Chapter D: G. ROSSETTI: Sonnets and Ballads.187 (2)

Very interesting little pictures, as characteristic of the entire want of poetry in Teniers' art. Compare Mantegna's version of Summer and Autumn (1125), or recall Botticelli's lovely vision of Spring at Florence, and one sees in a moment the difference in art between poetical imagination and vulgarity. To Teniers, Spring--"the sweet spring, the year's pleasant king"--is only a man carrying a flower-pot. Summer--"all the sweet season of summertide"--suggests nothing but a man holding a wheat-sheaf. Autumn--"season of mists and mellow fruitfulness"--brings him only a first glass of wine; and Winter--"white winter, rough nurse, that rocks the dead cold year"--only a second. These pictures (which are painted on copper), were once in the possession of Prince Talleyrand, and Sir Robert Peel bought them in 1823 for £189.

861. A COUNTRY SCENE.

_Teniers_ (Flemish: 1610-1694). _See 154._

The man with the barrow is a portrait of Teniers' gardener.

862. THE SURPRISE.

_Teniers_ (Flemish: 1610-1694). _See 154._

Hardly an instance in which "vice itself loses half its evil by losing all its grossness." It is a very vulgar intrigue. The husband courts without passion; the maid-servant "stoops to folly" without grace; the wife surprises the lovers without dignity.

863. THE RICH MAN IN HELL.

_Teniers_ (Flemish: 1610-1694). _See 154._

The sequel to the story of Dives and Lazarus. "And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried. And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments" (Luke xvi. 22, 23). A favourite subject with Teniers, giving him an opportunity for painting comic monstrosities.

864. THE GUITAR LESSON.

_Gerard Terburg_ (Dutch: 1617-1681).

Terburg is the most refined of all the Dutch painters of
"conversation pieces." He depicts with admirable truth, both
in his portraits and _genre_ pictures, the life of the wealthy
and cultured classes of his time. His figures are well drawn
and expressive, and the accessories are duly subordinated.
He renders the texture of draperies with great skill, and
his colouring is at once rich and quiet. He was the son of a
wealthy man, a traveller and a connoisseur who himself imparted
the rudiments of art to his son. Gerard afterwards studied in
Amsterdam and Haarlem. In 1635 he visited England, and thence
made the grand tour of the Continent, studying the works of
Titian and others. On his return to Holland he remained some
time at Amsterdam, learning much from the works of Rembrandt.
In 1646 he was at Münster, where he painted the famous picture,
No. 896 in our Gallery. This excited such admiration on account
of the excellence of its portraits and general truth to nature,
that the Spanish ambassador took Terburg with him to Madrid,
where he was knighted by Philip IV. and had the opportunity of
adding a study of Velazquez to his artistic advantages. Terburg
settled eventually at Deventer, where he married and became
burgomaster: a full-length portrait of him in that capacity is
in the Museum at the Hague.

This is a characteristic example of the painter's conversation pieces. Sir Robert Peel bought it in 1826 for 920 guineas.

865. A COAST SCENE.

_Jan van de Cappelle_ (Dutch: painted about 1650-1680).

Of this painter, whose works have of recent years become
popular with collectors, the Dutch writers have left no record.
Nor has anything been discovered about him beyond the fact
that, on the occasion of his marriage in 1653, he received the
freedom of the city of Amsterdam. One may connect with this
fact the state barge, introduced in some of his pictures,--or
the corporation barge, it may be,--much resembling the barges
belonging to the City and the City Companies which not long ago
might still be seen on the Thames at London, and some of which
survive, transformed into College barges at Oxford. Cappelle's
works are comparatively rare; they show that he loved a calm
sea, lit up with warm rays.

866. A STREET IN COLOGNE.

_Jan van der Heyden_ (Dutch: 1637-1712).

Van der Heyden (or Heyde), who has been called, from the
minute neatness of his workmanship, "the Dou of architectural
painters,"[192] was one of the first Dutch artists to devote
himself to that class of subject. It was a result no doubt of
the Italianising tendency of the time. "It would seem that they
required to be initiated in this style by the views of foreign
market-places and squares with which the Italianising painters
had decorated the saloons of Amsterdam, and that in the
presence of this invasion of forums and piazzas they exclaimed,
'Have we not streets, squares, and monuments to paint?'"
(Havard: _The Dutch School_, p. 238). Of course they had; and
no works of the time are more interesting than these minute
historical records. "A striking feature in Van der Heyden is
the pencilling or dividing of the brickwork of the houses and
walls by delicate white lines; so finely are these drawn that
if it were not for the trouble, one might count the bricks
in his buildings" (Seguier). But he had the art of combining
this microscopic detail with breadth of effect. The division
of labour in art work was in his time very fully applied; and
Van der Heyden's range was very limited. He seldom turned his
hand to anything but brick houses and churches in streets or
squares, or rows along canals, or the moated granges common in
his native country. He could draw neither man nor beast, and
relied on Adrian van der Velde to enliven his street scenes
with spirited figures. Van der Heyden was born at Gorcum, and
was apprenticed to a glass-painter. He then moved to Amsterdam
and studied architectural drawing. He visited England, Belgium,
and the Rhenish Provinces. In the later part of his life he
varied the practice of art with the pursuit of mechanics, for
which he had a strong turn. He invented various improvements
in the fire-engine, introduced the use of street-lamps, and at
the time of his death was superintendent of the lighting and
director of the firemen's company at Amsterdam.

In the background is seen the then unfinished tower of Cologne Cathedral surmounted by the old vane. This was a favourite subject of the painter; there is another version of it in the Wallace Collection. The figures are attributed to A. van de Velde.

867. THE FARM COTTAGE.

_Adrian van de Velde_ (Dutch: 1636-1672).

Adrian, the son of William van de Velde the elder, the marine
painter, first studied under his father, and next under
Wynants, the landscape painter. He showed his talent very
early. "Wynants," said that painter's wife, when the young
Adrian entered his studio, "you have found your master." He
afterwards studied the figure under Wouwerman. His talent was
versatile, for he painted figures, animals, and landscapes with
equal truth and refinement. His large canvases (_e.g._ No. 80
in the Wallace Collection) are hard, and leave the spectator
cold; but his cabinet pictures are refined in outline and
delicate in tone. He was fond of village scenery with cattle
introduced, in which kind are several good examples in our
Gallery. He was also successful in winter scenes. Of his sandy
coast scenes there is a choice example in the Six Collection
at Amsterdam. The value and interest of many pictures by
Ruysdael, Van der Heyden, Hobbema, and other painters of the
time, were enhanced by figures inserted by Adrian. He must have
had wonderful facility and industry, for in addition to these
insertions, and in spite of his short life, the catalogue of
his own pictures includes nearly 200 items.

This picture is signed, and dated 1658. The effect is that of a fine warm summer afternoon.

868. THE FORD.

_Adrian van de Velde_ (Dutch: 1636-1672). _See 867._

"The figures and faces," says Mrs. Jameson in her catalogue of the Peel Collection, "are finished with inexpressible delicacy; the animals are painted with characteristic truth; the foliage of the trees seems stirred by the breeze;--in short, it is a most rare piece of work in every part, and full of pastoral sentiment, though there is certainly nothing Arcadian in the personages introduced." Sir Robert Peel bought the picture in 1840 for 760 gs.

869. A FROST SCENE.

_Adrian van de Velde_ (Dutch: 1636-1672). _See 867._

This picture--known as "Les Amusements d'Hiver"--is signed, and dated 1668. The men are playing hockey. Other figures are occupied with a sledge. On the left is a refreshment booth.

870. SHIPPING IN A CALM.

_W. van de Velde_ (Dutch: 1633-1707). _See 149._

A dogger, with hanging sail, in the foreground; behind it a frigate--"and a variety of vessels, at every different gradation of distance, carry the eye back to the horizon. The air and ocean are still as sleep. Signed, and dated 1657, when the painter was only 24."

871. BATHING AT LOW WATER.

_W. van de Velde_ (Dutch: 1633-1707). _See 149._

Incidentally a good study in the "philosophy of clothes." The painter hits off with much humour the essential difference between those who regard man as "by nature a naked animal"--seen in the naked bathers--and those who regard him as emphatically "a clothed animal"--seen in the prim old gentleman who gets himself carried on a man's back. Intermediate between these two classes are those who use clothes as a convenience, but are not entirely subject to them--such, for instance, is the comfortable old fellow smoking his pipe and wading home, not without obvious contempt for the old gentleman riding, as aforesaid, in ignominious slavery to his "Sunday best." Dated 1661; bought by Sir Robert Peel from the collection of the Duc de Berri.

872. A SLIGHT BREEZE.

_W. van de Velde_ (Dutch: 1633-1707). _See 149._

873. THE COAST OF SCHEVENINGEN.

_W. van de Velde_ (Dutch: 1633-1707). _See 149._

"A scene well known to those who have visited the Hague, and frequently represented by Van de Velde. There are the high sand-hills to the left, and above them are seen a few fishermen's huts and the little church of Scheveningen. Along the beach are numerous figures, variously grouped and employed; the most conspicuous are several persons near a post-waggon. The sea is quietly rolling in to the shore, impelled by a light breeze. The figures are painted with exquisite finish and spirit by Adrian van de Velde" (Mrs. Jameson). Sir Robert Peel bought this picture from the Pourtalès Collection for £800. It is a characteristic specimen of the master, showing how his version of the sea was coloured by that "mixture of sand and sea-water" which belongs to his native coasts. "I have come," writes Fromentin, "to Scheveningen. Before me is the calm, gray, fleecy North Sea. Who has not seen it? One thinks of Ruysdael, of Van Goyen, of Van de Velde. One easily finds their point of view. I could tell you the exact place where they sat, as if the trace of them had remained imprinted for two centuries: the sea is on the left; the ridged sand-hills stand out on the right, stretch away, diminish and are lost insensibly in the dim horizon; the grass is poor; the sand-hills are pale; the sea-shore is colourless; the sea is like milk; the sky has silky clouds and is wonderfully aerial."

874. A CALM AT SEA.

_W. van de Velde_ (Dutch: 1633-1707). _See 149._

A Dutch frigate and a small English cutter becalmed. "There is a repose in the air, a clearness in the still, smooth sea, quite indescribable" (Mrs. Jameson).

875. A LIGHT BREEZE.

_W. van de Velde_ (Dutch: 1633-1707). _See 149._

Two doggers in the foreground; behind one of them, a Dutch frigate.

876. A GALE.

_W. van de Velde_ (Dutch: 1633-1707). _See 149._

877. HIS OWN PORTRAIT.

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

That Van Dyck was at a very early age a portrait-painter of rare merit may be seen, from this likeness of himself while still quite young and beardless. In the Wallace Collection there is another early portrait of himself, in the character of Paris. Our picture is the portrait of an artist and a man of refinement. Notice especially the long, tapering fingers--delicate almost to the point of feminineness. They are very characteristic of Van Dyck's work, who, indeed, drew all his hands from one model: the same delicate fingers may be seen in the so-called "portrait of Rubens" (49). In giving this delicacy to all sitters Van Dyck fell no doubt into mannerism; in giving it to great artists such as himself he was entirely right. Palmistry assigns fine, tapering fingers to "artistic temperament," and rightly, for fine fingers are necessary for fine work. "The art of painting, properly so called, consists in laying on the least possible colour that will produce the required result; and this measurement, in all the ultimate--that is to say the principal--operations of colouring, is so delicate that not one human hand in a million has the required lightness" (_Two Paths_, Appendix iv., where much interesting matter on this subject will be found).

877 A. THE CRUCIFIXION.

877 B. RINALDO AND ARMIDA.

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

These drawings were bought with the Peel Collection. The former is the study for an altar-piece of the church of St. Michael at Ghent--"a most superb drawing," says Mrs. Jameson. The latter is a drawing prepared for the engraver, Peter de Jode, from the large picture of the subject in the Louvre. It was the sight of that picture that determined King Charles I. to secure the services of Van Dyck.

878. "THE PRETTY MILKMAID."

_Philips Wouwerman_ (Dutch: 1619-1668).

Wouwerman--whose pictures may nearly always be told by a
white horse, which is almost his sign-manual--is selected
by Ruskin as the central instance of the "hybrid school of
landscape." To understand this term we must recall his division
of all landscape, in its relation to human beings, into the
following heads: (1) _Heroic_, representing an imaginary
world inhabited by noble men and spiritual powers--Titian;
(2) _Classical_, representing an imaginary world inhabited by
perfectly civilised men and inferior spiritual powers--Poussin;
(3) _Pastoral_, representing peasant life in its daily
work--Cuyp; (4) _Contemplative_, directed to observation of
the powers of nature and record of historical associations
connected with landscape, contrasted with existing states
of human life--Turner. The _hybrid_ school of which Berchem
and Wouwerman are the chief representatives is that which
endeavours to unite the irreconcilable sentiment of two
or more of the above-mentioned classes. Thus here we have
Wouwerman's conception of the heroic in the officers and in
the rocky landscape; of the pastoral in the pretty milkmaid,
to whom an officer is speaking, and who gives her name to the
picture. So again the painter's desire to assemble all kinds
of pleasurable elements may be seen in the crowded composition
of an adjoining picture (879). Wouwerman is further selected
by Ruskin as the chief type of vulgarity in art--meaning by
vulgarity, insensibility. He introduces into his pictures--see,
for instance, 879--every element that he thinks pleasurable,
yet has not imagination enough to enter heartily into any of
them. His pleasure is "without a gleam of higher things," and
in his war-pieces there is "no heroism, awe or mercy, hope or
faith." With regard, finally, to the execution, it is "careful
and conscientious," the tone of his pictures generally dark
and gray, the figures being thrown out in spots of light
(_Modern Painters_, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. viii.). "There is no
good painting," Ruskin says of a Wouwerman at Turin, "properly
so called, anywhere, but of clever, dotty, sparkling, telling
execution, as much as the canvas will hold" (_ibid._ § 8).
Wouwerman was born at Haarlem; his father was a painter. From
him Philips learnt the practice of art, afterwards studying
landscape under Wynants. He worked for some time at Hamburg, in
the studio of Everard Decker. In 1640 he returned to Haarlem,
where he remained for the rest of his life. He had two brothers
who were also painters. His productivity was enormous. He
lived forty-nine years, and it has been calculated that even
if we deny his authorship of one half the pictures ascribed to
him, we leave him with at least 500, or about one for every
three weeks during his productive years (Bryan's _Dictionary
of Painters_). Few galleries are without several pictures by
Wouwerman. In the Wallace Collection he is represented by six,
in the Dulwich Gallery by ten.

The picture is known after the milkmaid whom the officer is chucking under the chin, whilst the trumpeter takes a sarcastic pleasure, we may suppose, in sounding all the louder the call "to arms."

879. THE INTERIOR OF A STABLE.

_Wouwerman_ (Dutch: 1619-1668). _See 878._

The profusion of pleasurable incident in this picture has already been noticed (see under 878) in connection with Wouwerman's bent of mind; but notice also how the crowded composition spoils the effect of a picture as a picture. Clearly also will it spoil the stable-keeper's business. He eyes the coin which one of his customers is giving him with all the discontent of a London cabman, and has no eye to spare for the smart lady with her cavalier, who are just entering the stable. This is a good instance of what has been called "Wouwerman's nonsense-pictures, a mere assemblage of things to be imitated, items without a meaning" (W. B. Scott: _Half-hour Lectures on Art_, p. 299).

880. ON THE SEA SHORE.

_Wouwerman_ (Dutch: 1619-1668). _See 878._

This picture was formerly in the collection of Queen Elizabeth of Spain, whose arms are stamped on the back. Sir Robert Peel bought it in 1823 for 450 guineas.

881. GATHERING FAGGOTS.

882. A LANDSCAPE.

_Wouwerman_ (Dutch: 1619-1668). _See 878._

883. A BEGGAR BY THE ROADSIDE.

_Jan Wynants_ (Dutch: about 1615-1679).

Wynants--spelt also Wijnants--the painter of the sandy wayside,
was one of the founders of the Dutch school of landscape, and
was an artist of much originality. Out of a few docks and
thistles, it has been said, a tree, and a sandbank, he could
make a picture. "In the choice of his subjects Wijnants shows
a preference," says Sir F. Burton, "for open scenery, where,
under a sky of summer blue broken by illuminated cloud-masses,
the undulating soil reveals its nature through beaten tracks
and rugged roads with their shelving sides of gold-coloured
sand, while trees are scattered thinly on the slopes. Or he
loves the borders of the forest, where mighty tree-trunks,
smitten by past storms, still extend some gnarled branches
across the sky, or a fallen stem lies half imbedded amongst
tall grasses and large-leaved plants. In such scenes Wynants is
particularly attractive. They give us the poetry of form and
light, as Ruisdael's deep pine-forests give us that of gloom
and solitude." Of his life little is known. He was probably
born about the year 1615, as his earliest pictures bear the
dates 1641 and 1642. He was still living in 1679, as one of his
paintings in the Hermitage of St. Petersburg bears that date.
In October 1642 the registers of St. Luke's Guild at Haarlem
mention a Jan Wijnants as dealer in works of art; this probably
refers to the painter. He resided at Haarlem, and afterwards
at Amsterdam. Wouwerman and A. van de Velde were among his
scholars, the latter artist and others inserted figures in his
pictures, for Wynants painted only landscape. The visitor will
find good examples of him at Dulwich and Hertford House.

The picture is signed (on the trunk of the felled tree) and dated 1659. The figures in this and the next picture are ascribed to A. van de Velde.

884. SAND DUNES.

_Jan Wynants_ (Dutch: about 1615-1679). _See 883._

It is not uninteresting to notice--as strangely in keeping with the poor and hard country here depicted--that in nearly every picture by Wynants (see 883, 971, 972) there is a dead tree. That Dutch painters were alive to the beauties of vegetation, the oaks of Ruysdael are enough to show; but to Wynants at least nature seems to have been visible only as a destroying power, as a rugged and conflicting force, against which the sturdy Hollander had to battle for existence as best he might.

895. PORTRAIT OF A WARRIOR.

_Piero di Cosimo_ (Florentine: 1462-1521). _See 698._

Francesco Ferruccio, of whom this is said to be a portrait, was the Florentine general whose skill and patriotism shed a lustre on the final struggle of Florence against the combined forces of the Pope and the Emperor. He was then in command of the outlying possessions of Florence, and had there been a second Ferruccio within the city itself the fortune of war might have been different. Francesco was killed in a battle near Pistoia on August 3, 1530. In the background of this portrait there is a view of the Piazza della Signoria at Florence; and at the entrance door Michael Angelo's statue of David, which was placed there in 1504. The picture was formerly ascribed to Lorenzo Costa; the recognition of its true authorship is due to Dr. Richter and Dr. G. Frizzoni. The identification of the warrior with the celebrated general is considered doubtful by them (see Richter's _Italian Art in the National Gallery_, p. 36; and Frizzoni's _Arte Italiana del Rinascimento_, p. 252).

896. THE PEACE OF MÜNSTER.

_Terburg_ (Dutch: 1617-1681). _See 864._

One of the "gems" of the National Collection--"priceless" because not only of its great artistic merit, but of its unique historical interest. It is an exact representation by a contemporary Dutch painter of one of the turning-points in Dutch history--the ratification, namely, by the delegates of the Dutch United Provinces, on 15th May 1684, of the Treaty of Münster, with which the eighty years' war between Spain and the United Provinces was concluded, altogether to the advantage of the latter. The clerk (in a scarlet cloak) is reading the document. The plenipotentiaries are standing nearest to the table. Six of them, holding up the right hand, are the delegates of the United Provinces; two, with their right hands resting on an open copy of the Gospels, are the representatives of Spain. One of the Dutch delegates and one of the Spanish hold copies of the document, which they follow as it is being read by the clerk. The brass chandelier, it is interesting to note, still hangs in the hall at Münster. The painter has introduced his own portrait among the figures on the left, in three-quarter face, behind the officer who stands with one arm resting on the chair of the third Dutch delegate (counting from the left).

During his lifetime Terburg did not part with the picture. It passed at one time into the possession of Prince Talleyrand, and by a curious coincidence was hanging in the room of his hotel, under the view of the Allied Sovereigns, at the signing of the treaty of 1814. After several more changes of hands it was bought in 1868 by the late Marquis of Hertford for £8800--equivalent, the curious in such things may like to know, to nearly £24 per square inch of canvas; at his death it came into the possession of Sir Richard Wallace, who presented it to the nation in 1871. A curious story is told in this connection. At the De Morny sale in 1865 the picture had been sold for £1805. At the San Donato (or Demidoff) sale, three years later, Sir William Boxall, Director of the National Gallery, bid up to £6000 for it; but his mandate went no further, and his mortification was great when he found himself far outbid by the Marquis of Hertford. Three years later, an unknown gentleman, not too smartly dressed, was announced at the National Gallery, and began to open a small picture-case. Sir William was busy, and "could not go into the matter now." "But you had better just have a glance--I ask no more," said the stranger. Sir William refused. The stranger insisted. Boxall, struck dumb at the sight of the picture it had been his dream to add to the National Collection, raised his eyes to those of the visitor. "My name is Wallace," said the stranger quietly, "Sir Richard Wallace; and I came to offer this picture to the National Gallery." "I nearly fainted," said Boxall in recounting the story; "I had nearly refused 'The Peace of Münster,' one of the wonders of the world" (M. H. Spielmann: _The Wallace Collection_, p. 107).

901. A LANDSCAPE.

_Jan Looten_ (Dutch: about 1618-1681).

Looten is said to have visited England in the reign of Charles
II., in order (as a countryman of his explains) "to initiate
the English into the beauties of Dutch landscape." The process
was successful, for many large pictures by Looten are (or were)
in English country-seats. The figures in his landscapes were
sometimes painted by Berchem.

902. "THE TRIUMPH OF SCIPIO."

_Andrea Mantegna_ (Paduan: 1431-1506). _See 274._

One of the _grisailles_, or pictures in gray and brown, of which Mantegna in his later years painted very many, and to multiply which he took to engraving. In its subject the picture is a piece of ancient Rome. No other works of the time, it has been said, are so full of antique feeling as Mantegna's. Botticelli played with the art of the ancients and modernised it; Mantegna actually lived and moved in it (Woltmann and Woermann: _History of Painting_, translated by Clara Bell, ii. 378). Mantegna's classical scholarship, too, is abundantly shown in the details of this picture, which is full of allusions to Latin authors and history. The Triumph of Scipio, it may be briefly explained, consisted in his being selected by the Senate as "the worthiest man in Rome," by whom alone--so the oracle decreed--must Cybele, the Phrygian mother of the gods, be received. It was "an honour," says Livy, with the fine patriotism of Rome, "more to be coveted than any other which the Senate or people could bestow." On the left, the image of the goddess is being borne on a litter, and with it the sacred stone alleged to have fallen from heaven. It was an unusual fall of meteoric stones that had caused the Romans to consult the oracle in B.C. 204, during Hannibal's occupation of Italy, and the oracle had answered that the Phrygian mother must be brought to Rome. This goddess, worshipped under different forms in many parts of the world, was a personification of the passive generative power in nature, and from this time forward she was included among the recognised divinities of the Roman State. In the centre of the picture Scipio and his retinue are receiving her; whilst Claudia, a Roman lady, has thrown herself before the image. Some slur had attached to her reputation, but she had proved her innocence by invoking the goddess and then drawing off from a shoal in the harbour of Ostia, with the aid of only a slight rope, the vessel which bore the sacred image.

"The picture," says Sir F. Burton, "has a history of its own. It was undertaken towards the close of Mantegna's long and laborious career; and when that career terminated in the sadness and gloom which have too often awaited those whose imaginative powers had placed them above their fellow-men, it remained in his studio, probably not fully finished. It may have been the last, it was certainly one of the last, pictures which his pencil touched." An advance payment of 25 ducats had been made to Mantegna in 1504. His son Francesco made an unsuccessful claim to it as an inheritance from his father, offering to repay the amount received in advance. The picture, representing an event glorious in the history of the Scipios, was commissioned by a Venetian nobleman, Francesco Cornaro, in order to throw lustre upon the genealogy of his family, which claimed to belong to the Roman _gens Cornelia_.

903. CARDINAL FLEURY.

_Hyacinthe Rigaud_ (French: 1659-1743).

Rigaud was a native of Perpignan, and the son and grandson
of a painter. In 1681 he went up to Paris, and following
the advice of Le Brun devoted himself to portraiture. He
studied diligently the works of Van Dyck, whose disciple
he always professed to be. He rapidly obtained fame as a
portrait-painter, but it was not till 1700--on the completion
of his "St. Andrew" now in the Louvre--that he was admitted as
an historical painter into the Academy. He held various offices
in that body, and painted all the great men of his day. His own
portrait by himself is in the Uffizi.

A portrait of the famous tutor, and afterwards prime minister, of Louis XV. It is eminently the "pacific Fleury," who strove to keep France out of war and starved her army and navy when she was forced into it, that we see in this amiable old gentleman--the scholar and member of the Academy, who completed what is now the National Library of France--rather than the statesman. A similar picture is in the Wallace Collection (No. 130).

904. MADONNA AND CHILD.

_Gregorio Schiavone_ (Paduan: painted about 1470). _See 630._

905. THE MADONNA IN PRAYER.

_Cosimo Tura_ (Ferrarese: 1420-1495). _See 772._

Tura's type of the Madonna is perhaps the least pleasing in the whole range of Italian art.

906. THE MADONNA IN ECSTASY.

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

The latest of Crivelli's dated pictures in the Gallery (1492), and remarkable for the deep colours which mark the artist's highest powers. Notice the usual hanging fruit and the pot of roses and carnations. The Virgin looks up to the Almighty and the dove, while two angels, with a scroll, support a crown over her head. On the scroll are inscribed (in Latin) the words, "As I was conceived in the mind of God from the beginning, so was I also made."

The masterpiece known as "The Virgin in Ecstasy," rather
presents (as the text shows) the idea which is the foundation
of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, combined with
the "Coronation" of the glorified mother. It is intended, in
fact, to bring before us not the historical mother of Christ
so much as that mediæval conception of the mystical being of
Ecclesiasticus and the Book of Wisdom, existing from all time
in the mind of God as the instrument of the Incarnation, and
returning to share the glory of her divine Son. Crivelli has
expressed with rare distinction that combination of humility
and awe with a sense of personal dignity which befits this
ideal of the Virgin. In herself she is an imposing figure,
but she is absorbed in the divine influences which mould her
destiny. Never did Crivelli come nearer to the grand style than
in this magnificent conception (Rushforth's _Crivelli_, p. 75).

907. ST. CATHERINE AND ST. MARY MAGDALENE.

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

The figure of St. Mary Magdalene, with the vase of precious ointment, is characteristic of the painter's more affected style; notice especially the fingers elongated to the point of grotesqueness.

908. THE NATIVITY OF CHRIST.[193]

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

"This painting is said to be unfinished. But even minute
details, such as the pearls on the robes of the angels and on
the head-dress of the Virgin, have been worked out with an
accuracy which excites astonishment. One of the two shepherds,
standing on the right side and seen in front, appears to have
no pupils to his eyes, and this strange fact might account for
the theory of the unfinished state of the picture. On the other
hand it seems to me to have suffered very much from repainting
in all the flesh parts.... The restorer has, I believe,
forgotten to paint in the pupils of the shepherd's eyes after
having destroyed them by the cleaning of the original painting"
(Richter's _Italian Art in the National Gallery_, pp. 16, 17).
The beauty of the picture is in the choir of angels with their
mouths in different attitudes of singing, making such music
sweet

As never was by mortal finger strook--
Divinely-warbled voice
Answering the stringèd noise,
As all their souls in blissful rapture took.

MILTON: _Hymn on Christ's Nativity_.

"The picture is a masterpiece" says Mr. Hipkins, "in musical delineation. It is the perfectly expressed singing of these characteristic angels that arrests attention first; but the archæologist in musical instruments values the two large lutes held by the outside angels of the group, who are accompanying the singers. The splendid lines and fine dimensions of these instruments suggest their sonorous tone. When this picture came from the Barker Collection, each lute had eleven strings, and the number of pegs in one of them seems to have this number; but in cleaning the picture the strings have disappeared. As the picture was not finished by the painter, it is supposed that the strings were a later addition. However, the number was right, according to the practice with large lutes at that time, to give six open notes; the highest, or melody, string being open"[194] (_The Hobby Horse_, No. 1, 1893). "The figures of the Virgin and Child are of the gentlest and fairest type, and show undoubted signs of the Flemish influence, which made itself felt in Florence and throughout Central Italy after Hugo van der Goes set up his great altar-piece in the Ospedale of Santa Maria Novella" (W. G. Waters: _Piero della Francesca_ p. 64).

This picture was formerly in the possession of the Marini-Franceschi family, of Borgo San Sepolcro, descendants of the painter. The wings and the predella once belonging to it are in the cathedral of that city.

909. THE MADONNA OF THE WHITE ROSE.

_Benvenuto da Siena_ (Sienese: 1436-1518).

The earliest known work by this painter is an Annunciation,
painted in 1466, in the church of S. Girolamo at Volterra. He
executed some of the illuminations of the choir-books, and
designed portions of the pavement, in the cathedral of Siena.
He was the son of a mason.

A charming combination of older and newer "motives." There is the gold background, true to the old Sienese traditions, but there are also the little fiddling angels, so common in Venetian and other pictures of the time of Benvenuto's later years. In the compartments on either side are St. Peter, and St. Nicholas of Bari (with various adornments referring to his story: see under 1171).

910. THE TRIUMPH OF CHASTITY.

_Luca Signorelli_ (Cortona: 1441-1523). _See under 1128._

In the foreground Cupid on his knees is bound by maidens; in the distance there are other two groups, in one of which the god of love is being captured, in the other he is led away in triumph with his arms pinioned behind him. This painting is a fresco which was transferred to canvas from the wall of a palace at Siena. It was injured in the process, and has been badly restored. It is signed LUCAS CORITIUS, and according to the official catalogue, "the hand of the master is visible enough in the less damaged parts." According to other authorities, the inscription is forged, and the picture "a weak production by Genga," Signorelli's assistant at Orvieto (Richter's _Italian Art in the National Gallery_, p. 49).

911. ULYSSES AND PENELOPE.

_Pinturicchio_ (Umbrian: 1454-1513). _See 693._

Penelope was wife of Ulysses, King of Ithaca, whose wanderings after the Trojan war are told in Homer's "Odyssey," and shown in summary in the distance of this picture. Through the open window is seen the ship of Ulysses, with the hero bound to the mast; the sirens, whose coasts he passed unhurt, are sporting in the sea; and on an island near is the palace of Circe, who changed his companions into swine. In his absence Penelope was beset by many suitors, such as are here seen clad in joyous raiment, and was in sore straits to resist their importunity. But "some god put it into my heart to set up a great web in the halls, and thereat to weave a robe fine of woof and very wide; and-anon I spake among them, saying: 'Ye princely youths, my wooers, now that goodly Odysseus is dead, do ye abide patiently, how eager soever to speed on this marriage of mine, till I finish the robe ... even this shroud for the hero Laertes, father of Odysseus, against the day when the deadly doom shall bring him low, of death that lays men at their length.' ... So spake I, and their high hearts consented thereto. So then in the daytime I would weave the mighty web, and in the night unravel the same" (xix. 138-150: Butcher and Lang's translation). And for the space of three years Penelope's web was still unwoven, and the suitors were deceived; but afterwards, when they chid her loudly, she finished the web, and could neither escape marriage nor devise any further counsel, for that her son too chafed while the suitors devoured his livelihood. But Ulysses then returned; he is now in the doorway just entering; and presently Penelope will take down her husband's bow--now hanging with a quiver of arrows above her head--which the suitors could not bend, but was bent by Ulysses.

The painter makes no attempt at archæological reconstruction; he gives us a picture of the costumes of his own day. This vivacious picture is a fresco transferred to canvas. It was painted in the Pandolfo Petrucci Palace at Siena, which also Signorelli's "Triumph of Chastity" once decorated (now 910 in our Gallery).

912, 913, 914. THE STORY OF GRISELDA.

Umbrian School: 15th-16th century.

On these three panels (formerly ascribed to Pinturicchio),[195] which were probably destined to serve as decorations to a chest, the story of Griselda is told with much naïve awkwardness of drawing, but also with much naïve playfulness of incident. The story, told in Boccaccio's _Decameron_, and by Petrarch, is also to be found in Chaucer's _Clerkes Tale_.

In the first picture (912) we see (1) on the extreme left the Marquis of Saluzzo, who is out hunting with a great retinue. He meets Griselda, a peasant girl, who is drawing water at the well, and falls in love with her. Next (2) on the extreme right is her humble barn-like dwelling, with the marquis serenading his love from below. (3) He carries her off with him; and note how Griselda, who is to be modest and humble to the end, hangs her head in "maiden shamefacedness." (4) Then the marquis has her attired in gold and fine linen, fit for a prince's bride. Her pattens and perhaps her garters are lying discarded beside her. And so (5), in the centre of the picture, all is ready for the wedding:

This markis hath hir spoused with a ring
Brought for the same cause, and then hir sette
Upon an hors, snow-whyt and wel ambling.

Before the second act (913) a few years are supposed to have elapsed. (1) On the left Griselda's two children--a boy and a girl--(in the likeness of two very wooden dolls) are being carried off, as if by a villain in a transpontine tragedy. They are supposed to have since died miserably. (2) The marquis tires of his love for Griselda, and is divorced: in the centre of the picture we see her giving back the wedding ring. (3) Then she is stripped of her fine clothes, and (4) sent away to her father's house, but

"The smok," quod he, "that thou hast on thy bak,
Lat it be stille, and ber it forth with thee."

Two young gallants, in absurd attitudes, look on in half-pitying amusement, while nearer to us two serving-men are disgusted at the cruel shame. (5) On the extreme right she is at home again, tending, as before, her father's sheep.

In the last act (914), a grand banquet is prepared for the marquis's second wedding, and Griselda is sent for to the castle to do menial work. On the left we see her sweeping; on the right she is waiting at table. Then, on the left again, it is discovered that the marquis's new bride is none other than Griselda's long-lost daughter, accompanied by her brother. They had all the while been tended in a distant city with the utmost care. Griselda is thereupon affectionately embraced by her husband, publicly reinstated in her proper position, and presented to all the court as a model of wifely obedience and patience--

No wedded man so hardy be tassaille
His wyues pacience, in hope to fynde
Grisildes, for in certein he shal faille!
O noble wyues, ful of heigh prudènce,
Lat non humilitee your tongë naille.

915. MARS AND VENUS.

_Botticelli_ (Florentine: 1447-1510). _See 1034._

So the picture is usually called--Mars, the God of War, asleep, and the young satyrs playing with his discarded armour, while one of them attempts to rouse him by blowing a shell. The subject is almost identical with that which Spenser draws in the _Faërie Queene_, where Sir Guyon, the Knight of Purity, overthrows the Bower of Bliss in which Acrasia (or Pleasure) dwells--the last and worst of Sir Guyon's trials, for "it is harder to fight against pleasure than against pain." Note especially the expression of the sleeping youth: he is overcome with brutish paralysis, and they cannot awaken him. Note also the swarm of hornets issuing from the tree-trunk by his head--significant of the power that sensual indulgence has of venomously wounding. Visitors who have been in Venice may remember similar details in Carpaccio's picture of St. George and the Dragon (J. R. Anderson in _St. Mark's Rest_, Second Supplement, p. 20).

Upon a bed of Roses she was layd,
As faint through heat, or dight to pleasant sin;
And was arrayd, or rather disarrayd,
All in a vele of silke and silver thin,
That hid no whit her alabaster skin ...
The young man, sleeping by her, seemd to be
Some goodly swayne of honorable place,
That certes it great pitty was to see
Him his nobility so fowle deface ...
His warlike armes, the ydle instruments
Of sleeping praise, were hong upon a tree ...
Ne for them ne for honour cared hee,
Ne ought that did to his advauncement tend;
But in lewd loves, and wastfull luxuree,
His dayes, his goods, his bodie, he did spend:
O horrible enchantment, that him so did blend!

_Faërie Queene_, bk. ii. 12, §§ lxxvii.-lxxx.

It has been suggested by Dr. Richter that the subject of the picture is not mythological, but an illustration of Angelo Poliziano's poem, "Stanze per la Giostra," "The Song of the Tournament," written in 1476 in glorification of Giuliano de' Medici, who had entered the lists in the preceding year, at the tournament given in honour of Simonetta Cattaneo. In this poem, Giuliano appears as a youth enamoured of the chase, and contemptuous of women. Cupid determines that he shall fall a prey to a pair of lovely eyes, and leads him to the presence of Simonetta. But night falls and Simonetta vanishes, whereupon Venus sends Giuliano a dream in which he is exhorted to enter the lists in honour of his lady-love. He foreknows that victory will crown his arms, and that love will reward his valour, but these joyful tidings are black with the shadow of death, for early in 1476 Simonetta died. According to Dr. Richter's interpretation, Giuliano in the picture before us lies sunk in deepest sleep. The little satyrs are whispering dreams into his ears, dreams from the realms of Venus. In his dreams, Giuliano is overcome with fear, because his lady is clad in the armour of Pallas: he cannot brook the gleam of her helmet and her lance. But Cupid whispers: "Lift thine eyes, Giuliano, to that flame which with its radiance blinds thee like a sun; for she it is who quickens noble minds, and from the breast all evil thoughts expels." He dreams again; a goddess comes to his aid leading him to battle and to victory. She divests his lady of the armour of Pallas, and leaves her robed in white (_Lectures on the National Gallery_, p. 51). The poem[196] may thus be made to fit the picture. It may, however, be questioned whether the action of the little Cupids is not more appropriate to the accepted theory which sees in the armour the discarded weapons of a Mars or a knight, and Count Plunkett (_Sandro Botticelli_, pp. 44-5) refers to a passage in Lucian, with whose dialogues Botticelli was familiar. In describing a picture by Aëtion of the "Nuptials of Alexander and Roxana," Lucian describes how "on one side of it little Cupids play among Alexander's armour; two are carrying his spear, as porters do a heavy beam; two more grasp the handles of a shield, tugging it along with another reclining on it ... and then another has got into the breastplate.... All this is not idle fancy, on which the painter has been lavishing needless pains; he is hinting that Alexander has also another love, in War."

916. VENUS WITH CUPIDS.

_School of Botticelli_ (Florentine: 1447-1510). _See 1034._
_See also_ (p. xx)

The expression of melancholy characteristic of Botticelli's Madonnas is not absent from his heathen goddesses either. Notice also the roses--the painter's favourite flower (see 226). This picture is probably only a work of his school; the figure of the goddess is a not very successful repetition of the one in 915. The subject of the picture recalls the description of Simonetta in Poliziano's poem:--

White is the maid, and white the robe around her,
With buds and roses and thin grasses pied;
Enwreathèd folds of golden tresses crowned her,
Shadowing her forehead fair with modest pride;
The wild wood smiled; the thicket, where he found her,
To ease his anguish, bloomed on every side:
Serene she sits, with gesture queenly mild,
And with her brow tempers the tempests wild.

SYMONDS's Translation.

920. ORPHEUS.

_Roelandt Savery_ (Dutch: 1576-1639).

Savery, a painter of Courtrai, was instructed by his brother
at Amsterdam. His works show the influence of Jan Breughel.
He visited France in the reign of Henry IV., by whom he was
employed in the royal palaces. He was subsequently invited to
Prague by the Emperor Rudolph II., in whose service he spent
several years.

A not very poetical rendering of the poetical legend of the power of music:--

You shall perceive them make a mutual stand,
Their savage eyes turn'd to a modest gaze
By the sweet power of music: therefore the poet
Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods;
Since naught so stockish, hard, and full of rage,
But music for the time doth change his nature.

_Merchant of Venice_, Act v. Sc. 1.

923. A VENETIAN SENATOR.

_Andrea Solario_ (Lombard: about 1460-1520). _See 734._

This picture "was ascribed to Giovanni Bellini before it entered the National Gallery, and _dilettanti_ might well mistake it for a work of Antonello da Messina. There seems to be little doubt that the picture was painted by Solario at Venice, where he went in 1490 in company of his brother.... The firmly drawn portrait of the senator, with its minutely executed landscape in the background, reveals plainly that he there became an ardent follower of Antonello" (Richter's _Italian Art in the National Gallery_, p. 99).

924. A GOTHIC INTERIOR

_Pieter Neeffs_ (Flemish: 1577-about 1661).

This eminent architectural painter belonged to a family of
Antwerp artists. He was a pupil of Hendrick Steenwyck the
elder. "He did for the Roman Catholic churches of Antwerp that
which, thirty years later, and with greater talent, a more
flowing brush, and a better understanding of chiaro-oscuro,
Emmanuel de Witte (see 1053) was destined to do for the
Protestant churches of Delft. Neeffs took special delight
in the representation of night scenes, torchlight funeral
services, and the like. Teniers and Velvet Breughel themselves
often assisted him in these small canvases, thus bearing
testimony to the high esteem in which Neeffs was held by his
colleagues" (Wauters, _The Flemish School_, p. 342.)

A group of figures is inspecting a conspicuous Renaissance tomb. Notice the dogs among the visitors.

927. AN ANGEL ADORING.

_Filippino Lippi_ (Florentine: 1457-1504). _See 293._

And with the morn those angel faces smile,
Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile.

CARDINAL NEWMAN.

This exquisite fragment once belonged to Sir Augustus Callcott, R.A.

928. APOLLO AND DAPHNE.

Ascribed to _Pollajuolo_ (Florentine: 1429-1498). _See 292._

The Greeks, seeing the perpetual verdure of the laurel, personified it in the story of Apollo and Daphne (= laurel), which told how the sun-god was enamoured of her. But she, praying to be delivered from his pursuit, was changed by the gods into a laurel--her two arms are here sprouting, just as the god has caught her in his embrace; and he, crowning his head with the leaves, ordained that the tree should for ever bloom and be sacred to his divinity (see further for the story of Apollo and Daphne under 520). The fact that Phoebus Apollo was also the god of song has suggested a pretty adaptation of the legend to the case of poets who sing for love and earn the laurel wreath--

Yet, what he sung in his immortal strain,
Though unsuccessful, was not sung in vain:
All, but the Nymph that should redress his wrong,
Attend his passion and approve his song.
Like Phoebus thus, acquiring unsought praise,
He catched at love, and filled his arms with bays.

WALLER.

929. THE "BRIDGEWATER MADONNA."

_Copy after Raphael._ _See under 1171._

This is an ancient copy, probably by a Flemish painter, of the original, which is in the possession of the Earl of Ellesmere at Bridgewater House. It belongs to Raphael's second or Florentine period, and its exquisite grace has caused it to be known by some writers as "La Plus Belle des Vierges."

930. THE GARDEN OF LOVE.

_School of Giorgione_ (Venetian: 16th century). _See 269._

Certainly not by Giorgione,[197] but a characteristic example of a class of composition of which, as we have seen, he was the inventor--one of those Venetian pastorals in which young men and women "disport in the open air, amuse themselves at random" (_Asolando_).

931. THE MAGDALEN.

_Paolo Veronese_ (Veronese: 1528-1588). _See 26._

The Magdalen--she who had sinned much, but who was forgiven because she loved much--is represented at the Saviour's feet, laying aside her jewels, and thus renouncing the vanities of the world.

932. A KNIGHT OF MALTA.

_Unknown_ (Italian: 16th century).

Formerly ascribed to Sebastiano del Piombo.

933. BOY WITH A BIRD.

_Padovanino_ (Venetian: 1590-1650). _See 70._

Contrast with this child caressing a dove Baroccio's Christ teasing a bird. Padovanino lived much at Venice, and shared perhaps the Venetian's fondness for pigeons--the sacred birds of St. Mark's, which are kept and fed in the great square to this day at the public charge.

934. VIRGIN AND CHILD.

_Carlo Dolci_ (Florentine: 1616-1686).

Carlo Dolci, the son of a Florentine tailor, is, like his
contemporary Sassoferrato, a good instance of the affected
religious school described in our introduction to the
Later Italian Schools. He was of a very retiring and pious
disposition, much given, we are told, to melancholy. Every one
who looks first at the pictures of similar subjects by earlier
Italian artists will be struck by something sentimental and
effeminate in Dolci's conceptions. Similarly in his execution
there is an over-smoothness and softness, corresponding to
"polished" language in literature (see _Modern Painters_, vol.
iii. pt. iv. ch. ix. § 7). In the Dulwich Gallery is a St.
Catherine of Siena which is one of Dolci's _chefs d'oeuvre_.

935. A RIVER SCENE.

_Salvator Rosa_ (Neapolitan: 1615-1673). _See 84._

936. THE FARNESE THEATRE, PARMA.

_Ferdinando Bibiena_ (Bolognese: 1657-1743).

Ferdinando Galli, called Bibiena, was one of a family of
artists who came from a place of that name in the Bolognese
State. He was a celebrated architect and scenic artist. He
was engaged at many of the European courts in the arrangement
of state pageants. He executed several works for Ranuccio
Farnese, Duke of Parma. His architectural and perspective views
are to be seen in the principal galleries in Italy. In these
the figures are usually painted by his brother Francesco.
Ferdinando, who published several works on architecture, became
blind in his old age.

A scene in the theatre with _Othello_ being played. The pit is unseated; it is a kind of "promenade play."

937. VENICE: SCUOLA DI SAN ROCCO.

_Canaletto_[198] (Venetian: 1697-1768). _See 127._