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Title: A Text-Book of the History of Painting
Author: Van Dyke, John Charles, 1856-1932
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "A Text-Book of the History of Painting" ***
[Illustration: VELASQUEZ. HEAD OF ÆSOP, MADRID.]
A TEXT-BOOK
OF THE
HISTORY OF PAINTING
BY
JOHN C. VAN DYKE, L.H.D.
PROFESSOR OF THE HISTORY OF ART IN RUTGERS COLLEGE AND AUTHOR OF
"ART FOR ART'S SAKE," "THE MEANING OF PICTURES," ETC.
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
91 AND 93 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK
LONDON, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA
1909
COPYRIGHT, 1894, BY
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
* * * * *
PREFACE.
The object of this series of text-books is to provide concise
teachable histories of art for class-room use in schools and colleges.
The limited time given to the study of art in the average educational
institution has not only dictated the condensed style of the volumes,
but has limited their scope of matter to the general features of art
history. Archæological discussions on special subjects and æsthetic
theories have been avoided. The main facts of history as settled by
the best authorities are given. If the reader choose to enter into
particulars the bibliography cited at the head of each chapter will be
found helpful. Illustrations have been introduced as sight-help to the
text, and, to avoid repetition, abbreviations have been used wherever
practicable. The enumeration of the principal extant works of an
artist, school, or period, and where they may be found, which follows
each chapter, may be serviceable not only as a summary of individual
or school achievement, but for reference by travelling students in
Europe.
This volume on painting, the first of the series, omits mention of
such work in Arabic, Indian, Chinese, and Persian art as may come
properly under the head of Ornament--a subject proposed for separate
treatment hereafter. In treating of individual painters it has been
thought best to give a short critical estimate of the man and his rank
among the painters of his time rather than the detailed facts of his
life. Students who wish accounts of the lives of the painters should
use Vasari, Larousse, and the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ in connection
with this text-book.
Acknowledgments are made to the respective publishers of Woltmann and
Woermann's History of Painting, and the fine series of art histories
by Perrot and Chipiez, for permission to reproduce some few
illustrations from these publications.
JOHN C. VAN DYKE.
* * * * *
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER I.
EGYPTIAN PAINTING
CHAPTER II.
CHALDÆO-ASSYRIAN, PERSIAN, PHOENICIAN, CYPRIOTE, AND ASIA MINOR PAINTING
CHAPTER III.
GREEK, ETRUSCAN, AND ROMAN PAINTING
CHAPTER IV.
ITALIAN PAINTING--EARLY CHRISTIAN AND MEDIÆVAL PERIOD, 200-1250
CHAPTER V.
ITALIAN PAINTING--GOTHIC PERIOD, 1250-1400
CHAPTER VI.
ITALIAN PAINTING--EARLY RENAISSANCE, 1400-1500
CHAPTER VII.
ITALIAN PAINTING--EARLY RENAISSANCE, 1400-1500, _Continued_
CHAPTER VIII.
ITALIAN PAINTING--HIGH RENAISSANCE, 1500-1600
CHAPTER IX.
ITALIAN PAINTING--HIGH RENAISSANCE, 1500-1600, _Continued_
CHAPTER X.
ITALIAN PAINTING--HIGH RENAISSANCE, 1500-1600, _Continued_
CHAPTER XI.
ITALIAN PAINTING--THE DECADENCE AND MODERN WORK, 1600-1894
CHAPTER XII.
FRENCH PAINTING--SIXTEENTH, SEVENTEENTH, AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES
CHAPTER XIII.
FRENCH PAINTING--NINETEENTH CENTURY
CHAPTER XIV.
FRENCH PAINTING--NINETEENTH CENTURY, _Continued_
CHAPTER XV.
SPANISH PAINTING
CHAPTER XVI.
FLEMISH PAINTING
CHAPTER XVII.
DUTCH PAINTING
CHAPTER XVIII.
GERMAN PAINTING
CHAPTER XIX.
BRITISH PAINTING
CHAPTER XX.
AMERICAN PAINTING
POSTSCRIPT
INDEX
* * * * *
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
Velasquez, Head of Æsop, Madrid _Frontispiece_
1 Hunting in the Marshes, Tomb of Ti, Saccarah
2 Portrait of Queen Taia
3 Offerings to the Dead. Wall painting
4 Vignette on Papyrus
5 Enamelled Brick, Nimroud
6 " " Khorsabad
7 Wild Ass. Bas-relief
8 Lions Frieze, Susa
9 Painted Head from Edessa
10 Cypriote Vase Decoration
11 Attic Grave Painting
12 Muse of Cortona
13 Odyssey Landscape
14 Amphore, Lower Italy
15 Ritual Scene, Palatine Wall painting
16 Portrait, Fayoum, Graf Collection
17 Chamber in Catacombs, with wall decorations
18 Catacomb Fresco, S. Cecilia
19 Christ as Good Shepherd, Ravenna mosaic
20 Christ and Saints, fresco, S. Generosa
21 Ezekiel before the Lord. MS. illumination
22 Giotto, Flight into Egypt, Arena Chap.
23 Orcagna, Paradise (detail), S. M. Novella
24 Lorenzetti, Peace (detail), Sienna
25 Fra Angelico, Angel, Uffizi
26 Fra Filippo, Madonna, Uffizi
27 Botticelli, Coronation of Madonna, Uffizi
28 Ghirlandajo, Visitation, Louvre
29 Francesca, Duke of Urbino, Uffizi
30 Signorelli, The Curse (detail), Orvieto
31 Perugino, Madonna, Saints, and Angels, Louvre
32 School of Francia, Madonna, Louvre
33 Mantegna, Gonzaga Family Group, Mantua
34 B. Vivarini, Madonna and Child, Turin
35 Giovanni Bellini, Madonna, Venice Acad.
36 Carpaccio, Presentation (detail), Venice Acad.
37 Antonello da Messina, Unknown Man, Louvre
38 Fra Bartolommeo, Descent from Cross, Pitti
39 Andrea del Sarto, Madonna of St. Francis, Uffizi
40 Michael Angelo, Athlete, Sistine Chap., Rome
41 Raphael, La Belle Jardinière, Louvre
42 Giulio Romano, Apollo and Muses, Pitti
43 Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa, Louvre
44 Luini, Daughter of Herodias, Uffizi
45 Sodoma, Ecstasy of St. Catherine, Sienna
46 Correggio, Marriage of St. Catherine, Louvre
47 Giorgione, Ordeal of Moses, Uffizi
48 Titian, Venus Equipping Cupid, Borghese, Rome
49 Tintoretto, Mercury and Graces, Ducal Pal., Venice
50 Veronese, Venice Enthroned, Ducal Pal., Venice
51 Lotto, Three Ages, Pitti
52 Bronzino, Christ in Limbo, Uffizi
53 Baroccio, Annunciation
54 Annibale Caracci, Entombment of Christ, Louvre
55 Caravaggio, The Card Players, Dresden
56 Poussin, Et in Arcadia Ego, Louvre
57 Claude Lorrain, Flight into Egypt, Dresden
58 Watteau, Gilles, Louvre
59 Boucher, Pastoral, Louvre
60 David, The Sabines, Louvre
61 Ingres, Oedipus and Sphinx, Louvre
62 Delacroix, Massacre of Scio, Louvre
63 Gérôme, Pollice Verso
64 Corot, Landscape
65 Rousseau, Charcoal Burner's Hut, Fuller Collection
66 Millet, The Gleaners, Louvre
67 Cabanel, Phædra
68 Meissonier, Napoleon in 1814
69 Sanchez-Coello, Daughter of Philip II., Madrid
70 Murillo, St. Anthony of Padua, Dresden
71 Ribera, St. Agnes, Dresden
72 Fortuny, Spanish Marriage
73 Madrazo, Unmasked
74 Van Eycks, St. Bavon Altar-piece, Berlin
75 Memling (?), St. Lawrence, Nat. Gal., Lon.
76 Massys, Head of Virgin, Antwerp
77 Rubens, Portrait of Young Woman
78 Van Dyck, Portrait of Cornelius van der Geest
79 Teniers the Younger, Prodigal Son, Louvre
80 Alfred Stevens, On the Beach
81 Hals, Portrait of a Lady
82 Rembrandt, Head of a Woman, Nat. Gal., Lon.
83 Ruisdael, Landscape
84 Hobbema, The Water Wheel, Amsterdam Mus.
85 Israels, Alone in the World
86 Mauve, Sheep
87 Lochner, Sts. John, Catharine, Matthew, London
88 Wolgemut, Crucifixion, Munich
89 Dürer, Praying Virgin, Augsburg
90 Holbein, Portrait, Hague Mus.
91 Piloty, Wise and Foolish Virgins
92 Leibl, In Church
93 Menzel, A Reader
94 Hogarth, Shortly after Marriage, Nat. Gal., Lon.
95 Reynolds, Countess Spencer and Lord Althorp
96 Gainsborough, Blue Boy
97 Constable, Corn Field, Nat. Gal., Lon.
98 Turner, Fighting Téméraire, Nat. Gal., Lon.
99 Burne-Jones, Flamma Vestalis
100 Leighton, Helen of Troy
101 Watts, Love and Death
102 West, Peter Denying Christ, Hampton Court
103 Gilbert Stuart, Washington, Boston Mus.
104 Hunt, Lute Player
105 Eastman Johnson, Churning
106 Inness, Landscape
107 Winslow Homer, Undertow
108 Whistler, The White Girl
109 Sargent, "Carnation Lily, Lily Rose"
110 Chase, Alice, Art Institute, Chicago
* * * * *
GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY.
(This includes the leading accessible works that treat of painting in
general. For works on special periods or schools, see the
bibliographical references at the head of each chapter. For
bibliography of individual painters consult, under proper names,
Champlin and Perkins's _Cyclopedia_, as given below.)
Champlin and Perkins, _Cyclopedia of Painters and Paintings_, New York.
Adeline, _Lexique des Termes d'Art_.
_Gazette des Beaux Arts_, Paris.
Larousse, _Grand Dictionnaire Universel_, Paris.
_L'Art, Revue hebdomadaire illustrée_, Paris.
Bryan, _Dictionary of Painters_. _New edition_.
Brockhaus, _Conversations-Lexikon_.
Meyer, _Allgemeines Künstler-Lexikon_, Berlin.
Muther, _History of Modern Painting_.
Agincourt, _History of Art by its Monuments_.
Bayet, _Précis d'Histoire de l'Art_.
Blanc, _Histoire des Peintres de toutes les Écoles_.
Eastlake, _Materials for a History of Oil Painting_.
Lübke, _History of Art, trans. by Clarence Cook_.
Reber, _History of Ancient Art_.
Reber, _History of Mediæval Art_.
Schnasse, _Geschichte der Bildenden Künste_.
Girard, _La Peinture Antique_.
Viardot, _History of the Painters of all Schools_.
Williamson (Ed.), _Handbooks of Great Masters_.
Woltmann and Woermann, _History of Painting_.
* * * * *
HISTORY OF PAINTING.
INTRODUCTION.
The origin of painting is unknown. The first important records of this
art are met with in Egypt; but before the Egyptian civilization the
men of the early ages probably used color in ornamentation and
decoration, and they certainly scratched the outlines of men and
animals upon bone and slate. Traces of this rude primitive work still
remain to us on the pottery, weapons, and stone implements of the
cave-dwellers. But while indicating the awakening of intelligence in
early man, they can be reckoned with as art only in a slight
archæological way. They show inclination rather than accomplishment--a
wish to ornament or to represent, with only a crude knowledge of how
to go about it.
The first aim of this primitive painting was undoubtedly
decoration--the using of colored forms for color and form only, as
shown in the pottery designs or cross-hatchings on stone knives or
spear-heads. The second, and perhaps later aim, was by imitating the
shapes and colors of men, animals, and the like, to convey an idea of
the proportions and characters of such things. An outline of a
cave-bear or a mammoth was perhaps the cave-dweller's way of telling
his fellows what monsters he had slain. We may assume that it was
pictorial record, primitive picture-written history. This early method
of conveying an idea is, in intent, substantially the same as the
later hieroglyphic writing and historical painting of the Egyptians.
The difference between them is merely one of development. Thus there
is an indication in the art of Primitive Man of the two great
departments of painting existent to-day.
1. DECORATIVE PAINTING.
2. EXPRESSIVE PAINTING.
Pure Decorative Painting is not usually expressive of ideas other than
those of rhythmical line and harmonious color. It is not our subject.
This volume treats of Expressive Painting; but in dealing with that it
should be borne in mind that Expressive Painting has always a more or
less decorative effect accompanying it, and that must be spoken of
incidentally. We shall presently see the intermingling of both kinds
of painting in the art of ancient Egypt--our first inquiry.
CHAPTER I.
EGYPTIAN PAINTING.
BOOKS RECOMMENDED: Brugsch, _History of Egypt under the
Pharaohs_; Budge, _Dwellers on the Nile_; Duncker, _History
of Antiquity; Egypt Exploration Fund Memoirs_; Ely, _Manual
of Archæology_; Lepsius, _Denkmaler aus Aegypten und
Aethiopen_; Maspero, _Life in Ancient Egypt and Assyria_;
Maspero, _Guide du Visiteur au Musée de Boulaq_; Maspero,
_Egyptian Archæology_; Perrot and Chipiez, _History of Art
in Ancient Egypt_; Wilkinson, _Manners and Customs of the
Ancient Egyptians_.
LAND AND PEOPLE: Egypt, as Herodotus has said, is "the gift of the
Nile," one of the latest of the earth's geological formations, and yet
one of the earliest countries to be settled and dominated by man. It
consists now, as in the ancient days, of the valley of the Nile,
bounded on the east by the Arabian mountains and on the west by the
Libyan desert. Well-watered and fertile, it was doubtless at first a
pastoral and agricultural country; then, by its riverine traffic, a
commercial country, and finally, by conquest, a land enriched with the
spoils of warfare.
Its earliest records show a strongly established monarchy. Dynasties
of kings called Pharaohs succeeded one another by birth or conquest.
The king made the laws, judged the people, declared war, and was
monarch supreme. Next to him in rank came the priests, who were not
only in the service of religion but in that of the state, as
counsellors, secretaries, and the like. The common people, with true
Oriental lack of individuality, depending blindly on leaders, were
little more than the servants of the upper classes.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--HUNTING IN THE MARSHES. TOMB OF TI, SACCARAH.
(FROM PERROT AND CHIPIEZ.)]
The Egyptian religion existing in the earliest days was a worship of
the personified elements of nature. Each element had its particular
controlling god, worshipped as such. Later on in Egyptian history the
number of gods was increased, and each city had its trinity of godlike
protectors symbolized by the propylæa of the temples. Future life was
a certainty, provided that the Ka, or spirit, did not fall a prey to
Typhon, the God of Evil, during the long wait in the tomb for the
judgment-day. The belief that the spirit rested in the body until
finally transported to the aaln fields (the Islands of the Blest,
afterward adopted by the Greeks) was one reason for the careful
preservation of the body by mummifying processes. Life itself was not
more important than death. Hence the imposing ceremonies of the
funeral and burial, the elaborate richness of the tomb and its wall
paintings. Perhaps the first Egyptian art arose through religious
observance, and certainly the first known to us was sepulchral.
ART MOTIVES: The centre of the Egyptian system was the monarch and his
supposed relatives, the gods. They arrogated to themselves the chief
thought of life, and the aim of the great bulk of the art was to
glorify monarchy or deity. The massive buildings, still standing
to-day in ruins, were built as the dwelling-places of kings or the
sanctuaries of gods. The towers symbolized deity, the sculptures and
paintings recited the functional duties of presiding spirits, or the
Pharaoh's looks and acts. Almost everything about the public buildings
in painting and sculpture was symbolic illustration, picture-written
history--written with a chisel and brush, written large that all might
read. There was no other safe way of preserving record. There were no
books; the papyrus sheet, used extensively, was frail, and the
Egyptians evidently wished their buildings, carvings, and paintings to
last into eternity. So they wrought in and upon stone. The same
hieroglyphic character of their papyrus writings appeared cut and
colored on the palace walls, and above them and beside them the
pictures ran as vignettes explanatory of the text. In a less
ostentatious way the tombs perpetuated history in a similar manner,
reciting the domestic scenes from the life of the individual, as the
temples and palaces the religious and monarchical scenes.
In one form or another it was all record of Egyptian life, but this
was not the only motive of their painting. The temples and palaces,
designed to shut out light and heat, were long squares of heavy stone,
gloomy as the cave from which their plan may have originated. Carving
and color were used to brighten and enliven the interior. The battles,
the judgment scenes, the Pharaoh playing at draughts with his wives,
the religious rites and ceremonies, were all given with brilliant
arbitrary color, surrounded oftentimes by bordering bands of green,
yellow, and blue. Color showed everywhere from floor to ceiling. Even
the explanatory hieroglyphic texts ran in colors, lining the walls and
winding around the cylinders of stone. The lotus capitals, the frieze
and architrave, all glowed with bright hues, and often the roof
ceiling was painted in blue and studded with golden stars.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--PORTRAIT OF QUEEN TAIA. (FROM PERROT AND
CHIPIEZ.)]
All this shows a decorative motive in Egyptian painting, and how
constantly this was kept in view may be seen at times in the
arrangement of the different scenes, the large ones being placed in
the middle of the wall and the smaller ones going at the top and
bottom, to act as a frieze and dado. There were, then, two leading
motives for Egyptian painting; (1) History, monarchical, religious, or
domestic; and (2) Decoration.
TECHNICAL METHODS: Man in the early stages of civilization comprehends
objects more by line than by color or light. The figure is not
studied in itself, but in its sun-shadow or silhouette. The Egyptian
hieroglyph represented objects by outlines or arbitrary marks and
conveyed a simple meaning without circumlocution. The Egyptian
painting was substantially an enlargement of the hieroglyph. There was
no attempt to place objects in the setting which they hold in nature.
Perspective and light-and-shade were disregarded. Objects, of whatever
nature, were shown in flat profile. In the human figure the shoulders
were square, the hips slight, the legs and arms long, the feet and
hands flat. The head, legs, and arms were shown in profile, while the
chest and eye were twisted to show the flat front view. There are only
one or two full-faced figures among the remains of Egyptian painting.
After the outline was drawn the enclosed space was filled in with
plain color. In the absence of high light, or composed groups,
prominence was given to an important figure, like that of the king, by
making it much larger than the other figures. This may be seen in any
of the battle-pieces of Rameses II., in which the monarch in his
chariot is a giant where his followers are mere pygmies. In the
absence of perspective, receding figures of men or of horses were
given by multiplied outlines of legs, or heads, placed before, or
after, or raised above one another. Flat water was represented by
zigzag lines, placed as it were upon a map, one tree symbolized a
forest, and one fortification a town.
These outline drawings were not realistic in any exact sense. The face
was generally expressionless, the figure, evidently done from memory
or pattern, did not reveal anatomical structure, but was nevertheless
graceful, and in the representation of animals the sense of motion was
often given with much truth. The color was usually an attempt at
nature, though at times arbitrary or symbolic, as in the case of
certain gods rendered with blue, yellow, or green skins. The
backgrounds were always of flat color, arbitrary in hue, and
decorative only. The only composition was a balance by numbers, and
the processional scenes rose tier upon tier above one another in long
panels.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--OFFERINGS TO THE DEAD, WALL PAINTING, EIGHTEENTH
DYNASTY. (FROM PERROT AND CHIPIEZ.)]
Such work would seem almost ludicrous did we not keep in mind its
reason for existence. It was, first, symbolic story-telling art, and
secondly, architectural decoration. As a story-teller it was effective
because of its simplicity and directness. As decoration, the repeated
expressionless face and figure, the arbitrary color, the absence of
perspective were not inappropriate then nor are they now. Egyptian
painting never was free from the decorative motive. Wall painting was
little more than an adjunct of architecture, and probably grew out of
sculpture. The early statues were colored, and on the wall the chisel,
like the flint of Primitive Man, cut the outline of the figure. At
first only this cut was filled with color, producing what has been
called the koil-anaglyphic. In the final stage the line was made by
drawing with chalk or coal on prepared stucco, and the color, mixed
with gum-water (a kind of distemper), was applied to the whole
enclosed space. Substantially the same method of painting was used
upon other materials, such as wood, mummy cartonnage, papyrus; and in
all its thousands of years of existence Egyptian painting never
advanced upon or varied to any extent this one method of work.
HISTORIC PERIODS: Egyptian art may be traced back as far as the Third
or Fourth Memphitic dynasty of kings. The date is uncertain, but it is
somewhere near 3,500 B.C. The seat of empire, at that time, was
located at Memphis in Lower Egypt, and it is among the remains of this
Memphitic Period that the earliest and best painting is found. In
fact, all Egyptian art, literature, language, civilization, seem at
their highest point of perfection in the period farthest removed from
us. In that earliest age the finest portrait busts were cut, and the
painting, found chiefly in the tombs and on the mummy-cases, was the
attempted realistic with not a little of spirited individuality. The
figure was rather short and squat, the face a little squarer than the
conventional type afterward adopted, the action better, and the
positions, attitudes, and gestures more truthful to local
characteristics. The domestic scenes--hunting, fishing, tilling,
grazing--were all shown in the one flat, planeless, shadowless method
of representation, but with better drawing and color and more variety
than appeared later on. Still, more or less conventional types were
used, even in this early time, and continued to be used all through
Egyptian history.
[Illustration: FIG. 4.--VIGNETTE ON PAPYRUS, LOUVRE. (FROM PERROT AND
CHIPIEZ.)]
The Memphitic Period comes down to the eleventh dynasty. In the
fifteenth dynasty comes the invasion of the so-called Hyksos, or
Shepherd Kings. Little is known of the Hyksos, and, in painting, the
next stage is the
Theban Period, which, culminated in Thebes, in Upper Egypt, with
Rameses II., of the nineteenth dynasty. Painting had then changed
somewhat both in subject and character. The time was one of great
temple and palace building, and, though the painting of _genre_
subjects in tombs and sepulchres continued, the general body of art
became more monumental and subservient to architecture. Painting was
put to work on temple and palace-walls, depicting processional scenes,
either religious or monarchical, and vast in extent. The figure, too,
changed slightly. It became longer, slighter, with a pronounced nose,
thick lips, and long eye. From constant repetition, rather than any
set rule or canon, this figure grew conventional, and was reproduced
as a type in a mechanical and unvarying manner for hundreds of years.
It was, in fact, only a variation from the original Egyptian type seen
in the tombs of the earliest dynasties. There was a great quantity of
art produced during the Theban Period, and of a graceful, decorative
character, but it was rather monotonous by repetition and filled with
established mannerisms. The Egyptian really never was a free worker,
never an artist expressing himself; but, for his day, a skilled
mechanic following time-honored example. In the
Saitic Period the seat of empire was once more in Lower Egypt, and art
had visibly declined with the waning power of the country. All
spontaneity seemed to have passed out of it, it was repetition of
repetition by poor workmen, and the simplicity and purity of the
technic were corrupted by foreign influences. With the Alexandrian
epoch Egyptian art came in contact with Greek methods, and grew
imitative of the new art, to the detriment of its own native
character. Eventually it was entirely lost in the art of the
Greco-Roman world. It was never other than conventional, produced by a
method almost as unvarying as that of the hieroglyphic writing, and in
this very respect characteristic and reflective of the unchanging
Orientals. Technically it had its shortcomings, but it conveyed the
proper information to its beholders and was serviceable and graceful
decoration for Egyptian days.
EXTANT PAINTINGS: The temples, palaces, and tombs of Egypt
still reveal Egyptian painting in almost as perfect a state
as when originally executed; the Ghizeh Museum has many fine
examples; and there are numerous examples in the museums at
Turin, Paris, Berlin, London, New York, and Boston. An
interesting collection belongs to the New York Historical
Society, and some of the latest "finds" of the Egypt
Exploration Fund are in the Boston Museum.
CHAPTER II.
CHALDÆO-ASSYRIAN PAINTING.
BOOKS RECOMMENDED: Babelon, _Manual of Oriental
Antiquities_; Botta, _Monument de Ninive_; Budge,
_Babylonian Life and History_; Duncker, _History of
Antiquity_; Layard, _Nineveh and its Remains_; Layard,
_Discoveries Among Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon_; Lenormant,
_Manual of the Ancient History of the East_; Loftus,
_Travels in Chaldæa and Susiana_; Maspero, _Life in Ancient
Egypt and Assyria_; Perrot and Chipiez, _History of Art in
Chaldæa and Assyria_; Place, _Ninive et l'Assyrie_; Sayce,
_Assyria: Its Palaces, Priests, and People_.
TIGRIS-EUPHRATES CIVILIZATION: In many respects the civilization along
the Tigris-Euphrates was like that along the Nile. Both valleys were
settled by primitive peoples, who grew rapidly by virtue of favorable
climate and soil, and eventually developed into great nations headed
by kings absolute in power. The king was the state in Egypt, and in
Assyria the monarch was even more dominant and absolute. For the
Pharaohs shared architecture, painting, and sculpture with the gods;
but the Sargonids seem to have arrogated the most of these things to
themselves alone.
Religion was perhaps as real in Assyria as in Egypt, but it was less
apparent in art. Certain genii, called gods or demons, appear in the
bas-reliefs, but it is not yet settled whether they represent gods or
merely legendary heroes or monsters of fable. There was no great
demonstration of religion by form and color, as in Egypt. The
Assyrians were Semites, and religion with them was more a matter of
the spirit than the senses--an image in the mind rather than an image
in metal or stone. The temple was not eloquent with the actions and
deeds of the gods, and even the tomb, that fruitful source of art in
Egypt, was in Chaldæa undecorated and in Assyria unknown. No one knows
what the Assyrians did with their dead, unless they carried them back
to the fatherland of the race, the Persian Gulf region, as the native
tribes of Mesopotamia do to this day.
ART MOTIVES: As in Egypt, there were two motives for art--illustration
and decoration. Religion, as we have seen, hardly obtained at all. The
king attracted the greatest attention. The countless bas-reliefs, cut
on soft stone slabs, were pages from the history of the monarch in
peace and war, in council, in the chase, or in processional rites.
Beside him and around him his officers came in for a share of the
background glory. Occasionally the common people had representations
of their lives and their pursuits, but the main subject of all the
valley art was the king and his doings. Sculpture and painting were
largely illustrations accompanying a history written in the
ever-present cuneiform characters.
[Illustration: FIG. 5.--ENAMELLED BRICK. NIMROUD. (FROM PERROT AND
CHIPIEZ.)]
But, while serving as history, like the picture-writings of the
Egyptians, this illustration was likewise decoration, and was designed
with that end in view. Rows upon rows of partly colored bas-reliefs
were arranged like a dado along the palace-wall, and above them
wall-paintings, or glazed tiles in patterns, carried out the color
scheme. Almost all of the color has now disappeared, but it must have
been brilliant at one time, and was doubtless in harmony with the
architecture. Both painting and sculpture were subordinate to and
dependent upon architecture. Palace-building was the chief pursuit,
and the other arts were called in mainly as adjuncts--ornamental
records of the king who built.
[Illustration: FIG. 6.--ENAMELLED BRICK. KHORSABAD. (FROM PERROT AND
CHIPIEZ.)]
THE TYPE, FORM, COLOR: There were only two distinct faces in Assyrian
art--one with and one without a beard. Neither of them was a portrait
except as attributes or inscriptions designated. The type was
unendingly repeated. Women appeared in only one or two isolated cases,
and even these are doubtful. The warrior, a strong, coarse-membered,
heavily muscled creation, with a heavy, expressionless, Semitic face,
appeared everywhere. The figure was placed in profile, with eye and
bust twisted to show the front view, and the long feet projected one
beyond the other, as in the Nile pictures. This was the Assyrian ideal
of strength, dignity, and majesty, established probably in the early
ages, and repeated for centuries with few characteristic variations.
The figure was usually given in motion, walking, or riding, and had
little of that grace seen in Egyptian painting, but in its place a
great deal of rude strength. In modelling, the human form was not so
knowingly rendered as the animal. The long Eastern clothing probably
prevented the close study of the figure. This failure in anatomical
exactness was balanced in part by minute details in the dress and
accessories, productive of a rich ornamental effect.
Hard stone was not found in the Mesopotamian regions. Temples were
built of burnt brick, bas-reliefs were made upon alabaster slabs and
heightened by coloring, and painting was largely upon tiles, with
mineral paints, afterward glazed by fire. These glazed brick or tiles,
with figured designs, were fixed upon the walls, arches, and
archivolts by bitumen mortar, and made up the first mosaics of which
we have record. There was a further painting upon plaster in
distemper, of which some few traces remain. It did not differ in
design from the bas-reliefs or the tile mosaics.
The subjects used were the Assyrian type, shown somewhat slighter in
painting than in sculpture, animals, birds, and other objects; but
they were obviously not attempts at nature. The color was arbitrary,
not natural, and there was little perspective, light-and-shade, or
relief. Heavy outline bands of color appeared about the object, and
the prevailing hues were yellow and blue. There was perhaps less
symbolism and more direct representation in Assyria than in Egypt.
There was also more feeling for perspective and space, as shown in
such objects as water and in the mountain landscapes of the late
bas-reliefs; but, in the main, there was no advance upon Egypt. There
was a difference which was not necessarily a development. Painting, as
we know the art to-day, was not practised in Chaldæa-Assyria. It was
never free from a servitude to architecture and sculpture; it was
hampered by conventionalities; and the painter was more artisan than
artist, having little freedom or individuality.
[Illustration: FIG. 7.--WILD ASS. BAS-RELIEF, BRITISH MUSEUM. (FROM
PERROT AND CHIPIEZ.)]
HISTORIC PERIODS: Chaldæa, of unknown antiquity, with Babylon its
capital, is accounted the oldest nation in the Tigris-Euphrates
valley, and, so far as is known, it was an original nation producing
an original art. Its sculpture (especially in the Tello heads), and
presumably its painting, were more realistic and individual than any
other in the valley. Assyria coming later, and the heir of Chaldæa,
was the
Second Empire: There are two distinct periods of this Second Empire, the
first lasting from 1,400 B.C., down to about 900 B.C., and in art
showing a great profusion of bas-reliefs. The second closed about 625
B.C., and in art produced much glazed-tile work and a more elaborate
sculpture and painting. After this the Chaldæan provinces gained the
ascendency again, and Babylon, under Nebuchadnezzar, became the first
city of Asia. But the new Babylon did not last long. It fell before
Cyrus and the Persians 536 B.C. Again, as in Egypt, the earliest art
appears the purest and the simplest, and the years of Chaldæo-Assyrian
history known to us carry a record of change rather than of progress in
art.
ART REMAINS: The most valuable collections of
Chaldæo-Assyrian art are to be found in the Louvre and the
British Museum. The other large museums of Europe have
collections in this department, but all of them combined are
little compared with the treasures that still lie buried in
the mounds of the Tigris-Euphrates valley. Excavations have
been made at Mugheir, Warka, Khorsabad, Kouyunjik, and
elsewhere, but many difficulties have thus far rendered
systematic work impossible. The complete history of
Chaldæo-Assyria and its art has yet to be written.
PERSIAN PAINTING.
BOOKS RECOMMENDED: As before cited, Babelon, Duncker,
Lenormant, Ely; Dieulafoy, _L'Art Antique de la Perse_;
Flandin et Coste, _Voyage en Perse_; Justi, _Geschichte des
alten Persiens_; Perrot and Chipiez, _History of Art in
Persia_.
HISTORY AND ART MOTIVES: The Medes and Persians were the natural
inheritors of Assyrian civilization, but they did not improve their
birthright. The Medes soon lost their power. Cyrus conquered them, and
established the powerful Persian monarchy upheld for two hundred years
by Cambyses, Darius, and Xerxes. Substantially the same conditions
surrounded the Persians as the Assyrians--that is, so far as art
production was concerned. Their conceptions of life were similar, and
their use of art was for historic illustration of kingly doings and
ornamental embellishment of kingly palaces. Both sculpture and
painting were accessories of architecture.
Of Median art nothing remains. The Persians left the record, but it
was not wholly of their own invention, nor was it very extensive or
brilliant. It had little originality about it, and was really only an
echo of Assyria. The sculptors and painters copied their Assyrian
predecessors, repeating at Persepolis what had been better told at
Nineveh.
[Illustration: FIG. 8.--LIONS' FRIEZE, SUSA. (FROM PERROT AND CHIPIEZ.)]
TYPES AND TECHNIC: The same subjects, types, and technical methods in
bas-relief, tile, and painting on plaster were followed under Darius
as under Shalmanezer. But the imitation was not so good as the
original. The warrior, the winged monsters, the animals all lost
something of their air of brutal defiance and their strength of
modelling. Heroes still walked in procession along the bas-reliefs and
glazed tiles, but the figure was smaller, more effeminate, the hair
and beard were not so long, the drapery fell in slightly indicated
folds at times, and there was a profusion of ornamental detail. Some
of this detail and some modifications in the figure showed the
influence of foreign nations other than the Greek; but, in the main,
Persian art followed in the footsteps of Assyrian art. It was the last
reflection of Mesopotamian splendor. For with the conquest of Persia
by Alexander the book of expressive art in that valley was closed,
and, under Islam, it remains closed to this day.
ART REMAINS: Persian painting is something about which
little is known because little remains. The Louvre contains
some reconstructed friezes made in mosaics of stamped brick
and square tile, showing figures of lions and a number of
archers. The coloring is particularly rich, and may give
some idea of Persian pigments. Aside from the chief museums
of Europe the bulk of Persian art is still seen half-buried
in the ruins of Persepolis and elsewhere.
PHOENICIAN, CYPRIOTE, AND ASIA MINOR PAINTING.
BOOKS RECOMMENDED: As before cited, Babelon, Duncker, Ely,
Girard, Lenormant; Cesnola, _Cyprus_; Cesnola, _Cypriote
Antiquities in Metropolitan Museum of Art_; Kenrick,
_Phoenicia_; Movers, _Die Phonizier_; Perrot and Chipiez,
_History of Art in Phoenicia and Cyprus_; Perrot and
Chipiez, _History of Art in Sardinia, Judea, Syria and Asia
Minor_; Perrot and Chipiez, _History of Art in Phrygia,
Lydia, etc._; Renan, _Mission de Phénicie_.
THE TRADING NATIONS: The coast-lying nations of the Eastern
Mediterranean were hardly original or creative nations in a large
sense. They were at different times the conquered dependencies of
Egypt, Assyria, Persia, Greece, and their lands were but bridges over
which armies passed from east to west or from west to east. Located on
the Mediterranean between the great civilizations of antiquity they
naturally adapted themselves to circumstances, and became the
middlemen, the brokers, traders, and carriers of the ancient world.
Their lands were not favorable to agriculture, but their sea-coasts
rendered commerce easy and lucrative. They made a kingdom of the sea,
and their means of livelihood were gathered from it. There is no
record that the Egyptians ever traversed the Mediterranean, the
Assyrians were not sailors, the Greeks had not yet arisen, and so
probably Phoenicia and her neighbors had matters their own way.
Colonies and trading stations were established at Cyprus, Carthage,
Sardinia, the Greek islands, and the Greek mainland, and not only
Eastern goods but Eastern ideas were thus carried to the West.
[Illustration: FIG. 9.--PAINTED HEAD FROM EDESSA. (FROM PERROT AND
CHIPIEZ.)]
Politically, socially, and religiously these small middle nations were
inconsequential. They simply adapted their politics or faith to the
nation that for the time had them under its heel. What semi-original
religion they possessed was an amalgamation of the religions of other
nations, and their gods of bronze, terra-cotta, and enamel were
irreverently sold in the market like any other produce.
ART MOTIVES AND METHODS: Building, carving, and painting were
practised among the coastwise nations, but upon no such extensive
scale as in either Egypt or Assyria. The mere fact that they were
people of the sea rather than of the land precluded extensive or
concentrated development. Politically Phoenicia was divided among
five cities, and her artistic strength was distributed in a similar
manner. Such art as was produced showed the religious and decorative
motives, and in its spiritless materialistic make-up, the commercial
motive. It was at the best a hybrid, mongrel art, borrowed from many
sources and distributed to many points of the compass. At one time it
had a strong Assyrian cast, at another an Egyptian cast, and after
Greece arose it accepted a retroactive influence from there.
It is impossible to characterize the Phoenician type, and even the
Cypriote type, though more pronounced, varies so with the different
influences that it has no very striking individuality. Technically
both the Phoenician and Cypriote were fair workmen in bronze and
stone, and doubtless taught many technical methods to the early
Greeks, besides making known to them those deities afterward adopted
under the names of Aphrodite, Adonis, and Heracles, and familiarizing
them with the art forms of Egypt and Assyria.
[Illustration: FIG. 10.--CYPRIOTE VASE DECORATION. (FROM PERROT AND
CHIPIEZ.)]
As for painting, there was undoubtedly figured decoration upon walls
of stone and plaster, but there is not enough left to us from all the
small nations like Phoenicia, Judea, Cyprus, and the kingdoms of
Asia Minor, put together, to patch up a disjointed history. The first
lands to meet the spoiler, their very ruins have perished. All that
there is of painting comes to us in broken potteries and color traces
on statuary. The remains of sculpture and architecture are of course
better preserved. None of this intermediate art holds much rank by
virtue of its inherent worth. It is its influence upon the West--the
ideas, subjects, and methods it imparted to the Greeks--that gives it
importance in art history.
ART REMAINS: In painting chiefly the vases in the
Metropolitan Museum, New York, the Louvre, British and
Berlin Museums. These give a poor and incomplete idea of the
painting in Asia Minor, Phoenicia and her colonies. The
terra-cottas, figurines in bronze, and sculptures can be
studied to more advantage. The best collection of Cypriote
antiquities is in the Metropolitan Museum, New York. A new
collection of Judaic art has been recently opened in the
Louvre.
CHAPTER III.
GREEK PAINTING.
BOOKS RECOMMENDED: Baumeister, _Denkmäler des klassischen
Altertums_--article "_Malerei_;" Birch, _History of Ancient
Pottery_; Brunn, _Geschichte der griechischen Künstler_;
Collignon, _Mythologie figurée de la Grèce_; Collignon,
_Manuel d'Archaeologie Grecque_; Cros et Henry,
_L'Encaustique et les autres procédés de Peinture chez les
Anciens_; Girard, _La Peinture Antique_; Murray, _Handbook
of Greek Archæology_; Overbeck, _Antiken Schriftquellen zur
geschichte der bildenen Kunste bie den Griechen_; Perrot and
Chipiez, _History of Art in Greece_; Woerman, _Die
Landschaft in der Kunst der antiken Volker_; _see also books
on Etruscan and Roman painting_.
GREECE AND THE GREEKS: The origin of the Greek race is not positively
known. It is reasonably supposed that the early settlers in Greece
came from the region of Asia Minor, either across the Hellespont or
the sea, and populated the Greek islands and the mainland. When this
was done has been matter of much conjecture. The early history is
lost, but art remains show that in the period before Homer the Greeks
were an established race with habits and customs distinctly
individual. Egyptian and Asiatic influences are apparent in their art
at this early time, but there is, nevertheless, the mark of a race
peculiarly apart from all the races of the older world.
The development of the Greek people was probably helped by favorable
climate and soil, by commerce and conquest, by republican institutions
and political faith, by freedom of mind and of body; but all these
together are not sufficient to account for the keenness of intellect,
the purity of taste, and the skill in accomplishment which showed in
every branch of Greek life. The cause lies deeper in the fundamental
make-up of the Greek mind, and its eternal aspiration toward mental,
moral, and physical ideals. Perfect mind, perfect body, perfect
conduct in this world were sought-for ideals. The Greeks aspired to
completeness. The course of education and race development trained
them physically as athletes and warriors, mentally as philosophers,
law-makers, poets, artists, morally as heroes whose lives and actions
emulated those of the gods, and were almost perfect for this world.
ART MOTIVES: Neither the monarchy nor the priesthood commanded the
services of the artist in Greece, as in Assyria and Egypt. There was
no monarch in an oriental sense, and the chosen leaders of the Greeks
never, until the late days, arrogated art to themselves. It was
something for all the people.
In religion there was a pantheon of gods established and worshipped
from the earliest ages, but these gods were more like epitomes of
Greek ideals than spiritual beings. They were the personified virtues
of the Greeks, exemplars of perfect living; and in worshipping them
the Greek was really worshipping order, conduct, repose, dignity,
perfect life. The gods and heroes, as types of moral and physical
qualities, were continually represented in an allegorical or legendary
manner. Athene represented noble warfare, Zeus was majestic dignity
and power, Aphrodite love, Phoebus song, Niké triumph, and all the
lesser gods, nymphs, and fauns stood for beauties of nature or of
life. The great bulk of Greek architecture, sculpture, and painting
was put forth to honor these gods or heroes, and by so doing the
artist repeated the national ideals and honored himself. The first
motive of Greek art, then, was to praise Hellas and the Hellenic view
of life. In part it was a religious motive, but with little of that
spiritual significance and belief which ruled in Egypt, and later on
in Italy.
[Illustration: FIG. 11.--ATTIC GRAVE PAINTING. (FROM BAUMEISTER.)]
A second and ever-present motive in Greek painting was decoration.
This appears in the tomb pottery of the earliest ages, and was carried
on down to the latest times. Vase painting, wall painting, tablet and
sculpture painting were all done with a decorative motive in view.
Even the easel or panel pictures had some decorative effect about
them, though they were primarily intended to convey ideas other than
those of form and color.
SUBJECTS AND METHODS: The gods and heroes, their lives and adventures,
formed the early subjects of Greek painting. Certain themes taken
from the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey" were as frequently shown as,
afterward, the Annunciations in Italian painting. The traditional
subjects, the Centaurs and Lapiths, the Amazon war, Theseus and
Ariadne, Perseus and Andromeda, were frequently depicted. Humanity and
actual Greek life came in for its share. Single figures, still-life,
_genre_, caricature, all were shown, and as painting neared the
Alexandrian age a semi-realistic portraiture came into vogue.
The materials employed by the Greeks and their methods of work are
somewhat difficult to ascertain, because there are few Greek pictures,
except those on the vases, left to us. From the confusing accounts of
the ancient writers, the vases, some Greek slabs in Italy, and the
Roman paintings imitative of the Greek, we may gain a general idea.
The early Greek work was largely devoted to pottery and tomb
decoration, in which much in manner and method was borrowed from Asia,
Phoenicia, and Egypt. Later on, painting appeared in flat outline on
stone or terra-cotta slabs, sometimes representing processional
scenes, as in Egypt, and doubtless done in a hybrid fresco-work
similar to the Egyptian method. Wall paintings were done in fresco and
distemper, probably upon the walls themselves, and also upon panels
afterward let into the wall. Encaustic painting (color mixed with wax
upon the panel and fused with a hot spatula) came in with the
Sikyonian school. It is possible that the oil medium and canvas were
known, but not probable that either was ever used extensively.
There is no doubt about the Greeks being expert draughtsmen, though
this does not appear until late in history. They knew the outlines
well, and drew them with force and grace. That they modelled in strong
relief is more questionable. Light-and-shade was certainly employed in
the figure, but not in any modern way. Perspective in both figures and
landscape was used; but the landscape was at first symbolic and
rarely got beyond a decorative background for the figure. Greek
composition we know little about, but may infer that it was largely a
series of balances, a symmetrical adjustment of objects to fill a
given space with not very much freedom allowed to the artist. In
atmosphere, sunlight, color, and those peculiarly sensuous charms that
belong to painting, there is no reason to believe that the Greeks
approached the moderns. Their interest was chiefly centred in the
human figure. Landscape, with its many beauties, was reserved for
modern hands to disclose. Color was used in abundance, without doubt,
but it was probably limited to the leading hues, with little of that
refinement or delicacy known in painting to-day.
ART HISTORY: For the history of Greek painting we have to rely upon
the words of Aristotle, Plutarch, Pliny, Quintilian, Lucian, Cicero,
Pausanias. Their accounts appear to be partly substantiated by the
vase paintings, and such few slabs and Roman frescos as remain to us.
There is no consecutive narrative. The story of painting originating
from a girl seeing the wall-silhouette of her lover and filling it in
with color, and the conjecture of painting having developed from
embroidery work, have neither of them a foundation in fact. The
earliest settlers of Greece probably learned painting from the
Phoenicians, and employed it, after the Egyptian, Assyrian, and
Phoenician manner, on pottery, terra-cotta slabs, and rude
sculpture. It developed slower than sculpture perhaps; but were there
anything of importance left to judge from, we should probably find
that it developed in much the same manner as sculpture. Down to 500
B.C. there was little more than outline filled in with flat
monochromatic paint and with a decorative effect similar, perhaps, to
that of the vase paintings. After that date come the more important
names of artists mentioned by the ancient writers. It is difficult to
assign these artists to certain periods or schools, owing to the
insufficient knowledge we have about them. The following
classifications and assignments may, therefore, in some instances, be
questioned.
[Illustration: FIG. 12.--MUSE OF CORTONA, CORTONA MUSEUM.]
OLDER ATTIC SCHOOL: The first painter of rank was Polygnotus (fl.
475-455 B.C.), sometimes called the founder of Greek painting, because
perhaps he was one of the first important painters in Greece proper.
He seems to have been a good outline draughtsman, producing figures in
profile, with little attempt at relief, perspective, or
light-and-shade. His colors were local tones, but probably more like
nature and more varied than anything in Egyptian painting. Landscapes,
buildings, and the like, were given in a symbolic manner. Portraiture
was a generalization, and in figure compositions the names of the
principal characters were written near them for purposes of
identification. The most important works of Polygnotus were the wall
paintings for the Assembly Room of the Knidians at Delphi. The
subjects related to the Trojan War and the adventures of Ulysses.
Opposed to this flat, unrelieved style was the work of a follower,
Agatharchos of Samos (fl. end of fifth century B.C.). He was a
scene-painter, and by the necessities of his craft was led toward
nature. Stage effect required a study of perspective, variation of
light, and a knowledge of the laws of optics. The slight outline
drawing of his predecessor was probably superseded by effective masses
to create illusion. This was a distinct advance toward nature.
Apollodorus (fl. end of fifth century B.C.) applied the principles of
Agatharchos to figures. According to Plutarch, he was the first to
discover variation in the shade of colors, and, according to Pliny,
the first master to paint objects as they appeared in nature. He had
the title of _skiagraphos_ (shadow-painter), and possibly gave a
semi-natural background with perspective. This was an improvement, but
not a perfection. It is not likely that the backgrounds were other
than conventional settings for the figure. Even these were not at once
accepted by the painters of the period, but were turned to profit in
the hands of the followers.
After the Peloponnesian Wars the art of painting seems to have
flourished elsewhere than in Athens, owing to the Athenian loss of
supremacy. Other schools sprang up in various districts, and one to
call for considerable mention by the ancient writers was the
IONIAN SCHOOL, which in reality had existed from the sixth century.
The painters of this school advanced upon the work of Apollodorus as
regards realistic effect. Zeuxis, whose fame was at its height during
the Peloponnesian Wars, seems to have regarded art as a matter of
illusion, if one may judge by the stories told of his work. The tale
of his painting a bunch of grapes so like reality that the birds came
to peck at them proves either that the painter's motive was deception,
or that the narrator of the tale picked out the deceptive part of his
picture for admiration. He painted many subjects, like Helen,
Penelope, and many _genre_ pieces on panel. Quintilian says he
originated light-and-shade, an achievement credited by Plutarch to
Apollodorus. It is probable that he advanced light-and-shade.
In illusion he seems to have been outdone by a rival, Parrhasios of
Ephesus. Zeuxis deceived the birds with painted grapes, but Parrhasios
deceived Zeuxis with a painted curtain. There must have been knowledge
of color, modelling, and relief to have produced such an illusion, but
the aim was petty and unworthy of the skill. There was evidently an
advance technically, but some decline in the true spirit of art.
Parrhasios finally suffered defeat at the hands of Timanthes of
Kythnos, by a Contest between Ajax and Ulysses for the Arms of
Achilles. Timanthes's famous work was the Sacrifice of Iphigenia, of
which there is a supposed Pompeian copy.
SIKYONIAN SCHOOL: This school seems to have sprung up after the
Peloponnesian Wars, and was perhaps founded by Eupompos, a
contemporary of Parrhasios. His pupil Pamphilos brought the school to
maturity. He apparently reacted from the deception motive of Zeuxis
and Parrhasios, and taught academic methods of drawing, composing, and
painting. He was also credited with bringing into use the encaustic
method of painting, though it was probably known before his time. His
pupil, Pausias, possessed some freedom of creation in _genre_ and
still-life subjects. Pliny says he had great technical skill, as shown
in the foreshortening of a black ox by variations of the black tones,
and he obtained some fame by a figure of Methè (Intoxication) drinking
from a glass, the face being seen through the glass. Again the
motives seem trifling, but again advancing technical power is shown.
[Illustration: FIG. 13.--ODYSSEY LANDSCAPE, VATICAN. (FROM WOLTMANN AND
WOERMANN.)]
THEBAN-ATTIC SCHOOL: This was the fourth school of Greek painting.
Nikomachus (fl. about 360 B.C.), a facile painter, was at its head.
His pupil, Aristides, painted pathetic scenes, and was perhaps as
remarkable for teaching art to the celebrated Euphranor (fl. 360 B.C.)
as for his own productions. Euphranor had great versatility in the
arts, and in painting was renowned for his pictures of the Olympian
gods at Athens. His successor, Nikias (fl. 340-300 B.C.), was a
contemporary of Praxiteles, the sculptor, and was possibly influenced
by him in the painting of female figures. He was a technician of
ability in composition, light-and-shade, and relief, and was praised
for the roundness of his figures. He also did some tinting of
sculpture, and is said to have tinted some of the works of
Praxiteles.
LATE PAINTERS: Contemporary with and following these last-named
artists were some celebrated painters who really belong to the
beginning of the Hellenistic Period (323 B.C.). At their head was
Apelles, the painter of Philip and Alexander, and the climax of Greek
painting. He painted many gods, heroes, and allegories, with much
"gracefulness," as Pliny puts it. The Italian Botticelli, seventeen
hundred years after him, tried to reproduce his celebrated Calumny,
from Lucian's description of it. His chief works were his Aphrodite
Anadyomene, carried to Rome by Augustus, and the portrait of Alexander
with the Thunder-bolt. He was undoubtedly a superior man technically.
Protogenes rivalled him, if we are to believe Petronius, by the foam
on a dog's mouth and the wonder in the eye of a startled pheasant.
Aëtion, the painter of Alexander's Marriage to Roxana, was not able to
turn the aim of painting from this deceptive illusion. After
Alexander, painting passed still further into the imitative and the
theatrical, and when not grandiloquent was infinitely little over
cobbler-shops and huckster-stalls. Landscape for purposes of
decorative composition, and floor painting, done in mosaic, came in
during the time of the Diadochi. There were no great names in the
latter days, and such painters as still flourished passed on to Rome,
there to produce copies of the works of their predecessors.
It is hard to reconcile the unworthy motive attributed to Greek
painting by the ancient writers with the high aim of Greek sculpture.
It is easier to think (and it is more probable) that the writers knew
very little about art, and that they missed the spirit of Greek
painting in admiring its insignificant details. That painting
technically was at a high point of perfection as regards the figure,
even the imitative Roman works indicate, and it can hardly be doubted
that in spirit it was at one time equally strong.
EXTANT REMAINS: There are few wall or panel pictures of
Greek times in existence. Four slabs of stone in the Naples
Museum, with red outline drawings of Theseus, Silenos, and
some figures with masks, are probably Greek work from which
the color has scaled. A number of Roman copies of Greek
frescos and mosaics are in the Vatican, Capitoline, and
Naples Museums. All these pieces show an imitation of late
Hellenistic art--not the best period of Greek development.
THE VASES: The history of Greek painting in its remains is
traced with some accuracy in the decorative figures upon the
vases. The first ware--dating before the seventh century
B.C.--seems free from oriental influences in its designs.
The vase is reddish, the decoration is in tiers, bands, or
zig-zags, usually in black or brown, without the human
figure. The second kind of ware dates from about the middle
of the seventh century. It shows meander, wave, and other
designs, and is called the "geometrical" style. Later on
animals, rosettes, and vegetation appear that show Assyrian
influence. The decoration is profuse and the rude human
figure subordinate to it. The design is in black or
dark-brown, on a cream-colored slip. The third kind of ware
is the archaic or "strong" style. It dates from 500 B.C. to
the Peloponnesian Wars, and is marked by black figures upon
a yellow or red ground. White and purple are also used to
define flesh, hair, and white objects. The figure is stiff,
the action awkward, the composition is freer than before,
but still conventional. The subjects are the gods,
demi-gods, and heroes in scenes from their lives and
adventures. The fourth kind of ware dates down into the
Hellenistic age and shows red figures surrounded by a black
ground. The figure, the drawing, the composition are better
than at any other period and suggest a high excellence in
other forms of Greek painting. After Alexander, vase
painting seems to have shared the fate of wall and panel
painting. There was a striving for effect, with ornateness
and extravagance, and finally the art passed out entirely.
There was an establishment founded in Southern Italy which
imitated the Greek and produced the Apulian ware, but the
Romans gave little encouragement to vase painting, and about
65 B.C. it disappeared. Almost all the museums of the world
have collections of Greek vases. The British, Berlin, and
Paris collections are perhaps as complete as any.
[Illustration: FIG. 14.--AMPHORE, LOWER ITALY.]
ETRUSCAN AND ROMAN PAINTING.
BOOKS RECOMMENDED: See Bibliography of Greek Painting and
also Dennis, _Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria_; Graul, _Die
Portratgemalde aus den Grabstatten des Faiyum_; Helbig, _Die
Wandgemalde Campaniens_; Helbig, _Untersuchungen uber die
Campanische Wandmalerei_; Mau, _Geschichte der Decorativen
Wandmalerei in Pompeii_; Martha, _L'Archéologie Étrusque et
Romaine_.
ETRUSCAN PAINTING: Painting in Etruria has not a great deal of
interest for us just here. It was largely decorative and sepulchral in
motive, and was employed in the painting of tombs, and upon vases and
other objects placed in the tombs. It had a native way of expressing
itself, which at first was neither Greek nor Oriental, and yet a
reminder of both. Technically it was not well done. Before 500 B.C. it
was almost childish in the drawing. After that date the figures were
better, though short and squat. Those on the vases usually show
outline drawing filled in with dull browns and yellows. Finally there
was a mingling of Etruscan with Greek elements, and an imitation of
Greek methods. It was at best a hybrid art, but of some importance
from an archæological point of view.
ROMAN PAINTING: Roman art is an appendix to the art history of Greece.
It originated little in painting, and was content to perpetuate the
traditions of Greece in an imitative way. What was worse, it copied
the degeneracy of Greece by following the degenerate Hellenistic
paintings. In motive and method it was substantially the same work as
that of the Greeks under the Diadochi. The subjects, again, were often
taken from Greek story, though there were Roman historical scenes,
_genre_ pieces, and many portraits.
[Illustration: FIG. 15.--RITUAL SCENE, PALATINE WALL PAINTING. (FROM
WOLTMANN AND WOERMANN.)]
In the beginning of the Empire tablet or panel painting was rather
abandoned in favor of mural decoration. That is to say, figures or
groups were painted in fresco on the wall and then surrounded by
geometrical, floral, or architectural designs to give the effect of a
panel let into the wall. Thus painting assumed a more decorative
nature. Vitruvius says in effect that in the early days nature was
followed in these wall paintings, but later on they became ornate and
overdone, showing many unsupported architectural façades and
impossible decorative framings. This can be traced in the Roman and
Pompeian frescos. There were four kinds of these wall paintings. (1.)
Those that covered all the walls of a room and did away with dado,
frieze, and the like, such as figures with large landscape
backgrounds showing villas and trees. (2.) Small paintings separated
or framed by pilasters. (3.) Panel pictures let into the wall or
painted with that effect. (4.) Single figures with architectural
backgrounds. The single figures were usually the best. They had grace
of line and motion and all the truth to nature that decoration
required. Some of the backgrounds were flat tints of red or black
against which the figure was placed. In the larger pieces the
composition was rather rambling and disjointed, and the color harsh.
In light-and-shade and relief they probably followed the Greek
example.
[Illustration: FIG. 16.--PORTRAIT-HEAD. (FROM FAYOUM, GRAF COL.)]
ROMAN PAINTERS: During the first five centuries Rome was between the
influences of Etruria and Greece. The first paintings in Rome of which
there is record were done in the Temple of Ceres by the Greek artists
of Lower Italy, Gorgasos and Damophilos (fl. 493 B.C.). They were
doubtless somewhat like the vase paintings--profile work, without
light, shade, or perspective. At the time and after Alexander Greek
influence held sway. Fabius Pictor (fl. about 300 B.C.) is one of the
celebrated names in historical painting, and later on Pacuvius,
Metrodorus, and Serapion are mentioned. In the last century of the
Republic, Sopolis, Dionysius, and Antiochus Gabinius excelled in
portraiture. Ancient painting really ends for us with the destruction
of Pompeii (79 A.D.), though after that there were interesting
portraits produced, especially those found in the Fayoum (Egypt).[1]
[Footnote 1: See Scribner's Magazine, vol. v., p. 219, New Series.]
EXTANT REMAINS: The frescos that are left to us to-day are
largely the work of mechanical decorators rather than
creative artists. They are to be seen in Rome, in the Baths
of Titus, the Vatican, Livia's Villa, Farnesina,
Rospigliosi, and Barberini Palaces, Baths of Caracalla,
Capitoline and Lateran Museums, in the houses of excavated
Pompeii, and the Naples Museum. Besides these there are
examples of Roman fresco and distemper in the Louvre and
other European Museums. Examples of Etruscan painting are to
be seen in the Vatican, Cortona, the Louvre, the British
Museum and elsewhere.
CHAPTER IV.
ITALIAN PAINTING.
EARLY CHRISTIAN AND MEDIÆVAL PERIOD. 200-1250.
BOOKS RECOMMENDED: Bayet, _L'Art Byzantin_; Bennett,
_Christian Archæology_; Bosio, _La Roma Sotterranea_;
Burckhardt, _The Cicerone, an Art Guide to Painting in
Italy, ed. by Crowe_; Crowe and Cavalcaselle, _New History
of Painting in Italy_; De Rossi, _La Roma Sotterranea
Cristiana_; De Rossi, _Bullettino di Archeologia Cristiana_;
Didron, _Christian Iconography_; Eastlake (Kügler's),
_Handbook of Painting--The Italian Schools_; Garrucci,
_Storia dell' Arte Cristiana_; Gerspach, _La Mosaïque_;
Lafenestre, _La Peinture Italienne_; Lanzi, _History of
Painting in Italy_; Lecoy de la Marche, _Les Manuscrits et
la Miniature_; Lindsay, _Sketches of the History of
Christian Art_; Martigny, _Dictionnaire des Antiques
Chrétiennes_; Pératé, _L'Archeologie Chretienne_; Reber,
_History of Mediæval Art_; Rio, _Poetry of Christian Art_;
Lethaby, _Medieval Art_; Smith and Cheetham, _Dictionary of
Christian Antiquities_.
RISE OF CHRISTIANITY: Out of the decaying civilization of Rome sprang
into life that remarkable growth known as Christianity. It was not
welcomed by the Romans. It was scoffed at, scourged, persecuted, and,
at one time, nearly exterminated. But its vitality was stronger than
that of its persecutor, and when Rome declined, Christianity utilized
the things that were Roman, while striving to live for ideas that were
Christian.
[Illustration: FIG. 17.--CHAMBER IN CATACOMBS, SHOWING WALL
DECORATION.]
There was no revolt, no sudden change. The Christian idea made haste
slowly, and at the start it was weighed down with many paganisms. The
Christians themselves in all save religious faith, were Romans, and
inherited Roman tastes, manners, and methods. But the Roman world,
with all its classicism and learning, was dying. The decline socially
and intellectually was with the Christians as well as the Romans.
There was good reason for it. The times were out of joint, and almost
everything was disorganized, worn out, decadent. The military life of
the Empire had begun to give way to the monastic and feudal life of
the Church. Quarrels and wars between the powers kept life at fever
heat. In the fifth century came the inpouring of the Goths and Huns,
and with them the sacking and plunder of the land. Misery and
squalor, with intellectual blackness, succeeded. Art, science,
literature, and learning degenerated to mere shadows of their former
selves, and a semi-barbarism reigned for five centuries. During all
this dark period Christian painting struggled on in a feeble way,
seeking to express itself. It started Roman in form, method, and even,
at times, in subject; it ended Christian, but not without a long
period of gradual transition, during which it was influenced from many
sources and underwent many changes.
ART MOTIVES: As in the ancient world, there were two principal motives
for painting in early Christian times--religion and decoration.
Religion was the chief motive, but Christianity was a very different
religion from that of the Greeks and Romans. The Hellenistic faith was
a worship of nature, a glorification of humanity, an exaltation of
physical and moral perfections. It dealt with the material and the
tangible, and Greek art appealed directly to the sensuous and earthly
nature of mankind. The Hebraic faith or Christianity was just the
opposite of this. It decried the human, the flesh, and the worldly. It
would have nothing to do with the beauty of this earth. Its hopes were
centred upon the life hereafter. The teaching of Christ was the
humility and the abasement of the human in favor of the spiritual and
the divine. Where Hellenism appealed to the senses, Hebraism appealed
to the spirit. In art the fine athletic figure, or, for that matter,
any figure, was an abomination. The early Church fathers opposed it.
It was forbidden by the Mosaic decalogue and savored of idolatry.
But what should take its place in art? How could the new Christian
ideas be expressed without form? Symbolism came in, but it was
insufficient. A party in the Church rose up in favor of more direct
representation. Art should be used as an engine of the Church to teach
the Bible to those who could not read. This argument held good, and
notwithstanding the opposition of the Iconoclastic party painting grew
in favor. It lent itself to teaching and came under ecclesiastical
domination. As it left the nature of the classic world and loosened
its grasp on things tangible it became feeble and decrepit in its
form. While it grew in sentiment and religious fervor it lost in
bodily vigor and technical ability.
[Illustration: FIG. 18.--CATACOMB FRESCO. CRYPT OF S. CECILIA. THIRD
CENTURY.]
For many centuries the religious motive held strong, and art was the
servant of the Church. It taught the Bible truths, but it also
embellished and adorned the interiors of the churches. All the
frescos, mosaics, and altar-pieces had a decorative motive in their
coloring and setting. The church building was a house of refuge for
the oppressed, and it was made attractive not only in its lines and
proportions but in its ornamentation. Hence the two motives of the
early work--religious teaching and decoration.
SUBJECTS AND TECHNICAL METHODS: There was no distinct Judaic or
Christian type used in the very early art. The painters took their
models directly from the Roman frescos and marbles. It was the classic
figure and the classic costume, and those who produced the painting
of the early period were the degenerate painters of the classic world.
The figure was rather short and squat, coarse in the joints, hands,
and feet, and almost expressionless in the face. Christian life at
that time was passion-strung, but the faces in art do not show it, for
the reason that the Roman frescos were the painter's model, not the
people of the Christian community about him. There was nothing like a
realistic presentation at this time. The type alone was given.
In the drawing it was not so good as that shown in the Roman and
Pompeian frescos. There was a mechanism about its production, a
copying by unskilled hands, a negligence or an ignorance of form that
showed everywhere. The coloring, again, was a conventional scheme of
flat tints in reddish-browns and bluish-greens, with heavy outline
bands of brown. There was little perspective or background, and the
figures in panels were separated by vines, leaves, or other ornamental
division lines. Some relief was given to the figure by the brown
outlines. Light-and-shade was not well rendered, and composition was
formal. The great part of this early work was done in fresco after the
Roman formula, and was executed on the walls of the Catacombs. Other
forms of art showed in the gilded glasses, in manuscript illumination,
and, later, in the mosaics.
Technically the work begins to decline from the beginning in
proportion as painting was removed from the knowledge of the ancient
world. About the fifth century the figure grew heavy and stiff. A new
type began to show itself. The Roman toga was exchanged for the long
liturgical garment which hid the proportions of the body, the lines
grew hard and dark, a golden nimbus appeared about the head, and the
patriarchal in appearance came into art. The youthful Orphic face of
Christ changed to a solemn visage, with large, round eyes, saint-like
beard, and melancholy air. The classic qualities were fast
disappearing. Eastern types and elements were being introduced
through Byzantium. Oriental ornamentation, gold embossing, rich color
were doing away with form, perspective, light-and-shade, and
background.
[Illustration: FIG. 19.--CHRIST AS GOOD SHEPHERD. MOSAIC, RAVENNA,
FIFTH CENTURY.]
The color was rich and the mechanical workmanship fair for the time,
but the figure had become paralytic. It shrouded itself in a sack-like
brocaded gown, had no feet at times, and instead of standing on the
ground hung in the air. Facial expression ran to contorted features,
holiness became moroseness, and sadness sulkiness. The flesh was
brown, the shadows green-tinted, giving an unhealthy look to the
faces. Add to this the gold ground (a Persian inheritance), the gilded
high lights, the absence of perspective, and the composing of groups
so that the figures looked piled one upon another instead of receding,
and we have the style of painting that prevailed in Byzantium and
Italy from about the ninth to the thirteenth century. Nothing of a
technical nature was in its favor except the rich coloring and the
mechanical adroitness of the fitting.
EARLY CHRISTIAN PAINTING: The earliest Christian painting appeared on
the walls of the Catacombs in Rome. These were decorated with panels
and within the panels were representations of trailing vines, leaves,
fruits, flowers, with birds and little genii or cupids. It was
painting similar to the Roman work, and had no Christian significance
though in a Christian place. Not long after, however, the desire to
express something of the faith began to show itself in a symbolic way.
The cups and the vases became marked with the fish, because the Greek
spelling of the word "icthus" gave the initials of the Christian
confession of faith. The paintings of the shepherd bearing a sheep
symbolized Christ and his flock; the anchor meant the Christian hope;
the phoenix immortality; the ship the Church; the cock watchfulness,
and so on. And at this time the decorations began to have a double
meaning. The vine came to represent the "I am the vine" and the birds
grew longer wings and became doves, symbolizing pure Christian souls.
It has been said this form of art came about through fear of
persecution, that the Christians hid their ideas in symbols because
open representation would be followed by violence and desecration.
Such was hardly the case. The emperors persecuted the living, but the
dead and their sepulchres were exempt from sacrilege by Roman law.
They probably used the symbol because they feared the Roman figure and
knew no other form to take its place. But symbolism did not supply the
popular need; it was impossible to originate an entirely new figure;
so the painters went back and borrowed the old Roman form. Christ
appeared as a beardless youth in Phrygian costume, the Virgin Mary was
a Roman matron, and the Apostles looked like Roman senators wearing
the toga.
Classic story was also borrowed to illustrate Bible truth. Hermes
carrying the sheep was the Good Shepherd, Psyche discovering Cupid was
the curiosity of Eve, Ulysses closing his ears to the Sirens was the
Christian resisting the tempter. The pagan Orpheus charming the
animals of the wood was finally adopted as a symbol, or perhaps an
ideal likeness of Christ. Then followed more direct representation in
classic form and manner, the Old Testament prefiguring and emphasizing
the New. Jonah appeared cast into the sea and cast by the whale on dry
land again as a symbol of the New Testament resurrection, and also as
a representation of the actual occurrence. Moses striking the rock
symbolized life eternal, and David slaying Goliath was Christ
victorious.
[Illustration: FIG. 20.--CHRIST AND SAINTS. FRESCO. S. GENEROSA,
SEVENTH CENTURY (?).]
The chronology of the Catacombs painting is very much mixed, but it is
quite certain there was degeneracy from the start. The cause was
neglect of form, neglect of art as art, mechanical copying instead of
nature study, and finally, the predominance of the religious idea over
the forms of nature. With Constantine Christianity was recognized as
the national religion. Christian art came out of the Catacombs and
began to show itself in illuminations, mosaics, and church
decorations. Notwithstanding it was now free from restraint it did not
improve. Church traditions prevailed, sentiment bordered upon
sentimentality, and the technic of painting passed from bad to worse.
The decline continued during the sixth and seventh centuries, owing
somewhat perhaps to the influence of Byzantium and the introduction
into Italy of Eastern types and elements. In the eighth century the
Iconoclastic controversy broke out again in fury with the edict of Leo
the Isaurian. This controversy was a renewal of the old quarrel in the
Church about the use of pictures and images. Some wished them for
instruction in the Word; others decried them as leading to idolatry.
It was a long quarrel of over a hundred years' duration, and a deadly
one for art. When it ended, the artists were ordered to follow the
traditions, not to make any new creations, and not to model any figure
in the round. The nature element in art was quite dead at that time,
and the order resulted only in diverting the course of painting toward
the unrestricted miniatures and manuscripts. The native Italian art
was crushed for a time by this new ecclesiastical burden. It did not
entirely disappear, but it gave way to the stronger, though equally
restricted art that had been encroaching upon it for a long time--the
art of Byzantium.
BYZANTINE PAINTING: Constantinople was rebuilt and rechristened by
Constantine, a Christian emperor, in the year 328 A.D. It became a
stronghold of Christian traditions, manners, customs, art. But it was
not quite the same civilization as that of Rome and the West. It was
bordered on the south and east by oriental influences, and much of
Eastern thought, method, and glamour found its way into the Christian
community. The artists fought this influence, stickling a long time
for the severer classicism of ancient Greece. For when Rome fell the
traditions of the Old World centred around Constantinople. But classic
form was ever being encroached upon by oriental richness of material
and color. The struggle was a long but hopeless one. As in Italy,
form failed century by century. When, in the eighth century, the
Iconoclastic controversy cut away the little Greek existing in it, the
oriental ornament was about all that remained.
There was no chance for painting to rise under the prevailing
conditions. Free artistic creation was denied the artist. An advocate
of painting at the Second Nicene Council declared that: "It is not the
invention of the painter that creates the picture, but an inviolable
law of the Catholic Church. It is not the painter but the holy fathers
who have to invent and dictate. To them manifestly belongs the
composition, to the painter only the execution." Painting was in a
strait-jacket. It had to follow precedent and copy what had gone
before in old Byzantine patterns. Both in Italy and in Byzantium the
creative artist had passed away in favor of the skilled artisan--the
repeater of time-honored forms or colors. The workmanship was good for
the time, and the coloring and ornamental borders made a rich setting,
but the real life of art had gone. A long period of heavy, morose,
almost formless art, eloquent of mediæval darkness and ignorance,
followed.
[Illustration: FIG. 21.--EZEKIEL BEFORE THE LORD. MS. ILLUMINATION.
PARIS, NINTH CENTURY.]
It is strange that such an art should be adopted by foreign nations,
and yet it was. Its bloody crucifixions and morbid madonnas were well
fitted to the dark view of life held during the Middle Ages, and its
influence was wide-spread and of long duration. It affected French and
German art, it ruled at the North, and in the East it lives even to
this day. That it strongly affected Italy is a very apparent fact.
Just when it first began to show its influence there is matter of
dispute. It probably gained a foothold at Ravenna in the sixth
century, when that province became a part of the empire of Justinian.
Later it permeated Rome, Sicily, and Naples at the south, and Venice
at the north. With the decline of the early Christian art of Italy
this richer, and in many ways more acceptable, Byzantine art came in,
and, with Italian modifications, usurped the field. It did not
literally crush out the native Italian art, but practically it
superseded it, or held it in check, from the ninth to the twelfth
century. After that the corrupted Italian art once more came to the
front.
EARLY CHRISTIAN AND BYZANTINE REMAINS: The best examples of
Early Christian painting are still to be seen in the
Catacombs at Rome. Mosaics in the early churches of Rome,
Ravenna, Naples, Venice, Constantinople. Sculptures,
ivories, and glasses in the Lateran, Ravenna, and Vatican
museums. Illuminations in Vatican and Paris libraries.
Almost all the museums of Europe, those of the Vatican and
Naples particularly, have some examples of Byzantine work.
The older altar-pieces of the early Italian churches date
back to the mediæval period and show Byzantine influence.
The altar-pieces of the Greek and Russian churches show the
same influence even in modern work.
CHAPTER V.
ITALIAN PAINTING.
GOTHIC PERIOD. 1250-1400.
BOOKS RECOMMENDED: As before, Burckhardt, Crowe and
Cavalcaselle, Eastlake, Lafenestre, Lanzi, Lindsay, Reber;
also Burton, _Catalogue of Pictures in the National Gallery,
London_ (_unabridged edition_); Cartier, _Vie de Fra
Angelico_; Förster, _Leben und Werke des Fra Angelico_;
Habich, _Vade Mecum pour la Peinture Italienne des Anciens
Maîtres_; Lacroix, _Les Arts au Moyen-Age et à la Époque de
la Renaissance_; Mantz, _Les Chefs-d'oeuvre de la Peinture
Italienne_; Morelli, _Italian Masters in German Galleries_;
Morelli, _Italian Masters, Critical Studies in their Works_;
Rumohr, _Italienische Forschungen_; Selincourt, _Giotto_;
Stillman, _Old Italian Masters_; Vasari, _Lives of the Most
Eminent Painters_; consult also General Bibliography (p.
xv).
SIGNS OF THE AWAKENING: It would seem at first as though nothing but
self-destruction could come to that struggling, praying,
throat-cutting population that terrorized Italy during the Mediæval
Period. The people were ignorant, the rulers treacherous, the passions
strong, and yet out of the Dark Ages came light. In the thirteenth
century the light grew brighter, but the internal dissensions did not
cease. The Hohenstaufen power was broken, the imperial rule in Italy
was crushed. Pope and emperor no longer warred each other, but the
cries of "Guelf" and "Ghibelline" had not died out.
Throughout the entire Romanesque and Gothic periods (1000-1400) Italy
was torn by political wars, though the free cities, through their
leagues of protection and their commerce, were prosperous. A
commercial rivalry sprang up among the cities. Trade with the East,
manufactures, banking, all flourished; and even the philosophies, with
law, science, and literature, began to be studied. The spirit of
learning showed itself in the founding of schools and universities.
Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, reflecting respectively religion,
classic learning, and the inclination toward nature, lived and gave
indication of the trend of thought. Finally the arts, architecture,
sculpture, painting, began to stir and take upon themselves new
appearances.
SUBJECTS AND METHODS: In painting, though there were some portraits
and allegorical scenes produced during the Gothic period, the chief
theme was Bible story. The Church was the patron, and art was only the
servant, as it had been from the beginning. It was the instructor and
consoler of the faithful, a means whereby the Church made converts,
and an adornment of wall and altar. It had not entirely escaped from
symbolism. It was still the portrayal of things for what they meant,
rather than for what they looked. There was no such thing then as art
for art's sake. It was art for religion's sake.
The demand for painting increased, and its subjects multiplied with
the establishment at this time of the two powerful orders of Dominican
and Franciscan monks. The first exacted from the painters more learned
and instructive work; the second wished for the crucifixions, the
martyrdoms, the dramatic deaths, wherewith to move people by emotional
appeal. To offset this the ultra-religious character of painting was
encroached upon somewhat by the growth of the painters' guilds, and
art production largely passing into the hands of laymen. In
consequence painting produced many themes, but, as yet, only after the
Byzantine style. The painter was more of a workman than an artist. The
Church had more use for his fingers than for his creative ability. It
was his business to transcribe what had gone before. This he did, but
not without signs here and there of uneasiness and discontent with the
pattern. There was an inclination toward something truer to nature,
but, as yet, no great realization of it. The study of nature came in
very slowly, and painting was not positive in statement until the time
of Giotto and Lorenzetti.
[Illustration: FIG. 22.--GIOTTO, FLIGHT INTO EGYPT. ARENA CHAP.
PADUA.]
The best paintings during the Gothic period were executed upon the
walls of the churches in fresco. The prepared color was laid on wet
plaster, and allowed to soak in. The small altar and panel pictures
were painted in distemper, the gold ground and many Byzantine features
being retained by most of the painters, though discarded by some few.
CHANGES IN THE TYPE, ETC.: The advance of Italian art in the Gothic
age was an advance through the development of the imposed Byzantine
pattern. It was not a revolt or a starting out anew on a wholly
original path. When people began to stir intellectually the artists
found that the old Byzantine model did not look like nature. They
began, not by rejecting it, but by improving it, giving it slight
movements here and there, turning the head, throwing out a hand, or
shifting the folds of drapery. The Eastern type was still seen in the
long pathetic face, oblique eyes, green flesh tints, stiff robes, thin
fingers, and absence of feet; but the painters now began to modify and
enliven it. More realistic Italian faces were introduced,
architectural and landscape backgrounds encroached upon the Byzantine
gold grounds, even portraiture was taken up.
This looks very much like realism, but we must not lay too much stress
upon it. The painters were taking notes of natural appearances. It
showed in features like the hands, feet, and drapery; but the anatomy
of the body had not yet been studied, and there is no reason to
believe their study of the face was more than casual, nor their
portraits more than records from memory.
No one painter began this movement. The whole artistic region of Italy
was at that time ready for the advance. That all the painters moved at
about the same pace, and continued to move at that pace down to the
fifteenth century, that they all based themselves upon Byzantine
teaching, and that they all had a similar style of working is proved
by the great difficulty in attributing their existing pictures to
certain masters, or even certain schools. There are plenty of pictures
in Italy to-day that might be attributed to either Florence or Sienna,
Giotto or Lorenzetti, or some other master; because though each master
and each school had slight peculiarities, yet they all had a common
origin in the art traditions of the time.
[Illustration: FIG. 23.--ORCAGNA, PARADISE (DETAIL). S. M. NOVELLA,
FLORENCE.]
FLORENTINE SCHOOL: Cimabue (1240?-1302?) seems the most notable
instance in early times of a Byzantine-educated painter who improved
upon the traditions. He has been called the father of Italian
painting, but Italian painting had no father. Cimabue was simply a man
of more originality and ability than his contemporaries, and departed
further from the art teachings of the time without decidedly opposing
them. He retained the Byzantine pattern, but loosened the lines of
drapery somewhat, turned the head to one side, infused the figure with
a little appearance of life. His contemporaries elsewhere in Italy
were doing the same thing, and none of them was any more than a link
in the progressive chain.
Cimabue's pupil, Giotto (1266?-1337), was a great improver on all his
predecessors because he was a man of extraordinary genius. He would
have been great in any time, and yet he was not great enough to throw
off wholly the Byzantine traditions. He tried to do it. He studied
nature in a general way, changed the type of face somewhat by making
the jaw squarer, and gave it expression and nobility. To the figure he
gave more motion, dramatic gesture, life. The drapery was cast in
broader, simpler masses, with some regard for line, and the form and
movement of the body were somewhat emphasized through it. In methods
Giotto was more knowing, but not essentially different from his
contemporaries; his subjects were from the common stock of religious
story; but his imaginative force and invention were his own. Bound by
the conventionalities of his time he could still create a work of
nobility and power. He came too early for the highest achievement. He
had genius, feeling, fancy, almost everything except accurate
knowledge of the laws of nature and art. His art was the best of its
time, but it still lacked, nor did that of his immediate followers go
much beyond it technically.
Taddeo Gaddi (1300?-1366?) was Giotto's chief pupil, a painter of much
feeling, but lacking in the large elements of construction and in the
dramatic force of his master. Agnolo Gaddi (1333?-1396?), Antonio
Veneziano (1312?-1388?), Giovanni da Milano (fl. 1366), Andrea da
Firenze (fl. 1377), were all followers of the Giotto methods, and were
so similar in their styles that their works are often confused and
erroneously attributed. Giottino (1324?-1357?) was a supposed imitator
of Giotto, of whom little is known. Orcagna (1329?-1376?) still
further advanced the Giottesque type and method. He gathered up and
united in himself all the art teachings of his time. In working out
problems of form and in delicacy and charm of expression he went
beyond his predecessors. He was a many-sided genius, knowing not only
in a matter of natural appearance, but in color problems, in
perspective, shadows, and light. His art was further along toward the
Renaissance than that of any other Giottesque. He almost changed the
character of painting, and yet did not live near enough to the
fifteenth century to accomplish it completely. Spinello Aretino
(1332?-1410?) was the last of the great Giotto followers. He carried
out the teachings of the school in technical features, such as
composition, drawing, and relief by color rather than by light, but he
lacked the creative power of Giotto. In fact, none of the Giottesque
can be said to have improved upon the master, taking him as a whole.
Toward the beginning of the fifteenth century the school rather
declined.
SIENNESE SCHOOL: The art teachings and traditions of the past seemed
deeper rooted at Sienna than at Florence. Nor was there so much
attempt to shake them off as at Florence. Giotto broke the immobility
of the Byzantine model by showing the draped figure in action. So also
did the Siennese to some extent, but they cared more for the
expression of the spiritual than the beauty of the natural. The
Florentines were robust, resolute, even a little coarse at times; the
Siennese were more refined and sentimental. Their fancy ran to
sweetness of face rather than to bodily vigor. Again, their art was
more ornate, richer in costume, color, and detail than Florentine art;
but it was also more finical and narrow in scope.
[Illustration: FIG. 24.--A. LORENZETTI. PEACE (DETAIL). TOWN-HALL,
SIENNA.]
There was little advance upon Byzantinism in the work of Guido da
Sienna (fl. 1275). Even Duccio (1260?----?), the real founder of the
Siennese school, retained Byzantine methods and adopted the school
subjects, but he perfected details of form, such as the hands and
feet, and while retaining the long Byzantine face, gave it a
melancholy tenderness of expression. He possessed no dramatic force,
but had a refined workmanship for his time--a workmanship perhaps
better, all told, than that of his Florentine contemporary, Cimabue.
Simone di Martino (1283?-1344?) changed the type somewhat by rounding
the form. His drawing was not always correct, but in color he was good
and in detail exact and minute. He probably profited somewhat by the
example of Giotto.
The Siennese who came the nearest to Giotto's excellence were the
brothers Ambrogio (fl. 1342) and Pietro (fl. 1350) Lorenzetti. There
is little known about them except that they worked together in a
similar manner. The most of their work has perished, but what remains
shows an intellectual grasp equal to any of the age. The Sienna
frescos by Ambrogio Lorenzetti are strong in facial character, and
some of the figures, like that of the white-robed Peace, are beautiful
in their flow of line. Lippo Memmi (?-1356), Bartolo di Fredi
(1330-1410), and Taddeo di Bartolo (1362-1422), were other painters of
the school. The late men rather carried detail to excess, and the
school grew conventional instead of advancing.
TRANSITION PAINTERS: Several painters, Starnina (1354-1413), Gentile
da Fabriano (1360?-1440?), Fra Angelico (1387-1455), have been put
down in art history as the makers of the transition from Gothic to
Renaissance painting. They hardly deserve the title. There was no
transition. The development went on, and these painters, coming late
in the fourteenth century and living into the fifteenth, simply showed
the changing style, the advance in the study of nature and the technic
of art. Starnina's work gave strong evidence of the study of form, but
it was no such work as Masaccio's. There is always a little of the
past in the present, and these painters showed traces of Byzantinism
in details of the face and figure, in coloring, and in gold embossing.
Gentile had all that nicety of finish and richness of detail and color
characteristic of the Siennese. Being closer to the Renaissance than
his predecessors he was more of a nature student. He was the first man
to show the effect of sunlight in landscape, the first one to put a
gold sun in the sky. He never, however, outgrew Gothic methods and
really belongs in the fourteenth century. This is true of Fra
Angelico. Though he lived far into the Early Renaissance he did not
change his style and manner of work in conformity with the work of
others about him. He was the last inheritor of the Giottesque
traditions. Religious sentiment was the strong feature of his art. He
was behind Giotto and Lorenzetti in power and in imagination, and
behind Orcagna as a painter. He knew little of light, shade,
perspective, and color, and in characterization was feeble, except in
some late work. One face or type answered him for all classes of
people--a sweet, fair face, full of divine tenderness. His art had
enough nature in it to express his meanings, but little more. He was
pre-eminently a devout painter, and really the last of the great
religionists in painting.
[Illustration: FIG. 25.--FRA ANGELICO. ANGEL (DETAIL). UFFIZI.]
The other regions of Italy had not at this time developed schools of
painting of sufficient consequence to mention.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: FLORENTINES--Cimabue, Madonnas S. M.
Novella and Acad. Florence, frescos Upper Church of Assisi
(?); Giotto, frescos Upper and Lower churches Assisi, best
work Arena chapel Padua, Bardi and Peruzzi chapels S. Croce,
injured frescos Bargello Florence; Taddeo Gaddi, frescos
entrance wall Baroncelli chapel S. Croce, Spanish chapel S.
M. Novella (designed by Gaddi (?)); Agnolo Gaddi frescos in
choir S. Croce, S. Jacopo tra Fossi Florence, panel pictures
Florence Acad.; Giovanni da Milano, Bewailing of Christ
Florence Acad., Virgin enthroned Prato Gal., altar-piece
Uffizi Gal., frescos S. Croce Florence; Antonio Veneziano,
frescos in ceiling of Spanish chapel, S. M. Novella, Campo
Santo Pisa; Orcagna, altar-piece Last Judgment and Paradise
Strozzi chapel S. M. Novella, S. Zenobio Duomo, Saints
Medici chapel S. Croce, Descent of Holy Spirit Badia
Florence, altar-piece Nat. Gal. Lon.; Spinello Aretino, Life
of St. Benedict S. Miniato al Monte near Florence,
Annunciation Convent degl' Innocenti Arezzo, frescos Campo
Santo Pisa, Coronation Florence Acad., Barbarossa frescos
Palazzo Publico Sienna; Andrea da Firenze, Church Militant,
Calvary, Crucifixion Spanish chapel, Upper series of Life of
S. Raniera Campo Santo Pisa.
SIENNESE--Guido da Sienna, Madonna S. Domenico Sienna;
Duccio, panels Duomo and Acad. Sienna, Madonna Nat. Gal.
Lon.; Simone di Martino, frescos Palazzo Pubblico, Sienna,
altar-piece and panels Seminario Vescovile, Pisa Gal.,
altar-piece and Madonna Opera del Duomo Orvieto; Lippo
Memmi, frescos Palazzo del Podesta S. Gemignano,
Annunciation Uffizi Florence; Bartolo di Fredi, altar-pieces
Acad. Sienna, S. Francesco Montalcino; Taddeo di Bartolo,
Palazzo Pubblico Sienna, Duomo, S. Gemignano, S. Francesco
Pisa; Ambrogio Lorenzetti, frescos Palazzo Pubblico Sienna,
Triumph of Death (with Pietro Lorenzetti) Campo Santo Pisa,
St. Francis frescos Lower Church Assisi, S. Francesco and S.
Agostino Sienna, Annunciation Sienna Acad., Presentation
Florence Acad.; Pietro Lorenzetti, Virgin S. Ansano,
altar-pieces Duomo Sienna, Parish Church of Arezzo (worked
with his brother Ambrogio).
TRANSITION PAINTERS: Starnina, frescos Duomo Prato
(completed by pupil); Gentile da Fabriano, Adoration
Florence Acad., Coronation Brera Milan, Madonna Duomo
Orvieto; Fra Angelico, Coronation and many small panels
Uffizi, many pieces Life of Christ Florence Acad., other
pieces S. Marco Florence, Last Judgment Duomo, Orvieto.
CHAPTER VI.
ITALIAN PAINTING.
EARLY RENAISSANCE. 1400-1500.
BOOKS RECOMMENDED: As before, Burckhardt, Crowe and
Cavalcaselle, Eastlake, Lafenestre, Lanzi, Habich, Lacroix,
Mantz, Morelli, Burton, Rumohr, Stillman, Vasari; also Crowe
and Cavalcaselle, _History of Painting in North Italy_;
Berenson, _Florentine Painters of Renaissance_; Berenson,
_Venetian Painters of Renaissance_; Berenson, _Central
Italian Painters of Renaissance_; _Study and Criticism of
Italian Art_; Boschini, _La Carta del Navegar_; Calvi,
_Memorie della Vita ed opere di Francesco Raibolini_; Cibo,
_Niccolo Alunno e la scuola Umbra_; Citadella, _Notizie
relative a Ferrara_; Cruttwell, _Verrocchio_; Cruttwell,
_Pollaiuolo_; Morelli, Anonimo, _Notizie_; Mezzanotte,
_Commentario della Vita di Pietro Vanucci_; Mundler, _Essai
d'une Analyse critique de la Notice des tableaux Italiens au
Louvre_; Muntz, _Les Précurseurs de la Renaissance_; Muntz,
_La Renaissance en Italie et en France_; Patch, _Life of
Masaccio_; Hill, Pisanello, _Publications of the Arundel
Society_; Richter, _Italian Art in National Gallery,
London_; Ridolfi, _Le Meraviglie dell' Arte_; Rosini,
_Storia della Pittura Italiana_; Schnaase, _Geschichte der
bildenden Kunste_; Symonds, _Renaissance in Italy--the Fine
Arts_; Vischer, _Lucas Signorelli und die Italienische
Renaissance_; Waagen, _Art Treasures_; Waagen, _Andrea
Mantegna und Luca Signorelli_ (in _Raumer's Taschenbuch_,
(1850)); Zanetti, _Della Pittura Veneziana_.
THE ITALIAN MIND: There is no way of explaining the Italian fondness
for form and color other than by considering the necessities of the
people and the artistic character of the Italian mind. Art in all its
phases was not only an adornment but a necessity of Christian
civilization. The Church taught people by sculpture, mosaic,
miniature, and fresco. It was an object-teaching, a grasping of ideas
by forms seen in the mind, not a presenting of abstract ideas as in
literature. Printing was not known. There were few manuscripts, and
the majority of people could not read. Ideas came to them for
centuries through form and color, until at last the Italian mind took
on a plastic and pictorial character. It saw things in symbolic
figures, and when the Renaissance came and art took the lead as one of
its strongest expressions, painting was but the color-thought and
form-language of the people.
[Illustration: FIG. 26.--FRA FILIPPO. MADONNA. UFFIZI.]
And these people, by reason of their peculiar education, were an
exacting people, knowing what was good and demanding it from the
artists. Every Italian was, in a way, an art critic, because every
church in Italy was an art school. The artists may have led the
people, but the people spurred on the artists, and so the Italian mind
went on developing and unfolding until at last it produced the great
art of the Renaissance.
THE AWAKENING: The Italian civilization of the fourteenth century was
made up of many impulses and inclinations, none of them very strongly
defined. There was a feeling about in the dark, a groping toward the
light, but the leaders stumbled often on the road. There was good
reason for it. The knowledge of the ancient world lay buried under the
ruins of Rome. The Italians had to learn it all over again, almost
without a precedent, almost without a preceptor. With the fifteenth
century the horizon began to brighten. The Early Renaissance was
begun. It was not a revolt, a reaction, or a starting out on a new
path. It was a development of the Gothic period; and the three
inclinations of the Gothic period--religion, the desire for classic
knowledge, and the study of nature--were carried into the art of the
time with greater realization.
The inference must not be made that because nature and the antique
came to be studied in Early Renaissance times that therefore religion
was neglected. It was not. It still held strong, and though with the
Renaissance there came about a strange mingling of crime and
corruption, æstheticism and immorality, yet the Church was never
abandoned for an hour. When enlightenment came, people began to doubt
the spiritual power of the Papacy. They did not cringe to it so
servilely as before. Religion was not violently embraced as in the
Middle Ages, but there was no revolt. The Church held the power and
was still the patron of art. The painter's subjects extended over
nature, the antique, the fable, allegory, history, portraiture; but
the religious subject was not neglected. Fully three-quarters of all
the fifteenth-century painting was done for the Church, at her
command, and for her purposes.
But art was not so wholly pietistic as in the Gothic age. The study of
nature and the antique materialized painting somewhat. The outside
world drew the painter's eyes, and the beauty of the religious subject
and its sentiment were somewhat slurred for the beauty of natural
appearances. There was some loss of religious power, but religion had
much to lose. In the fifteenth century it was still dominant.
[Illustration: FIG. 27.--BOTTICELLI. CORONATION OF MADONNA. UFFIZI.]
KNOWLEDGE OF THE ANTIQUE AND NATURE: The revival of antique learning
came about in real earnest during this period. The scholars set
themselves the task of restoring the polite learning of ancient
Greece, studying coins and marbles, collecting manuscripts, founding
libraries and schools of philosophy. The wealthy nobles, Palla
Strozzi, the Albizzi, the Medici, and the Dukes of Urbino, encouraged
it. In 1440 the Greek was taught in five cities. Immediately
afterward, with Constantinople falling into the hands of the Turks,
came an influx of Greek scholars into Italy. Then followed the
invention of printing and the age of discovery on land and sea. Not
the antique alone but the natural were being pried into by the spirit
of inquiry. Botany, geology, astronomy, chemistry, medicine, anatomy,
law, literature--nothing seemed to escape the keen eye of the time.
Knowledge was being accumulated from every source, and the arts were
all reflecting it.
The influence of the newly discovered classic marbles upon painting
was not so great as is usually supposed. The painters studied them,
but did not imitate them. Occasionally in such men as Botticelli and
Mantegna we see a following of sculpturesque example--a taking of
details and even of whole figures--but the general effect of the
antique marbles was to impress the painters with the idea that nature
was at the bottom of it all. They turned to the earth not only to
study form and feature, but to learn perspective, light, shadow,
color--in short, the technical features of art. True, religion was the
chief subject, but nature and the antique were used to give it
setting. All the fifteenth-century painting shows nature study, force,
character, sincerity; but it does not show elegance, grace, or the
full complement of color. The Early Renaissance was the promise of
great things; the High Renaissance was the fulfilment.
FLORENTINE SCHOOL: The Florentines were draughtsmen more than
colorists. The chief medium was fresco on the walls of buildings, and
architectural necessities often dictated the form of compositions.
Distemper in easel pictures was likewise used, and oil-painting,
though known, was not extensively employed until the last quarter of
the century. In technical knowledge and intellectual grasp Florence
was at this time the leader and drew to her many artists from
neighboring schools. Masaccio (1401?-1428?) was the first great nature
student of the Early Renaissance, though his master, Masolino
(1383-1447), had given proof positive of severe nature study in bits
of modelling, in drapery, and in portrait heads. Masaccio, however,
seems the first to have gone into it thoroughly and to have grasped
nature as a whole. His mastery of form, his plastic composition, his
free, broad folds of drapery, and his knowledge of light and
perspective, all placed him in the front rank of fifteenth-century
painters. Though an exact student he was not a literalist. He had a
large artistic sense, a breadth of view, and a comprehension of nature
as a mass that Michael Angelo and Raphael did not disdain to follow.
He was not a pietist, and there was no great religious feeling in his
work. Dignified truthful appearance was his creed, and in this he was
possibly influenced by Donatello the sculptor.
[Illustration: FIG. 28.--GHIRLANDAJO. THE VISITATION. LOUVRE.]
He came early in the century and died early, but his contemporaries
did not continue the advance from where he carried it. There was
wavering all along the line. Some from lack of genius could not equal
him, others took up nature with indecision, and others clung fondly
to the gold-embossed ornaments and gilded halos of the past. Paolo
Uccello (1397?-1475), Andrea Castagno (1390-1457), Benozzo Gozzoli
(1420?-1497?), Baldovinetti (1427-1499), Antonio del Pollajuolo
(1426-1498), Cosimo Rosselli (1439-1507), can hardly be looked upon as
improvements upon the young leader. The first real successor of
Masaccio was his contemporary, and possibly his pupil, the monk Fra
Filippo Lippi (1406-1469). He was a master of color and
light-and-shade for his time, though in composition and command of
line he did not reach up to Masaccio. He was among the first of the
painters to take the individual faces of those about him as models for
his sacred characters, and clothe them in contemporary costume. Piety
is not very pronounced in any of his works, though he is not without
imagination and feeling, and there is in his women a charm of
sweetness. His tendency was to materialize the sacred characters.
With Filippino (1457?-1504), Botticelli (1446-1510), and Ghirlandajo
(1449-1494) we find a degree of imagination, culture, and independence
not surpassed by any of the Early Florentines. Filippino modelled his
art upon that of his father, Fra Filippo, and was influenced by
Botticelli. He was the weakest of the trio, without being by any means
a weak man. On the contrary, he was an artist of fine ability, much
charm and tenderness, and considerable style, but not a great deal of
original force, though occasionally doing forceful things. Purity in
his type and graceful sentiment in pose and feature seem more
characteristic of his work. Botticelli, even, was not so remarkable
for his strength as for his culture, and an individual way of looking
at things. He was a pupil of Fra Filippo, a man imbued with the
religious feeling of Dante and Savonarola, a learned student of the
antique and one of the first to take subjects from it, a severe nature
student, and a painter of much technical skill. Religion, classicism,
and nature all met in his work, but the mingling was not perfect.
Religious feeling and melancholy warped it. His willowy figures,
delicate and refined in drawing, are more passionate than powerful,
more individual than comprehensive, but they are nevertheless very
attractive in their tenderness and grace.
Without being so original or so attractive an artist as Botticelli,
his contemporary, Ghirlandajo, was a stronger one. His strength came
more from assimilation than from invention. He combined in his work
all the art learning of his time. He drew well, handled drapery simply
and beautifully, was a good composer, and, for Florence, a good
colorist. In addition, his temperament was robust, his style
dignified, even grand, and his execution wonderfully free. He was the
most important of the fifteenth-century technicians, without having
any peculiar distinction or originality, and in spite of being rather
prosaic at times.
[Illustration: FIG. 29.--FRANCESCA. DUKE OF URBINO. UFFIZI.]
Verrocchio (1435-1488) was more of a sculptor than a painter, but in
his studio were three celebrated pupils--Perugino, Leonardo da Vinci,
and Lorenzo di Credi--who were half-way between the Early and the High
Renaissance. Only one of them, Leonardo, can be classed among the
High Renaissance men. Perugino belongs to the Umbrian school, and
Lorenzo di Credi (1450-1537), though Florentine, never outgrew the
fifteenth century. He was a pure painter, with much feeling, but weak
at times. His drawing was good, but his painting lacked force, and he
was too pallid in flesh color. There is much detail, study, and
considerable grace about his work, but little of strength. Piero di
Cosimo (1462-1521) was fond of mythological and classical studies, was
somewhat fantastic in composition, pleasant in color, and rather
distinguished in landscape backgrounds. His work strikes one as
eccentric, and eccentricity was the strong characteristic of the man.
UMBRIAN AND PERUGIAN SCHOOLS: At the beginning of the fifteenth
century the old Siennese school founded by Duccio and the Lorenzetti
was in a state of decline. It had been remarkable for intense
sentiment, and just what effect this sentiment of the old Siennese
school had upon the painters of the neighboring Umbrian school of the
early fifteenth century is a matter of speculation with historians. It
must have had some, though the early painters, like Ottaviano Nelli,
do not show it. That which afterward became known as the Umbrian
sentiment probably first appeared in the work of Niccolò da Foligno
(1430?-1502), who was probably a pupil of Benozzo Gozzoli, who was, in
turn, a pupil of Fra Angelico. That would indicate Florentine
influence, but there were many influences at work in this upper-valley
country. Sentiment had been prevalent enough all through Central
Italian painting during the Gothic age--more so at Sienna than
elsewhere. With the Renaissance Florence rather forsook sentiment for
precision of forms and equilibrium of groups; but the Umbrian towns
being more provincial, held fast to their sentiment, their detail, and
their gold ornamentation. Their influence upon Florence was slight,
but the influence of Florence upon them was considerable. The larger
city drew the provincials its way to learn the new methods. The
result was a group of Umbro-Florentine painters, combining some
up-country sentiment with Florentine technic. Gentile da Fabriano,
Niccolo da Foligno, Bonfiglio (1425?-1496?), and Fiorenzo di Lorenzo
(1444?-1520) were of this mixed character.
[Illustration: FIG. 30.--SIGNORELLI. THE CURSE (DETAIL). ORVIETO.]
The most positive in methods among the early men was Piero della
Francesca (1420?-1492). Umbrian born, but Florentine trained, he
became more scientific than sentimental, and excelled as a craftsman.
He knew drawing, perspective, atmosphere, light-and-shade in a way
that rather foreshadowed Leonardo da Vinci. From working in the
Umbrian country his influence upon his fellow-Umbrians was large. It
showed directly in Signorelli (1441?-1523), whose master he was, and
whose style he probably formed. Signorelli was Umbrian born, like
Piero, but there was not much of the Umbrian sentiment about him. He
was a draughtsman and threw his strength in line, producing athletic,
square-shouldered figures in violent action, with complicated
foreshortenings quite astonishing. The most daring man of his time, he
was a master in anatomy, composition, motion. There was nothing select
about his type, and nothing charming about his painting. His color was
hot and coarse, his lights lurid, his shadows brick red. He was,
however, a master-draughtsman, and a man of large conceptions and
great strength. Melozzo da Forli (1438-1494), of whom little is known,
was another pupil of Piero, and Giovanni Santi (1435?-1494), the
father of Raphael, was probably influenced by both of these last
named.
The true descent of the Umbrian sentiment was through Foligno and
Bonfiglio to Perugino (1446-1524). Signorelli and Perugino seem
opposed to each other in their art. The first was the forerunner of
Michael Angelo, the second was the master of Raphael; and the
difference between Michael Angelo and Raphael was, in a less varied
degree, the difference between Signorelli and Perugino. The one showed
Florentine line, the other Umbrian sentiment and color. It is in
Perugino that we find the old religious feeling. Fervor, tenderness,
and devotion, with soft eyes, delicate features, and pathetic looks
characterized his art. The figure was slight, graceful, and in pose
sentimentally inclined to one side. The head was almost affectedly
placed on the shoulders, and the round olive face was full of wistful
tenderness. This Perugino type, used in all his paintings, is well
described by Taine as a "body belonging to the Renaissance containing
a soul that belonged to the Middle Ages." The sentiment was more
purely human, however, than in such a painter, for instance, as Fra
Angelico. Religion still held with Perugino and the Umbrians, but
even with them it was becoming materialized by the beauty of the
world about them.
[Illustration: FIG. 31.--PERUGINO. MADONNA, SAINTS, AND ANGELS.
LOUVRE.]
As a technician Perugino was excellent. There was no dramatic fire and
fury about him. The composition was simple, with graceful figures in
repose. The coloring was rich, and there were many brilliant effects
obtained by the use of oils. He was among the first of his school to
use that medium. His friend and fellow-worker, Pinturricchio
(1454-1513), did not use oils, but was a superior man in fresco. In
type and sentiment he was rather like Perugino, in composition a
little extravagant and huddled, in landscape backgrounds quite
original and inventive. He never was a serious rival of Perugino,
though a more varied and interesting painter. Perugino's best pupil,
after Raphael, was Lo Spagna (?-1530?), who followed his master's
style until the High Renaissance, when he became a follower of
Raphael.
SCHOOLS OF FERRARA AND BOLOGNA: The painters of Ferrara, in the
fifteenth century, seemed to have relied upon Padua for their
teaching. The best of the early men was Cosimo Tura (1430-1495), who
showed the Paduan influence of Squarcione in anatomical insistences,
coarse joints, infinite detail, and fantastic ornamentation. He was
probably the founder of the school in which Francesco Cossa (fl.
1435-1480), a _naif_ and strong, if somewhat morbid painter, Ercole di
Giulio Grandi (fl. 1465-1535), and Lorenzo Costa (1460?-1535) were the
principal masters. Cossa and Grandi, it seems, afterward removed to
Bologna, and it was probably their move that induced Lorenzo Costa to
follow them. In that way the Ferrarese school became somewhat
complicated with the Bolognese school, and is confused in its history
to this day. Costa was not unlikely the real founder, or, at the
least, the strongest influencer of the Bolognese school. He was a
painter of a rugged, manly type, afterward tempered by Southern
influences to softness and sentiment. This was the result of Paduan
methods meeting at Bologna with Umbrian sentiment.
The Perugino type and influence had found its way to Bologna, and
showed in the work of Francia (1450-1518), a contemporary and
fellow-worker with Costa. Though trained as a goldsmith, and learning
painting in a different school, Francia, as regards his sentiment,
belongs in the same category with Perugino. Even his subjects, types,
and treatment were, at times, more Umbrian than Bolognese. He was not
so profound in feeling as Perugino, but at times he appeared loftier
in conception. His color was usually rich, his drawing a little sharp
at first, as showing the goldsmith's hand, the surfaces smooth, the
detail elaborate. Later on, his work had a Raphaelesque tinge,
showing perhaps the influence of that rising master. It is probable
that Francia at first was influenced by Costa's methods, and it is
quite certain that he in turn influenced Costa in the matter of
refined drawing and sentiment, though Costa always adhered to a
certain detail and ornament coming from the north, and a landscape
background that is peculiar to himself, and yet reminds one of
Pinturricchio's landscapes. These two men, Francia and Costa, were the
Perugino and Pinturricchio of the Ferrara-Bolognese school, and the
most important painters in that school.
[Illustration: FIG. 32.--SCHOOL OF FRANCIA. MADONNA AND CHILD.
LOUVRE.]
THE LOMBARD SCHOOL: The designation of the Lombard school is rather a
vague one in the history of painting, and is used by historians to
cover a number of isolated schools or men in the Lombardy region. In
the fifteenth century these schools counted for little either in men
or in works. The principal activity was about Milan, which drew
painters from Brescia, Vincenza, and elsewhere to form what is known
as the Milanese school. Vincenzo Foppa (fl. 1455-1492), of Brescia,
and afterward at Milan, was probably the founder of this Milanese
school. His painting is of rather a harsh, exacting nature, and points
to the influence of Padua, at which place he perhaps got his early art
training. Borgognone (1450-1523) is set down as his pupil, a painter
of much sentiment and spiritual feeling. The school was afterward
greatly influenced by the example of Leonardo da Vinci, as will be
shown further on.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: FLORENTINES--Masaccio, frescos in Brancacci
Chapel Carmine Florence (the series completed by Filippino);
Masolino, frescos Church and Baptistery Castiglione d' Olona;
Paolo Uccello, frescos S. M. Novella, equestrian
portrait Duomo Florence, battle-pieces in Louvre and Nat.
Gal. Lon.; Andrea Castagno, heroes and sibyls Uffizi,
altar-piece Acad. Florence, equestrian portrait Duomo
Florence; Benozzo Gozzoli, Francesco Montefalco, Magi
Ricardi palace Florence, frescos Campo Santo Pisa;
Baldovinetti, Portico of the Annunziata Florence,
altar-pieces Uffizi; Antonio Pollajuolo, Hercules Uffizi,
St. Sebastian Pitti and Nat. Gal. Lon.; Cosimo Rosselli,
frescos S. Ambrogio Florence, Sistine Chapel Rome, Madonna
Uffizi; Fra Filippo, frescos Cathedral Prato, altar-pieces
Florence Acad., Uffizi, Pitti and Berlin Gals., Nat. Gal.
Lon.; Filippino, frescos Carmine Florence, Caraffa Chapel
Minerva Rome, S. M. Novella and Acad. Florence, S. Domenico
Bologna, easel pictures in Pitti, Uffizi, Nat. Gal. Lon.,
Berlin Mus., Old Pinacothek Munich; Botticelli, frescos
Sistine Chapel Rome, Spring and Coronation Florence Acad.,
Venus, Calumny, Madonnas Uffizi, Pitti, Nat. Gal. Lon.,
Louvre, etc.; Ghirlandajo, frescos Sistine Chapel Rome, S.
Trinità Florence, S. M. Novella, Palazzo Vecchio,
altar-pieces Uffizi and Acad. Florence, Visitation Louvre;
Verrocchio, Baptism of Christ Acad. Florence; Lorenzo di
Credi, Nativity Acad. Florence, Madonnas Louvre and Nat.
Gal. Lon., Holy Family Borghese Gal. Rome; Piero di Cosimo,
Perseus and Andromeda Uffizi, Procris Nat. Gal. Lon., Venus
and Mars Berlin Gal.
UMBRIANS--Ottaviano Nelli, altar-piece S. M. Nuovo Gubbio,
St. Augustine legends S. Agostino Gubbio; Niccolò da
Foligno, altar-piece S. Niccolò Foligno; Bonfigli, frescos
Palazzo Communale, altar-pieces Acad. Perugia; Fiorenzo di
Lorenzo, many pictures Acad. Perugia, Madonna Berlin Gal.;
Piero della Francesca, frescos Communitá and Hospital Borgo
San Sepolcro, San Francesco Arezzo, Chapel of the Relicts
Rimini, portraits Uffizi, pictures Nat. Gal. Lon.;
Signorelli, frescos Cathedral Orvieto, Sistine Rome, Palazzo
Petrucci Sienna, altar-pieces Arezzo, Cortona, Perugia,
pictures Pitti, Uffizi, Berlin, Louvre, Nat. Gal. Lon.;
Melozzo da Forli, angels St. Peter's Rome, frescos Vatican,
pictures Berlin and Nat. Gal. Lon.; Giovanni Santi,
Annunciation Milan, Pieta Urbino, Madonnas Berlin, Nat. Gal.
Lon., S. Croce Fano; Perugino, frescos Sistine Rome,
Crucifixion S. M. Maddalena Florence, Sala del Cambio
Perugia, altar-pieces Pitti, Fano, Cremona, many pictures in
European galleries; Pinturricchio, frescos S. M. del Popolo,
Appartamento Borgo Vatican, Bufolini Chapel Aracoeli Rome,
Duomo Library Sienna, altar-pieces Perugia and Sienna
Acads., Pitti, Louvre; Lo Spagna, Madonna Lower Church
Assisi, frescos at Spoleto, Turin, Perugia, Assisi.
FERRARESE AND BOLOGNESE--Cosimo Tura, altar-pieces Berlin
Mus., Bergamo, Museo Correr Venice, Nat. Gal. Lon.;
Francesco Cossa, altar-pieces S. Petronio and Acad. Bologna,
Dresden Gal.; Grandi, St. George Corsini Pal. Rome, several
canvases Constabili Collection Ferrara; Lorenzo Costa,
frescos S. Giacomo Maggiore, altar-pieces S. Petronio, S.
Giovanni in Monte and Acad. Bologna, also Louvre, Berlin,
and Nat. Gal. Lon.; Francia, altar-pieces S. Giacomo
Maggiore, S. Martino Maggiore, and many altar-pieces in
Acad. Bologna, Annunciation Brera Milan, Rose Garden Munich,
Pieta Nat. Gal. Lon., Scappi Portrait Uffizi, Baptism
Dresden.
LOMBARDS--Foppa, altar-pieces S. Maria di Castello Savona,
Borromeo Col. Milan, Carmine Brescia, panels Brera Milan;
Borgognone, altar-pieces Certosa of Pavia, Church of
Melegnano, S. Ambrogio, Ambrosian Lib., Brera Milan, Nat.
Gal. Lon.
CHAPTER VII.
ITALIAN PAINTING.
EARLY RENAISSANCE--1400-1500--CONTINUED.
BOOKS RECOMMENDED: Those on Italian art before mentioned;
also consult the General Bibliography (page xv.)
PADUAN SCHOOL: It was at Padua in the north that the influence of the
classic marbles made itself strongly apparent. Umbria remained true to
the religious sentiment, Florence engaged itself largely with nature
study and technical problems, introducing here and there draperies and
poses that showed knowledge of ancient sculpture, but at Padua much of
the classic in drapery, figures, and architecture seems to have been
taken directly from the rediscovered antique or the modern bronze.
The early men of the school were hardly great enough to call for
mention. During the fourteenth century there was some Giotto influence
felt--that painter having been at Padua working in the Arena Chapel.
Later on there was a slight influence from Gentile da Fabriano and his
fellow-worker Vittore Pisano, of Verona. But these influences seem to
have died out and the real direction of the school in the early
fifteenth century was given by Francesco Squarcione (1394-1474). He
was an enlightened man, a student, a collector and an admirer of
ancient sculpture, and though no great painter himself he taught an
anatomical statuesque art, based on ancient marbles and nature, to
many pupils.
Squarcione's work has perished, but his teaching was reflected in the
work of his great pupil Andrea Mantegna (1431-1506). Yet Mantegna
never received the full complement of his knowledge from Squarcione.
He was of an observing nature and probably studied Paolo Uccello and
Fra Filippo, some of whose works were then in Paduan edifices. He
gained color knowledge from the Venetian Bellinis, who lived at Padua
at one time and who were connected with Mantegna by marriage. But the
sculpturesque side of his art came from Squarcione, from a study of
the antique, and from a deeper study of Donatello, whose bronzes to
this day are to be seen within and without the Paduan Duomo of S.
Antonio.
[Illustration: FIG. 33.--MANTEGNA. GONZAGA FAMILY GROUP (DETAIL).
MANTUA.]
The sculpturesque is characteristic of Mantegna's work. His people are
hard, rigid at times, immovable human beings, not so much turned to
stone as turned to bronze--the bronze of Donatello. There is little
sense of motion about them. The figure is sharp and harsh, the
drapery, evidently studied from sculpture, is "liney," and the
archæology is often more scientific than artistic. Mantegna was not,
however, entirely devoted to the sculpturesque. He was one of the
severest nature students of the Early Renaissance, knew about nature,
and carried it out in more exacting detail than was perhaps well for
his art. In addition he was a master of light-and-shade, understood
composition, space, color, atmosphere, and was as scientific in
perspective as Piero della Francesca. There is stiffness in his
figures but nevertheless great truth and character. The forms are
noble, even grand, and for invention and imagination they were never,
in his time, carried further or higher. He was little of a
sentimentalist or an emotionalist, not much of a brush man or a
colorist, but as a draughtsman, a creator of noble forms, a man of
power, he stood second to none in the century.
Of Squarcione's other pupils Pizzolo (fl. 1470) was the most
promising, but died early. Marco Zoppo (1440-1498) seems to have
followed the Paduan formula of hardness, dryness, and exacting detail.
He was possibly influenced by Cosimo Tura, and in turn influenced
somewhat the Ferrara-Bolognese school. Mantegna, however, was the
greatest of the school, and his influence was far-reaching. It
affected the school of Venice in matters of drawing, beside
influencing the Lombard and Veronese schools in their beginnings.
SCHOOLS OF VERONA AND VICENZA: Artistically Verona belonged with the
Venetian provinces, because it was largely an echo of Venice except at
the very start. Vittore Pisano (1380-1456), called Pisanello, was the
earliest painter of note, but he was not distinctly Veronese in his
art. He was medallist and painter both, worked with Gentile da
Fabriano in the Ducal Palace at Venice and elsewhere, and his art
seems to have an affinity with that of his companion.
Liberale da Verona (1451-1536?) was at first a miniaturist, but
afterward developed a larger style based on a following of Mantegna's
work, with some Venetian influences showing in the coloring and
backgrounds. Francesco Bonsignori (1455-1519) was of the Verona
school, but established himself later at Mantua and was under the
Mantegna influence. His style at first was rather severe, but he
afterward developed much ability in portraiture, historical work,
animals, and architectural features. Francesco Caroto (1470-1546), a
pupil of Liberale, really belongs to the next century--the High
Renaissance--but his early works show his education in Veronese and
Paduan methods.
[Illustration: FIG. 34.--B. VIVARINI. MADONNA AND CHILD. TURIN.]
In the school of Vicenza the only master of much note in this Early
Renaissance time was Bartolommeo Montagna (1450?-1523), a painter in
both oil and fresco of much severity and at times grandeur of style.
In drawing he was influenced by Mantegna, in composition and coloring
he showed a study of Giovanni Bellini and Carpaccio.
VENETIAN LIFE AND ART: The conditions of art production in Venice
during the Early Renaissance were quite different from those in
Florence or Umbria. By the disposition of her people Venice was not a
learned or devout city. Religion, though the chief subject, was not
the chief spirit of Venetian art. Christianity was accepted by the
Venetians, but with no fevered enthusiasm. The Church was strong
enough there to defy the Papacy at one time, and yet religion with the
people was perhaps more of a civic function or a duty than a spiritual
worship. It was sincere in its way, and the early painters painted its
subjects with honesty, but the Venetians were much too proud and
worldly minded to take anything very seriously except their own
splendor and their own power.
Again, the Venetians were not humanists or students of the revived
classic. They housed manuscripts, harbored exiled humanists, received
the influx of Greek scholars after the fall of Constantinople, and
later the celebrated Aldine press was established in Venice; but, for
all that, classic learning was not the fancy of the Venetians. They
made no quarrel over the relative merits of Plato and Aristotle, dug
up no classic marbles, had no revival of learning in a Florentine
sense. They were merchant princes, winning wealth by commerce and
expending it lavishly in beautifying their island home. Not to attain
great learning, but to revel in great splendor, seems to have been
their aim. Life in the sovereign city of the sea was a worthy
existence in itself. And her geographical and political position aided
her prosperity. Unlike Florence she was not torn by contending princes
within and foreign foes without--at least not to her harm. She had
her wars, but they were generally on distant seas. Popery, Paganism,
Despotism, all the convulsions of Renaissance life threatened but
harmed her not. Free and independent, her kingdom was the sea, and her
livelihood commerce, not agriculture.
The worldly spirit of the Venetian people brought about a worldly and
luxurious art. Nothing in the disposition or education of the
Venetians called for the severe or the intellectual. The demand was
for rich decoration that would please the senses without stimulating
the intellect or firing the imagination to any great extent. Line and
form were not so well suited to them as color--the most sensuous of
all mediums. Color prevailed through Venetian art from the very
beginning, and was its distinctive characteristic.
[Illustration: FIG. 35.--GIOVANNI BELLINI. MADONNA OF SS. GEORGE AND
PAUL. VENICE ACAD.]
Where this love of color came from is matter of speculation. Some say
out of Venetian skies and waters, and, doubtless, these had something
to do with the Venetian color-sense; but Venice in its color was also
an example of the effect of commerce on art. She was a trader with the
East from her infancy--not Constantinople and the Byzantine East
alone, but back of these the old Mohammedan East, which for a thousand
years has cast its art in colors rather than in forms. It was Eastern
ornament in mosaics, stuffs, porcelains, variegated marbles, brought
by ship to Venice and located in S. Marco, in Murano, and in Torcello,
that first gave the color-impulse to the Venetians. If Florence was
the heir of Rome and its austere classicism, Venice was the heir of
Constantinople and its color-charm. The two great color spots in Italy
at this day are Venice and Ravenna, commercial footholds of the
Byzantines in Mediæval and Renaissance days. It may be concluded
without error that Venice derived her color-sense and much of her
luxurious and material view of life from the East.
THE EARLY VENETIAN PAINTERS: Painting began at Venice with the
fabrication of mosaics and ornamental altar-pieces of rich gold
stucco-work. The "Greek manner"--that is, the Byzantine--was practised
early in the fifteenth century by Jacobello del Fiore and Semitecolo,
but it did not last long. Instead of lingering for a hundred years, as
at Florence, it died a natural death in the first half of the
fifteenth century. Gentile da Fabriano, who was at Venice about 1420,
painting in the Ducal Palace with Pisano as his assistant, may have
brought this about. He taught there in Venice, was the master of
Jacopo Bellini, and if not the teacher then the influencer of the
Vivarinis of Murano. There were two of the Vivarinis in the early
times, so far as can be made out, Antonio Vivarini (?-1470) and
Bartolommeo Vivarini (fl. 1450-1499), who worked with Johannes
Alemannus, a painter of supposed German birth and training. They all
signed themselves from Murano (an outlying Venetian island), where
they were producing church altars and ornaments with some Paduan
influence showing in their work. They made up the Muranese school,
though this school was not strongly marked apart either in
characteristics or subjects from the Venetian school, of which it was,
in fact, a part.
[Illustration: FIG. 36.--CARPACCIO. PRESENTATION (DETAIL). VENICE
ACAD.]
Bartolommeo was the best of the group, and contended long time in
rivalry with the Bellinis at Venice, but toward 1470 he fell away and
died comparatively forgotten. Luigi Vivarini (fl. 1461-1503) was the
latest of this family, and with his death the history of the Muranese
merges into the Venetian school proper, except as it continues to
appear in some pupils and followers. Of these latter Carlo Crivelli
(1430?1493?) was the only one of much mark. He apparently gathered
his art from many sources--ornament and color from the Vivarini, a
lean and withered type from the early Paduans under Squarcione,
architecture from Mantegna, and a rather repulsive sentiment from the
same school. His faces were contorted and sulky, his hands and feet
stringy, his drawing rather bad; but he had a transparent color,
beautiful ornamentation and not a little tragic power.
Venetian art practically dates from the Bellinis. They did not begin
where the Vivarini left off. The two families of painters seem to have
started about the same time, worked along together from like
inspirations, and in somewhat of a similar manner as regards the early
men. Jacopo Bellini (1400?-1464?) was the pupil of Gentile da
Fabriano, and a painter of considerable rank. His son, Gentile Bellini
(1426?-1507), was likewise a painter of ability, and an extremely
interesting one on account of his Venetian subjects painted with much
open-air effect and knowledge of light and atmosphere. The younger
son, Giovanni Bellini (1428?-1516), was the greatest of the family and
the true founder of the Venetian school.
About the middle of the fifteenth century the Bellini family lived at
Padua and came in contact with the classic-realistic art of Mantegna.
In fact, Mantegna married Giovanni Bellini's sister, and there was a
mingling of family as well as of art. There was an influence upon
Mantegna of Venetian color, and upon the Bellinis of Paduan line. The
latter showed in Giovanni Bellini's early work, which was rather hard,
angular in drapery, and anatomical in the joints, hands, and feet; but
as the century drew to a close this melted away into the growing
splendor of Venetian color. Giovanni Bellini lived into the sixteenth
century, but never quite attained the rank of a High Renaissance
painter. He had religious feeling, earnestness, honesty, simplicity,
character, force, knowledge; but not the full complement of
brilliancy and painter's power. He went beyond all his contemporaries
in technical strength and color-harmony, and was in fact the
epoch-making man of early Venice. Some of his pictures, like the S.
Zaccaria Madonna, will compare favorably with any work of any age, and
his landscape backgrounds (see the St. Peter Martyr in the National
Gallery, London) were rather wonderful for the period in which they
were produced.
Of Bellini's contemporaries and followers there were many, and as a
school there was a similarity of style, subject, and color-treatment
carrying through them all, with individual peculiarities in each
painter. After Giovanni Bellini comes Carpaccio (?-1522?), a younger
contemporary, about whose history little is known. He worked with
Gentile Bellini, and was undoubtedly influenced by Giovanni Bellini.
In subject he was more romantic and chivalric than religious, though
painting a number of altar-pieces. The legend was his delight, and his
great success, as the St. Ursula and St. George pictures in Venice
still indicate. He was remarkable for his knowledge of architecture,
costumes, and Oriental settings, put forth in a realistic way, with
much invention and technical ability in the handling of landscape,
perspective, light, and color. There is a truthfulness of
appearance--an out-of-doors feeling--about his work that is quite
captivating. In addition, the spirit of his art was earnestness,
honesty, and sincerity, and even the awkward bits of drawing which
occasionally appeared in his work served to add to the general naive
effect of the whole.
[Illustration: FIG. 37.--ANTONELLO DA MESSINA. UNKNOWN MAN. LOUVRE.]
Cima da Conegliano (1460?-1517?) was probably a pupil of Giovanni
Bellini, with some Carpaccio influence about him. He was the best of
the immediate followers, none of whom came up to the master. They were
trammelled somewhat by being educated in distemper work, and then
midway in their careers changing to the oil medium, that medium
having been introduced into Venice by Antonello da Messina in 1473.
Cima's subjects were largely half-length madonnas, given with strong
qualities of light-and-shade and color. He was not a great originator,
though a man of ability. Catena (?-1531) had a wide reputation in his
day, but it came more from a smooth finish and pretty accessories than
from creative power. He imitated Bellini's style so well that a number
of his pictures pass for works by the master even to this day. Later
he followed Giorgione and Carpaccio. A man possessed of knowledge, he
seemed to have no original propelling purpose behind him. That was
largely the make-up of the other men of the school, Basaiti
(1490-1521?), Previtali (1470?-1525?), Bissolo (14641528), Rondinelli
(1440?-1500?), Diana (?-1500?), Mansueti (fl. 1500).
Antonello da Messina (1444?-1493), though Sicilian born, is properly
classed with the Venetian school. He obtained a knowledge of Flemish
methods probably from Flemish painters or pictures in Italy (he never
was a pupil of Jan van Eyck, as Vasari relates, and probably never saw
Flanders), and introduced the use of oil as a medium in the Venetian
school. His early work was Flemish in character, and was very accurate
and minute. His late work showed the influence of the Bellinis. His
counter-influence upon Venetian portraiture has never been quite
justly estimated. That fine, exact, yet powerful work, of which the
Doge Loredano by Bellini, in the National Gallery, London, is a type,
was perhaps brought about by an amalgamation of Flemish and Venetian
methods, and Antonello was perhaps the means of bringing it about. He
was an excellent, if precise, portrait-painter.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: PADUANS--Andrea Mantegna, Eremitani Padua,
Madonna of S. Xeno Verona, St. Sebastian Vienna Mus., St.
George Venice Acad., Camera di Sposi Castello di Corte
Mantua, Madonna and Allegories Louvre, Scipio Summer Autumn
Nat. Gal. Lon.; Pizzoli (with Mantegna), Eremitani Padua;
Marco Zoppo frescos Casa Colonna Bologna, Madonna Berlin
Gal.
VERONESE AND VICENTINE PAINTERS--Vittore Pisano, St. Anthony
and George Nat. Gal. Lon., St. George S. Anastasia Verona;
Liberale da Verona, miniatures Duomo Sienna, St. Sebastian
Brera Milan, Madonna Berlin Mus., other works Duomo and Gal.
Verona; Bonsignori, S. Bernardino and Gal. Verona, Mantua,
and Nat. Gal. Lon.; Caroto, In S. Tommaso, S. Giorgio, S.
Caterina and Gal. Verona, Dresden and Frankfort Gals.;
Montagna, Madonnas Brera, Venice Acad., Bergamo, Berlin,
Nat. Gal. Lon., Louvre.
VENETIANS--Jacobello del Fiore and Semitecolo, all
attributions doubtful; Antonio Vivarini and Johannes
Alemannus, together altar-pieces Venice Acad., S. Zaccaria
Venice; Antonio alone, Adoration of Kings Berlin Gal.;
Bartolommeo Vivarini, Madonna Bologna Gal. (with Antonio),
altar-pieces SS. Giovanni e Paolo, Frari, Venice; Luigi
Vivarini, Madonna Berlin Gal., Frari and Acad. Venice;
Carlo Crivelli, Madonnas and altar-pieces Brera, Nat. Gal.
Lon., Lateran, Berlin Gals.; Jacopo Bellini, Crucifixion
Verona Gal., Sketch-book Brit. Mus.; Gentile Bellini, Organ
Doors S. Marco, Procession and Miracle of Cross Acad.
Venice, St. Mark Brera; Giovanni Bellini, many pictures in
European galleries, Acad., Frari, S. Zaccaria SS. Giovanni e
Paolo Venice; Carpaccio, Presentation and Ursula pictures
Acad., St. George and St. Jerome S. Giorgio da Schiavone
Venice, St. Stephen Berlin Gal.; Cima, altar-pieces S. Maria
dell Orte, S. Giovanni in Bragora, Acad. Venice, Louvre,
Berlin, Dresden, Munich, Vienna, and other galleries;
Catena, Altar-pieces S. Simeone, S. M. Mater Domini, SS.
Giovanni e Paolo, Acad. Venice, Dresden, and in Nat. Gal.
Lon. (the Warrior and Horse attributed to "School of
Bellini"); Basaiti, Venice Acad. Nat. Gal. Lon., Vienna, and
Berlin Gals.; Previtali, altar-pieces S. Spirito Bergamo,
Brera, Berlin, and Dresden Gals., Nat. Gal. Lon., Venice
Acad.; Bissolo, Resurrection Berlin Gal., S. Caterina Venice
Acad.; Rondinelli, two pictures Palazzo Doria Rome, Holy
Family (No. 6) Louvre (attributed to Giovanni Bellini);
Diana, Altar-pieces Venice Acad.; Mansueti, large pictures
Venice Acad.; Antonella da Messina, Portraits Louvre, Berlin
and Nat. Gal. Lon., Crucifixion Antwerp Mus.
CHAPTER VIII.
ITALIAN PAINTING.
THE HIGH RENAISSANCE--1500-1600.
BOOKS RECOMMENDED: Those on Italian art before mentioned,
and also, Berenson, _Lorenzo Lotto_; Clement, _Michel Ange,
L. da Vinci, Raphael_; Crowe and Cavalcaselle, _Titian_;
same authors, _Raphael_; Grimm, _Michael Angelo_; Gronau,
_Titian_; Holroyd, _Michael Angelo_; Meyer, _Correggio_;
Moore, _Correggio_; Muntz, _Leonardo da Vinci_; Passavant,
_Raphael_; Pater, _Studies in History of Renaissance_;
Phillips, _Titian_; Reumont, _Andrea del Sarto_; Ricci,
_Correggio_; Richter, _Leonardo di Vinci_; Ridolfi, _Vita di
Paolo Cagliari Veronese_; Springer, _Rafael und Michel
Angelo_; Symonds, _Michael Angelo_; Taine, _Italy--Florence
and Venice_.
THE HIGHEST DEVELOPMENT: The word "Renaissance" has a broader meaning
than its strict etymology would imply. It was a "new birth," but
something more than the revival of Greek learning and the study of
nature entered into it. It was the grand consummation of Italian
intelligence in many departments--the arrival at maturity of the
Christian trained mind tempered by the philosophy of Greece, and the
knowledge of the actual world. Fully aroused at last, the Italian
intellect became inquisitive, inventive, scientific, skeptical--yes,
treacherous, immoral, polluted. It questioned all things, doubted
where it pleased, saturated itself with crime, corruption, and
sensuality, yet bowed at the shrine of the beautiful and knelt at the
altar of Christianity. It is an illustration of the contradictions
that may exist when the intellectual, the religious, and the moral
are brought together, with the intellectual in predominance.
[Illustration: FIG. 38.--FRA BARTOLOMMEO. DESCENT FROM CROSS. PITTI.]
And that keen Renaissance intellect made swift progress. It remodelled
the philosophy of Greece, and used its literature as a mould for its
own. It developed Roman law and introduced modern science. The world
without and the world within were rediscovered. Land and sea, starry
sky and planetary system, were fixed upon the chart. Man himself, the
animals, the planets, organic and inorganic life, the small things of
the earth gave up their secrets. Inventions utilized all classes of
products, commerce flourished, free cities were builded, universities
arose, learning spread itself on the pages of newly invented books of
print, and, perhaps, greatest of all, the arts arose on strong wings
of life to the very highest altitude.
For the moral side of the Renaissance intellect it had its tastes and
refinements, as shown in its high quality of art; but it also had its
polluting and degrading features, as shown in its political and social
life. Religion was visibly weakening though the ecclesiastical still
held strong. People were forgetting the faith of the early days, and
taking up with the material things about them. They were glorifying
the human and exalting the natural. The story of Greece was being
repeated in Italy. And out of this new worship came jewels of rarity
and beauty, but out of it also came faithlessness, corruption, vice.
Strictly speaking, the Renaissance had been accomplished before the
year 1500, but so great was its impetus that, in the arts at least, it
extended half-way through the sixteenth century. Then it began to fail
through exhaustion.
MOTIVES AND METHODS: The religious subject still held with the
painters, but this subject in High-Renaissance days did not carry with
it the religious feeling as in Gothic days. Art had grown to be
something else than a teacher of the Bible. In the painter's hands it
had come to mean beauty for its own sake--a picture beautiful for its
form and color, regardless of its theme. This was the teaching of
antique art, and the study of nature but increased the belief. A new
love had arisen in the outer and visible world, and when the Church
called for altar-pieces the painters painted their new love,
christened it with a religious title, and handed it forth in the name
of the old. Thus art began to free itself from Church domination and
to live as an independent beauty. The general motive, then, of
painting during the High Renaissance, though apparently religious from
the subject, and in many cases still religious in feeling, was largely
to show the beauty of form or color, in which religion, the antique,
and the natural came in as modifying elements.
In technical methods, though extensive work was still done in fresco,
especially at Florence and Rome, yet the bulk of High-Renaissance
painting was in oils upon panel and canvas. At Venice even the
decorative wall paintings were upon canvas, afterward inserted in wall
or ceiling.
[Illustration: FIG. 39.--ANDREA DEL SARTO. MADONNA OF ST. FRANCIS.
UFFIZI.]
THE FLORENTINES AND ROMANS: There was a severity and austerity about
the Florentine art, even at its climax. It was never too sensuous and
luxurious, but rather exact and intellectual. The Florentines were
fond of lustreless fresco, architectural composition, towering or
sweeping lines, rather sharp color as compared with the Venetians, and
theological, classical, even literary and allegorical subjects.
Probably this was largely due to the classic bias of the painters and
the intellectual and social influences of Florence and Rome. Line and
composition were means of expressing abstract thought better than
color, though some of the Florentines employed both line and color
knowingly.
This was the case with Fra Bartolommeo (1475-1517), a monk of San
Marco, who was a transition painter from the fifteenth to the
sixteenth century. He was a religionist, a follower of Savonarola, and
a man of soul who thought to do work of a religious character and
feeling; but he was also a fine painter, excelling in composition,
drawing, drapery, color. The painter's element in his work, its
material and earthly beauty, rather detracted from its spiritual
significance. He opposed the sensuous and the nude, and yet about the
only nude he ever painted--a St. Sebastian for San Marco--had so much
of the earthly about it that people forgot the suffering saint in
admiring the fine body, and the picture had to be removed from the
convent. In such ways religion in art was gradually undermined, not
alone by naturalism and classicism but by art itself. Painting brought
into life by religion no sooner reached maturity than it led people
away from religion by pointing out sensuous beauties in the type
rather than religious beauties in the symbol.
Fra Bartolommeo was among the last of the pietists in art. He had no
great imagination, but some feeling and a fine color-sense for
Florence. Naturally he was influenced somewhat by the great ones about
him, learning perspective from Raphael, grandeur from Michael Angelo,
and contours from Leonardo da Vinci. He worked in collaboration with
Albertinelli (1474-1515), a skilled artist and a fellow-pupil with
Bartolommeo in the workshop of Cosimo Rosselli. Their work is so much
alike that it is often difficult to distinguish the painters apart.
Albertinelli was not so devout as his companion, but he painted the
religious subject with feeling, as his Visitation in the Uffizi
indicates. Among the followers of Bartolommeo and Albertinelli were
Fra Paolino (14901547), Bugiardini (1475-1554), Granacci (1477-1543),
who showed many influences, and Ridolfo Ghirlandajo (1483-1561).
[Illustration: FIG. 40.--MICHAEL ANGELO. ATHLETE. SISTINE, ROME.]
Andrea del Sarto (1486-1531) was a Florentine pure and simple--a
painter for the Church producing many madonnas and altar-pieces, and
yet possessed of little religious feeling or depth. He was a painter
more than a pietist, and was called by his townsmen "the faultless
painter." So he was as regards the technical features of his art. He
was the best brushman and colorist of the Florentine school. Dealing
largely with the material side his craftsmanship was excellent and his
pictures exuberant with life and color, but his madonnas and saints
were decidedly of the earth--handsome Florentine models garbed as
sacred characters--well-drawn and easily painted, with little
devotional feeling about them. He was influenced by other painters to
some extent. Masaccio, Ghirlandajo, and Michael Angelo were his models
in drawing; Leonardo and Bartolommeo in contours; while in warmth of
color, brush-work, atmospheric and landscape effects he was quite by
himself. He had a large number of pupils and followers, but most of
them deserted him later on to follow Michael Angelo. Pontormo
(1493-1558) and Franciabigio (1482-1525) were among the best of them.
Michael Angelo (1474-1564) has been called the "Prophet of the
Renaissance," and perhaps deserves the title, since he was more of the
Old Testament than the New--more of the austere and imperious than the
loving or the forgiving. There was no sentimental feature about his
art. His conception was intellectual, highly imaginative, mysterious,
at times disordered and turbulent in its strength. He came the nearest
to the sublime of any painter in history through the sole attribute of
power. He had no tenderness nor any winning charm. He did not win, but
rather commanded. Everything he saw or felt was studied for the
strength that was in it. Religion, Old-Testament history, the antique,
humanity, all turned in his hands into symbolic forms of power, put
forth apparently in the white heat of passion, and at times in
defiance of every rule and tradition of art. Personal feeling was very
apparent in his work, and in this he was as far removed as possible
from the Greeks, and nearer to what one would call to-day a
romanticist. There was little of the objective about him. He was not
an imitator of facts but a creator of forms and ideas. His art was a
reflection of himself--a self-sufficient man, positive, creative,
standing alone, a law unto himself.
Technically he was more of a sculptor than a painter. He said so
himself when Julius commanded him to paint the Sistine ceiling, and he
told the truth. He was a magnificent draughtsman, and drew magnificent
sculpturesque figures on the Sistine vault. That was about all his
achievement with the brush. In color, light, air, perspective--in all
those features peculiar to the painter--he was behind his
contemporaries. Composition he knew a great deal about, and in drawing
he had the most positive, far-reaching command of line of any painter
of any time. It was in drawing that he showed his power. Even this is
severe and harsh at times, and then again filled with a grace that is
majestic and in scope universal, as witness the Creation of Adam in
the Sistine.
[Illustration: FIG. 41.--RAPHAEL. LA BELLE JARDINIÈRE. LOUVRE.]
He came out of Florence, a pupil of Ghirlandajo, with a school feeling
for line, stimulated by the frescos of Masaccio and Signorelli. At an
early age he declared himself, and hewed a path of his own through
art, sweeping along with him many of the slighter painters of his age.
Long-lived he saw his contemporaries die about him and Humanism end in
bloodshed with the coming of the Jesuits; but alone, gloomy, resolute,
steadfast to his belief, he held his way, the last great
representative of Florentine art, the first great representative of
individualism in art. With him and after him came many followers who
strove to imitate his "terrible style," but they did not succeed any
too well.
The most of these followers find classification under the Mannerists
of the Decadence. Of those who were immediate pupils of Michael
Angelo, or carried out his designs, Daniele da Volterra (1509-1566)
was one of the most satisfactory. His chief work, the Descent from the
Cross, was considered by Poussin as one of the three great pictures of
the world. It is sometimes said to have been designed by Michael
Angelo, but that is only a conjecture. It has much action and life in
it, but is somewhat affected in pose and gesture, and Volterra's work
generally was deficient in real energy of conception and execution.
Marcello Venusti (1515-1585?) painted directly from Michael Angelo's
designs in a delicate and precise way, probably imbibed from his
master, Perino del Vaga, and from association with Venetians like
Sebastiano del Piombo (1485-1547). This last-named painter was born in
Venice and trained under Bellini and Giorgione, inheriting the color
and light-and-shade qualities of the Venetians; but later on he went
to Rome and came under the influence of Michael Angelo and Raphael. He
tried, under Michael Angelo's inspiration it is said, to unite the
Florentine grandeur of line with the Venetian coloring, and thus outdo
Raphael. It was not wholly successful, though resulting in an
excellent quality of art. As a portrait-painter he was above reproach.
His early works were rather free in impasto, the late ones smooth and
shiny, in imitation of Raphael.
Raphael Sanzio (1483-1520) was more Greek in method than any of the
great Renaissance painters. In subject he was not more classic than
others of his time; he painted all subjects. In thought he was not
particularly classic; he was chiefly intellectual, with a leaning
toward the sensuous that was half-pagan. It was in method and
expression more than elsewhere that he showed the Greek spirit. He
aimed at the ideal and the universal, independent, so far as possible,
of the individual, and sought by a union of all elements to produce
perfect harmony. The Harmonist of the Renaissance is his title. And
this harmony extended to a blending of thought, form, and expression,
heightening or modifying every element until they ran together with
such rhythm that it could not be seen where one left off and another
began. He was the very opposite of Michael Angelo. The art of the
latter was an expression of individual power and was purely
subjective. Raphael's art was largely a unity of objective beauties,
with the personal element as much in abeyance as was possible for his
time.
His education was a cultivation of every grace of mind and hand. He
assimilated freely whatever he found to be good in the art about him.
A pupil of Perugino originally, he levied upon features of excellence
in Masaccio, Fra Bartolommeo, Leonardo, Michael Angelo. From the first
he got tenderness, from the second drawing, from the third color and
composition, from the fourth charm, from the fifth force. Like an
eclectic Greek he drew from all sources, and then blended and united
these features in a peculiar style of his own and stamped them with
his peculiar Raphaelesque stamp.
In subject Raphael was religious and mythological, but he was imbued
with neither of these so far as the initial spirit was concerned. He
looked at all subjects in a calm, intellectual, artistic way. Even the
celebrated Sistine Madonna is more intellectual than pietistic, a
Christian Minerva ruling rather than helping to save the world. The
same spirit ruled him in classic and theological themes. He did not
feel them keenly or execute them passionately--at least there is no
indication of it in his work. The doing so would have destroyed unity,
symmetry, repose. The theme was ever held in check by a regard for
proportion and rhythm. To keep all artistic elements in perfect
equilibrium, allowing no one to predominate, seemed the mainspring of
his action, and in doing this he created that harmony which his
admirers sometimes refer to as pure beauty.
For his period and school he was rather remarkable technically. He
excelled in everything except brush-work, which was never brought to
maturity in either Florence or Rome. Even in color he was fine for
Florence, though not equal to the Venetians. In composition,
modelling, line, even in texture painting (see his portraits) he was a
man of accomplishment; while in grace, purity, serenity, loftiness he
was the Florentine leader easily first.
[Illustration: FIG. 42.--GIULIO ROMANO. APOLLO AND MUSES. PITTI.]
The influence of Raphael's example was largely felt throughout Central
Italy, and even at the north, resulting in many imitators and
followers, who tried to produce Raphaelesque effects. Their efforts
were usually successful in precipitating charm into sweetness and
sentiment into sentimentality. Francesco Penni (1488?-1528) seems to
have been content to work under Raphael with some ability. Giulio
Romano (1492-1546) was the strongest of the pupils, and became the
founder and leader of the Roman school, which had considerable
influence upon the painters of the Decadence. He adopted the classic
subject and tried to adopt Raphael's style, but he was not completely
successful. Raphael's refinement in Giulio's hands became exaggerated
coarseness. He was a good draughtsman, but rather hot as a colorist,
and a composer of violent, restless, and, at times, contorted groups.
He was a prolific painter, but his work tended toward the baroque
style, and had a bad influence on the succeeding schools.
Primaticcio (1504-1570) was one of his followers, and had much to do
with the founding of the school of Fontainebleau in France. Giovanni
da Udine (1487-1564), a Venetian trained painter, became a follower of
Raphael, his only originality showing in decorative designs. Perino
del Vaga (1500-1547) was of the same cast of mind. Andrea Sabbatini
(1480?-1545) carried Raphael's types and methods to the south of
Italy, and some artists at Bologna, and in Umbria, like Innocenza da
Imola (1494-1550?), and Timoteo di Viti (1467-1523), adopted the
Raphael type and method to the detriment of what native talent they
may have possessed, though about Timoteo there is some doubt whether
he adopted Raphael's type, or Raphael his type.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: FLORENTINES--Fra Bartolommeo, Descent from
the Cross Salvator Mundi St. Mark Pitti, Madonnas and
Prophets Uffizi, other pictures Florence Acad., Louvre,
Vienna Gal.; Albertinelli, Visitation Uffizi, Christ
Magdalene Madonna Louvre, Trinity Madonna Florence Acad.,
Annunciation Munich Gal.; Fra Paolino, works at San Spirito
Sienna, S. Domenico and S. Paolo Pistoia, Madonna Florence
Acad.; Bugiardini, Madonna Uffizi, St. Catherine S. M.
Novella Florence, Nativity Berlin, St. Catherine Bologna
Gal.; Granacci, altar-pieces Uffizi, Pitti, Acad. Florence,
Berlin and Munich Gals.; Ridolfo Ghirlandajo, S. Zenobio
pictures Uffizi, also Louvre and Berlin Gal.; Andrea del
Sarto, many pictures in Uffizi and Pitti, Louvre, Berlin,
Dresden, Madrid, Nat. Gal. Lon., frescos S. Annunziata and
the Scalzo Florence; Pontormo, frescos Annunziata Florence,
Visitation and Madonna Louvre, portrait Berlin Gal., Supper
at Emmaus Florence Acad., other works Uffizi; Franciabigio,
frescos courts of the Servi and Scalzo Florence, Bathsheba
Dresden Gal., many portraits in Louvre, Pitti, Berlin Gal.;
Michael Angelo, frescos Sistine Rome, Holy Family Uffizi;
Daniele da Volterra, frescos Hist. of Cross Trinità de'
Monti Rome, Innocents Uffizi; Venusti, frescos Castel San
Angelo, S. Spirito Rome, Annunciation St. John Lateran Rome;
Sebastiano del Piombo, Lazarus Nat. Gal. Lon., Pietà
Viterbo, Fornarina Uffizi (ascribed to Raphael) Fornarina
and Christ Bearing Cross Berlin and Dresden Gals., Agatha
Pitti, Visitation Louvre, portrait Doria Gal. Rome; Raphael,
Marriage of Virgin Brera, Madonna and Vision of Knight Nat.
Gal. Lon., Madonnas St. Michael and St. George Louvre, many
Madonnas and portraits in Uffizi, Pitti, Munich, Vienna, St.
Petersburgh, Madrid Gals., Sistine Madonna Dresden, chief
frescos Vatican Rome.
ROMANS: Giulio Romano, frescos Sala di Constantino Vatican
Rome (with Francesco Penni after Raphael), Palazzo del Tè
Mantua, St. Stephen, S. Stefano Genoa, Holy Family Dresden
Gal., other works in Louvre, Nat. Gal. Lon., Pitti, Uffizi;
Primaticcio, works attributed to him doubtful--Scipio
Louvre, Lady at Toilet and Venus Musée de Cluny; Giovanni da
Udine, decorations, arabesques and grotesques in Vatican
Loggia; Perino del Vaga, Hist. of Joshua and David Vatican
(with Raphael), frescos Trinità de' Monti and Castel S.
Angelo Rome, Creation of Eve S. Marcello Rome; Sabbatini,
Adoration Naples Mus., altar-pieces in Naples and Salerno
churches; Innocenza da Imola, works in Bologna, Berlin and
Munich Gals.; Timoteo di Viti, Church of the Pace Rome
(after Raphael), madonnas and Magdalene Brera, Acad. of St.
Luke Rome, Bologna Gal., S. Domenico Urbino, Gubbio
Cathedral.
CHAPTER IX.
ITALIAN PAINTING.
THE HIGH RENAISSANCE, 1500-1600.--CONTINUED.
BOOKS RECOMMENDED: The works on Italian art before mentioned
and consult also the General Bibliography (p. xv.)
LEONARDO DA VINCI AND THE MILANESE: The third person in the great
Florentine trinity of painters was Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), the
other two being Michael Angelo and Raphael. He greatly influenced the
school of Milan, and has usually been classed with the Milanese, yet
he was educated in Florence, in the workshop of Verrocchio, and was so
universal in thought and methods that he hardly belongs to any school.
He has been named a realist, an idealist, a magician, a wizard, a
dreamer, and finally a scientist, by different writers, yet he was
none of these things while being all of them--a full-rounded,
universal man, learned in many departments and excelling in whatever
he undertook. He had the scientific and experimental way of looking at
things. That is perhaps to be regretted, since it resulted in his
experimenting with everything and completing little of anything. His
different tastes and pursuits pulled him different ways, and his
knowledge made him sceptical of his own powers. He pondered and
thought how to reach up higher, how to penetrate deeper, how to
realize more comprehensively, and in the end he gave up in despair. He
could not fulfil his ideal of the head of Christ nor the head of Mona
Lisa, and after years of labor he left them unfinished. The problem
of human life, the spirit, the world engrossed him, and all his
creations seem impregnated with the psychological, the mystical, the
unattainable, the hidden.
[Illustration: FIG. 43.--LEONARDO DA VINCI. MONA LISA. LOUVRE.]
He was no religionist, though painting the religious subject with
feeling; he was not in any sense a classicist, nor had he any care for
the antique marbles, which he considered a study of nature at
second-hand. He was more in love with physical life without being an
enthusiast over it. His regard for contours, rhythm of line, blend of
light with shade, study of atmosphere, perspective, trees, animals,
humanity, show that though he examined nature scientifically, he
pictured it æsthetically. In his types there is much sweetness of
soul, charm of disposition, dignity of mien, even grandeur and majesty
of presence. His people we would like to know better. They are full of
life, intelligence, sympathy; they have fascination of manner,
winsomeness of mood, grace of bearing. We see this in his best-known
work--the Mona Lisa of the Louvre. It has much allurement of personal
presence, with a depth and abundance of soul altogether charming.
Technically, Leonardo was not a handler of the brush superior in any
way to his Florentine contemporaries. He knew all the methods and
mediums of the time, and did much to establish oil-painting among the
Florentines, but he was never a painter like Titian, or even Correggio
or Andrea del Sarto. A splendid draughtsman, a man of invention,
imagination, grace, elegance, and power, he nevertheless carried more
by mental penetration and æsthetic sense than by his technical skill.
He was one of the great men of the Renaissance, and deservedly holds a
place in the front rank.
Though Leonardo's accomplishment seems slight because of the little
that is left to us, yet he had a great following not only among the
Florentines but at Milan, where Vincenza Foppa had started a school in
the Early Renaissance time. Leonardo was there for fourteen years, and
his artistic personality influenced many painters to adopt his type
and methods. Bernardino Luini (1475?-1532?) was the most prominent of
the disciples. He cultivated Leonardo's sentiment, style, subjects,
and composition in his middle period, but later on developed
independence and originality. He came at a period of art when that
earnestness of characterization which marked the early men was giving
way to gracefulness of recitation, and that was the chief feature of
his art. For that matter gracefulness and pathetic sweetness of mood,
with purity of line and warmth of color characterized all the Milanese
painters.
[Illustration: FIG. 44.--LUINI. DAUGHTER OF HERODIAS WITH HEAD OF JOHN
THE BAPTIST. UFFIZI.]
The more prominent lights of the school were Salaino (fl. 1495-1518),
of whose work nothing authentic exists, Boltraffio (1467-1516), a
painter of limitations but of much refinement and purity, and Marco da
Oggiono (1470?-1530) a close follower of Leonardo. Solario
(1458?-1515?) probably became acquainted early with the Flemish mode
of working practised by Antonello da Messina, but he afterward came
under Leonardo's spell at Milan. He was a careful, refined painter,
possessed of feeling and tenderness, producing pictures with enamelled
surfaces and much detail. Gianpietrino (fl. 1520-1540) and Cesare da
Sesto (1477-1523?) were also of the Milanese school, the latter
afterward falling under the Raphael influence. Gaudenzio Ferrara
(1481?-1547?), an exceptionally brilliant colorist and a painter of
much distinction, was under Leonardo's influence at one time, and
with the teachings of that master he mingled a little of Raphael in
the type of face. He was an uneven painter, often excessive in
sentiment, but at his best one of the most charming of the northern
painters.
SODOMA AND THE SIENNESE: Sienna, alive in the fourteenth century to
all that was stirring in art, in the fifteenth century was in complete
eclipse, no painters of consequence emanating from there or being
established there. In the sixteenth century there was a revival of art
because of a northern painter settling there and building up a new
school. This painter was Sodoma (1477?-1549). He was one of the best
pupils of Leonardo da Vinci, a master of the human figure, handling it
with much grace and charm of expression, but not so successful with
groups or studied compositions, wherein he was inclined to huddle and
over-crowd space. He was afterward led off by the brilliant success of
Raphael, and adopted something of that master's style. His best work
was done in fresco, though he did some easel pictures that have
darkened very much through time. He was a friend of Raphael, and his
portrait appears beside Raphael's in the latter painter's celebrated
School of Athens. The pupils and followers of the Siennese School were
not men of great strength. Pacchiarotta (1474-1540?), Girolamo della
Pacchia (1477-1535), Peruzzi (1481-1536), a half-Lombard half-Umbrian
painter of ability, and Beccafumi (1486-1551) were the principal
lights. The influence of the school was slight.
[Illustration: FIG. 45.--SODOMA. ECSTASY OF ST. CATHERINE. SIENNA.]
FERRARA AND BOLOGNESE SCHOOLS: The painters of these schools during
the sixteenth century have usually been classed among the followers
and imitators of Raphael, but not without some injustice. The
influence of Raphael was great throughout Central Italy, and the
Ferrarese and Bolognese felt it, but not to the extinction of their
native thought and methods. Moreover, there was some influence in
color coming from the Venetian school, but again not to the entire
extinction of Ferrarese individuality. Dosso Dossi (1479?-1541), at
Ferrara, a pupil of Lorenzo Costa, was the chief painter of the time,
and he showed more of Giorgione in color and light-and-shade than
anyone else, yet he never abandoned the yellows, greens, and reds
peculiar to Ferrara, and both he and Garofolo were strikingly original
in their background landscapes. Garofolo (1481-1559) was a pupil of
Panetti and Costa, who made several visits to Rome and there fell in
love with Raphael's work, which showed in a fondness for the sweep and
flow of line, in the type of face adopted, and in the calmness of his
many easel pictures. He was not so dramatic a painter as Dosso, and in
addition he had certain mannerisms or earmarks, such as sootiness in
his flesh tints and brightness in his yellows and greens, with dulness
in his reds. He was always Ferrarese in his landscapes and in the main
characteristics of his technic. Mazzolino (1478?-1528?) was another of
the school, probably a pupil of Panetti. He was an elaborate painter,
fond of architectural backgrounds and glowing colors enlivened with
gold in the high lights. Bagnacavallo (1484-1542) was a pupil of
Francia at Bologna, but with much of Dosso and Ferrara about him. He,
in common with Imola, already mentioned, was indebted to the art of
Raphael.
CORREGGIO AT PARMA: In Correggio (1494?-1534) all the Boccaccio nature
of the Renaissance came to the surface. It was indicated in Andrea del
Sarto--this nature-worship--but Correggio was the consummation. He was
the Faun of the Renaissance, the painter with whom the beauty of the
human as distinguished from the religious and the classic showed at
its very strongest. Free animal spirits, laughing madonnas, raving
nymphs, excited children of the wood, and angels of the sky pass and
repass through his pictures in an atmosphere of pure sensuousness.
They appeal to us not religiously, not historically, not
intellectually, but sensuously and artistically through their rhythmic
lines, their palpitating flesh, their beauty of color, and in the
light and atmosphere that surround them. He was less of a religionist
than Andrea del Sarto. Religion in art was losing ground in his day,
and the liberality and worldliness of its teachers appeared clearly
enough in the decorations of the Convent of St. Paul at Parma, where
Correggio was allowed to paint mythological Dianas and Cupids in the
place of saints and madonnas. True enough, he painted the religious
subject very often, but with the same spirit of life and joyousness as
profane subjects.
[Illustration: FIG. 46--CORREGGIO. MARRIAGE OF ST. CATHERINE AND
CHRIST. LOUVRE.]
The classic subject seemed more appropriate to his spirit, and yet he
knew and probably cared less about it than the religious subject. His
Dianas and Ledas are only so in name. They have little of the
Hellenic spirit about them, and for the sterner, heroic phases of
classicism--the lofty, the grand--Correggio never essayed them. The
things of this earth and the sweetness thereof seemed ever his aim.
Women and children were beautiful to him in the same way that flowers
and trees and skies and sunsets were beautiful. They were revelations
of grace, charm, tenderness, light, shade, color. Simply to exist and
be glad in the sunlight was sweetness to Correggio. He would have no
Sibylesque mystery, no prophetic austerity, no solemnity, no great
intellectuality. He was no leader of a tragic chorus. The dramatic,
the forceful, the powerful, were foreign to his mood. He was a singer
of lyrics and pastorals, a lover of the material beauty about him, and
it is because he passed by the pietistic, the classic, the literary,
and showed the beauty of physical life as an art motive that he is
called the Faun of the Renaissance. The appellation is not
inappropriate.
How or why he came to take this course would be hard to determine. It
was reflective of the times; but Correggio, so far as history tells
us, had little to do with the movements and people of his age. He was
born and lived and died near Parma, and is sometimes classed among the
Bologna-Ferrara painters, but the reasons for the classification are
not too strong. His education, masters, and influences are all shadowy
and indefinite. He seems, from his drawing and composition, to have
known something of Mantegna at Mantua; from his coloring something of
Dosso and Garofolo, especially in his straw-yellows; from his early
types and faces something of Costa and Francia, and his contours and
light-and-shade indicate a knowledge of Leonardo's work. But there is
no positive certainty that he saw the work of any of these men.
His drawing was faulty at times, but not obtrusively so; his color and
brush-work rich, vivacious, spirited; his light brilliant, warm,
penetrating; his contours melting, graceful; his atmosphere
omnipresent, enveloping. In composition he rather pushed aside line in
favor of light and color. It was his technical peculiarity that he
centralized his light and surrounded it by darks as a foil. And in
this very feature he was one of the first men in Renaissance Italy to
paint a picture for the purpose of weaving a scheme of lights and
darks through a tapestry of rich colors. That is art for art's sake,
and that, as will be seen further on, was the picture motive of the
great Venetians.
Correggio's immediate pupils and followers, like those of Raphael and
Andrea del Sarto, did him small honor. As was usually the case in
Renaissance art-history they caught at the method and lost the spirit
of the master. His son, Pomponio Allegri (1521-1593?), was a painter
of some mark without being in the front rank. Michelangelo Anselmi
(1491-1554?), though not a pupil, was an indifferent imitator of
Correggio. Parmigianino (1504-1540), a mannered painter of some
brilliancy, and of excellence in portraits, was perhaps the best of
the immediate followers. It was not until after Correggio's death, and
with the painters of the Decadence, that his work was seriously taken
up and followed.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: MILANESE--Leonardo da Vinci, Last Supper S.
M. delle Grazie Milan (in ruins), Mona Lisa, Madonna with
St. Anne (badly damaged) Louvre, Adoration (unfinished)
Uffizi, Angel at left in Verrocchio's Baptism Florence
Acad.; Luini, frescos Monastero Maggiore, 71 fragments in
Brera Milan, Church of the Pilgrims Sarrona, S. M. degli
Angeli Lugano, altar-pieces Duomo Como, Ambrosian Library
Milan, Brera, Uffizi, Louvre, Madrid, St. Petersburgh, and
other galleries; Beltraffio, Madonna Louvre, Barbara Berlin
Gal., Madonna Nat. Gal. Lon., fresco Convent of S. Onofrio
Rome (ascribed to Da Vinci); Marco da Oggiono, Archangels
and other works Brera, Holy Family Madonna Louvre; Solario,
Ecce Homo Repose Poldi-Pezzoli Gal. Milan, Holy Family
Brera, Madonna Portrait Louvre, Portraits Nat. Gal. Lon.,
Assumption Certosa of Pavia; Giampietrino, Magdalene Brera,
Madonna S. Sepolcro Milan, Magdalene and Catherine Berlin
Gal.; Cesare da Sesto, Madonna Brera, Magi Naples Mus.;
Gaudenzio Ferrara, frescos Church of Pilgrims Saronna, other
pictures in Brera, Turin Gal., S. Gaudenzio Novara, S. Celso
Milan.
SIENNESE--Sodoma, frescos Convent of St. Anne near Pienza,
Benedictine Convent of Mont' Oliveto Maggiore, Alexander and
Roxana Villa Farnesina Rome, S. Bernardino Palazzo Pubblico,
S. Domenico Sienna, pictures Uffizi, Brera, Munich, Vienna
Gals.; Pacchiarotto, Ascension Visitation Sienna Gal.;
Girolamo del Pacchia, frescos (3) S. Bernardino,
altar-pieces S. Spirito and Sienna Acad., Munich and Nat.
Gal. Lon.; Peruzzi, fresco Fontegiuste Sienna, S. Onofrio,
S. M. della Pace Rome; Beccafumi, St. Catherine Saints
Sienna Acad., frescos S. Bernardino Hospital and S. Martino
Sienna, Palazzo Doria Rome, Pitti, Berlin, Munich Gals.
FERRARESE AND BOLOGNESE--Dosso Dossi, many works Ferrara
Modena Gals., Duomo S. Pietro Modena, Brera, Borghese,
Doria, Berlin, Dresden, Vienna, Gals.; Garofolo, many works
Ferrara churches and Gal., Borghese, Campigdoglio, Louvre,
Berlin, Dresden, Munich, Nat. Gal. Lon.; Mazzolino, Ferrara,
Berlin, Dresden, Louvre, Doria, Borghese, Pitti, Uffizi, and
Nat. Gal. Lon.; Bagnacavallo, Misericordia and Gal. Bologna,
Louvre, Berlin, Dresden Gals.
PARMESE--Correggio, frescos Convent of S. Paolo, S. Giovanni
Evangelista, Duomo Parma, altar-pieces Dresden (4), Parma
Gals., Louvre, mythological pictures Antiope Louvre, Danae
Borghese, Leda Jupiter and Io Berlin, Venus Mercury and
Cupid Nat. Gal. Lon., Ganymede Vienna Gal.; Pomponio
Allegri, frescos Capella del Popolo Parma; Anselmi, frescos
S. Giovanni Evangelista, altar-pieces Madonna della
Steccata, Duomo, Gal. Parma, Louvre; Parmigianino, frescos
Moses Steccata, S. Giovanni Parma, altar-pieces Santa
Margherita, Bologna Gal., Madonna Pitti, portraits Uffizi,
Vienna, Naples Mus., other works Dresden, Vienna, and Nat.
Gal. Lon.
CHAPTER X.
ITALIAN PAINTING.
THE HIGH RENAISSANCE. 1500-1600. (_Continued._)
BOOKS RECOMMENDED: The works on Italian art before mentioned
and also consult General Bibliography, (page xv.).
THE VENETIAN SCHOOL: It was at Venice and with the Venetian painters
of the sixteenth century that a new art-motive was finally and fully
adopted. This art-motive was not religion. For though the religious
subject was still largely used, the religious or pietistic belief was
not with the Venetians any more than with Correggio. It was not a
classic, antique, realistic, or naturalistic motive. The Venetians
were interested in all phases of nature, and they were students of
nature, but not students of truth for truth's sake.
What they sought, primarily, was the light and shade on a nude
shoulder, the delicate contours of a form, the flow and fall of silk
or brocade, the richness of a robe, a scheme of color or of light, the
character of a face, the majesty of a figure. They were seeking
effects of line, light, color--mere sensuous and pictorial effects, in
which religion and classicism played secondary parts. They believed in
art for art's sake; that painting was a creation, not an illustration;
that it should exist by its pictorial beauties, not by its subject or
story. No matter what their subjects, they invariably painted them so
as to show the beauties they prized the highest. The Venetian
conception was less austere, grand, intellectual, than pictorial,
sensuous, concerning the beautiful as it appealed to the eye. And this
was not a slight or unworthy conception. True it dealt with the
fulness of material life, but regarded as it was by the Venetians--a
thing full-rounded, complete, harmonious, splendid--it became a great
ideal of existence.
[Illustration: FIG. 47.--GIORGIONE(?). ORDEAL OF MOSES. UFFIZI.]
In technical expression color was the note of all the school, with
hardly an exception. This in itself would seem to imply a lightness of
spirit, for color is somehow associated in the popular mind with
decorative gayety; but nothing could be further removed from the
Venetian school than triviality. Color was taken up with the greatest
seriousness, and handled in such masses and with such dignified power
that while it pleased it also awed the spectator. Without having quite
the severity of line, some of the Venetian chromatic schemes rise in
sublimity almost to the Sistine modellings of Michael Angelo. We do
not feel this so much in Giovanni Bellini, fine in color as he was. He
came too early for the full splendor, but he left many pupils who
completed what he had inaugurated.
THE GREAT VENETIANS: The most positive in influence upon his
contemporaries of all the great Venetians was Giorgione (1477?-1511).
He died young, and what few pictures by him are left to us have been
so torn to pieces by historical criticism that at times one begins to
doubt if there ever was such a painter. His different styles have been
confused, and his pictures in consequence thereof attributed to
followers instead of to the master. Painters change their styles, but
seldom their original bent of mind. With Giorgione there was a lyric
feeling as shown in music. The voluptuous swell of line, the melting
tone of color, the sharp dash of light, the undercurrent of
atmosphere, all mingled for him into radiant melody. He sought pure
pictorial beauty and found it in everything of nature. He had little
grasp of the purely intellectual, and the religious was something he
dealt with in no strong devotional way. The fête, the concert, the
fable, the legend, with a landscape setting, made a stronger appeal to
him. More of a recorder than a thinker he was not the less a leader
showing the way into that new Arcadian grove of pleasure whose
inhabitants thought not of creeds and faiths and histories and
literatures, but were content to lead the life that was sweet in its
glow and warmth of color, its light, its shadows, its bending trees,
and arching skies. A strong full-blooded race, sober-minded,
dignified, rationally happy with their lot, Giorgione portrayed them
with an art infinite in variety and consummate in skill. Their least
features under his brush seemed to glow like jewels. The sheen of
armor and rich robe, a bare forearm, a nude back, or loosened
hair--mere morsels of color and light--all took on a new beauty. Even
landscape with him became more significant. His master, Bellini, had
been realistic enough in the details of trees and hills, but Giorgione
grasped the meaning of landscape as an entirety, and rendered it with
poetic breadth.
Technically he adopted the oil medium brought to Venice by Antonello
da Messina, introducing scumbling and glazing to obtain brilliancy and
depth of color. Of light-and-shade he was a master, and in atmosphere
excellent. He, in common with all the Venetians, is sometimes said to
be lacking in drawing, but that is the result of a misunderstanding.
The Venetians never cared to accent line, choosing rather to model in
masses of light and shadow and color. Giorgione was a superior man
with the brush, but not quite up to his contemporary Titian.
[Illustration: FIG. 48.--TITIAN. VENUS EQUIPPING CUPID. BORGHESE PAL.,
ROME.]
That is not surprising, for Titian (1477-1576) was the painter easily
first in the whole range of Italian art. He was the first man in the
history of painting to handle a brush with freedom, vigor, and gusto.
And Titian's brush-work was probably the least part of his genius.
Calm in mood, dignified, and often majestic in conception, learned
beyond all others in his craft, he mingled thought, feeling, color,
brush-work into one grand and glowing whole. He emphasized nothing,
yet elevated everything. In pure intellectual thought he was not so
strong as Raphael. He never sought to make painting a vehicle for
theological, literary, or classical ideas. His tale was largely of
humanity under a religious or classical name, but a noble, majestic
humanity. In his art dignified senators, stern doges, and solemn
ecclesiastics mingle with open-eyed madonnas, winning Ariadnes, and
youthful Bacchuses. Men and women they are truly, but the very noblest
of the Italian race, the mountain race of the Cadore country--proud,
active, glowing with life; the sea race of Venice--worldly wise, full
of character, luxurious in power.
In himself he was an epitome of all the excellences of painting. He
was everything, the sum of Venetian skill, the crowning genius of
Renaissance art. He had force, power, invention, imagination, point of
view; he had the infinite knowledge of nature and the infinite mastery
of art. In addition, Fortune smiled upon him as upon a favorite child.
Trained in mind and hand he lived for ninety-nine years and worked
unceasingly up to a few months of his death. His genius was great and
his accomplishment equally so. He was celebrated and independent at
thirty-five, though before that he showed something of the influence
of Giorgione. After the death of Giorgione and his master, Bellini,
Titian was the leader in Venice to the end of his long life, and
though having few scholars of importance his influence was spread
through all North Italian painting.
Taking him for all in all, perhaps it is not too much to say that he
was the greatest painter known to history. If it were possible to
describe that greatness in one word, that word would be
"universality." He saw and painted that which was universal in its
truth. The local and particular, the small and the accidental, were
passed over for those great truths which belong to all the world of
life. In this respect he was a veritable Shakespeare, with all the
calmness and repose of one who overlooked the world from a lofty
height.
[Illustration: FIG. 49.--TINTORETTO. MERCURY AND GRACES. DUCAL PAL.,
VENICE.]
The restfulness and easy strength of Titian were not characteristics
of his follower Tintoretto (1518-1592). He was violent, headlong,
impulsive, more impetuous than Michael Angelo, and in some respects a
strong reminder of him. He had not Michael Angelo's austerity, and
there was more clash and tumult and fire about him, but he had a
command of line like the Florentine, and a way of hurling things, as
seen in the Fall of the Damned, that reminds one of the Last Judgment
of the Sistine. It was his aim to combine the line of Michael Angelo
and the color of Titian; but without reaching up to either of his
models he produced a powerful amalgam of his own.
He was one of the very great artists of the world, and the most rapid
workman in the whole Renaissance period. There are to-day, after
centuries of decay, fire, theft, and repainting, yards upon yards of
Tintoretto's canvases rotting upon the walls of the Venetian churches.
He produced an enormous amount of work, and, what is to be regretted,
much of it was contract work or experimental sketching. This has given
his art a rather bad name, but judged by his best works in the Ducal
Palace and the Academy at Venice, he will not be found lacking. Even
in his masterpiece (The Miracle of the Slave) he is "Il Furioso," as
they used to call him; but his thunderbolt style is held in check by
wonderful grace, strength of modelling, superb contrasts of light with
shade, and a coloring of flesh and robes not unworthy of the very
greatest. He was a man who worked in the white heat of passion, with
much imagination and invention. As a technician he sought difficulties
rather than avoided them. There is some antagonism between form and
color, but Tintoretto tried to reconcile them. The result was
sometimes clashing, but no one could have done better with them than
he did. He was a fine draughtsman, a good colorist, and a master of
light. As a brushman he was a superior man, but not equal to Titian.
Paolo Veronese (1528-1588), the fourth great Venetian, did not follow
the line direction set by Tintoretto, but carried out the original
color-leaning of the school. He came a little later than Tintoretto,
and his art was a reflection of the advancing Renaissance, wherein
simplicity was destined to lose itself in complexity, grandeur, and
display. Paolo came on the very crest of the Renaissance wave, when
art, risen to its greatest height, was gleaming in that transparent
splendor that precedes the fall.
[Illustration: FIG. 50.--P. VERONESE. VENICE ENTHRONED. DUCAL PAL.,
VENICE.]
The great bulk of his work had a large decorative motive behind it.
Almost all of the late Venetian work was of that character. Hence it
was brilliant in color, elaborate in subject, and grand in scale.
Splendid robes, hangings, furniture, architecture, jewels, armor,
appeared everywhere, and not in flat, lustreless hues, but with that
brilliancy which they possess in nature. Drapery gave way to clothing,
and texture-painting was introduced even in the largest canvases.
Scenes from Scripture and legend turned into grand pageants of
Venetian glory, and the facial expression of the characters rather
passed out in favor of telling masses of color to be seen at a
distance upon wall or ceiling. It was pomp and glory carried to the
highest pitch, but with all seriousness of mood and truthfulness in
art. It was beyond Titian in variety, richness, ornament, facility;
but it was perhaps below Titian in sentiment, sobriety, and depth of
insight. Titian, with all his sensuous beauty, did appeal to the
higher intelligence, while Paolo and his companions appealed more
positively to the eye by luxurious color-setting and magnificence of
invention. The decadence came after Paolo, but not with him. His art
was the most gorgeous of the Venetian school, and by many is ranked
the highest of all, but perhaps it is better to say it was the height.
Those who came after brought about the decline by striving to imitate
his splendor, and thereby falling into extravagance.
These are the four great Venetians--the men of first rank. Beside them
and around them were many other painters, placed in the second rank,
who in any other time or city would have held first place. Palma il
Vecchio (1480?-1528) was so excellent in many ways that it seems
unjust to speak of him as a secondary painter. He was not, however, a
great original mind, though in many respects a perfect painter. He was
influenced by Bellini at first, and then by Giorgione. In subject
there was nothing dramatic about him, and he carries chiefly by his
portrayal of quiet, dignified, and beautiful Venetians under the names
of saints and holy families. The St. Barbara is an example of this,
and one of the most majestic figures in all painting.
[Illustration: FIG. 51.--LOTTO. THREE AGES. PITTI.]
Palma's friend and fellow-worker, Lorenzo Lotto (1480?-1556?) came
from the school of the Bellini, and at different times was under the
influence of several Venetian painters--Palma, Giorgione,
Titian--without obliterating a sensitive individuality of his own. He
was a somewhat mannered but very charming painter, and in portraits
can hardly be classed below Titian. Rocco Marconi (fl. 1505-1520) was
another Bellini-educated painter, showing the influence of Palma and
even of Paris Bordone. In color and landscape he was excellent.
Pordenone (1483-1540) rather followed after Giorgione, and
unsuccessfully competed with Titian. He was inclined to exaggeration
in dramatic composition, but was a painter of undeniable power.
Cariani (1480-1541) was another Giorgione follower. Bonifazio Pitati
probably came from a Veronese family. He showed the influence of
Palma, and was rather deficient in drawing, though exceedingly
brilliant and rich in coloring. This latter may be said for Paris
Bordone (1495-1570), a painter of Titian's school, gorgeous in color,
but often lacking in truth of form. His portraits are very fine.
Another painter family, the Bassani--there were six of them, of whom
Jacopo Bassano (1510-1592) and his son Francesco Bassano (1550-1591),
were the most noted--formed themselves after Venetian masters, and
were rather remarkable for violent contrasts of light and dark,
_genre_ treatment of sacred subjects, and still-life and animal
painting.
PAINTING IN VENETIAN TERRITORIES: Venetian painting was not confined to
Venice, but extended through all the Venetian territories in Renaissance
times, and those who lived away from the city were, in their art,
decidedly Venetian, though possessing local characteristics.
At Brescia Savoldo (1480?-1548), a rather superficial painter, fond of
weird lights and sheeny draperies, and Romanino (1485?-1566), a
follower of Giorgione, good in composition but unequal and careless in
execution, were the earliest of the High Renaissance men. Moretto
(1498?-1555) was the strongest and most original, a man of
individuality and power, remarkable technically for his delicacy and
unity of color under a veil of "silvery tone." In composition he was
dignified and noble, and in brush-work simple and direct. One of the
great painters of the time, he seemed to stand more apart from
Venetian influence than any other on Venetian territory. He left one
remarkable pupil, Moroni (fl. 1549-1578) whose portraits are to-day
the gems of several galleries, and greatly admired for their modern
spirit and treatment.
At Verona Caroto and Girolamo dai Libri (1474-1555), though living
into the sixteenth century were more allied to the art of the
fifteenth century. Torbido (1486?-1546?) was a vacillating painter,
influenced by Liberale da Verona, Giorgione, Bonifazio Veronese, and
later, even by Giulio Romano. Cavazzola (1486-1522) was more original,
and a man of talent. There were numbers of other painters scattered
all through the Venetian provinces at this time, but they were not of
the first, or even the second rank, and hence call for no mention
here.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Giorgione, Fête Rustique Louvre, Sleeping
Venus Dresden, altar-piece Castelfranco, Ordeal of Moses
Judgment of Solomon Knight of Malta Uffizi; Titian, Sacred
and Profane Love Borghese, Tribute Money Dresden,
Annunciation S. Rocco, Pesaro Madonna Frari Venice,
Entombment Man with Glove Louvre, Bacchus Nat. Gal. Lon.,
Charles V. Madrid, Danæ Naples, many other works in almost
every European gallery; Tintoretto, many works in Venetian
churches, Salute SS. Giovanni e Paolo S. Maria dell' Orto
Scuola and Church of S. Rocco Ducal Palace Venice Acad.
(best work Miracle of Slave); Paolo Veronese, many Pictures
in S. Sebastiano Ducal Palace Academy Venice, Pitti, Uffizi,
Brera, Capitoline and Borghese Galleries Rome, Turin,
Dresden, Vienna, Louvre, Nat. Gal. Lon.; Palma il Vecchio,
Jacob and Rachel Three Sisters Dresden, Barbara S. M.
Formosa Venice, other altar-pieces Venice Acad., Colonna
Palace Rome, Brera, Naples Mus., Vienna, Nat. Gal. Lon.;
Lotto, Three Ages Pitti, Portraits Brera, Nat. Gal. Lon.,
altar-pieces SS. Giovanni e Paolo Venice and churches at
Bergamo, Treviso, Recanti, also Uffizi, Vienna, Madrid
Gals.; Marconi, Descent Venice Acad., altar-pieces S.
Giorgio Maggiore SS. Giovanni e Paolo Venice; Pordenone, S.
Lorenzo Madonna Venice Acad., Salome Doria St. George
Quirinale Rome, other works Madrid, Dresden, St. Petersburg,
Nat. Gal. Lon.; Bonifazio, St. John, St. Joseph, etc.
Ambrosian Library Milan (attributed to Giorgione), Holy
Family Colonna Pal. Rome, Ducal Pal., Pitti, Dresden Gals.;
Supper at Emmaus Brera, other works Venice Acad.; Paris
Bordone, Fisherman and Doge, Venice Acad., Madonna Casa
Tadini Lovere, portraits in Uffizi, Pitti, Louvre, Munich,
Vienna, Nat. Gal. Lon., Brignola Pal. Genoa; Jacopo Bassano,
altar-pieces in Bassano churches, also Ducal Pal. Venice,
Nat. Gal. Lon., Uffizi, Naples Mus.; Francesco Bassano,
large pictures Ducal Pal., St. Catherine Pitti, Sabines
Turin, Adoration and Christ in Temple Dresden, Adoration and
Last Supper Madrid; Savoldo, altar-pieces Brera, S. Niccolò
Treviso, Uffizi, Turin Gal., S. Giobbe Venice, Nat. Gal.
Lon.; Romanino, altar-pieces S. Francesco Brescia, Berlin
Gal., S. Giovanni Evangelista Brescia, Duomo Cremona, Padua,
and Nat. Gal. Lon.; Moretto, altar-pieces Brera, Staedel
Mus., S. M. della Pieta Venice, Vienna, Berlin, Louvre,
Pitti, Nat. Gal. Lon.; Moroni, portraits Bergamo Gal.,
Uffizi, Nat. Gal. Lon., Berlin, Dresden, Madrid; Girolamo
dai Libri, Madonna Berlin, Conception S. Paolo Verona,
Virgin Verona Gal., S. Giorgio Maggiore Verona, Nat. Gal.
Lon.; Torbido, frescos Duomo, altar-pieces S. Zeno and S.
Eufemia Verona; Cavazzola, altar-pieces, Verona Gal. and
Nat. Gal. Lon.
CHAPTER XI.
ITALIAN PAINTING.
THE DECADENCE AND MODERN WORK. 1600-1894.
BOOKS RECOMMENDED: As before, also General Bibliography,
(page xv.); Calvi, _Notizie della vita e delle opere di Gio.
Francesco Barbiera_; Malvasia, _Felsina Pittrice_; Sir
Joshua Reynolds, _Discourses_; Symonds, _Renaissance in
Italy--The Catholic Reaction_; Willard, _Modern Italian
Art_.
THE DECLINE: An art movement in history seems like a wave that rises
to a height, then breaks, falls, and parts of it are caught up from
beneath to help form the strength of a new advance. In Italy
Christianity was the propelling force of the wave. In the Early
Renaissance, the antique, and the study of nature came in as
additions. At Venice in the High Renaissance the art-for-art's-sake
motive made the crest of light and color. The highest point was
reached then, and there was nothing that could follow but the breaking
and the scattering of the wave. This took place in Central Italy after
1540, in Venice after 1590.
Art had typified in form, thought, and expression everything of which
the Italian race was capable. It had perfected all the graces and
elegancies of line and color, and adorned them with a superlative
splendor. There was nothing more to do. The idea was completed, the
motive power had served its purpose, and that store of race-impulse
which seems necessary to the making of every great art was exhausted.
For the men that came after Michael Angelo and Tintoretto there was
nothing. All that they could do was to repeat what others had said, or
to recombine the old thoughts and forms. This led inevitably to
imitation, over-refinement of style, and conscious study of beauty,
resulting in mannerism and affectation. Such qualities marked the art
of those painters who came in the latter part of the sixteenth century
and the first of the seventeenth. They were unfortunate men in the
time of their birth. No painter could have been great in the
seventeenth century of Italy. Art lay prone upon its face under Jesuit
rule, and the late men were left upon the barren sands by the receding
wave of the Renaissance.
[Illustration: FIG. 52.--BRONZINO. CHRIST IN LIMBO. UFFIZI.]
ART MOTIVES AND SUBJECTS: As before, the chief subject of the art of
the Decadence was religion, with many heads and busts of the Madonna,
though nature and the classic still played their parts. After the
Reformation at the North the Church in Italy started the
Counter-Reformation. One of the chief means employed by this Catholic
reaction was the embellishment of church worship, and painting on a
large scale, on panel rather than in fresco, was demanded for
decorative purposes. But the religious motive had passed out, though
its subject was retained, and the pictorial motive had reached its
climax at Venice. The faith of the one and the taste and skill of the
other were not attainable by the late men, and, while consciously
striving to achieve them, they fell into exaggerated sentiment and
technical weakness. It seems perfectly apparent in their works that
they had nothing of their own to say, and that they were trying to say
over again what Michael Angelo, Correggio, and Titian had said before
them much better. There were earnest men and good painters among them,
but they could produce only the empty form of art. The spirit had
fled.
THE MANNERISTS: Immediately after the High Renaissance leaders of
Florence and Rome came the imitators and exaggerators of their styles.
They produced large, crowded compositions, with a hasty facility of
the brush and striking effects of light. Seeking the grand they
overshot the temperate. Their elegance was affected, their sentiment
forced, their brilliancy superficial glitter. When they thought to be
ideal they lost themselves in incomprehensible allegories; when they
thought to be real they grew prosaic in detail. These men are known in
art history as the Mannerists, and the men whose works they imitated
were chiefly Raphael, Michael Angelo, and Correggio. There were many
of them, and some of them have already been spoken of as the followers
of Michael Angelo.
Agnolo Bronzino (1502?-1572) was a pupil of Pontormo, and an imitator
of Michael Angelo, painting in rather heavy colors with a thin brush.
His characters were large, but never quite free from weakness, except
in portraiture, where he appeared at his best. Vasari (1511-1574)--the
same Vasari who wrote the lives of the painters--had versatility and
facility, but his superficial imitations of Michael Angelo were too
grandiose in conception and too palpably false in modelling. Salviati
(1510-1563) was a friend of Vasari, a painter of about the same cast
of mind and hand as Vasari, and Federigo Zucchero (1543-1609) belongs
with him in producing things muscularly big but intellectually small.
Baroccio (1528-1612), though classed among the Mannerists as an
imitator of Correggio and Raphael, was really one of the strong men of
the late times. There was affectation and sentimentality about his
work, a prettiness of face, rosy flesh tints, and a general lightness
of color, but he was a superior brushman, a good colorist, and, at
times, a man of earnestness and power.
[Illustration: FIG. 53.--BAROCCIO. ANNUNCIATION.]
THE ECLECTICS: After the Mannerists came the Eclectics of Bologna, led
by the Caracci, who, about 1585, sought to "revive" art. They started
out to correct the faults of the Mannerists, and yet their own art was
based more on the art of their great predecessors than on nature. They
thought to make a union of Renaissance excellences by combining
Michael Angelo's line, Titian's color, Correggio's light-and-shade and
Raphael's symmetry and grace. The attempt was praiseworthy for the
time, but hardly successful. They caught the lines and lights and
colors of the great men, but they overlooked the fact that the
excellence of the imitated lay largely in their inimitable
individualities, which could not be combined. The Eclectic work was
done with intelligence, but their system was against them and their
baroque age was against them. Midway in their career the Caracci
themselves modified their eclecticism and placed more reliance upon
nature. But their pupils paid little heed to the modification.
There were five of the Caracci, but three of them--Ludovico
(1555-1619), Agostino (1557-1602), and Annibale (1560-1609)--led the
school, and of these Annibale was the most distinguished. They had
many pupils, and their influence was widely spread over Italy. In Sir
Joshua Reynolds's day they were ranked with Raphael, but at the
present time criticism places them where they belong--painters of the
Decadence with little originality or spontaneity in their art, though
much technical skill. Domenichino (1581-1641) was the strongest of the
pupils. His St. Jerome was rated by Poussin as one of the three great
paintings of the world, but it never deserved such rank. It is
powerfully composed, but poor in coloring and handling. The painter
had great repute in his time, and was one of the best of the
seventeenth century men. Guido Reni (1575-1642) was a painter of many
gifts and accomplishments, combined with many weaknesses. His works
are well composed and painted, but excessive in sentiment and overdone
in pathos. Albani (1578-1660) ran to elegance and a porcelain-like
prettiness. Guercino (1591-1666) was originally of the Eclectic School
at Bologna, but later took up with the methods of the Naturalists at
Naples. He was a painter of far more than the average ability.
Sassoferrato (1605-1685) and Carlo Dolci (1616-1686) were so
super-saturated with sentimentality that often their skill as painters
is overlooked or forgotten. In spirit they were about the weakest of
the century. There were other eclectic schools started throughout
Italy--at Milan, Cremona, Ferrara--but they produced little worth
recording. At Rome certain painters like Cristofano Allori
(1577-1621), an exceptionally strong man for the time, Berrettini
(1596-1669), and Maratta (1625-1713), manufactured a facile kind of
painting from what was attractive in the various schools, but it was
never other than meretricious work.
[Illustration: FIG. 54.--ANNIBALE CARACCI. ENTOMBMENT OF CHRIST.
LOUVRE.]
THE NATURALISTS: Contemporary with the Eclectics sprang up the
Neapolitan school of the Naturalists, led by Caravaggio (1569-1609)
and his pupils. These schools opposed each other, and yet influenced
each other. Especially was this true with the later men, who took what
was best in both schools. The Naturalists were, perhaps, more firmly
based upon nature than the Bolognese Eclectics. Their aim was to take
nature as they found it, and yet, in conformity with the extravagance
of the age, they depicted extravagant nature. Caravaggio thought to
represent sacred scenes more truthfully by taking his models from the
harsh street life about him and giving types of saints and apostles
from Neapolitan brawlers and bandits. It was a brutal, coarse
representation, rather fierce in mood and impetuous in action, yet not
without a good deal of tragic power. His subjects were rather dismal
or morose, but there was knowledge in the drawing of them, some good
color and brush-work and a peculiar darkness of shadow masses
(originally gained from Giorgione), that stood as an ear-mark of his
whole school. From the continuous use of black shadows the school got
the name of the "Darklings," by which they are still known. Giordano
(1632-1705), a painter of prodigious facility and invention, Salvator
Rosa (1615-1673), best known as one of the early painters of
landscape, and Ribera, a Spanish painter, were the principal pupils.
THE LATE VENETIANS: The Decadence at Venice, like the Renaissance,
came later than at Florence, but after the death of Tintoretto
mannerisms and the imitation of the great men did away with
originality. There was still much color left, and fine ceiling
decorations were done, but the nobility and calm splendor of Titian's
days had passed. Palma il Giovine (1544-1628) with a hasty brush
produced imitations of Tintoretto with some grace and force, and in
remarkable quantity. He and Tintoretto were the most rapid and
productive painters of the century; but Palma's was not good in
spirit, though quite dashing in technic. Padovanino (1590-1650) was
more of a Titian follower, but, like all the other painters of the
time, he was proficient with the brush and lacking in the stronger
mental elements. The last great Italian painter was Tiepolo
(1696-1770), and he was really great beyond his age. With an art
founded on Paolo Veronese, he produced decorative ceilings and panels
of high quality, with wonderful invention, a limpid brush, and a light
flaky color peculiarly appropriate to the walls of churches and
palaces. He was, especially in easel pictures, a brilliant, vivacious
brushman, full of dash and spirit, tempered by a large knowledge of
what was true and pictorial. Some of his best pictures are still in
Venice, and modern painters are unstinted in their praise of them. He
left a son, Domenico Tiepolo (1726-1795), who followed his methods. In
the late days of Venetian painting, Canaletto (1697-1768) and Guardi
(1712-1793) achieved reputation by painting Venetian canals and
architecture with much color effect.
[Illustration: FIG. 55.--CARAVAGGIO. THE CARD PLAYERS. DRESDEN.]
NINETEENTH-CENTURY PAINTING IN ITALY: There is little in the art of
Italy during the present century that shows a positive national
spirit. It has been leaning on the rest of Europe for many years, and
the best that the living painters show is largely an echo of
Dusseldorf, Munich, or Paris. The revived classicism of David in
France affected nineteenth-century painting in Italy somewhat. Then it
was swayed by Cornelius and Overbeck from Germany. Morelli (1826-[2])
shows this latter influence, though one of the most important of the
living men.[3] In the 1860's Mariano Fortuny, a Spaniard at Rome, led
the younger element in the glittering and the sparkling, and this
style mingled with much that is more strikingly Parisian than Italian,
may be found in the works of painters like Michetti, De Nittis
(1846-1884), Favretto, Tito, Nono, Simonetti, and others.
[Footnote 2: Died, 1901.]
[Footnote 3: See _Scribner's Magazine_, Neapolitan Art, Dec., 1890,
Feb., 1891.]
Of recent days the impressionistic view of light and color has had its
influence; but the Italian work at its best is below that of France.
Segantini[4] was one of the most promising of the younger men in
subjects that have an archaic air about them. Boldini, though Italian
born and originally following Fortuny's example, is really more
Parisian than anything else. He is an artist of much power and
technical strength in _genre_ subjects and portraits. The newer men
are Fragiocomo, Fattori, Mancini, Marchetti.
[Footnote 4: Died, 1899.]
PRINCIPAL WORKS: MANNERISTS--Agnolo Bronzino, Christ in
Limbo and many portraits in Uffizi and Nat. Gal. Lon.;
Vasari, many pictures in galleries at Arezzo, Bologna,
Berlin, Munich, Louvre, Madrid; Salviati, Charity Christ
Uffizi, Patience Pitti, St. Thomas Louvre, Love and Psyche
Berlin; Federigo Zucchero, Duomo Florence, Ducal Palace
Venice, Allegories Uffizi, Calumny Hampton Court; Baroccio,
Pardon of St. Francis Urbino, Annunciation Loreto, several
pictures in Uffizi, Nat. Gal. Lon., Louvre, Dresden Gal.
ECLECTICS--Ludovico Caracci, Cathedral frescos Bologna,
thirteen pictures Bologna Gal.; Agostino Caracci, frescos
(with Annibale) Farnese Pal. Rome, altar-pieces Bologna
Gal.; Annibale Carracci, frescos (with Agostino) Farnese
Pal. Rome, other pictures Bologna Gal., Uffizi, Naples Mus.,
Dresden, Berlin, Louvre, Nat. Gal. Lon.; Domenichino, St.
Jerome Vatican, S. Pietro in Vincoli, Diana Borghese,
Bologna, Pitti, Louvre, Nat. Gal. Lon.; Guido Reni, frescos
Aurora Rospigliosi Pal. Rome, many pictures Bologna,
Borghese Gal., Pitti, Uffizi, Brera, Naples, Louvre, and
other galleries of Europe; Albani, Guercino, Sassoferrato,
and Carlo Dolci, works in almost every European gallery,
especially Bologna; Cristofano Allori, Judith Pitti, also
pictures in Uffizi; Berrettini and Maratta, many examples in
Italian galleries, also Louvre.
NATURALISTS--Caravaggio, Entombment Vatican, many other
works in Pitti, Uffizi, Naples, Louvre, Dresden, St.
Petersburg; Giordano, Judgment of Paris Berlin, many
pictures in Dresden and Italian galleries; Salvator Rosa,
best marine in Pitti, other works Uffizi, Brera, Naples,
Madrid galleries and Colonna, Corsini, Doria, Chigi Palaces
Rome.
LATE VENETIANS--Palma il Giovine, Ducal Palace Venice,
Cassel, Dresden, Munich, Madrid, Naples, Vienna galleries;
Padovanino, Marriage in Cana Kneeling Angel and other works
Venice Acad., Carmina Venice, also galleries of Louvre,
Uffizi, Borghese, Dresden, London; Tiepolo, large fresco
Villa Pisani Stra, Palazzo Labia Scuola Carmina, Venice,
Villa Valmarana, and at Wurtzburg, easel pictures Venice
Acad., Louvre, Berlin, Madrid; Canaletto and Guardi, many
pictures in European galleries.
MODERN ITALIANS[5]--Morelli, Madonna Royal chap.
Castiglione, Assumption Royal chap. Naples; Michetti, The
Vow Nat. Gal. Rome; De Nittis, Place du Carrousel Luxembourg
Paris; Boldini, Gossips Met. Mus. New York.
[Footnote 5: Only works in public places are given. Those in private
hands change too often for record here. For detailed list of works see
Champlin and Perkins, _Cyclopedia of Painters and Paintings._]
CHAPTER XII.
FRENCH PAINTING.
SIXTEENTH, SEVENTEENTH, AND EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY PAINTING.
BOOKS RECOMMENDED: Amorini, _Vita del celebre pittore
Francesco Primaticcio_; Berger, _Histoire de l'École
Française de Peinture au XVII^{me} Siècle_; Bland, _Les
Peintres des fêtes galantes, Watteau, Boucher, et al._;
Curmer, _L'OEuvre de Jean Fouquet_; Delaborde, _Études sur
les Beaux Arts en France et en Italie_; Didot, _Études sur
Jean Cousin_; Dimier, _French Painting in XVI Century_;
Dumont, _Antoine Watteau_; Dussieux, _Nouvelles Recherches
sur la Vie de E. Lesueur_; Genevay, _Le Style Louis XIV.,
Charles Le Brun_; Goncourt, _L'Art du XVIII^{me} Siècle_;
Guibel, _Éloge de Nicolas Poussin_; Guiffrey, _La Famille de
Jean Cousin_; Laborde, _La Renaissance des Arts à la Cour de
France_; Lagrange, _J. Vernet et la Peinture au XVIII^{me}
Siècle_; Lecoy de la Marche, _Le Roi René_; Mantz, _François
Boucher_; Michiels, _Études sur l'Art Flamand dans l'est et
le midi de la France_; Muntz, _La Renaissance en Italie et
en France_; Palustre, _La Renaissance en France_; Pattison,
_Renaissance of Art in France_; Pattison, _Claude Lorrain_;
Poillon, _Nicolas Poussin_; Stranahan, _History of French
Painting_.
EARLY FRENCH ART: Painting in France did not, as in Italy, spring
directly from Christianity, though it dealt with the religious
subject. From the beginning a decorative motive--the strong feature of
French art--appears as the chief motive of painting. This showed
itself largely in church ornament, garments, tapestries, miniatures,
and illuminations. Mural paintings were produced during the fifth
century, probably in imitation of Italian or Roman example. Under
Charlemagne, in the eighth century, Byzantine influences were at work.
In the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries much stained-glass
work appeared, and also many missal paintings and furniture
decorations.
[Illustration: Fig. 56.--POUSSIN. ET IN ARCADIA EGO. LOUVRE.]
In the fifteenth century René of Anjou (1408-1480), king and painter,
gave an impetus to art which he perhaps originally received from
Italy. His work showed some Italian influence mingled with a great
deal of Flemish precision, and corresponded for France to the early
Renaissance work of Italy, though by no means so advanced.
Contemporary with René was Jean Fouquet (1415?-1480?) an illuminator
and portrait-painter, one of the earliest in French history. He was an
artist of some original characteristics and produced an art detailed
and exact in its realism. Jean Péreal (?-1528?) and Jean Bourdichon
(1457?-1521?) with Fouquet's pupils and sons, formed a school at Tours
which afterward came to show some Italian influence. The native
workmen at Paris--they sprang up from illuminators to painters in all
probability--showed more of the Flemish influence. Neither of the
schools of the fifteenth century reflected much life or thought, but
what there was of it was native to the soil, though their methods were
influenced from without.
SIXTEENTH-CENTURY PAINTING: During this century Francis I., at
Fontainebleau, seems to have encouraged two schools of painting, one
the native French and the other an imported Italian, which afterward
took to itself the name of the "School of Fontainebleau." Of the
native artists the Clouets were the most conspicuous. They were of
Flemish origin, and followed Flemish methods both in technic and
mediums. There were four of them, of whom Jean (1485?-1541?) and
François (1500?-1572?) were the most noteworthy. They painted many
portraits, and François' work, bearing some resemblance to that of
Holbein, it has been doubtfully said that he was a pupil of that
painter. All of their work was remarkable for detail and closely
followed facts.
The Italian importation came about largely through the travels of
Francis I. in Italy. He invited to Fontainebleau Leonardo da Vinci,
Andrea del Sarto, Il Rosso, Primaticcio, and Niccolò dell' Abbate.
These painters rather superseded and greatly influenced the French
painters. The result was an Italianized school of French art which
ruled in France for many years. Primaticcio was probably the greatest
of the influencers, remaining as he did for thirty years in France.
The native painters, Jean Cousin (1500?-1589) and Toussaint du Breuil
(1561-1602) followed his style, and in the next century the painters
were even more servile imitators of Italy--imitating not the best
models either, but the Mannerists, the Eclectics, and the Roman
painters of the Decadence.
[Illustration: FIG. 57.--CLAUDE LORRAIN. FLIGHT INTO EGYPT. DRESDEN.]
SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY PAINTING: This was a century of great development
and production in France, the time of the founding of the French
Academy of Painting and Sculpture, and the formation of many picture
collections. In the first part of the century the Flemish and native
tendencies existed, but they were overawed, outnumbered by the
Italian. Not even Rubens's painting for Marie de' Medici, in the
palace of the Luxembourg, could stem the tide of Italy. The French
painters flocked to Rome to study the art of their great predecessors
and were led astray by the flashy elegance of the late Italians. Among
the earliest of this century was Fréminet (1567-1619). He was first
taught by his father and Jean Cousin, but afterward spent fifteen
years in Italy studying Parmigianino and Michael Angelo. His work had
something of the Mannerist style about it and was overwrought and
exaggerated. In shadows he seemed to have borrowed from Caravaggio.
Vouet (1590-1649) was a student in Italy of Veronese's painting and
afterward of Guido Reni and Caravaggio. He was a mediocre artist, but
had a great vogue in France and left many celebrated pupils.
By all odds the best painter of this time was Nicolas Poussin
(1593-1665). He lived almost all of his life in Italy, and might be
put down as an Italian of the Decadence. He was well versed in
classical archæology, and had much of the classic taste and feeling
prevalent at that time in the Roman school of Giulio Romano. His work
showed great intelligence and had an elevated grandiloquent style
about it that was impressive. It reflected nothing French, and had
little more root in present human sympathy than any of the other
painting of the time, but it was better done. The drawing was correct
if severe, the composition agreeable if formal, the coloring
variegated if violent. Many of his pictures have now changed for the
worse in coloring owing to the dissipation of surface pigments. He was
the founder of the classic and academic in French art, and in
influence was the most important man of the century. He was especially
strong in the heroic landscape, and in this branch helped form the
style of his brother-in-law, Gaspard (Dughet) Poussin (1613-1675).
The landscape painter of the period, however, was Claude Lorrain
(1600-1682). He differed from Poussin in making his pictures depend
more strictly upon landscape than upon figures. With both painters,
the trees, mountains, valleys, buildings, figures, were of the grand
classic variety. Hills and plains, sylvan groves, flowing streams,
peopled harbors, Ionic and Corinthian temples, Roman aqueducts,
mythological groups, were the materials used, and the object of their
use was to show the ideal dwelling-place of man--the former Garden of
the Gods. Panoramic and slightly theatrical at times, Claude's work
was not without its poetic side, shrewd knowledge, and skilful
execution. He was a leader in landscape, the man who first painted
real golden sunlight and shed its light upon earth. There is a soft
summer's-day drowsiness, a golden haze of atmosphere, a feeling of
composure and restfulness about his pictures that are attractive. Like
Poussin he depended much upon long sweeping lines in composition, and
upon effects of linear perspective.
[Illustration: FIG. 58--WATTEAU. GILLES. LOUVRE.]
COURT PAINTING: When Louis XIV. came to the throne painting took on a
decided character, but it was hardly national or race character. The
popular idea, if the people had an idea, did not obtain. There was no
motive springing from the French except an inclination to follow
Italy; and in Italy all the great art-motives were dead. In method
the French painters followed the late Italians, and imitated an
imitation; in matter they bowed to the dictates of the court and
reflected the king's mock-heroic spirit. Echoing the fashion of the
day, painting became pompous, theatrical, grandiloquent--a mass of
vapid vanity utterly lacking in sincerity and truth. Lebrun
(1619-1690), painter in ordinary to the king, directed substantially
all the painting of the reign. He aimed at pleasing royalty with
flattering allusions to Cæsarism and extravagant personifications of
the king as a classic conqueror. His art had neither truth, nor
genius, nor great skill, and so sought to startle by subject or size.
Enormous canvases of Alexander's triumphs, in allusion to those of the
great Louis, were turned out to order, and Versailles to this day is
tapestried with battle-pieces in which Louis is always victor.
Considering the amount of work done, Lebrun showed great fecundity and
industry, but none of it has much more than a mechanical ingenuity
about it. It was rather original in composition, but poor in drawing,
lighting, and coloring; and its example upon the painters of the time
was pernicious.
His contemporary, Le Sueur (1616-1655), was a more sympathetic and
sincere painter, if not a much better technician. Both were pupils of
Vouet, but Le Sueur's art was religious in subject, while Lebrun's was
military and monarchical. Le Sueur had a feeling for his theme, but
was a weak painter, inclined to the sentimental, thin in coloring, and
not at all certain in his drawing. French allusions to him as "the
French Raphael" show more national complacency than correctness.
Sebastian Bourdon (1616-1671) was another painter of history, but a
little out of the Lebrun circle. He was not, however, free from the
influence of Italy, where he spent three years studying color more
than drawing. This shows in his works, most of which are lacking in
form.
Contemporary with these men was a group of portrait-painters who
gained celebrity perhaps as much by their subjects as by their own
powers. They were facile flatterers given over to the pomps of the
reign and mirroring all its absurdities of fashion. Their work has a
graceful, smooth appearance, and, for its time, it was undoubtedly
excellent portraiture. Even to this day it has qualities of drawing
and coloring to commend it, and at times one meets with exceptionally
good work. The leaders among these portrait-painters were Philip de
Champaigne (1602-1674), the best of his time; Pierre Mignard
(1610?-1695), a pupil of Vouet, who studied in Rome and afterward
returned to France to become the successful rival of Lebrun;
Largillière (1656-1746) and Rigaud (1659-1743).
EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY PAINTING: The painting of Louis XIV.'s time was
continued into the eighteenth century for some fifteen years or more
with little change. With the advent of Louis XV. art took upon itself
another character, and one that reflected perfectly the moral, social,
and political France of the eighteenth century. The first Louis
clamored for glory, the second Louis revelled in gayety, frivolity,
and sensuality. This was the difference between both monarchs and both
arts. The gay and the coquettish in painting had already been
introduced by the Regent, himself a dilettante in art, and when Louis
XV. came to the throne it passed from the gay to the insipid, the
flippant, even the erotic. Shepherds and shepherdesses dressed in
court silks and satins with cottony sheep beside them posed in
stage-set Arcadias, pretty gods and goddesses reclined indolently upon
gossamer clouds, and court gallants lounged under artificial trees by
artificial ponds making love to pretty soubrettes from the theatre.
Yet, in spite of the lack of moral and intellectual elevation, in
spite of frivolity and make-believe, this art was infinitely better
than the pompous imitation of foreign example set up by Louis XIV. It
was more spontaneous, more original, more French. The influence of
Italy began to fail, and the painters began to mirror French life. It
was largely court life, lively, vivacious, licentious, but in that
very respect characteristic of the time. Moreover, there was another
quality about it that showed French taste at its best--the decorative
quality. It can hardly be supposed that the fairy creations of the age
were intended to represent actual nature. They were designed to
ornament hall and boudoir, and in pure decorative delicacy of design,
lightness of touch, color charm, they have never been excelled. The
serious spirit was lacking, but the gayety of line and color was well
given.
[Illustration: FIG. 59.--BOUCHER. PASTORAL. LOUVRE.]
Watteau (1684-1721) was the one chiefly responsible for the coquette
and soubrette of French art, and Watteau was, practically speaking,
the first French painter. His subjects were trifling bits of
fashionable love-making, scenes from the opera, fêtes, balls, and the
like. All his characters played at life in parks and groves that never
grew, and most of his color was beautifully unreal; but for all that
the work was original, decorative, and charming. Moreover, Watteau was
a brushman, and introduced not only a new spirit and new subject into
art, but a new method. The epic treatment of the Italians was laid
aside in favor of a genre treatment, and instead of line and flat
surface Watteau introduced color and cleverly laid pigment. He was a
brilliant painter; not a great man in thought or imagination, but one
of fancy, delicacy, and skill. Unfortunately he set a bad example by
his gay subjects, and those who came after him carried his gayety and
lightness of spirit into exaggeration. Watteau's best pupils were
Lancret (1690-1743) and Pater (1695-1736), who painted in his style
with fair results.
After these men came Van Loo (1705-1765) and Boucher (1703-1770), who
turned Watteau's charming fêtes, showing the costumes and manners of
the Regency, into flippant extravagance. Not only was the moral tone
and intellectual stamina of their art far below that of Watteau, but
their workmanship grew defective. Both men possessed a remarkable
facility of the hand and a keen decorative color-sense; but after a
time both became stereotyped and mannered. Drawing and modelling were
neglected, light was wholly conventional, and landscape turned into a
piece of embroidered background with a Dresden china-tapestry effect
about it. As decoration the general effect was often excellent, as a
serious expression of life it was very weak, as an intellectual or
moral force it was worse than worthless. Fragonard (1732-1806)
followed in a similar style, but was a more knowing man, clever in
color, and a much freer and better brushman.
A few painters in the time of Louis XV. remained apparently
unaffected by the court influence, and stand in conspicuous isolation.
Claude Joseph Vernet (1712-1789) was a landscape and marine painter of
some repute in his time. He had a sense of the pictorial, but not a
remarkable sense of the truthful in nature. Chardin (1699-1779) and
Greuze (1725-1805), clung to portrayals of humble life and sought to
popularize the _genre_ subject. Chardin was not appreciated by the
masses. His frank realism, his absolute sincerity of purpose, his play
of light and its effect upon color, and his charming handling of
textures were comparatively unnoticed. Yet as a colorist he may be
ranked second to none in French art, and in freshness of handling his
work is a model for present-day painters. Diderot early recognized
Chardin's excellence, and many artists since his day have admired his
pictures; but he is not now a well-known or popular painter. The
populace fancies Greuze and his sentimental heads of young girls. They
have a prettiness about them that is attractive, but as art they lack
in force, and in workmanship they are too smooth, finical, and thin in
handling.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: All of these French painters are best
represented in the collections of the Louvre. Some of the
other galleries, like the Dresden, Berlin, and National at
London, have examples of their work; but the masterpieces
are with the French people in the Louvre and in the other
municipal galleries of France.
CHAPTER XIII.
FRENCH PAINTING.
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
BOOKS RECOMMENDED: As before, Stranahan, _et al._; also
Ballière, _Henri Regnault_; Blanc, _Les Artistes de mon
Temps_; Blanc, _Histoire des Peintres français au XIX^{me}
Siècle_; Blanc, _Ingres et son OEuvre_; Bigot, _Peintres
français contemporains_; Breton, _La Vie d'un Artiste_
(_English Translation_); Brownell, _French Art_; Burty,
_Maîtres et Petit-Maîtres_; Chesneau, _Peinture française au
XIX^{me} Siècle_; Clément, _Études sur les Beaux Arts en
France_; Clément, _Prudhon_; Delaborde, _OEuvre de Paul
Delaroche_; Delécluze, _Jacques Louis David, son École, et
son Temps_; Duret, _Les Peintres français en 1867_; Gautier,
_L'Art Moderne_; Gautier, _Romanticisme_; Gonse, _Eugène
Fromentin_; Hamerton, _Contemporary French Painting_;
Hamerton, _Painting in France after the Decline of
Classicism_; Henley, _Memorial Catalogue of French and Dutch
Loan Collection_ (1886); Henriet, _Charles Daubigny et son
OEuvre_; Lenormant, _Les Artistes Contemporains_;
Lenormant, _Ary Scheffer_; Merson, _Ingres, sa Vie et son
OEuvre_; Moreau, _Decamps et son OEuvre_; Planche,
_Études sur l'École française_; Robaut et Chesneau,
_L' OEuvre complet d'Eugène Delacroix_; Sensier, _Théodore
Rousseau_; Sensier, _Life and Works of J. F. Millet_;
Silvestre, _Histoire des Artistes vivants et étrangers_;
Strahan, _Modern French Art_; Thoré, _L'Art Contemporain_;
Theuriet, _Jules Bastien-Lepage_; Van Dyke, _Modern French
Masters_.
THE REVOLUTIONARY TIME: In considering this century's art in Europe,
it must be remembered that a great social and intellectual change has
taken place since the days of the Medici. The power so long pent up in
Italy during the Renaissance finally broke and scattered itself upon
the western nations; societies and states were torn down and
rebuilded, political, social, and religious ideas shifted into new
garbs; the old order passed away.
[Illustration: FIG. 60.--DAVID. THE SABINES. LOUVRE.]
Religion as an art-motive, or even as an art-subject, ceased to obtain
anywhere. The Church failed as an art-patron, and the walls of
cloister and cathedral furnished no new Bible readings to the
unlettered. Painting, from being a necessity of life, passed into a
luxury, and the king, the state, or the private collector became the
patron. Nature and actual life were about the only sources left from
which original art could draw its materials. These have been freely
used, but not so much in a national as in an individual manner. The
tendency to-day is not to put forth a universal conception but an
individual belief. Individualism--the same quality that appeared so
strongly in Michael Angelo's art--has become a keynote in modern work.
It is not the only kind of art that has been shown in this century,
nor is nature the only theme from which art has been derived. We must
remember and consider the influence of the past upon modern men, and
the attempts to restore the classic beauty of the Greek, Roman, and
Italian, which practically ruled French painting in the first part of
this century.
FRENCH CLASSICISM OF DAVID: This was a revival of Greek form in art,
founded on the belief expressed by Winckelmann, that beauty lay in
form, and was best shown by the ancient Greeks. It was the objective
view of art which saw beauty in the external and tolerated no
individuality in the artist except that which was shown in technical
skill. It was little more than an imitation of the Greek and Roman
marbles as types, with insistence upon perfect form, correct drawing,
and balanced composition. In theme and spirit it was pseudo-heroic,
the incidents of Greek and Roman history forming the chief subjects,
and in method it rather despised color, light-and-shade, and natural
surroundings. It was elevated, lofty, ideal in aspiration, but coldly
unsympathetic because lacking in contemporary interest; and, though
correct enough in classic form, was lacking in the classic spirit.
Like all reanimated art, it was derivative as regards its forms and
lacking in spontaneity. The reason for the existence of Greek art died
with its civilization, and those, like the French classicists, who
sought to revive it, brought a copy of the past into the present,
expecting the world to accept it.
There was some social, and perhaps artistic, reason, however, for the
revival of the classic in the French art of the late eighteenth
century. It was a revolt, and at that time revolts were popular. The
art of Boucher and Van Loo had become quite unbearable. It was
flippant, careless, licentious. It had no seriousness or dignity about
it. Moreover, it smacked of the Bourbon monarchy, which people had
come to hate. Classicism was severe, elevated, respectable at least,
and had the air of the heroic republic about it. It was a return to a
sterner view of life, with the martial spirit behind it as an impetus,
and it had a great vogue. For many years during the Revolution, the
Consulate, and the Empire, classicism was accepted by the sovereigns
and the Institute of France, and to this day it lives in a modified
form in that semi-classic work known as academic art.
THE CLASSIC SCHOOL: Vien (1716-1809) was the first painter to protest
against the art of Boucher and Van Loo by advocating more nobility of
form and a closer study of nature. He was, however, more devoted to
the antique forms he had studied in Rome than to nature. In subject
and line his tendency was classic, with a leaning toward the Italians
of the Decadence. He lacked the force to carry out a complete reform
in painting, but his pupil David (1748-1825) accomplished what he had
begun. It was David who established the reign of classicism, and by
native power became the leader. The time was appropriate, the
Revolution called for pictures of Romulus, Brutus and Achilles, and
Napoleon encouraged the military theme. David had studied the marbles
at Rome, and he used them largely for models, reproducing scenes from
Greek and Roman life in an elevated and sculpturesque style, with much
archæological knowledge and a great deal of skill. In color, relief,
sentiment, individuality, his painting was lacking. He despised all
that. The rhythm of line, the sweep of composed groups, the heroic
subject and the heroic treatment, made up his art. It was thoroughly
objective, and what contemporary interest it possessed lay largely in
the martial spirit then prevalent. Of course it was upheld by the
Institute, and it really set the pace for French painting for nearly
half a century. When David was called upon to paint Napoleonic
pictures he painted them under protest, and yet these, with his
portraits, constitute his best work. In portraiture he was uncommonly
strong at times.
[Illustration: FIG. 61.--INGRES. OEDIPUS AND SPHINX. LOUVRE.]
After the Restoration David, who had been a revolutionist, and then an
adherent of Napoleon, was sent into exile; but the influence he had
left and the school he had established were carried on by his
contemporaries and pupils. Of the former Regnault (1754-1829), Vincent
(1746-1816), and Prudhon (1758-1823) were the most conspicuous. The
last one was considered as out of the classic circle, but so far as
making his art depend upon drawing and composition, he was a genuine
classicist. His subjects, instead of being heroic, inclined to the
mythological and the allegorical. In Italy he had been a student of
the Renaissance painters, and from them borrowed a method of shadow
gradation that rendered his figures misty and phantom-like. They
possessed an ease of movement sometimes called "Prudhonesque grace,"
and in composition were well placed and effective.
Of David's pupils there were many. Only a few of them, however, had
pronounced ability, and even these carried David's methods into the
theatrical. Girodet (1766-1824) was a draughtsman of considerable
power, but with poor taste in color and little repose in composition.
Most of his work was exaggeration and strained effect. Lethière
(1760-1832) and Guérin (1774-1833), pupils of Regnault, were painters
akin to Girodet, but inferior to him. Gérard (1770-1837) was a weak
David follower, who gained some celebrity by painting portraits of
celebrated men and women. The two pupils of David who brought him the
most credit were Ingres (1780-1867) and Gros (1771-1835). Ingres was a
cold, persevering man, whose principles had been well settled by David
early in life, and were adhered to with conviction by the pupil to the
last. He modified the classic subject somewhat, studied Raphael and
the Italians, and reintroduced the single figure into art (the Source,
and the Odalisque, for example). For color he had no fancy. "In nature
all is form," he used to say. Painting he thought not an independent
art, but "a development of sculpture." To consider emotion, color, or
light as the equal of form was monstrous, and to compare Rembrandt
with Raphael was blasphemy. To this belief he clung to the end,
faithfully reproducing the human figure, and it is not to be wondered
at that eventually he became a learned draughtsman. His single figures
and his portraits show him to the best advantage. He had a strong
grasp of modelling and an artistic sense of the beauty and dignity of
line not excelled by any artist of this century. And to him more than
any other painter is due the cultured draughtsmanship which is to-day
the just pride of the French school.
Gros was a more vacillating man, and by reason of forsaking the
classic subject for Napoleonic battle-pieces, he unconsciously led the
way toward romanticism. He excelled as a draughtsman, but when he came
to paint the Field of Eylau and the Pest of Jaffa he mingled color,
light, air, movement, action, sacrificing classic composition and
repose to reality. This was heresy from the Davidian point of view,
and David eventually convinced him of it. Gros returned to the classic
theme and treatment, but soon after was so reviled by the changing
criticism of the time that he committed suicide in the Seine. His art,
however, was the beginning of romanticism.
The landscape painting of this time was rather academic and
unsympathetic. It was a continuation of the Claude-Poussin tradition,
and in its insistence upon line, grandeur of space, and imposing trees
and mountains, was a fit companion to the classic figure-piece. It had
little basis in nature, and little in color or feeling to commend it.
Watelet (1780-1866), Bertin (1775-1842), Michallon (1796-1822), and
Aligny (1798-1871), were its exponents.
A few painters seemed to stand apart from the contemporary influences.
Madame Vigée-Lebrun (1755-1842), a successful portrait-painter of
nobility, and Horace Vernet (1789-1863), a popular battle-painter,
many of whose works are to be seen at Versailles, were of this class.
ROMANTICISM: The movement in French painting which began about 1822 and
took the name of Romanticism was but a part of the "storm-and-stress"
feeling that swept Germany, England, and France at the beginning of this
century, appearing first in literature and afterward in art. It had its
origin in a discontent with the present, a passionate yearning for the
unattainable, an intensity of sentiment, gloomy melancholy imaginings,
and a desire to express the inexpressible. It was emphatically
subjective, self-conscious, a mood of mind or feeling. In this respect
it was diametrically opposed to the academic and the classic. In French
painting it came forward in opposition to the classicism of David.
People had begun to weary of Greek and Roman heroes and their deeds, of
impersonal line-bounded statuesque art. There was a demand for something
more representative, spontaneous, expressive of the intense feeling of
the time. The very gist of romanticism was passion. Freedom to express
itself in what form it would was a condition of its existence.
[Illustration: FIG. 62.--DELACROIX. MASSACRE OF SCIO. LOUVRE.]
The classic subject was abandoned by the romanticists for dramatic
scenes of mediæval and modern times. The romantic hero and heroine in
scenes of horror, perils by land and sea, flame and fury, love and
anguish, came upon the boards. Much of this was illustration of
history, the novel, and poetry, especially the poetry of Goethe,
Byron, and Scott. Line was slurred in favor of color, symmetrical
composition gave way to wild disordered groups in headlong action, and
atmospheres, skies, and lights were twisted and distorted to convey
the sentiment of the story. It was thus, more by suggestion than
realization, that romanticism sought to give the poetic sentiment of
life. Its position toward classicism was antagonistic, a rebound, a
flying to the other extreme. One virtually said that beauty was in the
Greek form, the other that it was in the painter's emotional nature.
The disagreement was violent, and out of it grew the so-called
romantic quarrel of the 1820's.
LEADERS OF ROMANTICISM: Symptoms of the coming movement were apparent
long before any open revolt. Gros had made innovations on the classic
in his battle-pieces, but the first positive dissent from classic
teachings was made in the Salon of 1819 by Géricault (1791-1824) with
his Raft of the Medusa. It represented the starving, the dead, and the
dying of the Medusa's crew on a raft in mid-ocean. The subject was not
classic. It was literary, romantic, dramatic, almost theatric in its
seizing of the critical moment. Its theme was restless, harrowing,
horrible. It met with instant opposition from the old men and applause
from the young men. It was the trumpet-note of the revolt, but
Géricault did not live long enough to become the leader of
romanticism. That position fell to his contemporary and fellow-pupil,
Delacroix (1799-1863). It was in 1822 that Delacroix's first Salon
picture (the Dante and Virgil) appeared. A strange, ghost-like scene
from Dante's _Inferno_, the black atmosphere of the nether world,
weird faces, weird colors, weird flames, and a modelling of the
figures by patches of color almost savage as compared to the tinted
drawing of classicism. Delacroix's youth saved the picture from
condemnation, but it was different with his Massacre of Scio two
years later. This was decried by the classicists, and even Gros called
it "the massacre of art." The painter was accused of establishing the
worship of the ugly, he was no draughtsman, had no selection, no
severity, nothing but brutality. But Delacroix was as obstinate as
Ingres, and declared that the whole world could not prevent him from
seeing and painting things in his own way. It was thus the quarrel
started, the young men siding with Delacroix, the older men following
David and Ingres.
In himself Delacroix embodied all that was best and strongest in the
romantic movement. His painting was intended to convey a romantic mood
of mind by combinations of color, light, air, and the like. In subject
it was tragic and passionate, like the poetry of Hugo, Byron, and
Scott. The figures were usually given with anguish-wrung brows, wild
eyes, dishevelled hair, and impetuous, contorted action. The painter
never cared for technical details, seeking always to gain the effect
of the whole rather than the exactness of the part. He purposely
slurred drawing at times, and was opposed to formal composition. In
color he was superior, though somewhat violent at times, and in
brush-work he was often labored and patchy. His strength lay in
imagination displayed in color and in action.
The quarrel between classicism and romanticism lasted some years, with
neither side victorious. Delacroix won recognition for his view of
art, but did not crush the belief in form which was to come to the
surface again. He fought almost alone. Many painters rallied around
him, but they added little strength to the new movement. Devéria
(1805-1865) and Champmartin (1797-1883) were highly thought of at
first, but they rapidly degenerated. Sigalon (1788-1837), Cogniet
(1794-1880), Robert-Fleury (1797-), and Boulanger (1806-1867), were
romanticists, but achieved more as teachers than as painters.
Delaroche (1797-1856) was an eclectic--in fact, founded a school of
that name--thinking to take what was best from both parties.
Inventing nothing, he profited by all invented. He employed the
romantic subject and color, but adhered to classic drawing. His
composition was good, his costume careful in detail, his brush-work
smooth, and his story-telling capacity excellent. All these qualities
made him a popular painter, but not an original or powerful one. Ary
Scheffer (1797-1858) was an illustrator of Goethe and Byron, frail in
both sentiment and color, a painter who started as a romanticist, but
afterward developed line under Ingres.
[Illustration: FIG. 63.--GÉRÔME. POLLICE VERSO.]
THE ORIENTALISTS: In both literature and painting one phase of
romanticism showed itself in a love for the life, the light, the color
of the Orient. From Paris Decamps (1803-1860) was the first painter to
visit the East and paint Eastern life. He was a _genre_ painter more
than a figure painter, giving naturalistic street scenes in Turkey and
Asia Minor, courts, and interiors, with great feeling for air, warmth
of color, and light. At about the same time Marilhat (1811-1847) was
in Egypt picturing the life of that country in a similar manner; and
later, Fromentin (1820-1876), painter and writer, following Delacroix,
went to Algiers and portrayed there Arab life with fast-flying horses,
the desert air, sky, light, and color. Théodore Frere and Ziem belong
further on in the century, but were no less exponents of romanticism
in the East.
Fifteen years after the starting of romanticism the movement had
materially subsided. It had never been a school in the sense of having
rules and laws of art. Liberty of thought and perfect freedom for
individual expression were all it advocated. As a result there was no
unity, for there was nothing to unite upon; and with every painter
painting as he pleased, regardless of law, extravagance was
inevitable. This was the case, and when the next generation came in
romanticism began to be ridiculed for its excesses. A reaction started
in favor of more line and academic training. This was first shown by
the students of Delaroche, though there were a number of movements at
the time, all of them leading away from romanticism. A recoil from too
much color in favor of more form was inevitable, but romanticism was
not to perish entirely. Its influence was to go on, and to appear in
the work of later men.
ECLECTICS AND TRANSITIONAL PAINTERS: After Ingres his follower
Flandrin (1809-1864) was the most considerable draughtsman of the
time. He was not classic but religious in subject, and is sometimes
called "the religious painter of France." He had a delicate beauty of
line and a fine feeling for form, but never was strong in color,
brush-work, or sentiment. His best work appears in his very fine
portraits. Gleyre (1806-1874) was a man of classic methods, but
romantic tastes, who modified the heroic into the idyllic and
mythologic. He was a sentimental day-dreamer, with a touch of
melancholy about the vanished past, appearing in Arcadian fancies,
pretty nymphs, and idealized memories of youth. In execution he was
not at all romantic. His color was pale, his drawing delicate, and his
lighting misty and uncertain. It was the etherealized classic method,
and this method he transmitted to a little band of painters called the
NEW-GREEKS, who, in point of time, belong much further along in the
century, but in their art are with Gleyre. Their work never rose above
the idyllic and the graceful, and calls for no special mention. Hamon
(1821-1874) and Aubert (1824-) belonged to the band, and Gérôme
(1824-[6]) was at one time its leader, but he afterward emerged from
it to a higher place in French art, where he will find mention
hereafter.
[Footnote 6: Died, 1904.]
Couture (1815-1879) stood quite by himself, a mingling of several
influences. His chief picture, The Romans of the Decadence, is classic
in subject, romantic in sentiment (and this very largely expressed by
warmth of color), and rather realistic in natural appearance. He was
an eclectic in a way, and yet seems to stand as the forerunner of a
large body of artists who find classification hereafter under the
title of the Semi-Classicists.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: All the painters mentioned in this chapter
are best represented in the Louvre at Paris, at Versailles,
and in the museums of the chief French cities. Some works of
the late or living men may be found in the Luxembourg, where
pictures bought by the state are kept for ten years after
the painter's death, and then are either sent to the Louvre
or to the other municipal galleries of France. Some pictures
by these men are also to be seen in the Metropolitan Museum,
New York, the Boston Museum, and the Chicago Art Institute.
CHAPTER XIV.
FRENCH PAINTING.
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY (_Continued_).
BOOKS RECOMMENDED: The books before mentioned, consult also
General Bibliography, (page xv.)
THE LANDSCAPE PAINTERS: The influence of either the classic or
romantic example may be traced in almost all of the French painting of
this century. The opposed teachings find representatives in new men,
and under different names the modified dispute goes on--the dispute of
the academic _versus_ the individual, the art of form and line
_versus_ the art of sentiment and color.
With the classicism of David not only the figure but the landscape
setting of it, took on an ideal heroic character. Trees and hills and
rivers became supernaturally grand and impressive. Everything was
elevated by method to produce an imaginary Arcadia fit for the deities
of the classic world. The result was that nature and the humanity of
the painter passed out in favor of school formula and academic
traditions. When romanticism came in this was changed, but nature
falsified in another direction. Landscape was given an interest in
human affairs, and made to look gay or sad, peaceful or turbulent, as
the day went well or ill with the hero of the story portrayed. It was,
however, truer to the actual than the classic, more studied in the
parts, more united in the whole. About the year 1830 the influence of
romanticism began to show in a new landscape art. That is to say, the
emotional impulse springing from romanticism combined with the study
of the old Dutch landscapists, and the English contemporary painters,
Constable and Bonington, set a large number of painters to the close
study of nature and ultimately developed what has been vaguely called
the
FONTAINEBLEAU-BARBIZON SCHOOL: This whole school was primarily devoted
to showing the sentiment of color and light. It took nature just as it
found it in the forest of Fontainebleau, on the plain of Barbizon, and
elsewhere, and treated it with a poetic feeling for light, shadow,
atmosphere, color, that resulted in the best landscape painting yet
known to us.
[Illustration: FIG. 64.--COROT. LANDSCAPE.]
Corot (1796-1875) though classically trained under Bertin, and though
somewhat apart from the other men in his life, belongs with this
group. He was a man whose artistic life was filled with the beauty of
light and air. These he painted with great singleness of aim and great
poetic charm. Most of his work is in a light silvery key of color,
usually slight in composition, simple in masses of light and dark,
and very broadly but knowingly handled with the brush. He began
painting by using the minute brush, but changed it later on for a
freer style which recorded only the great omnipresent truths and
suppressed the small ones. He has never had a superior in producing
the permeating light of morning and evening. For this alone, if for no
other excellence, he deservedly holds high rank.
Rousseau (1812-1867) was one of the foremost of the recognized
leaders, and probably the most learned landscapist of this century. A
man of many moods and methods he produced in variety with rare
versatility. Much of his work was experimental, but at his best he had
a majestic conception of nature, a sense of its power and permanence,
its volume and mass, that often resulted in the highest quality of
pictorial poetry. In color he was rich and usually warm, in technic
firm and individual, in sentiment at times quite sublime. At first he
painted broadly and won friends among the artists and sneers from the
public; then in his middle style he painted in detail, and had a
period of popular success; in his late style he went back to the broad
manner, and died amid quarrels and vexations of spirits. His long-time
friend and companion, Jules Dupré (1812-1889), hardly reached up to
him, though a strong painter in landscape and marine. He was a good
but not great colorist, and, technically, his brush was broad enough
but sometimes heavy. His late work is inferior in sentiment and
labored in handling. Diaz (1808-1876) was allied to Rousseau in aim
and method, though not so sure nor so powerful a painter. He had fancy
and variety in creation that sometimes ran to license, and in color he
was clear and brilliant. Never very well trained, his drawing is often
indifferent and his light distorted, but these are more than atoned
for by delicacy and poetic charm. At times he painted with much power.
Daubigny (1817-1878) seemed more like Corot in his charm of style and
love of atmosphere and light than any of the others. He was fond of
the banks of the Seine and the Marne at twilight, with evening
atmospheres and dark trees standing in silent ranks against the warm
sky. He was also fond of the gray day along the coast, and even the
sea attracted him not a little. He was a painter of high abilities,
and in treatment strongly individual, even distinguished, by his
simplicity and directness. Unity of the whole, grasp of the mass
entire, was his technical aim, and this he sought to get not so much
by line as by color-tones of varying value. In this respect he seemed
a connecting link between Corot and the present-day impressionists.
Michel (1763-1842), Huet (1804-1869), Chintreuil (1814-1873), and
Français (1814-) were all allied in point of view with this group of
landscape painters, and among the late men who have carried out their
beliefs are Cazin,[7] Yon,[8] Damoye, Pointelin, Harpignies and
Pelouse[9] seem a little more inclined to the realistic than the
poetic view, though producing work of much virility and intelligence.
[Footnote 7: Died, 1901.]
[Footnote 8: Died, 1897.]
[Footnote 9: Died, 1890.]
Contemporary and associated with the Fontainebleau painters were a
number of men who won high distinction as
PAINTERS OF ANIMALS: Troyon (1810-1865) was the most prominent among
them. His work shows the same sentiment of light and color as the
Fontainebleau landscapists, and with it there is much keen insight
into animal life. As a technician he was rather hard at first, and he
never was a correct draughtsman, but he had a way of giving the
character of the objects he portrayed which is the very essence of
truth. He did many landscapes with and without cattle. His best pupil
was Van Marcke (1827-1890), who followed his methods but never
possessed the feeling of his master. Jacque (1813-[10]) is also of the
Fontainebleau-Barbizon group, and is justly celebrated for his
paintings and etchings of sheep. The poetry of the school is his, and
technically he is fine in color at times, if often rather dark in
illumination. Like Troyon he knows his subject well, and can show the
nature of sheep with true feeling. Rosa Bonheur (1822-[11]) and her
brother, Auguste Bonheur (1824-1884), have both dealt with animal
life, but never with that fine artistic feeling which would warrant
their popularity. Their work is correct enough, but prosaic and
commonplace in spirit. They do not belong in the same group with
Troyon and Rousseau.
[Footnote 10: Died, 1894.]
[Footnote 11: Died, 1899.]
[Illustration: FIG. 65.--ROUSSEAU, CHARCOAL BURNERS' HUT. FULLER
COLLECTION.]
THE PEASANT PAINTERS: Allied again in feeling and sentiment with the
Fontainebleau landscapists were some celebrated painters of peasant
life, chief among whom stood Millet (1814-1875), of Barbizon. The
pictorial inclination of Millet was early grounded by a study of
Delacroix, the master romanticist, and his work is an expression of
romanticism modified by an individual study of nature and applied to
peasant life. He was peasant born, living and dying at Barbizon,
sympathizing with his class, and painting them with great poetic force
and simplicity. His sentiment sometimes has a literary bias, as in his
far-famed but indifferent Angelus, but usually it is strictly
pictorial and has to do with the beauty of light, air, color, motion,
life, as shown in The Sower or The Gleaners. Technically he was not
strong as a draughtsman or a brushman, but he had a large feeling for
form, great simplicity in line, keen perception of the relations of
light and dark, and at times an excellent color-sense. He was
virtually the discoverer of the peasant as an art subject, and for
this, as for his original point of view and artistic feeling, he is
ranked as one of the foremost artists of the century.
Jules Breton (1827-), though painting little besides the peasantry, is
no Millet follower, for he started painting peasant scenes at about
the same time as Millet. His affinities were with the New-Greeks early
in life, and ever since he has inclined toward the academic in style,
though handling the rustic subject. He is a good technician, except in
his late work; but as an original thinker, as a pictorial poet, he
does not show the intensity or profundity of Millet. The followers of
the Millet-Breton tradition are many. The blue-frocked and sabot-shod
peasantry have appeared in salon and gallery for twenty years and
more, but with not very good results. The imitators, as usual, have
caught at the subject and missed the spirit. Billet and Legros,
contemporaries of Millet, still living, and Lerolle, a man of
present-day note, are perhaps the most considerable of the painters of
rural subjects to-day.
THE SEMI-CLASSICISTS: It must not be inferred that the classic
influence of David and Ingres disappeared from view with the coming of
the romanticists, the Fontainebleau landscapists, and the Barbizon
painters. On the contrary, side by side with these men, and opposed
to them, were the believers in line and academic formulas of the
beautiful. The whole tendency of academic art in France was against
Delacroix, Rousseau, and Millet. During their lives they were regarded
as heretics in art and without the pale of the Academy. Their art,
however, combined with nature study and the realism of Courbet,
succeeded in modifying the severe classicism of Ingres into what has
been called semi-classicism. It consists in the elevated, heroic, or
historical theme, academic form well drawn, some show of bright
colors, smoothness of brush-work, and precision and nicety of detail.
In treatment it attempts the realistic, but in spirit it is usually
stilted, cold, unsympathetic.
Cabanel (1823-1889) and Bouguereau (1825-1905) have both represented
semi-classic art well. They are justly ranked as famous draughtsmen
and good portrait-painters, but their work always has about it the
stamp of the academy machine, a something done to order, knowing and
exact, but lacking in the personal element. It is a weakness of the
academic method that it virtually banishes the individuality of eye
and hand in favor of school formulas. Cabanel and Bouguereau have
painted many incidents of classic and historic story, but with never a
dash of enthusiasm or a suggestion of the great qualities of painting.
Their drawing has been as thorough as could be asked for, but their
colorings have been harsh and their brushes cold and thin.
Gérôme (1824-[12]) is a man of classic training and inclination, but
his versatility hardly allows him to be classified anywhere. He was
first a leader of the New-Greeks, painting delicate mythological
subjects; then a historical painter, showing deaths of Cæsar and the
like; then an Orientalist, giving scenes from Cairo and
Constantinople; then a _genre_ painter, depicting contemporary
subjects in the many lands through which he has travelled. Whatever he
has done shows semi-classic drawing, ethnological and archæological
knowledge, Parisian technic, and exact detail. His travels have not
changed his precise scientific point of view. He is a true academician
at bottom, but a more versatile and cultured painter than either
Cabanel or Bouguereau. He draws well, sometimes uses color well, and
is an excellent painter of textures. A man of great learning in many
departments he is no painter to be sneered at, and yet not a painter
to make the pulse beat faster or to arouse the æsthetic emotions. His
work is impersonal, objective fact, showing a brilliant exterior but
inwardly devoid of feeling.
[Footnote 12: Died, 1904.]
[Illustration: FIG. 66.--MILLET. THE GLEANERS. LOUVRE.]
Paul Baudry (1828-1886), though a disciple of line, was not precisely
a semi-classicist, and perhaps for that reason was superior to any of
the academic painters of his time. He was a follower of the old
masters in Rome more than the _École des Beaux Arts_. His subjects,
aside from many splendid portraits, were almost all classical,
allegorical, or mythological. He was a fine draughtsman, and, what is
more remarkable in conjunction therewith, a fine colorist. He was
hardly a great originator, and had not passion, dramatic force, or
much sentiment, except such as may be found in his delicate coloring
and rhythm of line. Nevertheless he was an artist to be admired for
his purity of purpose and breadth of accomplishment. His chief work is
to be seen in the Opera at Paris. Puvis de Chavannes (1824-[13]) is
quite a different style of painter, and is remarkable for fine
delicate tones of color which hold their place well on wall or
ceiling, and for a certain grandeur of composition. In his desire to
revive the monumental painting of the Renaissance he has met with much
praise and much blame. He is an artist of sincerity and learning, and
as a wall-painter has no superior in contemporary France.
[Footnote 13: Died, 1898.]
Hébert (1817-1908), an early painter of academic tendencies, and
Henner (1829-), fond of form and yet a brushman with an idyllic
feeling for light and color in dark surroundings, are painters who may
come under the semi-classic grouping. Lefebvre (1834-) is probably the
most pronounced in academic methods among the present men, a
draughtsman of ability.
PORTRAIT AND FIGURE PAINTERS: Under this heading may be included those
painters who stand by themselves, showing no positive preference for
either the classic or romantic followings. Bonnat (1833-) has painted
all kinds of subjects--_genre_, figure, and historical pieces--but is
perhaps best known as a portrait-painter. He has done forcible work.
Some of it indeed is astonishing in its realistic modelling--the
accentuation of light and shadow often causing the figures to advance
unnaturally. From this feature and from his detail he has been known for
years as a "realist." His anatomical Christ on the Cross and mural
paintings in the Pantheon are examples. As a portrait-painter he is
acceptable, if at times a little raw in color. Another portrait-painter
of celebrity is Carolus-Duran (1837-). He is rather startling at times
in his portrayal of robes and draperies, has a facility of the brush
that is frequently deceptive, and in color is sometimes vivid. He has
had great success as a teacher, and is, all told, a painter of high
rank. Delaunay (1828-1892) in late years painted little besides
portraits, and was one of the conservatives of French art. Laurens
(1838-) has been more of a historical painter than the others, and has
dealt largely with death scenes. He is often spoken of as "the painter
of the dead," a man of sound training and excellent technical power.
Regnault (1843-1871) was a figure and _genre_ painter with much feeling
for oriental light and color, who unfortunately was killed in battle at
twenty-seven years of age. He was an artist of promise, and has left
several notable canvases. Among the younger men who portray the
historical subject in an elevated style mention should be made of Cormon
(1845-), Benjamin-Constant (1845-[14]), and Rochegrosse. As painters of
portraits Aman-Jean and Carrière[15] have long held rank, and each
succeeding Salon brings new portraitists to the front.
[Footnote 14: Died, 1902.]
[Footnote 15: Died, 1906.]
THE REALISTS: About the time of the appearance of Millet, say 1848,
there also came to the front a man who scorned both classicism and
romanticism, and maintained that the only model and subject of art
should be nature. This man, Courbet (1819-1878), really gave a third
tendency to the art of this century in France, and his influence
undoubtedly had much to do with modifying both the classic and
romantic tendencies. Courbet was a man of arrogant, dogmatic
disposition, and was quite heartily detested during his life, but that
he was a painter of great ability few will deny. His theory was the
abolition of both sentiment and academic law, and the taking of nature
just as it was, with all its beauties and all its deformities. This,
too, was his practice to a certain extent. His art is material, and
yet at times lofty in conception even to the sublime. And while he
believed in realism he did not believe in petty detail, but rather in
the great truths of nature. These he saw with a discerning eye and
portrayed with a masterful brush. He believed in what he saw only, and
had more the observing than the reflective or emotional disposition.
As a technician he was coarse but superbly strong, handling sky,
earth, air, with the ease and power of one well trained in his craft.
His subjects were many--the peasantry of France, landscape, and the
sea holding prominent places--and his influence, though not direct
because he had no pupils of consequence, has been most potent with the
late men.
[Illustration: FIG. 67.--CABANEL. PHÆDRA.]
The young painter of to-day who does things in a "realistic" way is
frequently met with in French art. L'hermitte (1844-), Julien Dupré
(1851-), and others have handled the peasant subject with skill, after
the Millet-Courbet initiative; and Bastien-Lepage (1848-1884) excited
a good deal of admiration in his lifetime for the truth and evident
sincerity of his art. Bastien's point of view was realistic enough,
but somewhat material. He never handled the large composition with
success, but in small pieces and in portraits he was quite above
criticism. His following among the young men was considerable, and the
so-called impressionists have ranked him among their disciples or
leaders.
PAINTERS OF MILITARY SCENES, GENRE, ETC.: The art of Meissonier
(1815-1891), while extremely realistic in modern detail, probably
originated from a study of the seventeenth-century Dutchmen like
Terburg and Metsu. It does not portray low life, but rather the
half-aristocratic--the scholar, the cavalier, the gentleman of
leisure. This is done on a small scale with microscopic nicety, and
really more in the historical than the _genre_ spirit. Single figures
and interiors were his preference, but he also painted a cycle of
Napoleonic battle-pictures with much force. There is little or no
sentiment about his work--little more than in that of Gérôme. His
success lay in exact technical accomplishment. He drew well, painted
well, and at times was a superior colorist. His art is more admired by
the public than by the painters; but even the latter do not fail to
praise his skill of hand. He was a great craftsman in the infinitely
little. As a great artist his rank is still open to question.
The _genre_ painting of fashionable life has been carried out by many
followers of Meissonier, whose names need not be mentioned since they
have not improved upon their forerunner. Toulmouche (1829-), Leloir
(1843-1884), Vibert (1840-), Bargue (?-1883), and others, though
somewhat different from Meissonier, belong among those painters of
_genre_ who love detail, costumes, stories, and pretty faces. Among
the painters of military _genre_ mention should be made of De Neuville
(1836-1885), Berne-Bellecour (1838-), Detaille (1848-), and Aimé-Morot
(1850-), all of them painters of merit.
Quite a different style of painting--half figure-piece half
_genre_--is to be found in the work of Ribot (1823-), a strong
painter, remarkable for his apposition of high flesh lights with deep
shadows, after the manner of Ribera, the Spanish painter. Roybet
(1840-) is fond of rich stuffs and tapestries with velvet-clad
characters in interiors, out of which he makes good color effects.
Bonvin (1817-1887) and Mettling have painted the interior with small
figures, copper-kettles, and other still-life that have given
brilliancy to their pictures. As a still-life painter Vollon (1833-)
has never had a superior. His fruits, flowers, armors, even his small
marines and harbor pieces, are painted with one of the surest brushes
of this century. He is called the "painter's painter," and is a man of
great force in handling color, and in large realistic effect. Dantan
and Friant have both produced canvases showing figures in interiors.
A number of excellent _genre_ painters have been claimed by the
impressionists as belonging to their brotherhood. There is little to
warrant the claim, except the adoption to some extent of the modern
ideas of illumination and flat painting. Dagnan-Bouveret (1852-) is
one of these men, a good draughtsman, and a finished clean painter who
by his recent use of high color finds himself occasionally looked upon
as an impressionist. As a matter of fact he is one of the most
conservative of the moderns--a man of feeling and imagination, and a
fine technician. Fantin-Latour (1836-1904) is half romantic, half
allegorical in subject, and in treatment oftentimes designedly vague
and shadowy, more suggestive than realistic. Duez (1843-) and Gervex
(1848-) are perhaps nearer to impressionism in their works than the
others, but they are not at all advance advocates of this latest phase
of art. In addition there are Cottet and Henri Martin.
[Illustration: FIG. 68.--MEISSONIER. NAPOLEON IN 1814.]
THE IMPRESSIONISTS: The name is a misnomer. Every painter is an
impressionist in so far as he records his impressions, and all art is
impressionistic. What Manet (1833-1883), the leader of the original
movement, meant to say was that nature should not be painted as it
actually is, but as it "impresses" the painter. He and his few
followers tried to change the name to Independents, but the original
name has clung to them and been mistakenly fastened to a present band
of landscape painters who are seeking effects of light and air and
should be called luminists if it is necessary for them to be named at
all. Manet was extravagant in method and disposed toward low life for
a subject, which has always militated against his popularity; but he
was a very important man for his technical discoveries regarding the
relations of light and shadow, the flat appearance of nature, the
exact value of color tones. Some of his works, like The Boy with a
Sword and The Toreador Dead, are excellent pieces of painting. The
higher imaginative qualities of art Manet made no great effort at
attaining.
Degas stands quite by himself, strong in effects of motion, especially
with race-horses, fine in color, and a delightful brushman in such
subjects as ballet-girls and scenes from the theatre. Besnard is one
of the best of the present men. He deals with the figure, and is
usually concerned with the problem of harmonizing color under
conflicting lights, such as twilight and lamplight. Béraud and
Raffaelli are exceedingly clever in street scenes and character
pieces; Pissarro[16] handles the peasantry in high color; Brown
(1829-1890), the race-horse, and Renoir, the middle class of social
life. Caillebotte, Roll, Forain, and Miss Cassatt, an American, are
also classed with the impressionists.
[Footnote 16: Died, 1903.]
IMPRESSIONIST LANDSCAPE PAINTERS: Of recent years there has been a
disposition to change the key of light in landscape painting, to get
nearer the truth of nature in the height of light and in the height of
shadows. In doing this Claude Monet, the present leader of the
movement, has done away with the dark brown or black shadow and
substituted the light-colored shadow, which is nearer the actual truth
of nature. In trying to raise the pitch of light he has not been quite
so successful, though accomplishing something. His method is to use
pure prismatic colors on the principle that color is light in a
decomposed form, and that its proper juxtaposition on canvas will
recompose into pure light again. Hence the use of light shadows and
bright colors. The aim of these modern men is chiefly to gain the
effect of light and air. They do not apparently care for subject,
detail, or composition.
At present their work is in the experimental stage, but from the way
in which it is being accepted and followed by the painters of to-day
we may be sure the movement is of considerable importance. There will
probably be a reaction in favor of more form and solidity than the
present men give, but the high key of light will be retained. There
are so many painters following these modern methods, not only in
France but all over the world, that a list of their names would be
impossible. In France Sisley with Monet are the two important
landscapists. In marines Boudin and Montenard should be mentioned.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: The modern French painters are seen to
advantage in the Louvre, Luxembourg, Pantheon, Sorbonne, and
the municipal galleries of France. Also Metropolitan Museum
New York, Chicago Art Institute, Boston Museum, and many
private collections in France and America. Consult for works
in public or private hands, Champlin and Perkins,
_Cyclopedia of Painters and Paintings_, under names of
artists.
CHAPTER XV.
SPANISH PAINTING.
BOOKS RECOMMENDED: Bermudez, _Diccionario de las Bellas
Artes en España_; Davillier, _Mémoire de Velasquez_;
Davillier, _Fortuny_; Eusebi, _Los Differentes Escuelas de
Pintura_; Ford, _Handbook of Spain_; Head, _History of
Spanish and French Schools of Painting_; Justi, _Velasquez
and his Times_; Lefort, _Velasquez_; Lefort, _Francisco
Goya_; Lefort, _Murillo et son École_; Lefort, _La Peinture
Espagnole_; Palomino de Castro y Velasco, _Vidas de los
Pintores y Estatuarios Eminentes Españoles_; Passavant, _Die
Christliche Kunst in Spanien_; Plon, _Les Maîtres Italiens
au Service de la Maison d'Autriche_; Stevenson, _Velasquez_;
Stirling, _Annals of the Artists of Spain_; Stirling,
_Velasquez and his Works_; Tubino, _El Arte y los Artistas
contemporáneos en la Peninsula_; Tubino, _Murillo_; Viardot,
_Notices sur les Principaux Peintres de l'Espagne_; Yriarte,
_Goya, sa Biographie_, etc.
SPANISH ART MOTIVES: What may have been the early art of Spain we are
at a loss to conjecture. The reigns of the Moor, the Iconoclast, and,
finally, the Inquisitor, have left little that dates before the
fourteenth century. The miniatures and sacred relics treasured in the
churches and said to be of the apostolic period, show the traces of a
much later date and a foreign origin. Even when we come down to the
fifteenth century and meet with art produced in Spain, we have a
following of Italy or the Netherlands. In methods and technic it was
derivative more than original, though almost from the beginning
peculiarly Spanish in spirit.
[Illustration: FIG. 69.--SANCHEZ COELLO. CLARA EUGENIA, DAUGHTER OF
PHILIP II. MADRID.]
That spirit was a dark and savage one, a something that cringed under
the lash of the Church, bowed before the Inquisition, and played the
executioner with the paint-brush. The bulk of Spanish art was Church
art, done under ecclesiastical domination, and done in form without
question or protest. The religious subject ruled. True enough, there
was portraiture of nobility, and under Philip and Velasquez a
half-monarchical art of military scenes and _genre_; but this was not
the bent of Spanish painting as a whole. Even in late days, when
Velasquez was reflecting the haughty court, Murillo was more widely
and nationally reflecting the believing provinces and the Church
faith of the people. It is safe to say, in a general way, that the
Church was responsible for Spanish art, and that religion was its
chief motive.
There was no revived antique, little of the nude or the pagan, little
of consequence in landscape, little, until Velasquez's time, of the
real and the actual. An ascetic view of life, faith, and the hereafter
prevailed. The pietistic, the fervent, and the devout were not so
conspicuous as the morose, the ghastly, and the horrible. The saints
and martyrs, the crucifixions and violent deaths, were eloquent of the
torture-chamber. It was more ecclesiasticism by blood and violence
than Christianity by peace and love. And Spain welcomed this. For of
all the children of the Church she was the most faithful to rule,
crushing out heresy with an iron hand, gaining strength from the
Catholic reaction, and upholding the Jesuits and the Inquisition.
METHODS OF PAINTING: Spanish art worthy of mention did not appear
until the fifteenth century. At that time Spain was in close relations
with the Netherlands, and Flemish painting was somewhat followed. How
much the methods of the Van Eycks influenced Spain would be hard to
determine, especially as these Northern methods were mixed with
influences coming from Italy. Finally, the Italian example prevailed
by reason of Spanish students in Italy and Italian painters in Spain.
Florentine line, Venetian color, and Neapolitan light-and-shade ruled
almost everywhere, and it was not until the time of Velasquez--the
period just before the eighteenth-century decline--that distinctly
Spanish methods, founded on nature, really came forcibly to the front.
SPANISH SCHOOLS OF PAINTING: There is difficulty in classifying these
schools of painting because our present knowledge of them is limited.
Isolated somewhat from the rest of Europe, the Spanish painters have
never been critically studied as the Italians have been, and what is
at present known about the schools must be accepted subject to
critical revision hereafter.
[Illustration: FIG. 70.--MURILLO. ST. ANTHONY OF PADUA. BERLIN.]
The earliest school seems to have been made up from a gathering of
artists at Toledo, who limned, carved, and gilded in the cathedral;
but this school was not of long duration. It was merged into the
Castilian school, which, after the building of Madrid, made its home
in that capital and drew its forces from the towns of Toledo,
Valladolid, and Badajoz. The Andalusian school, which rose about the
middle of the sixteenth century, was made up from the local schools of
Seville, Cordova, and Granada. The Valencian school, to the
southeast, rose about the same time, and was finally merged into the
Andalusian. The Aragonese school, to the east, was small and of no
great consequence, though existing in a feeble way to the end of the
seventeenth century. The painters of these schools are not very
strongly marked apart by methods or school traditions, and perhaps the
divisions would better be looked upon as more geographical than
otherwise. None of the schools really began before the sixteenth
century, though there are names of artists and some extant pictures
before that date, and with the seventeenth century all art in Spain
seems to have centred about Madrid.
Spanish painting started into life concurrently with the rise to
prominence of Spain as a political kingdom. What, if any, direct
effect the maritime discoveries, the conquests of Granada and Naples,
the growth of literature, and the decline of Italy, may have had upon
Spanish painting can only be conjectured; but certainly the sudden
advance of the nation politically and socially was paralleled by the
advance of its art.
THE CASTILIAN SCHOOL: This school probably had no so-called founder.
It was a growth from early art traditions at Toledo, and afterward
became the chief school of the kingdom owing to the patronage of
Philip II. and Philip IV. at Madrid. The first painter of importance
in the school seems to have been Antonio Rincon (1446?-1500?). He is
sometimes spoken of as the father of Spanish painting, and as having
studied in Italy with Castagno and Ghirlandajo, but there is little
foundation for either statement. He painted chiefly at Toledo, painted
portraits of Ferdinand and Isabella, and had some skill in hard
drawing. Berruguete (1480?-1561) studied with Michael Angelo, and is
supposed to have helped him in the Vatican. He afterward returned to
Spain, painted many altar-pieces, and was patronized as painter,
sculptor, and architect by Charles V. and Philip II. He was probably
the first to introduce pure Italian methods into Spain, with some
coldness and dryness of coloring and handling. Becerra (1520?-1570)
was born in Andalusia, but worked in Castile, and was a man of Italian
training similar to Berruguete. He was an exceptional man, perhaps, in
his use of mythological themes and nude figures.
There is not a great deal known about Morales (1509?-1586), called
"the Divine," except that he was allied to the Castilian school, and
painted devotional heads of Christ with the crown of thorns, and many
afflicted and weeping madonnas. There was Florentine drawing in his
work, great regard for finish, and something of Correggio's softness
in shadows pitched in a browner key. His sentiment was rather
exaggerated. Sanchez-Coello (1513?-1590) was painter and courtier to
Philip II., and achieved reputation as a portrait-painter, though also
doing some altar-pieces. It is doubtful whether he ever studied in
Italy, but in Spain he was for a time with Antonio Moro, and probably
learned from him something of rich costumes, ermines, embroideries,
and jewels, for which his portraits were remarkable. Navarette
(1526?-1579), called "El Mudo" (the dumb one), certainly was in Italy
for something like twenty years, and was there a disciple of Titian,
from whom he doubtless learned much of color and the free flow of
draperies. He was one of the best of the middle-period painters.
Theotocopuli (1548?-1625), called "El Greco" (the Greek), was another
Venetian-influenced painter, with enough Spanish originality about him
to make most of his pictures striking in color and drawing. Tristan
(1586-1640) was his best follower.
[Illustration: FIG. 71.--RIBERA. ST. AGNES. DRESDEN.]
Velasquez (1599-1660) is the greatest name in the history of Spanish
painting. With him Spanish art took upon itself a decidedly
naturalistic and national stamp. Before his time Italy had been freely
imitated; but though Velasquez himself was in Italy for quite a long
time, and intimately acquainted with great Italian art, he never
seemed to have been led away from his own individual way of seeing and
doing. He was a pupil of Herrera, afterward with Pacheco, and learned
much from Ribera and Tristan, but more from a direct study of nature
than from all the others. He was in a broad sense a realist--a man who
recorded the material and the actual without emendation or
transposition. He has never been surpassed in giving the solidity and
substance of form and the placing of objects in atmosphere. And this,
not in a small, finical way, but with a breadth of view and of
treatment which are to-day the despair of painters. There was nothing
of the ethereal, the spiritual, the pietistic, or the pathetic about
him. He never for a moment left the firm basis of reality. Standing
upon earth he recorded the truths of the earth, but in their largest,
fullest, most universal forms.
Technically his was a master-hand, doing all things with ease, giving
exact relations of colors and lights, and placing everything so
perfectly that no addition or alteration is thought of. With the brush
he was light, easy, sure. The surface looks as though touched once, no
more. It is the perfection of handling through its simplicity and
certainty, and has not the slightest trace of affectation or
mannerism. He was one of the few Spanish painters who were enabled to
shake off the yoke of the Church. Few of his canvases are religious in
subject. Under royal patronage he passed almost all of his life in
painting portraits of the royal family, ministers of state, and great
dignitaries. As a portrait-painter he is more widely known than as a
figure-painter. Nevertheless he did many canvases like The Tapestry
Weavers and The Surrender at Breda, which attest his remarkable genius
in that field; and even in landscape, in _genre_, in animal painting,
he was a very superior man. In fact Velasquez is one of the few great
painters in European history for whom there is nothing but praise. He
was the full-rounded complete painter, intensely individual and
self-assertive, and yet in his art recording in a broad way the
Spanish type and life. He was the climax of Spanish painting, and
after him there was a rather swift decline, as had been the case in
the Italian schools.
Mazo (1610?-1667), pupil and son-in-law of Velasquez, was one of his
most facile imitators, and Carreño de Miranda (1614-1685) was
influenced by Velasquez, and for a time his assistant. The Castilian
school may be said to have closed with these late men and with Claudio
Coello (1635?-1693), a painter with a style founded on Titian and
Rubens, whose best work was of extraordinary power. Spanish painting
went out with Spanish power, and only isolated men of small rank
remained.
ANDALUSIAN SCHOOL: This school came into existence about the middle of
the sixteenth century. Its chief centre was at Seville, and its chief
patron the Church rather than the king. Vargas (1502-1568) was
probably the real founder of the school, though De Castro (fl. 1454)
and others preceded him. Vargas was a man of much reputation and
ability in his time, and introduced Italian methods and elegance into
the Andalusian school after twenty odd years of residence in Italy. He
is said to have studied under Perino del Vaga, and there is some
sweetness of face and grace of form about his work that point that
way, though his composition suggests Correggio. Most of his frescos
have perished; some of his canvases are still in existence.
Cespedes (1538?-1608) is little known through extant works, but he
achieved fame in many departments during his life, and is said to have
been in Italy under Florentine influence. His coloring was rather
cold, and his drawing large and flat. The best early painter of the
school was Roelas (1558?-1625), the inspirer of Murillo and the master
of Zurbaran. He is supposed to have studied at Venice, because of his
rich, glowing color. Most of his works are religious and are found
chiefly at Seville. He was greatly patronized by the Jesuits. Pacheco
(1571-1654) was more of a pedant than a painter, a man of rule, who
to-day might be written down an academician. His drawing was hard, and
perhaps the best reason for his being remembered is that he was one of
the masters and the father-in-law of Velasquez. His rival, Herrera the
Elder (1576?-1656) was a stronger man--in fact, the most original
artist of his school. He struck off by himself and created a bold
realism with a broad brush that anticipated Velasquez--in fact,
Velasquez was under him for a time.
The pure Spanish school in Andalusia, as distinct from Italian
imitation, may be said to have started with Herrera. It was further
advanced by another independent painter, Zurbaran (1598-1662), a pupil
of Roelas. He was a painter of the emaciated monk in ecstasy, and many
other rather dismal religious subjects expressive of tortured rapture.
From using a rather dark shadow he acquired the name of the Spanish
Caravaggio. He had a good deal of Caravaggio's strength, together with
a depth and breadth of color suggestive of the Venetians. Cano
(1601-1667), though he never was in Italy, had the name of the Spanish
Michael Angelo, probably because he was sculptor, painter, and
architect. His painting was rather sharp in line and statuesque in
pose, with a coloring somewhat like that of Van Dyck. It was eclectic
rather than original work.
[Illustration: FIG. 72.--FORTUNY. SPANISH MARRIAGE.]
Murillo (1618-1682) is generally placed at the head of the Andalusian
school, as Velasquez at the head of the Castilian. There is good
reason for it, for though Murillo was not the great painter he was
sometime supposed, yet he was not the weak man his modern critics
would make him out. A religious painter largely, though doing some
_genre_ subjects like his beggar-boy groups, he sought for religious
fervor and found, only too often, sentimentality. His madonnas are
usually after the Carlo Dolci pattern, though never so excessive in
sentiment. This was not the case with his earlier works, mostly of
humble life, which were painted in rather a hard, positive manner.
Later on he became misty, veiled in light and effeminate in outline,
though still holding grace. His color varied with his early and later
styles. It was usually gay and a little thin. While basing his work on
nature like Velasquez, he never had the supreme poise of that master,
either mentally or technically; howbeit he was an excellent painter,
who perhaps justly holds second place in Spanish art.
SCHOOL OF VALENCIA: This school rose contemporary with the Andalusian
school, into which it was finally merged after the importance of
Madrid had been established. It was largely modelled upon Italian
painting, as indeed were all the schools of Spain at the start. Juan
de Joanes (1507?-1579) apparently was its founder, a man who painted a
good portrait, but in other respects was only a fair imitator of
Raphael, whom he had studied at Rome. A stronger man was Francisco de
Ribalta (1550?-1628), who was for a time in Italy under the Caracci,
and learned from them free draughtsmanship and elaborate composition.
He was also fond of Sebastiano del Piombo, and in his best works (at
Valencia) reflected him. Ribalta gave an early training to Ribera
(1588-1656), who was the most important man of this school. In reality
Ribera was more Italian than Valencian, for he spent the greater part
of his life in Italy, where he was called Lo Spagnoletto, and was
greatly influenced by Caravaggio. He was a Spaniard in the horrible
subjects that he chose, but in coarse strength of line, heaviness of
shadows, harsh handling of the brush, he was a true Neapolitan
Darkling. A pronounced mannerist he was no less a man of strength, and
even in his shadow-saturated colors a painter with the color instinct.
In Italy his influence in the time of the Decadence was wide-spread,
and in Spain his Italian pupil, Giordano, introduced his methods for
late imitation. There were no other men of much rank in the Valencian
school, and, as has been said, the school was eventually merged in
Andalusian painting.
EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH-CENTURY PAINTING IN SPAIN: Almost directly
after the passing of Velasquez and Murillo Spanish art failed. The
eighteenth-century, as in Italy, was quite barren of any considerable
art until near its close. Then Goya (1746-1828) seems to have made a
partial restoration of painting. He was a man of peculiarly Spanish
turn of mind, fond of the brutal and the bloody, picturing inquisition
scenes, bull-fights, battle pieces, and revelling in caricature,
sarcasm, and ridicule. His imagination was grotesque and horrible, but
as a painter his art was based on the natural, and was exceedingly
strong. In brush-work he followed Velasquez; in a peculiar forcing of
contrasts in light and dark he was apparently quite himself, though
possibly influenced by Ribera's work. His best work shows in his
portraits and etchings.
After Goya's death Spanish art, such as it was, rather followed
France, with the extravagant classicism of David as a model. What was
produced may be seen to this day in the Madrid Museum. It does not
call for mention here. About the beginning of the 1860's Spanish
painting made a new advance with Mariano Fortuny (1838-1874). In his
early years he worked at historical painting, but later on he went to
Algiers and Rome, finding his true vent in a bright sparkling painting
of _genre_ subjects, oriental scenes, streets, interiors, single
figures, and the like. He excelled in color, sunlight effects, and
particularly in a vivacious facile handling of the brush. His work is
brilliant, and in his late productions often spotty from excessive
use of points of light in high color. He was a technician of much
brilliancy and originality, his work exciting great admiration in his
day, and leading the younger painters of Spain into that ornate
handling visible in their works at the present time. Many of these
latter, from association with art and artists in Paris, have adopted
French methods, and hardly show such a thing as Spanish nationality.
Fortuny's brother-in-law, Madrazo (1841-), is an example of a Spanish
painter turned French in his methods--a facile and brilliant
portrait-painter. Zamacois (1842-1871) died early, but with a
reputation as a successful portrayer of seventeenth-century subjects a
little after the style of Meissonier and not unlike Gérôme. He was a
good colorist and an excellent painter of textures.
[Illustration: FIG. 73.--MADRAZO, UNMASKED.]
The historical scene of Mediæval or Renaissance times, pageants and
fêtes with rich costume, fine architecture and vivid effects of color,
are characteristic of a number of the modern Spaniards--Villegas,
Pradilla, Alvarez. As a general thing their canvases are a little
flashy, likely to please at first sight but grow wearisome after a
time. Palmaroli has a style that resembles a mixture of Fortuny and
Meissonier; and some other painters, like Luis Jiminez Aranda,
Sorolla, Zuloaga, Anglada, Garcia y Remos, Vierge, Roman Ribera, and
Domingo, have done excellent work. In landscape and Venetian scenes
Rico leads among the Spaniards with a vivacity and brightness not
always seen to good advantage in his late canvases.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Generally speaking, Spanish art cannot be
seen to advantage outside of Spain. Both its ancient and
modern masterpieces are at Madrid, Seville, Toledo, and
elsewhere. The Royal Gallery at Madrid has the most and the
best examples.
CASTILIAN SCHOOL--Rincon, altar-piece church of Robleda de
Chavilla; Berruguete, altar-pieces Saragossa, Valladolid,
Madrid, Toledo; Morales, Madrid and Louvre; Sanchez-Coello,
Madrid and Brussels Mus.; Navarette, Escorial, Madrid, St.
Petersburg; Theotocopuli, Cathedral and S. Tomé Toledo,
Madrid Mus.; Velasquez, best works in Madrid Mus., Escorial,
Salamanca, Montpensier Gals., Nat. Gal. Lon., Infanta
Marguerita Louvre, Borro portrait (?) Berlin, Innocent X.
Doria Rome; Mazo, landscapes Madrid Mus.; Carreño de
Miranda, Madrid Mus.; Claudio Coello, Escorial, Madrid,
Brussels, Berlin, and Munich Mus.
ANDALUSIAN SCHOOL--Vargas, Seville Cathedral; Cespedes,
Cordova Cathedral; Roelas, S. Isidore Cathedral, Museum
Seville; Pacheco, Madrid Mus.; Herrera, Seville Cathedral
and Mus. and Archbishop's Palace, Dresden Mus.; Zurbaran,
Seville Cathedral and Mus. Madrid, Dresden, Louvre, Nat.
Gal. Lon.; Cano, Madrid, Seville Mus. and Cathedral, Berlin,
Dresden, Munich; Murillo, best pictures in Madrid Mus. and
Acad. of S. Fernando Madrid, Seville Mus. Hospital and
Capuchin Church, Louvre, Nat. Gal. Lon., Dresden, Munich,
Hermitage.
VALENCIAN SCHOOL--Juan de Joanes, Madrid Mus., Cathedral
Valencia, Hermitage; Ribalta, Madrid and Valencian Mus.,
Hermitage; Ribera, Louvre, Nat. Gal. Lon., Dresden, Naples,
Hermitage, and other European museums, chief works at
Madrid.
MODERN MEN AND THEIR WORKS--Goya, Madrid Mus., Acad. of S.
Fernando, Valencian Cathedral and Mus., two portraits in
Louvre. The works of the contemporary painters are largely
in private hands where reference to them is of little use to
the average student. Thirty Fortunys are in the collection
of William H. Stewart in Paris. His best work, The Spanish
Marriage, belongs to Madame de Cassin, in Paris. Examples of
Villegas, Madrazo, Rico, Domingo, and others, in the
Vanderbilt Gallery, Metropolitan Mus., New York; Boston,
Chicago, and Philadelphia Mus.
CHAPTER XVI.
FLEMISH PAINTING.
BOOKS RECOMMENDED: Busscher, _Recherches sur les Peintres
Gantois_; Crowe and Cavalcaselle, _Early Flemish Painters_;
Cust, _Van Dyck_; Dehaisnes, _L'Art dans la Flandre_; Du
Jardin, _L'art Flamand_; Eisenmann, _The Brothers Van Eyck_;
Fétis, _Les Artistes Belges à l'Étranger_; Fromentin, _Old
Masters of Belgium and Holland_; Gerrits, _Rubens zyn Tyd,
etc._; Guiffrey, _Van Dyck_; Hasselt, _Histoire de Rubens_;
(Waagen's) Kügler, _Handbook of Painting--German, Flemish,
and Dutch Schools_; Lemonnier, _Histoire des Arts en
Belgique_; Mantz, _Adrien Brouwer_; Michel, _Rubens_;
Michiels, _Rubens en l'École d'Anvers_; Michiels, _Histoire
de la Peinture Flamande_; Stevenson, _Rubens_; Van den
Branden, _Geschiedenis der Antwerpsche Schilderschool_; Van
Mander, _Le Livre des Peintres_; Waagen, _Uber Hubert und
Jan Van Eyck_; Waagen, _Peter Paul Rubens_; Wauters, _Rogier
van der Weyden_; Wauters, _La Peinture Flamande_; Weale,
_Hans Memling_ (_Arundel Soc._); Weale, _Notes sur Jean Van
Eyck_.
THE FLEMISH PEOPLE: Individually and nationally the Flemings were
strugglers against adverse circumstances from the beginning. A
realistic race with practical ideas, a people rather warm of impulse
and free in habits, they combined some German sentiment with French
liveliness and gayety. The solidarity of the nation was not
accomplished until after 1385, when the Dukes of Burgundy began to
extend their power over the Low Countries. Then the Flemish people
became strong enough to defy both Germany and France, and wealthy
enough, through their commerce with Spain, Italy, and France to
encourage art not only at the Ducal court but in the churches, and
among the citizens of the various towns.
[Illustration: FIG. 74.--VAN EYCKS. ST. BAVON ALTAR-PIECE (WING).
BERLIN.]
FLEMISH SUBJECTS AND METHODS: As in all the countries of Europe, the
early Flemish painting pictured Christian subjects primarily. The
great bulk of it was church altar-pieces, though side by side with
this was an admirable portraiture, some knowledge of landscape, and
some exposition of allegorical subjects. In means and methods it was
quite original. The early history is lost, but if Flemish painting was
beholden to the painting of any other nation, it was to the miniature
painting of France. There is, however, no positive record of this. The
Flemings seem to have begun by themselves, and pictured the life about
them in their own way. They were apparently not influenced at first by
Italy. There were no antique influences, no excavated marbles to copy,
no Byzantine traditions left to follow. At first their art was exact
and minute in detail, but not well grasped in the mass. The
compositions were huddled, the landscapes pure but finical, the
figures inclined to slimness, awkwardness, and angularity in the lines
of form or drapery, and uncertain in action. To offset this there was
a positive realism in textures, perspective, color, tone, light, and
atmosphere. The effect of the whole was odd and strained, but the
effect of the part was to convince one that the Flemish painters were
excellent craftsmen in detail, skilled with the brush, and shrewd
observers of nature in a purely picturesque way.
To the Flemish painters of the fifteenth century belongs, not the
invention of oil-painting, for it was known before their time, but its
acceptable application in picture-making. They applied oil with color
to produce brilliancy and warmth of effect, to insure firmness and
body in the work, and to carry out textural effects in stuffs,
marbles, metals, and the like. So far as we know there never was much
use of distemper, or fresco-work upon the walls of buildings. The oil
medium came into vogue when the miniatures and illuminations of the
early days had expanded into panel pictures. The size of the miniature
was increased, but the minute method of finishing was not laid aside.
Some time afterward painting with oil upon canvas was adopted.
SCHOOL OF BRUGES: Painting in Flanders starts abruptly with the
fifteenth century. What there was before that time more than
miniatures and illuminations is not known. Time and the Iconoclasts
have left no remains of consequence. Flemish art for us begins with
Hubert van Eyck (?-1426) and his younger brother Jan van Eyck
(?-1440). The elder brother is supposed to have been the better
painter, because the most celebrated work of the brothers--the St.
Bavon altar-piece, parts of which are in Ghent, Brussels, and
Berlin--bears the inscription that Hubert began it and Jan finished
it. Hubert was no doubt an excellent painter, but his pictures are few
and there is much discussion whether he or Jan painted them. For
historical purposes Flemish art was begun, and almost completed, by
Jan van Eyck. He had all the attributes of the early men, and was one
of the most perfect of Flemish painters. He painted real forms and
real life, gave them a setting in true perspective and light, and put
in background landscapes with a truthful if minute regard for the
facts. His figures in action had some awkwardness, they were small of
head, slim of body, and sometimes stumbled; but his modelling of
faces, his rendering of textures in cloth, metal, stone, and the like,
his delicate yet firm _facture_ were all rather remarkable for his
time. None of this early Flemish art has the grandeur of Italian
composition, but in realistic detail, in landscape, architecture,
figure, and dress, in pathos, sincerity, and sentiment it is
unsurpassed by any fifteenth-century art.
[Illustration: FIG. 75.--MEMLING (?). ST. LAWRENCE (DETAIL). NAT.
GAL., LONDON.]
Little is known of the personal history of either of the Van Eycks.
They left an influence and had many followers, but whether these were
direct pupils or not is an open question. Peter Cristus (1400?-1472)
was perhaps a pupil of Jan, though more likely a follower of his
methods in color and general technic. Roger van der Weyden
(1400?-1464), whether a pupil of the Van Eycks or a rival, produced a
similar style of art. His first master was an obscure Robert Campin.
He was afterward at Bruges, and from there went to Brussels and
founded a school of his own called the
SCHOOL OF BRABANT: He was more emotional and dramatic than Jan van
Eyck, giving much excited action and pathetic expression to his
figures in scenes from the passion of Christ. He had not Van Eyck's
skill, nor his detail, nor his color. More of a draughtsman than a
colorist, he was angular in figure and drapery, but had honesty,
pathos, and sincerity, and was very charming in bright background
landscapes. Though spending some time in Italy, he was never
influenced by Italian art. He was always Flemish in type, subject, and
method, a trifle repulsive at first through angularity and emotional
exaggeration, but a man to be studied.
By Van der Goes (1430?-1482) there are but few good examples, the
chief one being an altar-piece in the Uffizi at Florence. It is
angular in drawing but full of character, and in beauty of detail and
ornamentation is a remarkable picture. He probably followed Van der
Weyden, as did also Justus van Ghent (last half of fifteenth century).
Contemporary with these men Dierick Bouts (1410-1475) established a
school at Haarlem. He was Dutch by birth, but after 1450 settled in
Louvain, and in his art belongs to the Flemish school. He was
influenced by Van der Weyden, and shows it in his detail of hands and
melancholy face, though he differed from him in dramatic action and in
type. His figure was awkward, his color warm and rich, and in
landscape backgrounds he greatly advanced the painting of the time.
Memling (1425?-1495?), one of the greatest of the school, is another
man about whose life little is known. He was probably associated with
Van der Weyden in some way. His art is founded on the Van Eyck school,
and is remarkable for sincerity, purity, and frankness of attitude. As
a religious painter, he was perhaps beyond all his contemporaries in
tenderness and pathos. In portraiture he was exceedingly strong in
characterization, and in his figures very graceful. His flesh painting
was excellent, but in textures or landscape work he was not
remarkable. His best followers were Van der Meire (1427?-1474?) and
Gheeraert David (1450?-1523). The latter was famous for the fine,
broad landscapes in the backgrounds of his pictures, said, however, by
critics to have been painted by Joachim Patinir. He was realistically
horrible in many subjects, and though a close recorder of detail he
was much broader than any of his predecessors.
FLEMISH SCHOOLS OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY: In this century Flemish
painting became rather widely diffused. The schools of Bruges and
Ghent gave place to the schools in the large commercial cities like
Antwerp and Brussels, and the commercial relations between the Low
Countries and Italy finally led to the dissipation of national
characteristics in art and the imitation of the Italian Renaissance
painters. There is no sharp line of demarcation between those painters
who clung to Flemish methods and those who adopted Italian methods.
The change was gradual.
[Illustration: FIG. 76.--MASSYS. HEAD OF VIRGIN. ANTWERP.]
Quentin Massys (1460?-1530) and Mostert (1474-1556?), a Dutchman by
birth, but, like Bouts, Flemish by influence, were among the last of
the Gothic painters in Flanders, and yet they began the introduction
of Italian features in their painting. Massys led in architectural
backgrounds, and from that the Italian example spread to subjects,
figures, methods, until the indigenous Flemish art became a thing of
the past. Massys was, at Antwerp, the most important painter of his
day, following the old Flemish methods with many improvements. His
work was detailed, and yet executed with a broader, freer brush than
formerly, and with more variety in color, modelling, expression of
character. He increased figures to almost life-size, giving them
greater importance than landscape or architecture. The type was still
lean and angular, and often contorted with emotion. His Money-Changers
and Misers (many of them painted by his son) were a _genre_ of his
own. With him closed the Gothic school, and with him began the
ANTWERP SCHOOL, the pupils of which went to Italy, and eventually
became Italianized. Mabuse (1470?-1541) was the first to go. His early
work shows the influence of Massys and David. He was good in
composition, color, and brush-work, but lacked in originality, as did
all the imitators of Italy. Franz Floris (1518?-1570) was a man of
talent, much admired in his time, because he brought back
reminiscences of Michael Angelo to Antwerp. His influence was fatal
upon his followers, of whom there were many, like the Franckens and De
Vos. Italy and Roman methods, models, architecture, subjects, began to
rule everywhere.
From Brussels Barent van Orley (1491?-1542) left early for Italy, and
became essentially Italian, though retaining some Flemish color. He
painted in oil, tempera, and for glass, and is supposed to have gained
his brilliant colors by using a gilt ground. His early works remind
one of David. Cocxie (1499-1592), the Flemish Raphael, was but an
indifferent imitator of the Italian Raphael. At Liége the Romanists,
so called, began with Lambert Lombard (1505-1566), of whose work
nothing authentic remains except drawings. At Bruges Peeter Pourbus
(1510?-1584) was about the last one of the good portrait-painters of
the time. Another excellent portrait-painter, a pupil of Scorel, was
Antonio Moro (1512?-1578?). He had much dignity, force, and
elaborateness of costume, and stood quite by himself. There were other
painters of the time who were born or trained in Flanders, and yet
became so naturalized in other countries that in their work they do
not belong to Flanders. Neuchatel (1527?-1590?), Geldorp (1553-1616?),
Calvaert (1540?-1619), Spranger (1546-1627?), and others, were of this
group.
Among all the strugglers in Italian imitation only a few landscapists
held out for the Flemish view. Paul Bril (1554-1626) was the first of
them. He went to Italy, but instead of following the methods taught
there, he taught Italians his own view of landscape. His work was a
little dry and formal, but graceful in composition, and good in light
and color. The Brueghels--there were three of them--also stood out for
Flemish landscape, introducing it nominally as a background for small
figures, but in reality for the beauty of the landscape itself.
[Illustration: FIG. 77.--RUBENS. PORTRAIT OF YOUNG WOMAN. HERMITAGE,
ST. PETERSBURGH.]
SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY PAINTING: This was the great century of Flemish
painting, though the painting was not entirely Flemish in method or
thought. The influence of Italy had done away with the early simplicity,
purity, and religious pathos of the Van Eycks. During the sixteenth
century everything had run to bald imitation of Renaissance methods.
Then came a new master-genius, Rubens (1577-1640), who formed a new art
founded in method upon Italy, yet distinctly northern in character.
Rubens chose all subjects for his brush, but the religious altar-piece
probably occupied him as much as any. To this he gave little of Gothic
sentiment, but everything of Renaissance splendor. His art was more
material than spiritual, more brilliant and startling in sensuous
qualities, such as line and color, than charming by facial expression or
tender feeling. Something of the Paolo Veronese cast of mind, he
conceived things largely, and painted them proportionately--large
Titanic types, broad schemes and masses of color, great sweeping lines
of beauty. One value of this largeness was its ability to hold at a
distance upon wall or altar. Hence, when seen to-day, close at hand, in
museums, people are apt to think Rubens's art coarse and gross.
There is no prettiness about his type. It is not effeminate or
sentimental, but rather robust, full of life and animal spirits, full
of blood, bone, and muscle--of majestic dignity, grace, and power, and
glowing with splendor of color. In imagination, in conception of art
purely as art, and not as a mere vehicle to convey religious or
mythological ideas, in mental grasp of the pictorial world, Rubens
stands with Titian and Velasquez in the very front rank of painters.
As a technician, he was unexcelled. A master of composition,
modelling, and drawing, a master of light, and a color-harmonist of
the rarest ability, he, in addition, possessed the most certain,
adroit, and facile hand that ever handled a paint-brush. Nothing could
be more sure than the touch of Rubens, nothing more easy and
masterful. He was trained in both mind and eye, a genius by birth and
by education, a painter who saw keenly, and was able to realize what
he saw with certainty.
Well-born, ennobled by royalty, successful in both court and studio,
Rubens lived brilliantly and his life was a series of triumphs. He
painted enormous canvases, and the number of pictures, altar-pieces,
mythological decorations, landscapes, portraits scattered throughout
the galleries of Europe, and attributed to him, is simply amazing. He
was undoubtedly helped in many of his canvases by his pupils, but the
works painted by his own hand make a world of art in themselves. He
was the greatest painter of the North, a full-rounded, complete
genius, comparable to Titian in his universality. His precursors and
masters, Van Noort (1562-1641) and Vaenius (1558-1629), gave no strong
indication of the greatness of Ruben's art, and his many pupils,
though echoing his methods, never rose to his height in mental or
artistic grasp.
[Illustration: FIG. 78.--VAN DYCK. PORTRAIT OF CORNELIUS VAN DER
GEEST. NAT. GAL. LONDON.]
Van Dyck (1599-1641) was his principal pupil. He followed Rubens
closely at first, though in a slighter manner technically, and with a
cooler coloring. After visiting Italy he took up with the warmth of
Titian. Later, in England, he became careless and less certain. His
rank is given him not for his figure-pieces. They were not always
successful, lacking as they did in imagination and originality, though
done with force. His best work was his portraiture, for which he
became famous, painting nobility in every country of Europe in which
he visited. At his best he was a portrait-painter of great power, but
not to be placed in the same rank with Titian, Rubens, Rembrandt, and
Velasquez. His characters are gracefully posed, and appear to be
aristocratic. There is a noble distinction about them, and yet even
this has the feeling of being somewhat affected. The serene
complacency of his lords and ladies finally became almost a mannerism
with him, though never a disagreeable one. He died early, a painter of
mark, but not the greatest portrait-painter of the world, as is
sometimes said of him.
There were a number of Rubens's pupils, like Diepenbeeck (1596-1675),
who learned from their master a certain brush facility, but were not
sufficiently original to make deep impressions. When Rubens died the
best painter left in Belgium was Jordaens (1593-1678). He was a pupil
of Van Noort, but submitted to the Rubens influence and followed in
Rubens's style, though more florid in coloring and grosser in types.
He painted all sorts of subjects, but was seen at his best in
mythological scenes with groups of drunken satyrs and bacchants,
surrounded by a close-placed landscape. He was the most independent
and original of the followers, of whom there was a host. Crayer
(1582-1669), Janssens (1575-1632), Zegers (1591-1651), Rombouts
(1597-1637), were the prominent ones. They all took an influence more
or less pronounced from Rubens. Cornelius de Vos (1585-1651) was a
more independent man--a realistic portrait-painter of much ability.
Snyders (1579-1657), and Fyt (1609?-1661), devoted their brushes to
the painting of still-life, game, fruits, flowers, landscape--Snyders
often in collaboration with Rubens himself.
[Illustration: FIG. 79.--TENIERS THE YOUNGER. PRODIGAL SON. LOUVRE.]
Living at the same time with these half-Italianized painters, and
continuing later in the century, there was another group of painters
in the Low Countries who were emphatically of the soil, believing in
themselves and their own country and picturing scenes from commonplace
life in a manner quite their own. These were the "Little Masters," the
_genre_ painters, of whom there was even a stronger representation
appearing contemporaneously in Holland. In Belgium there were not so
many nor such talented men, but some of them were very interesting in
their work as in their subjects. Teniers the Younger (1610-1690) was
among the first of them to picture peasant, burgher, alewife, and
nobleman in all scenes and places. Nothing escaped him as a subject,
and yet his best work was shown in the handling of low life in
taverns. There is coarse wit in his work, but it is atoned for by
good color and easy handling. He was influenced by Rubens, though
decidedly different from him in many respects. Brouwer (1606?-1638)
has often been catalogued with the Holland school, but he really
belongs with Teniers, in Belgium. He died early, but left a number of
pictures remarkable for their fine "fat" quality and their beautiful
color. He was not a man of Italian imagination, but a painter of low
life, with coarse humor and not too much good taste, yet a superb
technician and vastly beyond many of his little Dutch contemporaries
at the North. Teniers and Brouwer led a school and had many followers.
In a slightly different vein was Gonzales Coques (1618-1684), who is
generally seen to advantage in pictures of interiors with family
groups. In subject he was more refined than the other _genre_
painters, and was influenced to some extent by Van Dyck. As a colorist
he held rank, and his portraiture (rarely seen) was excellent. At this
time there were also many painters of landscape, marine, battles,
still-life--in fact Belgium was alive with painters--but none of them
was sufficiently great to call for individual mention. Most of them
were followers of either Holland or Italy, and the gist of their work
will be spoken of hereafter under Dutch painting.
EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY PAINTING IN BELGIUM: Decline had set in before the
seventeenth century ended. Belgium was torn by wars, her commerce
flagged, her art-spirit seemed burned out. A long line of petty
painters followed whose works call for silence. One man alone seemed
to stand out like a star by comparison with his contemporaries,
Verhagen (1728-1811), a portrait-painter of talent.
NINETEENTH-CENTURY PAINTING IN BELGIUM: During this century Belgium
has been so closely related to France that the influence of the larger
country has been quite apparent upon the art of the smaller. In 1816
David, the leader of the French classic school, sent into exile by the
Restoration, settled at Brussels, and immediately drew around him
many pupils. His influence was felt at once, and Francois Navez
(1787-1869) was the chief one among his pupils to establish the
revived classic art in Belgium. In 1830, with Belgian independence and
almost concurrently with the romantic movement in France, there began
a romantic movement in Belgium with Wappers (1803-1874). His art was
founded substantially on Rubens; but, like the Paris romanticists, he
chose the dramatic subject of the times and treated it more for color
than for line. He drew a number of followers to himself, but the
movement was not more lasting than in France.
Wiertz (1806-1865), whose collection of works is to be seen in
Brussels, was a partial exposition of romanticism mixed with a
what-not of eccentricity entirely his own. Later on came a
comparatively new man, Louis Gallait (1810-?), who held in Brussels
substantially the same position that Delaroche did in Paris. His art
was eclectic and never strong, though he had many pupils at Brussels,
and started there a rivalry to Wappers at Antwerp. Leys (1815-1869)
holds a rather unique position in Belgian art by reason of his
affectation. He at first followed Pieter de Hooghe and other early
painters. Then, after a study of the old German painters like Cranach,
he developed an archaic style, producing a Gothic quaintness of line
and composition, mingled with old Flemish coloring. The result was
something popular, but not original or far-reaching, though
technically well done. His chief pupil was Alma Tadema (1836-), alive
to-day in London, and belonging to no school in particular. He is a
technician of ability, mannered in composition and subject, and
somewhat perfunctory in execution. His work is very popular with those
who enjoy minute detail and smooth texture-painting.
In 1851 the influence of the French realism of Courbet began to be
felt at Brussels, and since then Belgian art has followed closely the
art movements at Paris. Men like Alfred Stevens (1828-), a pupil of
Navez, are really more French than Belgian. Stevens is one of the best
of the moderns, a painter of power in fashionable or high-life
_genre_, and a colorist of the first rank in modern art. Among the
recent painters but a few can be mentioned. Willems (1823-), a weak
painter of fashionable _genre_; Verboeckhoven (1799-1881), a vastly
over-estimated animal painter; Clays (1819-), an excellent marine
painter; Boulanger, a landscapist; Wauters (1846-), a history, and
portrait-painter; Jan van Beers and Robie. The new men are Claus,
Buysse, Frederic, Khnopff, Lempoels.
[Illustration: FIG. 80.--ALFRED STEVENS. ON THE BEACH.]
PRINCIPAL WORKS:--Hubert van Eyck, Adoration of the Lamb
(with Jan van Eyck) St. Bavon Ghent (wings at Brussels and
Berlin supposed to be by Jan, the rest by Hubert); Jan van
Eyck, as above, also Arnolfini portraits Nat. Gal. Lon.,
Virgin and Donor Louvre, Madonna Staedel Mus., Man with
Pinks Berlin, Triumph of Church Madrid; Van der Weyden, a
number of pictures in Brussels and Antwerp Mus., also at
Staedel Mus., Berlin, Munich, Vienna; Cristus, Berlin,
Staedel Mus., Hermitage, Madrid; Justus van Ghent, Last
Supper Urbino Gal.; Bouts, St. Peter Louvain, Munich,
Berlin, Brussels, Vienna; Memling, Brussels Mus. and Bruges
Acad., and Hospital Antwerp, Turin, Uffizi, Munich, Vienna;
Van der Meire, triptych St. Bavon Ghent; Ghaeraert David,
Bruges, Berlin, Rouen, Munich.
Massys, Brussels, Antwerp, Berlin, St. Petersburg; best
works Deposition in Antwerp Gal. and Merchant and Wife
Louvre; Mostert, altar-piece Notre Dame Bruges; Mabuse,
Madonnas Palermo, Milan Cathedral, Prague, other works
Vienna, Berlin, Munich, Antwerp; Floris, Antwerp, Amsterdam,
Brussels, Berlin, Munich, Vienna; Barent van Orley,
altar-pieces Church of the Saviour Antwerp, and Brussels
Mus.; Cocxie, Antwerp, Brussels, and Madrid Mus.; Pourbus,
Bruges, Brussels, Vienna Mus.; Moro, portraits Madrid,
Vienna, Hague, Brussels, Cassel, Louvre, St. Petersburg
Mus.; Bril, landscapes Madrid, Louvre, Dresden, Berlin Mus.;
the landscapes of the three Breughels are to be seen in most
of the museums of Europe, especially at Munich, Dresden, and
Madrid.
Rubens, many works, 93 in Munich, 35 in Dresden, 15 at
Cassel, 16 at Berlin, 14 in London, 90 in Vienna, 66 in
Madrid, 54 in Paris, 63 at St. Petersburg (as given by
Wauters), best works at Antwerp, Vienna, Munich, and Madrid;
Van Noort, Antwerp, Brussels Mus., Ghent and Antwerp
Cathedrals; Van Dyck, Windsor Castle, Nat. Gal. Lon., 41 in
Munich, 19 in Dresden, 15 in Cassel, 13 in Berlin, 67 in
Vienna, 21 in Madrid, 24 in Paris, and 38 in St. Petersburg
(Wauters), best examples in Vienna, Louvre, Nat. Gal. Lon.;
and Madrid, good example in Met. Mus. N. Y.; Diepenbeeck,
Antwerp Churches and Mus., Berlin, Vienna, Munich,
Frankfort; Jordaens, Brussels, Antwerp, Munich, Vienna,
Cassel, Madrid, Paris; Crayer, Brussels, Munich, Vienna;
Janssens, Antwerp Mus., St. Bavon Ghent, Brussels and
Cologne Mus.; Zegers, Cathedral Ghent, Notre Dame Bruges,
Antwerp Mus.; Rombouts, Mus. and Cathedral Ghent, Antwerp
Mus., Beguin Convent Mechlin, Hospital of St. John Bruges;
De Vos, Cathedral and Mus. Antwerp, Munich, Oldenburg,
Berlin Mus.; Snyders, Munich, Dresden, Vienna, Madrid,
Paris, St. Petersburg; Fyt, Munich, Dresden, Cassel, Berlin,
Vienna, Madrid, Paris; Teniers the Younger, 29 pictures in
Munich, 24 in Dresden, 8 in Berlin, 19 in Nat. Gal. Lon., 33
in Vienna, 52 in Madrid, 34 in Louvre, 40 in St. Petersburg
(Wauters); Brauwer, 19 in Munich, 6 in Dresden, 4 in Berlin,
5 in Paris, 5 in St. Petersburgh (Wauters); Coques, Nat.
Gal. Lon., Amsterdam, Berlin, Munich Mus.
Verhagen, Antwerp, Brussels, Ghent, and Vienna Mus.; Navez,
Ghent, Antwerp, and Amsterdam Mus., Nat. Gal. Berlin;
Wappers, Amsterdam, Brussels, Versailles Mus.; Wiertz, in
Wiertz Gal. Brussels; Gallait, Liége, Versailles, Tournay,
Brussels, Nat. Gal. Berlin; Leys, Amsterdam Mus., New
Pinacothek, Munich, Brussels, Nat. Gal. Berlin, Antwerp Mus.
and City Hall; Alfred Stevens, Marseilles, Brussels, frescos
Royal Pal. Brussels; Willems, Brussels Mus. and Foder Mus.
Amsterdam, Met. Mus. N. Y.; Verboeckhoven, Amsterdam, Foder,
Nat. Gal. Berlin, New Pinacothek, Brussels, Ghent, Met. Mus.
N. Y.; Clays, Ghent Mus.; Wauters, Brussels, Liége Mus.; Van
Beers, Burial of Charles the Good Amsterdam Mus.
CHAPTER XVII.
DUTCH PAINTING.
BOOKS RECOMMENDED: As before Fromentin, (Waagen's) Kügler;
Amand-Durand, _OEuvre de Rembrandt_; _Archief voor
Nederlandsche Kunst-geschiedenis_; Blanc, _OEuvre de
Rembrandt_; Bode, _Franz Hals und seine Schule_; Bode,
_Studien zur Geschichte der Hollandischen Malerei_; Bode,
_Adriaan van Ostade_; Brown, _Rembrandt_; Burger (Th.
Thoré), _Les Musées de la Hollande_; Havard, _La Peinture
Hollandaise_; Michel, _Rembrandt_; Michel, _Gerard Terburg
et sa Famille_; Mantz, _Adrien Brouwer_; Rooses, _Dutch
Painters of the Nineteenth Century_; Rooses, _Rubens_;
Schmidt, _Das Leben des Malers Adriaen Brouwer_; Van der
Willigen, _Les Artistes de Harlem_; Van Mander, _Leven der
Nederlandsche en Hoogduitsche Schilders_; Vosmaer,
_Rembrandt, sa Vie et ses OEuvres_; Westrheene, _Jan
Steen, Étude sur l'Art en Hollande_; Van Dyke, _Old Dutch
and Flemish Masters_.
THE DUTCH PEOPLE AND THEIR ART: Though Holland produced a somewhat
different quality of art from Flanders and Belgium, yet in many
respects the people at the north were not very different from those at
the south of the Netherlands. They were perhaps less versatile, less
volatile, less like the French and more like the Germans. Fond of
homely joys and the quiet peace of town and domestic life, the Dutch
were matter-of-fact in all things, sturdy, honest, coarse at times,
sufficient unto themselves, and caring little for what other people
did. Just so with their painters. They were realistic at times to
grotesqueness. Little troubled with fine poetic frenzies they painted
their own lives in street, town-hall, tavern, and kitchen, conscious
that it was good because true to themselves.
At first Dutch art was influenced, even confounded, with that of
Flanders. The Van Eycks led the way, and painters like Bouts and
others, though Dutch by birth, became Flemish by adoption in their art
at least. When the Flemish painters fell to copying Italy some of the
Dutch followed them, but with no great enthusiasm. Suddenly, at the
beginning of the seventeenth century, when Holland had gained
political independence, Dutch art struck off by itself, became
original, became famous. It pictured native life with verve, skill,
keenness of insight, and fine pictorial view. Limited it was; it never
soared like Italian art, never became universal or world-embracing. It
was distinct, individual, national, something that spoke for Holland,
but little beyond it.
In subject there were few historical canvases such as the Italians and
French produced. The nearest approach to them were the paintings of
shooting companies, or groups of burghers and syndics, and these were
merely elaborations and enlargements of the portrait which the Dutch
loved best of all. As a whole their subjects were single figures or
small groups in interiors, quiet scenes, family conferences, smokers,
card-players, drinkers, landscapes, still-life, architectural pieces.
When they undertook the large canvas with many figures, they were
often unsatisfactory. Even Rembrandt was so. The chief medium was oil,
used upon panel or canvas. Fresco was probably used in the early days,
but the climate was too damp for it and it was abandoned. It was
perhaps the dampness of the northern climate that led to the
adaptation of the oil medium, something the Van Eycks are credited
with inaugurating.
[Illustration: FIG. 81.--HALS. PORTRAIT OF A LADY.]
THE EARLY PAINTING: The early work has, for the great part, perished
through time and the fierceness with which the Iconoclastic warfare
was waged. That which remains to-day is closely allied in method and
style to Flemish painting under the Van Eycks. Ouwater is one of the
earliest names that appears, and perhaps for that reason he has been
called the founder of the school. He was remarked in his time for the
excellent painting of background landscapes; but there is little
authentic by him left to us from which we may form an opinion.[17]
Geertjen van St. Jan (about 1475) was evidently a pupil of his, and
from him there are two wings of an altar in the Vienna Gallery,
supposed to be genuine. Bouts and Mostert have been spoken of under
the Flemish school. Bosch (1460?-1516) was a man of some individuality
who produced fantastic purgatories that were popular in their time and
are known to-day through engravings. Engelbrechsten (1468-1533) was
Dutch by birth and in his art, and yet probably got his inspiration
from the Van Eyck school. The works attributed to him are doubtful,
though two in the Leyden Gallery seem to be authentic. He was the
master of Lucas van Leyden (1494-1533), the leading artist of the
early period. Lucas van Leyden was a personal friend of Albrecht
Dürer, the German painter, and in his art he was not unlike him. A
man with a singularly lean type, a little awkward in composition,
brilliant in color, and warm in tone, he was, despite his
archaic-looking work, an artist of much ability and originality. At
first he was inclined toward Flemish methods, with an exaggerated
realism in facial expression. In his middle period he was distinctly
Dutch, but in his later days he came under Italian influence, and with
a weakening effect upon his art. Taking his work as a whole, it was
the strongest of all the early Dutch painters.
[Footnote 17: A Raising of Lazarus is in the Berlin Gallery.]
SIXTEENTH CENTURY: This century was a period of Italian imitation,
probably superinduced by the action of the Flemings at Antwerp. The
movement was somewhat like the Flemish one, but not so extensive or so
productive. There was hardly a painter of rank in Holland during the
whole century. Scorel (1495-1562) was the leader, and he probably got
his first liking for Italian art through Mabuse at Antwerp. He
afterward went to Italy, studied Raphael and Michael Angelo, and
returned to Utrecht to open a school and introduce Italian art into
Holland. A large number of pupils followed him, but their work was
lacking in true originality. Heemskerck (1498-1574) and Cornelis van
Haarlem (1562-1638), with Steenwyck (1550?-1604), were some of the
more important men of the century, but none of them was above a common
average.
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY: Beginning with the first quarter of this century
came the great art of the Dutch people, founded on themselves and
rooted in their native character. Italian methods were abandoned, and
the Dutch told the story of their own lives in their own manner, with
truth, vigor, and skill. There were so many painters in Holland during
this period that it will be necessary to divide them into groups and
mention only the prominent names.
PORTRAIT AND FIGURE PAINTERS: The real inaugurators of Dutch
portraiture were Mierevelt, Hals, Ravesteyn, and De Keyser. Mierevelt
(1567-1641) was one of the earliest, a prolific painter, fond of the
aristocratic sitter, and indulging in a great deal of elegance in his
accessories of dress and the like. He had a slight, smooth brush, much
detail, and a profusion of color. Quite the reverse of him was Franz
Hals (1584?-1666), one of the most remarkable painters of portraits
with which history acquaints us. In giving the sense of life and
personal physical presence, he was unexcelled by any one. What he saw
he could portray with the most telling reality. In drawing and
modelling he was usually good; in coloring he was excellent, though in
his late work sombre; in brush-handling he was one of the great
masters. Strong, virile, yet easy and facile, he seemed to produce
without effort. His brush was very broad in its sweep, very sure, very
true. Occasionally in his late painting facility ran to the
ineffectual, but usually he was certainty itself. His best work was in
portraiture, and the most important of this is to be seen at Haarlem,
where he died after a rather careless life. As a painter, pure and
simple, he is almost to be ranked beside Velasquez; as a poet, a
thinker, a man of lofty imagination, his work gives us little
enlightenment except in so far as it shows a fine feeling for masses
of color and problems of light. Though excellent portrait-painters,
Ravesteyn (1572?-1657) and De Keyser (1596?-1679) do not provoke
enthusiasm. They were quiet, conservative, dignified, painting civic
guards and societies with a knowing brush and lively color, giving the
truth of physiognomy, but not with that verve of the artist so
conspicuous in Hals, nor with that unity of the group so essential in
the making of a picture.
[Illustration: FIG. 82.--REMBRANDT. HEAD OF WOMAN. NAT. GAL. LONDON.]
The next man in chronological order is Rembrandt (1607?-1669), the
greatest painter in Dutch art. He was a pupil of Swanenburch and
Lastman, but his great knowledge of nature and his craft came largely
from the direct study of the model. Settled at Amsterdam, he quickly
rose to fame, had a large following of pupils, and his influence was
felt through all Dutch painting. The portrait was emphatically his
strongest work. The many-figured group he was not always successful in
composing or lighting. His method of work rather fitted him for the
portrait and unfitted him for the large historical piece. He built up
the importance of certain features by dragging down all other
features. This was largely shown in his handling of illumination.
Strong in a few high lights on cheek, chin, or white linen, the rest
of the picture was submerged in shadow, under which color was
unmercifully sacrificed. This was not the best method for a large,
many-figured piece, but was singularly well suited to the portrait. It
produced strength by contrast. "Forced" it was undoubtedly, and not
always true to nature, yet nevertheless most potent in Rembrandt's
hands. He was an arbitrary though perfect master of light-and-shade,
and unusually effective in luminous and transparent shadows. In color
he was again arbitrary but forcible and harmonious. In brush-work he
was at times labored, but almost always effective.
Mentally he was a man keen to observe, assimilate, and express his
impressions in a few simple truths. His conception was localized with
his own people and time (he never built up the imaginary or followed
Italy), and yet into types taken from the streets and shops of
Amsterdam he infused the very largest humanity through his inherent
sympathy with man. Dramatic, even tragic, he was; yet this was not so
apparent in vehement action as in passionate expression. He had a
powerful way of striking universal truths through the human face, the
turned head, bent body, or outstretched hand. His people have
character, dignity, and a pervading feeling that they are the great
types of the Dutch race--people of substantial physique, slow in
thought and impulse, yet capable of feeling, comprehending, enjoying,
suffering.
His landscapes, again, were a synthesis of all landscapes, a grouping
of the great truths of light, air, shadow, space. Whatever he turned
his hand to was treated with that breadth of view that overlooked the
little and grasped the great. He painted many subjects. His earliest
work dates from 1627, and is a little hard and sharp in detail and
cold in coloring. After 1654 he grew broader in handling and warmer in
tone, running to golden browns, and, toward the end of his career, to
rather hot tones. His life was embittered by many misfortunes, but
these never seem to have affected his art except to deepen it. He
painted on to the last, convinced that his own view was the true one,
and producing works that rank second to none in the history of
painting.
Rembrandt's influence upon Dutch art was far-reaching, and appeared
immediately in the works of his many pupils. They all followed his
methods of handling light-and-shade, but no one of them ever equalled
him, though they produced work of much merit. Bol (1611-1680) was
chiefly a portrait-painter, with a pervading yellow tone and some
pallor of flesh-coloring--a man of ability who mistakenly followed
Rubens in the latter part of his life. Flinck (1615-1660) at one time
followed Rembrandt so closely that his work has passed for that of the
master; but latterly he, too, came under Flemish influence. Next to
Eeckhout he was probably the nearest to Rembrandt in methods of all
the pupils. Eeckhout (1621-1674) was really a Rembrandt imitator, but
his hand was weak and his color hot. Maes (1632-1693) was the most
successful manager of light after the school formula, and succeeded
very well with warmth and richness of color, especially with his reds.
The other Rembrandt pupils and followers were Poorter (fl. 1635-1643),
Victoors (1620?-1672?), Koninck (1619-1688), Fabritius (1624-1654),
and Backer (1608?-1651).
Van der Helst (1612?-1670) stands apart from this school, and seems to
have followed more the portrait style of De Keyser. He was a
realistic, precise painter, with much excellence of modelling in head
and hands, and with fine carriage and dignity in the figure. In
composition he hardly held his characters in group owing to a
sacrifice of values, and in color he was often "spotty," and lacking
in the unity of mass.
THE GENRE PAINTERS: This heading embraces those who may be called the
"Little Dutchmen," because of the small scale of their pictures and
their _genre_ subjects. Gerard Dou (1613-1675) is indicative of the
class without fully representing it. He was a pupil of Rembrandt, but
his work gave little report of this. It was smaller, more delicate in
detail, more petty in conception. He was a man great in little
things, one who wasted strength on the minutiæ of dress, or
table-cloth, or the texture of furniture without grasping the mass or
color significance of the whole scene. There was infinite detail about
his work, and that gave it popularity; but as art it held, and holds
to-day, little higher place than the work of Metsu (1630-1667), Van
Mieris (1635-1681), Netscher (1639-1684), or Schalcken (1643-1706),
all of whom produced the interior piece with figures elaborate in
accidental effects. Van Ostade (1610-1685), though dealing with the
small canvas, and portraying peasant life with perhaps unnecessary
coarseness, was a much stronger painter than the men just mentioned.
He was the favorite pupil of Hals and the master of Jan Steen. With
little delicacy in choice of subject he had much delicacy in color,
taste in arrangement, and skill in handling. His brush was precise but
not finical.
[Illustration: FIG. 83.--J. VAN RUISDAEL. LANDSCAPE.]
By far the best painter among all the "Little Dutchmen" was Terburg
(1617?-1681), a painter of interiors, small portraits, conversation
pictures, and the like. Though of diminutive scale his work has the
largeness of view characteristic of genius, and the skilled technic of
a thorough craftsman. Terburg was a travelled man, visiting Italy,
where he studied Titian, returning to Holland to study Rembrandt,
finally at Madrid studying Velasquez. He was a painter of much
culture, and the keynote of his art is refinement. Quiet and dignified
he carried taste through all branches of his art. In subject he was
rather elevated, in color subdued with broken tones, in composition
simple, in brush-work sure, vivacious, and yet unobtrusive. Selection
in his characters was followed by reserve in using them. Detail was
not very apparent. A few people with some accessory objects were all
that he required to make a picture. Perhaps his best qualities appear
in a number of small portraits remarkable for their distinction and
aristocratic grace.
Steen (1626?-1679) was almost the opposite of Terburg, a man of
sarcastic flings and coarse humor who satirized his own time with
little reserve. He developed under Hals and Van Ostade, favoring the
latter in his interiors, family scenes, and drunken debauches. He was
a master of physiognomy, and depicted it with rare if rather
unpleasant truth. If he had little refinement in his themes he
certainly handled them as a painter with delicacy. At his best his
many figured groups were exceedingly well composed, his color was of
good quality (with a fondness for yellows), and his brush was as
limpid and graceful as though painting angels instead of Dutch boors.
He was really one of the fine brushmen of Holland, a man greatly
admired by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and many an artist since; but not a
man of high intellectual pitch as compared with Terburg, for
instance.
Pieter de Hooghe (1632?-1681) was a painter of purely pictorial
effects, beginning and ending a picture in a scheme of color,
atmosphere, clever composition, and above all the play of
light-and-shade. He was one of the early masters of full sunlight,
painting it falling across a court-yard or streaming through a window
with marvellous truth and poetry. His subjects were commonplace
enough. An interior with a figure or two in the middle distance, and a
passage-way leading into a lighted background were sufficient for him.
These formed a skeleton which he clothed in a half-tone shadow,
pierced with warm yellow light, enriched with rare colors, usually
garnet reds and deep yellows repeated in the different planes, and
surrounded with a subtle pervading atmosphere. As a brushman he was
easy but not distinguished, and often his drawing was not correct; but
in the placing of color masses and in composing by color and light he
was a master of the first rank. Little is known about his life. He
probably formed himself on Fabritius or Rembrandt at second-hand, but
little trace of the latter is apparent in his work. He seems not to
have achieved much fame until late years, and then rather in England
than in his own country.
Jan van der Meer of Delft (1632-1675), one of the most charming of all
the _genre_ painters, was allied to De Hooghe in his pictorial point
of view and interior subjects. Unfortunately there is little left to
us of this master, but the few extant examples serve to show him a
painter of rare qualities in light, in color, and in atmosphere. He
was a remarkable man for his handling of blues, reds, and yellows; and
in the tonic relations of a picture he was a master second to no one.
Fabritius is supposed to have influenced him.
THE LANDSCAPE PAINTERS: The painters of the Netherlands were probably
the first, beginning with Bril, to paint landscape for its own sake,
and as a picture motive in itself. Before them it had been used as a
background for the figure, and was so used by many of the Dutchmen
themselves. It has been said that these landscape-painters were also
the first ones to paint landscape realistically, but that is true only
in part. They studied natural forms, as did, indeed, Bellini in the
Venetian school; they learned something of perspective, air, tree
anatomy, and the appearance of water; but no Dutch painter of
landscape in the seventeenth century grasped the full color of Holland
or painted its many varied lights. They indulged in a meagre
conventional palette of grays, greens, and browns, whereas Holland is
full of brilliant hues.
[Illustration: FIG. 84.--HOBBEMA. THE WATER-WHEEL. AMSTERDAM MUS.]
Van Goyen (1596-1656) was one of the earliest of the
seventeenth-century landscapists. In subject he was fond of the Dutch
bays, harbors, rivers, and canals with shipping, windmills, and
houses. His sky line was generally given low, his water silvery, and
his sky misty and luminous with bursts of white light. In color he
was subdued, and in perspective quite cunning at times. Salomon van
Ruisdael (1600?-1670) was his follower, if not his pupil. He had the
same sobriety of color as his master, and was a mannered and prosaic
painter in details, such as leaves and tree-branches. In composition
he was good, but his art had only a slight basis upon reality, though
it looks to be realistic at first sight. He had a formula for doing
landscape which he varied only in a slight way, and this
conventionality ran through all his work. Molyn (1600?-1661) was a
painter who showed limited truth to nature in flat and hilly
landscapes, transparent skies, and warm coloring. His extant works are
few in number. Wynants (1615?-1679?) was more of a realist in natural
appearance than any of the others, a man who evidently studied
directly from nature in details of vegetation, plants, trees, roads,
grasses, and the like. Most of the figures and animals in his
landscapes were painted by other hands. He himself was a pure
landscape-painter, excelling in light and aërial perspective, but not
remarkable in color. Van der Neer (1603-1677) and Everdingen
(1621?-1675) were two other contemporary painters of merit.
The best landscapist following the first men of the century was Jacob
van Ruisdael (1625?-1682), the nephew of Salomon van Ruisdael. He is
put down, with perhaps unnecessary emphasis, as the greatest
landscape-painter of the Dutch school. He was undoubtedly the equal of
any of his time, though not so near to nature, perhaps, as Hobbema. He
was a man of imagination, who at first pictured the Dutch country
about Haarlem, and afterward took up with the romantic landscape of
Van Everdingen. This landscape bears a resemblance to the Norwegian
country, abounding, as it does, in mountains, heavy dark woods, and
rushing torrents. There is considerable poetry in its composition, its
gloomy skies, and darkened lights. It is mournful, suggestive, wild,
usually unpeopled. There was much of the methodical in its putting
together, and in color it was cold, and limited to a few tones. Many
of Ruisdael's works have darkened through time. Little is known about
the painter's life except that he was not appreciated in his own time
and died in the almshouse.
Hobbema (1638?-1709) was probably the pupil of Jacob van Ruisdael, and
ranks with him, if not above him, in seventeenth-century landscape
painting. Ruisdael hardly ever painted sunlight, whereas Hobbema
rather affected it in quiet wood-scenes or roadways with little pools
of water and a mill. He was a freer man with the brush than Ruisdael,
and knew more about the natural appearance of trees, skies, and
lights; but, like his master, his view of nature found no favor in his
own land. Most of his work is in England, where it had not a little to
do with influencing such painters as Constable and others at the
beginning of the nineteenth century.
[Illustration: FIG. 85.--ISRAELS. ALONE IN THE WORLD.]
LANDSCAPE WITH CATTLE: Here we meet with Wouverman (1619-1668), a
painter of horses, cavalry, battles, and riding parties placed in
landscape. His landscape is bright and his horses are spirited in
action. There is some mannerism apparent in his reiterated
concentration of light on a white horse, and some repetition in his
canvases, of which there are many; but on the whole he was an
interesting, if smooth and neat painter. Paul Potter (1625-1654)
hardly merited his great repute. He was a harsh, exact recorder of
facts, often tin-like or woodeny in his cattle, and not in any way
remarkable in his landscapes, least of all in their composition. The
Young Bull at the Hague is an ambitious piece of drawing, but is not
successful in color, light, or _ensemble_. It is a brittle work all
through, and not nearly so good as some smaller things in the National
Gallery London, and in the Louvre. Adrien van de Velde (1635?-1672)
was short-lived, like Potter, but managed to do a prodigious amount
of work, showing cattle and figures in landscape with much technical
ability and good feeling. He was particularly good in composition and
the subtle gradation of neutral tints. A little of the Italian
influence appeared in his work, and with the men who came with him and
after him the Italian imitation became very pronounced. Aelbert Cuyp
(1620-1691) was a many-sided painter, adopting at various times
different styles, but was enough of a genius to be himself always. He
is best known to us, perhaps, by his yellow sunlight effects along
rivers, with cattle in the foreground, though he painted still-life,
and even portraits and marines. In composing a group he was knowing,
recording natural effects with power; in light and atmosphere he was
one of the best of his time, and in texture and color refined, and
frequently brilliant. Both (1610-1650?), Berchem (1620-1683), Du
Jardin (1622?-1678), followed the Italian tradition of Claude Lorrain,
producing semi-classic landscapes, never very convincing in their
originality. Van der Heyden (1637-1712), should be mentioned as an
excellent, if minute, painter of architecture with remarkable
atmospheric effects.
MARINE AND STILL-LIFE PAINTERS: There were two pre-eminent marine
painters in this seventeenth century, Willem van de Velde (1633-1707)
and Backhuisen (1631-1708). The sea was not an unusual subject with
the Dutch landscapists. Van Goyen, Simon de Vlieger (1601?-1660?),
Cuyp, Willem van de Velde the Elder (1611?-1693), all employed it; but
it was Van de Velde the Younger who really stood at the head of the
marine painters. He knew his subject thoroughly, having been well
grounded in it by his father and De Vlieger, so that the painting of
the Dutch fleets and harbors was a part of his nature. He preferred
the quiet haven to the open sea. Smooth water, calm skies, silvery
light, and boats lying listlessly at anchor with drooping sails, made
up his usual subject. The color was almost always in a key of silver
and gray, very charming in its harmony and serenity, but a little
thin. Both he and his father went to England and entered the service
of the English king, and thereafter did English fleets rather than
Dutch ones. Backhuisen was quite the reverse of Van de Velde in
preferring the tempest to the calm of the sea. He also used more
brilliant and varied colors, but he was not so happy in harmony as Van
de Velde. There was often dryness in his handling, and something too
much of the theatrical in his wrecks on rocky shores.
The still-life painters of Holland were all of them rather petty in
their emphasis of details such as figures on table-covers, water-drops
on flowers, and fur on rabbits. It was labored work with little of the
art spirit about it, except as the composition showed good masses. A
number of these painters gained celebrity in their day by their
microscopic labor over fruits, flowers, and the like, but they have no
great rank at the present time. Jan van Heem (1600?1684?) was perhaps
the best painter of flowers among them. Van Huysum (1682-1749)
succeeded with the same subject beyond his deserts. Hondecoeter
(1636-1695) was a unique painter of poultry; Weenix (1640-1719) and
Van Aelst (1620-1679), of dead game; Kalf (1630?-1693), of pots, pans,
dishes, and vegetables.
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY: This was a period of decadence during which there
was no originality worth speaking about among the Dutch painters.
Realism in minute features was carried to the extreme, and imitation
of the early men took the place of invention. Everything was
prettified and elaborated until there was a porcelain smoothness and a
photographic exactness inconsistent with true art. Adriaan van der
Werff (1659-1722), and Philip van Dyck (1683-1753) with their "ideal"
inanities are typical of the century's art. There was nothing to
commend it. The lowest point of affectation had been reached.
NINETEENTH CENTURY: The Dutch painters, unlike the Belgians, have
almost always been true to their own traditions and their own country.
Even in decadence the most of them feebly followed their own painters
rather than those of Italy and France, and in the early nineteenth
century they were not affected by the French classicism of David.
Later on there came into vogue an art that had some affinity with that
of Millet and Courbet in France. It was the Dutch version of modern
sentiment about the laboring classes, founded on the modern life of
Holland, yet in reality a continuation of the style or _genre_
practised by the early Dutchmen. Israels (1824-) is a revival or a
survival of Rembrandtesque methods with a sentiment and feeling akin
to the French Millet. He deals almost exclusively with peasant life,
showing fisher-folk and the like in their cottage interiors, at the
table, or before the fire, with good effects of light, atmosphere, and
much pathos. Technically he is rather labored and heavy in handling,
but usually effective with sombre color in giving the unity of a
scene. Artz (1837-1890) considered himself in measure a follower of
Israels, though he never studied under him. His pictures in subject
are like those of Israels, but without the depth of the latter.
Blommers (1845-) is another peasant painter who follows Israels at a
distance, and Neuhuys (1844-) shows a similar style of work. Bosboom
(1817-1891) excelled in representing interiors, showing, with much
pictorial effect, the light, color, shadow, and feeling of space and
air in large cathedrals.
[Illustration: FIG. 86.--MAUVE. SHEEP.]
The brothers Maris have made a distinct impression on modern Dutch
art, and, strange enough, each in a different way from the others.
James Maris (1837-) studied at Paris, and is remarkable for fine,
vigorous views of canals, towns, and landscapes. He is broad in
handling, rather bleak in coloring, and excels in fine luminous skies
and voyaging clouds. Matthew Maris (1835-), Parisian trained like his
brother, lives in London, where little is seen of his work. He paints
for himself and his friends, and is rather melancholy and mystical in
his art. He is a recorder of visions and dreams rather than the
substantial things of the earth, but always with richness of color and
a fine decorative feeling. Willem Maris (1839-), sometimes called the
"Silvery Maris," is a portrayer of cattle and landscape in warm
sunlight and haze with a charm of color and tone often suggestive of
Corot. Jongkind (1819-1891) stands by himself, Mesdag (1831-) is a
fine painter of marines and sea-shores, and Mauve (1838-1888), a
cattle and sheep painter, with nice sentiment and tonality, whose
renown is just now somewhat disproportionate to his artistic ability.
In addition there are Kever, Poggenbeek, Bastert, Baur, Breitner,
Witsen, Haverman, Weissenbruch.
EXTANT WORKS: Generally speaking the best examples of the
Dutch schools are still to be seen in the local museums of
Holland, especially the Amsterdam and Hague Mus.; Bosch,
Madrid, Antwerp, Brussels Mus.; Lucas van Leyden, Antwerp,
Leyden, Munich Mus.; Scorel, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Haarlem
Mus.; Heemskerck, Haarlem, Hague, Berlin, Cassel, Dresden;
Steenwyck, Amsterdam, Hague, Brussels; Cornelis van Haarlem,
Amsterdam, Haarlem, Brunswick.
PORTRAIT AND FIGURE PAINTERS--Mierevelt, Hague, Amsterdam,
Rotterdam, Brunswick, Dresden, Copenhagen; Hals, best works
to be seen at Haarlem, others at Amsterdam, Brussels, Hague,
Berlin, Cassel, Louvre, Nat. Gal. Lon., Met. Mus. New York,
Art Institute Chicago; Rembrandt, Amsterdam, Hermitage,
Louvre, Munich, Berlin, Dresden, Madrid, London; Bol,
Amsterdam, Hague, Dresden, Louvre; Flinck, Amsterdam, Hague,
Berlin; Eeckhout, Amsterdam, Brunswick, Berlin, Munich;
Maes, Nat. Gal. Lon., Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Hague, Brussels;
Poorter, Amsterdam, Brussels, Dresden; Victoors, Amsterdam,
Copenhagen, Brunswick, Dresden; Fabritius, Rotterdam,
Amsterdam, Berlin; Van der Helst, best works at Amsterdam
Mus.
GENRE PAINTERS--Examples of Dou, Metsu, Van Mieris,
Netscher, Schalcken, Van Ostade, are to be seen in almost
all the galleries of Europe, especially the Dutch, Belgian,
German, and French galleries; Terburg, Amsterdam, Louvre,
Dresden, Berlin (fine portraits); Steen, Amsterdam, Louvre,
Rotterdam, Hague, Berlin, Cassel, Dresden, Vienna; De
Hooghe, Nat. Gal. Lon., Louvre, Amsterdam, Hermitage; Van
der Meer of Delft, Louvre, Hague, Amsterdam, Berlin,
Dresden, Met. Mus. New York.
LANDSCAPE PAINTERS--Van Goyen, Amsterdam, Fitz-William Mus.
Cambridge, Louvre, Brussels, Cassel, Dresden, Berlin;
Salomon van Ruisdael, Amsterdam, Brussels, Berlin, Dresden,
Munich; Van der Neer, Nat. Gal. Lon., Louvre, Brussels,
Amsterdam, Berlin, Dresden; Everdingen, Amsterdam, Berlin,
Louvre, Brunswick, Dresden, Munich, Frankfort; Jacob van
Ruisdael, Nat. Gal. Lon., Louvre, Amsterdam, Berlin,
Dresden; Hobbema, best works in England, Nat. Gal. Lon.,
Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Dresden; Wouvermans, many works, best
at Amsterdam, Cassel, Louvre; Potter, Amsterdam, Hague,
Louvre, Nat. Gal. Lon.; Van de Velde, Amsterdam, Hague,
Cassel, Dresden, Frankfort, Munich, Louvre; Cuyp, Amsterdam,
Nat. Gal. Lon., Louvre, Munich, Dresden; examples of Both,
Berchem, Du Jardin, and Van der Heyden, in almost all of the
Dutch and German galleries, besides the Louvre and Nat. Gal.
Lon.
MARINE PAINTERS--Willem van de Velde Elder and Younger,
Backhuisen, Vlieger, together with the flower and fruit
painters like Huysum, Hondecoeter, Weenix, have all been
prolific workers, and almost every European gallery,
especially those at London, Amsterdam, and in Germany, have
examples of their works; Van der Werff and Philip van Dyck
are seen at their best at Dresden.
The best works of the modern men are in private collections,
many in the United States, some examples of them in the
Amsterdam and Hague Museums. Also some examples of the old
Dutch masters in New York Hist. Society Library, Yale School
of Fine Arts, Met. Mus. New York, Boston Mus., and Chicago
Institute.
CHAPTER XVIII.
GERMAN PAINTING.
BOOKS RECOMMENDED: Colvin, _A. Durer, his Teachers, his
Rivals, and his Scholars_; Eye, _Leben und Werke Albrecht
Durers_; Förster, _Peter von Cornelius_; Förster,
_Geschichte der Deutschen Kunst_; Keane, _Early Teutonic,
Italian, and French Painters_; Kügler, _Handbook to German
and Netherland Schools, trans. by Crowe_; Merlo, _Die
Meister der altkolnischer Malerschule_; Moore, _Albert
Durer_; Pecht, _Deutsche Kunstler des Neunzehnten
Jahrhunderts_; Reber, _Geschichte der neueren Deutschen
Kunst_; Riegel, _Deutsche Kunststudien_; Rosenberg, _Die
Berliner Malerschule_; Rosenberg, _Sebald und Barthel
Beham_; Rumohr, _Hans Holbein der Jungere_; Sandrart,
_Teutsche Akademie der Edlen Bau, Bild-und Malerey-Kunste_;
Schuchardt, _Lucas Cranach's Leben_; Thausig, _Albert Durer,
His Life and Works_; Waagen, _Kunstwerke und Kunstler in
Deutschland_; E. aus'm Weerth, _Wandmalereien des
Mittelalters in den Rheinlanden_; Wessely, _Adolph Menzel_;
Woltmann, _Holbein and his Time_; Woltmann, _Geschichte der
Deutschen Kunst im Elsass_; Wurtzbach, _Martin Schongauer_.
EARLY GERMAN PAINTING: The Teutonic lands, like almost all of the
countries of Europe, received their first art impulse from
Christianity through Italy. The centre of the faith was at Rome, and
from there the influence in art spread west and north, and in each
land it was modified by local peculiarities of type and temperament.
In Germany, even in the early days, though Christianity was the theme
of early illuminations, miniatures, and the like, and though there was
a traditional form reaching back to Italy and Byzantium, yet under it
was the Teutonic type--the material, awkward, rather coarse Germanic
point of view. The wish to realize native surroundings was apparent
from the beginning.
It is probable that the earliest painting in Germany took the form of
illuminations. At what date it first appeared is unknown. In
wall-painting a poor quality of work was executed in the churches as
early as the ninth century, and probably earlier. The oldest now
extant are those at Oberzell, dating back to the last part of the
tenth century. Better examples are seen in the Lower Church of
Schwarzrheindorf, of the twelfth century, and still better in the
choir and transept of the Brunswick cathedral, ascribed to the early
thirteenth century.
[Illustration: FIG. 87.--LOCHNER. STS. JOHN, CATHERINE, AND MATTHEW.
NAT. GAL. LONDON.]
All of these works have an archaic appearance about them, but they
are better in composition and drawing than the productions of Italy
and Byzantium at that time. It is likely that all the German churches
at this time were decorated, but most of the paintings have been
destroyed. The usual method was to cover the walls and wooden ceilings
with blue grounds, and upon these to place figures surrounded by
architectural ornaments. Stained glass was also used extensively.
Panel painting seems to have come into existence before the thirteenth
century (whether developed from miniature or wall-painting is
unknown), and was used for altar decorations. The panels were done in
tempera with figures in light colors upon gold grounds. The
spirituality of the age with a mingling of northern sentiment appeared
in the figure. This figure was at times graceful, and again awkward
and archaic, according to the place of production and the influence of
either France or Italy. The oldest panels extant are from the
Wiesenkirche at Soest, now in the Berlin Museum. They do not date
before the thirteenth century.
FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES: In the fourteenth century the
influence of France began to show strongly in willowy figures, long
flowing draperies, and sentimental poses. The artists along the Rhine
showed this more than those in the provinces to the east, where a
ruder if freer art appeared. The best panel-painting of the time was
done at Cologne, where we meet with the name of the first painter,
Meister Wilhelm, and where a school was established usually known as
the
SCHOOL OF COLOGNE: This school probably got its sentimental
inclination, shown in slight forms and tender expression, from France,
but derived much of its technic from the Netherlands. Stephen Lochner,
or Meister Stephen, (fl. 1450) leaned toward the Flemish methods, and
in his celebrated picture, the Madonna of the Rose Garden, in the
Cologne Museum, there is an indication of this; but there is also an
individuality showing the growth of German independence in painting.
The figures of his Dombild have little manliness or power, but
considerable grace, pathos, and religious feeling. They are not
abstract types but the spiritualized people of the country in native
costumes, with much gold, jewelry, and armor. Gold was used instead of
a landscape background, and the foreground was spattered with flowers
and leaves. The outlines are rather hard, and none of the aërial
perspective of the Flemings is given. After a time French sentiment
was still further encroached upon by Flemish realism, as shown in the
works of the Master of the Lyversberg Passion (fl. about 1463-1480),
to be seen in the Cologne Museum.
[Illustration: FIG. 88.--WOLGEMUT. CRUCIFIXION. MUNICH.]
BOHEMIAN SCHOOL: It was not on the Lower Rhine alone that German
painting was practised. The Bohemian school, located near Prague,
flourished for a short time in the fourteenth century, under Charles
IV., with Theodorich of Prague (fl. 1348-1378), Wurmser, and Kunz, as
the chief masters. Their art was quite the reverse of the Cologne
painters. It was heavy, clumsy, bony, awkward. If more original it was
less graceful, not so pathetic, not so religious. Sentiment was
slurred through a harsh attempt at realism, and the religious subject
met with something of a check in the romantic mediæval chivalric
theme, painted quite as often on the castle wall as the scriptural
theme on the church wall. After the close of the fourteenth century
wall-painting began to die out in favor of panel pictures.
NUREMBERG SCHOOL: Half-way between the sentiment of Cologne and the
realism of Prague stood the early school of Nuremberg, with no known
painter at its head. Its chief work, the Imhof altar-piece, shows,
however, that the Nuremberg masters of the early and middle fifteenth
century were between eastern and western influences. They inclined to
the graceful swaying figure, following more the sculpture of the time
than the Cologne type.
FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH CENTURIES: German art, if begun in the
fourteenth century, hardly showed any depth or breadth until the
fifteenth century, and no real individual strength until the sixteenth
century. It lagged behind the other countries of Europe and produced
the cramped archaic altar-piece. Then when printing was invented the
painter-engraver came into existence. He was a man who painted panels,
but found his largest audience through the circulation of engravings.
The two kinds of arts being produced by the one man led to much
detailed line work with the brush. Engraving is an influence to be
borne in mind in examining the painting of this period.
[Illustration: FIG. 89.--DÜRER. PRAYING VIRGIN. AUGSBURG.]
FRANCONIAN SCHOOL: Nuremberg was the centre of this school, and its
most famous early master was Wolgemut (1434-1519), though Plydenwurff
is the first-named painter. After the latter's death Wolgemut married
his widow and became the head of the school. His paintings were
chiefly altar-pieces, in which the figures were rather lank and
narrow-shouldered, with sharp outlines, indicative perhaps of the
influence of wood-engraving, in which he was much interested. There
was, however, in his work an advance in characterization, nobility of
expression, and quiet dignity, and it was his good fortune to be the
master of one of the most thoroughly original painters of all the
German schools--Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528).
With Dürer and Holbein German art reached its apogee in the first half
of the sixteenth century, yet their work was not different in spirit
from that of their predecessors. Painting simply developed and became
forceful and expressive technically without abandoning its early
character. There is in Dürer a naive awkwardness of figure, some
angularity of line, strain of pose, and in composition oftentimes
huddling and overloading of the scene with details. There is not that
largeness which seemed native to his Italian contemporaries. He was
hampered by that German exactness, which found its best expression in
engraving, and which, though unsuited to painting, nevertheless crept
into it. Within these limitations Dürer produced the typical art of
Germany in the Renaissance time--an art more attractive for the charm
and beauty of its parts than for its unity, or its general impression.
Dürer was a travelled man, visited Italy and the Netherlands, and,
though he always remained a German in art, yet he picked up some
Italian methods from Bellini and Mantegna that are faintly apparent in
some of his works. In subject he was almost exclusively religious,
painting the altar-piece with infinite care upon wooden panel, canvas,
or parchment. He never worked in fresco, preferring oil and tempera.
In drawing he was often harsh and faulty, in draperies cramped at
times, and then, again, as in the Apostle panels at Munich, very
broad, and effective. Many of his pictures show a hard, dry brush, and
a few, again, are so free and mellow that they look as though done by
another hand. He was usually minute in detail, especially in such
features as hair, cloth, flesh. His portraits were uneven and not his
best productions. He was too close a scrutinizer of the part and not
enough of an observer of the whole for good portraiture. Indeed, that
is the criticism to be made upon all his work. He was an exquisite
realist of certain features, but not always of the _ensemble_.
Nevertheless he holds first rank in the German art of the Renaissance,
not only on account of his technical ability, but also because of his
imagination, sincerity, and striking originality.
[Illustration: FIG. 90.--HOLBEIN THE YOUNGER. PORTRAIT. HAGUE MUS.]
Dürer's influence was wide-spread throughout Germany, especially in
engraving, of which he was a master. In painting Schäufelin
(1490?-1540?) was probably his apprentice, and in his work followed
the master so closely that many of his works have been attributed to
Dürer. This is true in measure of Hans Baldung (1476?-1552?). Hans von
Kulmbach (?-1522) was a painter of more than ordinary importance,
brilliant in coloring, a follower of Dürer, who was inclined toward
Italian methods, an inclination that afterward developed all through
German art. Following Dürer's formulas came a large number of
so-called "Little Masters" (from the size of their engraved plates),
who were more engravers than painters. Among the more important of
those who were painters as well as engravers were Altdorfer
(1480?-1538), a rival rather than an imitator of Dürer; Barthel Beham
(1502-1540), Sebald Beham (1500-1550), Pencz (1500?-1550), Aldegrever
(1502-1558), and Bink (1490?-1569?).
SWABIAN SCHOOL: This school includes a number of painters who were
located at different places, like Colmar and Ulm, and later on it
included the Holbeins at Augsburg, who were really the consummation of
the school. In the fifteenth century one of the early leaders was
Martin Schöngauer (1446?-1488), at Colmar. He is supposed to have been
a pupil of Roger Van der Weyden, of the Flemish school, and is better
known by his engravings than his paintings, none of the latter being
positively authenticated. He was thoroughly German in his type and
treatment, though, perhaps, indebted to the Flemings for his coloring.
There was some angularity in his figures and draperies, and a tendency
to get nearer nature and further away from the ecclesiastical and
ascetic conception in all that he did.
At Ulm a local school came into existence with Zeitblom (fl.
1484-1517), who was probably a pupil of Schüchlin. He had neither
Schöngauer's force nor his fancy, but was a simple, straightforward
painter of one rather strong type. His drawing was not good, except in
the draperies, but he was quite remarkable for the solidity and
substance of his painting, considering the age he lived in was given
to hard, thin brush-work. Schaffner (fl. 1500-1535) was another Ulm
painter, a junior to Zeitblom, of whom little is known, save from a
few pictures graceful and free in composition. A recently discovered
man, Bernard Strigel (1461?-1528?) seems to have been excellent in
portraiture.
[Illustration: FIG. 91.--PILOTY. WISE AND FOOLISH VIRGINS.]
At Augsburg there was still another school, which came into prominence
in the sixteenth century with Burkmair and the Holbeins. It was only a
part of the Swabian school, a concentration of artistic force about
Augsburg, which, toward the close of the fifteenth century, had come
into competition with Nuremberg, and rather outranked it in splendor.
It was at Augsburg that the Renaissance art in Germany showed in more
restful composition, less angularity, better modelling and painting,
and more sense of the _ensemble_ of a picture. Hans Burkmair
(1473-1531) was the founder of the school, a pupil of Schöngauer,
later influenced by Dürer, and finally showing the influence of
Italian art. He was not, like Dürer, a religious painter, though doing
religious subjects. He was more concerned with worldly appearance, of
which he had a large knowledge, as may be seen from his illustrations
for engraving. As a painter he was a rather fine colorist, indulging
in the fantastic of architecture but with good taste, crude in
drawing but forceful, and at times giving excellent effects of motion.
He was rounder, fuller, calmer in composition than Dürer, but never so
strong an artist.
Next to Burkmair comes the celebrated Holbein family. There were four
of them all told, but only two of them, Hans the Elder and Hans the
Younger, need be mentioned. Holbein the Elder (1460?-1524), after
Burkmair, was the best painter of his time and school without being in
himself a great artist. Schöngauer was at first his guide, though he
soon submitted to some Flemish and Cologne influence, and later on
followed Italian form and method in composition to some extent. He was
a good draughtsman, and very clever at catching realistic points of
physiognomy--a gift he left his son Hans. In addition he had some
feeling for architecture and ornament, and in handling was a bit hard,
and oftentimes careless. The best half of his life fell in the latter
part of the fifteenth century, and he never achieved the free
painter's quality of his son.
Hans Holbein the Younger (1497-1543) holds, with Dürer, the high place
in German art. He was a more mature painter than Dürer, coming as he
did a quarter of a century later. He was the Renaissance artist of
Germany, whereas Dürer always had a little of the Gothic clinging to
him. The two men were widely different in their points of view and in
their work. Dürer was an idealist seeking after a type, a religious
painter, a painter of panels with the spirit of an engraver. Holbein
was emphatically a realist finding material in the actual life about
him, a designer of cartoons and large wall paintings in something of
the Italian spirit, a man who painted religious themes but with little
spiritual significance.
It is probable that he got his first instruction from his father and
from Burkmair. He was an infant prodigy, developed early, saw much
foreign art, and showed a number of tendencies in his work. In
composition and drawing he appeared at times to be following Mantegna
and the northern Italians; in brush-work he resembled the Flemings,
especially Massys; yet he was never an imitator of either Italian or
Flemish painting. Decidedly a self-sufficient and an observing man, he
travelled in Italy and the Netherlands, and spent much of his life in
England, where he met with great success at court as a portrait-painter.
From seeing much he assimilated much, yet always remained German,
changing his style but little as he grew older. His wall paintings have
perished, but the drawings from them are preserved and show him as an
artist of much invention. He is now known chiefly by his portraits, of
which there are many of great excellence. His facility in grasping
physiognomy and realizing character, the quiet dignity of his
composition, his firm modelling, clear outline, harmonious coloring,
excellent detail, and easy solid painting, all place him in the front
rank of great painters. That he was not always bound down to literal
facts may be seen in his many designs for wood-engravings. His portrait
of Hubert Morett, in the Dresden Gallery, shows his art to advantage,
and there are many portraits by him of great spirit in England, in the
Louvre, and elsewhere.
SAXON SCHOOL: Lucas Cranach (1472-1553) was a Franconian master, who
settled in Saxony and was successively court-painter to three Electors
and the leader of a small local school there. He, perhaps, studied
under Grünewald, but was so positive a character that he showed no
strong school influence. His work was fantastic, odd in conception and
execution, sometimes ludicrous, and always archaic-looking. His type
was rather strained in proportions, not always well drawn, but
graceful even when not truthful. This type was carried into all his
works, and finally became a mannerism with him. In subject he was
religious, mythological, romantic, pastoral, with a preference for
the nude figure. In coloring he was at first golden, then brown, and
finally cold and sombre. The lack of aërial perspective and shadow
masses gave his work a queer look, and he was never much of a
brushman. His pictures were typical of the time and country, and for
that and for their strong individuality they are ranked among the most
interesting paintings of the German school. Perhaps his most
satisfactory works are his portraits. Lucas Cranach the Younger
(1515-1586) was the best of the elder Cranach's pupils. Many of his
pictures are attributed to his father. He followed the elder closely,
but was a weaker man, with a smoother brush and a more rosy color.
Though there were many pupils the school did not go beyond the Cranach
family. It began with the father and died with the son.
[Illustration: FIG. 92.--LEIBL. IN CHURCH.]
SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES: These were unrelieved centuries
of decline in German painting. After Dürer, Holbein, and Cranach had
passed there came about a senseless imitation of Italy, combined with
an equally senseless imitation of detail in nature that produced
nothing worthy of the name of original or genuine art. It is not
probable that the Reformation had any more to do with this than with
the decline in Italy. It was a period of barrenness in both countries.
The Italian imitators in Germany were chiefly Rottenhammer
(1564-1623), and Elzheimer (1574?-1620). After them came the
representative of the other extreme in Denner (1685-1749), who thought
to be great in portraiture by the minute imitation of hair, freckles,
and three-days'-old beard--a petty and unworthy realism which excited
some curiosity but never held rank as art. Mengs (1728-1779) sought
for the sublime through eclecticism, but never reached it. His work,
though academic and correct, is lacking in spirit and originality.
Angelica Kauffman (1741-1807) succeeded in pleasing her inartistic age
with the simply pretty, while Carstens (1754-1798) was a conscientious
if mistaken student of the great Italians--a man of some severity in
form and of academic inclinations.
NINETEENTH CENTURY: In the first part of this century there started in
Germany a so-called "revival of art" led by Overbeck (1789-1869),
Cornelius (1783-1867), Veit (1793-1877), and Schadow (1789-1862), but
like many another revival of art it did not amount to much. The
attempt to "revive" the past is usually a failure. The forms are
caught, but the spirit is lost. The nineteenth-century attempt in
Germany was brought about by the study of monumental painting in
Italy, and the taking up of the religious spirit in a pre-Raphaelite
manner. Something also of German romanticism was its inspiration.
Overbeck remained in Rome, but the others, after some time in Italy,
returned to Germany, diffused their teaching, and really formed a new
epoch in German painting. A modern art began with ambitions and
subjects entirely disproportionate to its skill. The monumental, the
ideal, the classic, the exalted, were spread over enormous spaces, but
there was no reason for such work in the contemporary German life, and
nothing to warrant its appearance save that its better had appeared in
Italy during the Renaissance. Cornelius after his return became the
head of the
MUNICH SCHOOL and painted pictures of the heroes of the classic and
the Christian world upon a large scale. Nothing but their size and
good intention ever brought them into notice, for their form and
coloring were both commonplace. Schnorr (1794-1872) followed in the
same style with the Niebelungen Lied, Charlemagne, and Barbarossa for
subjects. Kaulbach (1805-1874) was a pupil of Cornelius, and had some
ability but little taste, and not enough originality to produce great
art. Piloty (1826-1886) was more realistic, more of a painter and
ranks as one of the best of the early Munich masters. After him Munich
art became _genre_-like in subject, with greater attention given to
truthful representation in light, color, texture. To-day there are a
large number of painters in the school who are remarkable for
realistic detail.
DUSSELDORF SCHOOL: After 1826 this school came into prominence under
the guidance of Schadow. It did not fancy monumental painting so much
as the common easel picture, with the sentimental, the dramatic, or
the romantic subject. It was no better in either form or color than
the Munich school, in fact not so good, though there were painters who
emanated from it who had ability. At Berlin the inclination was to
follow the methods and ideas held at Dusseldorf.
The whole academic tendency of modern painting in Germany and Austria
for the past fifty years has not been favorable to the best kind of
pictorial art. There is a disposition on the part of artists to tell
stories, to encroach upon the sentiment of literature, to paint with a
dry brush in harsh unsympathetic colors, to ignore relations of
light-and-shade, and to slur beauties of form. The subject seems to
count for more than the truth of representation, or the individuality
of view. From time to time artists of much ability have appeared, but
these form an exception rather than a rule. The men to-day who are the
great artists of Germany are less followers of the German tradition
than individuals each working in a style peculiar to himself. A few
only of them call for mention. Menzel (1815-1905) is easily first, a
painter of group pictures, a good colorist, and a powerful pen-and-ink
draughtsman; Lenbach (1836-1904), a forceful portraitist; Uhde
(1848-), a portrayer of scriptural scenes in modern costumes with much
sincerity, good color, and light; Leibl (1844-1900), an artist with
something of the Holbein touch and realism; Thoma, a Frankfort painter
of decorative friezes and panels; Liebermann, Gotthardt Kuehl, Franz
Stuck, Max Klinger, Greiner, Trübner, Bartels, Keller.
[Illustration: FIG. 93.--MENZEL. A READER.]
Aside from these men there are several notable painters with German
affinities, like Makart (1840-1884), an Austrian, who possessed good
technical qualities and indulged in a profusion of color; Munkacsy
(1846-1900), a Hungarian, who is perhaps more Parisian than German in
technic, and Böcklin (1827-1901), a Swiss, who is quite by himself in
fantastic and grotesque subjects, a weird and uncanny imagination, and
a brilliant prismatic coloring.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: BOHEMIAN SCHOOL--Theoderich of Prague,
Karlstein chap. and University Library Prague, Vienna Mus.;
Wurmser, same places.
FRANCONIAN SCHOOL--Wolgemut, Aschaffenburg, Munich,
Nuremberg, Cassel Mus.; Dürer, Crucifixion Dresden, Trinity
Vienna Mus., other works Munich, Nuremberg, Madrid Mus.;
Schäufelin, Basle, Bamberg, Cassel, Munich, Nuremberg,
Nordlingen Mus., and Ulm Cathedral; Baldung, Aschaffenburg,
Basle, Berlin, Kunsthalle Carlsruhe, Freiburg Cathedral;
Kulmbach, Munich, Nuremberg, Oldenburg; Altdorfer and the
"Little Masters" are seen in the Augsburg, Nuremberg,
Berlin, Munich and Fürstenberg Mus.
SWABIAN SCHOOL--Schöngauer, attributed pictures Colmar Mus.;
Zeitblom, Augsburg, Berlin, Carlsruhe, Munich, Nuremberg,
Simaringen Mus.; Schaffner, Munich, Schliessheim, Nuremberg,
Ulm Cathedral; Strigel, Berlin, Carlsruhe, Munich,
Nuremberg; Burkmair, Augsburg, Berlin, Munich, Maurice chap.
Nuremberg; Holbein the Elder, Augsburg, Nuremberg, Basle,
Städel Mus., Frankfort; Holbein the Younger, Basle,
Carlsruhe, Darmstadt, Dresden, Berlin, Louvre, Windsor
Castle, Vienna Mus.
SAXON SCHOOL--Cranach, Bamberg Cathedral and Gallery,
Munich, Vienna, Dresden, Berlin, Stuttgart, Cassel; Cranach
the Younger, Stadtkirche Wittenberg, Leipsic, Vienna,
Nuremberg Mus.
SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY PAINTERS: Rottenhammer,
Louvre, Berlin, Munich, Schliessheim, Vienna, Kunsthalle
Hamburg; Elzheimer, Stadel, Brunswick, Louvre, Munich,
Berlin, Dresden; Denner, Kunsthalle Hamburg, Berlin,
Brunswick, Dresden, Vienna, Munich; Mengs, Madrid, Vienna,
Dresden, Munich, St. Petersburg; Angelica Kauffman, Vienna,
Hermitage, Turin, Dresden, Nat. Gal. Lon., Phila. Acad.
NINETEENTH-CENTURY PAINTERS: Overbeck, frescos in S. Maria
degli Angeli Assisi, Villa Massimo Rome, Carlsruhe, New
Pinacothek, Munich, Städel Mus., Dusseldorf; Cornelius,
frescos Glyptothek and Ludwigkirche Munich, Casa Zuccaro
Rome, Royal Cemetery Berlin; Veit, frescos Villa Bartholdi
Rome, Städel, Nat. Gal. Berlin; Schadow, Nat. Gal. Berlin,
Antwerp, Städel, Munich Mus., frescos Villa Bartholdi Rome;
Schnorr, Dresden, Cologne, Carlsruhe, New Pinacothek Munich,
Städel Mus.; Kaulbach, wall paintings Berlin Mus., Raczynski
Gal. Berlin, New Pinacothek Munich, Stuttgart, Phila. Acad.;
Piloty, best pictures in the New Pinacothek and
Maximilianeum Munich, Nat. Gal. Berlin; Menzel, Nat. Gal.,
Raczynski Mus. Berlin, Breslau Mus.; Lenbach, Nat. Gal.
Berlin, New Pinacothek Munich, Kunsthalle Hamburg, Zürich
Gal.; Uhde, Leipsic Mus.; Leibl, Dresden Mus. The
contemporary paintings have not as yet found their way, to
any extent, into public museums, but may be seen in the
expositions at Berlin and Munich from year to year. Makart
has one work in the Metropolitan Mus., N. Y., as has also
Munkacsy; other works by them and by Böcklin may be seen in
the Nat. Gal. Berlin.
CHAPTER XIX.
BRITISH PAINTING.
BOOKS RECOMMENDED: Armstrong, _Sir Henry Raeburn_;
Armstrong, _Gainsborough_; Armstrong, _Sir Joshua Reynolds_;
Burton, _Catalogue of Pictures in National Gallery_;
Chesneau, _La Peinture Anglaise_; Cook, _Art in England_;
Cunningham, _Lives of the most Eminent British Artists_;
Dobson, _Life of Hogarth_; Gilchrist, _Life of Etty_;
Gilchrist, _Life of Blake_; Hamerton, _Life of Turner_;
Henderson, _Constable_; Hunt, _The Pre-Raphaelite
Brotherhood_ (_Contemporary Review, Vol. 49_); Leslie, _Sir
Joshua Reynolds_; Leslie, _Life of Constable_; Martin and
Newbery, _Glasgow School of Painting_; McKay, _Scottish
School of Painting_; Monkhouse, _British Contemporary
Artists_; Redgrave, _Dictionary of Artists of the English
School_; Romney, _Life of George Romney_; Rossetti, _Fine
Art, chiefly Contemporary_; Ruskin, _Pre-Raphaelitism_;
Ruskin, _Art of England_; Sandby, _History of Royal Academy
of Arts_; William Bell Scott, _Autobiography_; Scott,
_British Landscape Painters_; Stephens, _Catalogue of Prints
and Drawings in the British Museum_; Swinburne, _William
Blake_; Temple, _Painting in the Queen's Reign_; Van Dyke,
_Old English Masters_; Wedmore, _Studies in English Art_;
Wilmot-Buxton, _English Painters_; Wright, _Life of Richard
Wilson_.
[Illustration: FIG. 94.--HOGARTH. SHORTLY AFTER MARRIAGE. NAT. GAL.
LONDON.]
BRITISH PAINTING: It may be premised in a general way, that the
British painters have never possessed the pictorial cast of mind in
the sense that the Italians, the French, or the Dutch have possessed
it. Painting, as a purely pictorial arrangement of line and color, has
been somewhat foreign to their conception. Whether this failure to
appreciate painting as painting is the result of geographical
position, isolation, race temperament, or mental disposition, would be
hard to determine. It is quite certain that from time immemorable the
English people have not been lacking in the appreciation of beauty;
but beauty has appealed to them, not so much through the eye in
painting and sculpture, as through the ear in poetry and literature.
They have been thinkers, reasoners, moralists, rather than observers
and artists in color. Images have been brought to their minds by words
rather than by forms. English poetry has existed since the days of
Arthur and the Round Table, but English painting is of comparatively
modern origin, and it is not wonderful that the original leaning of
the people toward literature and its sentiment should find its way
into pictorial representation. As a result one may say in a very
general way that English painting is more illustrative than creative.
It endeavors to record things that might be more pertinently and
completely told in poetry, romance, or history. The conception of
large art--creative work of the Rubens-Titian type--has not been given
to the English painters, save in exceptional cases. Their success has
been in portraiture and landscape, and this largely by reason of
following the model.
EARLY PAINTING: The earliest decorative art appeared in Ireland. It
was probably first planted there by missionaries from Italy, and it
reached its height in the seventh century. In the ninth and tenth
centuries missal illumination of a Byzantine cast, with local
modifications, began to show. This lasted, in a feeble way, until the
fifteenth century, when work of a Flemish and French nature took its
place. In the Middle Ages there were wall paintings and church
decorations in England, as elsewhere in Europe, but these have now
perished, except some fragments in Kempley Church, Gloucestershire,
and Chaldon Church, Surrey. These are supposed to date back to the
twelfth century, and there are some remains of painting in Westminster
Abbey that are said to be of thirteenth and fourteenth-century origin.
From the fifteenth to the eighteenth century the English people
depended largely upon foreign painters who came and lived in England.
Mabuse, Moro, Holbein, Rubens, Van Dyck, Lely, Kneller--all were there
at different times, in the service of royalty, and influencing such
local English painters as then lived. The outcome of missal
illumination and Holbein's example produced in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries a local school of miniature-painters of much
interest, but painting proper did not begin to rise in England until
the beginning of the eighteenth century--that century so dead in art
over all the rest of Europe.
FIGURE AND PORTRAIT PAINTERS: Aside from a few inconsequential
precursors the first English artist of note was Hogarth (1697-1764).
He was an illustrator, a moralist, and a satirist as well as a
painter. To point a moral upon canvas by depicting the vices of his
time was his avowed aim, but in doing so he did not lose sight of
pictorial beauty. Charm of color, the painter's taste in arrangement,
light, air, setting, were his in a remarkable degree. He was not
successful in large compositions, but in small pictures like those of
the Rake's Progress he was excellent. An early man, a rigid stickler
for the representation, a keen observer of physiognomy, a satirist
with a sense of the absurd, he was often warped in his art by the
necessities of his subject and was sometimes hard and dry in method,
but in his best work he was quite a perfect painter. He was the first
of the English school, and perhaps the most original of that school.
This is quite as true of his technic as of his point of view. Both
were of his own creation. His subjects have been talked about a great
deal in the past; but his painting is not to this day valued as it
should be.
[Illustration: FIG. 95.--REYNOLDS. COUNTESS SPENCER AND LORD ALTHORP.]
The next man to be mentioned, one of the most considerable of all the
English school, is Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792). He was a pupil of
Hudson, but owed his art to many sources. Besides the influence of Van
Dyck he was for some years in Italy, a diligent student of the great
Italians, especially the Venetians, Correggio, and the Bolognese
Eclectics. Sir Joshua was inclined to be eclectic himself, and from
Italy he brought back a formula of art which, modified by his own
individuality, answered him for the rest of his life. He was not a man
of very lofty imagination or great invention. A few figure-pieces,
after the Titian initiative, came from his studio, but his reputation
rests upon his many portraits. In portraiture he was often beyond
criticism, giving the realistic representation with dignity, an
elevated spirit, and a suave brush. Even here he was more impressive
by his broad truth of facts than by his artistic feeling. He was not a
painter who could do things enthusiastically or excite enthusiasm in
the spectator. There was too much of rule and precedent, too much
regard for the traditions, for him to do anything strikingly original.
His brush-work and composition were more learned than individual, and
his color, though usually good, was oftentimes conventional in
contrasts. Taking him for all in all he was a very cultivated painter,
a man to be respected and admired, but he had not quite the original
spirit that we meet with in Gainsborough.
Reynolds was well-grounded in Venetian color, Bolognese composition,
Parmese light-and-shade, and paid them the homage of assimilation; but
if Gainsborough (1727-1788) had such school knowledge he positively
disregarded it. He disliked all conventionalities and formulas. With a
natural taste for form and color, and with a large decorative sense,
he went directly to nature, and took from her the materials which he
fashioned into art after his own peculiar manner. His celebrated Blue
Boy was his protest against the conventional rule of Reynolds that a
composition should be warm in color and light. All through his work we
meet with departures from academic ways. By dint of native force and
grace he made rules unto himself. Some of them were not entirely
successful, and in drawing he might have profited by school training;
but he was of a peculiar poetic temperament, with a dash of melancholy
about him, and preferred to work in his own way. In portraiture his
color was rather cold; in landscape much warmer. His brush-work was as
odd as himself, but usually effective, and his accessories in
figure-painting were little more than decorative after-thoughts. Both
in portraiture and landscape he was one of the most original and most
English of all the English painters--a man not yet entirely
appreciated, though from the first ranked among the foremost in
English art.
[Illustration: FIG. 96.--GAINSBOROUGH. BLUE BOY.]
Romney (1734-1802), a pupil of Steele, was often quite as masterful a
portrait-painter as either Reynolds or Gainsborough. He was never an
artist elaborate in composition, and his best works are bust-portraits
with a plain background. These he did with much dash and vivacity of
manner. His women, particularly, are fine in life-like pose and
winsomeness of mood. He was a very cunning observer, and knew how to
arrange for grace of line and charm of color.
After Romney came Beechey (1753-1839), Raeburn (1756-1823), Opie
(1761-1807), and John Hoppner (1759-1810). Then followed Lawrence
(1769-1830), a mixture of vivacious style and rather meretricious
method. He was the most celebrated painter of his time, largely
because he painted nobility to look more noble and grace to look more
gracious. Fond of fine types, garments, draperies, colors, he was
always seeking the sparkling rather than the true, and forcing
artificial effects for the sake of startling one rather than stating
facts simply and frankly. He was facile with the brush, clever in line
and color, brilliant to the last degree, but lacking in that
simplicity of view and method which marks the great mind. His
composition was rather fine in its decorative effect, and, though his
lights were often faulty when compared with nature, they were no less
telling from the stand-point of picture-making. He is much admired by
artists to-day, and, as a technician, he certainly had more than
average ability. He was hardly an artist like Reynolds or
Gainsborough, but among the mediocre painters of his day he shone like
a star. It is not worth while to say much about his contemporaries.
Etty (1787-1849) was one of the best of the figure men, but his Greek
types and classic aspirations grow wearisome on acquaintance; and Sir
Charles Eastlake (1793-1865), though a learned man in art and doing
great service to painting as a writer, never was a painter of
importance.
William Blake (1757-1827) was hardly a painter at all, though he drew
and colored the strange figures of his fancy and cannot be passed over
in any history of English art. He was perhaps the most imaginative
artist of English birth, though that imagination was often disordered
and almost incoherent. He was not a correct draughtsman, a man with no
great color-sense, and a workman without technical training; and yet,
in spite of all this, he drew some figures that are almost sublime in
their sweep of power. His decorative sense in filling space with lines
is well shown in his illustrations to the Book of Job. In grace of
form and feeling of motion he was excellent. Weird and uncanny in
thought, delving into the unknown, he opened a world of mystery,
peopled with a strange Apocalyptic race, whose writhing, flowing
bodies are the epitome of graceful grandeur.
[Illustration: FIG. 97.--CONSTABLE. CORN FIELD. NAT. GAL. LONDON.]
GENRE-PAINTERS: From Blake to Morland (1763-1804) is a step across
space from heaven to earth. Morland was a realist of English country
life, horses at tavern-doors, cattle, pigs. His life was not the most
correct, but his art in truthfulness of representation, simplicity of
painting, richness of color and light, was often of a fine quality. As
a skilful technician he stood quite alone in his time, and seemed to
show more affinity with the Dutch _genre_-painters than his own
countrymen. His works are much prized to-day, and were so during the
painter's life.
Sir David Wilkie (1785-1841) was also somewhat like the Dutch in
subject, a _genre_-painter, fond of the village fête and depicting it
with careful detail, a limpid brush, and good textural effects. In
1825 he travelled abroad, was gone some years, was impressed by
Velasquez, Correggio, and Rembrandt, and completely changed his style.
He then became a portrait and historical painter. He never outlived
the nervous constraint that shows in all his pictures, and his brush,
though facile within limits, was never free or bold as compared with a
Dutchman like Steen. In technical methods Landseer (1802-1873), the
painter of animals, was somewhat like him. That is to say, they both
had a method of painting surfaces and rendering textures that was more
"smart" than powerful. There is little solidity or depth to the
brush-work of either, though both are impressive to the spectator at
first sight. Landseer knew the habits and the anatomy of animals very
well, but he never had an appreciation of the brute in the animal,
such as we see in the pictures of Velasquez or the bronzes of Barye.
The Landseer animal has too much sentiment about it. The dogs, for
instance, are generally given those emotions pertinent to humanity,
and which are only exceptionally true of the canine race. This very
feature--the tendency to humanize the brute and make it tell a
story--accounts in large measure for the popularity of Landseer's art.
The work is perhaps correct enough, but the aim of it is somewhat
afield from pure painting. It illustrates the literary rather than the
pictorial. Following Wilkie the most distinguished painter was
Mulready (1786-1863), whose pictures of village boys are well known
through engravings.
[Illustration: FIG. 98.--TURNER. FIGHTING TÉMÉRAIRE. NAT. GAL.
LONDON.]
THE LANDSCAPE PAINTERS: In landscape the English have had something to
say peculiarly their own. It has not always been well said, the
coloring is often hot, the brush-work brittle, the attention to
detail inconsistent with the large view of nature, yet such as it is
it shows the English point of view and is valuable on that account.
Richard Wilson (1713-1782) was the first landscapist of importance,
though he was not so English in view as some others to follow. In
fact, Wilson was nurtured on Claude Lorrain and Joseph Vernet and
instead of painting the realistic English landscape he painted the
pseudo-Italian landscape. He began working in portraiture under the
tutorship of Wright, and achieved some success in this department; but
in 1749 he went to Italy and devoted himself wholly to landscapes.
These were of the classic type and somewhat conventional. The
composition was usually a dark foreground with trees or buildings to
right and left, an opening in the middle distance leading into the
background, and a broad expanse of sunset sky. In the foreground he
usually introduced a few figures for romantic or classic association.
Considerable elevation of theme and spirit marks most of his pictures.
There was good workmanship about the skies and the light, and an
attentive study of nature was shown throughout. His canvases did not
meet with much success at the time they were painted. In more modern
days Wilson has been ranked as the true founder of landscape in
England, and one of the most sincere of English painters.
THE NORWICH SCHOOL: Old Crome (1769-1821), though influenced to some
extent by Wilson and the Dutch painters, was an original talent,
painting English scenery with much simplicity and considerable power.
He was sometimes rasping with his brush, and had a small method of
recording details combined with mannerisms of drawing and composition,
and yet gave an out-of-doors feeling in light and air that was
astonishing. His large trees have truth of mass and accuracy of
drawing, and his foregrounds are painted with solidity. He was a keen
student of nature, and drew about him a number of landscape painters
at Norwich, who formed the Norwich School. Crome was its leader, and
the school made its influence felt upon English landscape painting.
Cotman (1782-1842) was the best painter of the group after Crome, a
man who depicted landscape and harbor scenes in a style that recalls
Girtin and Turner.
The most complete, full-rounded landscapist in England was John
Constable (1776-1837). His foreign bias, such as it was, came from a
study of the Dutch masters. There were two sources from which the
English landscapists drew. Those who were inclined to the ideal, men
like Wilson, Calcott (1779-1844), and Turner, drew from the Italian of
Poussin and Claude; those who were content to do nature in her real
dress, men like Gainsborough and Constable, drew from the Dutch of
Hobbema and his contemporaries. A certain sombreness of color and
manner of composition show in Constable that may be attributed to
Holland; but these were slight features as compared with the
originality of the man. He was a close student of nature who painted
what he saw in English country life, especially about Hampstead, and
painted it with a knowledge and an artistic sensitiveness never
surpassed in England. The rural feeling was strong with him, and his
evident pleasure in simple scenes is readily communicated to the
spectator. There is no attempt at the grand or the heroic. He never
cared much for mountains or water, but was fond of cultivated uplands,
trees, bowling clouds, and torn skies. Bursts of sunlight, storms,
atmospheres, all pleased him. With detail he was little concerned. He
saw landscape in large patches of form and color, and so painted it.
His handling was broad and solid, and at times a little heavy. His
light was often forced by sharp contrast with shadows, and often his
pictures appear spotty from isolated glitters of light strewn here and
there. In color he helped eliminate the brown landscape and
substituted in its place the green and blue of nature. In atmosphere
he was excellent. His influence upon English art was impressive, and
in 1824 the exhibition at Paris of his Hay Wain, together with some
work by Bonington and Fielding had a decided effect upon the then
rising landscape school of France. The French realized that nature lay
at the bottom of Constable's art, and they profited, not by imitating
Constable, but by studying his nature model.
[Illustration: FIG. 99.--BURNE JONES. FLAMMA VESTALIS.]
Bonington (1801-1828) died young, and though of English parents his
training was essentially French, and he really belonged to the French
school, an associate of Delacroix. His study of the Venetians turned
his talent toward warm coloring, in which he excelled. In landscape
his broad handling was somewhat related to that of Constable, and from
the fact of their works appearing together in the Salon of 1824 they
are often spoken of as influencers of the modern French landscape
painters.
Turner (1775-1851) is the best known name in English art. His
celebrity is somewhat disproportionate to his real merits, though it
is impossible to deny his great ability. He was a man learned in all
the forms of nature and schooled in all the formulas of art; yet he
was not a profound lover of nature nor a faithful recorder of what
things he saw in nature, except in his early days. In the bulk of his
work he shows the traditions of Claude, with additions of his own. His
taste was classic (he possessed all the knowledge and the belongings
of the historical landscape), and he delighted in great stretches of
country broken by sea-shores, rivers, high mountains, fine buildings,
and illumined by blazing sunlight and gorgeous skies. His composition
was at times grotesque in imagination; his light was usually
bewildering in intensity and often unrelieved by shadows of sufficient
depth; his tone was sometimes faulty; and in color he was not always
harmonious, but inclined to be capricious, uneven, showing fondness
for arbitrary schemes of color. The object of his work seems to have
been to dazzle, to impress with a wilderness of lines and hues, to
overawe by imposing scale and grandeur. His paintings are impressive,
decoratively splendid, but they often smack of the stage, and are more
frequently grandiloquent than grand. His early works, especially in
water-colors, where he shows himself a follower of Girtin, are much
better than his later canvases in oil, many of which have changed
color. The water-colors are carefully done, subdued in color, and true
in light. From 1802, or thereabouts, to 1830 was his second period,
in which Italian composition and much color were used. The last twenty
years of his life he inclined to the _bizarre_, and turned his
canvases into almost incoherent color masses. He had an artistic
feeling for composition, linear perspective, and the sweep of horizon
lines; skies and hills he knew and drew with power; color he
comprehended only as decoration; and light he distorted for effect.
Yet with all his shortcomings Turner was an artist to be respected and
admired. He knew his craft, in fact, knew it so well that he relied
too much on artificial effects, drew away from the model of nature,
and finally passed into the extravagant.
THE WATER-COLORISTS: About the beginning of this century a school of
water-colorists, founded originally by Cozens (1752-1799) and Girtin
(1775-1802), came into prominence and developed English art in a new
direction. It began to show with a new force the transparency of
skies, the luminosity of shadows, the delicacy and grace of clouds,
the brilliancy of light and color. Cozens and Blake were primitives in
the use of the medium, but Stothard (1755-1834) employed it with much
sentiment, charm, and _plein-air_ effect. Turner was quite a master of
it, and his most permanent work was done with it. Later on, when he
rather abandoned form to follow color, he also abandoned water-color
for oils. Fielding (1787-1849) used water-color effectively in giving
large feeling for space and air, and also for fogs and mists; Prout
(1783-1852) employed it in architectural drawings of the principal
cathedrals of Europe; and Cox (1783-1859), Dewint (1784-1849), Hunt
(1790-1864), Cattermole (1800-1868), Lewis (1805-1876), men whose
names only can be mentioned, all won recognition with this medium.
Water-color drawing is to-day said to be a department of art that
expresses the English pictorial feeling better than any other, though
this is not an undisputed statement.
[Illustration: FIG. 100.--LEIGHTON. HELEN OF TROY.]
Perhaps the most important movement in English painting of recent
times was that which took the name of
PRE-RAPHAELITISM: It was started about 1847, primarily by Rossetti
(1828-1882), Holman Hunt (1827-), and Sir John Millais (1829-1896),
associated with several sculptors and poets, seven in all. It was an
emulation of the sincerity, the loving care, and the scrupulous
exactness in truth that characterized the Italian painters before
Raphael. Its advocates, including Mr. Ruskin the critic, maintained
that after Raphael came that fatal facility in art which seeking grace
of composition lost truth of fact, and that the proper course for
modern painters was to return to the sincerity and veracity of the
early masters. Hence the name pre-Raphaelitism, and the signatures on
their early pictures, P. R. B., pre-Raphaelite Brother. To this
attempt to gain the true regardless of the sensuous, was added a
morbidity of thought mingled with mysticism, a moral and religious
pose, and a studied simplicity. Some of the painters of the
Brotherhood went even so far as following the habits of the early
Italians, seeking retirement from the world and carrying with them a
Gothic earnestness of air. There is no doubt about the sincerity that
entered into this movement. It was an honest effort to gain the true,
the good, and as a result, the beautiful; but it was no less a
striven-after honesty and an imitated earnestness. The Brotherhood did
not last for long, the members drifted from each other and began to
paint each after his own style, and pre-Raphaelitism passed away as it
had arisen, though not without leaving a powerful stamp on English
art, especially in decoration.
Rossetti, an Italian by birth though English by adoption, was the type
of the Brotherhood. He was more of a poet than a painter, took most of
his subjects from Dante, and painted as he wrote, in a mystical
romantic spirit. He was always of a retiring disposition and never
exhibited publicly after he was twenty-eight years of age. As a
draughtsman he was awkward in line and not always true in modelling.
In color he was superior to his associates and had considerable
decorative feeling. The shortcoming of his art, as with that of the
others of the Brotherhood, was that in seeking truth of detail he lost
truth of _ensemble_. This is perhaps better exemplified in the works
of Holman Hunt. He has spent infinite pains in getting the truth of
detail in his pictures, has travelled in the East and painted types,
costumes, and scenery in Palestine to gain the historic truths of his
Scriptural scenes; but all that he has produced has been little more
than a survey, a report, a record of the facts. He has not made a
picture. The insistence upon every detail has isolated all the facts
and left them isolated in the picture. In seeking the minute truths
he has overlooked the great truths of light, air, and setting. His
color has always been crude, his values or relations not well
preserved, and his brush-work hard and tortured.
Millais showed some of this disjointed effect in his early work when
he was a member of the Brotherhood. He did not hold to his early
convictions however, and soon abandoned the pre-Raphaelite methods for
a more conventional style. He has painted some remarkable portraits
and some excellent figure pieces, and to-day holds high rank in
English art; but he is an uneven painter, often doing weak,
harshly-colored work. Moreover, the English tendency to tell stories
with the paint-brush finds in Millais a faithful upholder. At his best
he is a strong painter.
Madox Brown (1821-1893) never joined the Brotherhood, though his
leaning was toward its principles. He had considerable dramatic power,
with which he illustrated historic scenes, and among contemporary
artists stood well. The most decided influence of pre-Raphaelitism
shows in Burne-Jones (1833-), a pupil of Rossetti, and perhaps the
most original painter now living[18] of the English school. From
Rossetti he got mysticism, sentiment, poetry, and from association
with Swinburne and William Morris, the poets, something of the
literary in art, which he has put forth with artistic effect. He has
not followed the Brotherhood in its pursuit of absolute truth of fact,
but has used facts for decorative effect in line and color. His
ability to fill a given space gracefully, shows with fine results in
his pictures, as in his stained-glass designs. He is a good
draughtsman and a rather rich colorist, but in brush-work somewhat
labored, stippled, and unique in dryness. He is a man of much
imagination, and his conceptions, though illustrative of literature,
do not suffer thereby, because his treatment does not sacrifice the
artistic. He has been the butt of considerable shallow laughter from
time to time, like many another man of power. Albert Moore
(1840-1893), a graceful painter of a decorative ideal type, rather
follows the Rossetti-Burne-Jones example, and is an illustration of
the influence of pre-Raphaelitism.
[Footnote 18: Died 1898.]
OTHER FIGURE AND PORTRAIT PAINTERS: Among the contemporary painters
Sir Frederick Leighton (1830-1896), President of the Royal Academy, is
ranked as a fine academic draughtsman, but not a man with the
color-sense or the brushman's quality in his work. Watts (1818-1904)
is perhaps an inferior technician, and in color is often sombre and
dirty; but he is a man of much imagination, occasionally rises to
grandeur in conception, and has painted some superb portraits, notably
the one of Walter Crane. Orchardson (1835-) is more of a painter, pure
and simple, than any of his contemporaries, and is a knowing if
somewhat mannered colorist. Erskine Nicol (1825-), Faed[19] (1826-),
Calderon (1833-), Boughton (1834-1905), Frederick Walker (1840-1875),
Stanhope Forbes, Stott of Oldham and in portraiture Holl (1845-1890)
and Herkomer may be mentioned.
[Footnote 19: Died 1900.]
[Illustration: FIG. 101.--WATTS. LOVE AND DEATH.]
LANDSCAPE AND MARINE PAINTERS: In the department of landscape there
are many painters in England of contemporary importance. Vicat Cole
(1833-1893) had considerable exaggerated reputation as a depicter of
sunsets and twilights; Cecil Lawson (1851-1882) gave promise of great
accomplishment, and lived long enough to do some excellent work in the
style of the French Rousseau, mingled with an influence from
Gainsborough; Alfred Parsons is a little hard and precise in his work,
but one of the best of the living men; and W. L. Wyllie is a painter
of more than average merit. In marines Hook (1819-) belongs to the
older school, and is not entirely satisfactory. The most modern and
the best sea-painter in England is Henry Moore (1831-1895), a man who
paints well and gives the large feeling of the ocean with fine color
qualities. Some other men of mark are Clausen, Brangwyn, Ouless,
Steer, Bell, Swan, McTaggart, Sir George Reid.
MODERN SCOTCH SCHOOL: There is at the present time a school of art in
Scotland that seems to have little or no affinity with the
contemporary school of England. Its painters are more akin to the
Dutch and the French, and in their coloring resemble, in depth and
quality, the work of Delacroix. Much of their art is far enough
removed from the actual appearance of nature, but it is strong in the
sentiment of color and in decorative effect. The school is represented
by such men as James Guthrie, E. A. Walton, James Hamilton, George
Henry, E. A. Hornel, Lavery, Melville, Crawhall, Roche, Lawson,
McBride, Morton, Reid Murray, Spence, Paterson.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: English art cannot be seen to advantage,
outside of England. In the Metropolitan Museum, N. Y., and
in private collections like that of Mr. William H. Fuller in
New York,[20] there are some good examples of the older
men--Reynolds, Constable, Gainsborough, and their
contemporaries. In the Louvre there are some indifferent
Constables and some good Boningtons. In England the best
collection is in the National Gallery. Next to this the
South Kensington Museum for Constable sketches. Elsewhere
the Glasgow, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Windsor galleries, and
the private collections of the late Sir Richard Wallace, the
Duke of Westminster, and others. Turner is well represented
in the National Gallery, though his oils have suffered
through time and the use of fugitive pigments. For the
living men, their work may be seen in the yearly exhibitions
at the Royal Academy and elsewhere. There are comparatively
few English pictures in America.
[Footnote 20: Dispersed, 1898.]
CHAPTER XX.
AMERICAN PAINTING.
BOOKS RECOMMENDED: _American Art Review_; Amory, _Life of
Copley_; _The Art Review_; Benjamin, _Contemporary Art in
America_; _Century Magazine_; Caffin, _American Painters_;
Clement and Hutton, _Artists of the Nineteenth Century_;
Cummings, _Historic Annals of the National Academy of
Design_; Downes, _Boston Painters_ (_in Atlantic Monthly
Vol. 62_); Dunlap, _Arts of Design in United States_; Flagg,
_Life and Letters of Washington Allston_; Galt, _Life of
West_; Isham, _History of American Painting_; Knowlton, _W.
M. Hunt_; Lester, _The Artists of America_; Mason, _Life and
Works of Gilbert Stuart_; Perkins, _Copley_; _Scribner's
Magazine_; Sheldon, _American Painters_; Tuckerman, _Book of
the Artists_; Van Dyke, _Art for Art's Sake_; Van
Rensselaer, _Six Portraits_; Ware, _Lectures on Allston_;
White, _A Sketch of Chester A. Harding_.
AMERICAN ART: It is hardly possible to predicate much about the
environment as it affects art in America. The result of the climate,
the temperament, and the mixture of nations in the production or
non-production of painting in America cannot be accurately computed at
this early stage of history. One thing only is certain, and that is,
that the building of a new commonwealth out of primeval nature does
not call for the production of art in the early periods of
development. The first centuries in the history of America were
devoted to securing the necessities of life, the energies of the time
were of a practical nature, and art as an indigenous product was
hardly known.
After the Revolution, and indeed before it, a hybrid portraiture,
largely borrowed from England, began to appear, and after 1825 there
was an attempt at landscape painting; but painting as an art worthy
of very serious consideration, came in only with the sudden growth in
wealth and taste following the War of the Rebellion and the Centennial
Exhibition of 1876. The best of American art dates from about 1878,
though during the earlier years there were painters of note who cannot
be passed over unmentioned.
[Illustration: FIG. 102.--WEST. PETER DENYING CHRIST. HAMPTON CT.]
THE EARLY PAINTERS: The "limner," or the man who could draw and color
a portrait, seems to have existed very early in American history.
Smibert (1684-1751), a Scotch painter, who settled in Boston, and
Watson (1685?-1768), another Scotchman, who settled in New Jersey,
were of this class--men capable of giving a likeness, but little more.
They were followed by English painters of even less consequence. Then
came Copley (1737-1815) and West (1738-1820), with whom painting in
America really began. They were good men for their time, but it must
be borne in mind that the times for art were not at all favorable.
West was a man about whom all the infant prodigy tales have been told,
but he never grew to be a great artist. He was ambitious beyond his
power, indulged in theatrical composition, was hot in color, and never
was at ease in handling the brush. Most of his life was passed in
England, where he had a vogue, was elected President of the Royal
Academy, and became practically a British painter. Copley was more of
an American than West, and more of a painter. Some of his portraits
are exceptionally fine, and his figure pieces, like Charles I.
demanding the Five Members of House of Commons are excellent in color
and composition. C. W. Peale (1741-1827), a pupil of both Copley and
West, was perhaps more fortunate in having celebrated characters like
Washington for sitters than in his art. Trumbull (1756-1843) preserved
on canvas the Revolutionary history of America and, all told, did it
very well. Some of his compositions, portraits, and miniature heads in
the Yale Art School at New Haven are drawn and painted in a masterful
manner and are as valuable for their art as for the incidents which
they portray.
[Illustration: FIG. 103.--GILBERT STUART. WASHINGTON (UNFINISHED).
BOSTON MUS.]
Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828) was the best portrait-painter of all the
early men, and his work holds very high rank even in the schools of
to-day. He was one of the first in American art-history to show
skilful accuracy of the brush, a good knowledge of color, and some
artistic sense of dignity and carriage in the sitter. He was not
always a good draughtsman, and he had a manner of laying on pure
colors without blending them that sometimes produced sharpness in
modelling; but as a general rule he painted a portrait with force and
with truth. He was a pupil of Alexander, a Scotchman, and afterward an
assistant to West. He settled in Boston, and during his life painted
most of the great men of his time, including Washington.
[Illustration: FIG. 104.--W. M. HUNT. LUTE PLAYER.]
Vanderlyn (1776-1852) met with adversity all his life long, and
perhaps never expressed himself fully. He was a pupil of Stuart,
studied in Paris and Italy, and his associations with Aaron Burr made
him quite as famous as his pictures. Washington Allston (1779-1843)
was a painter whom the Bostonians have ranked high in their
art-history, but he hardly deserved such position. Intellectually he
was a man of lofty and poetic aspirations, but as an artist he never
had the painter's sense or the painter's skill. He was an aspiration
rather than a consummation. He cherished notions about ideals, dealt
in imaginative allegories, and failed to observe the pictorial
character of the world about him. As a result of this, and poor
artistic training, his art had too little basis on nature, though it
was very often satisfactory as decoration. Rembrandt Peale
(1787-1860), like his father, was a painter of Washington portraits of
mediocre quality. Jarvis (1780-1834) and Sully (1783-1872) were both
British born, but their work belongs here in America, where most of
their days were spent. Sully could paint a very good portrait
occasionally, though he always inclined toward the weak and the
sentimental, especially in his portraits of women. Leslie (1794-1859)
and Newton (1795-1835) were Americans, but, like West and Copley, they
belong in their art more to England than to America. In all the early
American painting the British influence may be traced, with sometimes
an inclination to follow Italy in large compositions.
THE MIDDLE PERIOD in American art dates from 1825 to about 1878. During
that time, something distinctly American began to appear in the
landscape work of Doughty (1793-1856) and Thomas Cole (1801-1848). Both
men were substantially self-taught, though Cole received some
instruction from a portrait-painter named Stein. Cole during his life
was famous for his Hudson River landscapes, and for two series of
pictures called The Voyage of Life and The Course of Empire. The latter
were really epic poems upon canvas, done with much blare of color and
literary explanation in the title. His best work was in pure landscape,
which he pictured with considerable accuracy in drawing, though it was
faulty in lighting and gaudy in coloring. Brilliant autumn scenes were
his favorite subjects. His work had the merit of originality and,
moreover, it must be remembered that Cole was one of the beginners in
American landscape art. Durand (1796-1886) was an engraver until 1835,
when he began painting portraits, and afterward developed landscape with
considerable power. He was usually simple in subject and realistic in
treatment, with not so much insistence upon brilliant color as some of
his contemporaries. Kensett (1818-1872) was a follower in landscape of
the so-called Hudson River School of Cole and others, though he studied
seven years in Europe. His color was rather warm, his air hazy, and the
general effect of his landscape that of a dreamy autumn day with poetic
suggestions. F. E. Church (1826-[A]) was a pupil of Cole, and has
followed him in seeking the grand and the startling in mountain scenery.
With Church should be mentioned a number of artists--Hubbard
(1817-1888), Hill (1829-,) Bierstadt (1830-),[21] Thomas Moran
(1837-)--who have achieved reputation by canvases of the Rocky Mountains
and other expansive scenes. Some other painters of smaller canvases
belong in point of time, and also in spirit, with the Hudson River
landscapists--painters, too, of considerable merit, as David Johnson
(1827-), Bristol (1826-), Sandford Gifford (1823-1880), McEntee
(1828-1891), and Whittredge (1820-), the last two very good portrayers
of autumn scenes; A. H. Wyant (1836-1892), one of the best and strongest
of the American landscapists; Bradford (1830-1892) and W. T. Richards
(1833-), the marine-painters.
[Footnote 21: Died, 1900.]
[Illustration: FIG. 105.--EASTMAN JOHNSON. CHURNING.]
PORTRAIT, HISTORY, AND GENRE-PAINTERS: Contemporary with the early
landscapists were a number of figure-painters, most of them
self-taught, or taught badly by foreign or native artists, and yet men
who produced creditable work. Chester Harding (1792-1866) was one of
the early portrait-painters of this century who achieved enough
celebrity in Boston to be the subject of what was called "the Harding
craze." Elliott (1812-1868) was a pupil of Trumbull, and a man of
considerable reputation, as was also Inman (1801-1846), a portrait
and _genre_-painter with a smooth, detailed brush. Page (1811-1885),
Baker (1821-1880), Huntington (1816-), the third President of the
Academy of Design; Healy (1808-[22]), a portrait-painter of more than
average excellence; Mount (1807-1868), one of the earliest of American
_genre_-painters, were all men of note in this middle period.
[Footnote 22: Died 1894.]
Leutze (1816-1868) was a German by birth but an American by adoption,
who painted many large historical scenes of the American Revolution,
such as Washington Crossing the Delaware, besides many scenes taken
from European history. He was a pupil of Lessing at Dusseldorf, and
had something to do with introducing Dusseldorf methods into America.
He was a painter of ability, if at times hot in color and dry in
handling. Occasionally he did a fine portrait, like the Seward in the
Union League Club, New York.
During this period, in addition to the influence of Dusseldorf and
Rome upon American art, there came the influence of French art with
Hicks (1823-1890) and Hunt (1824-1879), both of them pupils of Couture
at Paris, and Hunt also of Millet at Barbizon. Hunt was the real
introducer of Millet and the Barbizon-Fontainebleau artists to the
American people. In 1855 he established himself at Boston, had a large
number of pupils, and met with great success as a teacher. He was a
painter of ability, but perhaps his greatest influence was as a
teacher and an instructor in what was good art as distinguished from
what was false and meretricious. He certainly was the first painter in
America who taught catholicity of taste, truth and sincerity in art,
and art in the artist rather than in the subject. Contemporary with
Hunt lived George Fuller (1822-1884), a unique man in American art for
the sentiment he conveyed in his pictures by means of color and
atmosphere. Though never proficient in the grammar of art he managed
by blendings of color to suggest certain sentiments regarding light
and air that have been rightly esteemed poetic.
[Illustration: FIG. 106.--INNESS. LANDSCAPE.]
THE THIRD PERIOD in American art began immediately after the
Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia in 1876. Undoubtedly the display
of art, both foreign and domestic, at that time, together with the
national prosperity and great growth of the United States had much to
do with stimulating activity in painting. Many young men at the
beginning of this period went to Europe to study in the studios at
Munich, and later on at Paris. Before 1880 some of them had returned
to the United States, bringing with them knowledge of the technical
side of art, which they immediately began to give out to many pupils.
Gradually the influence of the young men from Munich and Paris spread.
The Art Students' League, founded in 1875, was incorporated in 1878,
and the Society of American Artists was established in the same year.
Societies and painters began to spring up all over the country, and as
a result there is in the United States to-day an artist body
technically as well trained and in spirit as progressive as in almost
any country of Europe. The late influence shown in painting has been
largely a French influence, and the American artists have been accused
from time to time of echoing French methods. The accusation is true in
part. Paris is the centre of all art-teaching to-day, and the
Americans, in common with the European nations, accept French methods,
not because they are French, but because they are the best extant. In
subjects and motives, however, the American school is as original as
any school can be in this cosmopolitan age.
PORTRAIT, FIGURE, AND GENRE PAINTERS (1878-1894): It must not be
inferred that the painters now prominent in American art are all young
men schooled since 1876. On the contrary, some of the best of them are
men past middle life who began painting long before 1876, and have by
dint of observation and prolonged study continued with the modern
spirit. For example, Winslow Homer (1836-) is one of the strongest and
most original of all the American artists, a man who never had the
advantage of the highest technical training, yet possesses a feeling
for color, a dash and verve in execution, an originality in subject,
and an individuality of conception that are unsurpassed. Eastman
Johnson (1824-) is one of the older portrait and figure-painters who
stands among the younger generations without jostling, because he has
in measure kept himself informed with modern thought and method. He is
a good, conservative painter, possessed of taste, judgment, and
technical ability. Elihu Vedder (1836-) is more of a draughtsman than
a brushman. His color-sense is not acute nor his handling free, but he
has an imagination which, if somewhat more literary than pictorial, is
nevertheless very effective. John La Farge (1835-) and Albert Ryder
(1847-) are both colorists, and La Farge in artistic feeling is a man
of much power. Almost all of his pictures have fine decorative quality
in line and color and are thoroughly pictorial.
[Illustration: FIG. 107.--WINSLOW HOMER. UNDERTOW.]
The "young men," so-called, though some of them are now on toward
middle life, are perhaps more facile in brush-work and better trained
draughtsmen than those we have just mentioned. They have cultivated
vivacity of style and cleverness in statement, frequently at the
expense of the larger qualities of art. Sargent (1856-) is, perhaps,
the most considerable portrait-painter now living, a man of unbounded
resources technically and fine natural abilities. He is draughtsman,
colorist, brushman--in fact, almost everything in art that can be
cultivated. His taste is not yet mature, and he is just now given to
dashing effects that are more clever than permanent; but that he is a
master in portraiture has already been abundantly demonstrated. Chase
(1849-) is also an exceptionally good portrait painter, and he handles
the _genre_ subject with brilliant color and a swift, sure brush. In
brush-work he is exceedingly clever, and is an excellent technician
in almost every respect. Not always profound in matter he generally
manages to be entertaining in method. Blum (1857-) is well known to
magazine readers through many black-and-white illustrations. He is
also a painter of _genre_ subjects taken from many lands, and handles
his brush with brilliancy and force. Dewing (1851-) is a painter with
a refined sense not only in form but in color. His pictures are
usually small, but exquisite in delicacy and decorative charm. Thayer
(1849-) is fond of large canvases, a man of earnestness, sincerity,
and imagination, but not a good draughtsman, not a good colorist, and
a rather clumsy brushman. He has, however, something to say, and in a
large sense is an artist of uncommon ability. Kenyon Cox (1856-) is a
draughtsman, with a strong command of line and taste in its
arrangement. He is not a strong colorist, though in recent work he has
shown a new departure in this feature that promises well. He renders
the nude with power, and is fond of the allegorical subject.
The number of good portrait-painters at present working in America is
quite large, and mention can be made of but a few in addition to those
already spoken of--Lockwood, McLure Hamilton, Tarbell, Beckwith,
Benson, Vinton. In figure and _genre_-painting the list of really good
painters could be drawn out indefinitely, and again mention must be
confined to a few only, like Simmons, Shirlaw, Smedley, Brush, Millet,
Hassam, Reid, Wiles, Mowbray, Reinhart, Blashfield, Metcalf, Low, C.
Y. Turner, Henri.
[Illustration: FIG. 108.--WHISTLER. WHITE GIRL.]
Most of the men whose names are given above are resident in America;
but, in addition, there is a large contingent of young men, American
born but resident abroad, who can hardly be claimed by the American
school, and yet belong to it as much as to any school. They are
cosmopolitan in their art, and reside in Paris, Munich, London, or
elsewhere, as the spirit moves them. Sargent, the portrait-painter,
really belongs to this group, as does also Whistler (1834-[23]), one
of the most artistic of all the moderns. Whistler was long resident in
London, but has now removed to Paris. He belongs to no school, and
such art as he produces is peculiarly his own, save a leaven of
influences from Velasquez and the Japanese. His art is the perfection
of delicacy, both in color and in line. Apparently very sketchy, it is
in reality the maximum of effect with the minimum of display. It has
the pictorial charm of mystery and suggestiveness, and the technical
effect of light, air, and space. There is nothing better produced in
modern painting than his present work, and in earlier years he painted
portraits like that of his mother, which are justly ranked as great
art. E. A. Abbey (1852-) is better known by his pen-and-ink work than
by his paintings, howbeit he has done good work in color. He is
resident in England.
[Footnote 23: Died, 1903.]
[Illustration: FIG. 109.--SARGENT. "CARNATION LILY, LILY ROSE."]
In Paris there are many American-born painters, who really belong more
with the French school than the American. Bridgman is an example, and
Dannat, Alexander Harrison, Hitchcock, McEwen, Melchers, Pearce,
Julius Stewart, Weeks (1849-1903), J. W. Alexander, Walter Gay,
Sergeant Kendall have nothing distinctly American about their art. It
is semi-cosmopolitan with a leaning toward French methods. There are
also some American-born painters at Munich, like C. F. Ulrich; Shannon
is in London and Coleman in Italy.
LANDSCAPE AND MARINE PAINTERS, 1878-1894: In the department of
landscape America has had since 1825 something distinctly national,
and has at this day. In recent years the impressionist _plein-air_
school of France has influenced many painters, and the prismatic
landscape is quite as frequently seen in American exhibitions as in
the Paris salons; but American landscape art rather dates ahead of
French impressionism. The strongest landscapist of our times, George
Inness (1825-[24]), is not a young man except in his artistic
aspirations. His style has undergone many changes, yet still remains
distinctly individual. He has always been an experimenter and an
uneven painter, at times doing work of wonderful force, and then again
falling into weakness. The solidity of nature, the mass and bulk of
landscape, he has shown with a power second to none. He is fond of the
sentiment of nature's light, air, and color, and has put it forth more
in his later than in his earlier canvases. At his best, he is one of
the first of the American landscapists. Among his contemporaries Wyant
(already mentioned), Swain Gifford,[25] Colman, Gay, Shurtleff, have
all done excellent work uninfluenced by foreign schools of to-day.
Homer Martin's[26] landscapes, from their breadth of treatment, are
popularly considered rather indifferent work, but in reality they are
excellent in color and poetic feeling.
[Footnote 24: Died 1894.]
[Footnote 25: Died 1905.]
[Footnote 26: Died 1897.]
The "young men" again, in landscape as in the figure, are working in
the modern spirit, though in substance they are based on the
traditions of the older American landscape school. There has been much
achievement, and there is still greater promise in such landscapists
as Tryon, Platt, Murphy, Dearth, Crane, Dewey, Coffin, Horatio Walker,
Jonas Lie. Among those who favor the so-called impressionistic view
are Weir, Twachtman, and Robinson,[27] three landscape-painters of
undeniable power. In marines Gedney Bunce has portrayed many Venetian
scenes of charming color-tone, and De Haas[28] has long been known as
a sea-painter of some power. Quartley, who died young, was brilliant
in color and broadly realistic. The present marine-painters are
Maynard, Snell, Rehn, Butler, Chapman.
[Footnote 27: Died 1896.]
[Footnote 28: Died 1895.]
[Illustration: FIG. 110.--CHASE. ALICE.]
PRINCIPAL WORKS: The works of the early American painters
are to be seen principally in the Boston Museum of Fine
Arts, the Athenæum, Boston Mus., Mass. Hist. Soc., Harvard
College, Redwood Library, Newport, Metropolitan Mus., Lenox
and Hist. Soc. Libraries, the City Hall, Century Club,
Chamber of Commerce, National Acad. of Design, N. Y. In New
Haven, at Yale School of Fine Arts, in Philadelphia at
Penna. Acad. of Fine Arts, in Rochester Powers's Art Gal.,
in Washington Corcoran Gal. and the Capitol.
The works of the younger men are seen in the exhibitions
held from year to year at the Academy of Design, the Society
of American Artists, N. Y., in Philadelphia, Chicago,
Boston, and elsewhere throughout the country. Some of their
works belong to permanent institutions like the Metropolitan
Mus., the Pennsylvania Acad., the Art Institute of Chicago,
but there is no public collection of pictures that
represents American art as a whole. Mr. T. B. Clarke, of New
York, had perhaps as complete a collection of paintings by
contemporary American artists as anyone.
POSTSCRIPT.
SCATTERING SCHOOLS AND INFLUENCES IN ART.
In this brief history of painting it has been necessary to omit some
countries and some painters that have not seemed to be directly
connected with the progress or development of painting in the western
world. The arts of China and Japan, while well worthy of careful
chronicling, are somewhat removed from the arts of the other nations
and from our study. Moreover, they are so positively decorative that
they should be treated under the head of Decoration, though it is not
to be denied that they are also realistically expressive. Portugal has
had some history in the art of painting, but it is slight and so bound
up with Spanish and Flemish influences that its men do not stand out
as a distinct school. This is true in measure of Russian painting. The
early influences with it were Byzantine through the Greek Church. In
late years what has been produced favors the Parisian or German
schools.
In Denmark and Scandinavia there has recently come to the front a
remarkable school of high-light painters, based on Parisian methods,
that threatens to outrival Paris itself. The work of such men as
Kröyer, Zorn, Petersen, Liljefors, Thaulow, Björck, Thegerström, is as
startling in its realism as it is brilliant in its color. The pictures
in the Scandinavian section of the Paris Exposition of 1889 were a
revelation of new strength from the North, and this has been somewhat
increased by the Scandinavian pictures at the World's Fair in 1893. It
is impossible to predict what will be the outcome of this northern
art, nor what will be the result of the recent movement here in
America. All that can be said is that the tide seems to be setting
westward and northward, though Paris has been the centre of art for
many years, and will doubtless continue to be the centre for many
years to come.
INDEX.
(_For additions to Index see page 289._)
Abbate, Niccolò dell', 134.
Abbey, Edwin A., 271.
Aelst, Willem Van, 219.
Aëtion, 30.
Agatharchos, 27.
Aimé-Morot, Nicolas, 167.
Albani, Francesco, 126, 131.
Albertinelli, Mariotto, 90, 97.
Alemannus, Johannes (da Murano), 79, 84.
Aldegrever, Heinrich, 231.
Alexander, John, 262.
Alexander, J. W., 272.
Aligny, Claude François, 149.
Allegri, Pomponio, 108, 109.
Allori, Cristofano, 127, 131.
Allston, Washington, 263.
Alma-Tadema, Laurenz, 199, 202.
Altdorfer, Albrecht, 231, 239.
Alvarez, Don Luis, 184.
Aman-Jean, E., 165.
Andrea da Firenze, 52, 56.
Angelico, Fra Giovanni, 54, 55, 56, 65, 67.
Anselmi, Michelangelo, 108, 109.
Antiochus Gabinius, 35.
Antonio Veneziano, 52, 56.
Apelles, 30.
Apollodorus, 27, 28.
Aranda, Luis Jiminez, 185.
Aretino, Spinello, 53, 56.
Aristides, 29.
Artz, D. A. C., 220.
Aubert, Ernest Jean, 155.
Backer, Jacob, 210.
Backhuisen, Ludolf, 218, 222.
Bagnacavallo, Bartolommeo Ramenghi, 105, 109.
Baker, George A., 266.
Baldovinetti, Alessio, 63, 71.
Baldung, Hans, 230, 239.
Bargue, Charles, 167.
Baroccio, Federigo, 125, 130.
Bartolo, Taddeo di, 54, 56.
Bartolommeo, Fra (Baccio della Porta), 90, 92, 95, 97.
Basaiti, Marco, 83, 85.
Bassano, Francesco, 119-121.
Bassano, Jacopo, 119-121.
Bastert, N., 221.
Bastien-Lepage, Jules, 166.
Baudry, Paul, 163.
Beccafumi, Domenico, 103, 108.
Becerra, Gaspar, 177, 185.
Beckwith, J. Carroll, 270.
Beechey, Sir William, 246.
Beham, Barthel, 231.
Beham, Sebald, 231.
Bellini, Gentile, 81, 85, 94.
Bellini, Giovanni, 74, 77, 81, 82, 83, 85, 112-115, 214, 229.
Bellini, Jacopo, 79, 81, 85.
Boltraffio, Giovanni Antonio, 102.
Benjamin-Constant, Jean Joseph, 165.
Benson, Frank W., 270.
Béraud, Jean, 170.
Berchem, Claas Pietersz, 217, 222.
Berne-Bellecour, Étienne Prosper, 167.
Berrettini, Pietro (il Cortona), 127, 131.
Berruguete, Alonzo, 176, 185.
Bertin, Jean Victor, 149, 157.
Besnard, Paul Albert, 170.
Bierstadt, Albert, 265.
Billet, Pierre, 161.
Bink, Jakob, 231.
Bissolo, Pier Francesco, 83, 85.
Björck, O., 276.
Blake, William, 247, 254.
Blashfield, Edwin H., 270.
Blommers, B. J., 220.
Blum, Robert, 270.
Böcklin, Arnold, 238, 240.
Bol, Ferdinand, 210, 221.
Boldini, Giuseppe, 130, 131.
Bonfiglio, Benedetto, 66, 67, 72.
Bonheur, Auguste, 160.
Bonheur, Rosa, 160.
Bonifazio Pitati, 119-121.
Bonington, Richard Parkes, 157, 252.
Bonnat, Léon, 164.
Bonsignori, Francesco, 76, 84.
Bonvin, François, 168.
Bordone, Paris, 119, 121.
Borgognone, Ambrogio, 71, 72.
Bosboom, J., 220.
Bosch, Hieronymus, 205, 221.
Both, Jan, 217, 222.
Botticelli, Sandro, 61, 63, 71.
Boucher, François, 141, 145, 146.
Boudin, Eugène, 171.
Boughton, George H., 258.
Bouguereau, W. Adolphe, 162, 163.
Boulanger, Hippolyte, 200.
Boulanger, Louis, 153.
Bourdichon, Jean, 133.
Bourdon, Sebastien, 138.
Bouts, Dierich, 190, 191, 201, 205.
Bradford, William, 265.
Breton, Jules Adolphe, 161.
Breughel, 193, 201.
Bridgman, Frederick A., 272.
Bril, Paul, 193, 201, 214, 222.
Bristol, John B., 265.
Bronzino (Agnolo di Cosimo), il, 124, 131.
Brouwer, Adriaan, 198, 202.
Brown, Ford Madox, 257.
Brown, John Lewis, 170,
Brush, George D. F., 270.
Bugiardini, Giuliano di Piero, 91, 97.
Bunce, W. Gedney, 273.
Burkmair, Hans, 232, 233, 239.
Burne-Jones, Sir Edward, 257.
Butler, Howard Russell, 274.
Cabanel, Alexandre, 162, 163.
Caillebotte, 170.
Calderon, Philip Hermogenes, 258.
Callcott, Sir Augustus Wall, 251.
Calvaert, Denis, 192.
Campin, Robert, 189.
Canaletto (Antonio Canale), il, 129, 131.
Cano, Alonzo, 181, 185.
Caracci, Agostino, 125-127, 130.
Caracci, Annibale, 125-127, 130, 182.
Caracci, Ludovico, 125-127, 130.
Caravaggio, Michelangelo Amerighi da, 127, 128, 131, 136, 181, 182.
Carolus-Duran, Charles Auguste Emil, 164.
Caroto, Giovanni Francisco, 76, 84, 120, 121.
Carpaccio, Vittore, 77, 82, 83, 85.
Carrière, E., 165.
Carstens, Asmus Jacob, 236.
Cassatt, Mary, 170.
Castagno, Andrea del, 63, 71, 176.
Castro, Juan Sanchez de, 180, 185.
Catena, Vincenzo di Biagio, 83, 85.
Cattermole, George, 254.
Cavazzola, Paolo (Moranda), 120, 121.
Cazin, Jean Charles, 159.
Cespedes, Pablo de, 180, 185.
Champaigne, Philip de, 139.
Champmartin, Callande de, 153.
Chapman, Carlton T., 274.
Chardin, Jean Baptiste Simeon, 142.
Chase, William M., 269.
Chintreuil, Antoine, 159.
Church, Frederick E., 264.
Cima da Conegliano, Giov. Battista, 82, 85.
Cimabue, Giovanni, 51, 54, 56.
Clays, Paul Jean, 200, 202.
Clouet, Francois, 134.
Clouet, Jean, 134.
Cocxie, Michiel van, 192, 201.
Coello, Claudio, 179, 185.
Coffin, William A., 273.
Cogniet, Leon, 153.
Cole, Vicat, 258.
Cole, Thomas, 264.
Coleman, C. C., 272.
Colman, Samuel, 273.
Constable, John, 157, 216, 251-253, 259.
Copley, John Singleton, 261, 264.
Coques, Gonzales, 198, 202.
Cormon, Fernand, 165.
Cornelis van Haarlem, 206, 221.
Cornelius, Peter von, 130, 236, 237, 239.
Corot, Jean Baptiste Camille, 157, 159, 221.
Correggio (Antonio Allegri), il, 101, 105-109, 110, 124, 125, 177, 180,
245, 249.
Cossa, Francesco, 69, 72.
Costa, Lorenzo, 69, 72, 104, 107.
Cotman, John Sell, 251.
Cottet, 168.
Courbet, G., 162, 165, 166, 199, 219.
Cousin, Jean, 134, 135.
Couture, Thomas, 155, 266.
Cozens, John Robert, 254.
Cox, David, 254.
Cox, Kenyon, 270.
Cranach (the Elder), Lucas, 199, 234, 235, 239.
Cranach (the Younger), Lucas, 235, 239.
Crane, R. Bruce, 273.
Crawhall, Joseph, 259.
Crayer, Kasper de, 196, 201.
Credi, Lorenzo di, 64, 65, 71.
Cristus, Peter, 189, 201.
Crivelli, Carlo, 80, 81, 84.
Crome, John (Old Crome), 251.
Cuyp, Aelbert, 217, 218, 222.
Dagnan-Bouveret, Pascal A. J., 168.
Damoye, Pierre Emmanuel, 159.
Damophilos, 35.
Dannat, William T., 272.
Dantan, Joseph Édouard, 168.
Daubigny, Charles François, 158.
David, Gheeraert, 191, 192, 201.
David, Jacques Louis, 130, 147-152, 153, 156, 162, 183, 198, 219.
Dearth, Henry J., 273.
Decamps, A. G., 153.
Degas, 170.
De Haas, M. F. H., 273.
Delacroix, Ferdinand Victor E., 151, 152, 160, 162, 253, 259.
Delaroche, Hippolyte (Paul), 153, 154, 199.
Delaunay, Jules Elie, 165.
De Neuville, Alphonse Maria, 167.
De Nittis. See "Nittis."
Denner, Balthasar, 236, 239.
Detaille, Jean Baptiste Édouard, 167.
Devéria, Eugene, 153.
Dewey, Charles Melville, 273.
Dewing, Thomas W., 270.
Dewint, Peter, 254.
Diana, Benedetto, 84, 85.
Diaz de la Pena, Narciso Virgilio, 158.
Diepenbeeck, Abraham van, 196, 201.
Dionysius, 35.
Dolci, Carlo, 126, 131, 182.
Domenichino (Domenico Zampieri), 126, 130.
Domingo, J., 185.
Dossi, Dosso (Giovanni di Lutero), 104, 107, 108.
Dou, Gerard, 210, 221.
Doughty, Thomas, 264.
Du Breuil, Toussaint, 134.
Duccio di Buoninsegna, 53, 56, 65.
Duez, Ernest Ange, 168.
Du Jardin, Karel, 217, 222.
Dupré, Julien, 166.
Dupré, Jules, 158.
Durand, Asher Brown, 264.
Dürer, Albrecht, 205, 229-235, 239.
Eastlake, Sir Charles, 247.
Eeckhout, Gerbrand van den, 210, 221.
Elliott, Charles Loring, 265.
Elzheimer, Adam, 235, 239.
Engelbrechsten, Cornelis, 205.
Etty, William, 247.
Euphranor, 29.
Eupompos, 28.
Everdingen, Allart van, 215, 222.
Eyck, Hubert van, 188, 201.
Eyck, Jan van, 84, 174, 188-190, 193, 201, 204, 205.
Fabius Pictor, 35.
Fabriano, Gentile da, 54, 55, 56, 66, 74, 75, 79, 81.
Fabritius, Karel, 210, 213, 221.
Faed, Thomas, 258.
Fantin-Latour, Henri, 168.
Favretto, Giacomo, 130, 131.
Ferrara, Gaudenzio, 102, 108.
Fielding, Anthony V. D. Copley, 254.
Filippino. See Lippi.
Fiore, Jacobello del, 79, 84.
Fiorenzo di Lorenzo, 66, 72.
Flandrin, Jean Hippolyte, 154.
Flinck, Govaert, 210, 221.
Floris, Franz, 192, 201.
Foppa, Vincenzo, 71, 72, 101.
Forain, J. L., 170.
Forbes, Stanhope, 258.
Fortuny, Mariano, 130, 183-185.
Fouquet, Jean, 133.
Fragonard, Jean Honoré, 141.
Français, François Louis, 159.
Francesca, Piero della, 66, 72, 75.
Francia, Francesco (Raibolini), 69, 72, 105, 107.
Franciabigio (Francesco di Cristofano Bigi), 92, 97.
Francken, 192.
Fredi, Bartolo di, 54, 56.
Fréminet, Martin, 135.
Frere, T., 154.
Friant, Emile, 168.
Fromentin, E., 154.
Fuller, George, 266.
Fyt, Jan, 196, 201.
Gaddi, Agnolo, 52, 56.
Gaddi, Taddeo, 52, 56.
Gainsborough, T., 245-247, 259.
Gallait, Louis, 199.
Garofolo (Benvenuto Tisi), il, 104, 107, 109.
Gay, Edward, 273.
Gay, Walter, 272.
Geldorp, Gortzius, 192.
Gérard, Baron François Pascal, 148.
Géricault, Jean Louis, A. T., 151.
Gérôme, Jean Léon, 155, 162, 163, 167, 184.
Gervex, Henri, 168.
Ghirlandajo, Domenico, 63, 64, 71, 92, 176.
Ghirlandajo, Ridolfo, 91, 97.
Giampietrino (Giovanni Pedrini), 102, 108.
Gifford, Sandford, 265.
Gifford, R. Swain, 273.
Giorgione (Giorgio Barbarelli), il, 83, 94, 112-121, 128.
Giordano, Luca, 128, 131, 183.
Giotto di Bondone, 49, 50, 52, 54, 55, 56, 73.
Giottino (Tommaso di Stefano), 52, 56.
Giovanni da Milano, 52, 56.
Giovanni da Udine, 97, 98
Girodet de Roussy, Anne Louis, 148.
Girtin, Thomas, 254.
Giulio (Pippi), Romano, 96, 98, 120, 136.
Gleyre, Marc Charles Gabriel, 154.
Goes, Hugo van der, 190, 201.
Gorgasos, 35.
Goya y Lucientes, Francisco, 183, 185.
Goyen, Jan van, 214, 218, 222.
Gozzoli, Benozzo, 63, 65, 71.
Granacci, Francesco, 91, 97.
Grandi, Ercole di Giulio, 69, 72.
Greuze, Jean Baptiste, 142.
Gros, Baron Antoine Jean, 149, 151, 152.
Grünewald, Matthias, 234
Guardi, Francesco, 129, 131.
Guercino (Giov. Fran. Barbiera), il, 126, 131.
Guérin, Pierre Narcisse, 148.
Guido Reni, 126, 130, 136.
Guido da Sienna, 53, 56.
Guthrie, James, 259.
Hals, Franz (the Younger), 207, 211, 212, 221.
Hamilton, James, 259.
Hamilton, McLure, 270.
Hamon, Jean Louis, 155.
Harding, Chester, 265.
Harpignies, Henri, 159.
Hassam, Childe, 270.
Harrison, T. Alexander, 272.
Healy, George P. A., 266.
Hébert, Antoine Auguste Ernest, 164.
Heem, Jan van, 218.
Heemskerck, Marten van, 206, 221.
Helst, Bartholomeus van der, 210, 221.
Henner, Jean Jacques, 164.
Henry, George, 259.
Herkomer, Hubert, 258.
Herrera, Francisco de, 177, 180, 185.
Heyden, Jan van der, 218, 222.
Hicks, Thomas, 266.
Hill, Thomas, 265.
Hitchcock, George, 272.
Hobbema, Meindert, 215, 216, 222, 251.
Hogarth, William, 243, 244.
Holbein (the Elder), Hans, 233, 239.
Holbein (the Younger), Hans, 134. 229-234, 239, 243.
Holl, Frank, 258.
Homer, Winslow, 268.
Hondecoeter, Melchior d', 219, 222.
Hooghe, Pieter de, 199, 213, 221.
Hook, James Clarke, 259.
Hoppner, John, 246.
Hornell, E. A., 259.
Hubbard, Richard W., 265.
Huet, Paul, 159.
Hunt, Holman, 255, 256.
Hunt, William Henry, 254.
Hunt, William Morris, 266.
Huntington, Daniel, 266.
Huysum, Jan van, 219-222.
Imola, Innocenza da (Francucci), 97, 98, 105.
Ingres, Jean Auguste Dominique, 148, 152-154, 161, 162.
Inman, Henry, 265.
Inness, George, 273.
Israels, Jozef, 219, 220.
Jacque, Charles, 159.
Janssens van Nuyssen, Abraham, 196, 201.
Jarvis, John Wesley, 263.
Joannes, Juan de, 182, 185.
Johnson, David, 265.
Johnson, Eastman, 268.
Jongkind, 221.
Jordaens, Jacob, 196.
Justus van Ghent, 190, 201.
Kalf, Willem, 219.
Kauffman, Angelica, 236, 239.
Kaulbach, Wilhelm von, 237, 239.
Kendall, Sergeant, 272.
Kensett, John F., 264.
Kever, J. S. H., 221.
Keyser, Thomas de, 207, 221.
Klinger, Max, 238.
Kneller, Sir Godfrey, 243.
Koninck, Philip de, 210, 221.
Kröyer, Peter S., 276.
Kuehl, G., 238.
Kulmbach, Hans von, 230, 239.
Kunz, 227, 239.
La Farge, John, 268.
Lancret, Nicolas, 141.
Landseer, Sir Edwin Henry, 249.
Largillière, Nicolas, 139.
Lastman, Pieter, 207.
Laurens, Jean Paul, 165.
Lavery, John, 259.
Lawrence, Sir Thomas, 247.
Lawson, Cecil Gordon, 258.
Lawson, John, 259.
Lebrun, Charles, 138, 139.
Lebrun, Marie Elizabeth Louise Vigée, 149.
Lefebvre, Jules Joseph, 164.
Legros, Alphonse, 161.
Leibl, Wilhelm, 238, 240.
Leighton, Sir Frederick, 258.
Leloir, Alexandre Louis, 167.
Lely, Sir Peter, 243.
Lenbach, Franz, 238, 239.
Leonardo da Vinci, 64, 66, 71, 90, 92, 95, 99-103, 107, 108, 134.
Lerolle, Henri, 161.
Leslie, Robert Charles, 264.
Lessing, Karl Friedrich, 266.
Le Sueur, Eustache, 138.
Lethière, Guillaume Guillon, 148.
Leutze, Emanuel, 266.
Lewis, John Frederick, 254.
Leyden, Lucas van, 205, 221.
Leys, Baron Jean Auguste Henri, 199, 202.
L'hermitte, Léon Augustin, 166.
Liberale da Verona, 76, 84, 120.
Libri, Girolamo dai, 120, 121.
Liebermann, Max, 238.
Liljefors, Bruno, 276.
Lippi, Fra Filippo, 63, 71, 74.
Lippi, Filippino, 63, 71.
Lockwood, Wilton, 270.
Lombard, Lambert, 192.
Lorenzetti, Ambrogio, 49, 50, 54, 55, 56.
Lorenzetti, Pietro, 54, 56, 65.
Lorrain, Claude (Gellée), 136, 150, 217, 250, 251, 253.
Lotto, Lorenzo, 118, 121.
Low, Will H., 270.
Luini, Bernardino, 101, 108.
Mabuse, Jan (Gossart) van, 192, 201, 206, 243.
McBride, A., 259.
McEntee, Jervis, 265.
McEwen, Walter, 272.
Madrazo, Raimundo de, 184, 185.
Maes, Nicolaas, 210, 221.
Makart, Hans, 238, 240.
Manet, Édouard, 168, 169, 170.
Mansueti, Giovanni, 84, 85.
Mantegna, Andrea, 61, 74, 76, 77, 81, 84, 107, 229, 234.
Maratta, Carlo, 127, 131.
Marconi, Rocco, 118, 119, 121.
Marilhat, P., 154.
Maris, James, 220.
Maris, Matthew, 220.
Maris, Willem, 221.
Martin, Henri, 168.
Martin, Homer, 273.
Martino, Simone di, 54, 56.
Masaccio, Tommaso, 54, 61, 71, 92, 93, 95.
Masolino, Tommaso Fini, 61, 71.
Massys, Quentin, 191, 192, 201, 234.
Master of the Lyversberg Passion, 227.
Mauve, Anton, 221.
Mazo, Juan Bautista Martinez del, 179, 185.
Mazzolino, Ludovico, 105, 109.
Maynard, George W., 274.
Meer of Delft, Jan van der, 213, 221.
Meire, Gerard van der, 190, 201.
Meissonier, Jean Louis Ernest, 167, 184.
Meister, Stephen (Lochner), 225.
Meister, Wilhelm, 222.
Melchers, Gari, 272.
Melozzo da Forli, 67, 72.
Melville, Arthur, 259.
Memling, Hans, 190, 201.
Memmi, Lippo, 54, 56.
Mengs, Raphael, 236, 239.
Menzel, Adolf, 238, 239.
Mesdag, Hendrik Willem, 221.
Messina, Antonello da, 83, 84, 85, 102, 113.
Metcalf, Willard L., 270.
Metrodorus, 35.
Metsu, Gabriel, 167, 211, 221.
Mettling, V. Louis, 168.
Michael Angelo (Buonarroti), 62, 90, 92, 97, 99, 112, 116, 122, 123-126,
144, 176, 181, 192, 206.
Michallon, Achille Etna, 149.
Michel, Georges, 159.
Michetti, Francesco Paolo, 130, 131.
Mierevelt, Michiel Jansz, 206, 221.
Mieris, Franz van, 211, 221.
Mignard, Pierre, 139.
Millais, Sir John, 255, 256, 257.
Millet, Francis D., 270.
Millet, Jean Francois, 160-162, 165, 166, 219, 266.
Miranda, Juan Carreño de, 179, 185.
Molyn (the Elder), Pieter de, 215, 222.
Monet, Claude, 170, 171.
Montagna, Bartolommeo, 77, 84.
Montenard, Frederic, 171.
Moore, Albert, 258.
Moore, Henry, 259.
Morales, Luis de, 177, 185.
Moran, Thomas, 265.
Morelli, Domenico, 130, 131.
Moretto (Alessandro Buonvicino) il, 120, 121.
Morland, George, 248.
Moro, Antonio, 177, 192, 201, 243.
Moroni, Giovanni Battista, 120, 121.
Morton, Thomas, 259.
Mostert, Jan, 191, 201, 205.
Mount, William S., 266.
Mowbray, H. Siddons, 270.
Mulready, William, 249.
Munkacsy, Mihaly, 238, 240.
Murillo, Bartolomé Estéban, 173, 180-182, 185.
Murphy, J. Francis, 273.
Navarette, Juan Fernandez, 177, 185.
Navez, Francois, 199, 200, 202.
Neer, Aart van der, 215, 222.
Nelli, Ottaviano, 65, 71.
Netscher, Kasper, 211, 221.
Neuchatel, Nicolaus, 192.
Neuhuys, Albert, 220.
Newton, Gilbert Stuart, 264.
Niccolo (Alunno) da Foligno, 65, 66, 72.
Nicol, Erskine, 258.
Nikias, 29.
Nikomachus, 29.
Nittis, Giuseppe de, 130, 131.
Nono, Luigi, 130.
Noort, Adam van, 195, 196, 201.
Oggiono, Marco da, 102, 108.
Opie, John, 246.
Orcagna (Andrea di Cione), 52, 56.
Orchardson, William Quiller, 258.
Orley, Barent van, 192.
Ostade, Adriaan van, 211, 212, 221.
Ouwater, Aalbert van, 204.
Overbeck, Johann Friedrich, 130, 236, 239.
Pacchia, Girolamo della, 103, 108.
Pacchiarotta, Giacomo, 103, 108.
Pacheco, Francisco, 178, 180, 185.
Pacuvius, 35.
Padovanino (Ales. Varotari), il, 128, 131.
Page, William, 266.
Palma (il Vecchio), Jacopo, 118, 119, 121.
Palma (il Giovine), Jacopo, 128, 131.
Palmaroli, Vincente, 184.
Parmigianino (Francesco Mazzola), il, 108, 109, 135.
Pamphilos, 28.
Panetti, Domenico, 104.
Paolino (Fra) da Pistoja, 90, 97.
Parrhasios, 28.
Parsons, Alfred, 259.
Pater, Jean Baptiste Joseph, 141.
Paterson, James, 259.
Patinir, Joachim, 191.
Pausias, 28.
Peale, Charles Wilson, 261.
Peale, Rembrandt, 263.
Pearce, Charles Sprague, 272.
Pelouse, Léon Germaine, 159.
Pencz, Georg, 231.
Penni, Giovanni Francesco, 96, 98.
Péreal, Jean, 133.
Perino del Vaga, 94, 97, 98, 180.
Perugino, Pietro (Vanucci), 64, 67, 69, 70, 72, 95.
Peruzzi, Baldassare, 103, 108.
Petersen, Eilif, 276.
Piero di Cosimo, 65, 71.
Piloty, Carl Theodor von, 237, 239.
Pinturricchio, Bernardino, 68, 70, 72.
Piombo, Sebastiano del, 94, 98, 182.
Pisano, Vittore (Pisanello), 73, 75, 79, 84.
Pissarro, Camille, 170.
Pizzolo, Niccolo, 75, 84.
Platt, Charles A., 273.
Plydenwurff, Wilhelm, 228.
Poggenbeek, George, 221.
Pointelin, 159.
Pollajuolo, Antonio del, 63, 71.
Polygnotus, 26.
Pontormo, Jacopo (Carrucci), 92, 97, 124.
Poorter, Willem de, 210, 221.
Pordenone, Giovanni Ant., 119, 121.
Potter, Paul, 216, 222.
Pourbus, Peeter, 192, 201.
Poussin, Gaspard (Dughet), 136.
Poussin, Nicolas, 126, 136, 137, 150, 251.
Pradilla, Francisco, 184.
Previtali, Andrea, 83, 85.
Primaticcio, Francesco, 97, 98, 134.
Protogenes, 30.
Prout, Samuel, 254.
Prudhon, Pierre Paul, 147.
Puvis de Chavannes, Pierre, 164.
QUARTLEY, Arthur, 274.
RAEBURN, Sir Henry, 246.
Raffaelli, Jean François, 170.
Raphael Sanzio, 62, 67, 90, 94, 98, 99, 103, 124, 125, 149, 182, 192,
206, 255.
Ravesteyn, Jan van, 207, 221.
Regnault, Henri, 165.
Regnault, Jean Baptiste, 147, 148.
Rehn, F. K. M., 274.
Reid, Robert, 270.
Reid-Murray, J., 259.
Reinhart, Charles S., 270.
Rembrandt van Ryn, 148, 196, 204, 207-213, 221, 249.
René of Anjou, 133.
Renoir, 170.
Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 212, 244-247.
Ribalta, Francisco de, 182, 185.
Ribera, Roman, 185.
Ribera (Lo Spagnoletto), José di, 128, 168, 178, 182, 183, 185.
Ribot, Augustin Theodule, 168.
Richards, William T., 265.
Rico, Martin, 185.
Rigaud, Hyacinthe, 139.
Rincon, Antonio, 176, 185.
Robert-Fleury, Joseph Nicolas, 153.
Robie, Jean, 200.
Robinson, Theodore, 273.
Roche, Alex., 259.
Rochegrosse, Georges, 165.
Roelas, Juan de las, 180, 181, 185.
Roll, Alfred Philippe, 170.
Romanino, Girolamo Bresciano, 120, 121.
Rombouts, Theodoor, 196, 201.
Romney, George, 246.
Rondinelli, Niccolo, 84, 85.
Rosa, Salvator, 128, 131.
Rosselli, Cosimo, 63, 71, 90.
Rossetti, Gabriel Charles Dante, 255, 256, 257.
Rosso, il, 134.
Rottenhammer, Johann, 235, 239.
Rousseau, Théodore, 158, 160, 162.
Roybet, Ferdinand, 168.
Rubens, Peter Paul, 135, 179, 193-201, 210, 243.
Ruisdael, Jacob van, 215, 216, 222.
Ruisdael, Solomon van, 215, 222.
Ryder, Albert, 268.
SABBATINI (Andrea da Salerno), 97, 98.
St. Jan, Geertjen van, 205.
Salaino (Andrea Sala), il, 101, 108.
Salviati, Francesco Rossi, 124, 130.
Sanchez-Coello, Alonzo, 177, 185.
Santi, Giovanni, 67, 72.
Sanzio. See "Raphael."
Sargent, John S., 269, 270.
Sarto, Andrea (Angeli) del, 91, 97, 101, 105, 134.
Sassoferrato (Giov. Battista Salvi), il, 126, 131.
Savoldo, Giovanni Girolamo, 120, 121.
Schadow, Friedrich Wilhelm von, 236, 237, 239.
Schaffner, Martin, 231, 239.
Schalcken, Godfried, 211, 221.
Schäufelin, Hans Leonhardt, 230, 239.
Scheffer, Ary, 153.
Schöngauer, Martin, 231, 232, 233, 239.
Schnorr von Karolsfeld, J., 237, 239.
Schüchlin, Hans, 231.
Scorel, Jan van, 192, 206, 221.
Segantini, Giovanni, 130.
Semitecolo, Niccolo, 79, 84.
Serapion, 35.
Sesto, Cesare da, 102, 108.
Shannon, J. J., 272.
Shirlaw, Walter, 270.
Shurtleff, Roswell M., 273.
Sigalon, Xavier, 153.
Signorelli, Luca, 66, 67, 72, 93.
Simmons, Edward E., 270.
Simonetti, 130.
Sisley, Alfred, 171.
Smedley, William T., 270.
Smibert, John, 261.
Snell, Henry B., 274.
Snyders, Franz, 196, 201.
Sodoma (Giov. Ant. Bazzi), il, 103, 108.
Solario, Andrea (da Milano), 102, 108.
Sopolis, 35.
Sorolla, Joaquin, 185.
Spagna, Lo (Giovanni di Pietro), 69, 72.
Spence, Harry, 259.
Spranger, Bartholomeus, 192.
Squarcione, Francesco, 73, 74, 75, 81.
Starnina, Gherardo, 54, 56.
Steele, Edward, 246.
Steen, Jan, 211, 212, 249.
Steenwyck, Hendrik van, 206, 221.
Stevens, Alfred, 200, 202.
Stewart, Julius L., 272.
Strigel, Bernard, 232, 239.
Stothard, Thomas, 254.
Stott of Oldham, 258.
Stuart, Gilbert, 262, 263.
Stuck, Franz, 238.
Sully, Thomas, 263, 264.
Swanenburch, Jakob Isaaks van, 207.
TARBELL, Edmund C., 270.
Teniers (the Younger), David, 197, 202.
Terburg, Gerard, 167, 212, 221.
Thaulow, Fritz, 276.
Thayer, Abbott H., 270.
Thegerström, R., 276.
Theodorich of Prague, 227, 239.
Theotocopuli, Domenico, 177, 185.
Thoma, Hans, 238.
Tiepolo, Giovanni Battista, 128, 131.
Tiepolo, Giovanni Domenico, 129, 131.
Timanthes, 28.
Tintoretto (Jacopo Robusti), il, 115-117, 121, 123, 128.
Titian (Tiziano Vecelli), 101, 113-121, 124, 125, 128, 177, 179, 194,
196, 212, 245.
Tito, Ettore, 130.
Torbido, Francisco (il Moro), 120, 121.
Toulmouche, Auguste, 167.
Tristan, Luis, 177, 178, 185.
Troyon, Constant, 159, 160.
Trumbull, John, 262, 265.
Tryon, Dwight W., 273.
Tura, Cosimo, 69, 72, 75.
Turner, C. Y., 270.
Turner, Joseph Mallord William, 251, 253, 254.
Twachtman, John H., 273.
UCCELLO, Paolo, 63, 71, 74.
Uhde, Fritz von, 238, 240.
Ulrich, Charles F., 272.
VAENIUS, Otho, 195, 201.
Van Beers, Jan, 200, 202.
Vanderlyn, John, 263.
Van Dyck, Sir Anthony, 181, 195, 198, 201, 243, 244.
Van Dyck, Philip, 219, 222.
Van Loo, Jean Baptiste, 141, 145, 146.
Van Marcke, Émil, 159.
Vargas, Luis de, 180, 185.
Vasari, Giorgio, 124, 130
Vedder, Elihu, 268.
Veit, Philipp, 236, 239.
Velasquez, Diego Rodriguez de Silva y, 173, 174, 177-185, 194, 196, 207,
212, 249, 271.
Velde, Adrien van de, 216, 222.
Velde (the Elder), Willem van de, 218, 222.
Velde (the Younger), Willem van de, 218, 222.
Venusti, Marcello, 94, 98.
Verboeckhoven, Eugène Joseph, 200, 202.
Verhagen, Pierre Joseph, 198, 202.
Vernet, Claude Joseph, 142, 250.
Vernet, Émile Jean Horace, 149.
Veronese, Paolo (Caliari), 116-121, 129, 136, 194.
Verrocchio, Andrea del, 64, 71, 99.
Vibert, Jehan Georges, 167.
Victoors, Jan, 210, 221.
Vien, Joseph Marie, 146.
Villegas, José, 184, 185.
Vincent, François André, 147.
Vinci. See "Leonardo."
Vinton, F. P., 270.
Viti, Timoteo di, 97, 98.
Vivarini, Antonio (da Murano), 79, 84.
Vivarini, Bartolommeo (da Murano), 79, 84.
Vivarini, Luigi or Alvise, 80, 85.
Vlieger, Simon de, 218, 222.
Vollon, Antoine, 168.
Volterra, Daniele (Ricciarelli) da, 94, 97.
Vos, Cornelis de, 196, 201.
Vos, Marten de, 192.
Vouet, Simon, 136, 139.
WALKER, Frederick, 258.
Walker, Horatio, 273.
Walton, E. A., 259.
Wappers, Baron Gustavus, 199, 202.
Watelet, Louis Étienne, 149.
Watson, John, 261.
Watteau, Antoine, 140, 141.
Watts, George Frederick, 258.
Wauters, Émile, 200.
Weeks, Edwin L., 272.
Weenix, Jan, 219, 222.
Weir, J. Alden, 270, 273.
Werff, Adriaan van der, 219, 222.
West, Benjamin, 261, 262, 264.
Weyden, Roger van der, 189, 190, 201, 231.
Whistler, James A. McNeill, 271.
Whittredge, Worthington, 265.
Wiertz, Antoine Joseph, 199, 202.
Wiles, Irving R., 270.
Wilkie, Sir David, 249.
Willems, Florent, 200, 202.
Wilson, Richard, 250, 251.
Wolgemut, Michael, 228, 239.
Wouverman, Philips, 216, 222.
Wright, Joseph, 250.
Wurmser, Nicolaus, 227, 239.
Wyant, Alexander H., 265, 273.
Wyllie, W. L., 259
Wynants, Jan, 215, 222.
Yon, Edmund Charles, 159.
Zamacois, Eduardo, 184, 185.
Zegers, Daniel, 196, 201.
Ziem, 154.
Zeitblom, Bartholomäus, 231, 239.
Zeuxis, 27.
Zoppo, Marco, 75, 84.
Zorn, Anders, 276.
Zucchero, Federigo, 125, 130.
Zuloaga, Ignacio, 185.
Zurbaran, Francisco de, 180, 181, 185.
ADDITIONS TO INDEX.
Anglada, 185.
Bartels, 238.
Baur, 221.
Bell, 259.
Brangwyn, 259.
Breitner, 221.
Buysse, 200.
Cariani, 119.
Claus, 200.
Clausen, 259.
Fattori, 130.
Fragiacomo, 130.
Frederic, 200.
Garcia y Remos, 185.
Greiner, 238.
Haverman, 221.
Henri, Robert, 270.
Keller, 238.
Khnopff, 200.
Lempoels, 200.
Lie, Jonas, 273.
McTaggart, 259.
Mancini, 130.
Marchetti, 130.
Ouless, 259.
Reid, Sir George, 259.
Steer, 259.
Swan, 259.
Trübner, 238.
Vierge, 185.
Weissenbruch, 221.
Witsen, 221.
* * * * *
COLLEGE HISTORIES OF ART
EDITED BY
JOHN C. VAN DYKE, L.H.D.
PROFESSOR OF THE HISTORY OF ART IN RUTGERS COLLEGE
HISTORY OF PAINTING
By JOHN C. VAN DYKE, the Editor of the Series. With Frontispiece and
110 Illustrations, Bibliographies, and Index. Crown 8vo, $1.50.
HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE
By ALFRED D. F. HAMLIN, A.M., Adjunct Professor of Architecture,
Columbia College, New York. With Frontispiece and 229 Illustrations
and Diagrams, Bibliographies, Glossary, Index of Architects, and a
General Index. Crown 8vo, $2.00.
HISTORY OF SCULPTURE
By ALLAN MARQUAND, Ph.D., L.H.D., and ARTHUR L. FROTHINGHAM, Jr.,
Ph.D., Professors of Archæology and the History of Art in Princeton
University. With Frontispiece and 112 Illustrations. Crown 8vo, $1.50.
* * * * *
A History of Architecture.
By
A. D. F. Hamlin, A.M.
Adjunct Professor of Architecture in the School of Mines, Columbia
College.
With Frontispiece and 229 Illustrations and Diagrams, Bibliographies,
Glossary, Index of Architects, and a General Index. Crown 8vo, pp.
xx-453, $2.00.
"The text of this book is very valuable because of the singularly
intelligent view taken of each separate epoch.... The book is
extremely well furnished with bibliographies, lists of monuments
[which] are excellent.... If any reasonable part of the contents of
this book can be got into the heads of those who study it, they will
have excellent ideas about architecture and the beginnings of a sound
knowledge of it."--THE NATION, NEW YORK.
"A manual that will be invaluable to the student, while it will give
to the general reader a sufficiently full outline for the purposes of
the development of the various schools of architecture. What makes it
of special value is the large number of ground plans of typical
buildings and the sketches of bits of detail of columns, arches,
windows and doorways. Each chapter is prefaced by a list of books
recommended, and each ends with a list of monuments. The illustrations
are numerous and well executed."--SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE.
"Probably presents more comprehensively and at the same time
concisely, the various periods and styles of architecture, with a
characterization of the most important works of each period and style,
than any other published work.... The volume fills a gap in
architectural literature which has long existed."--ADVERTISER, BOSTON.
"A neatly published work, adapted to the use either of student or
general reader. As a text-book it is a concise and orderly setting
forth of the main principles of architecture followed by the different
schools. The life history of each period is brief yet thorough.... The
treatment is broad and not over-critical. The chief facts are so
grouped that the student can easily grasp them. The plan-drawings are
clear cut and serve their purpose admirably. The half-tone
illustrations are modern in selection and treatment. The style is
clear, easy and pleasing. The entire production shows a studious and
orderly mind. A new and pleasing characteristic is the absence of all
discussion on disputed points. In its unity, clearness and simplicity
lie its charm and interest."--NOTRE DAME SCHOLASTIC, NOTRE DAME, IND.
"This is a very thorough and compendious history of the art of
architecture from the earliest times down to the present.... The work
is elaborately illustrated with a great host of examples, pictures,
diagrams, etc. It is intended to be used as a school text-book, and is
very conveniently arranged for this purpose, with suitable headings in
bold-faced type, and a copious index. Teachers and students will find
it a capital thing for the purpose."--PICAYUNE, NEW ORLEANS.
A History of Sculpture,
BY
ALLAN MARQUAND, Ph. D., L. H. D.
AND
ARTHUR L. FROTHINGHAM, Jr., Ph. D.
Professors of Archæology and the History of Art in Princeton
University.
With Frontispiece and 113 Illustrations in half-tone in the text,
Bibliographies, Addresses for Photographs and Casts, etc. Crown 8vo,
313 pages, $1.50.
* * * * *
HENRY W. KENT, _Curator of the Seater Museum, Watkins, N. Y._
"Like the other works in this series of yours, it is simply
invaluable, filling a long-felt want. The bibliographies and lists
will be keenly appreciated by all who work with a class of students."
CHARLES H. MOORE, _Harvard University_.
"The illustrations are especially good, avoiding the excessively black
background which produce harsh contrasts and injure the outlines of so
many half-tone prints."
J. M. HOPPIN, _Yale University_.
"These names are sufficient guarantee for the excellence of the book
and its fitness for the object it was designed for. I was especially
interested in the chapter on _Renaissance Sculpture in Italy_."
CRITIC, _New York_.
"This history is a model of condensation.... Each period is treated in
full, with descriptions of its general characteristics and its
individual developments under various conditions, physical, political,
religious and the like.... A general history of sculpture has never
before been written in English--never in any language in convenient
text-book form. This publication, then, should meet with an
enthusiastic reception among students and amateurs of art, not so
much, however, because it is the only book of its kind, as for its
intrinsic merit and attractive form."
OUTLOOK, _New York_.
"A concise survey of the history of sculpture is something needed
everywhere.... A good feature of this book--and one which should be
imitated--is the list indicating where casts and photographs may best
be obtained. Of course such a volume is amply indexed."
NOTRE DAME SCHOLASTIC, _Notre Dame, Ind._
"The work is orderly, the style lucid and easy. The illustrations,
numbering over a hundred, are sharply cut and well selected. Besides a
general bibliography, there is placed at the end of each period of
style a special list to which the student may refer, should he wish to
pursue more fully any particular school."
* * * * *
LONGMANS, GREEN & CO., Publishers,
91 & 93 Fifth Avenue, NEW YORK.
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