Chapter XX: Preface: By John Ruskin (18)

726. CHRIST'S AGONY IN THE GARDEN.

_Giovanni Bellini_ (Venetian: 1426-1516). _See 189._

An early work of the master, painted probably about 1459 (nearly half a century earlier than the Doge's portrait, 189), but interesting as showing the advance made by him in landscape. "We see for the first time an attempt to render a particular effect of light, the first twilight picture with clouds rosy with the lingering gleams of sunset, and light shining from the sky on hill and town--the first in which a head is seen in shadow against a brilliant sky" (Monkhouse: _The Italian Pre-Raphaelites_, p. 73). "In the figures of the Apostles, especially in the one on the left, the repose of sleep is expressed in so admirable and convincing a manner, that it would be difficult to name a second painter of the _quattro-cento_ who could compare with Bellini in this respect" (Richter). Nor is the advance one in the technique of art only. The picture is one of the earliest in which art made use of what Ruskin calls "the pathetic fallacy"--in which, that is, art represents nature as sympathising with human emotion. Bellini "called in nature," says Mr. Hodgson, R.A. (_Magazine of Art_, 1886, p 215), "to sympathise with human sorrows, or rather he was the first to point out that nature takes her colouring and her aspects from the conditions of our passions and sentiments.[173] That sombre sky, with its gleam along the horizon, that long dark hill, the wild plain over which the traitor and his accomplices are stealing, have exactly the aspect which they would present to one who stood there knowing that a horrible treason was going to be perpetrated." Compare, for this "pathetic fallacy" in painting, Titian's "Noli me tangere" (No. 270). Bellini's picture should be compared with Mantegna's of the same subject in an adjoining room (1417). Mantegna seizes only the sublimity of the idea of the Agony, Bellini's penetrating sympathy renders its infinite pathos. Mantegna's picture is in some technical respects the more accomplished; "but in all that concerns the imaginative conception of the subject, in the harmonising of all the accessories to produce a single profound impression on the emotions, above all in the large and reposeful spaciousness of the composition, Bellini is surely the more to be admired" (Roger Fry: _Giovanni Bellini_, p. 22). Both pictures may be profitably compared with Correggio's of the same subject, in which we are introduced to a new order of ideas (See notes on No. 76).

727. THE TRINITY.

_Francesco Pesellino_ (Florentine: 1422-1457).

This accomplished master was called Pesellino to distinguish
him from his grandfather Pesello, by whom he was brought up. He
is "entitled to one of the highest places in the ranks of the
Florentine School of the fifteenth century. His compositions
are distinguished by their lively grace, and the beautiful
and truthful expressions of the persons portrayed" (Kugler).
In beauty of colour and dignity of design the work before us
is his masterpiece. He was a pupil of Fra Filippo Lippi, and
subsequently opened a workshop in Florence in partnership
with a certain Piero di Lorenzo. He died at the early age of
thirty-five, leaving a widow and several children in penury.
His works are very rare. Two compartments of a predella by
him are in the Accademia at Florence, a fourth being in the
Louvre. The collection of Morelli (now in the Public Gallery of
Bergamo) contains three charming little pictures by him, which
strongly recall the style of Fra Filippo (Morelli's account of
the painter is in his _Roman Galleries_, pp. 253-58). "In the
Torrigiani Palace at Florence are two remarkable panels from
_cassoni_, there ascribed to Gozzoli, but by modern criticism
more justly to Pesellino; they bear out Vasari's remark as to
this painter's skill in delineating animals" (Burton).

This picture is perhaps the finest version extant of the conventional Italian representation of the mystery of the Trinity. The Son on a crucifix is supported by the Father, whilst the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove hovers over the head of the Son. The head of the First Person of the Trinity is a very majestic conception. "In this face, so full of beauty and power, of intensity and calm, as well as the careful modelling of the pathetic figure of Christ upon the cross, Pesellino touches heights which Lippi could not reach; but in the charming cherubim and seraphim with which the severity of the subject is softened and decorated, and in the beauty of the colour (though that has suffered much) we may recognise the influence of his master. We have only to compare this picture with the representations of the same subject by Landini (580_a_) and Orcagna (570) to show how the power to render the most august subjects had been increased by progress in technical accomplishment and the liberation of the artist's imagination, even when the elements and arrangements of the composition remained virtually unchanged from the traditional type" (Monkhouse, _In the National Gallery_, p. 62). The picture is referred to by Vasari: "At Pistoja is a work by Pesello, representing the Trinity, with figures of San Zeno and San Jacopo" (ii. 115). On the suppression of the religious congregation to whom the church of the Holy Trinity at Pistoja belonged, the picture was sold, and passed into the collection of Mr. Young Ottley. The side panels referred to by Vasari are still in private collections.

728. MADONNA AND CHILD.

_Beltraffio_ (Lombard: 1467-1516).

Giovanni Antonio Beltraffio came of a noble family in Milan
(his epitaph is in the Brera) and filled public offices in
his native town. He fell under the influence of Leonardo, and
when that master settled at Milan, Beltraffio lodged in his
house, and became his ardent disciple. "His most ambitious
creation, where he lamentably fails, is the Louvre altar-piece,
the redeeming features of which are the fine portraits of the
Casio family, his friends and patrons. When he confined himself
to portraiture he was often strikingly successful, and the
older Milanese families still possess a number of ancestral
portraits by him, some of which are of great charm. He seems
to have become the pet artist of the society of his day,
often painting the portraits of his friends in the guise of
a St. Sebastian, or as Sta. Barbara. He accompanied Leonardo
to Rome in 1514. Although not a great artist, and entirely
lacking in imagination and dramatic power, he exhibits singular
refinement. His cultured intellect enabled him to appreciate,
and in a measure reflect, the fastidious spirit of his master.
His works charm by their high finish, and by the absence of
all vulgarity or display. His portraits do not reveal much
penetration, and he never caught the subtleties of character or
the intellectual qualities of his sitters" (_Catalogue of the
Burlington Fine Arts Club Exhibition_, 1898, p. lviii.). His
pictures are for the most part on a small scale. Good specimens
are to be seen in the Morelli collection at Bergamo, and the
Poldi-Pezzoli collection at Milan. To delineate the human
figure on a large scale, or human passions, was not his forte;
he succeeded better in expressing naïve innocence in children,
and gentle grace in the Mother of God, or devoted women
(Morelli's _German Galleries_, pp. 425-48; _Roman Galleries_,
p. 163).

Of Beltraffio's powers in the respect last mentioned this charming picture is perhaps the best specimen extant. The child with its quaint belly-band, and still more the noble but slightly languishing grace of the mother, at once recall Leonardo.

729. THE ADORATION OF THE KINGS.

_Vincenzo Foppa_ (Lombard: about 1425-1492).

Foppa--Il Vecchio as he is called, to distinguish him from a
younger Foppa of the Brescian School[174]--is an important
person in the history of art. Born at Brescia, but removing
in early manhood to Milan, he "holds both in the School of
Brescia, and especially in that of Milan, the same place that
the mighty Mantegna does at Padua, and Cosimo Tura at Ferrara,"
representing that early period of development when force of
character is more insisted on than beauty of expression. In
relation to the Milanese, Foppa was the founder of the school
which prevailed before and up to the time of Leonardo da
Vinci. He was already an artist of repute in 1456, when he was
employed to decorate the Medici Palace at Milan with frescoes.
These works, and many others executed by him in Milan and the
neighbourhood, have perished. His best remaining frescoes are
those of the Four Fathers of the Church in S. Eustorgio at
Milan. Foppa was also employed in Genoa and Savona. Late in
life he returned to Brescia, where he received a renewed grant
of citizenship, and a pension, and where also he died. Of his
extant works, the earliest is a Crucifixion in the Bergamo
gallery. This is dated 1456, and supports the statement of old
writers that Foppa had studied under Squarcione at Padua. His
latest work is the altar-piece, now in S. Maria di Castello at
Savona. This belongs to the year 1490, and agrees in style with
our National Gallery picture. Foppa is said to have written on
perspective, and many painters of the Lombard School studied
under him.

Traces of the older style of work, from which Foppa freed his school, may here be seen in the embossed ornaments in gilt stucco. Notice the daintiness of the picture throughout: the pretty flowers in the foreground, the splendid brocades of the kneeling king, the birds and weeds in the ruined stable. In the background are the star and city of Bethlehem. "The general effect is dark and heavy, relieved by an abundant use of red; the flesh tones, as usual, are of ashen hue. The Madonna is of Foppa's characteristic type, of solid build. It is interesting to find that there is little or no direct trace of Leonardesque influence, a fact which shows that Foppa was too advanced in years to modify perceptibly his style on the advent of the mighty Florentine in 1481" (_Catalogue of the Burlington Fine Arts Club Exhibition_, 1898, p. xxviii.).

732. A CANAL SCENE.

_Aart van der Neer_ (Dutch: 1603-1677). _See 152._

The figures in the picture are supposed to be by Lingelbach (see No. 837).

734. A MILANESE LAWYER.

_Andrea Solario_ (Lombard: about 1460-1520).

Andrea belonged to an artist family, the Solari (of Solaro,
a village near Saronna); one of his brothers, Christopher
(nicknamed "Il Gobbo," the hunchback), was an architect and
sculptor, and from him perhaps Andrea learnt his superb
modelling of the head--a point which is conspicuous in this
picture, and in which he surpassed all his contemporaries.
His repute in his own time is attested by the journey he made
to France in 1507. The Cardinal George of Amboise desired to
entrust the decoration of a chapel to Leonardo; but Leonardo
was too much taken up with hydraulic works at Milan to accept
the commission, and the Cardinal's representative sent Andrea
in the great man's place. It is not known with whom Solario
studied painting, but his subject-pictures prove conclusively
that he came within Leonardo's sphere of influence. "Although
by birth and training a Lombard artist, Solario was so much in
Venice that his native style was largely modified. There is
no historical evidence that he ever met Antonello da Messina,
but his works bear such close resemblance to that master's
productions that it cannot be doubted they were acquainted.
The portrait No. 923 is obviously Venetian in character;
indeed, it passed not long since under Bellini's name. It seems
unnecessary to suppose [with Morelli] that he paid a visit
to Flanders. The Flemish traits so conspicuous in his work
could well be derived from contact with Antonello. To the end
of his life he painted with the utmost finish and delicacy.
The brilliance and warmth of his colour compensate for the
somewhat cold ivory pallor of his flesh tones. His landscapes
are remarkably picturesque and full of incident. That behind
the figure of Longono in the National Gallery portrait is of
the greatest delicacy and charm" (_Catalogue of the Burlington
Fine Arts Club Exhibition_, 1898, p. lxi. See also Morelli's
_German Galleries_, pp. 63-68; _Roman Galleries_, pp. 170-176).
Subject-pictures by Solario may be seen in the Brera and the
Poldi-Pezzoli Gallery at Milan, and in the Louvre. His last
work was a large "Assumption of the Virgin" for the Certosa of
Pavia (now in the Sacristy), which his death prevented him from
finishing.

A portrait (dated 1505) of the artist's friend, a Milanese lawyer, whose name, John Christopher Longono, is written on a letter in his right hand. He wears the gown and cap (not unlike that still worn by French "advocates") of his profession. Observe the landscape background--here quaintly peopled with prancing dogs and horses on the left, and servants in red pushing off boats on the right--with which the old painters, like some of our modern photographers, were fond of flattering their subjects. But in this case the subject is well entitled to his "setting," for he is a nobleman as well as a lawyer, and the background is perhaps studied from his country seat. On the bottom of the panel is a Latin inscription which, literally interpreted, runs, "Not knowing what you have been or what you may be, may it for long be your study to be able to see what you are," _i.e._ by looking at this picture of yourself--a neatly-turned compliment at once to the painter and his subject: the picture is to last for many a long year, and the lawyer for many a long year is to grow no older. Or is the inscription also meant to describe the lawyer's character in words, as the portrait does in colours--a man not troubled overmuch with what has been or what may be hereafter, but one who is keenly alive to what he is, and who pours all his powers into the tasks and interests of the present?

735. ST. ROCH WITH THE ANGEL.

_Paolo Morando_ (Veronese: 1486-1522).

Paolo Morando, otherwise known as Cavazzola (his father was
Taddeo Cavazzola di Jacobi di Morando), was a pupil of Morone
(see 285). He "infused a higher life, and a fine system of
colouring into the Veronese School, making thus a great advance
upon his contemporaries, and preparing the way for Paul
Veronese.... He shows, as Dr. Burckhardt has justly observed,
'a marvellous transition from the realism of the fifteenth
century to the noble free character of the sixteenth, not to an
empty idealism'" (_Layard_, i. 270). His masterpieces are still
in his native Verona, and nowhere else, except in the National
Gallery, can he be studied.

St. Roch is the patron of the sick and plague-stricken. The legend says that he left great riches to travel as a pilgrim to Rome, where he tended those sick of the plague, and by his intercession effected miraculous cures. Through many cities he laboured thus, until at last in Piacenza he became himself plague-stricken, and with a horrible ulcer in his thigh he was turned out into a lonely wood. He has here laid aside his pilgrim staff and hung his hat upon it, and prepared himself to die, when an angel appears to him and drops a fresh rose on his path. There is no rose without a thorn, and no thorn in a saint's crown without a rose. He bares his thigh to show his wound to the angel, who (says the legend) dressed it for him, whilst his little dog miraculously brought him every morning a loaf of bread.

736. A VENETIAN SENATOR.

_Francesco Bonsignori_ (Veronese: 1455-1519).

Called incorrectly, by Vasari, Monsignori. He was born at
Verona, where, in the churches of S. Fermo, S. Bernardino, S.
Paolo, and in the Pinacoteca, works by him may be seen. In
the grand but not always attractive productions of his earlier
style, Bonsignori followed the traditions and manner of the
Veronese School. Later in life he went to Mantua, where he
settled and was influenced by Mantegna (see Morelli's _German
Galleries_, p. 103, _note_).

A portrait--remarkable for vigorous execution, and strong individuality--of a senator, from the life, "in his habit as he stood,"--a branch of art in which this painter excelled. He has been called indeed "the modern Zeuxis," after the famous Greek painter whose painted grapes deceived the birds. For so lifelike were Bonsignori's pictures--says Vasari in his entertaining account of this painter--that on one occasion a dog rushed at a painted dog on the artist's canvas, whilst on another a bird flew forward to perch itself on the extended arm of a painted child. The portrait before us is executed in tempera. The study in chalk, for it is in the Albertina collection at Vienna.

737. A WATERFALL.

_Ruysdael_ (Dutch: 1628-1682). _See 627._

739. THE ANNUNCIATION.

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

Mary is kneeling in her chamber; while a golden ray from a glory above, piercing the house wall, has struck her head, over which is hovering a dove, the symbol of the Holy Spirit. The angel of the Annunciation is outside in the court, but she cannot see him, for a wall stands between them--"a treatment of the subject which may be intended to suggest that the angel appeared to her in a dream." It also gives the painter an opportunity for introducing an additional display of incident and ornament. Beside the angel is St. Emidius, the patron saint of Ascoli, with a model of the city in his hand. "There could not be better examples of what we may call Crivelli's 'exquisite' style, which is only just saved by its refinement from mere prettiness and affectation. This angel is a _poseur_ if ever there was one." The picture is very characteristic, in two features, of mediæval art. First, it was never antiquarian: it did not attempt to give a correct historical setting (_cf._ under 294). No mediæval painter made the Virgin a Jewess; they nationalised her, as it were, and painted her in the likeness of their own maidens. So too their scenery was the likeness of their own homes and their own country. Here, for instance, is a picture of an Italian city in gala attire, somewhat idealised, no doubt, in splendour, but otherwise a "perfectly true representation of what the architecture of Italy was in her glorious time; trim, dainty,--red and white like the blossom of a carnation,--touched with gold like a peacock's plumes, and frescoed, even to its chimney-pots, with fairest arabesques,--its inhabitants, and it together, one harmony of work and life" (_Guide to the Venetian Academy_, p. 21). And secondly, the picture shows the pleasure the painters took in their accessories, and the frank humour--free at once from irreverence and from gloom--with which the Venetians especially approached what was to them a religion of daily life. Notice especially the little girl at the top of the steps on the left, looking round the corner. The whole of this side of the picture shows a naturalistic treatment which forms "a curious accompaniment and contrast to Crivelli's ordinary conventional manner. The group talking with a friar at the house door, the citizen who passes along bent on business, the dandy who shades his eyes from the sun and looks up at the house, the figures on the arch, and the people walking in the open space by the town walls beyond, make up a picture of real life unequalled among Crivelli's works" (Rushworth's _Crivelli_, p. 63). As a representation of the "Annunciation," the picture should be compared and contrasted with Lippi's (666). The Madonna and the Angel, "though essential to the work from the point of view of the patrons, who commissioned it, were merely its occasion from the point of view of that extraordinarily painstaking and detail-loving creature, its painter. There is endless profusion of decorative work; elaborate arabesques on the pilasters of the Madonna's lordly house, elaborate capitals, elaborate loggias, an elaborate cornice. The grain of the wood on her reading-desk is carefully painted; so are the planks in the wall of her bedchamber.... Besides the endless interest of its decorative work, this picture is useful as marking the difference between the spiritual and ideal motives which dominated Florence, and the worldly motives of richness and splendour which dominated Venice. Compare its purely adventitious detail with the poetical background of Filippo Lippi. In the Florentine, the detail is there for the sake of the picture; in the Venetian, the picture is there for the sake of the detail" (Grant Allen, in the _Pall Mall Magazine_, July 1895). See under 1139 for further notes on the subject.

The picture is signed and dated, 1486, at the bottom of the pilasters of the Virgin's chamber. On the face of the step below is an inscription between three coats of arms (the Bishop's, the Pope's, and the town's)--_Libertas Ecclesiastica_, which is of some historical interest. In the year 1482 the city of Ascoli came to an agreement with the Pope, whereby, in return for an annual tribute and the acknowledgment of his suzerainty, the Pope issued a Bull in favour of its citizens, conferring on them municipal Home Rule. A new phrase--_Libertas Ecclesiastica_, Independence under the Church--was invented to describe the new settlement. The arrival of the Charter on March 25, the Feast of the Annunciation, was celebrated henceforth by ceremonies on that day, in which a procession to the church of the Annunziata was a prominent feature. Our picture was painted for that church, where it remained until 1790.

740. MADONNA AND CHILD.

_Sassoferrato_ (Eclectic: 1605-1685). _See 200._

741. THE DEAD ORLANDO.

_Ascribed to Velazquez_.[175] _See under 197._

The closing scene, according to one of the many legends, in the history of that "peerless paladin," Orlando, or Roland, who was slain at the battle of Roncesvalles, when returning from Charlemagne's expedition against the Saracens in Spain. Invulnerable to the sword, he was squeezed to death by Bernardo del Carpio. He lies, therefore, prostrate, but fully dressed and armed, his right hand resting on his chest, his left on the hilt of his famous sword. Over the dead man's feet there hangs from a branch a small brass lamp, the flame of which, like the hero's life, has just expired. On either side are the skulls and bones of other "paladins and peers who on Roncesvalles died."

742. PORTRAIT OF A LAWYER.

_Moroni_ (Bergamese: 1525-1578). _See 697._

An excellent example of the painter's third or naturalistic manner. There is an ease of attitude and an absence of constraint which makes the portrait transparently natural.

744. THE "GARVAGH MADONNA."

_Raphael_ (Umbrian: 1483-1520). _See 1171._

This picture--known as the "Garvagh Madonna," from its former owner, Lord Garvagh, or the "Aldobrandini Madonna," from having originally belonged to the Aldobrandini apartments of the Borghese Palace at Rome--belongs to Raphael's third or Roman period, and a comparison with the "Ansidei" shows the changes in feeling between the painter's earlier and later manners. The devotional character of the Umbrian School is less marked. In the "Ansidei Madonna" the divinity of the Virgin is insisted on; and above her throne is the inscription "Hail, Mother of Christ." But here the divinity is only dimly indicated by a halo. And as the Madonna is here a merely human mother, so is the child a purely human child. The saints in contemplation of the "Ansidei" are replaced by a little St. John, and the two children play with a pink. The expressions of the children, as indeed the whole picture, are full of sweetness and beauty.[176] Very beautiful too is the pyramidal composition of the group. Of the ultimate significance of the change marked by Raphael's third manner, Ruskin says that it--

"Was all the more fatal because at first veiled by an
appearance of greater dignity and sincerity than were
possessed by the older art. One of the earliest results of
the new knowledge was the putting away the greater part of
the _unlikelihoods_ and fineries of the ancient pictures, and
an apparently closer following of nature and probability.
The appearances of nature were more closely followed in
everything; and the crowned Queen-Virgin of Perugino sank
into a simple Italian mother in Raphael's 'Madonna of the
Chair.' ... But the glittering childishness of the old art
was rejected, not because it was false, but because it was
easy; and, still more, because the painter had no longer any
religious passion to express. He could think of the Madonna
now very calmly, with no desire to pour out the treasures of
earth at her feet, or cover her brows with the golden shafts of
heaven. He could think of her as an available subject for the
display of transparent shadows, skilful tints, and scientific
foreshortenings,--as a fair woman, forming, if well painted, a
pleasant piece of furniture for the corner of a boudoir, and
best imagined by combination of the beauties of the prettiest
contadinas"[177] (_Modern Painters_, vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. iv.
§§ 12, 13).

It should, however, be remembered that the "Madonna di San Sisto," perhaps the most spiritual of all Raphael's conceptions, was the latest of the series.

745. KING PHILIP IV. OF SPAIN.

_Velazquez_ (Spanish: 1599-1660). _See 197._

Few kings have left so many enduring monuments of themselves as Philip IV., whose face figures twice on these walls and meets one in nearly every European gallery. But nowhere, perhaps, has it been more supremely rendered than on this canvas, where the king seems to live and move before us. The picture is "perhaps the finest example of oil-painting accessible to the British student. Though one of the later works of the master, it is constructed out of a carefully wrought and smooth impasto, without any 'bravura' strokes. The lights are nowhere loaded. The hair is painted, not modelled; the jewels on the dress are easily touched in without relief-effect or juggling. The wonder of the thing is the infinite variety over a surface so simply treated. The face is in such broad, even light that one has to adopt some device which brings it freshly into the field of vision--as by turning the head down or looking at it through the hand--in order to see how firm is the modelling. The flesh-tints are simple enough. Yet take almost any square inch of surface on the face--say the upper lip with its moustache--and note the effect of each one of the free brush-strokes which draw the pale, umber hair over the warm rubbing on the flesh; or in the cold, lack-lustre, blue eye, measure the apparent ease of the touches against their firm, incisive clearness. Everything is there--form, expression--in a word, the life; but it has all grown into perfection on the canvas so quietly, so smoothly, as if Velazquez had indeed painted with the will only and not with the hand" (Baldwin Brown: _The Fine Arts_, p. 319). "Velazquez fuses his colours in a way that baffles painters. They melt into each other by imperceptible gradations, as he deals with plane after plane in his subtly-modelled faces. Observe the action of light on the pallid face of the worn-out king, giving to the skin the breath of life in its delicate transparency" (_Quarterly Review_, April 1899).

The face is one which, once seen, is not soon forgotten. Velazquez, as we have said, caught its expression at once, and by comparing the face in its youth (1129) with its middle age here, one can almost trace the king's career. In youth we see him cold and phlegmatic, but slender in figure graceful and dignified in bearing, and with a fine open forehead. But the young king was bent on ease and pleasure, and his minister Olivares did nothing to persuade him into more active kingship. The less pleasing traits in his character have, in consequence, come to be deeper impressed at the time of this later portrait. He was devoted to sport, and the cruelty of the Spaniard is conspicuous in the lip--more underhung now than before. In the growth of the double chin and yet greater impassiveness of expression, one may see the traces of that "talent for dead silence and marble immobility" which, says the historian, "he so highly improved that he could sit out a comedy without stirring hand or foot, and conduct an audience without movement of a muscle, except those in his lips and tongue." It is not the face of a great ruler; but it is one which rightly lives on a painter's canvas, for no king was ever at once so liberal and so enlightened a patron of the arts as he. Himself too he was something of an artist; and the best-known piece of his painting tells a pretty story, which it is pleasant to remember in front of Velazquez's portraits of him. Velazquez painted once his own portrait in the background of the king's family (the "Maids of Honour"--Las Meninas--now at Madrid). "Is there anything wrong with it?" Velazquez asked. "Yes," said the king, taking the palette in his hand, "just this"--and he sketched in on the painter's portrait the coveted red cross of the order of Santiago. "In all his portraits Philip wears the _golilla_, a stiff linen collar projecting at right angles from the neck. It was invented by the king, who was very proud of it. In regard to the wonderful structure of Philip's moustaches, it is said that, to preserve their form, they were encased during the night in perfumed leather covers called _bigoteras_" (J. F. White, in _Encyclopædia Britannica_).

746. A LANDSCAPE WITH RUINS.

_Ruysdael_ (Dutch: 1628-1682). _See 627._

This picture is signed and dated 1673.

747. ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST AND ST. LAWRENCE.

_Ascribed to Hans Memlinc. See 686._

St. Lawrence may nearly always be distinguished by his gridiron--the emblem of his martyrdom. He was a pious deacon of the Christian Church, who was put to death by the Romans. A new kind of torture was, says the legend, prepared for him. He was stretched on a sort of bed, formed of iron bars in the manner of a gridiron, and was roasted alive. "But so great was his constancy that in the middle of his torments he said, 'Seest thou not, O thou foolish man, that I am already roasted on one side, and that, if thou wouldst have me well cooked, it is time to turn me on the other?' Then St. Lawrence lifted up his eyes, and his pure and invincible spirit fled to heaven."

748. MADONNA AND CHILD, WITH ST. ANNE.

_Girolamo dai Libri_ (Veronese: 1474-1556).

Girolamo inherited his surname ("of the books") from
the occupation of his father, who was an illuminator of
manuscripts. Girolamo himself excelled in this branch of art,
but he also became famous as a painter of altar-pieces. He
had "a playful fancy, and loved to introduce into his pictures
festoons of flowers and fruit, trees of rich green foliage
bearing lemons and oranges, and angels singing and playing on
musical instruments. He was a true Veronese in his feeling
for colour, which in his works is always rich and gay. In his
backgrounds are frequently seen distant views of his native
city, with her castellated hills and blue mountains" (Layard,
i. 269). Girolamo, whose friendship with Francesco Morone
(285) is on record, was born in Verona, and it is there that
many of his principal works are preserved. In the Pinacoteca
are several charming pictures, and there also is a collection
of Girolamo's missals. In S. Giorgio Maggiore is a "Madonna
Enthroned," dated 1526, which is by many considered the
painter's masterpiece. The German artist Ludwig Richter,[178]
thus records (in his _Lebenserinnerungen_) the impression
it made upon him:--"I thought that I had scarcely ever seen
anything so beautiful and touching. The picture was by Girolamo
dai Libri, an old master of whom until then I had never heard,
nor, indeed, have I seen any other picture by him since. Here
it was that there first arose in me a suspicion of what a depth
of spiritual life, and of the heavenly beauty that is born
of it, lay in the masters of the pre-Raphaelite period. The
master's way of seeing and feeling, his style--and the style
is the man--impressed me deeply and permanently, touched me
sympathetically. In fact this dear old painter became veritably
my patron saint, for he it was who first opened to me the gates
of the inner sanctuary of Art" (quoted by Dr. Richter, in the
_Art Journal_, February, 1895).

A picture "with a pedigree," being mentioned by Vasari. "In the church of the Scala (at Verona)," he says, in his life of the painter, "the picture of the Madonna with St. Anna is by his hand, and is placed between the San Sebastiano of Il Moro and the San Rocco of Cavazzola (Morando)." The latter picture (735) and Girolamo's now hang on the same wall of our Gallery. In the composition of this picture one may trace, perhaps, the influence of the dainty work Girolamo was first accustomed to. Thus the trefoil, or cloverleaf pattern, is followed both in the arrangement of the Virgin, St. Anne, and the Child, and in that of the little playing angels below. Notice the pretty trellis-work of roses on either side, and the slain dragon at the Virgin's feet, emblematic (the latter) of Christ's victory over the powers of evil, and (the former) of the "ways of pleasantness" and "paths of peace" that he came to prepare.

749. THE GIUSTI FAMILY OF VERONA.

_Niccolo Giolfino_ (Veronese: painted 1486-1518).

Little is known of this painter except that he was a friend of Mantegna. The façade of his house at Verona was painted with frescoes, the upper part by Mantegna, the lower by Giolfino himself. He was probably a scholar of Liberale, to whose altar-piece in the cathedral at Verona he added the wings. One of his best works is a large altar-piece in S. Anastasia in that city.

Two groups of family portraits, chiefly interesting for studies in costume, originally in one picture, which formed the _predella_ of an altar-piece: hence the upward look of some of the faces.

750. THE DOGE GIOVANNI MOCENIGO.

_Lazzaro Bastiani_ (Venetian: about 1425-1512).
_See also_ (p. xx)

This picture was, until recently, ascribed to Carpaccio, of whom, therefore, some account is here retained. It was once inscribed with Carpaccio's name and the date 1479, but these, having been shown to be false, were removed. The work is now attributed, in accordance with the conclusions reached by Signor Molmenti and Dr. Ludwig[179] to Bastiani.

Lazzaro Bastiani was for many years the victim of one of
Vasari's confusions. Carpaccio, we are told by that authority,
"taught his art to two of his brothers, both of whom imitated
him closely; one of these was called Lazzaro, the other
Sebastiano." No such painters existed; but the name of Lazzaro
Bastiani is on record as that of a painter already at work in
1449. The presumption is, therefore, that he was not taught by,
but the master of, Carpaccio, by which latter painter there
is no dated work before 1490. Numerous records of later works
by Bastiani from 1449 onwards have been discovered; and there
is a public document of December 11, 1508, in which Bastiani
and Carpaccio were appointed to value the frescoes executed by
Giorgione on the Fondaco dei Tedeschi. Our picture, hitherto
supposed to be an early work of Carpaccio, should be compared
with the signed and dated (1484) work of Bastiani in the Duomo
of Murano, representing a Canon kneeling before the Virgin.
Other pictures by him are in the Academies of Vienna and Venice
respectively.

Various technical similarities between the work of Bastiani and
Carpaccio are pointed out by Sig. Molmenti and Dr. Ludwig, but
Bastiani's pictures lack the charm and gaiety of Carpaccio and
his chief claim to fame is that which the critics now award him
of having been the master of that great painter.

The works of Vittore Carpaccio (about 1450-1522) have of recent
years attracted great attention owing to the prominence given
to them by Ruskin in all his writings since 1870. Of "The
Presentation" in the Venetian Academy (dated 1510) he says:
"You may measure yourself, outside and in,--your religion,
your taste, your knowledge of art, your knowledge of men and
things,--by the quantity of admiration which honestly, after
due time given, you can feel for this picture. You are not
required to think the Madonna pretty, or to receive the same
religious delight from the conception of the scene which
you would rightly receive from Angelico, Filippo Lippi, or
Perugino. This is essentially Venetian,--prosaic, matter
of fact,--retaining its supreme common-sense through all
enthusiasm. Nor are you required to think this a first-rate
work in Venetian colour. This is the best picture in the
Academy, precisely because it is _not_ the best piece of
colour there;--because the great master has subdued his own
main passion, and restrained his colour-faculty, though the
best in Venice, that you might _not_ say the moment you came
before the picture, as you do of the Paris Bordone, '_What_ a
piece of colour!' Carpaccio does not want you to think of _his_
colour, but of _your_ Christ.... If you begin really to feel
the picture, observe that its supreme merit is in the exactly
just balance of all virtue;--detail perfect, yet inconspicuous;
composition intricate and severe, but concealed under apparent
simplicity; and painter's faculty of the supremest, used
nevertheless with entire subjection of it to intellectual
purpose." Other powers of Carpaccio are better seen in the St.
Ursula Series, also in the Venetian Academy, and since Ruskin's
day honourably hung. "They are," says Layard, "masterly works,
rich in all that gives value and grandeur to historical art.
The rather monotonous history which forms the groundwork of
many of them is throughout varied and elevated by a free
style of grouping and by happy moral allusions. The colours,
notwithstanding injudicious cleanings and restorations, still
shine with the purest light. The variety of expression,
always lifelike, in the many figures, their beautiful and
simple action, and the admirable dramatic representation of
the different incidents connected with the story, give these
pictures an inexpressible charm. The subject of the dream of
the young St. Ursula, in bed in her chamber, with her table and
an open book upon it and her vase of flowers, has a purity and
simplicity quite unique" (i. 320). These pictures were painted
1490-5. Of later date (1502-1511) is the series in the little
church of S. Giorgio degli Schiavoni. They are full of the
charm of picturesque reality, the wealth of rich and quaint
accessories, the playful fancy and penetrative imagination,
which characterise Carpaccio. Occasional works by him are to
be seen in various continental galleries (_e.g._ Milan and
Ferrara); but it is only in Venice that any adequate conception
of him can be formed. Of his life little is known. He was
born either in one of the Venetian islands, or in Istria. He
generally signed himself "Victor Carpathius." Vasari calls him
Scarpaccia; in old Venetian documents, he is Scarpaza. "He was
associated with Gentile Bellini in executing the historical
paintings for the Hall of the Great Council in the Ducal
Palace, and it has been thought possible that he accompanied
Gentile to Constantinople as an assistant. The minute knowledge
of Oriental customs and costumes which his works display
suggests that he had visited the East, and even those parts
of it which were then still under the sway of the Sultans of
Egypt" (Burton). Ruskin's criticisms, and descriptions of
his principal pictures, will be found in his _Guide to the
Academy at Venice, St. Mark's Rest_ (Supplements), and _Fors
Clavigera_, 1872, xx.; 1873, xxvi.; 1876, pp. 329, 340, 357,
381; 1877, p. 26; 1878, p. 182. An earlier reference is in the
Oxford _Lectures on Art_, § 73. Copies from some of Carpaccio's
"Schiavoni" pictures are in the Arundel Society's Collection.
Copies of the "Ursula" series and other pictures made for
Ruskin are in the St. George's Museum at Sheffield.

This is a votive picture commissioned by Giovanni Mocenigo (who reigned over Venice 1477-1485), to be presented by him, according to the custom with reigning doges, to the Ducal Palace. The scene selected represents the doge kneeling before the Virgin and begging her protection on the occasion of the plague of 1478. The gold vase on the altar before the throne contains medicaments, for which, according to the inscription below, a blessing is invoked: "Celestial Virgin, preserve the City and Republic of Venice and the Venetian State, and extend your protection to me if I deserve it." Behind the doge is his patron saint St. John, on the opposite side is St. Christopher. The setting thus chosen for the doge's picture is characteristic. "The first step towards the ennobling of any face is the ridding it of its vanity; to which aim there cannot be anything more contrary than that principle of portraiture which prevails with us in these days, whose end seems to be the expression of vanity throughout, in face and in all circumstances of accompaniment; tending constantly to insolence of attitude, and levity and haughtiness of expression, and worked out further in mean accompaniments of worldly splendour and possession; together with hints or proclamations of what the person has done or supposes himself to have done, which, if known, it is gratuitous in the portrait to exhibit, and, if unknown, it is insolent to proclaim.... To which practices are to be opposed ... the mighty and simple modesty of ... Venice, where we find the ... doges not set forth with thrones and curtains of state, but kneeling, always crownless, and returning thanks to God for his help; or as priests, interceding for the nation in its affliction" (_Modern Painters_, vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. i. ch. xiv. § 19). The picture was bought in 1865 from the Doge's descendant, Aloise Count Mocenigo di Sant' Eustachio.

751. MADONNA AND CHILD.

_Giovanni Santi_ (Umbrian: about 1440-1494).

This picture is of peculiar interest because it is by Raphael's
father. It does not, however, give a full idea of the extent
to which Raphael's talent was hereditary, for Giovanni's easel
pictures, such as this, are inferior to his wall pictures.
The young Raphael had all the advantages of an atmosphere of
artistic culture. Giovanni, like his father before him, was
a well-to-do burgher, and kept originally a general retail
shop, but he afterwards--under the teaching, it is thought,
of Melozzo da Forli--took to painting, and his house, if one
may judge from Piero della Francesca's visit in 1467, was a
resort of painters. At the brilliant court of Duke Federigo of
Urbino, Giovanni moreover acquired a taste for literature, and
there is a long rhyming chronicle by him extant in which he
describes the Duke's visit to Mantua, and amongst other things
praises greatly the works of Mantegna, Melozzo, and Piero
della Francesca. But to see how much of Raphael's genius was
original, one has only to compare this picture by the father
with one (say 744) by the son. Giovanni's female heads are not
without a mild dignity of their own; but his works lack the
soft grace and winning charm that distinguish his son's.

"Worth study, in spite of what critics say of its crudity. Concede its immaturity, at least, though an immaturity visibly susceptible of a delicate grace, it wins you nevertheless to return again and again, and ponder, by a sincere expression of sorrow, profound, yet resigned, be the cause what it may, among all the causes of sorrow inherent in the ideal of maternity, human or divine. But if you keep in mind, when looking at it, the facts of Raphael's childhood,[180] you will recognise in his father's picture, not the anticipated sorrow of the Mater Dolorosa over the dead son, but the grief of a simple household over the mother herself taken early from it. This may have been the first picture the eyes of the world's great painter of Madonnas rested on; and if he stood diligently before it to copy, and so copying, quite unconsciously, and with no disloyalty to his original, refined, improved, substituted,--substituted himself, in fact, his finer self--he had already struck the persistent note of his career" (Pater: _Miscellaneous Studies_, p. 32).

752. MADONNA AND CHILD.

_Lippo Dalmasii_ (Bolognese: painted 1376-1410).
_See also_ (p. xx)

A picture by a Bolognese artist, of the _Giottesque_ period, Lippo, son of Dalmasius, called also "Lippo of the Madonna," from the many pictures like this he painted: no Bolognese gentleman's family, we are told, was considered complete without one.

753. ON THE ROAD TO EMMAUS.

_Altobello Melone_ (Cremonese: painted about 1500).

There was no native and independent school of Cremona. Melone
was a pupil of Romanino at Brescia. He painted some of the
frescoes in the nave of Cremona Cathedral.

Two of Christ's disciples are walking after his death and burial to Emmaus. The risen Christ "drew near, and went with them. But their eyes were holden, that they should not know him" (Luke xxiv. 16). The painter makes excuses for the disciples not recognising their Master by naïvely dressing Him as a tourist with an alpenstock.

755. RHETORIC.}
756. MUSIC. }

_Melozzo da Forli_ (Umbrian: 1438-1494).

Melozzo, born at Forli in the Romagna, near Ravenna, is classed
with the Umbrian School, both because he studied (it is
believed) under Piero della Francesca, and because he worked at
Urbino. Giovanni Santi, who was his friend, especially praises
Melozzo, "to me so dear," for his skill in perspective; and,
like many other artists of these times, he was an architect
as well as a painter. In 1472 he was in Rome; he was one of
the original members of the Roman Academy of St. Luke, founded
by Sixtus IV., and in the book of the Academy he signs his
name as "Painter to the Pope." Some of his Roman frescoes are
preserved. In the Vatican gallery is a fresco transferred to
canvas, commemorating the restoration of the Vatican Library
and containing many portraits. This work has been published by
the Arundel Society, but Melozzo is more widely known by the
figures of angels playing on musical instruments, now in the
sacristy of St. Peter's, which have been published by the same
Society. These grand figures of youths with abundant flowing
hair are "among the most beautiful and masterful creations
of the Renaissance spirit, caught up, it would seem, into a
certain ecstasy and rapture of divine things." Portions of a
fresco, painted for SS. Apostoli, representing the Ascension
of our Lord, are now on the staircase of the Quirinal Palace.
The work was "one of the most grand and daring feats of
foreshadowing that art has bequeathed, and may be considered
as the first illustration of that science which Mantegna and
Correggio further developed" (Kugler). In this connection we
may notice in our pictures that "the steps and the figures
thereon are drawn in perspective, as if they were real objects
seen from below; they present the earliest example the Gallery
possesses of this kind of perspective illusion, which was
practised with great success by Mantegna, and carried out on
the grandest scale by Michael Angelo in the ceiling of the
Sistine chapel" (Monkhouse, _In the National Gallery_, p. 115).
About the year 1480 Melozzo went to Urbino, where he executed
the work described below. In Forli itself a few frescoes by
Melozzo survive. In the British Museum there are some drawings
by this rare master.

These pictures are two of a series of seven, which were painted for the good Duke Frederick to decorate the library of the Ducal Palace at Urbino. The words on the frieze above our pictures are portions of a running inscription describing the Duke's style and titles. He was created "Gonfaloniere of the Church" (756) in 1465 and "Duke of Urbino" (755) in 1474. The series represented symbolically the seven arts--grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy--which, until the close of the Middle Ages, formed the curriculum of a liberal education. Notice in both pictures that the figures of the learners are kneeling--an attitude symbolical of the spirit of reverence and humility which distinguishes the true scholar ("I prayed, and the spirit of wisdom came upon me"); whilst the figures representing the sciences to be learned are seated on thrones--symbolical of the true kingship that consists in knowledge ("And I set her before kingdoms and thrones"), and are clothed about with pearls and other precious stones ("She is more precious than rubies").

In the picture of Rhetoric (755) the youth is being taught not to speak, but to read--"You must not speak," the Queen of Rhetoric seems to tell him, "until you have something to say." Notice, too, that Rhetoric is robed in cold gray. "You think Rhetoric should be glowing, fervid, impetuous? No. Above all things,--cool."

But Music (756) is robed in bright red, the colour of delight. The book now is closed. "After learning to reason, you will learn to sing; for you will want to. There is so much reason for singing in this sweet world, when one thinks rightly of it." Music points her scholar to a small organ--"not that you are never to sing anything but hymns, but that whatever is rightly called music, or work of the Muses, is divine in help and healing" (_Mornings in Florence_, v. 128, 134). Hanging from the wall on the left, almost above the scholar's head, is a sprig of bay, the Muses' crown. Other pictures of this same series are in the gallery at Berlin and in the Royal Collection at Windsor. The latter is of peculiar interest in the history of the Renaissance. It shows the Duke, his son and the Court, and a black-robed humanist, seated in a sort of pulpit--"the unique representation of a scene of frequent occurrence in the Courts of Italy, where listening to lectures formed a part of every day's occupation" (_see_ the description in Symonds, ii. p. 221).

757. CHRIST BLESSING LITTLE CHILDREN.

_Unknown_ (Dutch: School of Rembrandt).

This is one of the nation's conspicuously bad bargains. It was bought in 1866 as a Rembrandt and at a Rembrandt price (£7000), but was soon recognised as being only a work by some pupil. It is easy to be wise after the event, but it certainly seems strange that the connoisseurs of the time, even if technical differences had escaped them, should not have seen a lack of Rembrandt's power about this work. A writer in the _Times_ (June 24, 1888) has no hesitation in ascribing the picture to Nicolas Maes. He says: "If it was painted by Maes it would probably have been after the series of small works, mostly dating about 1656. Maes was a pupil of Rembrandt in 1650, at the time when the master's treatment of sacred subjects was more direct than in his earlier years. In this picture fanciful costume is discarded, and the figures are painted straight from the life. The figure of Christ is, indeed, weak and conventional, but it is not to be expected that a young man would here be successful in a figure so foreign to his general practice; and, if we admit the supposition that the composition followed the small panels, the relaxation of style pervading the entire work tallies with the known facts of the career of Maes, who between 1660 and 1670 appears to have devoted himself almost entirely to portrait painting; these representations of Dutch and Antwerp burghers, though solid and respectable, possess none of the charm and interest of the earlier works owing their inspiration to the direct influence of Rembrandt." (See, for instance, No. 1277.) Some ascribe the picture with equal assurance to Lievens (see 1095); see an article by Ford Madox Brown in the _Magazine of Art_, Feb. 1890; others to Eeckhout (see _The Athenæum_, Jan. 19, 1907).

758. PORTRAIT OF THE COUNTESS PALMA OF URBINO.

_Piero della Francesca_ (Umbrian: 1416-1492). _See 665._

Ascribed by Morelli to Paolo Uccello. "The treatment of
the hair recalls that of one of the portraits in Paolo's
battle-piece (583), while Piero used to represent curls in a
thin and thread-like shape. The ornament on the left sleeve of
the lady also reminds one of the decoration on the standard"
(Richter's _Italian Art in the National Gallery_, p. 17). "Of
purely Florentine origin, and with its hardness of outline and
modelling, and its severity of aspect, resembles a Pesellino
writ large" (Claude Phillips in the _Academy_, Sept. 28, 1889).

This and the other profile head once ascribed to Piero (585) "are probably the earliest specimens we have in the National Gallery of pure portraits, _i.e._ pictures devoted simply to record the likeness of an individual, first introduced as donors into votive pictures, and next as actors in scenes from sacred history and legend. Portraits have at length made good their claim to a separate existence in pictorial art" (Monkhouse: _The Italian Pre-Raphaelites_, p. 41). To Piero della Francesca also we owe "most precious portraits (at Rimini and in the Uffizi) of two Italian princes, Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta and Federigo of Urbino, masterpieces of fidelity to nature and sound workmanship" (Symonds).

766, 767. HEADS OF SAINTS.

_Domenico Veneziano_ (died 1461).