Chapter D: G. ROSSETTI: Sonnets and Ballads.187 (4)

This beautiful and curious picture is very characteristic of Botticelli's genius. It is full of highly wrought emotion--note "the fervour of the still Madonna as she kneels before the Child, the extraordinary nervous tension which the artist has managed to suggest in the seated figure of Joseph, the rapture and ecstasy of the angels"; the picture is full also, as we shall see, of mystic symbolism, but all is crowned and harmonised by a sense of pictorial daintiness and beauty. The centre of the picture is occupied by the familiar subject of the Nativity, and the accessories suggest in symbolic fashion the effects of Christ's Advent upon the good and the evil respectively. The theological symbolism may be seen in the gesture of the divine Child pointing to his mouth--typifying that he was the Word of God. So at the bottom of the picture there are devils running, at Christ's coming, into chinks of the rocks (those who are Christ's must put away "the works of darkness"); whilst the shepherds and angels embracing signify the reconciliation such as Savonarola wished to effect between heaven and earth. On either side of the central group angels are telling the glad tidings "of peace on earth, goodwill towards men." Note the symmetry in this part of the picture; the three Magi on the left, the three shepherds in adoration on the right; and in colour, the red frock of the angel on the right, the red wings on the left. Meanwhile in the sky above is a lovely choir of Botticelli's floating angels, dancing between earth and heaven, on a golden background suffused with light. The picture is, says Ruskin, "a quite perfect example of what the masters of the pure Greek school did in Florence.... The entire purpose of the picture is a mystic symbolism by motion and chiaroscuro. By motion, first. There is a dome of burning clouds in the upper heaven. Twelve angels half float, half dance, in a circle, round the lower vault of it. All their drapery is drifted so as to make you feel the whirlwind of their motion. They are seen by gleams of silvery or fiery light, relieved against an equally lighted blue of inimitable depth and loveliness. It is impossible for you ever to see a more noble work of passionate Greek chiaroscuro--rejoicing in light" (_Lectures on Landscape_, § 58). The introduction in the same picture of the solemn teaching below, with these beautiful angel forms above, suggests precisely what Ruskin has defined to be Botticelli's position among pictorial reformers. "He was what Luther wished to be, but could not be--a reformer still believing in the Church; his mind is at peace, and his art therefore can pursue the delight of beauty and yet remain prophetic." "He was not a preacher of new doctrines, but a witness against the betrayal of old ones."

The first and more obvious intention of Botticelli's painted sermon was, as we have seen, to show the effects of the Advent upon the good and the evil. But he has also a particular application, an esoteric meaning. The clue to this is afforded by the Greek inscription at the top, which, being interpreted, is--

"This picture I, Alexander, painted at the end of the year
1500, in the troubles of Italy, in the half-time after the
time during the fulfilment of the eleventh of St. John, in the
Second Woe of the Apocalypse, in the loosing of the devil for
three years and a half. Afterwards he shall be confined, and we
shall see him trodden down, as in this picture."

"In the troubles of Italy, at the end of the year 1500." Now, on May 12, 1497, exactly three years and a half before the date of Botticelli's inscription, Savonarola was burnt alive (as depicted on the little panel, No. 1301); and his death, says the historian, "meant for Florence the triumph of all that was most corrupt; vice was everywhere rampant, and virtuous living was utterly despised." But in the faith of Botticelli, the reverent disciple of Savonarola, this tyranny of the Evil One was doomed to pass away. He saw "in the troubles of Italy" a fulfilment of the awful words to which his inscription refers us in the eleventh chapter of the Revelation of St. John the Divine:--

The holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months.
And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall
prophesy. These are the two olive trees. And when they shall
have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out
of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall
overcome them, and kill them. And they that dwell upon the
earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send
gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented
them that dwelt on the earth. And after three days and an half
the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood
upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them.
And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them,
Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and
their enemies beheld them. The second woe is past. And there
were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world
are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he
shall reign for ever and ever.

To the elect, then, Botticelli meant his picture to show the fulfilment of the prophecy by the Second Advent of Christ, and the final triumph of Savonarola. The men embraced by angels are in this reading of the picture the "witnesses" to whom the spirit of life was returned; they are welcomed back to earth by angels, ere they are rapt heavenward. They bear olive boughs, because in the Apocalypse olive trees are symbolical of the Lord's anointed ones. "There is but one point which seems at variance with the Biblical text: in it two witnesses are spoken of, here there are three. This deviation was doubtless intentional. When Savonarola died, two others shared his palm of martyrdom, Fra Domenico Buonvicini and Fra Silvestre Marussi. The three figures crowned with myrtle represent the three risen and glorified martyrs" (Richter's _Lectures on the National Gallery_, p. 61. See also Mr. Sidney Colvin's article in the _Portfolio_, Feb. 1879).

1035. PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN.

_Francia Bigio_ (Florentine: 1482-1525).

Francesco di Cristoforo Bigi (this picture is signed FRA CP
= _Franciscus Cristophori pinxit_), commonly called Francia
Bigio, was the son of a weaver at Milan, and "devoted himself
to the art of painting, not so much (Vasari tells us) because
he was desirous of fame, as that he might thus be enabled to
render assistance to his indigent relations." He was at first
the pupil of Albertinelli (645), and afterwards formed a close
friendship with Andrea del Sarto, in conjunction with whom
he produced his first important work in 1513, in the small
cloister of the Servi. It was here that occurred the famous
scene, described by Vasari, with the Friars, who, having
uncovered Bigio's fresco of the _Sposalizio_ before the painter
considered it finished, so enraged him that he defaced some of
the finest heads in it with a mason's hammer, and would have
destroyed the whole but for forcible intervention. Neither he
nor any other painter could be induced to repair the injuries,
which remain to this day. Bigio was, as we may see from this
picture, an admirable portrait-painter--an excellence which
he owed, says Vasari, to his patient and modest industry. He
was "a great lover of peace, and for that reason (adds Vasari
drily) would never marry."

The young man wears on his breast the cross of the Knights of Malta. The letter in his hand bears the date 1514. On the parapet is an inscription: tar: vblia: chi: bien: eima (slowly forgets he who loves well)--

Dear as remember'd kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign'd
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
O Death in Life, the days that are no more.

TENNYSON: _The Princess_.

1036. A MAN'S PORTRAIT.

_Unknown_ (Flemish: 15th-16th century).

A picture, it might be, of Hamlet with the skulls: "That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once." In his left hand he holds a flower: "there's pansies, that's for thoughts."

1041. THE VISION OF ST. HELENA.

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

St. Helena, the mother of Constantine, made a pilgrimage to
Jerusalem, when a victory was gained by the emperor, to recover
the very cross of which she had seen a mysterious symbol.
Having reached the sacred city, she caused the soil of Calvary
to be excavated, because the Jews were accustomed to bury the
instruments of execution upon the spot where they had been
used. And there she found three crosses, and that one which was
the holy cross was distinguished from the others by the healing
of a lady of quality who was sick. The empress divided the
true cross into three parts, giving one of them to the Bishop
of Jerusalem, and another to the church at Constantinople. The
third she brought to Rome, where she built for it the great
basilica of S. Croce.

Here we see the saint in devout reverie, while through the open window two cherubim bear a cross through the air. This beautiful picture, in which Veronese gives us an ideal and mystic composition, treated with a simplicity unusual to him, seems to have been derived from a plate by Marc Antonio, the founder of Italian engraving (1480-1534), supposed to be after a drawing by Raphael. The design is identical, though an exquisitely airy angel with a slender cross in Marc Antonio's engraving is replaced in Veronese's picture by chubby cherubs with a more solid cross. (The engraving is reproduced in the _Art Journal_, 1891, p. 376, with some critical remarks. "This wonderful picture," says the writer, "is at once a delight and a puzzle. If Veronese was capable of efforts like the 'Vision of St. Helena,' why have we not more such, seeing how many treasures of his art have survived to us? The engraving offers an explanation, curiously exact, of this difficulty. Whatever in the 'Vision' is Veronese's own--the drapery and the colour--is not more remarkable than in many other pictures of his; on the other hand, whatever is not distinctively of Veronese is Marc Antonio's.... What more natural than that Veronese should essay to clothe in the glory of his own colouring[206] some creation of the great Italian who learnt from Dürer how to interpret the art of Raphael to Italy?") Veronese's picture once formed the altar-piece of a chapel dedicated to St. Helena at Venice, and was afterwards in the collection of the great Duke of Marlborough.

1042. A MAN'S PORTRAIT.

_Catharina van Hemessen_ (Flemish: painted about 1550).

Catharina was the daughter of a painter named Jan Sanders,
called Jan van Hemessen from his native village. She married
a musician of repute in the Low Countries, and with him went
to Madrid, where she acquired celebrity and favour through her
ability in portraiture.

1045. A CANON AND HIS PATRON SAINT.

_Gerard David_ (Early Flemish: 1460-1523).

This remarkable painter, who has been rediscovered in recent
years by the researches of Mr. Weale, was born in Oudewater,
a small town in the south of Holland. He settled in Bruges in
1483, passing through the various grades of the Painters' Guild
in that town, until he became its Dean in 1501. He was also
connected with the Guild of Illuminators of Bruges, and with
that of painters at Antwerp. In 1496 he married the daughter
of a Bruges goldsmith. In 1509 he painted and presented to
the Carmelites of Sion at Bruges a beautiful altar-piece, in
which he introduced his own portrait in the background to the
right, and that of his wife to the left. This altar-piece was
sold by the Carmelites in 1785, and is now in the Museum of
Rouen. Other important works by the painter are now in the
Academy at Bruges, and in the church of St. Basil in that
town there is a triptych by him. The present picture and No.
1432 were also painted for a church in the same place. David's
works have often been confounded with those of Memlinc, and
it is impossible to give them higher praise. He was a fine
colourist. His faces show that he was an adequate interpreter
of character. The details he executed with the utmost
minuteness and skill; and he is remarkable also for his careful
and truthful landscapes. In 1508 David entered a religious
brotherhood; he was buried in Notre Dame at Bruges, where he
was laid beneath the tower.

The canon kneels in adoration, with his patron saints around him--St. Bernardino of Siena behind, St. Donatian in advance of him, and St. Martin to the left. It was St. Martin who shared his cloak with the beggar, and here in the distance to the left--in compliment to the canon's generosity--is a beggar limping towards the group, asking alms. Notice the wood through which he walks. The subdued light beneath the thick foliage of the trees is admirably rendered. David "was the first painter to think of the shadow-giving nature of trees. Trees had for many years formed a favourite subject for backgrounds, but even by Memlinc they were rather conventionally rendered, one by one, not grouped into woods, and seldom brought into the foreground. Here we have a wood brought near us, with its domed canopy of foliage above, and its labyrinth of trunks buried in sylvan twilight below" (Conway's _Early Flemish Artists_, p. 298). Notice also the beautiful and elaborate work on the robes of St. Martin and St. Donatian. They are fully described in Mr. Weale's monograph referred to below. This will repay the most minute examination. The crimson-velvet cope of St. Martin is a masterpiece. The portrait of the donor is admirable.

The history of this beautiful picture, and of the changes and chances it went through before finding a permanent home in the National Gallery, is very curious. In 1501 a colleague of Richard van der Capelle (see 1432) and one of the executors of his will, namely, Canon Bernardin Salviati (illegitimate son of a rich Florentine merchant who traded or resided in Flanders), was secretary of the chapter of S. Donatian at Bruges. Having obtained leave to restore and embellish the altar of SS. John Baptist and Mary Magdalene, he commissioned Gerard David to paint the shutters of the reredos. These shutters, together with those of several other altar reredoses in the nave of the church, were, at the request of the sacristan, who complained that they were always breaking the wax candles, sold in a lot by order of the chapter in 1787 for an insignificant sum of money. What became of the others is not known, but the one before us was, as we learn from the letters of Horace Walpole, bought in 1792, by Mr. Thomas Barrett, of Lee Priory, Kent, and it figures in the catalogue of that collection as "a group of saints by John Gossart of Maubeuge." At the sale of the Lee Priory Collection in May 1859, it was knocked down to the late Mr. William Benoni White for 525 guineas. Sir J. C. Robinson drew Mr. Weale's attention to the picture, which he at once recognised as being the right-hand shutter of the reredos of Salviati's chantry altar. "I tried hard," says Mr. Weale, "but in vain, to persuade the late Sir Charles Eastlake to purchase it for the National Gallery, but Mr. White would not part with it for less than £1000. Oddly enough the latter, who bore the character of being a most penurious and miserly man, by his last will and testament proved a generous benefactor to the nation, and left this panel in July 1878 to the National Gallery" (W. H. James Weale: _Portfolio_ monograph on Gerard David, 1895, p. 18).

1047. A FAMILY GROUP.

_Lorenzo Lotto_ (Venetian: 1480-1555). _See 699._

"Supposed," says the official catalogue, "to represent the painter, his wife, and two children." This cannot be the case, for Lotto seems to have had no close domestic ties. The picture is, however, full of interest for its own sake. "The man and the woman are, it is true, both looking out of the picture, but nevertheless the feeling we have is that the group before us is not, as is usual in Italian family pictures, a mere collection of portraits, but that it is composed of people who are intimately related to each other, constantly acting and reacting one upon the other, and that it is presented in a way which, while giving the individuality of each, makes it hard to think of them except as conditioned, and even determined, by each other's presence." We may in fact find in this domestic group an anticipation of the spirit of the modern psychological novel. "Far from being painted as such groups usually were in Italy--a mere collection of faces looking one like the other, but with no bond of sympathy or interest uniting them--it is in itself a family story, as modern almost as Tolstoi's _Katia_. Lotto makes it evident that the sensitiveness of the man's nature has brought him to understand and condone his wife's limitations, and that she, in her turn, has been refined and softened into sympathy with him; so that the impression the picture leaves is one of great kindliness, covering a multitude of small disappointments and incompatibilities" (B. Berenson: _Lorenzo Lotto_, pp. 194, 227, 322). Mr. Berenson calls attention further to the historical significance of this page from contemporary life and manners. The artist "opens our eyes to the existence in a time and in a country supposed to be wholly devoted to carnality and carnage, of gentle, sensitive people, who must have had many of our own social and ethical ideas." He "helps us to a truer and saner view of the sixteenth century in Italy than has been given by popular writers from Stendhal downwards, who too exclusively have devoted themselves to its lurid side. Lotto's charity helps us to restore that human balance without which the Italy of the sixteenth century would be a veritable pandemonium." The Venetian costumes, etc. may also be noticed. The little girl is dressed in as "grown-up" a way as her mother. On the table is a Turkey carpet, reminding us of Venetian commerce with the East. A Turkey carpet figures also in No. 1105.

1048. PORTRAIT OF A CARDINAL.

_Italian School_ (16th century).
_See also_ (p. xx)

Painted on copper, a material which seems first to have been used for painting in the School of Antwerp. M. Auguste Cartan, of Besançon, in a paper by him in the _Courrier de l'Art_ (June 25, 1886), points out the resemblance between this portrait and one, also on copper, in the museum at Besançon, ascribed to Scipione Pulzone, surnamed Gaetano (1550-1558), a painter who has been called "the Van Dyck of the Roman School." A contemporary biographer speaks of Gaetano's portraits as being so conscientious that every hair is painted, and of his skill in rendering various stuffs; both these characteristics may be observed in the present picture. In the same paper M. Cartan identifies the Cardinal as Cardinal Sirleto, Librarian of the Vatican 1570-1585, and tutor of S. Carlo Borromeo. There is a bust of Cardinal Sirleto in the church of San Lorenzo at Rome, and M. Cartan declares the resemblance between the bust and this portrait to be unmistakable. There is also in the Corsini Palace at Rome a bust portrait of the same personage by Scipione Gaetano.

1049. THE CRUCIFIXION.

_Unknown_ (German-Westphalian: 15th century).

A good example of the strength and weakness of this German art. What is good are the clothes, which are very quaint and various. The figures show a ghastly enjoyment of horror and ugliness: notice especially the crucified thief on the left.

1050. A SEA VIEW.

_Bakhuizen_ (Dutch: 1631-1708). _See 204._

1051. OUR LORD, ST. THOMAS, AND ST. ANTHONY.

_Bertucci_ (Umbrian: 16th century). _See 282._

Our Lord extends his hand and foot to the doubting St. Thomas: "Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; ... and be not faithless, but believing." To the right, resting his hands on the shoulder of the donor of the picture, is St. Anthony of Padua, another saint who doubted "till"--as the legend (painted by Murillo) describes--"in his arms," so it is told, "The saint did his dear Lord enfold, And there appeared a light like gold From out the skies of Padua." This picture appears to be by the same painter as No. 282, and both are now ascribed to Bertucci.

1052. PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN.

_Lombard School_ (15th or early 16th century).

1053. A CHURCH AT DELFT.

_Emanuel de Witte_ (Dutch: 1607-1692). _Room X._

Witte was a native of Alkmaar, but settled at Delft, where he
probably met another architectural painter, Dirk van Delen.
"An exact knowledge of perspective, a perfect conception of
light and shade, and a delicacy of execution which reveals
every detail without degenerating into dryness, figures well
drawn and sufficiently picturesque ... are the qualities which
distinguish his works" (Havard: _The Dutch School_, p. 245).
The picture before us is not a very favourable specimen of
the painter's skill. In the gallery at Hertford House one of
his masterpieces may be seen. His style, says Mr. Phillips in
his catalogue of that collection, "is absolutely opposed to
that of the somewhat earlier painters of the Flemish School,
Steenwyck the Younger and Pieter Neeffs the Elder, who obtained
their chief effects by accuracy of linear perspective, while
De Witte realised his by broad and masterly chiaroscuro. In
his treatment of light and colour he shows some affinity to
Pieter de Hooch." The date of his birth is uncertain; it should
perhaps be 1617.

Notice the anti-Pauline practice of the worshippers ("Every man praying, having his head covered, dishonoureth his head. But every woman that prayeth with her head uncovered, dishonoureth her head"--1 Corinthians xi. 4, 5). Here it is the women who are "uncovered," the men who are "covered."

1054. A VIEW IN VENICE.

_Francesco Guardi_ (Venetian: 1712-1793). _See 210._

1055. A VILLAGE CARD PARTY.

_Hendrick Sorgh_ (Dutch: 1611-1670).

Hendrick Rokes, a painter of Rotterdam, was the son of Martin
Rokes, the master of the passage-boat from Rotterdam to
Dordrecht. On account of his care and attention to passengers,
Martin acquired the appellation of Sorgh, or Careful; the name
descended to and was adopted by the son. Having shown an early
talent for art, Hendrick was sent to Antwerp, where he was
placed under the tuition of the younger Teniers. His style,
however, rather recalls that of Adrian Brouwer. He painted
Biblical subjects in a familiar manner, indoor scenes of humble
life, village fairs, and, later, river and sea views. Some of
his best works are in the Dresden Gallery.

The game rests with the woman, who is not going to play, it would seem, till the score is settled.

1056. "A KISS IN THE CUP."

_Hendrick Sorgh_ (Dutch: 1611-1670).

Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss but in the cup
And I'll not look for wine.

BEN JONSON: _To Celia_.

1057. A RIVER SCENE.

_Claude Joseph Vernet_ (French: 1714-1789). _See 236._

1058. VENICE: THE CANAL REGGIO.

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

One of the principal waterways, after the Grand Canal, in Venice. The picture is a good instance of this painter's method of representing water. He "covers the whole space of it with one monotonous ripple, composed of a coat of well-chosen, but perfectly opaque and smooth sea-green, covered with a certain number--I cannot state the exact average, but it varies from three hundred and fifty to four hundred and upwards, according to the extent of canvas to be covered, of white concave touches, which are very properly symbolical of ripple[207].... If it be but remembered that every one of the surfaces of those multitudinous ripples is in nature a mirror which catches, according to its position, either the image of the sky, or of the silver beaks of the gondolas, or of their black bodies and scarlet draperies, or of the white marble, or the green sea-weed on the low stones, it cannot but be felt that those waves would have something more of colour upon them than that opaque dead green.... Venice is sad and silent now to what she was in his time; but even yet, could I but place the reader at early morning on the quay below the Rialto, when the market-boats, full-laden, float into groups of golden colour, and let him watch the dashing of the water about their glittering steely heads, and under the shadows of the vine leaves; and show him the purple of the grapes and the figs, and the glowing of the scarlet gourds, carried away in long streams upon the waves; and among them, the crimson fish-baskets, plashing and sparkling and flaming as the morning sun falls on their wet tawny sides; and above, the painted sails of the fishing-boats, orange and white, scarlet and blue,--he would not be merciful to Canaletto any more" (_Modern Painters_, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. v. ch. i. §§ 18, 19).

1059. VENICE: SAN PIETRO IN CASTELLO.

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

A humble church, typical of the humble origin of Venice, a city founded on the sands by fugitives. The church stands on one of the outermost islets, where, in the seventh century, it is said that St. Peter appeared in person to the Bishop of Heraclea, and commanded him to found, in his honour, a church in that spot. "The title of Bishop of Castello was first taken in 1091; St. Mark's was not made the cathedral church till 1807.... The present church is among the least interesting in Venice; a wooden bridge, something like that of Battersea on a small scale, connects its island, now almost deserted, with a wretched suburb of the city behind the arsenal; and a blank level of lifeless grass, rotted away in places rather than trodden, is extended before its mildewed façade and solitary tower" (_Stones of Venice_, vol. i. Appendix iv.)

1060. TWO VEDETTES ON THE WATCH.

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

1061. DELFT: SCENE OF AN EXPLOSION

_Egbert van der Poel_ (Dutch: 1621-1664).

Born at Delft; in 1650 entered as a member of the painter's
guild there; afterwards moved to Rotterdam, where he died.
"Although his name recalls fires especially--never did painter
burn so many houses and farm cottages as Van der Poel--he
painted also small scenes in the style of Ostade, as we see
in his 'Rustic House' in the Louvre, and the 'Interior' in
the Museum of Amsterdam. There are also a few pictures by him
representing still life" (Havard: _The Dutch School_, p. 156).

One of the many views painted by this artist of the explosion of a powder mill at Delft, October 12, 1654. One might think the mill exploded specially to be painted, so neatly and in order is everything represented. In this explosion, a well-known painter, Carel Fabrizius, lost his life.

1062. A BATTLE PIECE

_Ferrarese School_ (early 16th century).

1063. A MAN'S PORTRAIT.

_Flemish School_ (15th-16th century).

1074. AN OYSTER SUPPER.

_Dirk Hals_ (Dutch; 1589-1656).

"Dirk was the younger brother of Frans Hals (see 1021), and
was born at Malines in 1589. He followed his elder brother
to Haarlem, where he died in 1656--that is, ten years before
Frans. Dirk was a clever artist, at least so far as may be
judged by his works, which are extremely rare. His figures
are amusing, graceful in manner, and especially interesting
from their costumes, which belong to his own time, and now
appear somewhat strange and extravagant" (Havard: _The Dutch
School_, p. 121). Dirk confined himself chiefly, says Burton,
"to the representation of convivial parties, where cavaliers
and ladies are seen enjoying themselves without much reserve
at table, in the dance, or with music. His light pencil, his
brilliant colour, laid on thinly over a greyish ground, and
sharply accentuated, suited the themes and the small scale of
his pictures."

The picture is signed (on the architrave above the open door), and dated 1626.

1075. VIRGIN AND CHILD, ST. JEROME, AND ST. FRANCIS.

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

A very "Peruginesque" example--full, that is, of the peculiar sentiment and apparent affectation which caused Goldsmith to make the admiration of him the test of absurd connoisseurship.[208] But "what is commonly thought affected in his design," says Ruskin, "is indeed the true remains of the great architectural symmetry which was soon to be lost, and which makes him the true follower of Arnolfo and Brunelleschi," the great Florentine builders (_Ariadne Florentina_, § 72). The picture displays also in perfection "that quality of tone in which Perugino stands unsurpassed; and the rich and liquid, but subdued colour is steeped in a transparent atmosphere of pale golden glow" (Burton).

The history of this picture affords a good instance of that enrichment of the National Gallery with "graceful interludes by Perugino," saved from "the wreck of Italian monasteries," of which Mr. Ruskin speaks in his preface to this work. It was painted by Perugino in 1507, to be placed over an altar in memory of a master-carpenter at Perugia. It afterwards passed into the possession of the monks who owned the church. They sold it, with the chapel in which it was placed, to the Cecconi family, from whom it passed by inheritance to the family Della Penna. In 1822 the head of this family removed it to his palace, leaving a copy of it in its place in the church, and in 1879 the picture itself was bought from the Baron della Penna for the Nation.

1077. ALTAR-PIECE (dated 1501).

_Borgognone_ (Lombard: about 1455-1523). _See 298._

A picture of the "man of sorrows." On either side of the infant Christ are shown the scenes of his suffering[209]--

In stature grows the Heavenly Child,
With death before his eyes;
A Lamb unblemished, meek and mild,
Prepared for sacrifice.

For sacrifice--but also for redemption, and so above the throne are the angels of God, playing the glad music of death swallowed up in victory. In the right-hand compartment is Christ bearing his cross; in the left his agony in the garden. The three disciples are here crouched asleep lower down, and behind a wall are the Roman soldiers, whilst from above an angel brings a cup with a cross, two spears, and a crown of thorns in it: "Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done. And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him" (Luke xxii. 42, 43).

1078. THE DEPOSITION FROM THE CROSS.

1079. THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI.

_Unknown_ (Early Flemish: 15th century).
_See also_ (p. xx)

These two pictures closely resemble in style and colouring
the large altar-piece in the church of St. Bavon at Ghent,
which is attributed to Gerard van der Meire.[210] That painter
flourished at Ghent about the middle of the fifteenth century;
entering the Guild of St. Luke in 1452, and becoming sub-dean
in 1474. He is described in a chronicle of the time as a pupil
of Hubert van Eyck, but the historian Van Mander says he began
to paint after the death of Jan van Eyck, a statement which is
confirmed by the date of his enrolment in the Guild. Nothing
is yet really known about him except the bare fact of his
existence, for no picture has been certainly identified as his.

(1079.) It is interesting to compare this representation of the scene, almost childlike in its simplicity, alike with the treatment by later painters (see, for instance, Rembrandt's, No. 47), and with the more decorative and symbolic treatment of the early Italians (_e.g._ Botticelli, No. 1034). The picture before us "shows no particular felicity of rendering, no depth or insight; it carries little conviction of reality, but it has a homely charm. The painter was thoroughly convinced of the actual truth of what he represented, and thought only of bringing the same home to everyday experience. In the background he has placed a village, in which men are discussing what is going on" (J. E. Hodgson, R.A., in the _Magazine of Art_, 1890, p. 42).

1080. HEAD OF JOHN THE BAPTIST.

_Unknown_ (School of the Lower Rhine: 15th century).
_See also_ (p. xx)

The introduction of children's faces--in the character of mourning angels--to so ghastly a subject is very characteristic of the love of horror common to the Flemish and German Schools.

1081. A MAN AT PRAYER.

_Unknown_ (Early Flemish: 15th century).

Probably a portrait of the donor of an altar-piece, of which this picture formed one compartment.

1082. THE VISIT OF THE MADONNA TO ST. ELIZABETH.

_Joachim Patinir_ (Early Flemish: died 1524). _See 715._

1083. CHRIST CROWNED WITH THORNS.

_Unknown_ (Early Flemish: 15th century).
_See also_ (p. xx)

1084. THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT.

_Joachim Patinir_ (Early Flemish: died 1524). _See 715._

1085. VIRGIN AND CHILD.

_Unknown_ (School of the Lower Rhine: 15th century).
_See also_ (p. xx)

A picture of the same school as 706, but the Flemish influence is here more discernible. In the background is a church lighted from within. The heads are very ugly (notice the saint in the left compartment), but the execution, especially of the accessories, is very delicate.

1086. CHRIST APPEARING AFTER HIS RESURRECTION.

_Unknown_ (Early Flemish: 15th century).
_See also_ (p. xx)

Notice the empty tomb, visible through the half-opened door in the background--with the Roman soldier asleep beside, and an angel above it.

1087. THE MOCKING OF CHRIST.

_Unknown_ (Early German: 15th century).

Sir Martin Conway says of the Lyversberg Passion what is equally applicable to this picture, and indeed to most of the German art of the same period (_cf. e.g._ 1049). "The Passion, as conceived by this painter, was a scene for the display of brutality rather than the exhibition of heroism. The enduring Christ is not the subject of the pictures, but the torturing villains that surround him. The figure of Christ does not dominate the rest; the vile element seems always victorious" (_Early Flemish Artists_, p. 202).

1088. THE CRUCIFIXION.

_Unknown_ (German School: 16th century).

An altar-piece in three compartments. On the side panels are two figures, probably the donor and his wife, kneeling.

1089. MADONNA AND CHILD WITH ST. ELIZABETH.

_Unknown_ (Early Flemish: 15th century).

1090. PAN AND SYRINX.

_François Boucher_ (French: 1704-1770).

Boucher, "the Anacreon of Painting," was the typical
painter-decorator of the Louis-quinze period. He painted (as
Mr. Dobson sings in _Old World Idylls_)--

Rose-water Raphael,--_en couleur de rose_,
The crowned Caprice, whose sceptre, nowise sainted,
Swayed the light realm of ballets and bon-mots;
Ruled the dim boudoir's _demi-jour_, or drove
Pink-ribboned flocks through some pink-flowered grove.

Made of his work a kind of languid Maying,
Filled with false gods and muses misbegot;--
A Versailles Eden of cosmetic youth,
Wherein most things went naked, save the Truth.

Boucher is represented by no less than 21 canvases at Hertford
House, some of them of considerable historical interest. For
Boucher owed much to the favour of Madame de Pompadour, who
purchased in 1753 the two fine pictures of "Sunrise" and
"Sunset" now at Hertford House. In the same collection are
the idyllic and erotic subjects with which Boucher decorated
the boudoir at the Hôtel de l'Arsenal in which the Pompadour
was wont to receive her royal lover. He also painted several
portraits of the all-powerful favourite, whom he instructed in
the art of etching; one of these portraits is also at Hertford
House. Boucher was the son of a designer for embroideries. He
spent some years in Rome, but returned to Paris untouched by
the great works he had seen. He suited his art to the taste of
the time, and had his reward in reaping considerable wealth by
his productions, which, including drawings for the engravers,
he poured forth in thousands. In 1755 he became inspector
of the Gobelins, an appointment which he resigned in 1765
on becoming first painter to the king. Sir Joshua Reynolds
describes a visit to Boucher, whom he found "at work on a very
large picture without drawings or models of any kind." Sir
Joshua allows, however, to some of his earlier works, "grace
and beauty and good skill in composition." His easy execution
and often dainty colour are also admired. He was the idol of
his day, but his meretricious art was the subject of very
pungent criticism from the not very austere Diderot.[211]

For another version of the same subject, see 659.

1002. ST. SEBASTIAN.

_Zaganelli_ (Ferrarese: about 1500).

The only known work by a master who signs himself Bernardino
(of) Cotignola (in the Duchy of Ferrara). He was a brother of
Francesco Zaganelli, and is believed to have worked towards the
end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century.

This picture formed the chief panel of an altar-piece formerly in the church of the Carmine at Pavia, and thus described by Bartoli:

In the twelfth chapel (is) an ancient picture divided into
six compartments, of which the three larger exhibit, in the
centre St. Sebastian, and at the sides St. Nicholas and St.
Catherine of Alexandria, while the three smaller which are
above represent the body of the Redeemer supported by two
angels in the centre, and at the sides the Virgin Mary and the
Announcing Angel. This (altar-piece) is the work of Bernardino
da Cotignola, who has affixed to it his name on a feigned label.

For the story of St. Sebastian, see under 669.

1093. OUR LADY OF THE ROCKS.

_Leonardo da Vinci_ (Florentine: 1452-1519).

There is no more fascinating and illustrious name in the annals
of art than Leonardo, of Vinci, a town in the Val d'Arno below
Florence. He has been well called, from the many-sidedness of
his efforts, the Faust of the Renaissance. The great public
which knows him best by his few pictures and many drawings does
not always remember that he was also musician, critic, poet,
sculptor, architect, mechanist, mathematician, philosopher,
and explorer. In a letter addressed to Ludovico il Moro,
Prince of Milan, in whose service he lived for sixteen years
(1483-1499), he enumerates as his chief qualification his
skill in military engineering, and throws in his art as an
incidental accomplishment. "I will also undertake any work in
sculpture, in marble, in bronze, or in terra-cotta; likewise
in painting I can do what may be done as well as any man, be
he who he may." The range and amount alike of his theoretical
discoveries and practical ingenuities were extraordinary. He
divined the circulation of the blood. He anticipated Copernicus
in propounding the theory of the earth's movement. He declared
that "motion was the cause of all life." He forestalled
Lamarck's classification of vertebrate and invertebrate. He
takes his place, in virtue of his researches into rocks and
fossils, with the masters of modern science who have proclaimed
the continuity of geological causes. He was the first inventor
of screw propulsion. He made paddle-wheels. He attacked the
problem of aerial navigation. He invented swimming belts. He
anticipated by many years the invention of the camera obscura.
He was great alike as a civil and a military engineer. He
watered the Lombard plain by the invention of sluices; he
was one of the first to recommend the use of mines for the
destruction of forts, and he anticipated the inventions of
our time in suggesting breech-loading guns and mitrailleuses.
He shrank neither from the highest speculations nor from the
humblest contrivances. For centuries after his death the
burghers of Milan minced meat for their sausages with machines
invented by the painter of "Monna Lisa."

This marvellous curiosity in science and invention could
not but profoundly influence Leonardo's work as an artist.
One result is as obvious as it was unfortunate. He paid the
penalty of versatility in undertaking more than he could
fulfil. His dilatoriness is well known. He went once to Rome,
but the Pope, Leo X., offended him by exclaiming, "Ah! this
man will never do anything; he thinks of the end before the
beginning of his work" (He had made elaborate preparations
for varnishing his picture before he began it.) Many of his
works were thus unfinished, and others, owing to premature
experiments in material, are ruined--especially his famous Last
Supper at Milan, of which there is an original drawing at the
Royal Academy. "Leonardo's oil painting," says Ruskin,--not,
however, without a touch of exaggeration--"is all gone black
or to nothing." "Because Leonardo made models of machines,
dug canals, built fortifications, and dissipated half his
art-power in capricious ingenuities, we have many anecdotes
of him;--but no picture of importance on canvas, and only a
few withered stains of one upon a wall" (_Queen of the Air_, §
157). But Leonardo's curiosity, his wide outlook, his sense of
the immensities, added something to his art which otherwise it
might not have contained, and which is intensely characteristic
of it. Who, for instance, has ever penetrated the secret of
Leonardo's smile?--of the ineffable, mysterious, plaintive,
and haunting smile that has fascinated and perplexed the world
century after century in the portrait of La Gioconda? That
unfathomable smile, with so much of mystery and with something
of weirdness in it, was the reflection of Leonardo's mind,
which had explored the depths and heights, and ever came back
from the pursuit with the sense of the inscrutable Mystery
beyond. "What is that," he asks, "which does not give itself to
human comprehension, and which, if it did, would not exist? It
is the infinite, which, if it could so give itself, would be
done and ended." In the "Last Supper," says M. Müntz, "he had
realised his ideal." Leonardo himself would not have said so.
His was one of those lofty minds before which an unattainable
ideal ever hovers. "It is of a truth impossible," said a friend
of the master to him, "to conceive of faces more lovely and
gentle than those of St. James the Great and St. James the
Less. Accept thy misfortune, therefore, and leave thy Christ
imperfect as He is, for otherwise, when compared with the
Apostles, He would not be their Saviour and Master." Leonardo
took the advice, and never finished the head of Christ. But he
fixed the outward type of Christ for succeeding generations.
Apart from the credit due to Leonardo as an ennobler of style
in art, he stands out further in the history of painting as the
first who investigated the laws of light and shade. There are
"three methods of art, producing respectively linear designs,
effects of light, and effects of colour. In preparing to draw
any object, you will find that practically you have to ask
yourself, Shall I aim at the colour of it, the light of it,
or the lines of it? The best art comes so near nature as in a
measure to unite all. But the best art is not, and cannot be,
as good as nature; and the mode of its deficiency is that it
must lose some of the colour, some of the light, or some of
the delineation. And in consequence, there is one great school
which says, 'We will have delineation, and as much colour and
shade as are consistent with it.' Another, which says, 'We
will have shade, and as much colour and delineation as are
consistent with it.' The third, 'We will have the colour, and
as much light and delineation as are consistent with it.' The
second class, the Chiaroscurists, are essentially draughtsmen
with chalk, charcoal, or single tints. Many of them paint, but
always with some effort and pain. Leonardo is the type of them"
(compressed from _Ariadne Florentina_, §§ 18-21).

To his artistic genius and intellectual alertness, Leonardo
added great personal beauty ("the radiance of his countenance,
which was splendidly beautiful, brought cheerfulness," says
Vasari, "to the heart of the most melancholy") and great
physical strength. He could bend a door-knocker, we are told,
or a horse-shoe as if it were lead. He was left-handed and
wrote from right to left. Besides his physical strength,
Vasari mentions his kindness and gentleness, and tells us
how he would frequently buy caged birds from the dealers, in
order to give them back their liberty. Scandalous accusations
were at one time brought against him, but researches made
in the archives during the last few years have effectually
disposed of the charge. One curious trait in the character
of Leonardo remains to be noticed. In his art he created a
feminine type of extraordinary and haunting beauty. "And yet,"
says his latest biographer, "Leonardo, like Donatello, was
one of those exceptionally great artists in whose life the
love of woman seems to have played no part.... The delights
of the mind sufficed him. He himself proclaimed it in plain
terms. _Cosa bella mortal passa e non arte._' Fair humanity
passes, but art endures.'" This extraordinary man was the son
of a peasant-mother, Caterina, and was born out of wedlock,
his father being a Florentine notary; and amongst Leonardo's
manuscripts is a record of a visit to Caterina in the hospital,
who soon after his father's death had married in her own
station, and of expenses paid for her funeral. His life has
three divisions--thirty years at Florence, nearly twenty years
at Milan, then nineteen years of wandering, till he sinks to
rest under the protection of the King of France. (1) Leonardo
was the pupil of Verrocchio (see 296), "a master well chosen,
for in his earnest and discursive mind were many points of
contact with that of his illustrious pupil." Leonardo seems
to have retained his connection with Verrocchio until 1477,
but the records of his Florentine period are very scanty. His
earliest undoubted work is the unfinished "Adoration" in the
Uffizi. To this period also belongs the head of the "Medusa" in
that collection, celebrated in Shelley's verses--a work, says
Mr. Pater, in which "the fascination of corruption penetrates
in every touch its exquisitely finished beauty." (2) In 1483
Leonardo removed to Milan to take service with Ludovico Sforza.
He served his patron in those multifarious ways for which
his talents fitted him,--as musician and improvisatore, as
director of court pageants, as sculptor, painter, and civil
and military engineer. To this Milanese period belong two of
the master's most celebrated productions--the present picture
and the "Last Supper," executed in oil colours on an end wall
of the refectory in the Dominican Convent of S. Maria della
Grazia. At Milan, Leonardo founded the famous Vincian Academy
of Arts over which he presided, which attracted so many pupils,
and which may be said to have established a new Milanese
School. For his Academy he made the elaborate notes for a
Treatise on Painting which were posthumously published.(3) In
1500, consequent upon the flight of the Duke before the French
army, Leonardo left Milan and returned to Florence. His stay,
however, was not long, for he took service for a time with
Cæsar Borgia as architect and military engineer. He was again
in Florence in 1503, and was commissioned with Michelangelo to
paint the Hall of Council in the Palace of the Signory. His
subject was the Battle of Anghiari. The painting was begun
but never completed. The cartoon, now lost, remained and
excited the greatest admiration, "The man who had presented
the solemn moment of the Last Supper with a dignity and pathos
never equalled, who could portray feminine loveliness with
a sweetness and grace peculiar to his pencil, was no less
successful in bringing before the eye the turmoil of battle and
the fierce passions inspired by the struggle for victory." One
great work of his of this period (1504) happily survives--the
famous portrait of Monna Lisa, known as La Gioconda, in the
Louvre. For the next ten years (1506-1516), Leonardo alternated
between Milan, Florence, and Rome. Other works of this period
are the "St. Anne" and "St. John," also in the Louvre. In 1516
he accompanied the French King, Francis I., to France, who
lodged him and his faithful friend Melzi in the Château de
Cloux, near Amboise. Three years later he died, having made
his will (the text of which has recently been discovered) a
week before the end--"considering the certainty of death and
the uncertainty of the hour, of its approach." He was buried,
by his own instructions, in the church of St. Florentin at
Amboise. Of Leonardo as a young man, no authentic portraits
exist. In the Royal Collection at Windsor and at Turin there
are portraits of himself in red chalk; and on the Sacro Monte
at Varallo, one of Gaudenzio Ferrari's sculptured figures
is a portrait of the great master. Leonardo's drawings are
very beautiful and numerous--the Windsor Collection being the
richest; they show us with what infinite searching the master
drew near to his ideals. The picture before us makes upon the
spectator the impression of rapid and spontaneous creation;
but the drawings for it show that it was in fact one of the
most laborious of Leonardo's works (see on this subject Müntz's
_Leonardo da Vinci_, i. 162 in the English translation. This
is the best life of the master. The most penetrative study of
Leonardo remains Mr. Pater's, in his _Renaissance_).

This beautiful picture is very characteristic of Leonardo in its effects of light and shade, in grace and refinement of delineation, in felicity of gesture, and in the curious beauty of the types. Leonardo makes out of his subject a charming idyll, into which the spectator may read his own meanings. "In St. John the Baptist," says Lomazzo, writing in 1584, "we may see the motive of obedience and child like veneration, as he kneels with joined hands and bends towards Christ; in the Virgin, the feeling of happy meditation as she beholds this act; in the angel, the idea of angelic gladness, as he ponders the joy that shall come to the world from this mystery; and in the Infant Christ we behold divinity and wisdom. And therefore the Virgin kneels, holding St. John with her right hand and extending her left, and the angel likewise supports Christ, who, seated, regards St. John and blesses him." A modern poet, adding to the picture a beautiful thought of his own, has suggested that in the valley of the shadow of death the Virgin brings the soul of a dead child for her son's blessing (see an interesting discussion of "The Louvre Sonnets of Rossetti," by W. M. Hardinge, in _Temple Bar_, March 1891):--

Mother, is this the darkness of the end,
The Shadow of Death? and is that outer sea
Infinite imminent Eternity?[212]
And does the death-pang by man's seed sustain'd
In Time's each instant cause thy face to bend
Its silent prayer upon the Son, while He
Blesses the dead with His hand silently
To His long day which hours no more offend?
Mother of grace, the pass is difficult,
Keen as these rocks, and the bewildered souls
Throng it like echoes, blindly shuddering through.
Thy name, O Lord, each spirit's voice extols,
Whose peace abides in the dark avenue
Amid the bitterness of things occult.