Part 9

The panel transferred to canvas (15 × 21½ inches), was formerly in the Collection of Mr. C. A. Rouse-Boughton-Knight of Downton Castle, Ludlow, Herefordshire, England.

Andrea Mantegna was born in Vicenza in 1431. He was inscribed in the Guild at Padua as pupil and adopted son of Squarcione (see page 97) in 1441 and made the most extraordinary progress in his studies, perfectly fascinated with “the antique”. “At a little more than ten years of age,” Berenson writes, “Mantegna was adopted by a contractor named Squarcione. How much of a painter Squarcione was, we do not know, but we do know that he undertook designing and painting to be executed by people in his employ. He was also a dealer in antiquities and his shop was frequented by the distinguished people who passed through Padua, and by the Humanists teaching in the famous University. It happened to be a moment when in Italy Antiquity was a religion, nay, more, a mystical passion, causing wise men to brood over fragments of Roman statuary as if they were sacred relics, and to yearn for ecstatic union with the glorified past. To complete the spell, this glorified past happened to be the past of their own country.”

Another influence was Donatello, who was working in Padua in 1750 and after; and still another was Jacopo Bellini. After his marriage to Bellini’s daughter and his break with Squarcione, Mantegna went to Venice to have his contract with Squarcione cancelled in the Law Courts; and, returning to Padua, he continued his work on important frescoes. In 1460 Mantegna removed to the Court of Mantua at the invitation of the Marchese Lodovico Gonzaga and in addition to his painting he designed for pageants and festivals, and decorated villas and palaces, just as Leonardo da Vinci was destined to do a few years later for another Lodovico,--“Il Moro,” Regent and, later, Duke of Milan. Mantegna also at this period designed for goldsmiths. When Francesco Gonzaga succeeded his father, Mantegna remained at the Court of Mantua and became the supreme arbiter of the taste of the day. For Francesco’s wife, Isabella d’Este (sister of “Il Moro’s” wife, Beatrice d’Este) and for her mother, the Duchess of Ferrara, Mantegna painted some of his most famous pictures, such as the _Triumph of Cæsar_ (now at Hampton Court Palace) and the _Madonna and Child with Singing Cherubs_ (now in the Brera). On leaving for Rome in 1788 Mantegna was knighted. In Rome he decorated the Belvedere Chapel for Pope Innocent VIII. To his last period belong delicate and lovely mythological pieces, including the _Parnassus_ (now in the Louvre) and the strong and decorative painting of _Judith with the Head of Holofernes_ (now in the Widener Collection).

When Mantegna died in 1506, Lorenzo da Pavia (see page 95) wrote to Isabella d’Este: “The death of our Master Andrea causes me great sorrow, for in him a second Apelles has passed away; I do believe that the Lord God wishes to employ him for the creation of some beautiful work. I can never hope to meet a finer draughtsman nor a more original artist.”

Padua, Mantua, Venice,--all felt Mantegna’s influence.

VIRGIN AND CHILD WITH THE INFANT ST. JOHN AND ANGEL.

_Francia (1450?–1517)._

_Collection of Mr. Clarence H. Mackay._

This picture came from the Collection of the Comtesse Edmond de Pourtales of Paris and shows the Virgin seated and holding the nude Infant Jesus on her right knee. She is wearing a crimson dress edged with gold embroidery and a blue mantle, also edged with gold embroidery, which is drawn over her head. Beneath this a white gauze veil covers her hair. The Holy Child has raised His right hand in benediction while in His left he holds a blue ball. The Angel on the right wears a rose-colored tunic and yellow mantle and is adorned with jewels. By his side and with one foot on a balustrade stands the Infant St. John, dressed in blue and carrying a slender cross over his left shoulder.

Of this panel (23½ × 19¾ inches), painted in oil, Berenson says: “If this most famous of the Bolognese artists ever painted a more delightful picture than the present one, it remains unknown to me. Perhaps its only rival in my affections would be the Munich picture of the _Virgin in the Rose Garden_ where, however, it is not the faces but the pale roses against the flat green that give the work its special charm.”

Francesco Raibolini, who took the name Francia from a master-goldsmith to whom he was apprenticed, was born in Bologna in 1450, the son of a carpenter. He spent his early years working in metals and settings for jewels and became very expert in _niello_, gold and silver enamels, and designs for jewelry. He also acquired a reputation for his coins and medals, so much so indeed that Giovanni Bentivoglio II, who became his patron, appointed him his master of the mint. Moreover, in 1511 Francia was elected one of the _Golfalonieri_ of the people; in 1512 re-elected to the mastership of the Goldsmith’s Guild; and in 1514 he became “Master of the Four Arts.” It is thought that he began to paint about 1483, when Lorenzo Costa came to Bologna and formed a friendship with Francia. Be this as it may, he worked with Costa on an altar-piece for the Church of the Misericordia and the influence of Costa is apparent in much of his work. Francia also painted with Costa in 1505–1507 the series of frescoes in the Chapel of St. Cecilia and the _Madonna del Terremoto_ in the Palazzo Communale, Bologna. Francia painted Madonnas all his life; and in addition to these religious pictures, he painted a number of splendid portraits. He died in Bologna in 1517. One of his pupils was Timoteo Viti, who in turn was Raphael’s early teacher and imparted to him some of Francia’s quality, particularly in the general appearance of the Madonna and the full rounded contours of the figures. About 1500 Francia began to develop his own personal style.

PORTRAIT OF A LADY.

_Bernardino Luini (1475?–1531–2)._

_Collection of the Hon. Andrew W. Mellon._

The first thing we notice in this picture is a very peculiar head-dress--large and round and fleecy.

The figure is half-length, life-size, and faces us so that we gain a very good idea of the unknown lady, so boldly set forth from the background of a green curtain. She wears a dark-grey dress, a white embroidered _chemisette_ and a jewelled cross hanging from a gold chain which she is fingering lightly. In her right hand is a pet marten. The hands, it should be noted, are beautifully drawn. This, an oil painting on panel (29 × 21½), came from the Benson Collection, having been previously in the Collection of Mr. F. R. Leyland.

Bernardino Luini was born at Luini, near the Lago Maggiore about 1475, and died in Milan in 1531 or 1532. Luini worked chiefly in the vicinity of Milan and painted a great many frescoes. He is said to have been a pupil of Borgognone; but whether that be true or not, most certainly Leonardo da Vinci was his real master. It was assuredly from the painter of the _Mona Lisa_ that Luini learned how to paint a charming woman with refined features breaking into a radiant and enchanting smile. Luini painted many notable religious pictures, including admirable Madonnas, but his loveliest work is the portrait of a Milanese lady known as _The Columbine_, in The Hermitage Gallery, gazing at the flower she is holding in her hand, from which the picture takes its name.

“Luini’s female creations are so exquisite that for a long time people supposed that Leonardo alone was capable of conceiving them,” writes Marcel Reymond, “and permanently recording their loveliness; but now this injustice has come to an end and Luini’s art appears before us with sharply determined characteristics that prevent us from confounding it with Leonardo’s art; first of all, from the point of view of technique, it must be remembered that Leonardo works like a master born about 1450 and Luini like one born after 1470. With Luini the workmanship is less precise than with Leonardo, while the stroke is less restrained and the modelling freer.”

TITIAN’S SCHOOLMASTER.

_Giambattista Moroni (1520–5–1578)._

_Collection of Mr. Joseph E. Widener._

In the National Gallery, London, there is a striking portrait of a _Tailor_--known as the _Tagliapanni_--standing behind his board, at half-length, with shears in his right hand and a piece of cloth in his left, looking inquiringly at the spectator. It is forceful, attractive, commands attention, and lives in the memory of all who have looked upon it. Moroni’s _Tailor_ is one of the great portraits of the world. The merest glance at the picture represented here would tell you that it is by the same hand. The means of producing a striking effect are even simpler than in the London portrait.

The title is entirely fanciful, but it accords well with the subject, a pleasant, genial man with an intellectual countenance. He seems to be about sixty years of age and is dressed in black with white linen collar and a black cap. His beard is grey. He is sitting sideways in a chair that is often described to-day (and for no reason whatever) as a “Savonarola Chair,” resting his left arm on the arm of the chair and holding a book in his right. It would appear that he has just been interrupted in his reading--pleasantly, too, it would seem--and is keeping the page he has left off reading with one finger between the leaves. The hands are marvellously drawn and painted, as is also the ring on the left hand. Van Dyck admired this picture so much that he made a sketch of it in his Italian sketch-book (which is now at Chatsworth).

This portrait in oils on canvas (38 × 29½ inches) was long in the Borghese Gallery at Rome, and then at the beginning of the Nineteenth Century it was purchased by the Marquis of Stafford. From the Duke of Northumberland’s Collection, Stafford House, it passed to the present owner.

Moroni’s great fame, even in his own day, was as a portrait-painter; and it is said that when people from Bergamo and its vicinity went to Titian to have their portraits painted, he told them to go home and sit to their own countryman. Moroni was a pupil of Moretto at Brescia, was influenced by Lotto and Titian, and he, in his turn, influenced Van Dyck.

Moroni was born at Bondo in Bergamo between 1520 and 1525 and died at Bergamo in 1578.

_VENETIAN_

“It is evident,” wrote Taine, “that, while following a path of its own, Venetian Painting developed as in the rest of Italy. It issued here, as elsewhere, from missals and mosaics and was at first in sympathy with purely Christian emotion; then, by degrees, the feeling for beautiful human life introduced into the altar-frames vigorous and healthy bodies taken from contemporary types; and we wonder at the placid, expressions and religious physiognomies on the blooming faces in which the youthful blood circulates and sustains innate temperament. This is the confluence of two spirits and two ages: one, the Christian, which is fading away; the other, the Pagan, which is in the ascendant. In Venetian Art special traits are distinguished. The people are more closely copied from life and are less transformed by Classic or mystic sentiment, not so pure as at Perugia, not so noble as at Florence: they are addressed more to the senses than to the mind or the heart; they are more quickly recognized as men and give greater pleasure to the eye. Strong and lively tones color their muscles and their faces; living flesh is soft on their shoulders and on the thighs of little children; clear landscapes open into the distance to make the deeper tints of the figure stand out; saints gather around the Virgin in a variety of attitudes unknown to the other Primitive Schools with their uniform processions. At the height of its fervor and faith the national spirit, fond of diversity and joy, allows a smile to escape.”

Venice was slow in abandoning Byzantine tradition. Changes begin to be apparent in the Fourteenth Century. Walter Pater notes: “The beginnings of Venetian Painting link themselves to the last, stiff, half-barbaric splendors of Byzantine decoration and are but the introduction into the crust of marble and gold on the walls of the Duomo of Murano, or of St. Mark’s, of a little more of human expression. And throughout the course of its later development, always subordinate to architectural effect, the work of the Venetian School never escaped from the influence of its beginnings. Unassisted, and therefore, unperplexed by naturalism, religious mysticism, philosophical theories, it had no Giotto, no Fra Angelico, no Botticelli. Except from the stress of thought or sentiment, which taxed so severely the resources of the generations of Florentine artists, those earlier Venetian painters, down to Carpaccio and the Bellini, seem never for a moment to have been tempted even to lose sight of the scope of their art in its strictness, or to forget that painting must be before all things decorative, a thing for the eye, a space of color on the wall, only more dexterously blent than the marking of its precious stone, or the chance interchange of sun and shade upon it--this to begin and end with--whatever higher matter of thought, or poetry, or religious reverie, might play its part therein, between.”

During the Fifteenth Century Venice began to be influenced by painters from other cities, particularly by Gentile da Fabriano (see page 74) and Pisanello (see page 99), who were sent for to decorate the Doge’s Palace. Gentile da Fabriano represented all the latest “modernistic” ideas of his day. Among the Venetians who were most profoundly influenced by him was Jacopo Bellini (who later went to Padua). Jacopo, in spite of his contact with Squarcione and Andrea Mantegna (who married his daughter), remained “Gothic” in essentials. Jacopo Bellini had one of the largest _bottegas_ in Venice; and this _bottega_ was continued by his gifted sons, Giovanni and Gentile.

Jacopo was a talented painter who had worked in Florence as well as Padua, but who really belongs to Venice.

The great rivals of the Bellini painters were the Vivarini on the Island of Murano. The Vivarini, the first of whom was Antonio da Murano (active 1440–1476 or 1484), who played a great part in the development of the Venetian School and whose work consisted of enormous altar-pieces of many compartments set in Gothic framework of very ornate character and profusely adorned with gold; Bartolommeo Vivarini, Antonio’s younger brother (1431?–1499?), in whose work the influence of the Paduan School of Squarcione is marked and also that of Antonello da Messina; and Antonio’s son, Alvise Vivarini (1447–1504), a pupil of his father and uncle, who was working in 1474 with Giovanni Bellini in the Scuola di San Girolamo in Venice and whose portraits show the influence of Antonello da Messina.

Carlo Crivelli (1430?–1493?), if not a Venetian by birth, which is most probable, is classed as belonging to the Venetian School. Crivelli was a fellow-pupil of Bartolommeo Vivarini under Antonio da Murano (Vivarini), and Squarcione. Like Mantegna, Crivelli kept to tempera painting; Crivelli stands alone for his wonderful decorative qualities (see page 125 and page 128).

Antonello da Messina (1430–1479) was a contemporary of Crivelli and is particularly distinguished for introducing into Italy the Flemish system of painting with oils. In his pictures the influence of the Bellini is apparent (see page 124).

Giovanni Bellini (1428–30–1516), one of the greatest painters of the Fifteenth Century, was trained by his father, Jacopo Bellini. Next he followed in the footsteps of Squarcione and Andrea Mantegna; but he changed his style, as well as his technique, gradually abandoning tempera for the new practice in oils, which he was one of the first to master. In some respects Giovanni Bellini was influenced by his own pupil, Giorgione (see page 118). Gentile Bellini (1426–9–1507), was named, it is interesting to note, for Gentile da Fabriano, his father’s master and friend. Gentile, trained by his father, Jacopo, was called upon to paint the organ-shutters at St. Mark’s with colossal figures of St. Mark, St. Theodore, St. Jerome, and St. Francis; was knighted by Frederic III in 1469; and was employed to restore the frescoes of Gentile da Fabriano in the Hall of the Grand Council in the Doge’s Palace, a commission which carried with it the honor of painting the portrait of every new Doge. Sent for by the Sultan of Constantinople, Mohammed II, to paint his portrait, Gentile sailed for Constantinople in 1479 and returned in 1480 with the title of Bey. Gentile then joined his brother, Giovanni, who was working on the Fabriano frescoes. The Bellini brothers also painted on canvas a series of pictures portraying the legend of Frederic Barbarossa and Pope Alexander III, which perished in the fire of 1577. Gentile’s _Procession of Corpus Christi of 1496_ has been pronounced “the most important extant work of the Venetian School previous to the advent of Titian.”

The _bottegas_ of the Bellini and Vivarini naturally produced a host of able painters, among whom were Marco Basaiti (active 1500–1521); Lazzaro Bastiani (active 1449–1512); Cima da Conegliano (1460?–1517?); and Jacopo Bassano (1510?–1592). Vittore Carpaccio (1450?–1526?), was a follower of Gentile Bellini; and the stories he told in paint, such as the series depicting the _Life of Saint Ursula_, belong to the great works of Venice.

Giorgione (1477–1510) is the next important name. Little or nothing is known of his life, except that he was born of humble parents at Castelfranco. By 1500 his reputation was established, for he was then painting important works. Among these was a picture for the Hall of Audience in the Doge’s Palace and some fresco decorations for the exterior of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, the bank of the German merchants in Venice. Giorgione was a pupil and follower of the Bellini and had much influence upon Giovanni Bellini. Giorgione died of the Plague in his thirty-fourth year. Giorgione stands alone for his romantic and lyrical qualities and for his penetrating charm. He is notable, too, for having introduced music into his pictures, or rather persons who are playing upon instruments.

Apart from his delightful qualities Giorgione is of the greatest importance in the evolution of painting. Walter Pater writes: “Giorgione is the inventor of _genre_, of those easily movable pictures which serve for uses, neither of devotion nor of allegorical, or historical teaching--little groups of real men and women, amid congruous furniture or landscape--morsels of actual life, conversation, or music, or play, refined upon or idealized, till they come to seem like glimpses of life from afar. Those spaces of more cunningly blent color, obediently filling their place, hitherto, in a mere architectural scheme, Giorgione detaches from the wall; he frames them by the hands of some skillful carver, so that people may move them readily and take with them where they go, like a poem in manuscript, or a musical instrument, to be used, at will, as a means of self-education, stimulus or solace, coming like an animated presence, into one’s cabinet, to enrich the air as with some choice aroma, and, like persons, live with us, for a day or a lifetime. Of all art like this, art which has played so large a part in men’s culture since that time, Giorgione is the initiator.”

Titian, or rather Tiziano Vecello (1477?–1576), fellow-pupil of Giorgione, of Gentile and Giovanni Bellini and assistant to Giorgione in decorating the Fondaco dei Tedeschi (which established a new era in Italian painting), was the leading painter of his day (see page 140).

Bartolommeo Veneto, of Veneziano (1480–1555), pupil of Giovanni Bellini, became a famous portrait-painter. (See page 148.)

Tintoretto, the magnificent Venetian, was nicknamed “Il Furioso,” because of his great technical powers that include astonishing display of foreshortening and many curious effects in light and color, as well as in form. Ruskin says Tintoretto (or Tintoret, call him as you please) made “figures lovely in themselves, content that they should _deserve_ not _demand_, your attention.”

Playing with a full orchestra of color and understanding how to produce the most luminous effects of light, the great Venetian filled Venice with marvellous pictures. Tintoretto was equal to the immense work he undertook and his noble brush never left anything that was unworthy of it. Tintoretto, whose real name was Jacopo Robusti (1518–1594), was apprenticed to Titian and was influenced by Titian, Palma Vecchio, Michelangelo, and Parmigiano (of the School of Palma and follower of Correggio).

“There is one only--the last and greatest of the Venetians of the Renaissance--who could sound all the notes of tragedy and pathos as well as notes of joy. Tintoretto, the supreme Venetian, the greatest exponent of the essential spirit of Venice, is the son of a wider kingdom than hers and of a greater age than the Renaissance. Unsurpassed as a designer and colorist, he is endowed throughout with the peculiar gifts of Venice; but during those years of passionate study, in which he was winning here and there the secrets of his art, hungry for knowledge, careless of gain, and bargaining only for material in which to realize his conceptions,--during those years in which he lived alone in continual meditation on some fresh labor, he was probing the deep and passionate things of humanity as no Venetian artist had ever probed them before. The streets and churches of the city seem to echo still to the steps of this genius at once so robust, so tender, so profound, and so joyous.”[15]

Paolo Veronese, or rather Paolo Caliari (1528–1588), a native of Verona, whence his name, is one of the most delightful of painters. J. Buisson considers Veronese of all the painters of Italy “the one whose work best serves to particularize the art of painting” and this able French critic goes on to say that “Veronese painted the Venetian Beautiful as the Greeks sculptured the Hellenic Beautiful” and that “Paul Veronese is of all the colorists, without a single exception, the one who has most unity. He is the most ethereal of the colorists. He is the painter of the air, both out-of-doors and in-doors. His values are impeccable and his shadows are at once transparent and full of color, without any artifice, such as Rubens’s exaggerated reflections, or the excessive sacrifices, which in Rembrandt are almost equivalent to a monotone in those parts that are lacking in light. His lights are broad and steady although modelled without any gleams, but of so shining a quality that they are positively radiant. Happy artist! He had the eye of the most perfect colorist ever known, able to perceive at the same time the different qualities of light and color and their variations in intensity and values and he possessed the gift to reveal them with marvellous art to ordinary mortals. Optics applied to his pictures show no law that he did not know and practice. Moreover, around his perfect visions of color are grouped other qualities, such as imagination, taste, rhythm, elegance, nobility, and magnificence in decoration. His hand is the equal of his eye. The rapidity of his brush may be compared only to that of Velasquez and to that of Rubens.”

This great period, Taine sums up as follows: