of Human Life," in the London Gallery, popularly ascribed to Michael Angelo, might be more correctly marked as the work of Sebastian. Bonifazio Veneziano (1494-1563), or Bonifazio Bembi, a pupil of the elder Palma, but a clever imitator of Titian, has left, among a number of comparatively feeble works, some few pleasing sacred scenes, conceived in true Venetian style. Perhaps the most celebrated of these is the " Finding of Moses," in the Brera, Milan, long attributed to Giorgione. It is a very extraordinary composition just a Venetian pleas- ure-party of ladies and gentlemen in superb costumes of bro- cade and velvet, enjoying themselves in a cheerful Italian landscape. Pharaoh's daughter has her retinue of dogs, monkeys, dwarfs, troubadours, and maids-of-honor. The little Moses in the bulrushes is an entirely secondary consid- eration. Another characteristic picture is his " Banquet of Dives," in the Venice Academy. Dives, clothed in red vel- vet, sits, in the light of afternoon, at a table between two females, one of whom listens to singers and players on the PAINTING IN VENICE. 2II lute. The scene is an open hall, with a stately garden vista, crowded with horses, grooms, and falconers. Some little distance from the group, Lazarus, the beggar, is sent away by a page. A very different style of sacred subjects is given us by Alessandro Bonvicino of Brescia (1500-1560), commonly called " II Moretto." He was a gentle, pious man, who has left many valuable productions in his native city, but whose most striking works have been purchased by German gal- leries. The " St. Justina," at Vienna, is his most successful effort. The kneeling St. Cyprian, beside Justina, is believed to be a portrait of the Duke of Ferrara. The Berlin Mu- seum possesses two very large paintings, a " Madonna and Child " with their votaries below, and a colossal " Adoration of the Shepherds." The Dresden Gallery has a sweet, con- templative, full-length Madonna, robed entirely in neutral tints. His pupil, Giovanni Battista Moroni (1510-1578), who, as a Venetian portraitist, is only eclipsed by Titian, confined himself almost wholly to that branch of art. One of his most vivid likenesses is that of a Jesuit, in the Duke of Sutherland's collection; often spoken of as "Titian's School- master." He is leaning forward in his chair, with his fin- gers between the leaves of a book. Moroni's own portrait is in the Berlin Museum. Other graceful, rosy-tinted portraits by Paris Bordone, of Treviso (1500-1570), are also in German and Italian muse- ums. He particularly excelled in female heads, though he produced some historical and classical pieces. His chef- d'