Chapter XV: Preface: By John Ruskin (13)

Girolamo Romani was a native of Brescia and the son of a
painter; his family belonged originally to the small town of
Romano, in the province of Bergamo: hence his name, "Romanino."
Like Moretto (whose rival he was), he was little known outside
the district of Brescia; but he studied at Venice, where he
took Giorgione for his pattern. His best works are remarkable
for a brilliant golden colouring, which is unfortunately not
conspicuous in this picture. It pervades the fine altar-piece
of the "Madonna Enthroned" in S. Francesco at Brescia. Another
splendid altar-piece is to be seen in the museum at Padua.
Among Romanino's frescoes may be mentioned the lively scenes he
executed for the Castle of Malpaga. Copies of these are in the
Arundel Society's collection.

Of this altar-piece--painted in 1525 for the church of St. Alessandro at Brescia--Mr. Pater gives the following description: "Alessandro, patron of the church, one of the many youthful patrician converts Italy reveres from the ranks of the Roman army, stands on one side, with ample crimson banner superbly furled about his lustrous black armour; and on the other--St. Jerome, Romanino's own namesake--neither more nor less than the familiar, self-tormenting anchorite.... But the loveliest subjects are in the corners above--Gaudioso, Bishop of Brescia, above St. Jerome; above Alessandro, St. Filippo Benizzi, meek founder of the order of Servites to which that church at Brescia belonged, with his lily, and in the right hand a book, and what a book!... If you wish to see what can be made of the leaves, the vellum covers of a book, observe that in St. Philip's hands. The metre? the contents? you ask: What may they be? and whence did it come?--Out of embalmed sacristy, or antique coffin of some early Brescian martyr, or, through that bright space of blue Italian sky, from the hands of an angel, like his Annunciation lily, or the book received in the Apocalypse by John the Divine? It is one of those old saints, Gaudioso (at home in every church of Brescia), who looks out with full face from the opposite corner of the altar-piece, from a background which, though it might be the new heaven over a new earth, is in truth only the proper, breathable air of Italy. As we see him here, Saint Gaudioso is one of the more exquisite treasures of our National Gallery. It was thus that, at the magic touch of Romanino's art, the dim, early, hunted-down Brescian church of the primitive centuries, crushed into the dust, it might seem, was 'brought to her king,' out of those old dark crypts, 'in raiment of needlework'--the delicate, richly-folded, pontifical white vestments, the mitre and staff and gloves, and rich jewelled cope, blue or green.[143] The face, of remarkable beauty, after a type which all feel, though it is actually rare in art, is probably a portrait of some distinguished churchman of Romanino's own day: a second Gaudioso, perhaps, setting that later Brescian church to rights after the terrible French occupation in the painter's own time, as his saintly predecessor, the Gaudioso of the earlier century here commemorated, had done after the invasion of the Goths. The eloquent eyes are open upon some glorious vision. 'He hath made us kings and priests!' they seem to say for him, as the clean, sensitive lips might do so eloquently. Beauty and holiness had 'kissed each other,' as in Borgognone's imperial deacons at the Certosa. At the Renaissance the world might seem to have parted them again. But here certainly, once more, Catholicism and the Renaissance, religion and culture, holiness and beauty, might seem reconciled, by one who had conceived neither after any feeble way, in a gifted person. Here at least, by the skill of Romanino's hand, the obscure martyr of the crypts shines as a saint of the later Renaissance, with a sanctity of which the elegant world itself would hardly escape the fascination, and which reminds one how the great Apostle St. Paul has made courtesy part of the content of the Divine charity itself. A Rubens in Italy!--so Romanino has been called. In this gracious presence we might think that, like Rubens also, he had been a courtier" ("Art Notes in North Italy" in _New Review_, November 1890).

298. THE TWO ST. CATHERINES.

_Ambrogio Borgognone_ (Lombard: about 1455-1523).

Ambrogio Borgognone, called also Ambrogio da Fossano, the
latter being the name of a town in Piedmont, was born at Milan.
"It may have been Ambrogio's grandfather or great-grandfather
who left the little Piedmontese town to settle at Milan; one of
his ancestors had probably lived some time in Flanders (then
called Borgogna by the Italians) and had thus received the
surname of Borgognone. Ambrogio, who holds the same central
place in the Milanese School of painting as Perugino in that
of Perugia, and Francia in that of Bologna, was, according to
my view, a pupil of Vincenzo Foppa the elder, and the real
master of Bernardino Luini, the Raphael of the Milanese school.
He remains in all his works a thorough Lombard" (Morelli's
_German Galleries_, p. 419). The tenderness of feeling in
this "Perugino of the Lombard School" is very marked. "The
presentment of divine or holy personages, in calm serenity
or in resigned suffering, accorded best," says Burton, "with
his temperament. Even his colouring partakes of the pervading
sentiment; the grey pallor of his heads is only modified, now
and then, by the reddened eyelids of sorrow. In the Accademia
at Pavia is a small picture, representing Christ bearing his
cross, and followed by some Carthusian Brothers, which in
simple pathos and deep religious meaning is perhaps without
its equal in art." Ambrogio was distinguished as an architect
no less than as a painter, and was employed on the façade of
the Certosa of Pavia--a view of which building figures in the
background of a picture by Ambrogio in our gallery (1410).

For St. Catherine of Alexandria, see under 693; for St. Catherine of Siena, under 249. Each of them was proclaimed the spouse of Christ for the love they bore him. And Borgognone here places them on either side of the Madonna's throne. "Their names are inscribed on the haloes which surround their heads. The Madonna--an exquisite example of the earlier and purer Lombard type--sits enthroned on a raised seat, which may be compared with that of the Blenheim Madonna and of many other Virgins in our collection. The Child, erect on her knees and short-coated after the earlier wont, is in the very act of placing the ring of His mystic wedding on the timorous hand of St. Catherine of Alexandria. The Saint herself, as the earlier and more famous of the two, stands at the right hand of Our Lady. In her left she grasps the palm of martyrdom. As Princess of Egypt the meek and beautiful lady wears a regal crown. Her long wavy hair, of the type which we usually regard as Leonardesque, but which Leonardo really acquired in Lombardy, is characteristic of this saint, even in pictures of other schools (_cf._ the Umbrian, No. 646). At her feet lies the wheel, with its conventional hooked spikes, which was the instrument of her torture. On the Madonna's left stands St. Catherine of Siena in her Dominican robes. Her face is pure saintliness--a marvel of beauty; her left hand holds the ascetic white lily of the Dominican order; her right the Madonna takes with a gentle, and one might almost say consolatory gesture. Our Lady seems to comfort her for her less favoured position; and if you look close you will see that the infant Saviour holds in His left hand a second ring, which He extends with childish grace towards the Nun of Siena" (Grant Allen in _Pall Mall Magazine_, June-December 1895, p. 66).

299. PORTRAIT OF AN ITALIAN NOBLEMAN.

_Moretto_ (Brescian: 1498-1555).

In examples of the Brescian, as of the Veronese School, the
National Gallery is very rich. "The dialect of the Brescians
is very like that of their neighbours of Bergamo, but not so
harsh and rugged (see 1203): the character of the people,
too, is more lively and frank, more given to show and swagger
(Bresciani spacca-cantoni). The Brescians, wedged in between
the Veronese and Bergamese, unite, to some extent, the manly
energy of the latter with the greater vivacity and pliancy of
the former" (_Morelli_). The foundation of the Brescian School
was laid by Vincenzo Foppa (see 729), whose pupil Il Moretto
was. It is characteristic of the wide dispersion of the art
gift in Italy that this Alessandro Bonvicino, nicknamed "Il
Moretto,"--one of the greatest of portrait painters,--should
have belonged entirely to a provincial city. He was born and
educated at Brescia, where his father was a merchant; and
with the exception of a very few pictures, he painted only
for his native town and the province of Brescia, and it is
there that nearly the whole work of his life is still to be
found. Indeed he was little known beyond the frontiers of
the Brescian district, and it is only during the last half
century or so that his reputation has arisen. Moretto never
studied in Venice; his development and genius are native, and
he rivalled Titian himself in the stateliness and dignity
of his figures. His altar-pieces are distinguished further
by much gravity of feeling and sincerity of unostentatious
religious feeling. The picture in our own gallery (625) is a
good example. Others are to be found in the churches of his
native town and in some foreign galleries. Among the best are
the "Coronation of the Virgin" in SS. Nazzaro e Celso, Brescia;
"St. Margaret" in S. Francesco, Brescia; "The Feast of the
Pharisee," S. Maria della Pietà, Venice; "Madonna and Child,"
Städel Institute, Frankfort; and "S. Giustina," Belvedere,
Vienna. His nickname of "the Blackamoor" is particularly
inappropriate to his style, which is distinguished for its
silvery tones, "a cool, tender, and harmonious scale of colour
which has a peculiar charm, and is entirely his own" (_Layard_,
ii. 577). This harmony of colour, which became characteristic
of the Brescian School, may be observed also in his rival,
Romanino. Moretto is distinguished not more for his religious
subjects than for his portraits, of which we possess two very
beautiful specimens in the picture now before us, and in No.
1025. He was the master of another great portrait-painter,
Moroni of Bergamo (see 697), and works of the two are often
confused. In addition to the charm of his harmonious colouring,
Moretto's portraits are remarkable for the dignity he imparts
to his subjects. "Moretto," says Morelli, "shows himself the
higher artist of the two; his conception of a subject and
his drawing are nobler and more elegant than those of his
matter-of-fact scholar; but these intellectual qualities,
which are not perceptible to every eye, do not always suffice
to distinguish his weaker works from Moroni's best. In such
cases the only means we have of determining the authorship is
an exact and minute examination. The shape and expression of
the hand, for instance, are very different in Moroni from what
they are in Moretto. The hands of the latter, with pointed
fingers, suggestive of the academy, are never so true to nature
as those which Moroni can make when he chooses in drawing
from life. Moretto's flesh-colours, too, have a delicate
silver tone, while Moroni's, with their earth-like tints,
are more realistic" (_German Galleries_, pp. 47-50, 169-171,
396-403).[144]

This painter is conspicuous, says Lanzi (_History of Painting in Italy_, Bohn's edition 1847, ii. 181), for his "skill in imitating every kind of velvet, satin, or other cloth, either of gold or silver." His portraits are remarkable, as is noticed under 1025, for their poetic insight. He is not content with producing an obvious likeness in the flesh; he strives at portraying or suggesting some spiritual idea in all his sitters. These characteristics are conspicuous in the present picture. Thus notice, first, the splendid brocades. Then secondly, how the painter tells you not only that this was what the sitter looked like, but what was his character. It is clearly the portrait of some one who combined with an important position the tastes of a _dilettante_, and who had an aspiring soul. On his cap is a label inscribed ιου λιαν ποθω, which being literally interpreted means "Alas, I desire too much!"--an inscription which accords with the yearning upward gaze and the pose selected by the painter. But the motto has also a punning reference. Reading the two first words as one, it becomes ιουλιαν ποθω, "I desire Julia," or with a further pun on the last word, "Julia Potho." We thus obtain a clue to the identity of the sitter. The Potho or Pozzo family was well known at the time in Brescia. Francesco dal Pozzo, 3rd Marquis of Ponderano (born 1494), had as his first-born a daughter Julia. She became the wife of Giacomo Gromo, Signor di Ternengo, who was a man of official status in Biella in 1539, having to do with the fiscal arrangements of the district. This may be indicated in our picture by the two coins of bronze and gold, and the die or seal. The sandalled foot on the table (an antique lamp?) may indicate his love of antiquities. "It is to be hoped, if our picture be a portrait of Monsignor Giacomo Gromo di Ternengo, that he had not long to wait before he became the devoted husband of Julia Potho, for whom he so yearned, and whose favour he wore in his hat." (W. Fred Dickes in _Athenæum_, June 3 and Aug. 26, 1893).[145]

300. THE VIRGIN AND CHILD.

_Cima da Conegliano_ (Venetian: 1460-1518).

Some miles north of Venice, in the Friuli, rises the town
of Conegliano, which, from its isolated and castled hill,
overlooks the plain of Treviso. Cima, whose real name was
Giovanni Battista, takes his title in art-history from the
"cima," or castled "height," of his native place--a picturesque
feature which he introduced, wherever it was at all possible,
into his pictures. We see these towers of Conegliano in
the present picture; and a window is opened in the large
composition, No. 816, in order to give us a glimpse of a
similar height. In his love of his native landscape is one of
the principal charms of Cima's work. "Morning is his favourite
time--morning among the hills; and then and there the painter
enjoyed more happiness than any twilight gondola could give
him. In our National Gallery are two examples of the Conegliano
scenery, but the brilliant daylight that so distinguishes Cima
is strangely absent" (Gilbert's _Landscape in Art_, p. 329).
One of his best works is the "St. John the Baptist" in the
church of S. Maria dell' Orto, Venice. "He is here painting,"
says Ruskin, "his name-saint; the whole picture full of peace
and intense faith and hope, and deep joy in light of sky and
fruit and flower and weed of earth. The picture was painted
for the church of Our Lady of the Garden, and it is full of
simple flowers, and has the wild strawberry of Cima's native
mountains gleaming through the grass.... He has given us the
oak, the fig, the beautiful 'Erba della Madonna' on the wall,
precisely such a bunch of it as may be seen growing at this
day on the marble steps of that very church; ivy, and other
creepers, and a strawberry plant in the foreground, with a
blossom, and a berry just set, and one half-ripe, and one ripe,
all patiently and innocently painted from the real thing, and
therefore most divine.... His own Alps are in the distance,
and he shall teach us how to paint wild flowers, and how to
think of them" (_Modern Painters_, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. i. ch.
vii. § 9; vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. x. § 5; Oxford _Lectures on
Art_, § 150; _Catalogue of the Educational Series_, p. 27). The
charming landscape and fine colour of Cima are accompanied
by earnestness of religious feeling, and a sense of peace and
quiet, unmixed with any ascetism. "The painter," says Ruskin,
of another of his pictures, "does not desire the excitement
of rapid movement, nor even the passion of beautiful light.
But he hates darkness as he does death. He paints noble human
creatures simply in clear daylight; not in rapture, nor yet in
agony. The unexciting colour will not at first delight you;
but its charm will never fail, and you will find that you
never return to it but with a sense of relief and of peace....
Cima is not supreme in any artistic quality, but good and
praiseworthy in all" (_Lectures on Landscape_, § 60; _Guide to
the Academy at Venice_, p. 14). Cima is usually reckoned among
the disciples of Giovanni Bellini, and is believed at one time
to have superintended the workshop of that master.

In the background, on the right, are the towers of Conegliano; on the left, the neighbouring castle of Colalto. There is something very pretty in the way in which the earlier Venetian masters placed their Holy Families in their own fields and amongst their own mountains (compare _e.g._ the Madonna in the Meadow, No. 599), thus imagining the Madonna and her child not as a far-away sanctity in the sky, but as an actual presence nigh unto them, at their very doors.[146] "There has probably not been an innocent cottage-home throughout the length and breadth of Europe during the whole period of vital Christianity, in which the imagined presence of the Madonna has not given sanctity to the humblest duties, and comfort to the sorest trials of the lives of women; and every brightest and loftiest achievement of the arts and strength of manhood has been the fulfilment of the assured prophecy of the poor Israelite maiden, 'He that is mighty hath magnified me, and holy is his name'" (_Fors Clavigera_, 1874, p. 105).

479. THE SUN RISING IN A MIST.

_J. M. W. Turner, R.A._ (British: 1775-1851).

For the circumstances under which this picture by Turner and the "Dido Building Carthage" (498) hang not in the Turner Gallery but beside the Claudes, see under 12.

This picture was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1807, and belongs therefore to Turner's first period, which was distinguished by "subdued colour and perpetual reference to precedent in composition." This effect of sunrise in a mist was a favourite one with Dutch painters, and Turner, when he went to the sea-shore, painted it in the Dutch manner. A time was to come when he would paint the sun rising no longer in a mist. Yet from the first, the bent of his own mind was visible in his work. He paints no such ideal futilities as are pointed out above in Claude's picture, but fishermen engaged in their daily toil. One of his father's best friends was a fishmonger, whom he often visited: "which gives us a friendly turn of mind towards herring-fishing, whaling, Calais poissardes, and many other of our choicest subjects in afterlife." He was the painter not of "pastoral indolence or classic pride, but of the labour of men, by sea and land" (_Modern Painters_, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. ix.).

498. DIDO BUILDING CARTHAGE.

_J. M. W. Turner, R.A._ (British: 1775-1851).

From the technical point of view this is not one of Turner's best pictures. It was exhibited in 1815, and belongs therefore to his first period, when he had still not completely exorcised "the brown demon." The picture, says Ruskin, "is quite unworthy of Turner as a colourist," "his eye for colour unaccountably fails him,"[147] and "the foreground is heavy and evidently paint, if we compare it with genuine passages of Claude's sunshine" (_Modern Painters_, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. i. ch. vii. § 45, sec. ii. ch. i. § 13, ch. ii. § 18).

But there is a noble idea in the picture. Dido, Queen of Carthage, surrounded by her people, and with plans and papers about her, is superintending the building of the city which was to become the great maritime power of the ancient world. "The principal object in the foreground (on the left) is a group of children sailing toy boats. The exquisite choice of this incident, as expressive of the ruling passion which was to be the source of future greatness, in preference to the tumult of busy stone-masons or arming soldiers, is quite as appreciable when it is told as when it is seen,--it has nothing to do with the technicalities of painting; a scratch of the pen would have conveyed the idea and spoken to the intellect as much as the elaborate realisations of colour. Such a thought as this is something far above all art; it is epic poetry of the highest order" (_Modern Painters_, vol. i. pt. i. sec. i. ch. vii. § 2).

564. THE VIRGIN AND CHILD, WITH SCENES FROM THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS.

_Margaritone_ (Tuscan: 1216-1293).

Margaritone, famous in his time (like so many of his
successors) for painting, sculpture, and architecture
alike, was a native of Arezzo, and was "the last of the
Italian artists who painted entirely after the Greek (or
Byzantine) manner," from which Cimabue and Giotto were the
first to depart.[148] He died at the age of seventy-seven,
"afflicted and disgusted (says Vasari) that he had lived to
see the changes by which all honours were transferred to new
artists." This picture being, according to the critics, the
most important and characteristic picture of the artist still
remaining, should, therefore, be carefully studied by those
who are interested in tracing the history of art. Of the
Greek manner, in which art was for so many centuries encased,
one may notice, first, that there was no attempt to depict
things like life. Art, as the phrase goes, was "symbolic," not
"representative." Certain definite symbols, certain definite
attitudes, were understood to mean certain things. Just as in
earlier Greek painting white flesh, for instance, was taken to
denote a woman, black or red flesh a man, so here such and such
attitudes were accepted as meaning that the figure in question
was the Virgin, and such and such other attitudes that it was
the Christ. Secondly, these symbols were all expressive of
various dogmas of the Church--of creeds and formulas peculiar
to one sect rather than of spiritual truths common to all
Christianity.

Both characteristics may be traced in almost every line of this picture. For instance, the humanity of Christ is not yet even hinted at, his divinity alone being insisted upon. Thus the young God is here represented in the form of a man-child; erect, with the assumed dignity of an adult, as he raises his hand to bless the faithful. With his left hand he holds the roll in which are written the names of the faithful saved: it is as a judge that he comes into the world. The Virgin again is here shown as elect of God to be the mother of God: not as the mother of Jesus, the mother of man's highest humanity. She wears on her head the fleur-de-lys coronet, symbol of purity; and the glory, or aureole, around her represents the acrostic symbol of the fish, the Greek word for fish containing the initials of the several Greek words meaning "Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour." Outside this "Vesica" (or "fish glory"), in the four corners, are four Jewish symbols (Ezekiel i. 10), adopted as emblems of the four Evangelists--the Angel (St. Matthew), the Ox (St. Luke), the Lion (St. Mark), and the Eagle (St. John). So again, in the scenes on either side of the central piece we see the same gloomy theology, in which the world is thought of solely as a place made hideous with evils, where saints are boiled by pagans, women slain by seducers, children devoured by dragons. By help of such pictured deeds of hell, men were taught by the early Church to "loathe this base world and think of heaven's bliss." The first subject (on the spectator's left) represents the birth of Christ in a cattle-shed; the second St. John the Evangelist, calm midst the cauldron of seething oil, the martyr's uplifted hand expressing the precept, "Pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you." The third subject depicts in a rude symbolic way incidents in the life of St. Catherine--her beheading, her soul's reception by angels, and the burial of her body by two angels on Mount Sinai. The fourth subject shows St. Nicolas appearing suddenly to some sailors, whom he exhorts to throw overboard a vase given by the devil. In the fifth is St. John resuscitating the body of Drusiana, a matron who had lived in his house previous to his departure, and whose bier he had chanced to meet on his return to Ephesus. In the next subject St. Benedict, founder of the Benedictine Order, is shown in the act of throwing himself into a thicket of briars and nettles, as he rushes from his cave to rid himself of the recollection of a beautiful woman he had once met in Rome, and whose image now tempts him to leave his chosen solitude. In the seventh, St. Nicolas liberates three innocent men; and in the eighth is represented St. Margaret, patron saint of women in childbirth, whom the devil in the form of a dragon confronts to terrify into abnegation of her Christian faith. Unable to persuade her, he devours her, but bursts in the midst, and by power of the Cross she emerges unhurt. It is interesting to observe that the two consecutive acts are here shown as co-existent: a thing frequently done, as we have seen, in early art. Finally, another characteristic feature is the introduction of the "grotesque" in the animals that support the throne as a relief from the strained seriousness of the rest of the picture (A. H. Macmurdo in _Century Guild Hobby Horse_, i. 21-28).

The picture, signed by the painter, was an altar-front in the church of Santa Margherita at Arezzo. It is painted in _tempera_ on linen cloth attached to wood, and even in Vasari's day its preservation was deemed remarkable. "It comprises," he says, "many small figures, of better manner than those of larger size, designed with more grace and finished with greater delicacy; and this work deserves consideration, not only because the little figures are so carefully done that they look like miniatures, but also for the extraordinary fact that a picture on canvas should have continued in such good preservation during 300 years" (i. 89).

565. THE MADONNA AND CHILD.

_Cimabue_ (Florentine: 1240-1302).

Giovanni Cenni, called Cimabue, has been called the "Father of
Modern Painting." He imitated the Byzantine style, says Vasari,
but "improved the art and relieved it greatly from its uncouth
manner." He did not entirely free himself from the dismal
formalism of his predecessors, but he infused new life into
the old traditional types. A contemporary of his was Niccola
Pisano, whose work in the allied art of sculpture shows a more
marked advance, and who perhaps really gave the new impulse
which art received at this period--an impulse carried on in the
field of painting by Cimabue's pupil, Giotto. Niccola Pisano,
says Ruskin, "is the Master of Naturalism in Italy,--therefore
elsewhere: of Naturalism and all that follows" (_Val d'Arno_,
§ 16). Well-authenticated pictures by Cimabue are the Madonna
panel with angels in the Academy at Florence (formerly in the
church of SS. Trinita), and the colossal Madonna still in the
Rucellai chapel in S. Maria Novella. The latter is the picture
of which the well-known story, referred to below, is told. Our
picture, which is also mentioned by Vasari, was originally
attached to a pilaster in the choir of S. Croce.[149]
Cimabue also executed some of the frescoes in the Upper
Church at Assisi: and at the time of his death was occupied
on the mosaics in the tribune of the Duomo at Pisa. Copies
of Cimabue's frescoes may be seen in the Arundel Society's
Collection.

The changes which Cimabue introduced into the art of painting were twofold. In the first place, his pictures show an _increase of pictorial skill_. This picture has suffered much from time. Thus in the Madonna's face, which was originally laid in green and painted over thinly, time and restorations have removed this over-painting, and left the green exposed (see also Duccio's 566). The green and purple of her dress also have changed into a dusky tone; but even so, the advance in pictorial skill may be seen in the shading of the colours, and the attempt to represent the light and dark masses of the drapery, whereas in earlier pictures the painters had been content with flat tints. But the advance made by Cimabue was even more in spirit than in technical skill. He combined the contemplation of the South with the action of the North. He gave the populace of his day something to look at--and something to love. "Is she not beautiful," asks a critic before this picture, "in simplicity and solemn majesty? Is she not a real mother with a half sad and foreboding wistful look that goes straight to the heart?" Cimabue's Madonna is still a Mater Dolorosa--"our Lady of Pain," but there is an attempt alike in her and in the child, and in the attendant angels, to substitute for the conventional image of an ideal personage the _representation of real humanity_. It was this change that explains the story told of one of Cimabue's works, that it was carried in glad procession, with the sound of trumpets, from his house to the church, and that the place was ever afterwards called "Borgo Allegro" (the joyful quarter)--a name which it bears to this day. "This delight was not merely in the revelation of an art they had not known how to practise; it was delight in the _revelation of a Madonna whom they had not known how to love_" (_Mornings in Florence_, ii. 48). In telling this story, Vasari adds that "they had not seen anything better"; the rudeness and quaintness which are all that at first sight are now discernible would then, it must be remembered, have been unseen. We may recall the poet's protest against those who,

Because of some stiff draperies and loose joints,
Gaze scorn down from the heights of Raffaelhood
On Cimabue's picture.

MRS. BROWNING: _Casa Guidi Windows_.

566. MADONNA AND CHILD.

_Duccio_ (Sienese: about 1260-1340).

Duccio, the son of Buoninsegna, did much the same for the
Sienese School as Cimabue and Giotto did for the Florentine.
He was the first, that is to say, who, forsaking partly the
conventional manner of the Byzantine School, endeavoured to
give some resemblance to nature, and in religious subjects to
bring down heaven to earth. "He retained the ancient formulas,
destroying, however, their formalism by the inspiration of new
life." The development of Sienese art under his influence was
parallel to, yet distinct from, that in Florence. "His feeling
is quite distinct; his pure, sweet, transparent colouring is
his own; his type of beauty more graceful and more classical,
and he loved more gentle curves, more oval faces and longer
limbs. In these things he followed his own temperament, and
by so doing determined the characteristics of the Sienese
School" (Monkhouse: _In the National Gallery_, p. 17). In
1285 Duccio was commissioned to paint a large Madonna for
the church of S. Maria Novella at Florence. In 1308 he began
the execution of his Maestà for the cathedral of Siena, of
which some portions are now in the transept and others in the
Opera del Duomo. The revelation that Duccio made of the new
power of art was received, as was Cimabue's, with rapturous
applause, and a portion of the famous picture just referred to
was in 1310 carried in procession on a beautiful day in June
to the Cathedral amidst the ringing of bells and the sounding
of trumpets; the magistrates, clergy, and religious orders
escorting it, followed by a multitude of citizens with their
wives and families, praying as they went: the shops were closed
and alms distributed to the poor. For that masterpiece Duccio
received 16 soldi (8d.) the working day, paid to him in monthly
instalments. The city, however, found him his materials,
which, owing to the quantity of gold used (see 1139), raised
the whole cost to 3000 gold florins. Works by Duccio are a
speciality of the National Gallery, which has four of them to
show, 566, 1139, 1140, and 1330. The present picture is the
most important, and best illustrates the new departure made by
Duccio.

The young Christ, for instance, instead of being depicted in the act of priestly benediction (as in 564), is shown as a true babe, drawing aside the veil that hides his Mother's face. In this little incident one may thus see the tendency which was to lead to the representation of the Mother and Child as a Holy _Family_ (the spectator must have "charity of imagination" to ignore the green hue of the Madonna's face, for reasons stated under 565). "A conception like this of the Infant Saviour is not met with, so far as I know, in the whole range of Byzantine art from the fifth century onwards. The relation of the Child to his mother, as here represented, the gesture of childlike love, contrasting with the expression of melancholy in her face, which, perhaps, constitutes the principal charm of the picture--is an innovation. This motive does not occur in the work of Niccola Pisano, the great sculptor who had executed a famous work in the cathedral of Siena some twenty years previously. We find it, however, in contemporary Gothic sculpture of France; a very characteristic example is in the South Kensington Museum, a charming little ivory of the Madonna standing with the Child in her arms" (Richter's _Lectures on the National Gallery_, p. 18). Above are seen the prophets, headed by David their king, while on either side St. Catherine[150] and St Dominic adore the vision of the mother of God. The Byzantine influence, on the other hand, may be seen in the Greek type of feature and long, slender fingers.

567. CHRIST ON THE CROSS.

_Segna di Buonaventura_ (Sienese: painted 1305-1326).

A ghastly and conventional work by one of the early Sienese painters--a pupil of Duccio.

568. THE CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN.

School of _Giotto_ (Giotto: 1266-1336).
_See also_ (p. xix)

Giotto di Bondone--great alike as a painter, a sculptor, and
an architect--was the son of a shepherd in the country near
Florence. One day when he was drawing a ram of his father's
flock with a stone upon a smooth piece of rock, Cimabue (see
565) happened to be passing by, and, seeing the lad's natural
bent, carried him off to be a painter. Cimabue taught him all
he knew, and in time the pupil eclipsed his master. Dante
mentions this as an instance of the vanity of Fame: "Cimabue
thought to hold the field in painting, but now Giotto has the
cry." But another poet holds

That Cimabue smiled upon the lad
_At the first stroke which passed what he could do_,
Or else his Virgin's smile had never had
Such sweetness in't. All great men who foreknew
Their heirs in art, for art's sake have been glad.

MRS. BROWNING: _Casa Guidi Windows_.

The earliest examples of his work extant are the frescoes
forming the lower range in the Upper Church at Assisi. His
frescoes of the virtues in the Lower Church are believed to
belong to a later period. So great was his fame that in 1298
he was sent for to do some work for the Pope. It was for him
that Giotto sent as his testimonial the famous circle drawn
with a brush, without compasses. "You may judge my masterhood
of craft," Giotto tells us, "by seeing that I can draw a
circle unerringly." (Hence the saying, "rounder than the O
of Giotto.") After a short time in Rome, Giotto returned to
Florence and painted the chapel of the Podestà, or Bargello, of
Florence, which was rescued from destruction in 1841. Some of
Giotto's work in it was restored. Here is his famous portrait
of Dante (traced previous to restoration and published by the
Arundel Society). To a later period belong his frescoes in the
church of Santa Croce. In 1303 Giotto was called to decorate
the walls of the chapel of the Annunziata dell' Arena at
Padua. This he did with a series of compositions which are the
greatest monument of his genius. It was during the execution
of this work that Dante visited Padua, being entertained by
his friend the painter. "Thus went Giotto, a serene labourer,
throughout the length and breadth of Italy. He engaged himself
in other tasks at Ferrara, Verona, and Ravenna, and at last
at Avignon, where he became acquainted with Petrarch. Then
passed rapidly through Florence and Orvieto on his way to
Naples, where he received the kindest welcome from the good
King Robert. The King, ever partial to men of mind and genius,
took especial delight in Giotto's society; and Giotto (says
Vasari), who had ever his repartee ready, held him fascinated
at once with the magic of his pencil and pleasantry of his
tongue. Returning to Florence, Giotto was appointed chief
master of the works of the Duomo then in progress. He designed
the Campanile, modelled the bas-relief for the base of the
building, and sculptured two of them with his own hand. He died
full of honour and at the zenith of his strength. He was buried
in the cathedral, at the angle nearest his campanile; and thus
the tower, which is the chief grace of his native city, may be
regarded as his own sepulchral monument." Only those who have
seen Giotto's wall paintings at Assisi, Padua, and Florence can
form any true conception of his greatness. It is pointed out
below in what respects his work was remarkable and important
for his time. It has also an abiding value in itself. "In nine
cases out of ten," says Ruskin, "the first expression of an
idea is the most valuable: the idea may afterwards be polished
and softened, and made more attractive to the general eye; but
the first expression of it has a freshness and brightness, like
the flash of a native crystal compared to the lustre of glass
that has been melted and cut. Giotto was not, indeed, one of
the most accomplished painters, but he was one of the greatest
men who ever lived. He was the first master of his time, in
architecture as well as in painting; he was the friend of
Dante, and the undisputed interpreter of religious truth, by
means of painting, over the whole of Italy. The works of such
a man may not be the best to set before children in order to
teach them drawing; but they assuredly should be studied with
the greatest care by all who are interested in the history of
the human mind" (_Giotto and his Works in Padua_). Copies of
many of his works are in the Arundel Society's Collection.

It was Cimabue who first attempted to represent action as well as contemplation. Giotto went farther, and represented the action of daily life. "Cimabue magnified the Maid; and Florence rejoiced in her Queen. But it was left for Giotto to make the queenship better beloved, in its sweet humiliation." This picture is not by the master himself, but it is characteristic--in its greater _naturalness_ and resemblance to human life--of Giotto's work. Cimabue's picture (565) is felt in a moment to be archaic beside it. Giotto is thus the first painter of domestic life--the "reconciler of the domestic with the monastic ideal, of household wisdom, labour of love, toil upon earth according to the law of Heaven, with revelation in cave or island, with the endurance of desolate and loveless days, with the repose of folded hands that wait Heaven's time." The corresponding development in the direction of greater naturalness which Giotto--himself a country lad brought up amongst the hills and fields--introduced in the art of _landscape_ painting cannot, unfortunately, be illustrated from the National Gallery (see on this point Edinburgh _Lectures on Architecture and Painting_, ch. iii.). But a third development--the introduction, namely, of _portraiture_--is well seen in the Heads of St. John and St. Paul (276), a work in which Giotto's influence is very marked. There is no longer a mere adoption of conventional types: these apostles are individual portraits. "Before Cimabue, no beautiful rendering of human form was possible; and the rude or formal types of the Lombard and Byzantine, though they would serve in the tumult of the chase, or as the recognised symbols of creed, could not represent personal and domestic character. Faces with goggling eyes and rigid lips might be endured, with ready help of imagination, for gods, angels, saints, or hunters--or for anybody else in scenes of recognised legend; but would not serve for pleasant portraiture of one's own self, or of the incidents of gentle, actual life. And even Cimabue did not venture to leave the sphere of conventionally reverenced dignity. He still painted--though beautifully--only the Madonna, and the St. Joseph, and the Christ. These he made living--Florence asked no more: and 'Credette Cimabue nella pintura tener lo campo.' But Giotto came from the field; and saw with his simple eyes a lowlier worth. And he painted the Madonna, and St. Joseph, and the Christ,--yes, by all means, if you choose to call them so, but essentially,--Mamma, Papa, and the Baby. And all Italy threw up its cap--'ora ha Giotto il grido' (now Giotto has the cry)." A fourth development which the art of painting owes to Giotto may be well seen in this picture. Notice the pretty passages of _colour_, as, for instance, in the dresses of the angels. "The Greeks had painted anything anyhow,--gods black, horses red, lips and cheeks white; and when the Etruscan vase expanded into a Cimabue picture, or a Tafi mosaic, still--except that the Madonna was to have a blue dress, and everything else as much gold on it as could be managed--there was very little advance in notions of colour. Suddenly Giotto threw aside all the glitter, and all the conventionalism; and declared that he saw the sky blue, the tablecloth white, and angels, when he dreamed of them, rosy. And he simply founded the schools of colour in Italy" (_Mornings in Florence_, pt. ii.).

569. AN ALTAR-PIECE.

_Orcagna_ (Florentine: about 1308-1386).

"From the time of Giotto to the end of the 14th century Orcagna
stands quite pre-eminent even among the many excellent artists
of that time. In sculpture he was a pupil of Andrea Pisano;
in painting, though indirectly, a disciple of Giotto. Few
artists have practised with such success so many branches
of the arts. Orcagna was not only a painter and a sculptor,
but also a worker in mosaic, an architect and a poet. His
importance in the history of Italian art rests not merely
on his numerous and beautiful productions, but also on his
widespread influence, transmitted to his successors through
a large and carefully trained school of pupils. In style as a
painter Orcagna comes midway between Giotto and Fra Angelico;
he combined the dramatic force and realistic vigour of the
earlier painting with the pure brilliant colour and refined
unearthly beauty of Fra Angelico. His large fresco paintings
are works of extreme decorative beauty and splendour, composed
with careful reference to their architectural surroundings"
(Middleton). His real name was Andrea di Cione, but he
was called by his contemporaries Orcagna, a corruption of
Arcagnuolo, the Archangel. "An intense solemnity and energy
in the sublimest groups of his figures, fading away as he
touches inferior subjects, indicates that his home was among
the _archangels_, and his rank among the first of the sons
of men" (_Modern Painters_, vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. iii. § 8).
Orcagna's father was a goldsmith, and the result of his early
training in the use of the precious metals may be traced in
the extreme delicacy and refined detail of his principal
works in sculpture. He used to note his union of the arts
by signing his pictures "the work of ... sculptor," and his
sculptures "the work of ... painter." As a sculptor and
architect, the principal work of Orcagna is the church of
Or San Michele at Florence. The great marble tabernacle is
"one of the most important and beautiful works of art which
even Italy possesses." Vasari also attributes to his design
the Loggia dei Lanzi in the Piazza della Signoria, but this
attribution cannot be upheld. As a painter, the chief works
of Orcagna are the frescoes in the Strozzi chapel in S. Maria
Novella. The "Paradise" is the finest of these compositions--a
work full both of grace and of majesty. These frescoes were
executed in 1350. In 1357 Orcagna painted the altar-piece in
the same chapel, and of about the same date is the altar-piece
now before us. The grand frescoes in the Campo Santo at Pisa
ascribed by Vasari to Orcagna are now attributed to other hands.

"In San Piero Maggiore," says Vasari in his life of Orcagna, "he executed a rather large picture, the 'Coronation of the Virgin.'" This is the picture now before us. The principal portion is numbered 569. The other nine pictures (570-578) were originally portions of the same magnificent piece of decoration. A model of the church for which it was painted is held by St. Peter (among the saints adoring on the spectator's left). This altar-piece, though a handsome piece of church furniture, is not so favourable a specimen of the master's power as are the works referred to above. Nevertheless these panels are full of varied interest.

A certain quaint uncouthness should not blind us to Orcagna's wealth of expressive detail. Thus, "in the sensitive cast of the Mother's countenance, and in the refined pose of her figure, there is a rare degree of eloquence, such as silently bespeaks a modesty which would shun, a humility which would disallow, any sort of self-adornment. Her Lord, to whose will she submits herself, is no less monumental in dignity of combined power and tenderness. And in the celestial band below, in the maidens that play and sing at the Mother's feet, despite their quaint little almond eyes, there is a _naïveté_ of expression, a simplicity and animation unequalled at so early a date. In particular she who, singing behind the harpist, generously spends her soul in impassioned songs, while others, agreeable to nature's truth, are singing regardless of their song, interested only in what is around. Again, in that dual company of holy men and women sitting about the throne, reverence stills every feature, and a saintly singleness of purpose keeps each eye as they look in loving adoration on Him whose dying bought their soul's salvation, or as they lean towards Her whose human heart petitioned them to Paradise" (A. H. Macmurdo in _Century Guild Hobby Horse_, ii. 34). In the _Hobby Horse_ (a different publication, No. 1, 1893), a musical expert calls attention to the instruments shown by Orcagna. Thus "in the central compartment note the portative organ, at that time in familiar use, with its gimlet-shaped keys all of one light colour, and apparently, even in that early date, chromatic in disposition. Five large drone pipes may be recognised, from their being out of scale with the melody pipes. The second instrument in the angelic band is the mediæval harp, the comb holding the wrest, or tuning, pins being held here in an animal's mouth. A third angel is furnished with a cither, also a favourite mediæval instrument. It is ornamented in ebony and ivory, and has a plectrum guard inserted in the belly, as in a modern mandoline. The fourth angel has a viol of a clumsy form; it took another 200 years to arrive at the graceful outline of the violin. The fifth has a psaltery. One angel has a bagpipe; the chaunter or melody pipe has eight holes, the same number the highland bagpipe has now." Variations of these instruments may be noted in the subordinate pictures (A. J. Hipkins). An expert in another art calls attention to the beauty of the patterns on the dresses of the central figures, on the ground upon which the angels kneel and stand, and also on the stuff hung at the back of the throne (Sydney Vacher: _Italian Ornaments from brocades and stuffs found in pictures in the National Gallery_).

570-2. THE TRINITY, WITH ANGELS ADORING.

_Orcagna_ (part of the altar-piece, 569).

One may notice here one of Orcagna's limitations. "He was unable to draw the nude. On this inability followed a coldness to the value of flowing lines, and to the power of unity in composition; neither could he indicate motion or buoyancy in flying or floating figures" (_On the Old Road_, i. § 78). Compare especially the flying angels in the two little pictures 571 and 572, with such figures as those by Botticelli (1034), and it will be seen at once how inferior Orcagna's knowledge was.

573-5. THE NATIVITY, ADORATION, AND RESURRECTION.

_Orcagna_ (part of the altar-piece, 569).

These panels are very rude and "conventional": nothing can be more absurd, for instance, than the sleeping sheep and shepherds at the top of the Nativity; but they are interesting, if only by comparison with later pictures of the same subjects. Such a comparison shows how constant the traditional ways of representing these events were, and how individual choice was shown in beautifying the traditions. From this point of view the Nativity is specially interesting. "This beautiful little picture," says Mr. Hodgson, R.A., "is a good example of the simplest and most perfectly symbolical treatment of the subject. In design and composition the painter has thought only how to convey the story with the utmost clearness and simplicity. It is what it was intended to be, a Scripture story made visible to those who could not read. Naturalism, _i.e._ the actual representation of the aspect of nature, is not thought of, no more at least than was necessary to make the meaning of the painted symbol equivalent to that of the word: rock for rock, ox for ox, and ass for ass. The degree of naturalism aimed at in such scenes can be tested pretty accurately by the treatment of the nimbus. A flat circular expanse of gold inserted into a picture must necessarily be destructive of all illusion--it is treated as a symbol, a thing non-existent, but as a necessary traditional observance. When naturalism was aimed at, the nimbus was looked upon as an actual existing corona of golden light which the saint carried about with him, and it was drawn in perspective, according to the turn of his head" (_Magazine of Art_, 1890, p. 39). Turn next to the Nativity by Piero della Francesca (908)--a picture painted 100 years later. The symbolism is already mixed up with some conscious striving after objects beautiful in themselves. To a generation later still belongs Botticelli's "Nativity" (1034). It is full, as we shall see, of doctrinal symbolism, but it strikes the imagination also by the pomp and pageantry of the angelic host, and appeals to the senses by its flowing lines and gorgeous colourings. Yet in all these pictures of the Nativity there are certain fixed elements. One feature never absent is the introduction of the ox and the ass, suggested by a text from Habakkuk, iii. 4, "He shall lie down between the ox and the ass." A second point is that Joseph "sits apart, apparently weary or in meditation. Great care seems to have been taken to suggest that he in a certain sense held aloof, and was no participator in the interest of the scene; it was feared, perhaps, that were he to exhibit joy and surprise, it might convey the idea of paternity; he is always a mere impassive spectator." The scene of the Nativity is in the earliest pictures always represented as a cavern; a grotto at Bethlehem is to this day revered as the actual spot. In Margaritone's picture (564) we have a bare cave in the rock. In Orcagna's the cave remains, but a wooden portico or shed is added to shelter the Virgin and her Child. Next the cave disappears altogether, but the shed remains (_e.g._ 908, 1034).