Book: The Old Masters and Their Pictures

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Luca d'Egidio di Ventura, called also Luca 'da Cortona,' from his
birth-place, and Luca Signorelli, 1441, supposed to have died about
1524. His is a great name in the Tuscan School. He played an important
part in the painting of the Sistine Chapel, though he is only
represented by one wall picture, the History of Moses. At his best he
anticipated Michael Angelo in power and grandeur, but he was given to
exaggeration. His fame rests principally on his frescoes at Orvieto,
where, by a strange chance, he was appointed, after an interval of time,
to continue and complete the work begun by Fra Angelico, the master most
opposed to Signorelli in style. Luca added the great dramatic scenes
which include the history of Antichrist, executed with a grandeur which
'only Lionardo among the painters sharing a realistic tendency could
have surpassed.' These scenes, which contain The Resurrection, Hell, and
Paradise, bear a strong resemblance to the work of Michael Angelo. In
his fine drawing of the human figure Signorelli may be known by 'the
squareness of his forms in joints and extremities.' A conspicuous detail
in his pictures is frequently a bright-coloured Roman scarf. His work is
rarely seen north of the Alps.

Sandro Filipepi, called Botticelli, 1447-1515. He was an apprentice to
a goldsmith, and then became a scholar of Filippo Lipi's. Botticelli was
vehement and impetuous, full of passion and poetry, seeking to express
movement. He was the most dramatic painter of his school. Occasionally
he rises to a grandeur that allies him to Signorelli and Michael Angelo.
His circular pictures of the Madonna and Child, with angels, are
numerous. Like Fra Filippo, Botticelli's angels are noble youths, some
of them belonging to the great families of the time. They are prone to
be ecstatic with joy or frantic with grief. There is a grand Coronation
of the Virgin, by Botticelli at Hamilton Palace, and a beautiful
Nativity by the old master belongs to Mr Fuller Maitland. His Madonna
and Child are grand and tragic figures always. Botticelli's noble
frescoes in the Sistine Chapel are apt to be overlooked because of
Michael Angelo's 'sublime work' on the ceiling. There has been a revival
of Botticelli's renown within late years, partly due to the new
interest in the earlier Italian painters which Mr Browning has done
something to stimulate.

I quote some thoughtful remarks on Botticelli by W.C. Lefroy in
_Macmillan's Magazine_: 'Mr Ruskin, we know, divides Italian art into
the art of faith, beginning with Giotto, and lasting rather more than
200 years, and the art of unbelief, or at least of cold and inoperative
faith, beginning in the middle of Raphael's life. But whatever division
we adopt, we must remember that the revival of Paganism, as a matter of
fact, affected men in different ways. Right across the schools this new
spirit draws its line, but the line is not a hard and sharp one. Some
men lie wholly on one side of it, with Giotto, Angelico, and Orcagna;
some wholly upon the other, with Titian and Correggio, but there are
some on whom it seems to fall as a rainbow falls upon a hill-side. Such,
for instance, is Botticelli. Now he tries to paint as men painted in the
old days of unpolluted faith, and then again he breaks away and paints
like a very heathen.

'The interest which this artist has excited in the present generation
has been exaggerated into something like a fashion, and recent criticism
has delighted to find or imagine in him the idiosyncrasies of recent
thought. To us it may be he does in truth say more than he or his
contemporaries dreamed of, but while true criticism will sternly refuse
to help us to see in his pictures that which is purely subjective, it
will, I think, recognise the fact that a day like ours is capable of
reading in the subtle suggestions of ancient art thoughts which have
only now come to be frankly defined or exquisitely analysed. To us,
moreover, Botticelli presents not only the poem of the apparition of the
young and beautiful manhood of humanism before the brooding and
entranced, yet half expectant, maidenhood of mediaevalism, but also the
poem of the painter's own peculiar relation to that crisis. For us there
is the poetry of the thing itself, and also the poetry of Botticelli's
attempt to express it. The work of Botticelli does not supply a
universal utterance for mankind like Shakespeare's plays, but when we
stand before the screen on which his "Nativity" is hung, or contemplate
in the adjoining room his two perplexed conceptions of "Aphrodite," we
are face to face with a genuine outcome of that memorable meeting,
mediaevalism, humanism, and Savonarola, which no generation can afford to
ignore, and our own especially delights to contemplate. There has been
much dispute about the date of Botticelli's "Nativity," and some
defenders of Savonarola have hoped to read 1511 in the strange character
of its inscription, so that this beautiful picture, standing forth as
the work of one for many years under the influence of "the Frate," may
refute the common calumny that that influence was unfriendly to art. Our
catalogue, indeed, unhesitatingly asserts of Botticelli, that "he became
a follower of Savonarola and no doubt suffered from it;" but though
there seems to be really little doubt that the "Nativity" was painted in
1500, the inscription, with its mystic allusion to the Apocalypse, and
the whole character of the picture, afford unmistakable evidence of the
influence of Savonarola.'

Pietro Perugino, 1446, died of the plague at Frontignano in 1522.
Perugino is another painter who has been indebted to the last
Renaissance. His fame, in this country rested chiefly on the
circumstance that he was Raphael's master, whom the generous prince of
painters delighted to honour, till the tide of fashion in art rose
suddenly and floated old Pietro once more to the front. At his best he
had luminous colour, grace, softness, and enthusiastic earnestness,
especially in his young heads. His defects were monotony, and formality,
together with comparative ignorance of the principles of his art. His
conception of his calling in its true dignity was not high. His attempts
at expressing ardour degenerated into mannerism, and he acquired habits
and tricks of arrangement and style, among which figured his favourite
upturned heads, that in the end were ill drawn, and, like every other
affectation, became wearisome. In the process of falling off as an
artist, when mere manual dexterity took the place of earnest devotion
and honest pains, Perugino had a large studio where many pupils executed
his commissions, and where, working for gain instead of excellence in
art, he had the satisfaction, doubtless, of amassing a large fortune.
Among his finest works is the picture of an enthroned Madonna and Child
in the gallery of the Uffizi. Another fine Madonna with Saints is at
Cremona. His frescoes in the Sala del Campio at Perugia are among his
best works. The subjects of these frescoes are partly scriptural; partly
mythological. In the execution there is excellence alike in drawing,
colouring, and the disposal of drapery. A _chef d'oeuvre_ by the master
is the Madonna of the Certosa at Pavia, now in, the National Gallery.
Yet it is said to have been painted at the very period when Michael
Angelo ridiculed Perugino's work as 'absurd and antiquated.' Vittore
Carpaccio, date and place of birth unknown, though he is said to have
been a native of Istria. He was a historical painter of the early
Venetian School and a follower of the Bellini. His romantic _genre_
pictures show the daily life of the Venice of his time, and are
furnished with landscape and architectural backgrounds. His masterly and
rich work is mostly in Venice. He introduces animals freely and well in
his designs.

Carlo Crivelli was another master of the fifteenth century who deserves
notice. He had strong individuality, yet was influenced by the Paduan
and Venetian Schools. He displayed an old-fashioned preference for
painting in tempera. Sometimes his drawing approaches that of Mantegna,
while he has a gorgeousness of colouring all his own. His pictures
occasionally show dignity of composition in combination with grace and
daintiness; but he could be guilty of exaggerated vehemence of
expression. He frequently introduced fruit, flowers, and birds in his
work. He is fully represented in the National Gallery, his works there
ranging from 'small tender pictures of the dead Christ with angels, to a
sumptuous altar-piece in numerous compartments.'

Filippino Lipi was an adopted son and probably a relation of Fra
Filippo's, though a scholar's use of his master's name was not uncommon.
The date of his birth is earlier than 1460. Filippino was also a pupil
of Botticelli's, while there was a higher sense of beauty and grace in
the pupil than in the teacher. Among his last works is the Vision of St
Bernard, an easel picture in the Badia at Florence. The apparition of
the Madonna in this picture is said to be 'full of charm.' In his larger
works he is one of the greatest historical painters of his country.
Roman antiquities had the same keen interest for him which they held for
the greatest of his contemporaries, and he made free use of them in the
architecture of his pictures. He has fine work in the Carmelite Church,
Florence, and in S. Maria Sopra Minerva, Rome. Much of some of his
pictures is painted over. The National Gallery has a picture of
Filippino's 'of grand execution,' though almost colourless--the Madonna
and Child, with St Jerome and St Francis.

Antonella da Messina was the Neapolitan painter who brought the practice
of painting in oils from the Netherlands into Italy, though it is now
believed, from stubborn discrepancies in dates, that the story of his
great friendship with Jan Van Eyck, as given by Vasari, is apochryphal.
Very likely Hans Memling, called also 'John of Bruges,' was the real
friend and leader of Antonella. His best work consisted of portraits. He
is believed to have died at Venice in 1496.

Benvenuto Tisio, surnamed from the place of his birth Garofalo, was born
in 1481, and died in 1559. He passed from the early school of Ferrara to
that of Raphael. His conception was apt to be fantastic, while his
colouring was vivid to abruptness, and he was deficient in charm of
expression. He fell into the fault of monotonous ideality. At the same
time his heads are beautiful, and his drapery is classic. His finest
work is an 'Entombment' in the Borghese Palace, Rome. There is an
altar-piece by Garofalo, a Madonna and Child with angels, in the
National Gallery.

Bernardo Luini, who stands foremost among the scholars of Lionardo da
Vinci, was born by the Lago Maggiore, the date unknown, came to Milan in
1500, was elderly in 1525, and is supposed to have died not long after
1530. His work is chiefly found in Milan. His great merit has been only
lately acknowledged. He is not 'very powerful or original,' but for
'purity, grace, and spiritual expression,' he ranks very high. He unites
the earnestness of the older masters with the prevailing feeling for
beauty of the great masters of Italian Art. His pictures were long
mistaken for those of his master, Lionardo, though it is said that when
the difference between them is once pointed out, it is easily
recognised; indeed, the resemblance is confined to a smiling beatific
expression in the countenances, which abounds more in Luini's pictures.
His heads of women, children, and angels present every degree of
serenity, sweet cheerfulness and happiness, up to ecstatic rapture.
'Christ Disputing with the Doctors,' in the National Gallery, formerly
called a Lionardo, is now known to be a Luini. He painted much, whether
in tempera, fresco, or oil. His favourite subjects in oil were the
Madonna and Child, with St John and the Lamb, and the Marriage of St
Catherine. Probable he appears to greatest advantage in frescoes. He is
said to have reached his highest perfection in the figure of St John in
a Crucifixion in the Monasterio Maggiore, Milan.

Jacopo Palma, called Il Palma Vecchio, was born about 1480 near Bergamo,
and died in 1528. He is believed to have studied under Giovanni Bellini,
while he is also the chief follower of Giorgione. His characteristics
are ample forms and gorgeous breadth of drapery. His female saints, with
their large rounded figures, have a soft yet commanding expression. He
had an enchanting feeling for landscape, which seems to have been the
birthright of the Venetian painters. To Palma is owing what are called
'Santa Conversazione,' where there are numerous groups round the Virgin
and Child, as if they are holding a court in a retired and beautiful
country nook. Palma rivalled Giorgione and Titian as a painter of
women's portraits. Among these is that of his daughter Violante,
believed to have been loved by Titian. 'Palma's three Daughters,' in the
Dresden Gallery, is a masterpiece of 'fair, full-blown beauty.' The hair
of the women is of the curiously bleached yellow tint affected then by
the Venetian ladies. Palma painted many pictures, leaving at his death
forty-our unfinished.

Giovanni Antonio da Pardenone, born 1483, died 1538. He had many names,
'Pardenone' from his birth-place, 'Corticellis' from that of his father,
and he is believed to have assumed the name 'Regillo' after he received
knighthood from the King of Hungary. He was Venetian in his artistic
qualities. Many of his works are in his native Pardetowns near. All have
suffered and some are now hidden by whitewash. His chief strength lay in
fresco. His scenes from the Passion in the cathedral, Cremona, are
greatly damaged and wretchedly restored, but they still reveal the
painter as a great master. They have 'fine drawing, action, excellent
colouring, grand management of light and shade, with freedom of hand and
dignity of conception.' In the prophets and sibyls around the cupola of
the Madonna di Campagna, Piacenza, Pardenone's power is fully proven.
His immense works in fresco account for the rarity of his oil pictures
and their comparative inferiority. There is only one picture, and that a
portrait, indisputably assigned to Pardenone in England, in the Baring
Collection.

Giovanni di Pietro, known as Lo Spagna (the Spaniard), was a
contemporary of Raphael's, a fellow-pupil of his under Perugino. There
is no record of the time and place of Lo Spagna's birth. He died in
1533. He was a careful, conscientious follower of Perugino and Raphael,
doing finished and delicate work; an 'Assumption' in a church at Trevi
is a fine example of his qualities. His best picture was painted in
1516, and is at Assisi. It represents the Madonna enthroned with three
saints on each side. In his later works he betrayed feebleness. Pictures
by Lo Spagna are often attributed to Raphael.

Giulio Pippi, surnamed Romano, born in 1492, died in 1546, was a very
different painter, while he was the most celebrated of Raphael's
scholars. He had a vigorous, daring spirit, with a free hand and a bold
fancy. So long as he painted under Raphael, Giulio followed his master
closely, especially in his study of the antique, but he lacked the
purity and grace of his teacher, on whose death, the pupil leaving Rome,
pursued his own coarser, more vehement impulses. The frescoes in the
Villa Modama, Rome, are good examples of his style, so is the
altar-piece of the Martyrdom of St Stephen in S. Stefano, Genoa. Giulio
Romano was the architect who designed the rebuilding of half Mantua.
His best easel picture in England is the 'Education of Jupiter by Nymphs
and Corybantes,' in the National Gallery. In Raphael's lifetime his
principal scholar was accustomed to work on the master's pictures, and
on his death Giulio, together with another pupil, Gianfrancesco Penni,
were left executors of Raphael's will and heirs of his designs.

Paris Bordone was born at Treviso in 1500 and died in 1570. He was
educated in the Venetian School, and remained remarkable for delicate
rosy colour in his flesh tints and for purple, crimson, and shot hues in
his draperies, which were usually small and in crumpled folds. His _chef
d'oeuvre_ is in the Venetian Academy. It is a fisherman presenting a ring
to the Doge, and is a large and fine picture with many figures. He dealt
frequently in mythological or poetic subjects. There is an example of
the first in the National Gallery. He was great in single female
subjects and women's portraits. There is a portrait by Bordone of a
lovely woman of nineteen belonging to the Brignole family, in the
National Gallery. He had often fine landscape and grand architecture in
his pictures.

Il Parmigianino, born 1503, died 1540, was a follower of Correggio's. In
Parmigianino's case the danger of the master's peculiarities became
apparent by the lapse into affectation and frivolity. 'His Madonnas are
empty and condescending, his female saints like ladies in waiting.'
Still there were certain indestructible beauties of the master which yet
clung to the scholar. He had clear warm colouring, decision, and good
conception of human life. He was highly successful in portraits. There
is a splendid portrait by Parmigianino, said to be Columbus, in Naples.
Among his celebrated pictures is 'The Madonna with the Long Neck,' in
the Pitti Palace. An altar-piece in the National Gallery, which
represents a Madonna in the clouds with St John the Baptist appearing
to St Jerome, is a good example of Parmigianino. It is said that he was
engrossed with this picture during the siege of Rome in 1527. The
soldiers entered the studio intent on pillage, but surprising the
master at his work, respected his enthusiasm and protected him.

Federigo Baroccio, of Urbino, born in 1528, died in 1612, was also a
follower of Correggio's, and made a stand against the decline of art in
his day. He was tender and idyllic, though apt in his turn to be
affected and sentimental. When painting in the Vatican, Rome, his rivals
sought to take his life by poison. The attempt caused Baroccio to return
to Urbino, where he established himself and executed his commissions.

Amirighi da Caravaggio was born at Caravaggio in 1569, and died at Porto
Ercole in 1609. He was chief of the naturalistic school, the members of
which painted common nature and violent passions in bitter opposition to
the eclectics, especially the Caracci. The feud was sometimes carried on
appositely enough on the side of the naturalistic painters by poison and
dagger. Caravaggio was distinguished by his wild temper and stormy life,
in keeping with his pictures. He resided principally in Rome, but dwelt
also in Naples. He is vulgar but striking, even pathetic in some of his
pictures. The 'Beheading of John the Baptist,' in the Cathedral, Malta,
is one of his masterpieces. His Holy Families now and then resemble
gipsy _menages_.

Guiseppe Ribiera, a Spaniard, and so called Lo Spagnoletto, was born
1593 and died 1656. He followed Caravaggio, while he retained
reminiscences of the Spanish School and of the Venetian masters. Some of
his best pictures, such as 'the Pieta with the Marys and the Disciples,'
and his 'Last Supper,' are in Naples. He had a wild fancy with a
preference for horrible subjects--executions, tortures--in this respect
resembling Domenichino. Lo Spagnoletto is said to be particularly
unpleasant in his mythological scenes. Many of his pictures have
blackened with time. His 'Mary of Egypt standing by her open Grave' is a
remarkable picture in the Dresden Gallery.

Giovanni Francesco Barbiera, surnamed Guercino da Cinto, approached the
school of the Caracci. In his art he resembled Guido Reni, with the same
sweetness, greater liveliness, and fine chiaroscuro. 'Dido's Last
Moments' and 'St Peter raising Tabitha' in Rome and in the Pitti Palace
are fine examples of Guercino's work. His later pictures, like Guido's,
are fascinating in softness, delicate colouring and tender sentiment,
degenerating, however, into mannerism and insipidity, while his
colouring becomes at last pale and washy.

Albano, born 1578, died 1660. He had elegance and cheerfulness which
hardly rose to grace. He painted mostly scenes from ancient mythology,
such as 'Venus and her Companions.' Religious subjects were
comparatively rare with him; one, however, often repeated was the
'Infant Christ sleeping on the Cross.'

Giovanni Battista Salvi, surnamed from his birth-place Sassoferrato, was
born in 1605 and died in 1685. He followed the scholars of the Caracci,
but with some independence, returning to older and greater masters. His
art was distinguished by a peculiar but slightly affected gentleness of
conception, pleasing and sweet--with the sweetness verging on weakness.
He finished with minute care. He gave constant representations of the
Madonna and Child and Holy Families in a domestic character. In one of
his pictures in Naples the Madonna is engaged in sewing. His most
celebrated, 'Madonna del Rosario,' is in S. Sabina, Rome. The Madonna
bending in ecstatic worship over an infant Christ lying on a cushion is
in the Dresden Gallery.

Giorgio Vasari was born at Arezzo in 1512 and died at Florence in 1574.
He was an architect, or jeweller, and a historical painter of heavy
crowded pictures. His lives of the early Italian painters and sculptors
up to his own time, the sixteenth century, though full of traditional
gossip, are invaluable as graphic chronicles of much interesting
information which would otherwise have been lost.

Sofonisba Anguisciola, born 1535, died about 1620, was a pupil of
Bernardino Campi about the close of the sixteenth century at Cremona.
She is justly praised by Vasari. Though her works are rare there are a
few in England and Scotland. Three of her pictures which are mentioned
with high commendation by Dr. Waagen are, 'a nun in the white robes of
her order, nobly conceived and delicately coloured,' in Lord
Yarborough's collection; in Mr Harcourt's collection, 'her own
portrait, still very youthful, delicate, charming, and clear;' and in
the collection of the late Sir W. Stirling Maxwell, 'another portrait of
herself at an easel painting the Virgin and Child on wood, delicately
conceived, clear in colour, and very careful.'

Lavinia Fontana, born in 1552, died 1614, was a daughter of Prospero
Fontana, who belonged to the fast degenerating Bolognese artists at the
close of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century. She was
a better artist than her fellow painters, worked cleverly and boldly,
and showed truth to nature. She has left excellent portraits. In the
late Sir W. Stirling Maxwell's collection there is a picture by her,
'Two girls in a boat with a youth rowing,' on wood, 'of very graceful
motive and careful treatment.'




CHAPTER XIII.[50]

GERMAN, FLEMISH, AND DUTCH ARTISTS FROM THE FIFTEENTH TO THE EIGHTEENTH
CENTURY--VAN DER WEYDEN, A CONTEMPORARY OF THE VAN EYCKS, 1366-1442--VAN
LEYDEN, 1494-1533--VAN SOMER, 1570-1624--SNYDERS, 1579-1657--G.
HONTHORST, 1592-1662--JAN STEEN, 1626-1679--GERARD DOW, 1613-1680--DE
HOOCH, DATES OF BIRTH AND DEATH UNKNOWN--VAN OSTADE, 1610-1685--MAAS,
1632-1693--METZU, 1615, STILL ALIVE IN 1667--TERBURG,
1608-1681--NETCHER, 1639-1684--BOL, 1611-1680--VAN DER HELST,
1613-1670--RUYSDAEL, 1625 (?)-1682--HOBBEMA, 1638-1709--BERCHEM,
1620-1683--BOTH, 1610 (?)-1650 (?)--DU JARDIN, 1625-1678--ADRIAN VAN DE
VELDE, 1639-1672--VAN DER HEYDEN, 1637-1712--DE WITTE, 1607-1692--VAN
DER NEER, 1619(?)-1683--WILLIAM VAN DE VELDE THE YOUNGER,
1633-1707--BACKHUYSEN, 1631-1708--VAN DE CAPELLA, ABOUT
1653--HONDECOETER, 1636-1695--JAN WEENIX, 1644-1719--PATER SEGERS,
1590-1661--VAN HUYSUM, 1682-1749--VAN DER WERFF, 1659-1722--MENGS,
1728-1774.


Roger van der Weyden was a contemporary of the Van Eycks, born at
Tournai. His early pictures in Brussels are lost. He visited Italy in
1439, and was treated with distinction at Ferrara. His Flemish realistic
cast of mind and artistic power remained utterly unaffected by the grand
Italian pictures with which he came in contact; so did his profound
earnestness, which must have been great indeed, since its effects are
felt through all impediments down to the present day. His expressive
realism chose subjects in which the sentiments of grief and pity could
be most fitly shown. He sternly rejected any suggestion to idealise the
human form, and paint heads, hands, or feet different from those in
ordinary life. 'It is the simplicity with which he gives expression by
large and melancholy eyes, thought by projections of the forehead, grief
by contracted muscles, and suffering by attenuation of the flesh which
touches us.' The deadly earnestness of the man impresses the spectator
at this distant date. 'There is no smile in any of his faces, but there
is many a face wrung with agony, and there is many a tear.' He objected
to shadow in every form, and filled his pictures with an invariable
atmosphere and light--those which belong to dawn before sunrise. Among
his finer works are a triptych[51] belonging to the Duke of Westminster,
a 'Last Judgment' in the Hospital at Bearne, and a large 'Descent from
the Cross' in Madrid. In the triptych in the centre is Christ with black
hair, which is unusual, in his left hand the globe. On his right is the
Virgin Mary, on his left St John the Evangelist; on the right wing is
St John the Baptist, on his left the Magdalene.

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