Chapter X: Preface: By John Ruskin (8)

This is an old copy, or perhaps a replica, of the original picture in the possession of the Duke of Wellington at Apsley House. The treatment of the subject is remarkable, and characteristic of Correggio. "The angel hovers in mid-air with marvellous ease and lightness, and though he bears the healing message of approaching bliss, he cannot restrain his sense of pity. His face is at once radiant and sorrowful, expressing the mingled feelings with which he points on the one hand to heaven, on the other to the cross and crown of thorns. Christ, effulgent in his long straight robe and shining aureole, gazes upward with mournful resignation, the spasm of agony dying out of his face. The twilight landscape is calm and melancholy. The supernatural radiance sheds but a faint light on the grass and bushes, scarcely touching the figures of the sleeping disciples, and dying out completely in the dense foliage beyond. But in the distance a band of soldiers, scarcely visible by the faint glimmer of their torches, draws near, led by Judas, and over the mountains the sky whitens with the first pale streak of dawn" (Ricci: _Correggio: his Life, his Friends, and his Time_, p. 231). The effect of light, Mengs points out, is peculiar: "the radiance of the Saviour's face lights up the picture. But this radiance comes from above, as if from Heaven, while the angel is illuminated by the light reflected from the Saviour." It is interesting to compare Correggio's version of the agony with the earlier one by Bellini (726) and Mantegna (1417). The earlier pictures impress us, but the manner of impression is quite different. There is no attempt either in the Bellini or in the Mantegna to win our sympathy by the beauty of the human type. This, on the other hand, is of the essence of Correggio's art. "The figure of Christ and the Angel represent the dignity of perfect humanity; and Correggio makes the pathos of the expiatory sacrifice of Calvary turn upon this consideration. This is the strictly Renaissance point of view" (J. E. Hodgson, R.A., in _Magazine of Art_, 1886, p. 215).

The original picture has a legend attached to it. "Correggio," says Lomazzo, "was accustomed always to value his works at a very low price, and having on one occasion to pay a bill of four or five _scudi_ to an apothecary in his native city, he painted him 'Christ Praying in the Garden,' which he executed with all possible care." The picture was sold shortly afterwards for 500 _scudi_. It was subsequently in the royal collection at Madrid, and after the battle of Vittoria it was found in Joseph Bonaparte's carriage by one of Wellington's colonels. Wellington hastened to restore it to Ferdinand VII., who, not to be outdone in courtesy, presented it to the duke. The picture in our Gallery was part of the Angerstein collection.

77. THE STONING OF ST. STEPHEN.

_Domenichino_ (Eclectic-Bologna: 1581-1641). _See_ 48.

78.[90] LANDSCAPE WITH RUINS.

_Nicolas Berchem_ (Dutch: 1620-1683).

Nicolas Pietersz, son of Pieter Claesz, a painter, called
himself Berchem, by which name he is entered in the town
records of Haarlem, and by which he signed his pictures. He
married the daughter of his master, Jan Wils (No. 1007). In
1642 he became a member of the Guild of St. Luke at Haarlem.
No authentic information exists about his visiting Italy,
but that he had travelled in that country is clear from the
views represented in his pictures, and from the character
of his landscapes generally. His style resembles that of
another Dutch "Italianiser," Jan Both (No. 71), and there
seems to have been some rivalry between the two men. It is
related that a burgomaster of Dordrecht, Van der Hulk by
name, commissioned a picture from each painter, promising an
additional premium to the one whose work should be thought
the better. On the completion Of the pictures, the patron
declared that the admirable works had deprived him of the
capability of preference, and that both were entitled to the
premium. The picture painted on this occasion by Berchem is the
"Halt of Huntsmen," now in the Hermitage at St. Petersburg.
Berchem's landscapes are taken, says Dr. Richter, "from the
mountainous countries of Italy, and the types and costumes of
the figures therein represented are also entirely Italian,
though not copied direct from nature. He probably painted
most of his Italian landscapes in Holland. What characterises
him principally is a brilliant and easy touch, with which
he renders nature with more art than exactitude. He is more
ingenious in his conceptions than profound or true." The
mannerism and monotony of his works accord with what is told
of his life. In 1665, when at the height of his reputation, he
sold his labour to a dealer, from early in the morning to four
in the afternoon, for ten florins a day. His wife, it appears,
kept the purse, and is said to have doled out very scanty
supplies--a precaution which was perhaps necessary, as Berchem
had a weakness for Italian drawings, his collection of which
sold at his death for 12,800 florins.

81. THE VISION OF ST. AUGUSTINE.

_Garofalo_ (Ferrarese: 1481-1559).

Benvenuto Tisio, called Garofalo[91] from the village of
that name on the Po to which his family belonged, was (like
Sodoma) the son of a shoemaker, and having shown a strong taste
for art, was apprenticed as a lad to the Ferrarese painter,
Domenico Panetti. Seven years later he went to Cremona and
attached himself to Boccaccino (806). He left Cremona suddenly,
as described in a letter, still extant, from Boccaccino to
Garofalo's father: "Had your son," he writes, "learnt good
manners as thoroughly as he has learnt painting, he would
scarcely have played me such a shabby trick. He has taken
himself off, I know not whither, and without a word. But this
may be a clue to his whereabouts, that he said, if he is to be
believed, that he would see Rome." From Rome he returned to
Ferrara, where he formed a warm friendship with the brothers
Dossi. In 1509 he was again in Rome, where he saw and admired
Michael Angelo's frescoes in the Sixtine Chapel in all the
splendour of their freshness. He also greatly admired the work
of Raphael; "and displayed," says Vasari, "so much diffidence
as well as courtesy that he became the friend of Raphael, who,
kind and obliging as he was, assisted and favoured Benvenuto
much, teaching him many things." In 1511 Benvenuto was at
Mantua, but in the following year he returned to Ferrara,
which remained his home for the rest of his life. There, says
Vasari, who was entertained by him, he lived a particularly
happy and busy life, being "cheerful of disposition, mild in
his converse, warmly attached to his friends, beyond measure
affectionate and devoted, and always supporting the trials of
his life with patient resignation." These trials were very
heavy, for soon after he was forty he lost the sight of one
eye; "nor was he without fear and much danger of losing the
other. He then recommended himself to God, and made a vow to
wear grey clothing ever after, as, in fact, he did, when by
the grace of God the sight of the left eye was preserved to
him so perfectly that the works executed by Garofalo in his
sixty-fifth year are so well done, so delicately finished,
and evince so much care, that they are truly wonderful." For
the last nine years of his life he was totally blind, in
which affliction he solaced himself by cultivating music.
Garofalo's works are very numerous; many of them are in France
and in Rome, and in our own Gallery he is well represented.
"He was conscientious and truthful within his scope, and the
ease and delicacy with which he carried out his smaller works
could hardly be exceeded." He was an eclectic rather than an
original painter, though he remained Ferrarese throughout in
his system of colouring. "His fellow-countrymen have called
him the 'Ferrarese Raphael,' in the same way that the Milanese
have called Luini the 'Lombard Raphael,' and, if properly
understood, both appellations have their meaning; for these
painters occupy much the same position in their respective
schools as did Raphael in the Umbrian, Andrea del Sarto in the
Florentine, etc., though the individual gifts of each were of
course very different." (Morelli's _Borghese and Doria-Pamfili
Galleries_, pp. 200-214, contains a detailed account of
Garofalo. His theory that the works attributed to Ortolano
are in reality early works of Garofalo is very doubtful. See
on this point under 699, and _cf._ Venturi's criticism in the
Catalogue of the Ferrarese Exhibition at the Burlington Fine
Arts Club).

A well-known incident in the life of St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo in Africa (A.D. 354-430), one of the "doctors" of the Christian Church whose writings have had a greater effect than those probably of any one man on the beliefs and lives of succeeding Christian ages. Whilst busied, he tells us, in writing his discourse on the Trinity, he one day beheld a child, who, having dug a hole in the sand, was bringing water, as children at the seaside do, to empty the sea into his hole. Augustine told him it was impossible. "Not more impossible," replied the child, "than for thee, O Augustine! to explain the mystery on which thou art now meditating" ("Canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? It is as high as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than hell; what canst thou know? The measure thereof is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea," Job xi. 7-9). The painter shows the visionary nature of the scene by placing beside St Augustine the figure of St. Catherine, the patron saint of theologians and scholars, and in the background, on a little jutting cape, St. Stephen, whose life and actions are set forth in St. Augustine's writings. The saint himself receives the child's lesson with the contemptuous impatience of a scholar's ambition; but all the time the heavens whose mysteries he would fain explore are open behind him, and the angel choirs are singing that he who would enter in must first become as a little child, "for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven."

82. THE HOLY FAMILY.

_Mazzolino_ (Ferrarese: 1480-1528). _See_ 169.

For better examples of this painter, _see_ Nos. 169 and 641.

84. MERCURY AND THE WOODMAN.

_Salvator Rosa_ (Neapolitan: 1615-1673).

"What is most to be admired in the works of Salvator Rosa,"
says Sir Joshua Reynolds, "is the perfect correspondence
which he observed between the subjects which he chose and his
manner of treating them. Everything is of a piece: his rocks,
trees, sky, even to his handling, have the same wild and rude
character which animates his figures." There is perhaps no
painter whose life is more accurately reflected in his work
than Salvator. Conspicuous in this picture are a withered tree
on the right and a withered tree on the left: they are typical
of the painter's blasted life, and "indignant, desolate,
and degraded art." He was born near Naples, the son of an
architect and land-surveyor. In early youth he forsook his
father's business and began secretly to learn painting. At
seventeen his father died, and Salvator, being one of a large
and poor family, was thrown on his own resources. He "cast
himself carelessly on the current of life. No rectitude of
ledger-lines stood in his way; no tender precision of household
customs; no calm successions of rural labour. But past his
half-starved lips rolled profusion of pitiless wealth; before
him glared and swept the troops of shameless pleasure. Above
him muttered Vesuvius; beneath his feet shook the Solfatara. In
heart disdainful, in temper adventurous; conscious of power,
impatient of labour, and yet more of the pride of the patrons
of his youth, he fled to the Calabrian hills, seeking, not
knowledge, but freedom. If he was to be surrounded by cruelty
and deceit, let them at least be those of brave men or savage
beasts, not of the timorous and the contemptible. Better the
wrath of the robber than enmity of the priest; and the cunning
of the wolf than of the hypocrite." It was in this frame of
mind that he sought the solitudes of the hills: "How I hate
the sight of every spot that is inhabited," he says in one of
his letters. It was thus that he formed the taste for the wild
nature which distinguishes his landscapes. It is said indeed
that he once herded for a time with a band of brigands in the
Abruzzi. "Yet even among such scenes as these Salvator might
have been calmed and exalted had he been, indeed, capable of
exaltation. But he was not of high temper enough to perceive
beauty. He had not the sacred sense--the sense of colour; all
the loveliest hues of the Calabrian air were invisible to him;
the sorrowful desolation of the Calabrian villages unfelt. He
saw only what was gross and terrible,--the jagged peak, the
splintered tree, the flowerless bank of grass, and wandering
weed, prickly and pale. His temper confirmed itself in evil,
and became more and more fierce and morose; though not, I
believe, cruel, ungenerous, or lascivious. I should not suspect
Salvator of wantonly inflicting pain. His constantly painting
it does not prove he delighted in it; he felt the horror of it,
and in that horror, fascination. Also, he desired fame, and saw
that here was an untried field rich enough in morbid excitement
to catch the humour of his indolent patrons. But the gloom
gained upon him, and grasped him. He could jest, indeed, as men
jest in prison-yards (he became afterwards a renowned mimic in
Florence); his satires are full of good mocking, but his own
doom to sadness is never repealed." It is characteristic of
the man that the picture on the reputation of which he went
up from Naples to Rome was "Tityus torn by the Vulture." At
Rome, besides his fame as a painter, he made his mark as a
musician, poet, and improvisatore. He cut a brave figure in
the Carnival, and his satires were bold and biting. Partly on
this account he afterwards found it well to leave Rome for
Florence, where he formed one of the company of "I Percossi"
(the stricken)--of jovial wits and artists--who enjoyed the
hospitalities of Cardinal Carlo Giovanni de' Medici. But in
spite of his merry-making he knew (as he says in a cantata)
"no truce from care, no pause from woe." He ultimately died
of the dropsy, having shortly before his death married the
Florentine Lucrezia, who had borne him two sons. "Of all men
whose work I have ever studied," says Mr. Ruskin, in summing
up his career as typical of the lives which cannot conquer
evil but remain at war with, or in captivity to it, "he gives
me most distinctly the idea of a lost spirit. Michelet calls
him, 'Ce damné Salvator,' perhaps in a sense merely harsh and
violent; the epithet to me seems true in a more literal, more
merciful sense,--'That condemned Salvator.' I see in him,
notwithstanding all his baseness, the last traces of spiritual
life in the art of Europe.... All succeeding men ... were men
of the world; they are never in earnest and they are never
appalled. But Salvator was capable of pensiveness, of faith,
and of fear. The misery of the earth is a marvel to him; he
cannot leave off gazing at it. The religion of the earth is a
horror to him. He gnashes his teeth at it, rages at it, mocks
and gibes at it. He would have acknowledged religion had he
seen any that was true.... Helpless Salvator! A little early
sympathy, a word of true guidance, perhaps, had saved him.
What says he of himself? 'Despiser of wealth and of death.'
Two grand scorns: but, oh, condemned Salvator! the question
is not for man what he can scorn, but what he can love." At
the "opposite poles of art are Fra Angelico and Salvator Rosa;
of whom the one was a man who smiled seldom, wept often,
prayed constantly, and never harboured an impure thought. His
pictures are simply so many pieces of jewellery, the colour of
the draperies being perfectly pure, as various as those of a
painted window, chastened only by paleness, and relieved upon
a gold ground. Salvator was a dissipated jester and satirist,
a man who spent his life in masquing and revelry. But his
pictures are full of horror, and their colour is for the most
part gloomy grey. Truly it would seem as if art had so much
eternity in it that it must take its dye from the close rather
than the course of life; 'in such laughter the heart of man is
sorrowful, and the end of that mirth is heaviness'" (_Modern
Painters_, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. iv. See also vol. i. pt. i. sec.
ii. ch. ii. § 9; vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. xviii. § 21; vol. v. pt.
ix. ch. viii. § 14. _Stones of Venice_, vol. ii. ch. v. § 31.
For a full record of fact and romance about this painter, see
Lady Morgan's interesting _Life and Times of Salvator Rosa_;
London, 1855).

An illustration of Æsop's fable of the dishonest woodman who, hearing of the reward which an honest fellow-labourer had obtained from Mercury for not claiming either the gold or silver axe which the god first offered, threw his axe also into the water, hoping for like good fortune. Mercury--here seen standing in the stream--showed him a golden axe. He claimed it, and the god having rebuked him for his impudence, left him to lose his axe and repent of his folly. The painting of the picture is conspicuous for that want of sense for colour, noted above as fatally characteristic of Salvator:--

There is on the left-hand side something without doubt intended
for a rocky mountain, in the middle distance, near enough
for all its fissures and crags to be distinctly visible, or,
rather, for a great many awkward scratches of the brush over it
to be visible, which, though not particularly representative
either of one thing or another, are without doubt intended to
be symbolical of rocks. Now no mountain in full light, and near
enough for its details of crags to be seen, is without great
variety of delicate colour. Salvator has painted it throughout
without one instant of variation; but this, I suppose, is
simplicity and generalisation;--let it pass: but what is the
colour? _Pure sky blue_, without one grain of grey, or any
modifying hue whatsoever; the same brush which had just given
the bluest parts of the sky has been more loaded at the same
part of the pallet, and the whole mountain thrown in with
unmitigated ultramarine. Now, mountains can only become pure
blue when there is so much air between them that they become
mere flat dark shades, every detail being totally lost:
they become blue when they become air, and not till then.
Consequently this part of Salvator's painting, being of hills
perfectly clear and near, with all their details visible, is,
as far as colour is concerned, broad, bold falsehood, the
direct assertion of direct impossibility.

In connection with Salvator's want of sense for colour one should take his insensitiveness to other beauty. For instance, his choice of withered trees, which are here on both sides of us, "is precisely the sign of his preferring ugliness to beauty, decrepitude and disorganisation to life and youth" (_Modern Painters_, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. ii. ch. ii. § 4; vol. v. pt. vi. ch. viii. § 7).

85. ST. JEROME AND THE ANGEL.

_Domenichino_ (Eclectic-Bologna: 1581-1641). _See_ 48.

For St. Jerome, see under 227. The apparition of the angel implies the special call of St. Jerome to the work of translating the Scriptures.

88. ERMINIA AND THE SHEPHERDS.

_Annibale Carracci_ (Eclectic-Bologna: 1560-1609). _See_ 9.

A scene from the "Jerusalem Delivered" by Carracci's contemporary, Tasso. Erminia from the beleaguered city of Jerusalem had beheld the Christian knight, Tancred, whom she loved, wounded in conflict. Disguised in the armour of her friend Clorinda, wearing a dark blue cuirass with a white mantle over it, she stole forth at night to tend him. The sentinels espy her and give her chase. But she outstrips them all, and after a three days' flight finds herself amongst a shepherd family, who entertain her kindly. The old shepherd is busily making card-baskets, and listening to the music of his children. Their fear gives place to delight as the strange warrior, having dismounted from her horse and thrown off her helmet and shield, unbinds her tresses and discloses herself a woman--

An old man, on a rising ground,
In the fresh shade, his white flocks feeding near,
Twig baskets wove; and listen'd to the sound
Trill'd by three blooming boys, who sat disporting round.
These, at the shining of her silver arms,
Were seized at once with wonder and despair;
But sweet Erminia sooth'd their vain alarms,
Discovering her dove's eyes and golden hair.
"Follow," she said, "dear innocents, the care
Of heaven, your fanciful employ;
For the so formidable arms I bear,
No cruel warfare bring, nor harsh annoy
To your engaging tasks, to your sweet songs of joy."

From Landseer's _Catalogue_, p. 214.

This picture has sometimes been ascribed to Domenichino; as the latter was occasionally employed by Annibale to execute his designs, both masters may have had a share in the work.

91. VENUS SLEEPING.

_Nicolas Poussin_ (French: 1593-1665). _See_ 39.

93. SILENUS GATHERING GRAPES.

_Annibale Carracci_ (Eclectic-Bologna: 1560-1609). _See_ 9.

Silenus in a leopard skin, the nurse and preceptor of Bacchus, the wine-god, is being hoisted by two attendant fauns, so that with his own hands he may pick the grapes. This and the companion picture, 94, originally decorated a harpsichord.

94. BACCHUS PLAYING TO SILENUS.[92]

_Annibale Carracci_ (Eclectic-Bologna: 1560-1609). _See_ 9.

A clever picture of contrasts. The old preceptor is leering and pampered, yet with something of a schoolmaster's gravity, "half inclining to the brute, half conscious of the god." The young pupil--like the shepherd boy in Sidney's _Arcadia_, "piping as though he should never be old"--is "full of simple careless grace, laughing in youth and beauty; he holds the Pan's pipe in both hands, and looks up with timid wonder, with an expression of mingled delight and surprise at the sounds he produces" (Hazlitt: _Criticisms upon Art_, p. 6).

These two pictures--together with the "Lot" and "Susannah" of Guido (193 and 196)--used to hang in the Lancellotti Palace in Rome. Lanzi describes our picture, No. 94, as one of the principal treasures of that collection. It is exquisitely finished, he says; the figures are "at once designed, coloured, and disposed with the hand of a great master" (Bohn's translation, iii. 79).

95. DIDO AND ÆNEAS.

_Gaspard Poussin_ (French: 1613-1675). _See_ 31.

Dido, Queen of Carthage, enamoured of the Trojan Æneas, the destined founder of Rome, sought to detain him by strategy within her dominions. The goddess Juno, who had espoused Dido's cause, contrived that a storm should befall when the Queen and her guests were on a hunting party (_Æneid_, iv. 119). In front of the cave a Cupid holds the horse of Æneas, and two others are fluttering above. High in the clouds is Juno, accompanied by Venus, who had contrived all this for Dido's undoing.

As for the execution of the picture, "the stormy wind blows loudly through its leaves, but the total want of invention in the cloud-forms bears it down beyond redemption. Look at the wreaths of _cloud_ (?), with their unpleasant edges cut as hard and solid and opaque and smooth as thick black paint can make them, rolled up over one another like a dirty sail badly reefed"[93] (_Modern Painters_, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. iii. ch. iv. § 23; vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. ii. ch. ii. § 18).

97. THE RAPE OF EUROPA.

_Paolo Veronese_ (Veronese: 1528-1588). _See_ 26 & p. xix.

(A study for a larger picture now at Vienna.) Jupiter, enamoured of Europa, a Phoenician princess, transformed himself into a white bull, and mingled with her father's herds whilst she was gathering flowers with her attendants. Europa, struck by the beauty and gentle nature of the beast, caressed him, and even mounted on his back. Two of her attendants are here assisting her, while a third remonstrates with her on her foolhardiness. Europa is replying that she has no fears. The amorous bull meanwhile is licking her foot. He is garlanded with a wreath of flowers, which is held by his master Cupid, forming thus the leading-string of Love. With the other hand Cupid has "taken the bull by the horn"; whilst above, two little winged loves are gathering fruit and scattering roses. In the middle distance Europa and the bull appear again, about to enter the sea; whilst farther on, the bull is swimming with her toward the land. For the story goes that as soon as Europa had seated herself on his back Jupiter crossed the sea and carried her safely to the island of Crete, and from this rape of Europa comes the name of the continent to which she was carried.

98. VIEW OF LA RICCIA.

_Gaspard Poussin_ (French: 1613-1675). _See_ 31.

This picture and the scene of it--the ancient town of Aricia, about fifteen miles from Rome, famous in Roman legend, and Horace's first stopping-place on his journey to Brindisi--are described by Ruskin in a celebrated passage of _Modern Painters_:--

"Whether it can be supposed to resemble the ancient Aricia,
now La Riccia, close to Albano, I will not take upon me to
determine, seeing that most of the towns of those old masters
are quite as much like one place as another; but, at any rate,
it is a town on a hill, wooded with two-and-thirty bushes,
of very uniform size, and possessing about the same number
of leaves each. These bushes are all painted in with one
dull opaque brown, becoming very slightly greenish towards
the lights, and discover in one place a bit of rock, which
of course would in nature have been cool and grey beside the
lustrous hues of foliage, and which, therefore, being moreover
completely in shade, is consistently and scientifically painted
of a very clear, pretty, and positive brick red, the only thing
like colour in the picture. The foreground is a piece of road
which, in order to make allowance for its greater nearness, for
its being completely in light, and, it may be presumed, for the
quantity of vegetation usually present on carriage-roads, is
given in a very cool green grey; and the truth of the picture
is completed by a number of dots in the sky on the right, with
a stalk to them, of a sober and similar brown.[94]

"Not long ago, I was slowly descending this very bit of
carriage road.... The noonday sun came slanting down the rocky
slopes of La Riccia, and their masses of entangled and tall
foliage, whose autumnal tints were mixed with the wet verdure
of a thousand evergreens, were penetrated with it as with rain.
I cannot call it colour: it was conflagration. Purple and
crimson and scarlet, like the curtains of God's tabernacle,
the rejoicing trees sank into the valley in showers of light,
every separate leaf quivering with buoyant and burning life;
each, as it turned to reflect or to transmit the sunbeam, first
a torch and then an emerald. Far up into the recesses of the
valley, the green vistas arched like the hollows of mighty
waves of some crystalline sea, with the arbutus flowers dashed
along their flanks for foam, and silver flakes of orange spray
tossed into the air around them, breaking over the grey walls
of rock into a thousand separate stars, fading and kindling
alternately as the weak wind lifted and let them fall. Every
glade of grass burned like the golden floor of heaven, opening
in sudden gleams as the foliage broke and closed above it, as
sheet-lightning opens in a cloud at sunset; the motionless
masses of dark rock--dark though flushed with scarlet lichen,
casting their quiet shadows across its restless radiance, the
fountain underneath them filling its marble hollow with blue
mist and fitful sound; and over all, the multitudinous bars
of amber and rose, the sacred clouds that have no darkness,
and only exist to illumine, were seen in fathomless intervals
between the solemn and orbed repose of the stone pines, passing
to lose themselves in the last, white, blinding lustre of the
measureless line where the Campagna melted into the sea. Tell
me who is likest this, Poussin or Turner?" (vol. i. pt. ii.
sec. ii. ch. ii. §§ 1-3).

Ruskin further instances the picture as an example of "untruth of trees." It is an elementary law of tree structure that stems only taper when sending off foliage and sprays:--

"Therefore we see at once that the stem of Gaspard Poussin's
tall tree, on the right of the 'La Riccia,' is the painting
of a carrot or a parsnip, not of the trunk of a tree" (see
further, _ibid._, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. vi. ch. i. § 6; and
_cf._ vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. ii. ch. ii. § 18).

101, 102, 103, 104. THE FOUR AGES OF MAN.

_Nicolas Lancret_ (French: 1690-1743).

Lancret, a painter of the "fêtes galantes" school, was an
imitator of Watteau, but his productions lack the airy grace
and touch of poetry which elevate even the most frivolous
pictures of that "prince of court painters" into works of
fine art. Examples of Watteau are now included among the
National treasures in the Wallace collection at Hertford House.
Lancret was the son of humble parents, and received his early
training as an engraver. Entering subsequently the studio of
Claude Gillot he came under the influence of Watteau, but his
friendship with that painter was short-lived. A rivalry appears
to have sprung up between them, and they remained estranged
until the closing year of Watteau's life. "Lancret was a
thorough _bourgeois_, and passed his time chiefly in Paris.
He was a regular frequenter of the opera and the 'Comique,'
and was a friend of the dancers La Camargo and La Sallé, whom
he frequently represented in his works" (Bryan's _Dictionary
of Painters_). In 1719 he was admitted into the Academy,
and in 1735 was elected Councillor. In 1840 he married a
grand-daughter of the comic poet Boursault.

These pictures, which are among the principal works of Lancret, are interesting historical records as showing the ideal of life at the French Court in the time of the regent Orleans and Louis XV. In "Infancy" (101) children, in the gayest clothes and garlanded with flowers, are at play under a stately portico--life being not so much a stage as a game, and all the men and women (in that sense) "merely players." To what should children, thus educated, grow up but to the pomps and vanity of life, as shown in "Youth" (102)? The adornment of the person is the chief occupation, it would seem, of the dwellers in "the Armida Palace, where the inmates live enchanted lives, lapped in soft music of adulation, waited on by the splendours of the world." And "Manhood" (103) is like unto youth. The business of life is pleasure on the greensward, with shooting at the popinjay! "Old Age" (104) has no place in such a philosophy of life. One old man is indeed attempting a last amour. The other caresses a dog, while the old women sleep or spin. But in "Old Age" the painter changes his scene from the court to common life; the thought of old age is banished, it seems, from the high life of princes. "In short," wrote an English observer at the time when this picture was painted, "all the symptoms which I have ever met with in History, previous to all Changes and Revolutions in government, now exist and daily increase in France" (Lord Chesterfield: see Carlyle's _French Revolution_, bk. i. ch. ii.).

125. IZAAK WALTON (1593-1683).

_Jacob Huysman_ (Dutch: 1656-1696).

Huysman was one of the many foreign artists who settled in
England under the Stuarts. He obtained considerable employment
as a portrait painter, in spite of Sir Peter Lely's rivalry;
one of the portraits among the "Windsor Beauties," now at
Hampton Court, was painted by him.

A portrait of the retired city hosier who became famous as the author of the _Complete Angler_. It was painted for his family (with whom it remained till it was presented to the National Gallery in 1838), and was engraved in one of the later editions of the book (1836). Izaak Walton--"that quaint, old, cruel coxcomb" (as Byron, who was no fisherman, called him)--lived to be ninety: his fishing did something, one may expect, to keep him in the vigorous health which is here stamped on his face. "The features of the countenance often enable us," says Zouch in the _Memoirs of Izaak Walton_ (cited in M. E. Wotton's _Word Portraits of Famous Writers_, p. 323), "to form a judgment, not very fallible, of the disposition of the mind. In few portraits can this discovery be more successfully pursued than in that of Izaak Walton. Lavater, the acute master of physiognomy, would, I think, instantly acknowledge in it the decisive traits of the original,--mild complacency, forbearance, mature consideration, calm activity, peace, sound understanding, power of thought, discerning attention, and secretly active friendship. Happy in his unblemished integrity, happy in the approbation and esteem of others, he enwraps himself in his own virtue. The exaltation of a good conscience eminently shines forth in this venerable person."

127. VENICE: THE SCUOLA DELLA CARITÀ.

_Canaletto_ (Venetian: 1697-1768).

Antonio Canale, commonly called Canaletto,[95] was born in
Venice, lived in Venice, and painted Venice. His pictures (of
which the one before us is among the best) are in some respects
very like the place, but most of those who love it best soon
find much that is wanting in Canaletto's representations. "The
effect of a fine Canaletto," says Ruskin, "is, in its first
impression, dioramic. We fancy we are in our beloved Venice
again, with one foot, by mistake, in the clear, invisible film
of water lapping over the marble steps of the foreground. Every
house has its proper relief against the sky; every brick and
stone its proper hue of sunlight and shade; and every degree
of distance its proper tone of relieving air. Presently,
however, we begin to feel that it is hard and gloomy, and that
the painter, compelled by the lowness of the utmost light at
his disposal to deepen the shadows, in order to get the right
relation, has lost the flashing, dazzling, exulting light
which was one of our chief sources of Venetian happiness.
But we pardon this, knowing it to be unavoidable, and begin
to look for something of that in which Venice differs from
Rotterdam, or any other city built beside canals. We know that
house, certainly; we never passed it without stopping our
gondola, for its arabesques were as rich as a bank of flowers
in spring, and as beautiful as a dream. What has Canaletto
given us for them? Four black dots. Well; take the next house.
We remember that too; it was mouldering inch by inch into
the canal, and the bricks had fallen away from its shattered
marble shafts, and left them white, skeleton-like; yet, with
their fretwork of cold flowers wreathed about them still,
untouched by time, and through the rents of the wall behind
them there used to come long sunbeams, greened by the weeds
through which they pierced, which flitted and fell, one by
one, round those grey and quiet shafts, catching here a leaf
and there a leaf, and gliding over the illumined edges and
delicate fissures, until they sank into the deep dark hollow
between the marble blocks of the sunk foundation, lighting
every other moment one isolated emerald lamp on the crest of
the intermittent waves, when the wild sea-weeds and crimson
lichens drifted and crawled with their thousand colours
and free branches over its decay, and the black, clogging,
accumulated limpets hung in ropy clusters from the dripping
and tinkling stone. What has Canaletto given us for this? One
square red mass, composed of--let me count--five-and-fifty,
no; six-and-fifty, no; I was right at first, five-and-fifty
bricks, of precisely the same size, shape, and colour, one
great black line for the shadow of the roof at the top, and
six similar ripples in a row at the bottom! And this is
what people call 'painting nature'! It is, indeed, painting
nature, as she appears to the most unfeeling and untaught of
mankind. The bargeman and the bricklayer probably see no more
in Venice than Canaletto gives--heaps of earth and mortar,
with water between--and are just as capable of appreciating
the facts of sunlight and shadow, by which he deceives us,
as the most educated of us all. But what more there is in
Venice than brick and stone--what there is of mystery and
death, and memory and beauty--what there is to be learned or
lamented, to be loved or wept--we look for to Canaletto in
vain" (_Modern Painters_, vol. i. sec. ii. pt. i. ch. vii. §
7, first edition). Canaletto's pictures of Venice in this room
should be compared with Turner's. It is impossible to get a
more instructive instance of the different impression made on
different minds by the same scenes. Canaletto drew, says one
of his admirers (_Lanzi_, ii. 317), exactly as he saw. Well,
what he did see we have shown us here. What others have seen,
those who have not been to Venice can discover from Turner's
pictures, from Shelley's and Byron's verse, or Ruskin's prose.
"Let the reader restore Venice in his imagination to some
resemblance of what she must have been before her fall. Let
him, looking from Lido or Fusina, replace, in the forest of
towers, those of the hundred and sixty-six churches which the
French threw down; let him sheet her walls with purple and
scarlet, overlay her minarets with gold, ... and fill her
canals with gilded barges and bannered ships; finally, let him
withdraw from this scene, already so brilliant, such sadness
and stain as had been set upon it by the declining energies of
more than half a century, and he will see Venice as it was seen
by Canaletto (as it might have been seen by him, Ruskin means);
whose miserable, virtueless, heartless mechanism, accepted
as the representation of such various glory, is, both in its
existence and acceptance, among the most striking signs of the
lost sensation and deadened intellect of the nation at that
time.... The mannerism of Canaletto is the most degraded that
I know in the whole range of art. Professing the most servile
and mindless imitation, it imitates nothing but the blackness
of the shadows; it gives no single architectural ornament,
however near, so much form, as might enable us even to guess
at its actual one; ... it gives the buildings neither their
architectural beauty nor their ancestral dignity, for there is
no texture of stone nor character of age in Canaletto's touch;
which is invariably a violent, black, sharp, ruled penmanlike
line, as far removed from the grace of nature as from her
faintness and transparency: and for his truth of colour let
the single fact of his having omitted all record whatsoever
of the frescoes, whose wrecks are still to be found at least
on one half of the unrestored palaces, and, with still less
excusableness, all record of the magnificent coloured marbles"
(_Modern Painters_, vol. i. pt ii. sec. i. ch. vii. § 30).
Stated in the fewest words, the difference between Canaletto
and the others is this: To Canaletto Venice was a city of murky
shadows, to them it is a city of enchanted colour. But his
pictures satisfied the taste of his time, as the great number
of them still extant testifies. Moreover his fame extended
beyond his own country. There was an English resident at Venice
who engaged Canaletto (who started in life at his father's
profession, that of scene painter) to work for him at low
prices, and then used to retail the pictures at an enormous
profit to English travellers. At last Canaletto came to England
himself, and was given many commissions; but after two years he
returned to Venice, as it was still Venetian pictures that his
patrons wanted. How completely the public taste has now changed
is shown by the fact that the Venice of all the most popular
painters to-day, of whatever nation, is the Venice of Ruskin
and Turner. Canaletto's pictures, however, will always possess
one element of interest, apart from any fluctuations in taste.
Within his limits they are historical records of the appearance
of Venice in his time; and as more and more of the old Venice
is destroyed, Canaletto's pictures will increase in interest.
For though he is mechanical, yet his mechanism is very good.
He was, by the way, the first to apply the camera obscura to
linear perspective, and he painted in a workmanlike manner, so
that his pictures endure.[96]

An interesting piece of "old Venice." Beyond the canal is what is now the National Gallery of Venice--the Academy of Arts--but was in Canaletto's time still the Scuola della Carità, the conventual buildings of the Brotherhood of our Lady of Charity. Notice the green grass in the little square: the Campo, as it is called (the field), is now covered with flagstones (there is a sketch of this spot among the Turner drawings given by Ruskin to the University Galleries at Oxford: see _Guide to the Venetian Academy_, p. 34).

134. A LANDSCAPE.

_Cornelius Gerritz Decker_ (Dutch: died 1678).

"Amongst the artists who followed the footsteps of Ruysdael and
Hobbema, the one who most nearly resembled these masters was
Cornelius Decker, whose works may be classed among the best
Dutch landscapes" (Havard's _Dutch School_, p. 209). He painted
at Haarlem, and studied under Salomon Ruysdael (see 1344).

135. LANDSCAPE WITH RUINS.

_Canaletto_ (Venetian: 1697-1768). _See_ 127.

The artist, "disgusted with his first profession (of scene painter), removed," we are told, "while still young to Rome, where he wholly devoted himself to drawing views from nature, and in particular from ancient ruins" (_Lanzi_, ii. 317).

137. LANDSCAPE.

_Jan van Goyen_ (Dutch: 1596-1656).

Jan van Goyen, one of the first masters in the native Dutch
art of landscape as opposed to the exotic work of the
Italianisers, was born at Leyden in 1596. He studied with the
elder Swanenburch, the father of Rembrandt's first master,
and subsequently went to Haarlem to work under Esaias van de
Velde. His position in the world of art was considerable. In
1640 he was President of the Guild of St. Luke at the Hague;
his portrait was painted by Vandyck and Frans Hals; and Jan
Steen was his son-in-law. His earlier extant pictures date
from 1621, his latest go down to the year of his death. His
production during this period of thirty-five years was immense;
"a single London expert claims to have had at least three or
four hundred genuine pictures by the master passing through
his hands during the last thirty years." Like so many of the
Dutch masters whose works are now prized, he received in his
lifetime very small sums for his pictures--often not more than
fifteen or twenty florins apiece. He tried to help his income
by speculating in houses, and even, after the fashion of the
time, in tulips. But he died insolvent. His work, however, and
influence remained. His extant pictures are very numerous; and
among the successors whose skill was largely formed by him are
Cuyp, Jan van de Cappelle, and Salomon Ruysdael. "The subjects
which he preferred were of two kinds: flat landscapes with a
little broken ground in the front, a cottage, the figures of a
few peasants, and a clump of trees; or, on the other hand,--and
these are his best and most characteristic productions--broad
views of the river scenery of Holland, a wide expanse of water
under a wide sky." He was one of the first to discover a poetry
in the unbroken horizons of his native land. "Where he is at
his best is in the painting of the infinitely varied sky that
overhangs a great Dutch river or estuary, the clouds taking at
every movement new shapes or new effects of light and shade,
and the water below reflecting them" (see an article on "The
Landscape Painters of Holland" in _The Quarterly Review_,
October 1891). In order to give his favourite effects, he
generally placed the skyline very low in the picture, sometimes
not more than a quarter of the canvas being given to the
landscape. Van Goyen aimed rather at tone than at colour.
"His silvery river-views, with all their delicate shades of
grey, are almost studies in monochrome." In his landscapes
the foliage and the herbage partake more or less of brown or
gray. "No heavy, dark, no bright colour disturbs," says Sir F.
Burton, "the dreamy monotone."

This work was formerly ascribed to J. Ruysdael.

138. A VIEW IN ROME.

_Giovanni Antonio Panini_ (Roman: 1695-1768).

Panini, who obtained celebrity as a painter of architectural
subjects, was born at Piacenza, and studied in Rome. His
settled place of abode was that city, but for some time he
lived in Paris, and in 1732 he was elected a member of the
French Academy.

Roman ruins with the pyramid of Caius Cestius.

140. PORTRAIT OF A LADY.

_Bartholomeus van der Helst_ (Dutch: 1611-1670).

Of the life of Van der Helst, one of the most distinguished
of the Dutch portrait painters, little is known, except that
he resided constantly at Amsterdam, and was in good practice
there as a portrait painter. He had a part in founding the
Painters' Guild there, whilst his likeness of Paul Potter at
the Hague (1654), and his partnership with Bakhuizen, who
laid in the backgrounds of some of his pictures in 1668,
indicate a constant companionship with the best artists of
the time. His masterpiece is in the Museum at Amsterdam. It
contains thirty-five portraits, whole length, and represents
a banquet given by a company of the civil-guard of Amsterdam,
in commemoration of the Peace of Münster, in 1648. Sir Joshua
Reynolds, in his _Journey to Flanders and Holland_, says of
that work that it "is, perhaps, the first picture of portraits
in the world, comprehending more of those qualities which make
a perfect portrait than any other I have ever seen." Whilst
delighted with Van der Helst, Sir Joshua was disappointed by
Rembrandt; and certainly "Van der Helst attracts by qualities
entirely differing from those of Rembrandt and Frans Hals:
nothing can be more striking than the contrast between the
strong concentrated light and the deep gloom of Rembrandt,
and the contempt of chiaroscuro peculiar to his rival, except
the contrast between the rapid sketchy touch of Hals and the
careful finish of Van der Helst."

This picture is dated 1647.

146. A VIEW ON THE MAES.

_Abraham Storck_ (Dutch: 1630-1710).

About the life of this marine painter nothing is known. His
pictures usually represent views near Amsterdam, "with a
variety of shipping and boats, and a number of small figures,
correctly drawn, and handled with spirit. His ships are well
drawn, his colouring clear and transparent, and his skies and
water light and floating" (Bryan).

Rotterdam is seen in the distance.

147. CEPHALUS AND AURORA.

148. THE TRIUMPH OF GALATEA.

_Agostino Carracci_ (Eclectic-Bologna: 1557-1602).

Agostino was the elder brother of Annibale Carracci (see
under 9) and cousin of Lodovico (see under 28). It was he
who composed the well-known sonnet in which the aims of the
Eclectic School are set forth. He was the most learned of the
Carracci, being painter, engraver, poet, and musician, and
well versed in the arts and sciences generally. His pictures
are rare. The best is the "Communion of St. Jerome" in the
Academy at Bologna. His prints are numerous; his engraving
of Tintoretto's "Crucifixion," executed at Venice in 1589,
was highly praised by that artist. In the same year Agostino
returned to Bologna, and became the principal teacher in the
school of the Carracci. He afterwards went to Rome to assist
Annibale in the frescoes for the Farnese Palace. He executed
the "Cephalus and Aurora" and "Galatea" in that series; his
success excited the jealousy of Annibale, and caused a feud
between the two brothers. Agostino thereupon left Rome for
Parma, where he died shortly afterwards.

These are the cartoons made by Agostino for the frescoes referred to above. They formed part of Sir Thomas Lawrence's collection of drawings. In 147, Cephalus, while on a hunting expedition on Mount Hymettus, is forcibly carried off by Aurora. The aged Tithonus, her husband, is sleeping in the foreground. In 148, the sea-nymph Galatea is borne on the ocean by Glaucus, preceded by Triton blowing his horn, and surrounded by Nereids and Cupids on Dolphins.

149. A CALM AT SEA.

_Willem van de Velde_ (Dutch: 1633-1707).

William Van de Velde, the younger, was the son of an artist
of the same name, and the two together were the most famous
sea-painters of their time. The father was specially
commissioned by the East India Company to paint several of
their ships. The son was for a time engaged in painting the
chief naval battles of the Dutch. In 1675 they were both
established in England, living at Greenwich, as painters
to King Charles II., who granted each of them a pension of
£100 a year; the father "for taking and making draughts of
sea-fights"; and the son "for putting the said draughts into
colours." The Vandeveldes, thus employed, "produced," says
Macaulay, "for the king and his nobles some of the finest
sea-pieces in the world." "The palm," says Walpole, "is not
less disputed with Raphael for history than with Vandevelde
for sea-pieces." But in no branch of art has the English
School of this century made more conspicuous advance than in
sea-painting, and those who are fresh from reminiscences of
Turner or Lee, or, amongst later artists, of Hook and Moore
and Brett, will hardly be inclined to agree at this day with
such high praise of Vandevelde. "It is not easily understood,"
says Ruskin, "considering how many there are who love the sea,
and look at it, that Vandevelde and such others should be
tolerated. Foam appears to me to curdle and cream on the wave
sides, and to fly flashing from their crests, and not to be
set astride upon them like a peruke; and waves appear to me to
fall, and plunge, and toss, and nod, and crash over, and not
to curl up like shavings; and water appears to me, when it is
grey, to have the grey of stormy air mixed with its own deep,
heavy, thunderous, threatening blue, and not the grey of the
first coat of cheap paint on a deal floor."