Part 7

Having thus gained a first idea of the =courtyard fronts= of the building, continue your walk, still westward, along the S wing as far as the Pavillon de Flore, a remaining portion of the corner edifice which ran into one line with the Palace of the Tuileries (again consult Baedeker’s map). Turn round the corner of the Pavillon to examine the S, or =River Front= of the connecting gallery—one of the finest parts of the whole building, but far less known to ordinary visitors than the cold and uninteresting Northern line along the Rue de Rivoli. The first portion, as far as the gateways, belongs originally to the age of Henri IV; but it was entirely reconstructed under Napoleon III, whose obtrusive N appears in many places on the gateways and elsewhere. Nevertheless, it still preserves, on the whole, some reminiscence of its graceful Renaissance architecture. Beyond the main gateway (with modern bronze Charioteer of the Sun), flanked by the Pavillons de la Trémoille and de Lesdiguières, we come upon the long =Southern Gallery= erected by Catherine de Médicis, which still preserves almost intact its splendid early French Renaissance decoration. This is one of the noblest portions of the entire building. The N here gives place to H’s, and the Renaissance scroll-work and reliefs almost equal those in that portion of the old Louvre which was erected under François I^{er}. Sit on a seat on the Quay and examine the sculpture. Notice particularly the splendid Porte Jean Goujon, conspicuous from afar by its gilded balcony. Its crowned H’s and coats-of-arms are specially interesting examples of the decorative work of the period. Note also the skill with which this almost flat range is relieved by sculpture and decoration so as to make us oblivious of the want of that variety usually given by jutting portions. The end of this long gallery is formed by two handsome windows with balconies. We there come to the connecting =Galerie d’Apollon=, of which these windows are the termination, and finally reach once more a portion of Perrault’s façade, with its double LL’s, erected under Louis XIV, and closely resembling the interior _façade_ of the Cour du Louvre.

(The N side you can examine any day as you pass along the Rue de Rivoli. You will now have no difficulty in distinguishing its various factors—first, on the E, a part of Perrault’s _façade_ of the Old Louvre; then, where it begins to bend outward, a portion of Napoleon the Third’s connecting link; finally, beyond the main carriage way, westward, a part reconstructed under the Third Republic.)

Sit awhile on the adjacent Pont des Arts to gain a general conception of the relations of the Louvre, the Île de la Cité, the Hôtel de Ville and other surrounding buildings.

This first rough idea of the Louvre should be filled in later by detailed study. The Renaissance portions, in particular, you should look at again and again, every time you enter piecing out your conceptions at a later stage by visiting the Renaissance Sculpture Gallery in the Cour du Louvre, and comparing the works inside it and outside it. Thus only can you gain a connected idea of Renaissance Paris, to be further supplemented by frequent visits to St. Étienne-du-Mont, St. Eustache, and Fontainebleau.

B. THE COLLECTIONS

[The Collections in the Louvre have no such necessary organic connection with Paris itself as Notre-Dame and the Sainte-Chapelle, or even those in the rooms at Cluny. They may, therefore, be examined by the visitor at _any_ period of his visit that he chooses. I would advise him, however, whenever he takes them up, to begin with the paintings, _in the order here enumerated_, and then to go on to the Classical and Renaissance Sculpture. The last-named, at least, he should only examine in connection with the rest of Renaissance Paris. Also, while it is unimportant whether he takes first Painting or Sculpture, it is very important that he should take each separately in the =chronological order= here enumerated. He should not skip from room to room, hap-hazard, but see what he sees systematically.

At least =six days=—far more, if possible—should be devoted to the Louvre Collections—by far the most important objects to be seen in Paris. Of these, =four= should be assigned to the Paintings, and one each to the Classical and Renaissance Sculpture. If this is impossible, do not try to see all; see a =little thoroughly=. Confine yourself, for Painting, to the Salon Carré and the Salle des Primitifs, and for Sculpture, to a hasty walk through the Classical Gallery and to the three Western rooms of the Renaissance collection.

The object of the hints which follow is _not to describe_ the Collections in the Louvre; it is to put the reader =on the right track= for understanding and enjoying them. It is impossible to make people admire beautiful things; but if you begin by trying to comprehend them, you will find admiration and sympathy grow with comprehension. =Religious symbolism is the native language of early art=, and you cannot expect to understand the art if you do not take the trouble to learn the language in which it is written. Therefore, do not walk listlessly through the galleries, with a glance, right or left, at what happens to catch your eye; begin at the beginning, work systematically through what parts you choose, and endeavour to grasp the sequence and evolution of each group separately. Stand or sit long before every work, till you feel you know it; and return frequently. Remember, too, that I do not point out always what is most worthy of notice, but rather suggest a mode of arriving at facts which might otherwise escape you. Many beautiful objects explain themselves, or fall so naturally into their proper place in a series that you will readily discover their meaning and importance without external aid. With others, you may need a little help, to suggest a point of view, and that is all that these brief notes aim at. Do not be surprised if I pass by many beautiful and interesting things; if you find them out for yourself, there is no need to enlarge upon them. Should these hints succeed in interesting you in the succession and development of art, get Mrs. Jameson and Kugler, and read up at leisure in your rooms all questions suggested to you by your visits to the galleries. My notes are intended to be looked at =before the objects themselves=, and merely to open a door to their right comprehension.

The galleries are open, free, daily, except Mondays. Painting from 9, Sculpture from 11. For details, see Baedeker.]

I. PAINTINGS.

Take Baedeker’s Plan of the Galleries (1st Floor) with you. Enter by the door in the Pavillon Denon. (Sticks and umbrellas left here; tip optional.) Turn to L and traverse long hall with reproductions of famous antiques in bronze (Laocoon, Medici Venus, Apollo Belvedere, etc.), which those who do not intend to visit Rome and Florence will do well to examine. Observe, in passing, in the centre of the hall, a fine antique sarcophagus, with figures in high relief, representing the story of Achilles. Begin on the furthest side of the sarcophagus: (1) Achilles, disguised as a woman, among the daughters of Lycomedes, in order to avoid the Trojan war; (2) is discovered by Ulysses as a pedlar, through his choice of arms instead of trinkets; (3) arming himself for the combat; and (4, modern) Priam redeeming the body of Hector. (The work originally stood against a wall, and had therefore three decorative sides only.) Further on, fine sarcophagus from Salonica, Roman period, with Combat of Amazons, representing on the lid husband and wife, couched, somewhat after the Etruscan fashion.

Mount the staircase (Escalier Daru). Near the top is the famous Nikè of Samothrace, a much-mutilated winged figure of Victory, standing like a figure-head on the prow of a trireme. It was erected by Demetrius Poliorcetes, in commemoration of a naval engagement in B.C. 305. Attitude and drapery stamp the work as one of the finest products of Hellenic art. Victory alights on the vessel of the conqueror.

Turn to your L just before reaching the last flight, and pass several Etruscan sarcophagi and sarcophagus-shaped funereal urns, many with the deceased and his wife on the lid, accompanied in some cases by protecting genii. The early Etruscans buried; the later often burned their dead, but continued to enclose the ashes in miniature sarcophagi. At the top, on the L, a fresco by _Fra Angelico_, the Dominican painter, St. Dominic embracing the Cross, with the Madonna and St. John Evangelist: not a first-rate example of the master. End wall, R of door, a fresco by _Botticelli_, Giovanni Tornabuoni receiving the Muses. Opposite it, L of door, another by the same, Giovanna his wife receiving the Graces, and accompanied by Cupid. These two frescoes stood in the hall of the owner’s villa, and gracefully typify the husband entertaining Literature, Science, and Art, while the wife extends hospitality to Love, Youth, and Beauty. Descend one flight of staircase again, passing yet other Etruscan sarcophagi (which examine), and, mounting opposite stairs, pass the Nikè and turn to your R. Traverse the photograph-room and the Salle Duchâtel beyond it, as well as the Salon Carré. Enter the Long Gallery, and, taking the first door to your R, you arrive at once in Room I (Baedeker’s VII), the

Salle des Primitifs.

The pictures in this room consist for the most part of those by early followers of Giotto, and by members of the schools which sprang from him, till the moment of the Renaissance. As these earliest pictures strike the key-note of types, continued and developed later, it is absolutely necessary to examine them _all_ very closely. In most cases, subject and treatment were rigorously prescribed by custom; scenes recur again and again, almost identically. Where saints are grouped round the Madonna, they were _ordered_ by the purchaser, and oftenest represent his own patrons. In order to obtain a chronological view, begin at the centre of the end wall. Most of these pictures are altar-pieces. I follow the =small numbers below=, the only ones for which a detailed catalogue is yet published.

=*=153. _Cimabue_ (the point of departure for Tuscan art); Madonna and Child with six angels. Almost a replica of the great picture in Santa Maria Novella at Florence; gold ground; the Madonna’s face still strongly Byzantine in type, with almond-shaped eyes; the Child, draped, after the earlier fashion. Later, he is represented nude. Observe, however, the greater artistic freedom in the treatment of the attendant angels, where Cimabue was slightly less hampered by conventional precedents. Do not despise this picture because of its stiffness and its archaic style. It is an immense advance upon the extremely wooden Byzantine models which preceded it: and in the angels it really approaches correctness of drawing.

225. (Skied) _Don Lorenzo Monaco._ A Tabernacle for an altar of St. Lawrence; centre, St. Lawrence, enthroned on his gridiron; L, St. Agnes with her lamb; R, St. Margaret with her dragon, all on gold grounds. A poor example. This Saint is usually represented in deacon’s robes. The other saints are probably those who shared the chapel with him. See the much later St. Margaret by Raphael as an example of Renaissance treatment of the same figure.

=*=192. _Giotto._ St. Francis receiving the Stigmata. A genuine picture, painted for the saint’s own church of San Francesco at Pisa; one of the earliest representations of this subject, often afterwards copied. Christ, as a six-winged seraph, red-feathered, appears in heaven to the Saint; rays proceed from his five wounds to the hands, feet, and side of St. Francis, which they impress with similar marks. A mountain represents La Vernia; two tiny buildings, the monastery. Compare with this subject two smaller treatments in the same room, both on the lowest tier: one, to the L as you go towards the door, 431, of the school of Perugino, where an attendant Brother (Leo) is seen astonished at the vision; the second on the R, 287, attributed to Pesello, and closely similar in treatment. Careful comparison of these pictures will serve to show the close way in which early painters imitated, or almost copied one another. The base (or predella) of the Giotto also contains three other subjects: Innocent III, asleep, is shown by St. Peter the falling church sustained by St. Francis; he confirms the Franciscan order; St. Francis preaches to the birds. All very spirited. Notice these little pictures for comparison later with others painted in the Dominican interest by Fra Angelico.

Continuing along L wall are some small pictures of the Sienese school, which should be carefully examined. (Do not suppose that because I do not call attention to a picture it is necessarily unworthy of notice.) Most of these little works breathe the pure piety and ecstatic feeling of the School of Siena.

=**=426. _Perugino._ Tondo, or round picture; the Madonna Enthroned; L, St. Rose with her roses; R, St. Catherine with her palm of martyrdom; behind, adoring angels. An exquisite example of the affected tenderness, delicate grace, and brilliant colouring of the Umbrian master, from whose school Raphael proceeded. An early specimen. Observe the dainty painting of the feet and hands, which is highly characteristic.

Beneath it, 1701, _Gentile da Fabriano_. Presentation in the Temple. Look closely into it. A delicate little example of the Umbrian rival of Fra Angelico. The arrangement will explain many later ones. Every one of the figures and their attitudes are conventional.

427. _Perugino._ Madonna and Child, with St. John Baptist and St. Catherine. The introduction of St. John shows the picture to have been probably painted for a Florentine patron. Not a pleasing example.

Beneath it, _Vittore Pisano_, characteristic portrait of an Este princess, in the hard, dry, accurate manner of this Veronese medallist, who borrowed from his earlier art the habit of painting profiles in strong low relief, with a plastic effect.

_Perugino._ St. Sebastian. One of the loveliest examples of the Umbrian master’s later manner. Contrasted with the Madonna and St. Rose it shows the distance covered by art during the painter’s lifetime. Observe its greater freedom and knowledge of anatomy. St. Sebastian, bound as usual to a pillar in a ruined temple, is pierced through with arrows. Face, figure, and expression are unusually fine for Perugino. Sebastian was the great saint for protection against the plague, and pictures containing him are almost always votive offerings under fear of that pestilence. Many in this gallery. The face here is finer than in any other presentation I know, except Sodoma’s in the Uffizi at Florence.

258. _Lombard or Piedmontese School._ Annunciation. An unusual treatment; the Madonna, as always, kneels at a _prie-dieu_, and starts away, alarmed and timid, at the apparition of the angel Gabriel. The action, as usual, takes place in a _loggia_, but the angel is represented as descending _in flight_ through the air, an extremely uncommon mode of depicting him. He bears the white lily of the Annunciation. The other details are conventional. Contrast with this subsequent Annunciations in this Gallery. L, are St. Augustin and St. Jerome; R, St. Stephen, bearing on his head, as often, the stones of his martyrdom, accompanied by St. Peter Martyr the Dominican, with the knife in his head. Both saints carry palms of martyrdom. A good picture in a hard, dry, local manner.

Now cross over to the =opposite side= of the room, beginning at the bottom, in order to preserve the chronological sequence.

196. _School of Giotto._ Madonna in Glory, with angels. Compare this treatment carefully with Cimabue’s great picture close by, in order to notice the advance in art made in the interval. The subject and general arrangement are the same, but observe the irregularity in the placing of the angels, and the increased knowledge of anatomy and expression.

Close by are several other =Giottesque pictures=, all of which should be closely examined; especially 425, _Vanni_, the same subject, for comparison. The little Giottesque Death of St. Bernard, in particular, is a characteristic example or type of a group which deals in the same manner with saintly obsequies. All of them will suggest explanations of later pictures. In all these cases, the saint lies on a bier in the foreground, surrounded by mourning monks and ecclesiastics. The key-note was struck by Giotto’s fresco of the Death of St. Francis at Santa Croce in Florence.

187. _Agnolo Gaddi._ Annunciation; a characteristic example. Note the loggia, and the angel with the lily; the introduction of a second angel, however, is a rare variation from the type. In the corner is the Father despatching the Holy Spirit. Attitude of the Madonna characteristic; study carefully. No subject sheds more light on the methods of early art than the Annunciation. It always takes place in an arcade: the Madonna is almost always to the right of the picture: and _prie-dieu_, book, and bed are frequent accessories.

666. Quaint little Florentine picture of St. Nicolas, throwing three purses of gold as a dowry inside the house of a poor and starving nobleman.

Next to it, unnumbered, Gregory the Great sees the Angel of the Plague sheathing his sword on the Castle of St. Angelo, so called from this vision.

494. St. Jerome in the Desert; lion, skull, crucifix, rocks, cardinal’s hat, all characteristic of the subject. In the foreground, a Florentine lily; in the background, Christ and the infant Baptist, patron of Florence; background L, St. Augustine and the angel who tries to empty the sea into a hole made with a bucket—a well-known allegory of the attempt of the finite to comprehend the Infinite. Look out elsewhere for such minor episodes.

_Fra Angelico._ Martyrdom of Sts. Cosmo and Damian, the holy physicians and (therefore) patron saints of the Medici family; a characteristic example of the saintly friar’s colouring in small subjects. These two Medici saints are naturally frequent in Florentine art.

662. _Fra Angelico._ Story of the death of St. John Baptist. Three successive episodes represented in the same picture. The lithe figure of the daughter of Herodias, dancing, is very characteristic.

166. Battle scene, by _Paolo Uccello_. Showing vigorous efforts at mastery of perspective and foreshortening, as yet but partially successful. The wooden character of the horses is conspicuous. Paolo Uccello was one of the group of early scientific artists, who endeavoured to improve their knowledge of optics and of the sciences ancillary to painting.

199. _Benozzo Gozzoli._ Glory of St. Thomas Aquinas, the great =Dominican= teacher. This is an apotheosis of scholasticism, in the person of its chief representative. R and L stand Aristotle and Plato, the heathen philosophers, in deferential attitudes, recognising their master. Beneath his feet is Guillaume de St. Amour, a vanquished heretic. Below, the entire Church—pope, cardinals, doctors—receiving instruction from St. Thomas. Above, the Eternal Father signifying His approval in a Latin inscription, surrounded by the Evangelists with their symbols—angel, winged lion, bull, eagle. The inscription imports, “Thomas has well spoken of Me.” The style is archaic: the council is supposed to be that of Agnani, presided over by Pope Alexander IV. Among the celestial personages, notice St. Paul, Moses, and others. Pictures of this double sort, embracing scenes in heaven and on earth, are common in Italy.

Beneath it (287), part 2. _Pesello._ St. Cosmo and St. Damian affixing the leg of a dead Moor to a wounded Christian, on whom they have been compelled to practise amputation. The costumes are the conventional ones for these saints. Remember them. This astounding miracle is often represented at Florence: the dead man’s leg grew on the living one.

=**=182. _Fra Angelico._ A Coronation of the Virgin, painted for a =Dominican= church at Fiesole. In the foreground, St. Louis of France, with a crown of fleur-de-lis; St. Zenobius, Bishop of Florence, with the lamb of the Baptist on his crosier (indicating his see); St. Mary Magdalen, in red, with long yellow hair (so almost always), and (her symbol) the box of ointment; St. Catherine with her wheel; St. Agnes with her lamb, and others. Above St. Louis stands St. Dominic, founder of Fra Angelico’s order, recognisable by his robes, with his red star and white lily (the usual attributes); beneath him, a little to the R, St. Thomas Aquinas, with a book sending forth rays of light, to signify his teaching function. Near him, St. Francis. Other Saints, such as St. Lawrence with his gridiron, and St. Peter Martyr, the Dominican, with his wounded head, must be left to the spectator. In the background, choirs of angels. Beneath, in the =predella=, the history of =St. Dominic= (marked by a red star); Pope Innocent in a dream sees him sustaining the falling Church (a Dominican variant of the story of St. Francis in the Giotto, at the end): he receives his commission from St. Peter and St. Paul; he restores to life the young man Napoleon, killed by a fall from a horse (seen to left); he converts heretics and burns their books; he is fed with his brethren by angels in his convent at Rome; and his death and apotheosis. This picture deserves most careful study—say two hours. It is one of Fra Angelico’s finest easel paintings (his best are frescoes), and it is full of interest for its glorification of the Dominicans. Compare the St. Thomas Aquinas with Benozzo Gozzoli’s: and remember in studying the predella that St. Dominic founded the Inquisition. The tender painting of this lovely work needs no commendation.

222. _School of Filippo Lippi._ Madonna and angels, characteristic of the type of this painter and his followers.

Above it, _Neri di Bicci_. Madonna, very wooden. He was a belated Giottesque, who turned out such antiquated types by hundreds in the 15th century.

_School of Benozzo Gozzoli._ Madonna and Child. L, St. Cosmo and St. Damian, with pens and surgeons’ boxes; St. Jerome, with stone, lion, and cardinal’s hat; his pen and book denote him as translator of the Vulgate. R, St. John Baptist (representing Florence); St. Francis with the Stigmata; St. Lawrence. The combination of Saints shows the picture to have been painted in compliment to Lorenzo de’ Medici. Minor subjects around it are worthy of study.

Now =cross over the room= again. You come at once upon four pictures of nearly the same size, painted for the Court of the Gonzaga family at Mantua. Allegorical subjects, intended for the decoration of a hall or boudoir. Most of those pictures we have hitherto examined have been sacred: we now get an indication of the nascent Renaissance taste for myth and allegory.

429. _Perugino._ Combat of Love and Chastity. A frequent subject for such situations, showing Perugino at his worst. Compare it with the other three of the series.

253. _Mantegna._ Wisdom conquering the Vices. A characteristic but unpleasing example of this great Paduan painter. Admirable in anatomy, drawing, and perspective: poor in effect. Observe the festoons in the background, which are favourites with the artist and his school.