Part 10

A striking, although mediocre, _Family of the Virgin_ (No. 1284) by Lorenzo de’ Fasoli, who is also known as Lorenzo di Pavia, and who died about 1520, illustrates the tradition that St. Anne, the mother of the Virgin Mary, was three times married, Joachim being her third husband; the other two were Cleophas and Salome. This composition of seventeen figures is signed

LAURENTIVS PAPIEN FECIT MDXIII,

and is one of the latest examples of this tradition, which about 1520 passed out of art.

A large Triptych (No. 1384), signed

JOH̄NES MAZONVS DE ALEXĀ PINXIT,

is by Giovanni Massone, who worked at Alessandria in the second half of the fifteenth century; it contains the portraits of Pope Sixtus IV. with St. Francis of Assisi and Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere under the protection of St. Anthony of Padua. Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere was Bishop of Savona about 1483; he was in 1503 elected Pope under the title of Julius II., and became the patron of Raphael.

The remaining pictures of this school are of little account. Bernardino Campi (1522-1592?) is represented by a _Mater Dolorosa_ (No. 1202); and Bartolommeo Manfredi (1580?-1617) by a _Fortune Teller_ (No. 1368), a subject which demonstrates the Decadence in full operation. Giovanni Paolo Panini (1695-1764), who came to Paris in 1732 and became an Academician, seems to have got some satisfaction out of committing to canvas a _Concert given at Rome on Dec. 26, 1729, in Honour of the Birth of the Dauphin, the son of Louis XV._ (No. 1409) and a large _Interior of St. Peter’s at Rome_ (No. 1408), the latter being signed and dated 1730.

THE SCHOOL OF FERRARA-BOLOGNA

The city of Bologna was visited in 1268 by Oderigi of Gubbio (fl. 1268-1295), who had the benefit of personal intercourse with Giotto in Rome. Bologna produced a skilled miniature painter in Franco Bolognese in the fourteenth century, but gave birth to few native painters of merit. Until Francesco Cossa removed from Ferrara to Bologna in 1470, art in the City of the Colonnades was in an undeveloped state. The school of Bologna, which may be considered as an offshoot of the Ferrarese school, was further strengthened by the arrival of Lorenzo Costa.

Lorenzo Costa (1460-1535), who had been a pupil of Francesco Cossa at Ferrara, worked for the Bentivogli family in Bologna until 1509. In that year he was induced to fix his abode in Mantua at the instance of the Marquis Francesco Gonzaga and his wife Isabella d’Este, whose court painter, Andrea Mantegna, had died three years earlier. Costa there painted about 1510 his _Court of Isabella d’Este in the Garden of the Muses_ (No. 1261), which is signed

L. COSTA F.

This famous canvas shows a weakness of drawing and a “want of force that mars what is meant for grace.” Costa’s _Mythological Scene_ (No. 1262) is not now exhibited, but in it, as in the majority of his works, the figures have no real existence. The heads are usually “screwed on—not always at the proper angle—to crosspoles hung about with clothes.” His landscapes, however, “without being in any sense serious studies, are among the loveliest painted in his day.”

Costa’s shortcomings were to dominate to the end the school of Bologna, which was essentially, almost from its incipience, one of Decadence. He became the first direct master of Francesco Francia (1450-1517), the typical Renaissance painter in Bologna who seems to have taken to painting at the relatively advanced age of thirty-five. Francia had matriculated in the Goldsmiths’ Guild in 1482 and was Master of the Guild in 1483, the year of Costa’s arrival; but until he came under the influence of Costa he had worked only as an engraver of _paci_ in niello-work, a die-sinker, and a medallist. They soon went into partnership, the upper storey of their joint workshop being used for the painting of pictures, while metal-work was executed below. Francia is not seen to the best advantage in the Louvre. His _Christ on the Cross_ (No. 1436) is somewhat unusual in treatment, as a nude figure of St. Job, a plague saint, is painted in the foreground. This large picture bears the characteristic signature

FRANCIA AURIFABER,

and shows his practice of demonstrating the versatility of his many talents. The small _Nativity_ (No. 1435) is an authentic work. The _Madonna and Child, with St. George, St. Sebastian, St. Francis, and St. John the Baptist_ (No. 1436A), is known as the _Guastavillani Madonna_ from the inscription to the effect that Filippo Guastavillani, a Bolognese senator, ordered the picture of Francia. Nevertheless, this large panel appears to have been executed by his son, Giacomo. A _Madonna and Child_ (No. 1437) and a _Holy Family with St. Francis d’Assisi_ (No. 1437A) are only by pupils.

The Louvre contains no example of the work of the Umbrian artist, Timoteo Viti (1467-1524), who was a pupil of Costa, and from July 1490 to April 1495 worked in the studio of Francia. There are no other sixteenth-century Bolognese paintings in this collection.

THE SCHOOL OF CREMONA

This small and unimportant school includes Boccaccio Boccaccino (fl. 1460-1518?), who was formed on various Venetian and Milanese influences. The _Holy Family_ (No. 1168) which is credited to him, but not now exhibited, seems to be an unattributable panel by some artist of the Lombard school. This school includes an early-sixteenth-century imitator who has received the significant name of “Pseudo-Boccaccino,” but is not here represented.

The _Mater Dolorosa_ (No. 1202) appears to be by Bernardino Campi, a mediocre sixteenth-century painter of the Lombard and Cremonese schools. Sofonisba Anguissola (1528-1625), a female artist, was his pupil and the wife of Orazio Lomellini.

THE SCHOOL OF BRESCIA

This small town seems to have produced little local talent previous to the birth of Foppa. Ottaviano Prandino, who had worked with Altichiero at Padua, and Bartolommeo Testorino (died about 1429) are little more than names.

Vincenzo Foppa (1427?-1516?) was born near Brescia. The theory that he studied under Squarcione at Padua lacks confirmation. On the other hand, he seems to have been little affected by the Squarcionesque traditions, and is rather to be regarded as the artistic product of the school of Verona, where he would have come under the influence of Pisanello and Jacopo Bellini. He may have been a friend of Andrea Mantegna. It is, however, not in Brescia, but in Milan that Foppa’s art may be studied to-day. He arrived in Pavia about 1458, and became the founder of the school of Milan twenty years before Leonardo first took up his abode at the court of Lodovico Il Moro.

Foppa’s pupil Vincenzo Civerchio (1470?-1544) and Floriano Ferramola (1480-1528) were the joint founders of the school of Brescia; Romanino (1485-1566) was a pupil of the latter. The Louvre is singularly poor in its representation of this school, which cannot here be studied earlier than the (so-called) _Portrait of Gaston de Foix_ (No. 1518) by Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo (1480?-1548?). This canvas, which appears to be signed

_Opera di Jovanni Jeronimo di Bressia di Savoldi_,

shows unmistakably the conflicting influences, mostly Venetian, under which this artist worked.

Moretto (1498?-1555?), who was a pupil of Ferramola and was influenced by Savoldo and Romanino, produced large and striking altarpieces as well as portraits. He met with some success in his attempts to combine a subtlety of feeling peculiar to himself with the “silvery” tones of which he was so fond. His _St. Bernardino of Siena and St. Louis of Toulouse_ (No. 1175) and his _St. Bonaventura and St. Anthony of Padua_ (No. 1176) are arched panels on a much smaller scale than he often uses.

Moretto’s pupil, Giambattista Moroni (1525?-1578), painted many far better portraits than that of _An Old Man seated_ (No. 1395). The only other Brescian painting in this collection seems to be the _Portrait of a Man_ (No. 1646), who is seen at half length, seated three-quarters to the left and wearing a robe trimmed with fur. Although catalogued as an unattributable Italian work, it is in our opinion by Calisto Piazza of Lodi (fl. 1520-1560), the son of Martino Piazza of the Milanese school. To Calisto da Lodi has been assigned the _Portrait of a Knight of Malta_ (No. 1594) which is catalogued as being by Titian.

The Louvre is very inferior to the National Gallery in both the quality and quantity of pictures of this school.

THE SCHOOL OF MODENA

The city of Modena gave birth to the early painters Tommaso da Modena (1325-1379) and Barnaba da Modena (fl. 1377), who worked in many different parts of Tuscany. The prominent figure in this school, however, is Francesco Bianchi (1460-1510). This painter, whose name is sometimes given as Francesco Bianchi Ferrari, was in all probability a pupil of Cosimo Tura at Ferrara. He left that city about 1480 for Modena. His style of painting has been the subject of much discussion, chiefly because he is regarded as the master of Correggio of Parma. The _Madonna and Child, with St. Benedict and St. Quentin_ (No. 1167), although officially catalogued under his name, is not now generally accepted as his work. In 1725 it was in the Church of St. Quentin at Parma and attributed to Francia. Certain critics have ascribed it to Alessandro da Carpi and others to Pellegrino Munari of Modena (1450?-1523). Bianchi’s work can only be studied in the Pinacoteca Estense and in the churches at Modena.

The three pictures officially catalogued under the name of the third-rate artist Bartolommeo Schidone (1570?-1615) are not exhibited, nor are they missed,—a remark which will also apply to a _St. Cecilia_ (No. 1253) by Jacopo Cavedone (1577-1660).

THE SCHOOL OF VICENZA

The first Vicentine painter known to us is Battista da Vicenza (fl. 1450), but it was not until the last quarter of the fifteenth century that Vicenza produced a painter of any note. Bartolommeo Montagna (1460?-1523) studied the art of the Vivarini, and so became the central figure in an unimportant school. His _Ecce Homo_ (No. 1393), which bears the signature:

_Bartholomeus Montagna Fecit_

in a _cartellino_ fastened to a twig, is a mature work. The delightful and late picture of _Three Angel Musicians_ (No. 1394), which is signed in a _cartellino_

_Opus Bartholomei Montagna_,

shows the unmistakable influence of Gentile Bellini. The same motif is found in the three musician angels in Montagna’s magnificent _Madonna and Child, with St. Andrew, St. Monica, St. Ursula, and St. Sigismund_, of 1498, in the Brera.

Montagna’s son, Benedetto (fl. 1500-1540), Giovanni Buonconsiglio (1470?-1536?), and Giovanni Speranza (1480-1536) also practised as painters; but Vicentine art from the middle of the sixteenth century has little claim on our attention.

THE SCHOOL OF VERCELLI

One of the earliest painters in this school was an obscure artist of the Old Lombard school named Martino Spanzotti. He was the master of Gaudenzio Ferrari (1471-1546), whose frescoes are easily recognisable by the crude colour, exuberant imagination, and forceful, almost brutal, realism which have caused him to be termed, somewhat loosely, the Rubens of Italy. A very late work by him is the _St. Paul_ (No. 1285), which is signed and dated

1543 GAUDENTIUS.

Another of Spanzotti’s pupils was Sodoma, who was born at Vercelli in Piedmont, in 1477. He is best known for the large amount of work that he executed at Siena. This prolific artist, like a number of other painters of this unimportant school, is not represented in the Louvre. He died in 1551.

A faint echo of the teaching of Spanzotti may at times be detected in the works of Defendente Ferrari (fl. 1500-1535) and Girolamo Giovenone (fl. 1513-1527), who are not represented in the Louvre.

THE SCHOOL OF PARMA

One of the most distinctive and perhaps the most sensuous of the Italian masters is Correggio (1494-1534), who takes his name from his birthplace, Il Correggio, a small town near Modena. It was natural, therefore, that he should have become the pupil of Francesco Bianchi of the school of Modena. Correggio came under almost all the leading influences which distinguish the principal Italian schools of the early sixteenth century. His “sidelong grace,” his subtle gradations of tone, his daring foreshortening, his sublimity of space and light, his vivid imagination, his profound knowledge of chiaroscuro, render him an isolated phenomenon in Italian art at the moment when it was passing into precipitate decline. His _Marriage of St. Catherine_ (No. 1117, Plate XV.) entirely lacks the dignity and solemnity which are the dominant features of truly religious art. The figures which make up this fascinating composition are delicate, but by no means of an elevated type. This pseudo-religious picture, when studied together with the _Jupiter and Antiope_ (No. 1118), shows the justice of the criticism that Correggio’s pictures are “hymns to the charm of femininity the like of which have never been known before or since in Christian Europe.” It is more remarkable that this mythological canvas, which is so full of sensuous vitality, should have been added to the royal collection of England in the seventeenth century than that it should have been allowed by Cromwell to leave the country a few years later. Two Allegories of _Virtue_ and _Vice_, executed by Correggio in gouache, hang in one of the Rooms of Drawings.

Parmigianino (1504-1540), an imitator of Correggio and in a less degree of Raphael, who were both shortlived artists, painted the two small panels of a _Holy Family_ (No. 1385), and a _Holy Family and Saints_ (No. 1386).

THE SCHOOL OF BOLOGNA

After the deaths of Francia in 1517 and Lorenzo Costa in 1536, painting in Bologna rapidly decreased in quality, although not in volume. A distinctive feature was the work of Marc Antonio Raimondi (b. 1475), a pupil of Francia, who developed the process of engraving on copper.

Bologna, which like other cities of Italy felt the effects of humanism, acquired an increased importance in political activity through the meeting there of Pope Leo X. and Francis I., in 1515, and by the Coronation of Charles V., on Feb. 24, 1530. It also obtained within a few years a great reputation as an art centre, although it is not easy for us now to realise why. The esteem in which its art was held in foreign countries is also difficult to explain. Innocenzo da Imola, who had studied under Francia, was the master of Primaticcio, who was summoned to France by François I. in 1531. Primaticcio at that time was working at Mantua with Giulio Romano, the favourite pupil and the imitator of Raphael. While Primaticcio took with him the influence of Bolognese art to Fontainebleau, where he died in 1570, Pellegrino Tibaldi (1527-1591), a pupil of Bagnacavallo, carried the Bolognese influence into Spain.

The appreciation by a foreign artist of the art of Bologna is shown in the case of Denis Calvaert of Antwerp, who thought the Bolognese school to be in so flourishing a state, when he passed through on his way to study in Rome, that he decided to abandon his original intention and to stay on in the city of the Colonnades.

A striking feature of the literature and art of painting at Bologna was that its University had always accorded equal terms to women students with men, and had women professors. Female painters—they were without exception only of the third rank—had worked in Bologna from the days of Caterina di Vigri, painter and saint, who was born as early as 1413. In the last quarter of the sixteenth century, art in Bologna passed into the complete control of the Eclectics.

THE DECADENT SCHOOLS

In the Florentine and Roman schools the Decadence may be said to have begun with the death of Raphael in 1520. With the exception of the Venetian school, in which art did not languish until after the death of Tintoretto in 1594, painting rapidly degenerated during the second half of the sixteenth century. Paintings were, of course, produced in great profusion in every art centre of Italy, but form and subject were not in true harmony. To a great extent local traditions were abandoned, the earlier types varied, and three distinctive movements developed—the “Mannerists,” the “Eclectics,” and the “Naturalists.”

THE “MANNERISTS”

Giulio Romano (1492?-1546) was content to imitate the works of Raphael; and Daniele da Volterra (1509-1566) tried, as we have seen in his _David overcoming Goliath_ (No. 1462), to reproduce the swelling muscles of Michelangelo. Baroccio (1526-1612) in his _Circumcision_ (No. 1149), which is signed and dated 1570, and in his _Virgin in Glory, with St. Anthony and St. Lucy_ (No. 1150), sought to reproduce the ineffable grace of Correggio; while others endeavoured to repeat the enigmatic smile, the “greyhound” eye, and the mysterious chiaroscuro of Leonardo da Vinci.

Although the “Mannerists” were to be met with in most of the centres of painting in the sixteenth century, they made Rome the centre of their operations. Domenico Feti (1589-1624) is represented in the Louvre by four canvases, _Nero_ (No. 1286), _Life in the Country_ (No. 1287), _Melancholy_ (No. 1288), and _The Guardian Angel_ (No. 1289), the subjects being highly significant.

In the _Holy Family_ (No. 1493) by Sassoferrato (1605-1685) are shown the shallowness and empty formalism which produced the fair-haired, blue-eyed, hyper-sentimental _Madonnas_ with which his name is associated. Carlo Dolci is not represented in the Louvre.

One of the more estimable artists in the Late Roman school is Carlo Maratta (1625-1713), who may be judged by the unsigned _Portrait of Marie Madeleine Rospigliosi_ (No. 1379) and _His Own Portrait_ (No. 1380).

Two paintings of _Fruit_ (Nos. 1254, 1255) stand to the credit of M. A. Cerquozzi (1602-1660), and the art of G. B. Castiglione, of Genoa (1616-1670), is seen in his _Abraham and Melchizedek_ (No. 1250) and _Animals and Utensils_ (No. 1252).

THE “ECLECTICS”

A revolt against the methods of the “Mannerists” was made by the Carracci when they opened their school of art at Bologna in 1589. These “Eclectics” (“Pickers and Choosers”) advocated a careful study of “the drawing of Rome, the Venetian shadow, the terrific force of Michelangelo’s manner, the natural truth of Titian, the pure and sovereign style of Correggio, the true symmetry of Raphael, the dignity and principle of Tibaldi, the invention of the learned Primaticcio, together with a little of the grace of Parmigianino”! It is not surprising that they in their turn soon sank into mere academic mediocrity.

The Louvre is notoriously rich in representative examples of the “Eclectic” painters’ art. The name of Lodovico Carracci (1555-1619), the founder of this school at Bologna, is included in the official Catalogue, but neither of his two pictures is at present exhibited. Lodovico had as cousins, Agostino (1557?-1602) and Annibale (1560?-1609), who also worked in Rome. Six of Annibale Carracci’s fifteen pictures in this collection are now exhibited. The _Madonna of the Cherries_ (No. 1217) and the _Sleeping Child Jesus_ (No. 1218) are characteristic, while his huge canvas of _The Virgin appearing to St. Luke and St. Catherine_ (No. 1219) in every way exemplifies the art of this painter and his school. It is inscribed:

ANNIBAL CARACTIUS F. MDXCII.

Pictures of this type were much sought after and prized in the eighteenth century, when this one was seized by Napoleon in Italy, but to-day a higher standard of æsthetics has deservedly ruled them out of fashion. On the other hand, sufficient attention is not now paid to some of the landscape pictures which the “Eclectics” painted; Annibale’s _Fishing_ (No. 1233) and _Hunting_ (No. 1232) are worth the attention of the student. Antonio Carracci (1583-1618), a less-known member of this family, is the author of a large canvas depicting _The Deluge_ (No. 1235).

Guido Reni, after working under Denis Calvaert at Bologna, entered the school of the Carracci. This fitful sentimentalist indulged in idealised abstractions that were neither human nor divine, as may be seen from his _David and Goliath_ (No. 1439) and _St. Sebastian_ (No. 1450) on the one hand, and his _Ecce Homo_ (No. 1447) and _Mary Magdalene_ (No. 1448) on the other. Four of his large mythological paintings (Nos. 1453, 1454, 1455, 1457) show some technical ability.

Francesco Albani (1578-1660) was influenced by the Carracci and Guido Reni. The _Diana and Actaeon_ (No. 1111) may be selected out of his nine productions mentioned in the Catalogue. Domenichino (1581-1641), a pupil of the Carracci, the assistant of Annibale and a friend of Guido Reni in Rome, was a sentimentalist of the most pronounced order. His hard execution and unpleasant colouring can be judged in his _St. Cecilia_ (No. 1613),—her features are singularly ill-proportioned,—but nine of his other pictures do not take up any of the valuable wall space.

The self-taught artist and insipid Guercino (“The Squintling”) (1591-1666), after working in Rome, settled in 1642 at Bologna, where he died in affluent circumstances. His _Raising of Lazarus_ (No. 1139), the large _Patron Saints of Modena_ (No. 1143), together with a _Circe_ (No. 1147) and _The Painters Own Portrait_ (No. 1148), are now exhibited. These and such pictures as were painted by G. A. Donducci (1575-1655), G. F. Grimaldi (1606-1680), S. Cantarini (1612-1648), and G. M. Crespi (1665-1747), provoked a fresh reaction.

THE “NATURALISTS”

A natural reaction against the selective methods of the “Eclectics” gave rise to the “Naturalists,” who, headed by Michelangelo Caravaggio (1569-1609), made Naples the centre of their operations. The utterly repulsive picture entitled _The Death of the Virgin_ (No. 1121), by Caravaggio, is merely large. Neither _The Fortune Teller_ (No. 1122) nor the _Concert of Nine Musicians_ (No. 1123) can be compared with the really striking and well-painted _Portrait of Alof de Wignacourt, Grand-Master of Malta_ (No. 1124).

Salvator Rosa (1615-1675) is represented by _Tobias and the Angel_ (No. 1477) and a _Vision of Saul to Samuel_ (No. 1478). His _Landscape_ (No. 1480) shows that he delighted in “ideas of desolation, solitude and danger, impenetrable forests, rocky and storm-lashed shores, in lonely dells leading to dens and caverns of banditti, alpine ridges, trees blasted by lightning or sapped by time.” His _Battle_ (No. 1479) is a strange production.

Caravaggio was the master of Ribera (1588-1656), who is also called Spagnoletto, and is included in the Catalogue among the Spanish artists. This “Naturalist” school of Naples also included Luca Giordano (1632-1705), who lived in Spain at one period.

The aim of the “Naturalists” is displayed in the prominence they gave to all that was vulgar, coarse, and vile. With them art in Italy came to an ignominious end, although in technical accomplishment, in mere craftsmanship, they can hold their own with painters of much higher rank.