Chapter XVIII: Preface: By John Ruskin (16)

Artists may be divided according to the subjects of their
choice into Purists, Naturalists, and Sensualists. The first
take the good in the world or in human nature around them
and leave the evil; the second render all that they see,
sympathising with all the good, and yet confessing the evil
also; the third perceive and imitate evil only (_Stones of
Venice_, vol. ii. ch. vi. § 51). Of the first class Fra
Giovanni da Fiesole is the leading type. His life was largely
spent in the endeavour to imagine the beings of another
world.[158] His baptismal name was Guido, but he changed it
early in life to Giovanni, when he entered a Dominican convent
in Florence. He was once offered the archbishopric of his city,
but he refused it: "He who practises the art of painting,"
he said, "has need of quiet, and should live without cares
and anxieties; he who would do the work of Christ must dwell
continually with Him." He was given the name of "Angelico,"
and after his death the style and distinction of "Beato" (the
Blessed), for his purity and heavenly-mindedness, and it
is said of him that "he was never known to be angry, or to
reprove, save in gentleness and love. Nor did he ever take
pencil in hand without prayer, and he could not paint the
Passion of Christ without tears of sorrow." By this "purity of
life, habitual elevation of thought, and natural sweetness of
disposition, he was enabled to express the sacred affections
upon the human countenance as no one ever did before or since.
In order to effect clearer distinction between heavenly beings
and those of this world, he represents the former as clothed
in draperies of the purest colour, crowned with glories of
burnished gold, and entirely shadowless. With exquisite choice
of gesture, and disposition of folds of drapery, this mode of
treatment gives, perhaps, the best idea of spiritual beings
which the human mind is capable of forming. It is, therefore,
a true ideal; but the mode in which it is arrived at (being
so far mechanical and contradictory of the appearances of
nature) necessarily precludes those who practise it from
being complete masters of their art. It is always childish,
but beautiful in its childishness" (_Modern Painters_, vol.
iii. pt. iv. ch. vi. § 4). Angelico, it may be added, looking
on his work as an inspiration from God, never altered or
improved his designs when once completed, saying that "such
was the will of God." Angelico's work, says Ruskin in a later
passage, in which he discusses the weakness of the monastic
ideal, will always retain its power, "as the gentle words of
a child will." Yet "the peculiar phenomenon in his art is,
to me, not its loveliness, but its weakness.... Of all men
deserving to be called great, Fra Angelico permits to himself
the least pardonable faults and the most palpable follies.
There is evidently within him a sense of grace and power of
invention as great as Ghiberti's; ... [but] comparing him with
contemporary great artists of equal grace and invention, one
peculiar character remains noticeable in him--which, logically,
we ought therefore to attribute to the religious fervour;--and
that distinctive character is, the contented indulgence of
his own weaknesses, and perseverance in his own ignorances."
Passing to consider the sources of the peculiar charm which
we nevertheless feel in Angelico's work, Ruskin mentions
"for one minor thing, an exquisite variety and brightness of
ornamental work"; while "much of the impression of sanctity"
is "dependent on a singular repose and grace of gesture,
consummating itself in the floating, flying, and, above all,
in the dancing groups" (_Ethics of the Dust_, pp. 150-152).
Fra Angelico is said to have begun his artistic career as an
illuminator of manuscripts--a tradition which is entirely in
accordance with the style of his later works. In 1409 he left
Fiesole for Foligno and Cortona. In the churches of the latter
place fine altar-pieces by him are still preserved. From 1418
to 1436 he was again at Fiesole. In the latter year he was
invited to Florence to decorate the new Convent of St. Mark.
His frescoes here occupied him nine years. "This convent, now
converted into a national monument, is a very museum of Fra
Angelico--cloisters, refectory, chapter-house, guest-room,
corridor, stairs, and not less than nineteen or twenty cells,
bear witness to a skill and leisure alike obsolete." Copies of
several of the frescoes may be seen in the Arundel Society's
collection. In 1445 Fra Angelico was called to Rome, where he
painted the chapel of Nicolas V. in the Vatican (also copied
and engraved for the Arundel Society). At Orvieto in 1447 he
commenced some paintings in the chapel of the Madonna di San
Brixio, which were afterwards completed by Signorelli. The last
years of the painter's life were spent at Rome. He was buried
in the Church of the Minerva, where his recumbent effigy (an
emaciated figure in the Dominican habit) may still be seen.
"Some works are for Earth," says a line in his Latin epitaph,
"others for Heaven."

The weakness and the strength of the painter are alike well seen in this picture of Christ, with the banner of the resurrection surrounded by the Blessed. The representation of Christ Himself is weak and devoid of dignity; but what can be more beautiful than the surrounding angel choirs, "with the flames on their white foreheads waving brighter as they move, and the sparkles streaming from their purple wings like the glitter of many suns upon a sounding sea, listening in the pauses of alternate song for the prolonging of the trumpet blast, and the answering of psaltery and cymbal, throughout the endless deep, and from all the star shores of heaven" (_Modern Painters_, vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. ii. ch. v. § 21).[159] No two of the 266 figures are alike in face or form, though each is perfect in grace and beauty.[160] In the central compartment the seraphim (red) are on Christ's right, the cherubim (blue) on His left. In the compartment to Christ's left are, amongst other patriarchs and saints, Abraham with the sword, Noah with the ark, Moses with the tables of law, Aaron with his name on his mitre, and below them St. Agnes with the Lamb, and St. Catherine with her wheel. The martyrs bear palms in their hands; some wear wreaths of roses, others the crown of thorns. In the compartment to Christ's left are the Virgin, St. Peter with the keys, and the Evangelists. On the extreme ends on either side are those of the painter's brother Dominicans, in their black robes, who have joined the company of the "Blessed."

Multitudes--multitudes--stood up in bliss,
Made equal to the angels, glorious, fair;
With harps, palms, wedding-garments, kiss of peace,
And crowned and haloed hair.

Each face looked one way like a moon new-lit,
Each face looked one way toward its Sun of Love;
Drank love, and bathed in love, and mirrored it,
And knew no end thereof.

Glory touched glory, on each blessèd head,
Hands locked dear hands never to sunder more:
These were the new-begotten from the dead
Whom the great birthday bore.

CHRISTINA ROSSETTI: _From House to Home_.

This picture was formerly the predella of an altar-piece in San Domenico at Fiesole. It was sold by the monks in 1826 to the Prussian Consul in Rome, from whose nephew it was purchased for our Gallery. "The price paid was £3500. The additional and incidental expenses, in consequence of the demands of the Roman Government before allowing the exportation, were unusually great. Those demands, ostensibly founded on the excellence and celebrity of the picture, were admitted to be partly also suggested by the state of the Papal finances." The British Consul finally paid £700 for the permission of exportation (_Director's Report_, 1861). The altar-piece to which our picture belonged remains sadly damaged _in situ_.

664. THE DEPOSITION IN THE TOMB.

_Roger van der Weyden_[161] (Early Flemish: 1400-1464).
_See also_ (p. xix)

This painter was born at Tournai, where he was known as Rogelet
de la Pasture. He afterwards went to Brussels, where he
assumed his Flemish name, and where in 1436 he was appointed
town painter. For the Hall of Justice there he painted four
pictures, which are now lost, but of which the designs are
preserved in a set of tapestries in Berne Cathedral. He was
the chief master (as a teacher, that is) of the early Flemish
school. It was he who carried Flemish art into Italy (see
772), where he was in 1449-1450. "Contemporary Italian writers
laud the pathos, the brilliant colouring, and the exhaustive
finish of his works." He on his side gained something from the
study of Italian masters. The composition of many of his great
works--_e.g._ "The Last Judgment" at Beaune, the "Nativity"
at Berlin, and "The Adoration of the Magi" at Munich--bears
evidence of Italian influence. Nearer home, the school of the
Lower Rhine in its later time was an offshoot of his school:
and farther up the river, Martin Schongauer, at Colmar, was
an immediate pupil of his. He set the fashions in several
subjects--such as descents from the cross, and hundreds of
followers imitated his designs. What gave his art this wide
currency was the way in which it united the older religious
feeling, from which Van Eyck had cut himself adrift, with
the new naturalism and improved technique which Van Eyck had
introduced. His French blood, too, gave his art an element of
vivid emotion, which was lacking in the staid control of Van
Eyck. He is especially praised for his "representations of
human desires and dispositions, whether grief, pain, or joy."
He thus painted for the religious needs of the people at large;
and though an inferior artist, enjoyed a far wider influence
than Van Eyck. "Less intensely realistic than Van Eyck, less
gifted with the desire and the power to reproduce the phenomena
of nature for their own sake, and in their completeness, he
thought more," says Sir F. Burton, "of expressing the feelings
common to him and the pious worshippers for whose edification
he wrought. His figures exhibit deep, if sometimes rather
overstrained, pathos. He strove with naïf earnestness to bring
home to the senses the reality of the incidents connected with
the last sufferings and death of the Saviour. Still he was
naturalistic too, in the sense in which that term applies to
all painters of the early Flemish school, in that he imitated
with minuteness every object which he thought necessary to his
compositions; but of the broad principles of chiaroscuro and
subordination which Van Eyck had so wonderfully grasped, he
had small perception. His scenes seem filled with the light of
early morning. His colour, pale in the flesh-tints with greyish
modelling, is varied and delicately rich in the clothing and
other stuffs introduced. His landscape abounds in freshness
and greenth. Thus he transferred to his oil pictures the light
and brilliance of missal painting, an art which perhaps he had
himself practised." "He occasionally practised a very different
technical method from that usually employed in Flanders--that
is to say, he painted in pure tempera colours on unprimed
linen, the flesh tints especially being laid on extremely
thin, so that the texture of the linen remains unhidden. Other
colours, such as a smalto blue used for draperies, are applied
in greater body, and the whole is left uncovered by any
varnish" (Middleton). Of this method the present picture is a
fine example.

This picture--"one of the most exquisite in feeling of the early Flemish school" (Poynter)--is full of sincere emotion. "Roger van der Weyden is especially known by his touching conception of some of the scenes of the Passion. He excelled in the lull of suppressed feeling. The picture of the Entombment by him in the National Gallery is as much more sad to the heart than the passionate Italian conception, as a deep sigh sometimes than a flood of tears. We could almost wish those mourners, with their compressed lips, red eyelids, and slowly trickling tears, would weep more--it would grieve us less. But evidently the violence of the first paroxysm of grief is over, and this is the exhaustion after it. The tide is ebbing as with all new sorrow, too soon to flow again. No finer conception of manly sorrow, sternly repressed, exists than in the heads of Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, who devote themselves the more strenuously to their task in order to conceal their grief. Strange that a painter of such exquisite refinement of feeling should adhere to so hideous a type of Christ as that which appears here" (Mrs. Jameson's _History of our Lord_, ii. 246). It is interesting to contrast the figure of Christ with that in Francia's picture (180). In painting such subjects the Italians of the best time endured the physical painfulness, the Northern temperament rejoiced in it. The painters in so doing were only meeting the wishes of their patrons. There is a contract, for instance, still in existence in which it is expressly stipulated that the form of our Lord in a picture ordered at Bruges shall be painted "in all respects like a dead man."

665. THE BAPTISM OF CHRIST.

_Piero della Francesca_ (Umbrian: about 1416-1492).

This great Umbrian master was a native of Borgo San Sepolcro in
Umbria, but studied in Florence, where it is probable that he
was a pupil of Paolo Uccello (see 583). A combination of the
characteristics of the two schools is to be seen in the work
of Piero, who had at the same time a marked individuality of
his own. "He has the imaginative impulse, the Umbrian sense
of an inner, an almost mystic beauty, of a certain aloofness
from earth and uplifting of the soaring spirit; and yet on
the other side of his character he is strongly scientific; he
studies perspective, the projection of shadows, the scheme
of values; he fills his work with light and atmosphere,
and improves on the oil methods of the earlier Florentines"
(Brinton's _Renaissance in Italian Art_, iii. 85). "By dignity
of portraiture, by loftiness of style, and by a certain
poetical solemnity of imagination he raised himself above the
level of the mass of his contemporaries. Those who have once
seen his fresco of the 'Resurrection' at Borgo San Sepolcro
[in the Pinacoteca] will never forget the deep impression
of solitude and aloofness from all earthly things produced
by it" (Symonds, iii. 170). A copy of this fresco may be
seen in the Arundel Society's collection. The picture now
before us also well illustrates the skill in dealing with
technical difficulties and the solemn grandeur of conception
which characterise the painter. Piero della Francesca was
so called after his mother,[162] "Francesca's Peter," for,
says Vasari, "he had been brought up solely by herself, who
furthermore assisted him in the attainment of that learning
to which his good fortune had destined him." He received at
first a scientific education, and possessed, adds Vasari, "a
considerable knowledge of Euclid, inasmuch that he understood
all the most important properties of rectilinear bodies better
than any other geometrician." In a treatise on perspective,
written in the vulgar tongue, he reduced the science to "rules
which have hardly admitted of subsequent improvement." These
studies influenced Piero's tendencies in art. "The laws of
aerial perspective, of the harmony of colours, the proportions
of light and shade, and the position of objects in space were
equally developed by one whose feeling for precise calculation
went _pari passu_ with that of pictorial representation.
In this combination of science and art he was strictly the
precursor of Leonardo da Vinci. Fra Luca Paccioli, a celebrated
mathematician, and an intimate friend of Piero, was in later
years in constant communication with Leonardo" (Layard, i.
215). Piero probably acquired the new method of oil painting
from Domenico Veneziano (see 766), whom he assisted in some
wall paintings in S. Maria Nuova in Florence in 1439, and with
whom he afterwards worked at Loreto. Some of his best works
are to be seen in his native city, and at Arezzo he painted a
remarkable series of frescoes for the church of S. Francesco.
Piero was also employed at Urbino, where he appears to have
been the guest of Raphael's father, Giovanni Santi. He worked
also in Rimini and Ferrara, and was called to Rome to paint two
frescoes in the Vatican, which were afterwards destroyed to
make room for the works of Raphael. His later, like his earlier
years, were devoted to mathematical studies, and in his old
age "the ban Of blindness struck both palette from his thumb
And pencil from his finger." Among his pupils Vasari mentions
Perugino and Signorelli.

A picture of great interest from a technical point of view, as showing an advancing skill, especially in perspective. The feet of Christ are finely "foreshortened"; the tops of the mountains are correctly reflected on the surface of the river in the foreground; in the middle distance there is a foreshortened view of a street leading to a fortified town, and the anatomy of the figure stripping himself for baptism is very carefully rendered. This very realistic figure of a convert strikes a curious note; Piero's paintings are "the working out of problems before our very eyes." In these technical respects Piero resembles Paolo Uccello, while there is also a striking affinity of style between the landscapes of the two painters. "The peculiar construction of these landscapes, with steep mountains of an uncommon type, is the more remarkable because they are the starting-point of all the later achievements in realistic landscape painting" (Richter's _Italian Art in the National Gallery_, p. 16). "The study of natural phenomena," says Mr. Monkhouse, "is everywhere apparent. The pomegranate trees are the earliest attempt in the National Gallery to give what may be called the portrait of a particular tree--the habit of its growth, the special character of its leafage. The hedge in Uccello's 'Battle of St. Egidio' is the nearest approach to it. He has striven to imagine the scene as it actually might have happened. Sundry worthies, in strange rich costumes, look on from a further bank. Nothing is 'newer' in the picture than the carefully studied reflections of their garments in the water. The effect, so beautifully rendered by Burne-Jones in his picture of 'Venus's Looking-Glass,' Piero was the first to paint, if not to observe" (_In the National Gallery_, p. 106).

The subject is the baptism in Jordan. Christ, under the shade of a pomegranate tree, is being "baptized of John in Jordan; and straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him" (Mark i. 9, 10). The spiritual feeling of the scene is enhanced by the sweet presence of the attendant angels,--crowned with wreaths of flowers, instead of the nimbus. It is an old belief that angels watch over men's birth, and so too they are represented as presiding over the new birth, which is typified by the rite of baptism. "What solemnity in the bearing of Christ as He permits John to pour over Him the water of Jordan which is flowing in a shallow stream at his feet! How modest the deportment of the assistant angels at His side! How the trees, whose every leaf in the dense foliage is distinctly outlined, seem even to hush their whispers that nothing may disturb the nearness of God, who looking down from heaven as out of the far distance, makes his presence felt" (Grimm's _Life of Raphael_, p. 46). This picture, which seems never to have been finished and shows the under-painting, was formerly the principal altar-piece of the Priory of St. John the Baptist at Borgo San Sepolcro.

666. THE ANNUNCIATION.

_Fra Filippo Lippi_ (Florentine: about 1406-1469).

I am poor brother Lippo, by your leave!...
Yes, I'm the painter, since you style me so....
For me, I think I speak as I was taught;
I always see the garden and God there
A-making man's wife: and, my lesson learned,
The value and significance of flesh,
I can't unlearn ten minutes afterwards....
Why can't a painter lift each foot in turn,
Left foot and right foot, go a double step,
Make his flesh liker and his soul more like,
Both in their order?

BROWNING: _Fra Lippo Lippi_.

This and the companion picture by the same artist (667) were
painted for Cosmo de' Medici (this one is marked with Cosmo's
crest--three feathers tied together in a ring), and are
identified with a story told by Vasari, which Browning worked
up in his poem on the artist. Cosmo, knowing the artist's ways,
kept him under lock and key that his work might be the quicker
done, but Lippi one night contrived a way of escape, and "from
that time forward," adds Vasari, "Cosmo gave the artist more
liberty, and was by this means more promptly and effectually
served by the painter, and was wont to say that men of genius
were not beasts of burden, but forms of light." Filippo was
the son of a butcher, and, being left an orphan, was committed
to the charge of the monks of the Carmelite convent close to
which his parents had lived. At the age of fourteen or fifteen
he was induced to take the vows of the order. At this time he
must have seen Masaccio painting in the famous Branacci chapel
of the conventual church, S. M. del Carmine. Lippi himself
executed some works (now destroyed) in the church, and having
by this time found his true vocation, he was in 1431 permitted
to leave the convent in order to be free to practise his art.
Vasari relates that during an excursion on the Adriatic, Lippi
was taken captive by some Moorish pirates. But after a while
he found opportunity to draw a whole-length portrait of his
master with charcoal on a white wall, which the pirates deemed
so marvellous that they set him at liberty. This tale, however,
is inconsistent with the facts of Lippi's life as now known
from documentary evidence. Lippi enjoyed the patronage of the
Medici, and he received sinecure offices also from the Pope.
During the years 1431-53 many of his best panel pictures were
painted. Among these may be mentioned the "Coronation of the
Virgin" (Academy, Florence), in which is introduced a portrait
of himself with the tonsure, and bearing a scroll inscribed
_Is perfecit opus_, and the "Virgin adoring the Infant, borne
by two Angels" (Uffizi), which was selected by Ruskin for
one of his four "Lesson Photographs," and is fully described
by him in _Fors_, 1875, p. 307. At the end of the period in
question Lippi undertook the principal work of his life, which
occupied him for several years, the series of frescoes in the
choir of the Duomo at Prato. "These magnificent paintings,"
says Morelli, "were executed at about the same time as those
equally celebrated by Mantegna in the Cappella degli Eremitani
at Padua. Whoever would learn to know the aspirations and
artistic power of that period in the highest utterances, has
only to study those two wall-paintings. If we are carried away
by Fra Filippo's grandeur of conception and his pure dramatic
vividness, we are enthralled, on the other hand, by Mantegna's
greater fulness of expression and his perfect execution"
(_German Galleries_, p. 71). While engaged on these frescoes,
the friar-painter was appointed chaplain to the convent of
Santa Margherita. Here he became enamoured of one of the nuns,
Lucrezia Buti, and having persuaded the abbess to let Lucrezia
sit to him for a study of the Madonna, he carried her off
to his house. She remained with him for two years, and bore
him a son, the renowned painter, Filippino Lippi (293). Her
portrait is to be seen in the Virgin of the "Assumption," now
in the Communal Gallery at Prato. She was induced to return to
the convent, and took fresh vows, but again escaped to seek
the friar's protection. The scandal now became serious, and
Filippo was threatened with punishment. But Cosmo de' Medici
intervened, and the Pope issued a bull releasing the erring
pair from their vows and sanctioning their marriage. Lippi's
last work was a series of frescoes in the choir of the Duomo
at Spoleto. Here he died, from an illness ascribed by some to
poison, leaving the work to be finished by his assistant, Fra
Diamante. He was buried in the Duomo. Over his tomb Lorenzo de'
Medici caused a monument to be erected, and Poliziano wrote
Latin couplets to commemorate the fame of the friar-painter.
"His art," says Ruskin, "is the finest, out and out, that
ever monk did, which I attribute myself to what is usually
considered faultful in him, his having run away with a pretty
novice out of a convent.... The real gist of the matter is that
Lippi did, openly and bravely, what the highest prelates in the
Church did basely and in secret; also he loved, where they only
lusted; and he has been proclaimed therefore by them--and too
foolishly believed by us--to have been a shameful person"[163]
(_Fors Clavigera_, 1872, xxii. 4; _Ariadne Florentina_, vi.
§ 5 _n._). In other words, Lippi, while true to his religion,
did not shut himself out from the world--to use the theological
language, he "sanctified," not "crucified," the flesh. His
pictures are "nobly religious work,--examples of the most
perfect unison of religious myth with faithful realism of human
nature yet produced in this world" (_Fors Clavigera_, 1876, p.
187). "The human element, with him so naïve and spontaneous,
gives," says Burton, "a singular charm to his works. His
colour is golden and broad, and his drapery finely cast and of
fascinatingly broken tones." Among his pupils (besides his son)
were Pesellino and Botticelli.

Here the traditional legend of the Annunciation is faithfully adhered to, and there is much "unusually mystic spiritualism of conception" in the dove, the Spirit of God, proceeding in rays of golden light from the hand of an unseen Presence; but the painter delights to elaborate also every element of human interest and worldly beauty. Note, for instance, the prettiness of the angel's face, the gracefulness of his figure, the sheen of his wings, and the dainty splendour of the Virgin's chamber.

667. ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST AND SAINTS.

_Fra Filippo Lippi_ (Florentine: 1406-1469). _See 666._

Lippi's general characteristics, noticed above under the companion picture (666), may again be seen here. The "other saints" are Sts. Francis (on the spectator's right, with the stigmata), Lawrence, and Cosmas; on the left Sts. Damianus, Anthony, and Peter Martyr--this last a particularly "human" saint. Lippi was a monk himself, and drew his saints in the human resemblance of good "brothers" that he knew. "I will tell you what Lippi must have taught any boy whom he loved. First, humility, and to live in joy and peace, injuring no man--if such innocence might be. Nothing is so manifest in every face by him as its gentleness and rest." It is characteristic of Lippi, too, that the saints should be represented sitting in so pretty a garden. Secondly,--"a little thing it seems, but was a great one,--love of flowers. No one draws such lilies or such daisies as Lippi. Botticelli beat him afterwards in roses, but never in lilies" (_Ariadne Florentina_, vi. § 9).

668. THE BEATO FERRETTI.

_Carlo Crivelli_ (Venetian: painted 1468-1493). _See 602._

Gabriele Ferretti (to whose family Pope Pius IX. belonged) was Superior of the Franciscans in the March of Ancona, and died in 1456. Thirty years later his body was found incorrupt, and was deposited in a sarcophagus in the church of S. Francesco ad Alto at Ancona. It is conjectured that the present picture was painted for that church in commemoration of the discovery of the body. The artist shows us the holy man in enjoyment of the vision of the beatified. "The Beato (in Franciscan habit) has been reading or praying, at the entrance of a cave near a church, in a quiet country spot from which a road leads to a town in the distance. Suddenly in the sky the Virgin and Child appear (surrounded by the _Vesica_ glory, see No. 564). He has laid down his book, put off his sandals, and kneels in prayer and adoration.... The masterly treatment of the drapery, the perfection of the forms, the architecture, the sense of spaciousness in the landscape, all point to the maturity of Crivelli's art.... The landscape, for general effect, is one of his best, though the treatment of the rocks and of the foreground is still conventional. The most striking objects in it are the leafless tree-stems, the counterpart, as it were, of the hard and bony human figures of which he was so fond, and therefore an illustration of his love for anatomical forms. His seeking after realism again appears in the two ducks painted with minute precision. In contrast to them we get the festoon of fruit at the top of the picture, illustrating the conventional and decorative aspect of his art. No picture of his suggests more completely both the range and the limitations of Crivelli" (G. M. Rushforth: _Carlo Crivelli_, pp. 65, 87).

669. ST. SEBASTIAN, ST. ROCH AND ST. DEMETRIUS.

_L'Ortolano_ (Ferrarese: died about 1525).

Giambattista Benvenuti, called L'Ortolano (the gardener) from
his father's occupation, is still a problem in art history,
details of his life being so uncertain that even the existence
of him is disputed by some critics. There is, however,
documentary evidence which proves his existence. This noble
picture was, until 1844, the altar-piece of the parochial
church of Bondeno, near Ferrara, where it was generally
considered the painter's masterpiece. His life and works are
generally confounded with those of Garofalo, to which painter
Morelli ascribes the present work. "Garofalo's characteristics
are apparent in the form of hand, the brown flesh-tints, the
drapery, the landscape, and the small stones in the foreground"
(_Italian Painters_: The Borghese and Doria-Pamfili Galleries
in Rome, p. 208). On the other hand, Venturi has drawn up
a list of works, showing common characteristics and common
differences from Garofalo, which he therefore attributes to
Ortolano. To this list should be added Lord Wimborne's "St.
Joseph presenting the Infant Christ." Among the characteristics
noticeable in our picture are houses planted on posts; long,
straight streaks in the background turning to white; trees with
large, sparse, yellowing leaves. "Garofalo never achieved the
rapt expression of St. Demetrius" (see the argument of Venturi
quoted in Burlington Fine Arts Club's Catalogue, 1894).

In the centre is St. Sebastian, tied to a tree, and pierced with arrows; whilst in the foreground is a cross-bow, lying uselessly. For the story is that Sebastian was a noble youth who was promoted to the command of a company in the Prætorian Guards by the Emperor Diocletian:

"At this time he was secretly a Christian, but his faith only
rendered him more loyal to his masters; more faithful in all
his engagements; more mild, more charitable; while his favour
with his prince, and his popularity with the troops, enabled
him to protect those who were persecuted for Christ's sake,
and to convert many to the truth. Among his friends were two
young men of noble family, soldiers like himself; their names
were Marcus and Marcellinus." And when they were tortured for
being Christians, Sebastian, "neglecting his own safety, rushed
forward, and, by his exhortations, encouraged them rather to
die than to renounce their Redeemer. Then Diocletian ordered
that Sebastian also should be bound to a stake and shot to
death with arrows. The archers left him for dead; but in the
middle of the night, Irene, the widow of one of his martyred
friends, came with her attendants to take his body away, that
she might bury it honourably; and it was found that none of
the arrows had pierced him in a vital part, and that he yet
breathed. So they carried him to her house, and his wounds were
dressed; and the pious widow tended him night and day, until
he had wholly recovered" (Mrs. Jameson: _Sacred and Legendary
Art_, 1850, pp. 343, 344).

This legend was one of the special favourites with the mediæval painters: "the display of beautiful form, permitted and even consecrated by devotion, is so rare in Christian representations, that we cannot wonder at the avidity with which this subject was seized" (_ibid._ p. 346). It is instructive to compare the noble use of the subject made in this picture, in which the great technical skill of the painter is subordinate to the beautiful display of a sacred legend, with the "St. Sebastian" of Pollajuolo (292), in which, as we have seen, the subject is used solely--and painfully--for the display of such skill. With St. Sebastian is here represented, on his left, his contemporary, St. Demetrius. He is clad in armour, for he also served under Diocletian, being Proconsul of Greece, and like St. Sebastian used his high office to preach Christ. On the other side is St. Roch (for whose legend see 735). He is a much later saint (about A.D. 1300), and is associated with St. Sebastian as another patron of the plague-stricken. Arrows have been from all antiquity the emblem of pestilence; and from the association of arrows with his legend, St. Sebastian succeeded in Christian times to the honours enjoyed by Apollo, in Greek mythology, as the protector against pestilence.

670. A KNIGHT OF ST. STEPHEN.

_Angelo Bronzino_ (Florentine: 1502-1572). _See 649._
_See also_ (p. xx)

He wears the robes of his order (with a red cross bordered with yellow), an order established by Cosimo, Duke of Tuscany, and charged with the defence of the coasts against pirates. The knight is a good specimen of the courtier aristocracy with which Cosimo surrounded himself. The knights of St. Stephen afterwards won much honour by their prowess, but they were men of culture also: notice that this one holds a book in his hand, which rests on a table richly carved in the taste of the time. This portrait was presented to the nation by Mr. Watts, R.A.

671. MADONNA AND CHILD ENTHRONED

_Garofalo_ (Ferrarese: 1481-1559). _See 81._

This fine picture was originally the principal altar-piece of the church of San Guglielmo (St. William) at Ferrara. Hence the introduction of that saint (on our left)--a beautiful face, into which the artist has put, one may think, all his local piety. The saint is in armour, for William--the institutor of the hermit order of Guglielmites--was originally a soldier, and was "given," says one of his biographers, "unto a licentious manner of living, too common among persons of that profession." It was to escape from such temptations that he became a holy penitent, and fought thenceforward in mountain solitudes, as a soldier of Christ against the flesh and the devil. Beside him stands St. Clara, "the very ideal of a gray sister, sedate and sweet, sober, steadfast, and demure." She gazes on a crucifix, for she too had renounced the pomps and vanities of the world. Her wealth of golden hair was cut off, it is said, by St. Francis; her fortune she gave to hospitals, and herself became the foundress of the Order of "Poor Clares." St. Francis stands on the other side of the throne, and besides him is "good St. Anthony" (see under 776).

672. HIS OWN PORTRAIT.

_Rembrandt_ (Dutch: 1606-1669). _See 45._

"This portrait, dated 1640, describes the man well--strong and robust, with powerful head, firm and compressed lips and determined chin, with heavy eyebrows, separated by a deep vertical furrow, and with eyes of keen penetrating glance,--altogether a self-reliant man, who would carry out his own ideas, careless whether his popularity waxed or waned" (J. F. White in _Encyclopædia Britannica_).

673. "SALVATOR MUNDI."

_Antonello da Messina_ (Venetian: 1444-1493)

A picture of special interest as being the earliest known
work (it is dated 1465) of Antonello, of Messina in Sicily,
who is famous as the man by whom the art of painting in oils,
as perfected by the Van Eycks (see 186), was introduced into
Venice. Vasari's story is that Antonello saw, on a visit to
Naples, a picture by John Van Eyck, in which the brilliancy
and fine fusion of the tints so struck him that he forthwith
set out for Flanders, ingratiated himself with Van Eyck, and
learnt from him the secret of his method. But the dates do
not agree with this story. For Van Eyck died in 1440, and
Antonello must therefore have been born early in the century,
whereas, on the contrary, Vasari expressly states that he died
in 1493, aged forty-nine. More probably Antonello learnt the
Flemish technique from the painters of that school who are
known to have been at Naples in the middle of the fifteenth
century. In his native town, in the church of S. Gregorio,
is a triptych by him, dated 1473. In the same year he was at
Venice, where he remained until his death. "His practical
mastery of the new method, still unknown in the city of the
Lagoons, of glazing in oil colours a ground laid in tempera,
must have given Antonello a higher status at Venice than
his intrinsic merits as an artist would have warranted. We
see that he is at once honoured with a commission from the
wardens of S. Cassiano. Unhappily the altar-piece there, so
highly praised by Matteo Collaccio and Sabellico, and signed
with the year 1473, has long since disappeared. And not only
did the church dignitaries of Venice patronise him, but the
patricians were eager to have their likenesses taken on the
new principle practised by Antonello; and, to judge by the
number of portraits he turned out in those years, he must for
a time have been the most popular portrait painter in Venice"
(Morelli). Of his portraits there is a good example in our
Gallery (1141). The splendid portrait in the Louvre is dated
1475; that in the Berlin Gallery, 1478. The "Crucifixion" in
our Gallery is dated 1477. "It is evident to me," says Morelli,
"that Antonello gradually formed himself by studying the works
and seeking the society of the great Venetian masters, till he
reached that degree of perfection which we miss in his early
Ecce Homos and admire in his portraits of 1475-78. His Italian
nature gradually works its way through the Flemish shell in
which his first master had encased his hand as well as mind. In
this transformation of Antonello as an artist Giovanni Bellini
had obviously the greatest share. Whoever visits the churches
of Messina, and of the towns and villages along that eastern
coast of Sicily as far as Syracuse, will still find in many
of them Madonnas, whether in colour or in marble, that remind
him of Antonello and Giambellino. And not only did Antonello
act powerfully on his own Sicilian countrymen; we also discern
his influence in several portraits by painters of Upper
Italy--for instance, those of Solario." No. 923, for example,
the portrait of a Venetian Senator, by that master, is strongly
reminiscent of Antonello's style. In fact, as Sir F. Burton
says, "to Antonello and his Flemish education is due that type
of portraiture which we find among the Venetian and North
Italian painters of his time, and which, under a southern sun,
and in the hands of a Titian, expanded itself in the noblest
form." (The above account of Antonello follows Morelli: see his
_Italian Masters in German Galleries_, pp. 376-390).

Christ as the "Saviour of the World," stands with his finger on the edge of a parapet, giving the blessing and gazing into eternity. The picture, being dated 1465,[164] must have been painted by Antonello in his twenty-first year. Both in conception and in the ruddy complexion peculiar to the school of Van Eyck (see 222 and 290) it suggests a Flemish influence. Notice also the _pentimenti_ (or corrections): the right hand and border of the tunic were originally higher, and their forms, obliterated by the painter, have now in course of time disappeared. This again shows the hand of an experienced artist.

674. PORTRAIT OF A LADY.

_Paris Bordone_ (Venetian: 1500-1570). _See 637._

A splendid specimen of this painter's portraits, and a type of the face which meets one in nearly every Gallery of Europe; for Bordone, who had (as we have seen) a great vogue as a lady's portrait painter, had yet a way, says Ridolfi, of making such works appear more like fancy portraits than individual portraits. This one is of a girl of the Brignole family, aged eighteen, according to the inscription. In the Brignole Palace at Genoa (now the property of the town) are two magnificent portraits by Bordone. The type here is that of a cruel and somewhat sensual beauty--the eyes, especially, being, "like Mars, to threaten or command"--

Cold eyelids that hide like a jewel
Hard eyes that grow soft for an hour;
The heavy white limbs, and the cruel
Red mouth like a venomous flower.

SWINBURNE: _Dolores_.

Since the above note was written, Mr. H. Schütz Wilson has suggested, with some plausibility, that the portrait is of Bianca Cappello (1542-1587), "as pre-eminent in sumptuous voluptuous loveliness, as she was in the crime of her day in Italy." "In the deadly calm of the almost inscrutable lineaments of this remarkable portrait, in which charm and grace are shown behind so much that is terrible, so much that is earthly, sensual, devilish, in those awful eyes, and in that cruel 'red mouth, like a venomous flower,' we see, as I fancy," says Mr. Wilson, "not an obscure girl of a noble family of Genoa, but the counterfeit presentment of the romantically wicked Renaissance heroine, the fair and evil Grand Duchess of Tuscany" (_Pall Mall Gazette_, November 22, 1888).

679. THE PORTRAIT OF AN ASTRONOMER.

_Ferdinand Bol_ (Dutch: 1616-1680).

Bol was the most distinguished of Rembrandt's pupils in
portraiture. He was born at Dordrecht, and settled at
Amsterdam, where he acquired burgess rights in 1652. One of
Bol's portraits in the Louvre has attained the honour of being
hung in the Salon Carré. His "Four Regents of the Leprosy
Hospital" at Amsterdam is the painter's masterpiece, and one
of the finest works of the Dutch School. Bol's pictures are
remarkable for a prevailing yellow tone. Up to about the
year 1660 he seems to have remained the pupil of Rembrandt.
"Unfortunately he did not remain faithful to his early
teaching. He made sacrifices to the taste of his time, and
abandoned the sober and grave figures, the severe and sustained
method of painting, the powerful light and shade of his school,
to seek a fresh source of success in overwhelming allegory and
in the imitation of Rubens. This was his ruin. His later works,
painted in full light, are very inferior to those of an earlier
date; their colouring is hard, glaring, and discordant, and
in composition they are frequently bombastic and pretentious"
(Havard: _The Dutch School of Painting_, p. 93).

The sitter is conjectured to be an astronomer, from the globes on the table before him and from the look on his face as of a man dwelling among the clouds. The picture is signed, and dated 1652.

680. THE MIRACULOUS DRAUGHT OF FISHES.

_Van Dyck_ (Flemish: 1599-1641). _See 49._

Painted by Van Dyck from the large picture by Rubens at Mechlin, for an engraver to work from. "One of the too numerous brown sketches in the manner of the Flemish School, which seem to me rather done for the sake of wiping the brush clean than of painting anything. There is no colour in it, and no light and shade;--but a certain quantity of bitumen is rubbed about so as to slip more or less greasily into the shape of figures; and one of St. John's (or St. James's) legs is suddenly terminated by a wriggle of white across it, to signify that he is standing in the sea" (_Art of England_, p. 44). Ruskin notices the picture as an example of the art which was assailed by the Pre-Raphaelites. A word-picture of the same scene in the Pre-Raphaelite manner, with its literal and close realisation, will be found in _Modern Painters_, vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. iv. § 16.

685. SHOWERY WEATHER.

_Meindert Hobbema_ (Dutch: 1638-1709).

Hobbema, who disputes with Ruysdael the place of best Dutch
landscape painter, was a friend of the latter, and perhaps his
pupil: certainly works of the two are sometimes remarkably
alike. Thus it has been pointed out that Hobbema's No. 996
shows the influence of Ruysdael, whilst Ruysdael's No. 986
recalls Hobbema's. Often, too, they painted the same country;
compare _e.g._ No. 986 with Hobbema's No. 832. Like Ruysdael,
too, Hobbema was a painter without honour in his own country,
and nine-tenths of his known works are in England, where he was
first appreciated, and where he was the means of influencing
many of our landscape painters, notably Nasmyth. His pictures
were often ascribed to other painters, now considered greatly
his inferiors, in order to obtain better prices. It has been
remarked as a curious fact that until the middle of the
eighteenth century no engraver thought it worth while to
reproduce any of Hobbema's pictures; and Sir Joshua Reynolds
in his _Tour in Holland_ (1781) makes no reference to Hobbema,
though he must have seen some of his pictures. Even a hundred
years ago they were not much sought after; now they are more
valued than those of any landscape painter and fetch very
large prices at auctions. Recently one of them sold for as
much as £8820. This appreciation is due in part to the fact
that Hobbemas are very rare; the known works by him number
hardly more than a hundred. Of Hobbema's life very little
is recorded. His name (like that of Alma Tadema) betokens
Frisian origin. His birthplace is unknown, but he appears to
have been born at Amsterdam, and to have been the scholar of
Jacob Ruysdael in landscape painting. Ruysdael was the witness
at his marriage. This was in 1668. In the same year he was
appointed one of the sworn gaugers for the excise of the town.
"Thus, a century before Burns, fortune played upon one of the
greatest of landscape painters the same trick that she played
in his case upon the most spontaneous of poets." Hobbema was
not the only painter of his time who had to eke out a bare
subsistence by employment more lucrative than the production
of masterpieces. Salomon van Ruysdael was also a frame-maker;
Van Goyen speculated in houses, picture-dealing, and tulips;
and Jan Steen was an innkeeper. The coincidence of Hobbema's
marriage and his appointment as gauger of wines and oil was not
by chance. The archives throw a curious light upon the public
morals of Amsterdam at the time of its greatest prosperity. By
a deed executed in the month of his marriage, Hobbema admits
that he owes his appointment to the influence of a companion
of his wife, like her a servant in the employment of the
burgomaster, and in consideration of this he agrees to pay her,
so long as he holds the place, an annual sum of 250 florins.
Posterity owes this servant of the burgomaster a grudge, for
after taking up the appointment, Hobbema scarcely painted
any more. The post cannot, however, have been lucrative, for
he died in evil circumstances--in a house directly opposite
to that in which Rembrandt had died forty years before. The
painter of works, any one of which is now worth a small fortune
to its possessor, was buried in a pauper's grave.

In spite of the resemblance to Ruysdael above noted, Hobbema's
best and most characteristic works are quite distinct.
Ruysdael is the painter of the solitude of nature, of rocks
and waterfalls; Hobbema of the Dutch "fields with dwellings
sprinkled o'er." The pervading tone of Ruysdael is dark
and sombre; that of Hobbema is drowsy and still. A second
characteristic of Hobbema is his fondness for oak foliage, and
a certain "nigglingness" in his execution of it. See _e.g._
832, 833. "They (Hobbema and Both) can paint oak leafage
faithfully, but do not know where to stop, and by doing too
much, lose the truth of all, lose the very truth of detail
at which they aim, for all their minute work only gives two
leaves to nature's twenty. They are evidently incapable of
even thinking of a tree, much more of drawing it, except leaf
by leaf; they have no notion nor sense of simplicity, mass,
or obscurity, and when they come to distance, where it is
totally impossible that leaves should be separately seen,
being incapable of conceiving or rendering the grand and quiet
forms of truth, they are reduced to paint their bushes with
dots and touches expressive of leaves three feet broad each."
"No word," Ruskin elsewhere adds, "has been more harmfully
misused than that ugly one of 'niggling.' I should be glad if
it were entirely banished from service and record. The only
essential question about drawing is whether it be right or
wrong; that it be small or large, swift or slow, is a matter of
convenience only. But so far as the word may be legitimately
used at all, it belongs especially to such execution as this
of Hobbema's--execution which substitutes, on whatever scale,
a mechanical trick or habit of hand for true drawing of known
or intended forms." A second objection to Hobbema's method may
be mentioned besides its "trickiness." His "niggling" touch
is extended from the foreground to objects farther off, and
thus "a middle distance of Hobbema involves a contradiction
in terms; it states a distance by perspective, which it
contradicts by distinctness of detail" (_Modern Painters_, vol.
i. pt. ii. sec. ii. ch. v. § 17, sec. vi. ch. i. § 22; vol. v.
pt. vi. ch. v. § 6). In spite, however, of such defects, the
works of Hobbema have an enduring charm for their incisiveness
of touch, and warmth of light. He had not Ruysdael's variety
nor his depth of poetic feeling. The forest glade and the
watermill are almost all he paints. But these he paints so
firmly and decisively that they live for ever, and upon them he
casts a warm and golden tone which never fails to please.

686. THE VIRGIN AND CHILD.

_Hans Memlinc_ (Early Flemish: 1430-1494).

It is only in the Hospital of St. John at Bruges that the art
of this exquisite painter can be properly studied. There,
as among the Fra Angelicos at San Marco in Florence and the
Giottos at the Arena in Padua, one may see the great works
of a mediæval painter in the very surroundings which first
produced them. (Copies of some of Memlinc's works at Bruges and
elsewhere are included in the Arundel Society's collection.)
The Hospital is, as it were, a shrine of Memlinc. Around this
fact legends grew. In one of the pictures, it was said, a
portrait of the artist might be discovered; on the sculptured
ornaments of a porch enframing one of its subjects, an incident
of the master's life might be traced,--his danger as he lay
senseless in the street, his rescue as charitable people
carried his body to the hospital. It came to be told how the
great artist began life as a soldier who went to the wars
under Charles the Bold, and came back riddled with wounds from
the field of Nancy. Wandering homeward in a disabled state in
1477, he fainted in the streets of Bruges, and was cured by
the Hospitallers. Unknown to them and a stranger to Bruges, he
gave tangible proofs of his skill to the brethren of St. John,
and showed his gratitude by refusing payment for a picture he
had painted. Unfortunately all this is a myth. Of his real life
little is known, but it is enough to refute the legends that
for so long passed current. In 1477 he was under contract to
furnish an altar-piece for the guild chapel of the booksellers
of Bruges; this picture, preserved under the name of the "Seven
Griefs of Mary," is now one of the principal treasures of the
Gallery of Turin. His many pictures for the Hospitallers were
painted in 1479 and 1480. He was born at Mayence on the Rhine.
His name (which should not be spelt Memling) was probably
derived from the town of Memmelinck (now Medenblik) in the
north-east of Holland, to which place his family presumably
belonged. He is known from the town records to have been
settled in Bruges in his own house in 1479. He must have been
a citizen of some wealth, for in the next year he was one of
those who contributed to a loan raised by Maximilian of Austria
to push hostilities against France. In 1487 he lost his wife.
In 1494 he died, his children being still minors, and was
buried in the Church of St. Giles (see a document cited in the
_Athenæum_ of 2nd February 1889).