Chapter XI: Preface: By John Ruskin (9)

"It is not easy to understand," perhaps, but two helps towards
understanding may be mentioned in Ruskin's own words. First,
previous painters--including even the Venetians, sea-folk
though they were--had all treated the sea conventionally.
Vandevelde and his fellows, at any rate, endeavoured to study
it from nature. Bakhuizen, as we shall see, like Turner
after him, used to go to sea in all weathers, the better to
obtain "impressions." Hence the Dutch sea-painting did mark
an advance, and how great was its influence on later artists
and sea-lovers we know from the case of Turner, who "painted
many pictures in the manner of Vandevelde, and always painted
the sea too grey, and too opaque, in consequence of his early
study of him." And this grey and opaque rendering of the sea by
the Dutch was to some extent due to natural causes. "Although
in artistical qualities lower than is easily by language
expressible, the Italian marine painting usually conveys an
idea of three facts about the sea,--that it is green, that
it is deep, and that the sun shines on it. The dark plain
which stands for far-away Adriatic with the Venetians, and
the glinting swells of tamed wave which lap about the quays
of Claude, agree in giving the general impression that the
ocean consists of pure water, and is open to the pure sky. But
the Dutch painters, while they attained considerably greater
dexterity than the Italian in mere delineation of nautical
incident, were by nature precluded from ever becoming aware of
these common facts; and having, in reality, never in all their
lives seen the sea, but only a shallow mixture of sea-water
and sand; and also never in all their lives seen the sky, but
only a lower element between them and it, composed of marsh
exhalation and fog-bank,--they are not to be with too great
severity reproached for the dulness of their records of the
nautical enterprise of Holland. _We_ only are to be reproached,
who, familiar with the Atlantic, are yet ready to accept with
faith, as types of sea, the small waves _en papillote_ and
peruke-like puffs of farinaceous foam, which were the delight
of Bakhuizen and his compeers"[97] (_Modern Painters_, vol. i.
pt. ii. sec. v. ch. i. § 20; vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. xviii. § 30;
_On the Old Road_, i. 283; _Harbours of England_, p. 18). The
storms of Van der Velde are certainly unattractive, but the
silvery daylight of his "calms at sea" gives to many of his
works an enduring charm. This painter is well represented both
in the Dulwich Gallery and in the Wallace collection.

150. A GALE AT SEA.

_Willem van de Velde_ (Dutch: 1633-1707). _See_ 149.

151. A RIVER SCENE.

_Jan van Goyen_ (Dutch: 1596-1656). _See_ 137.

Signed with the artist's name, and dated 1645.

152. AN EVENING LANDSCAPE.

_Aart van der Neer_ (Dutch: 1603-1677).

This painter was a native of Amsterdam, and lived and worked
there. His pictures are now much appreciated; but he died
destitute, and the pictures he left behind him were valued at
only three florins apiece.

Aart (Arthur) van der Neer is the Dutch painter of "the hues and harmonies of evening." Before the door of the country house are a lady and gentleman, who have come out as if to gaze on one of such effects. This is one of the largest of his pictures--which is the more valuable as the figures are by Cuyp, whose name is inscribed on the pail; but 239 is perhaps more attractive.

153. THE CRADLE.

_Nicolas Maes_ (Dutch: 1632-1693).

Maes (or, in more modern form, Maas), was a pupil of Rembrandt,
and ranks high among Dutch masters, being distinguished from
many of the _genre_ painters by his richer colouring. "He
assimilated the principles of his master," says Sir. F. Burton,
"without adopting his subjects. In the class of pictures by
which he is best known, namely, indoor scenes taken from
ordinary life, he unites subtlety of chiaroscuro, vigorous
colour, and great mastery in handling, with that true finish
which never becomes trivial. The figures are finely drawn, and
their action is perfect. Harmonies of red and black prevail
in these works--sometimes pervading the picture in subdued
tones; sometimes brought out in full contrasting force against
white. The smaller pictures by Maes in this Gallery are among
the finest examples of the former mode of treatment." Maes
entered Rembrandt's studio in 1650 and remained there four
years. He then returned to Dort, his native town, where he
lived till 1678. In that year he moved to Amsterdam, where he
remained to the end of his life, and was employed by most of
the distinguished persons of his time. In these latter years
he was mostly engaged in portraits. His earlier portraits (of
which No. 1277 is a good specimen) are worthy of a pupil of
Rembrandt. The later portraits are so different in style and
inferior in quality that some critics ascribe them to the
painter's son or some other artist of the same name. "Maes's
favourite colour," says Havard, "was red. No artist uses this
colour with more boldness or more success than he does in his
earlier works [note, _e.g._ the crimson curtain which forms the
background in 1277]. For this reason doubts have been raised if
he ever painted the series of large bewigged portraits which
have been attributed to him, sombre and morose faces, uniformly
set against a dark background. It is difficult to imagine the
brilliant painter of 'The Cradle' forgetting his skill in light
and shade and his love of nature, to give himself up, as in
these commonplace productions, to mannerism and affectation"
(_The Dutch School_, p. 100).

154. A MUSIC PARTY.

_David Teniers, the younger_ (Flemish: 1610-1694).

Teniers, though a Fleming by birth, belongs rather to the
Dutch School in style--being one of the principal _genre_
painters, of whom most of the other leading masters are Dutch.
His art stands, however, in direct relation to that of the
Flemish painters preceding him, through the want of spiritual
motive common to him and to them. But Teniers and the _genre_
painters carry this banishment of spiritual motive a step
further. "Rubens often gives instructive and magnificent
allegory. Rembrandt, pathetic or powerful fancies, founded on
real Scripture-reading, and on his interest in the picturesque
character of the Jew. And Van Dyck, a graceful rendering of
received Scriptural legends. But (with Teniers) ... we lose,
not only all faith in religion, but all remembrance of it.
Absolutely now at last we find ourselves without sight of God
in all the world.... Farthest savages had, and still have,
their Great Spirit, or, in extremity, their feather-idols,
large-eyed; but here in Holland we have at last got utterly
done with it all. Our only idol glitters dimly, in tangible
shape of a pint pot, and all the incense offered thereto comes
out of a small censer or bowl at the end of a pipe." The
place of Teniers in art history is, therefore, so far as the
ideals of art go, that he is, _par excellence_, "the painter
of the pleasures of the ale-house and card-table" (_Modern
Painters_, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. vi. §§ 10, 11; ch. viii. § 11).
He did, indeed, occasionally venture on the ground of religious
painting; but his essays in this sort are absurd. His devotion
to _genre_ entirely hit the taste of his time, and his fame was
rapid and enduring. He was taught the rudiments of art by his
father, David Teniers, the elder, a mediocre painter of small
rustic subjects (see 949); but his real masters were Rubens and
Brouwer, though he did not actually study with them. In 1633,
at the age of twenty-three, he received the dignity of master.
Four years later he married the daughter of Velvet Breughel,
the former ward of Rubens, who acted as witness at the marriage
ceremony. His talents were in universal request. The Archduke
Leopold-William, Governor of the Spanish Netherlands, appointed
him his private painter, and gave him an office in his
household. Queen Christina of Sweden and King Philip IV. of
Spain were amongst his patrons. He gave Don Juan of Austria
lessons in painting, and this prince painted the portrait of
Teniers's son, and presented it to the master as a token of his
regard. In 1644 he was chosen to preside over the Antwerp Guild
of Painters. In 1647 he took up his abode in Brussels. His
country-seat at Perck (see 817) was a constant resort of the
Spanish and Flemish nobility. Shortly after the death of his
first wife in 1656 he married Isabella de Fren, daughter of the
Secretary of the Council of Brabant, and he strove his utmost
to prove his right to armorial bearings. The king declared his
readiness to grant the request, but only on condition that
Teniers should give up selling his pictures. Teniers did not
accept the condition, and transferred his energies to procuring
a charter for an Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp to which
artists should alone be admitted, whereas the former Guild of
St. Luke made no distinction between art and handicraft.

The aristocratic leanings of Teniers may be detected in his
pictures. He is indeed, as we have seen, "the painter of the
ale-house." "He depicted the manners of the Flemish rustic,
told of the intimacy of his domestic life and his happy, coarse
laughter. His folk go to market, clean out the stable, milk the
cows, raise the nets, sharpen knives, shoot off arrows, play
at nine-pins or cards, bind up wounds, pull out teeth, cure
bacon, make sausages, smoke, sing, dance, caress the girls,
and, above all things, drink, like the live Flemings they are."
Yet as compared with some other masters of _genre_, Teniers
seems to treat his rustics somewhat from the outside. Their
expressions are often exaggerated, and their gestures pass
into grimace. "Brouwer knew more of taverns; Ostade was more
thoroughly at home in cottages.... Teniers seems anxious to
have it known that, far from indulging in the coarse amusements
of the boors he is fond of painting, he himself lives in good
style and looks like a gentleman. He never seems tired of
showing the turrets of his château of Perck, and in the midst
of rustic merry-makings we often see his family and himself
received cap in hand by the joyous peasants" (_e.g._ in 817).
So too, though many of his interiors are very good, Teniers is
on the whole at his best in open-air scenes. In his skies he
has given (says Ruskin) "some very wonderful passages" (_Modern
Painters_, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. iii. ch. i. § 20; H. Hymans in
_Encyclopædia Britannica_; Wauters's _Flemish School_, p. 294).
Good examples of Teniers continue to be greatly appreciated.
The Belgian Government, for instance, gave £5000 in 1867 for
the "Village Pastoral," now in Brussels Museum. The taste of
Teniers may justly be condemned; his technique will always
be admired. "Take," says Ruskin, "a picture by Teniers, of
sots quarrelling over their dice; it is an entirely clever
picture--so clever that nothing in its kind has ever been done
equal to it; but it is also an entirely base and evil picture.
It is an expression of delight in the prolonged contemplation
of a vile thing, and delight in that is an 'unmannered' or
'immoral' quality" (_Crown of Wild Olive_, § 56). His bright
palette, his freshness of handling, his straightforwardness
in means and intent, give to the best works of Teniers a
permanent interest. He "touched with a workmanly hand, such
as we cannot see rivalled now"; and he seems "never to have
painted indolently, but gave the purchaser his thorough money's
worth of mechanism." Hence it is that Sir Joshua Reynolds,
though condemning Teniers's vulgarity of subject, yet held
up his pictures as models to students who wished to excel in
execution. It should, however, be noted that his works vary
very much in this respect. Many of his later pictures are
painted so thinly that the ground is in places barely covered.
They have been called "afternoons," not from their subject, but
from the time the painter took in producing them.

This and the companion picture, 158, are characteristic specimens of the painter. The human specimens are ugly and vulgar; the pottery is pretty, and beautifully painted.

155. THE MONEY CHANGERS.

_Teniers_ (Flemish: 1610-1694). _See under_ last picture.

A man and his wife--usurers, we may suppose--counting their money. There is all the miser's misery in the withered careworn faces, all the miser's greed in the thin, tremulous hands. The man alone seems not quite to like some transaction which they are discussing; the woman--Portia's prerogative of mercy being reversed--seems to be thinking, "Come, man, don't be a fool: a bond is a bond."

156. A STUDY OF HORSES.

_Van Dyck_ (Flemish: 1599-1641). _See_ 49.

An interesting sketch as illustrating Van Dyck's affection for the horse. "In painting, I find that no real interest is taken in the horse until Van Dyck's time, he and Rubens doing more for it than all previous painters put together. Rubens was a good rider, and rode nearly every day, as, I doubt not, Van Dyck also. The horse has never, I think, been painted worthily again, since he died" (_Modern Painters_, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. vi. § 22).

The particular choice of subject in this sketch shows further in its literary connection a lover of the horse. The subject, as we know from the words _equi Achillis_ on a scroll in the left corner of the picture, is the horses of Achilles, said for their swiftness to be the sons of the wind Zephyrus: in the upper part of the picture is a sketch of a zephyr's head. "The gentleness of chivalry, properly so called, depends on the recognition of the order and awe of lower and loftier animal-life, ... taught most perfectly by Homer in the fable of the horses of Achilles. There is, perhaps, in all the _Iliad_ nothing more deep in significance--there is nothing in all literature more perfect in human tenderness, and honour for the mystery of inferior life, than the verses that describe the sorrow of the divine horses at the death of Patroclus, and the comfort given them by the greatest of the gods"[98] (_Fors Clavigera_, 1871, ix. 13).

157. A LANDSCAPE: SUNSET.

_Rubens_ (Flemish: 1577-1640). _See_ 38.

For Rubens's landscapes see under 66. "It is to be noted, however, that the licenses taken by Rubens in particular instances are as bold as his general statements are sincere.... In the Sunset of our own Gallery many of the shadows fall at right angles to the light" (_Modern Painters_, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. i. ch. vii. § 15).

158. BOORS REGALING.

_Teniers_ (Flemish: 1610-1694). _See_ 154.

159. THE DUTCH HOUSEWIFE.

_Nicolas Maes_ (Dutch: 1632-1693). _See_ 153.

"There are few pictures in the National Gallery," says C. R. Leslie (_Handbook for Young Painters_, p. 243), "before which I find myself more often standing than at this." Its great attraction, he adds, is "the delight of seeing a trait of childhood we have often observed and been amused with in nature, for the first time so felicitously given by art." The Dutch housewife sits intently engaged in scraping a parsnip, whilst the child stands by her side "watching the process, as children will stand and watch the most ordinary operations, with an intensity of interest, as if the very existence of the whole world depended on the exact manner in which that parsnip was scraped." Note the Flemish _kruik_, or beer-jug, so often introduced into the pictures of Maes. Signed and dated 1655.

160. A "RIPOSO."

_Mola_ (Eclectic-Bologna: 1612-1668). _See_ 69.

The Italians gave this title to the subject of the Holy Family resting on the way in their flight to Egypt,--"the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt."

161. AN ITALIAN LANDSCAPE.

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

Gaspard travelled largely in Italy in search of the picturesque, and this striking landscape may be a recollection of the mountain scenery in the North--possibly near Bergamo. The spray of foliage prominent on the left is characteristic of Gaspard's method:--

"One of the most remarkable characters of natural leafage is
the constancy with which, while the leaves are arranged on the
spray with exquisite regularity, that regularity is modified in
their actual effect. For as in every group of leaves some are
seen sideways, forming merely long lines, some foreshortened,
some crossing each other, every one differently turned and
placed from all the others, the forms of the leaves, though
in themselves similar, give rise to a thousand strange and
differing forms in the group.... Now go to Gaspard Poussin and
take one of his sprays, where they come against the sky; you
may count it all round: one, two, three, four, one bunch; five,
six, seven, eight, two bunches; nine, ten, eleven, twelve,
three bunches; with four leaves each; and such leaves! every
one precisely the same as its neighbour, blunt and round at
the end (where every forest leaf is sharp, except that of the
fig-tree), tied together by the stalks, and so fastened on to
the demoniacal claws above described (see under 68), one bunch
to each claw" (_Modern Painters_, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. vi. ch.
i. §§ 16, 17).

163. VENICE: A VIEW ON THE GRAND CANAL.

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

The Church, that of S. Simeone Piccolo, was built in Canaletto's time. "One of the ugliest churches in Venice or elsewhere. Its black dome, like an unusual species of gasometer, is the admiration of modern Italian architects" (_Stones of Venice_, vol. iii. Venetian Index, _s. v._ Simeone).

165. THE PLAGUE AT ASHDOD.

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

The Philistines having overcome the Israelites removed the ark of the Lord to Ashdod, and placed it in the temple of their god Dagon. "And when they of Ashdod arose early on the morrow, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the earth before the ark ..." (seen here in the temple to the right). "But the hand of the Lord was heavy upon them of Ashdod, and he smote them with a loathsome plague" (1 Samuel v. 4, 6).

The picture--a ghastly subject ghastlily treated--is yet a good instance of Poussin's learned treatment. Everywhere the intention to express alarm is obvious, and in the foreground are figures fleeing the infection, with nose and mouth muffled. Others are engaged removing the dead and dying, while in the centre are the dead bodies of a mother and child; another child approaches the mother's breast, but the father stoops down to avert it. A similar group to this occurs in a design by Raphael, "Il Morbetto," and was also in the celebrated picture by Aristides which Alexander the Great, at the sack of Thebes, claimed for himself and sent to his palace at Pella (Wornum: _Epochs of Painting_, p. 47, ed. 1864). This picture is a replica of one, now in the Louvre, which was painted in Rome in 1630--Poussin receiving only 60 scudi (about 12 guineas) for it.

166. A CAPUCHIN FRIAR.

_Rembrandt_ (Dutch: 1606-1669). _See_ 45.

Michel ascribes this portrait to the year of Rembrandt's tribulations. "At this period, when his emotions were so deeply stirred by the vision of a compassionate Saviour, he felt a kindred attraction for those mystic souls who sought in solitude and prayer a closer communion with the Christ to whom he felt himself drawn by his own sorrows. The 'Capuchin' in the National Gallery has suffered from time, but the devout gravity of the face is finely expressed" (_Rembrandt: his Life, his Work, and his Time_, ii. 126).

167. THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI.

_Peruzzi_ (Sienese: 1481-1537). _See_ 218.

This drawing--of the same composition as we see in the picture No. 218--was made at Bologna in 1521 for Count Giovanni Battista Bentivogli. The drawing was presented to the National Gallery by Lord Vernon, together with a print from the plate engraved from it by Agostino Carracci.

168. ST. CATHERINE OF ALEXANDRIA.

_Raphael_ (Urbino: 1483-1520). _See_ 1171.

This is a picture of Raphael's second period--"painted about
the year 1507, to judge from its close resemblance in style
to the celebrated picture of the Entombment in the Borghese
(Rome), which is known to have been executed at that time."
There are several studies for the picture in the University
Galleries at Oxford, and another in the Chatsworth collection.
The finished cartoon in black and white chalk, pricked for
transfer to the panel, is exhibited in the Louvre.

A perfect picture of saintly resignation. St. Catherine (for whose story see 693) leans on the wheel, the instrument of her martyrdom, and "looks up to heaven in the dawn of the eternal day, with her lips parted in the resting from her pain." Her right hand is pressed on her bosom, as if she replied to the call from above, "I am here, O Lord! ready to do Thy will." From above, a bright ray is seen streaming down upon her, emblematic of the divine inspiration which enabled her to confound her heathen adversaries. The studies existing show the pains Raphael took with the exquisite expression; but the result defies analysis. "It is impossible to explain in language the exact qualities of the lines on which depend the whole truth and beauty of expression about the half-opened lips of Raphael's St. Catherine." But these lines should be noticed as exemplifying the principle of "vital beauty"--of beauty, that is to say, as consisting in the appearance in living things of felicitous fulfilment of function. Thus eyes and mouths become more beautiful precisely as they become more perfect means of moral expression. The mouth of a negro is ugly because it is only a means of eating; the mouth of St. Catherine is beautiful for the feeling it expresses (_Modern Painters_, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. i. ch. vii. § 47; vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. i. ch. xii. § 10, sec. ii. ch. v. § 21). It may be noticed, lastly, how much the pathetic feeling of the picture is heightened by the herbage in the foreground, and especially perhaps by the carefully-painted dandelion "clock": "so soon passeth it away, and we are gone."

169. THE HOLY FAMILY.

_Ludovico Mazzolino_ (Ferrarese: 1480-1528).

Ludovico Mazzolino, "whose brilliant colours play through
all shades," has been called "the glowworm of the Ferrarese
School;" creamy-toned backgrounds of architectural subjects
also enrich his compositions. "He was principally a _genre_
painter, though in his early period he is said to have worked
much in fresco. His brilliant colouring made him a favourite
with art-loving prelates of succeeding generations; hence
his small pictures abound in Roman collections" (_Italian
Painters_, Borghese Gallery, p. 219). Morelli elsewhere adds
the conjecture that Mazzolino studied at Ferrara under Domenico
Pannetti. In another of his characteristics--the minuteness,
namely, of his work--he resembles rather the Flemish School.
Of his life little or nothing is known; but his interest in
decorative craftsmanship is proved by his pictures.

The background and accessories here, as well as in 641, are particularly interesting as a record of the decorative art of the time. A few years before the date of these pictures the Pope Leo X. had unearthed the buried treasures of the Baths of Titus, and Giovanni da Udine rediscovered the mode by which their stucco decorations were produced. This method of modelling in wet plaster on walls and ceilings was extensively used in house decoration from that time down to the middle of the last century, but has since then been supplanted by the cheaper process of casting. No sooner was Giovanni da Udine's invention known than it must have been adopted by Ferrarese artists, for here we find Mazzolino portraying it in the background of his picture. As in Tura's pilaster (see 772), the winged sphere plays a principal part in the design, for it was a favourite badge of the ducal house of Ferrara. Nor is it only in the plaster modelling that Mazzolino's interest in decorative art shows itself. The back of the bench on which the Madonna sits is crowned by the most delicate carving, whilst up aloft, peeping over the wall on which the plaster work occurs, there is a choir of angels playing on a portable organ, which is full of suggestions for decorative design (G. T. Robinson in _Art Journal_, May 1886, pp. 151, 152).

170. THE HOLY FAMILY.

_Garofalo_ (Ferrarese; 1481-1559). _See_ 81.

Notice the rich cap in which the little St. John is dressed; it is not unlike those which French and Flemish children are still made to wear as a protection from tumbles. There is a grace in the figures of the Virgin and St. Elizabeth which recalls Raphael. A less happy effect of his influence may be seen in the vision of the heavenly host above, full of that exaggerated action which marks the decadence of Italian art. God the Father is represented gesticulating wildly, almost like an actor in melodrama. And so with the playing angels. In pictures of the great time they are shown "with uninterrupted and effortless gesture ... singing as calmly as the Fates weave" (_Relation between Michael Angelo and Tintoret_, p. 15), but here they are all scrambling through their songs, their hair floating in the breeze and their faces full of excited gesture.

172. THE SUPPER AT EMMAUS.

_Caravaggio_ (Naturalist: 1569-1609).

Michael Angelo Amerighi, the son of a mason, is usually called
Caravaggio from his birthplace, a town of that name near
Milan.[99] He was the leader of the so-called "Naturalist"
School (see introduction to "The Later Italian Schools"),
which numbered among its disciples Spagnoletto (235) and the
Dutch Gerard von Honthorst (1444). The characteristics of his
art, as described below, were not out of keeping with the
sombre character of the man.[100] He had established himself
as a painter at Rome, when he had to fly for homicide. He was
playing at tennis and became so violent in a dispute that he
killed his companion. After a short stay at Naples he went to
Malta, where he gained the favour of the grand-master, and was
made a Knight of the Cross of Malta. His ungovernable temper,
however, again led him into trouble, and quarrelling with one
of the knights, he was cast into prison. He escaped to Sicily
and thence returned to Naples. Having procured the Pope's
pardon for his original offence, he hired a felucca and set
sail for Rome. The coast-guard arrested him in mistake for
another person; the crew of the felucca plundered him of all
his belongings; and after wandering disconsolately along the
coast, he was seized with fever, and died at the early age of
forty.

One notices first in this picture the least important things--the supper before the company, the roast chicken before Christ. Next one sees how coarse and almost ruffianly are the disciples, represented as supping with their risen Lord at Emmaus (Luke xxiv. 30, 31). Both points are characteristic of the painter, who was driven by the insipidities of the preceding mannerists into a crude "realism," which made him resolve to describe sacred and historical events just as though they were being enacted in a slum by butchers and fishwives. "He was led away," says Lanzi (i. 452), "by his sombre genius, and represented objects with very little light. He ridiculed all artists who attempted a noble expression of countenance or graceful folding of drapery." His first altar-piece was removed by the priests for whom it was painted, as being too vulgar for such a subject. "Many interesting studies from the taverns of Italy remain to prove Caravaggio's mastery over scenes of common life. For the historian of manners in seventeenth-century Italy, those pictures have a truly precious value, as they are executed with such passion as to raise them above the more careful but more lymphatic transcripts from beer-cellars in Dutch painting. But when he applied his principles to higher subjects, then vulgarity became apparent. It seems difficult for realism, either in literature or art, not to fasten upon ugliness, vice, pain, and disease, as though these imperfections of our nature were more real than beauty, goodness, pleasure, and health. Therefore Caravaggio, the leader of a school which the Italians christened Naturalists, may be compared to Zola" (_Symonds_, vii. 221).

173. PORTRAIT OF A GENTLEMAN.

_Bassano_ (Venetian: 1510-1592).

Jacopo da Ponte is commonly called Il Bassano or Jacopo
da Bassano from his native town, near Venice. His father,
Francesco, who was a painter in the school of the Bellini, was
his first master; he afterwards studied under Bonifazio at
Venice. After a short stay in that city, Jacopo returned to his
native town, where he remained for the rest of a long life.
"His best works are almost worthy," says Sir F. Burton, "of
Titian. They are conspicuous among other qualities for Venetian
excellence of colouring--especially in his green, where he
exhibits a peculiar brilliancy. Most of his pictures seem at
first sight as dazzling, then as cooling and soothing, as the
best kind of stained glass; while the colouring of details,
particularly of those under high lights, is jewel-like, as
clear and deep and satisfying as rubies and emeralds." No. 228
in this Collection has passages which illustrate this point.
Jacopo was nearly contemporary with the great Tintoretto, but
while the latter was the last of the Venetian painters in the
grand style, Bassano after a time devoted himself to simple
scenes of country life. His distinguishing place in the history
of art is that he was the first Italian painter of _genre_--a
painter, that is, _du genre bas_, painter of a low class of
subjects, of familiar objects such as do not belong to any
other recognised class of paintings (as history, portrait,
etc.): see, for instance, No. 228, in which the religious
subject merely gives the painter an opportunity for a scene
of market life. "His pictures were for the inhabitants of the
small market-town from which he takes his name, where, besides
the gates, you still see men and women in rustic garb crouching
over their many-coloured wares; and where, just outside the
walls, you may see all the ordinary occupations connected
with farming and grazing. Inspired, although unawares, by
the new idea of giving perfectly modern versions of Biblical
stories, Bassano introduced into nearly every picture he
painted episodes from the life in the streets of Bassano and
in the country just outside the gates. Another thing Bassano
could not fail to do, working as he did in the country and
for country people, was to paint landscape. He loved to paint
the real country. He was, in fact, the first modern landscape
painter" (Berenson: _Venetian Painters of the Renaissance_, §
xxi). "Giovanni Bellini places his figure in the crystal air
of an Italian morning; Titian and Tintoretto give us daylight,
mighty while subdued; but Bassano throws a lurid grey over his
landscape and carries the eye to the solemn twilight spread
along the distant horizon. This peculiarity of feature is
partly accounted for by the position of the town of Bassano,
which is wrapped in an early twilight by the high mountains
above it on the west" (Layard's edition of _Kugler_, ii. 624).

A fine portrait--somewhat recalling Rembrandt in style--of a very refined face. In the vase beside him is a sprig of myrtle. This painter is fond of introducing such vases: see one in 277. In the principal street of Bassano, where the artist was born and, after studying at Venice, continued to live, such vessels may still be seen placed out for sale.

174. PORTRAIT OF CARDINAL CERRI.

_Carlo Maratti_ (Roman: 1625-1713).

Carlo Maratti (called also Carlo delle Madonne, from the large
number of Madonna pictures that he painted) was an imitator of
Raphael, and for nearly half a century the most eminent painter
in Rome. The portrait of a cardinal should have come kindly
to him, for he was in the service of several popes, and was
appointed superintendent of the Vatican Chambers by Innocent XI.

176. ST. JOHN AND THE LAMB.

_Murillo_ (Spanish: 1618-1682). _See 13._

An interesting illustration of the substitution of the palpable image for the figurative phrase. The mission of St. John the Baptist was to prepare the way for Christ, to proclaim to the people "Behold the Lamb of God!" Murillo makes the standard of the Lamb, with those words upon it, lie upon the ground below; but he further represents the young St. John as embracing an actual lamb.

177. THE MAGDALEN.

_Guido_ (Eclectic-Bologna: 1575-1642). _See 11._

Just such a picture as might have suggested the lines in Pope's epistle on "The Characters of Women"--

Let then the fair one beautifully cry,
In Magdalen's loose hair and lifted eye;
Or dress'd in smiles of sweet Cecilia shine,
With simpering angels, palms, and harps divine;
Whether the charmer sinner it, or saint it,
If folly grow romantic, I must paint it.

Just such a picture, too, as Guido turned out in numbers. "He was specially fond," says one of his biographers, "of depicting faces with upraised looks, and he used to say that he had a hundred different modes" of thus supplying sentimentality to order.

179. VIRGIN AND CHILD ENTHRONED.

180. A PIETÀ.

_Francia_ (Ferrarese-Bolognese: 1450-1517).

Of Francesco Raibolini's life the two most interesting things
are these: first, that great artist though he came to be,
he never painted a picture, so far as we know, till he was
forty; and secondly, the intimate connection, exemplified in
him, between the artist and the craftsman. He was the son of
a carpenter, and, like so many of the greatest old masters,
was brought up to the goldsmith's trade. The name of Francia
was that of his master in goldsmith's work, and was adopted by
him in gratitude.[101] He attained great skill in his trade,
especially as a die-engraver and a worker in "niello" (inlaying
a black composition into steel or silver). He was appointed
steward of the Goldsmiths' Guild in 1483, and afterwards became
master of the Mint--a post which he held till his death.
In some of his earlier pictures the hand of a goldsmith is
seen--in the clear outline, the metallic and polished surface,
and the minuteness of detail; and even on some of his later
and more important works, such as 179, he signed himself
"Francia _aurifex_ (goldsmith) Bononiensis." It was with Costa,
the Ferrarese artist (see 629), who migrated to Bologna, and
with whom he entered into partnership, that Francia learnt
the art of painting, and thus, though a Bolognese, he is
properly included in the Ferrarese School. His work marks the
culminating point of that school, just as Raphael's[102] marks
that of the Umbrian, and in these pictures (originally one
altar-piece, painted for the Buonvisi chapel in S. Frediano
at Lucca, where, says Vasari, it was held to be of great
value) we have some of his best work. Many of his pictures are
still at Bologna, including the one which some consider his
_chef d'oeuvre_, the Bentivoglio altar-piece in S. Giacomo
Maggiore. Francia is the most pathetic of painters. Raphael
is said to have remarked that Francia's Madonnas were the most
devoutly beautiful he knew,[103] and there is considerable
affinity between Francia and Perugino. But the Umbrian master
was more ideal; in Francia there are touches of realism. "It
will be observed in No. 180 that the Virgin is represented as
a middle-aged woman, and that the lids of the angels' eyes are
red with weeping. In spirit also they are different. Francia
makes his angels appeal to the spectator as if to enlist his
sympathy in the pathos of the tragedy, holding up the beautiful
tresses of Christ's hair to aid in the appeal. This Perugino
would never have done; his angels, and his saints also, are
always wrapt in a spiritual ecstasy to which Francia could not
attain" (Monkhouse: _In the National Gallery_, p. 173).

(179) On the throne are the Virgin and her mother, St. Anne, who offers the infant Christ a peach, symbolical, as the fruit thus offered in these pictures originally was, of "the fruits of the spirit--joy, peace, and love." At the foot of the throne stands the little St. John (the Baptist), "one of the purest creations of Christian art," holding in his arms the cross of reeds and the scroll inscribed "Ecce Agnus Dei" ("Behold the Lamb of God"). The discovery of Benedetto Buonvisi's will has shown why the various saints were selected--St. Anne, because the Buonvisi chapel was dedicated to her; St. Lawrence as the patron of the founder's father; St. Paul as the patron of the founder's brother and heir; St. Sebastian as the saint invoked in plagues (from which calamity Lucca suffered in 1510); and St. Benedict as the patron of the founder (G. C. Williamson's _Francia_, p. 111).

(180) This picture, which was the "lunette," or arch, forming the top of the altar-piece, is a "pietà," _i.e._ the Virgin and two angels weeping over the dead body of Christ. The artist has filled his picture with that solemn reverential pity, harmonised by love, which befits his subject. The body of Christ--utterly dead, yet not distorted nor defaced by death--is that of a tired man whose great soul would not let him rest while there was still His father's work to do on earth. In the face of the angel at His head there is a look of quiet joy, as of one who knows that "death is but a covered way that leads into the light"; in the attitude and expression of the angel at the feet there is prayerful sympathy for the sorrowing mother. The face of the mother herself, which before was pure and calm, is now tear-stained and sad, because her son has met so cruel a death--

What else in life seems piteous any more
After such pity?

Yet it bears a look of content because the world has known him. She rests His body tenderly on her knee as she did when he was a little child--thus are "the hues of the morning and the solemnity of eve, the gladness in accomplished promise, and sorrow of the sword-pierced heart, gathered into one human Lamp of ineffable love" (_Modern Painters_, vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. ii. ch. v. § 21).

181. THE VIRGIN AND CHILD WITH ST. JOHN.

_Perugino_ (_Umbrian_: 1446-1523). _See 288._

If really by Perugino,[104] this must be one of his early works. It is painted in _tempera_. The Flemish process of oil-painting found its way to Venice, where Perugino is known to have been in 1494, and where he probably learnt it. The superiority of the new method may be seen in a moment by comparing the cracked surface and faded colours of this picture with 288, which was painted when Perugino had obtained complete mastery over the new medium, and which is still as bright and fresh as when it was painted. The style of this picture is, however, thoroughly Peruginesque. It is interesting to compare the Umbrian type of the Madonna--innocent and girl-like, with an air of far-off reverie--with the types of other schools. The Umbrian Madonna is less mature, more etherealised than the Venetian. She is a girl, rather than a mother. Therein she resembles the Florentine type; but an air of dreamy reverie in the Umbrian takes the place of the intellectual mysticism of the Florentine. In Perugino "the Umbrian type finds its fullest and highest representative. Dainty small features, all too babyish for the figures that bear them; a mouth like a cupid's bow; a tiny and delicate chin; eyes set well apart, with curiously heavy and drooping lids; faint pencilled eyebrows; a broad smooth forehead,--these are the main elements in Perugino's Madonnas" (Grant Allen in the _Pall Mall Magazine_, 1895, p. 620).

184. PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG LADY.

_Nicolas Lucidel_ (German: 1527-1590).

Lucidel (a name which is supposed to be a corruption of
Neufchatel) studied painting at Antwerp, and afterwards settled
at Nuremberg. This picture, dated 1561, was formally ascribed
to Sir Antonio More and supposed to represent Jeanne d'Archel;
but it reveals (says the latest edition of the Official
Catalogue) "in its style and its Upper German costume, the
handiwork of Lucidel."

"The picture is much obscured," says Sir Edward Poynter, "by a coarse brown varnish. A beautiful example of this master, in the collection of Lord Spencer, is remarkable for the purity of its colour, and doubtless this portrait had originally the same qualities" (_The National Gallery_, i. 294).

186. PORTRAITS OF JAN ARNOLFINI AND HIS WIFE.

_Jan van Eyck_ (Early Flemish: about 1390-1440).

The Van Eycks--Hubert, the elder brother, and Jan--were natives
of Maesyck (Eyck-sur-Meuse), and are famous as being the
artists to whose ingenuity the first invention of the art of
painting in oils was for a long time ascribed. The probability
is that although the practice of mixing oil with colours was
employed for decorative purposes in Germany and elsewhere long
before their time, they were the first to so improve it as to
make it fully serviceable for figure-painting.[105] The art of
oil painting reached higher perfection in many ways after their
time; but there is no picture in the Gallery which shows better
than this, one great capacity of oil painting--its combination,
namely, of "imperishable firmness with exquisite delicacy"
(_On the Old Road_, i. 141). The place of the Van Eycks in
the development of early Flemish art has been described in
the introduction to that School, but the suddenness and
completeness of their mastery remains among the wonders of
painting. "The first Italian Renaissance," says Fromentin,
"has nothing comparable to this. And in the particular order
of sentiments they expressed and of the subjects they chose,
one must admit that neither any Lombard School, nor Tuscan, nor
Venetian, produced anything that resembles the first outburst
of the School of Bruges." The two brothers were granted the
freedom of the profession by the Corporation of Painters
of Ghent in 1421. In that year Jan left Hubert and took an
appointment as painter to Count John of Bavaria at the Hague.
In 1424 he returned to Bruges as painter to Philip, Duke of
Burgundy, in whose service he remained to the end of his life.
Like Rubens, the painter Jan van Eyck "amused himself with
being ambassador." "He was frequently employed on missions of
trust; and following the fortunes of a chief who was always in
the saddle, he appears for a time to have been in ceaseless
motion, receiving extra pay for secret services at Leyden,
drawing his salary at Bruges, yet settled in a fixed abode at
Lille. In 1428 he joined the embassy sent by Philip the Good to
Lisbon to beg the hand of Isabella of Portugal. His portrait of
the bride fixed the Duke's choice. After his return he settled
finally at Bruges, where he married, and his wife bore him
a daughter, known in after years as a nun in the convent of
Maesyck. At the christening of this child the Duke was sponsor;
and this was but one of the many distinctions by which Philip
the Good rewarded his painter's merits" (Crowe). But never was
there an artist less puffed up. "Jan van Eyck was here." "As
I can, not as I would." Such signatures are the sign-marks of
modesty. In 1426 his brother Hubert died, leaving the great
altar-piece--the Adoration of the Lamb--for Jan to finish.
This masterpiece of the Van Eycks was in 1432 set up in the
Chapel of St. Bavon at Ghent, where the central portions still
remain--the other original panels being now at Brussels and
Berlin. The portraits by Jan in our Gallery belong to the next
three years. There are no finer specimens of his marvellous
precision and delicacy in this branch of the art.

This wonderful picture of a Flemish interior--dated 1434--is as spruce and clean now (for the small twig broom did its work so well that the goodman and his wife were not afraid to walk on the polished floor without their shoes), as it was when first painted five hundred years ago. This is the more interesting from the eventful history the picture has had. At one time we hear of a barber-surgeon at Bruges presenting it to the Queen-regent of the Netherlands, who valued it so highly that she pensioned him in return for the gift. At another it must have passed again into humbler hands, for General Hay found it in the room to which he was taken in 1815 at Brussels to recover from wounds at the battle of Waterloo. He purchased the picture after his recovery, and sold it to the British Government in 1842. "It is," says Sir Edward Poynter, "one of the most precious possessions in the national collection, and, in respect of its marvellous finish, combined with the most astounding truth of imitation and effect, perhaps the most remarkable picture in the world."

For the delicacy of workmanship note especially the mirror, in which are reflected not only the objects in the room, but others beyond what appears in the picture, for a door and two additional figures may be distinguished. In the frame of the mirror, too, are ten diminutive pictures of the ten "moments" in the Passion of Christ "as material for the lady's meditation while doing her hair." Notice also the brass-work of the chandelier. "There are many little objects about, such as an orange on the window-sill, placed there to catch the light. Through the window you can see a cherry-tree, with sunshine on the ripe fruit. In the treatment of these and similar details Jan van Eyck shows a liking for dots and spots of light" (Conway). Above the chandelier, elaborately wrought, is the painter's signature. This signature (in Latin), "Jan van Eyck was here," exactly expresses the modesty and veracity which were the keynote of his art. The artist only professed to come, to see, and to record what he saw. Arnolfini was the representative at Bruges of a Lucca firm of merchants, and Van Eyck gives us a picture of the quiet, dry, business folk exactly as he found them.

187. THE APOTHEOSIS OF WILLIAM THE TACITURN OF HOLLAND.

_Rubens_ (Flemish: 1577-1640). _See 38._

A sketch of a picture in the possession of the Earl of Jersey. This sketch was formerly in the possession of Sir David Wilkie, R.A.

189. THE DOGE LEONARDO LOREDANO.

_Giovanni Bellini_ (Venetian: 1426-1516).

Giovanni Bellini (often shortened into Giambellini)--the
greatest of the fifteenth-century artists--"the mighty
Venetian master who alone of all the painters of Italy
united purity of religious aim with perfection of artistical
power"[106]--belonged, it is interesting to note, to a
thoroughly artistic family. His father, Jacopo, drawings by
whom may be seen in the British Museum, was an artist of
repute; his elder brother Gentile (see 1213) was another. The
two brothers studied together in their father's school at
Padua, and there they formed a friendship with Mantegna, who
afterwards married their sister. Two pictures in our Gallery
(Bellini's, 726; and Mantegna's, 1417) recall the days of
their early association. By blood every inch an artist, so was
Giovanni also in character. His life was one long devotion
to his art. He lived to be ninety, and showed to the end
increasing knowledge and power. Albert Dürer wrote in 1506,
when the grand old man was eighty, that "though very old he was
still the best painter in Venice."[107]

This famous portrait must have been painted about the same
time, for Leonardo Loredano only became Doge in 1501. About
1460, Bellini had settled in Venice, where he soon rivalled and
eclipsed the established school of the Vivarini. In 1479, when
his elder brother Gentile departed to Constantinople, Giovanni
was appointed in his place to carry on the series of pictures
for the Hall of the Great Council in the Ducal Palace. These
works were destroyed by fire in 1577. The documents referring
to them show the terms on which he worked. He was engaged at
a fixed rate of salary to work "constantly and daily, so that
said pictures may be completed as expeditiously as possible,
with three assistants, also paid by the State, to render speedy
and diligent assistance." One of these assistants was Carpaccio
(see 750). Three years later he was appointed State painter to
the Republic. His fame is sounded by Ariosto, who in "Orlando
Furioso" ranks him with Leonardo. It may be gathered also
from the number of great painters who attended his studio,
including Giorgione and Titian. He was overwhelmed with work,
and doubtless employed assistants to complete commissions from
his design. Hence the confusion that exists in the matter of
attribution among pictures of this school (see under 599).
With Titian he was on terms of warm friendship, and his last
work (a companion piece to Titian's "Bacchus and Ariadne," now
in the Duke of Northumberland's Gallery at Alnwick) was left
for Titian to finish. Bellini was buried in the Church of SS.
Giovanni e Paolo, in the same tomb where Gentile had lain since
1507.

Giovanni Bellini's long life covers the end of one period
and the beginning of another in the history of Italian art.
In point of technique this is so: his earliest works are in
tempera, his later ones in oil--the use of which medium he
learnt perhaps from Antonello da Messina. It is so also in
motive. "The iridescence of dying statesmanship in Italy, her
magnificence of hollow piety, were represented in the arts of
Venice and Florence by two mighty men on either side--Titian
and Tintoret, Michael Angelo and Raphael. Of the calm and
brave statesmanship, the modest and faithful religion,
which had been her strength, I am content to name one chief
representative artist at Venice, John Bellini." The years of
change were 1480-1520 (roughly speaking those of Raphael's
life). "John Bellini precedes the change, meets and resists it
victoriously till his death. Nothing of flaw or failure is ever
to be discerned in him" (_Relation between Michael Angelo and
Tintoret_, pp. 11-13). His position is thus unique: he was the
meeting-point of two ways: as great in artistic power as the
masters who came after, as pure in religious aim as those who
went before. An interesting episode is recorded which marks
the transition and Bellini's meeting of it. Isabella Gonzaga,
the Duchess of Mantua, wrote in 1501 to her agent in Venice to
get Bellini to do for her a picture of which the subject was
to be profane, to suit Mantegna's allegories. Bellini suggests
that he cannot do such a subject in a way to compare with
Mantegna; with such a subject "he cannot do anything to look
well." Isabella thereupon is content to put up with a religious
subject, but Bellini on his side agrees to add "a distant
landscape and other fantasies" (_qualche luntani et altra
fantaxia_). Bellini, however, was by no means stagnant in his
art, or in his outlook. At the end of his life, he undertook,
as we have seen, a Bacchanal, and in his middle period he
painted the beautiful little allegories now in the Academy at
Venice. "Bellini," says Morelli, "was ever making progress. He
knew how to adapt himself to his subject, and was, as occasion
required, grand and serious, graceful and attractive, naïve and
simple." It is in Venice that Bellini can be best studied; but
our National Gallery is fortunate in having more of his works
than can be seen in any other collection north of the Alps. And
how varied are his powers! The same hand has given us subjects
of intense religious conviction, like "The Agony in the Garden"
(726) and "The Blood of the Redeemer" (1233); "sunny pictures
of devotional sentiment" (280 and 599); the noble portrait here
before us; and delicate landscape work, like the "Peter Martyr"
(812). In his earliest pictures he devoted himself to the
profoundest sentiments of Christianity--perhaps, as has been
suggested, under the influence of S. Bernardino, then preaching
at Padua (Roger Fry's _Giovanni Bellini_, p. 22). Afterwards
the "note" in Bellini's work is rather "genial serenity." The
expression of his Madonnas is often tender and solemn, but
he never lets it pass into the region of the ecstatic. All
is bright and peaceful and sunny. He belongs to what Ruskin
calls "the age of the masters," in which the main object is
"pictorial perfectness and deliciousness."

A magnificent portrait of one of the greatest men of the Venetian Republic. Leonardo, the 67th Doge, held office from 1501 to 1521. He belonged to one of the most ancient and noble families in the State, and Venice, under his rule, was one of the Great Powers of Europe--as the league of Cambrai formed against him sufficiently shows. There is all the quiet dignity of a born ruler in his face--"fearless, faithful, patient, impenetrable, implacable--every word a fate" (_Modern Painters_, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. ix. § 1). In his capacity of State painter to the Republic it was Bellini's duty to execute the official portraits of the Doges. During his long life he saw no fewer than eleven Doges, and was State painter during the reigns of four. This, however, is the only portrait of a Doge by Bellini which has been preserved (Richter's _Lectures on the National Gallery_, p. 42). It is remarkable alike for strong characterisation, simplicity of conception, and brilliancy of colouring.

190. A JEWISH RABBI.

_Rembrandt_ (Dutch: 1606-1669). _See_ 45, and also under 51.

191. THE YOUTHFUL CHRIST AND ST. JOHN.

_Guido_ (Eclectic-Bologna: 1575-1642). _See 11._