Chapter D: G. ROSSETTI: Early Italian Poets (8)

Joseph Israels, the head of the modern Dutch School and a
painter of world-wide reputation, has been called "The Dutch
Millet," and "a modern Rembrandt"; and the phrases serve to
indicate his characteristics, and his place in the development
of modern art. He essayed to do what Rembrandt had done
triumphantly two centuries before: to paint "not accidents,
but life itself." He made in Dutch art the same departure that
Millet made in French: he turned from conventional themes and
motives to the life around him. Like Millet, Israels made a
false start in art. He went to Paris in 1845, entered the
École des Beaux-Arts, showing "Achilles and Patroclus" as his
probationary drawing, and on his return to Amsterdam in 1848
began to paint, as Delaroche had taught him, "historical"
scenes, Calabrian brigands, and other subjects in "the grand
style." His health broke down, and he was ordered change of
scene. At Zandvoort, a small fishing village near Haarlem,
he found his Barbizon. "He lodged with a ship's carpenter,
took part in all the usages of his house-mates, and began to
perceive amid these new surroundings that the events of the
present are capable of being painted, that the sorrows of the
poor are as deep as the tragical fate of ancient heroes, that
everyday life is as poetic as any historical subject, and that
nothing suggests richer moods of feeling than the interior of a
fishing-hut, bathed in tender light and harmonious in colour.
This residence of several months in a distant little village
led him to discover his calling, and determined his future
career" (Muther). He was a devoted Jew, with a deep interest
in the life and character of those of his race who abound in
Holland. Among them, and among the Dutch toilers of the sea, he
found his vocation, in painting the tragedy, the pathos, or the
simple domestic joys of humble working folk. He did this with a
technical mastery and with rare insight. His power of pathetic
expression is remarkable; and over his work a spirit of soft
tenderness is suffused. Many, perhaps most, of his pictures
are sombre, but he had an eye for youth and hope, as well as
age and sorrow, and few artists have painted children with so
much sympathy. His method is broad and simple; his pictures
having unity of effect, and telling their own story with great
directness.

Joseph Israels was born at Gröningen, in the north of Holland,
and for a time was occupied in his father's business as a
money-changer, but he was encouraged to draw. In 1844 he went
to Amsterdam, and entered the studio of Jan Kruseman. Then, as
already related, came his student-years in Paris, and his false
start as an historical painter. In 1855 he was represented at
the Paris Exhibition by an historical picture of the Prince
of Orange. In 1857 he showed at the Salon "Children by the
Sea" and "Evening on the Beach." This change of subject marks
the true start in an artistic career which was continuously
successful, and which was prolonged into extreme old age. In
1862 his picture of "The Shipwrecked Mariner" (see below,
2732) created a sensation at the International Exhibition in
London. In 1863 he married and settled down in a house midway
between The Hague and Scheveningen, facing the canal. "Here the
boats with their loads of herrings pass slowly along, so that
the painter has only to look out of the front windows of his
house in order to see the very men and women, the boats and
towing-ropes, that figure in his canvases. His work is done
in a studio in his garden; here he has a glass house, in which
he paints his open-air figures, and has likewise fitted up a
corner of an old Dutch cottage, so that open-air scenes and
interiors may be as lifelike as it is possible for an artist to
render them. As you enter this studio, you perceive a little
old gentleman at work, dressed in a brown velvet coat. His hair
is silvery white, and his somewhat pale face is lit up with the
kindliest of smiles. He speaks five or six languages in the
pleasantest voice imaginable, and English is one of them."

Personally, Israels was one of the most breezy of men, full of
life and vigour, genial and accessible: "as fresh in mind as a
youngster in his teens, as versatile as he is amiable, able and
always ready to talk on every conceivable subject of interest,
ever contributing some caustic and pointed comment, yet never
assuming the dictatorial and self-opinionated manner which
genius often considers itself privileged to adopt. His modesty,
his unfailing amiability to all, young and old, distinguished
and insignificant, have served to endear Joseph Israels to all
who come in contact with him. He does not care to talk much
about his own achievements, but he is less reticent about those
of his son Isaac, who, he declares, is a greater artist than
himself." These _personalia_ are quoted from notices which
appeared in connection with the artist's 75th birthday (in
the _Daily News_ and in _Israel_). He had still twelve years
of life; and "his was the rare satisfaction of the man who,
beginning in advance of his time, creates his own public, and
sees it growing stronger, larger, and more devoted as he passes
from youth to middle life and thence to extreme old age. He
was not consciously the founder of a school, but he had many
close followers, and the modern Dutch painters, who are now so
fashionable, owe their fundamental ideas to him" (_Times_, Aug.
15, 1911).

There are passages in Browning's _Grammarian's Funeral_ which will suggest themselves to many readers as they study this picture of an old student writing by the light of a single candle. The picture may be compared with an earlier Dutch one of a like subject--"The Philosopher," by Bega (1481).

2714. GRANDFATHER'S BIRTHDAY.

_Isabey_ (French: 1804-1886).

Eugène Gabriel Isabey (by whom there are several pictures in
the Wallace Collection) was born in Paris, the son of the
celebrated miniature-painter, Jean-Baptiste Isabey. He first
appeared as a genre painter; and "amid the group of Classicists
of his time, he had (says Dr. Muther) the effect of a beautiful
patch of colour." He afterwards took to sea painting, having
in 1830 accompanied the French expedition to Algiers as marine
draughtsman.

A characteristic example of the elegant facility with which the painter rendered scenes involving gay attire.

2715. FISH MARKET, DIEPPE.

_Isabey_ (French: 1804-1886).

2723, 2724. LANDSCAPES.

Ascribed to _G. Poussin_ (French: 1613-1675). _See_ 31.

These landscapes, only recently included in the official numbering of the collection, were presented by Mr. P. Pusey in 1849.

2725. CHRIST BLESSING.

_Benedetto Diana_ (Venetian: died 1525).

"If Benedetto be the painter of the fine picture of 'Christ
at Emmaus,' in the church of St. Salvatore, Venice, still
attributed in the guidebooks to Giovanni Bellini, he must have
been an artist of no ordinary merit, and one who gradually,
from an unpromising commencement of his artistic career,
attained a high place among the followers of the master. A
half-length figure, larger than life, of the Saviour in the
act of blessing, signed with the painter's name, in private
possession at Venice, although in a very damaged condition, has
a grand and impressive character not unworthy of Bellini, to
whom, as to other Venetian masters of note, many works by Diana
in sundry collections are ascribed. He was employed with the
two Bellini and Alvise Vivarini in decorating the hall of the
Ducal Palace" (Layard's ed. of Kugler, 1887, p. 333).

2727. LE PONT DE LA TOURNELLE, PARIS.

_Stanislas Lapine_ (French: 1836-1892).

Born at Caen; studied under Corot; exhibited at the Salon from
1859.

The Church of Notre Dame in the middle distance.

2731. LANDSCAPE.

_W. Buitenweg_ (Dutch: 1590-1630).

William Buitenweg, or Buytewech, best known for his landscape
drawings, was born at Rotterdam; married at Haarlem in 1613,
and in 1625 returned to Rotterdam.

2732. THE SHIPWRECKED MARINER.

_Joseph Israels_ (Dutch: 1824-1911). _See 2713._

This celebrated picture--one by which the master often said he would like to be judged--created a great sensation at the International Exhibition of 1862. It was, said one critic, the most moving picture in the exhibition; before it, said another, crowds daily linger. The storm has passed, the waves have subsided, the greyish-black thunderclouds have vanished, and greenish, pallid sky smiles upon the earth once more. But upon the waves a shattered boat still rocks, and men and women and children have come down to see what victim may have been cast up by the tide--"For men must work, and women must weep, Though storms be sudden, and waters deep, And the harbour bar be moaning." Two fishermen reverently bear home the body of their dead comrade. His disconsolate wife and two awestruck children walk in front, and his old mother beside him. A man with a boat-hook, a woman pointing to the wreck on the reef, and others follow the procession, in the rear of which is the pathetic figure of a dog.

2757. TARTARUS: A SATIRICAL DESIGN.

_James Callot_ (French: 1593-1635).

"A curious and fantastic composition (in Indian ink), by a
celebrated engraver and draughtsman, in which it would seem
that the artist intended to satirise the ecclesiastic factions
rife in France during the minority of Louis XIII. Under the
vault of a huge cave, round the upper part of which evil
spirits and harpies are sporting, several figures are grouped.
In the centre of the foreground two Jesuits are derided by
demons. On the right, Cerberus, chained to a rock, guards the
entrance to Hell, while an armed warrior (Louis XIII.) stands
near with his back to the spectator. On the left is Death,
surrounded by his victims and the Vices. In the middle distance
Charon is crossing the Styx with his boat full of passengers,
whom a crowd on the shore vainly endeavour to join. Beyond are
represented the tortures of the condemned, among whom Ixion,
Tityus, the Danaides, and other mythological personages are
conspicuous. The armorial bearings introduced on the lower
edge of the drawing are supposed to be those of M. de Boyer of
Baudot, who is said to have suggested the design" (_Director's
Report_, 1884). The artist's independence of character is
recorded in a familiar anecdote. He was witness to the siege
and capitulation of his native town, Nancy, in 1633, and the
French king called on him to engrave a plate commemorative of
the occurrence. When he declined, some of the courtiers are
said to have remarked to the artist that there were means to
make him comply. He replied that he would sooner cut off his
right hand than employ it in such a work; a speech which, being
reported to the king, led him to say that the Dukes of Lorraine
were fortunate in the possession of such subjects.

2758. A SQUALL FROM THE WEST.

_Louis Eugène Boudin_ (French: 1825-1898). _See 2078._

2759. STORMY LANDSCAPE.

_George Michel_ (French: 1763-1843). _See 2258._

2764. A FAMILY GROUP.

Ascribed to _Jan Vermeer_ (Dutch: 1632-1675).

This picture once formed part of No. 1699; the right arm of the seated child and the tablecloth here are continued there.

2767. THE SEA.

_Gustave Courbet_ (French: 1819-1877).

Courbet is famous in the history of modern French painting as
the first of the "realists"; he is the Caravaggio of France,
full of force and vigour, but often somewhat coarse and brutal.
His landscapes and seapieces will probably be esteemed more
highly by posterity than his realistic works. He was, says Dr.
Muther, "the first French painter of sea-pieces, who had a
feeling for the sombre majesty of the sea. His very quietude
is expressive of majesty; his peace is imposing, his smile
grave; and his caress is not without a menace." Courbet was
a revolutionary in politics, as in art. In September 1870 he
was appointed Director of the Fine Arts by the Provisional
Government, and he afterwards joined the Commune. He was
instrumental in saving many works of art, but he ordered the
destruction of the Column in the Place Vendôme. For this he was
brought before a court-martial and sentenced to six months'
imprisonment. Afterwards, in a civil action, he was cast in
heavy damages; his furniture and pictures were sold; and he
retired to Switzerland. He died at La Tour, Vevay, a ruined
man.

2790. THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI.

_Mabuse_ (Flemish: about 1470-1541). _See 656._

This famous picture was acquired for the National Gallery from Rosalind, Countess of Carlisle, in 1911, for £42,776.[262] The picture was painted in about the year 1500 for the Abbey of Grammont in East Flanders. In 1600 it was bought for 2000 florins by the Archduke Albert to decorate the high altar of the Court Chapel in Brussels. A story which is recorded of it in those days is a tribute to its bright attractiveness. During Lent it used to be concealed by the hanging in front of it of a picture of the Crucifixion as less likely to interfere with the penitential thoughts proper to the season. In the 18th century the picture passed into the collection of Prince Charles of Lorraine, Governor-General of the Netherlands, and thence into that of the fifth Earl of Carlisle. For more than a century it remained at Castle Howard, and many connoisseurs who saw it there wrote of it as one of the chief art-treasures of Great Britain. "I do not think," wrote W. Bürger (Thoré), "that there is anywhere else a picture by Mabuse so brilliant, so well preserved, so _capital_ as the Adoration of the Kings, belonging to the Earl of Carlisle." "For variety of character, glow of colour, and finished execution, quite unsurpassed," said Mrs. Jameson of it.

The pride of the artist himself in his work is shown by the fact that he has signed his name upon it in two places--_i.e._ on the head-dress of Balthasar, the black king, and on the metal collar of his attendant. The signature Jennin Gossart (diminutive, Little John), was that under which Mabuse was inscribed as a member of the Guild of St. Luke at Antwerp. In the history of Flemish art the picture is of interest as one of the last works painted before the "Italianising" influence became marked. It is one of the finest specimens of Mabuse's first period (see under 656); but it will be noticed that the architecture of the ruin is no longer Gothic, but already shows the influence of the Renaissance. The picture is after 400 years in perfect preservation. It has an artistic unity, for the parts are subordinated to the whole; but it is full of incident, which adds not a little to its attractiveness and curious interest.

The Adoration of the Magi affords a remarkable instance of the way in which the Bible text, first expounded by Church legends, was then embroidered by the painters; and this example of "evolution in art" may be studied very fully in the National Gallery, which contains pictures of the subject painted in various schools and at various periods. The starting-point of the whole development is the second chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel where it is related that "wise men came from the East to Jerusalem"; that a star guided them to Bethlehem; and that "when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down and worshipped him; and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts--gold, and frankincense, and myrrh." Legend set itself to work on this narrative. The Wise Men, it was decided, were three in number; and the Psalmist's prediction--"the Kings of Tarshish and of the Isles shall bring presents, the Kings of Sheba and Saba shall offer gifts"--showed that the Magi were kings. Later writers identified their realms as Tarsus, Saba, and Nubia; whence one of the kings is commonly represented as a Moor or Nubian. Their names also became known--Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthasar. Further developments of the legend--how their remains were discovered by the Empress Helena at Constantinople, and taken by Milan to Cologne--do not here concern us; it will be seen that by the time art was ready to take up the story, the painters had much material around which to let their fancy play.

The earlier painters in each school treated the story simply. Then as technical resources increased, and artistic effect rather than mere religious instruction became the motive, the theme was ever more and more expanded, until it became the most gorgeously rendered of all the Gospel scenes. Many readers will remember the severe and simple treatment of the subject by Giotto in the Arena Chapel at Padua; with which may be compared in our gallery Orcagna's small picture (574). If the visitor after looking at that will turn to the splendid pageant (1033), with its seventy figures, by Botticelli (or Filippino Lippi), he will see at a glance how the theme became embroidered and enlarged. The picture by Fra Angelico (582) represents an intermediate stage. A similar contrast may be noted in the Flemish room. The picture attributed to David (1079) is simple, earnest, and homely; far less gorgeous and various than the Mabuse. The fact is that, in the more elaborate pictures of the subject, it was taken as an excuse or occasion for displaying whatever elements of pomp or circumstance appealed to the individual artist. Thus Peruzzi (167 and 218) elaborates the architecture and the horses, and introduces portraits. The Tuscans made out of the subject a Florentine pageant. Mabuse's picture is interesting, amongst other reasons, as a kind of epitome of the arts and crafts of his time. Note, for instance, the cups and chalices in which the kings bring their presents; their jewelled robes and head-dresses; and, for a minor detail, the pretty bag worn by the Black King's page: it might well be copied for a lady's reticule to-day.

No less remarkable than the variety of treatment in pictures of the Magi is the large measure of uniformity of type which may be found in them all. A few remarks on these common elements, which were for the most part symbolic, will serve the double purpose of directing attention to further details in Mabuse's picture and of connecting it with other examples in the Gallery. The _scene_ of the drama is in the earliest pictures a stable or a shed; in the later, it is almost invariably the ruins of a temple or other ancient building--a symbol of the triumph of Christianity over paganism. The ox and the ass will be noticed among the ruins here, and the shepherds are seen approaching. The idea is to mark the event as a manifestation alike to the Jews (the shepherds) and to the Gentiles (the Magi). Angels hover above, singing the "Gloria in Excelsis," and the composition is crowned by the Star with the Dove. The _background_ almost invariably includes a mountainous landscape, through which the retinue of the kings may be discerned winding its way--a reminder that they journeyed from a far country. This is a feature, indicated sufficiently by Mabuse, which may be seen more emphasised in the picture by Foppa (729). The _Kings_ are nearly always shown as old, middle-aged, and young respectively, and one of them is black: when the Gentiles were called to salvation, all ages, continents, and races were included. In Mabuse's picture the equality of the races is emphasised in a further way; the Black King, conspicuous on the left, has his train borne by a white page. The eldest of the kings offers a vase of gold, out of which Christ has taken a piece, which He holds in His hand. The king uncovers his head. "To most mediæval painters the Adoration envisages itself essentially as an act of feudal homage." Conspicuous in the foreground are two _dogs_. "The one on the right," says the Official Catalogue, "is similar to a dog by Albert Dürer in his engraving of St. Eustace, that on the left is reversed from a print by Martin Schongauer." The dog is often thus included in the "Adoration"; as, for instance, in one of the earliest (Orcagna, 574) and in one of the latest (Peruzzi, 218) of our versions; and everybody will have noticed how frequently in other religious pictures also the dog is introduced. "This custom of putting either the dog, or some inferior animal, to be either in contrast, or modest companionship, with the nobleness of human form and thought, is," says Ruskin, "a piece of what may be called mental comparative anatomy, which has its beginning very far back in art" (_Eagle's Nest_, ch. 8; see also _Modern Painters_, vol. v. pt. ix. chs. 3, 6). The place of _Joseph_ in the scene differs a good deal in different pictures, for the early legends varied. Orcagna (574) shows him receiving one of the presents from the hands of the Child: he plays, as it were, the part of royal treasurer or chamberlain. Dosso Dossi (640) shows him kneeling in the background. In the present picture he stands, in a red dress, under an archway, listening devoutly to the heavenly harmony. All the _figures_ in Mabuse's picture (there are some thirty) will repay examination. The Virgin's expression is well given; and, as a study in contrasts, the reverent figures behind the kneeling king may be compared with the man on the extreme left who, catching hold of a pillar, is leaning out in curiosity to see the sights. There is much other detail which might be described--the plants, for instance, in the foreground and on the ruins; but enough has been said to indicate the wealth and variety of interest which is to be found in this picture.

2856. A CAVALIER AND A LADY.

_Pieter Quast_ (Dutch: 1606-1647).

Quast was a painter and engraver of The Hague; his pictures are
in the style of Brouwer and Isaac van Ostade.

2862. ST. JOHN GUALBERTO.

_Lorenzo Monaco_ (Florentine: 1370-1425). _See 1897._

This picture represents St. John Gualberto, the Florentine (died 1073), establishing the Order of the Vallombrosans, whose proper habit is of a pale ash colour. He was Abbot of San Miniato, from which he retired to Vallombrosa, establishing there the Order called after the place of its original home.

2863. VIRGIN AND CHILD, WITH ANGELS.

School of _Benozzo Gozzoli_ (Florentine: 1420-1497). _See 283._

FOOTNOTES:

[38] It is worth noting that a similar incident (which in this picture has greatly shocked some of the critics) is introduced in Orcagna's great fresco of the Triumph of Death. "The three kings of the German legend are represented looking at the three coffins containing three bodies of kings, such as themselves, in the last stage of corruption.... Orcagna disdains both poetry and taste; he wants the _facts_ only; he wishes to give the spectator the same lesson that the kings had, and, therefore, instead of concealing the dead bodies, he paints them with the most fearful detail. And then, he does not consider what the three kings might most gracefully do. He considers only what they actually, in all probability, _would have done_. He makes them looking at the coffins with a startled stare, and one holding his nose" (_Lectures on Architecture and Painting_, pp. 209, 210).

A comparison of the various opinions expressed on this picture would form a diverting chapter in the history of art criticism. Thus in Kugler's _Handbook_ we are told that it is "in many respects one of the noblest pictures existing"; Sir Henry Cole ("Felix Summerly") called it "doubtless the greatest Italian painting in this country"; Hazlitt said it was "one of the best pictures on so large a scale that he was acquainted with"; Waagen pronounced it to be "the most important specimen of Italian art in England"; Solly called it "the second picture in the world"; and Mrs. Jameson saw in it a combination of "the characteristic power and beauty of the finest school of design and the finest school of colouring in the world." For an equally uncompromising condemnation see Landseer's _Catalogue_, pp. 92-119. It is interesting to note that in some cases the admiration excited by the picture was due to the dirt with which by long neglect and lapse in time it had come to be discoloured. Thus Hazlitt says that "the figure of Lazarus is very fine and bold. The flesh is _well-baked_, _dingy_, and ready to crumble from the touch, when it is liberated from its dread confinement to have life and motion impressed on it again" (_Criticisms on Art_, 1843, p. 9). Thus it was inferred that Sebastiano stooped to the trivial artifice of imparting an appearance of half putrefaction to the exhumed corpse. The absurdity of this criticism is well exposed by Henry Merritt, the famous picture restorer, in his essay on "Dirt and Pictures Separated" (_Art Criticism and Romance_, i. 69). The fact is that the whole picture was sadly darkened with time, and that it had become "embedded beneath a thick covering, compounded of half opaque varnish, patches of modern paint, and dirt." It has only been found possible partly to remove this covering. It may not be uninteresting to add that the picture was a favourite with Charles Darwin. "Many of the pictures in the National Gallery," he wrote, "gave me much pleasure; that of Sebastian del Piombo exciting in me a sense of sublimity" (_Life_, i. 49).

The poet Tennyson was another great admirer of the picture. His son, describing visits with the poet to the National Gallery, says, "he always led the way first of all to the "Raising of Lazarus," by Sebastian del Piombo, and to Titian's "Bacchus and Ariadne."" "The Christ I call Christlike," said Tennyson on one occasion to Carlyle, "is Sebastian del Piombo's in the National Gallery" (_Memoir_, ii. 235). It is possible that the poet may have written the stanzas cited above with his eye on Sebastiano's picture.

[39] "When they went to nature, which I believe to have been a very much rarer practice with them than their biographers would have us suppose, they copied her like children, drawing what they knew to be there, but not what they saw there" (_Modern Painters_, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. ii. ch. iii. § 7).

[40] The "Claude Lorraine glass"--a convex dark, or coloured hand-mirror used to concentrate the features of a landscape in a subdued tone--"gives the objects of nature," says an old writer, "a soft mellow tinge like the colouring of that master."

[41] But Ruskin does not quite keep his promise. "If Claude had been a great man he would not have been so steadfastly set on painting effects of sun; he would have looked at all nature, and at all art, and would have painted sun effects somewhat worse, and nature universally much better" (_Modern Painters_, vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. xviii. § 23).

[42] The passages quoted from Sir F. Burton are to be found in his edition of the Official Catalogue (unabridged) of the Foreign Schools. That work, which occupied the late Director's leisure for many years, is a worthy monument of his wide learning and fastidious taste. A large-paper edition was issued by the Stationery Office in 1892.

[43] See, however, the sunset picture of his predecessor, Bellini (726). Connoisseurs should note that this picture is referred to by Richter as bearing on the vexed question of Palma Vecchio's relation with Titian, and showing that the latter imitated the former rather than _vice versâ_ (_Italian Art in the National Gallery_, p. 85. See also Morelli's _German Galleries_, p. 25).

[44] Called also "Sinon before Priam" (_Æneid_, ii. 79).

[45] The two pictures were bought by the nation in 1834 for £11,550. The sum was then thought a very large one, and the trustees fortified themselves with the opinion of experts. Amongst these Sir David Wilkie, R.A., wrote, "It is certainly a large sum for two pictures; but giving this difficulty its due weight, I would decidedly concur in giving this sum rather than let them go out of the country, considering the rarity of such specimens even in foreign countries, and their excellence as examples of the high school to which they belong, to which it must be the aim of every other school to approach."

[46] The picture is inscribed "Mariage d'Isaac avec Rebecca," but it is a repetition with some variations in detail of the Claude known as _Il Molino_ (The Mill) in the Doria palace at Rome. Ruskin characterises this version of the subject as a "villainous and unpalliated copy." "There is not," he adds, "one touch or line of even decent painting in the whole picture; but as connoisseurs have considered it a Claude, as it has been put in our Gallery for a Claude, and as people admire it every day for a Claude, I may at least presume it has those qualities of Claude in it which are wont to excite the public admiration, though it possesses none of those which sometimes give him claim to it; and I have so reasoned, and shall continue to reason upon it, especially with respect to facts of form, which cannot have been much altered by the copyist" (_Modern Painters_, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. iii. ch. i. § 9, sec. iv. ch. ii. § 8).

[47] The following is the text of this portion of Turner's will: "I give and bequeath unto the Trustees and Directors for the time being of a certain Society or Institution, called the 'National Gallery' or Society, the following pictures or paintings by myself, namely Dido Building Carthage, and the picture formerly in the De Tabley collection. To hold the said pictures or paintings unto the said Trustees and Directors of this said Society for the time being, in trust for the said Institution or Society for ever, subject, nevertheless, to, for, and upon the following reservations and restrictions only; that is to say, I direct that the said pictures or paintings shall be hung, kept, and placed, that is to say, always between the two pictures painted by Claude, The Seaport and Mill." The "picture formerly in the De Tabley collection" is the "Sun rising in a Mist," 479. Turner bought it back at Lord de Tabley's sale at Christie's in 1827 for £514: 10s., and ever afterwards refused to part with it. The other picture, the Carthage (498), was returned unsold from the Academy, and Turner always kept it in his gallery. His friend Chantrey used to make him offers for it, but each time its price rose higher. "Why, what in the world, Turner, are you going to do with the picture?" he asked. "Be buried in it," Turner replied--a remark he often made to other friends.

[48] "So in N. Poussin's 'Phocion' (40) the shadow of the stick on the stone in the right-hand corner, is shaded off and lost, while you see the stick plainly all the way. In nature's sunlight it would have been the direct reverse: you would have seen the shadow black and sharp all the way down; but you would have had to look for the stick, which in all probability would in several places have been confused with the stone behind it" (_ibid._).

[49] Compare on this point G. Poussin's "Abraham and Isaac" (31).

[50] One may compare with Ruskin's description the similar one by Tennyson of a distant view of Monte Rosa--

How faintly-flush'd, how phantom-fair,
Was Monte Rosa, hanging there
A thousand shadowy-pencill'd valleys
And snowy dells in a golden air.

_The Daisy._

[51] "In some of the convents (in Mexico) there still exist, buried alive like the inmates, various fine old paintings ... brought there by the monks" (Dublin National Gallery Catalogue). The Spanish influence gave birth, moreover, to a native Mexican School of painting, said to be of considerable merit.

[52] "Murillo, of all true painters the narrowest, feeblest, and most superficial, for those reasons the most popular" (_Two Paths_, § 57 _n._)--"The delight of vulgar painters (as Murillo) in coarse and slurred painting merely for the sake of its coarseness, opposed to the divine finish which the greatest and mightiest of men disdained not" (_Modern Painters_, vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. i. ch. x. § 3).

[53] The French partiality for Murillo is traditional, dating back to Marshal Soult's time, from whose collection the "Immaculate Conception" was bought. Murillos were his favourite spoils from the Peninsular War. "One day, showing General G---- his gallery in Paris, Soult stopped opposite a Murillo, and said, 'I very much value _that_, as it saved the lives of two estimable persons.' An Aide-de-camp whispered, 'He threatened to have both shot on the spot unless they _gave_ up the picture'" (Ford's _Handbook_).

[54] "He was not a _bad_ painter," continued Ruskin, "but he exercises a most fatal influence on the English School, and therefore I owe him an especial grudge. I have never entered the Dulwich Gallery for fourteen years without seeing at least three copyists before the Murillos. I _never_ have seen _one_ before the Paul Veronese.... I intend some time in my life to have a general conflagration of Murillos." Ruskin would have been relieved to know that of late years at the National Gallery Paul Veronese--and especially his St. Helena--has been very frequently copied.

[55] Amongst the curiosities of criticisms are the differences between experts as to whether this is a morning or an evening effect. Contradictory opinions on the point were submitted to the Select Committee of 1853, but as the picture had been "restored," each side was able to impute the difficulty of deciding to the "ruinous" nature of that operation.

[56] It may be interesting to note on the other side that Dr. Waagen (whose experience of the sea is given under No. 149) finds the waves in this picture to "run high," and to be "extraordinarily deep and full."

[57] Compare for equally defective perspective the covered portico in 30.

[58] Visitors to Venice may like to be reminded that most of Ruskin's criticism upon Tintoret's works there is now easily accessible in (1) _The Relation between Michael Angelo and Tintoret_, (2) _The Stones of Venice_, travellers' edition, and (3) the reissue of the second volume of _Modern Painters_. Mr. Ruskin always accounted his "discovery" of Tintoret as one of the chief works of his life. "I have supplied," he wrote in _Stones of Venice_ (1853), "somewhat copious notices of the pictures of Tintoret, because they are much injured, difficult to read, and entirely neglected by other writers on art." "I say with pride," he wrote in the epilogue to the second volume of _Modern Painters_ (1883), "what it has become my duty to express openly, that it was left to me, and to me alone, first to discern, and then to teach, so far as in this hurried century any such thing _can_ be taught, the excellency and supremacy of five great painters, despised until I spoke of them;--Turner, Tintoret, Luini, Botticelli, and Carpaccio. Despised,--nay, scarcely in any true sense of the word, known." For the Pre-Ruskinian view of Tintoret, the reader may consult Kugler's _Handbook of Painting_.

[59] For an exhaustive and interesting history of the legend see Mr. J. R. Anderson's Supplement to _St. Mark's Rest_. One account, it seems, places both Perseus and St. George in the Nile Delta. Politicians who say that England has gone to Egypt to save that country from itself may perhaps see some significance in this. The superstitious in such things will not forget either that one of Gordon's names was George.

[60] It is proper to mention that most of the critics dispute the genuineness of this picture, and consider it a copy by some scholar or imitator. "It is but a school repetition of a signed picture in The Hermitage, with the omission, however, of a charming figure of St. Catherine." In connection with this disputed point, it may not be out of place to recall the famous forgery in which Andrea himself played the chief part. The Duke of Mantua coveted Raphael's portrait of Leo X., and obtained permission from the Pope to appropriate it. The owner determined to meet force by fraud, and employed Andrea to make a copy which was sent to the Duke as the original. The copy, when at Mantua, deceived even Giulio Romano, who had himself taken part in the execution of the original--a fact which might well induce some modesty of judgment in connoisseurs.

[61] The title usually given to this picture, "Christ Disputing with the Doctors," cannot be correct, for the figure of Christ is too old for an incident which occurred when he was twelve years old.

[62] In the little-known collection in the library of Christ Church, Oxford, there is a powerful but unpleasantly realistic picture of a group in a butcher's shop, by one of the Carracci, which is perhaps a family portrait.

[63] See Blake's _Auguries of Innocence_.

[64] Gaspard was particularly unfaithful to the variety of nature in his representation of leaves (see 98). It is interesting therefore, as showing how long it passed for truth, to note that Lanzi (i. 481) singles out this point for special praise: "Everything that Gaspard expresses is founded in nature; in his leaves he is as various as the trees themselves."

[65] Compare on this point Claude's "Isaac and Rebecca," No. 12.

[66] This anecdote is a modern counterpart of that of Protogenes, the rival of Apelles, who worked continuously, we are told, during the siege of Rhodes by Demetrius Poliorcetes, notwithstanding that the garden in which he painted was in the middle of the enemy's camp. Demetrius, unsolicited, took measures for the painter's safety, and when he was told that one of the masterpieces by Protogenes was in a part of the town exposed to assault, he changed his plan of operations.

[67] "If you live in London you may test your progress _accurately_ by the degree of admiration you feel for the leaves of vine round the head of the Bacchus in Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne" (_Elements of Drawing_, p. 82). Another technical beauty referred to in the same book (p. 77 _n._) is "the points of light on the white flower in the wreath of the dancing child-faun." Similarly, "the wing of the cupid in Correggio's picture (10) is focused to two little grains of white at the top of it." Elsewhere Ruskin calls attention to "the leaves which crown the Bacchus, and the little dancing faun: every turn of the most subtle perspective, and every gradation of colour, is given with the colossal ease and power of the consummate master" (_Academy Notes_, 1855, p. 22).

[68] Ruskin's analysis of Rubens's technical method, which is here omitted as foreign to the scope of this handbook, will be found in his review of Eastlake's _History of Oil Painting_, now reprinted in _On the Old Road_, i. §§ 98-136.

[69] "The conditions of art in Flanders--wealthy, _bourgeois_, proud, free,--were not dissimilar to those of art in Venice. The misty flats of Belgium have some of the atmospheric qualities of Venice. As Van Eyck is to the Vivarini, so is Rubens to Paolo Veronese. This expresses the amount of likeness and difference" (Symonds: _Renaissance_, iii. 265 _n_).

[70] See, for a further instance of this, what is said of Rubens's landscapes below, under 66.

[71] Dr. Elisabeth Denio, in her monograph on Poussin (1899), adduces good reason for altering the commonly accepted date 1594 to 1593.

[72] See _Lanzi_, i. 477, and a paper by Mr. R. Heath in the _Magazine of Art_ for September 1877, where Poussin's theory is illustrated from his pictures in the Louvre. English readers may be reminded that Poussin is particularly well represented in the Dulwich Gallery.

[73] Elsewhere Ruskin says of Poussin, "Whatever he has done has been done better by Titian." Also, "the landscape of Nicolo Poussin shows much power, and is usually composed and elaborated on right principles, but I am aware of nothing that it has attained of new or peculiar excellence; it is a graceful mixture of qualities to be found in other masters in higher degrees. In finish it is inferior to Leonardo's, in invention to Giorgione's, in truth to Titian's, in grace to Raphael's" (_Modern Painters_, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. i. ch. vii. § 14).

[74] "He feared the fascinations of colour, and once wrote from Venice that he must flee from a place where they lured him too much. He did not know how needless was the alarm" (Sir F. Burton).

[75] Constable, who made some studies from this picture, was of the same opinion. In a letter to Fisher he describes it as "a noble Poussin: a solemn, deep, still summer's noon, with large umbrageous trees, and a man washing his feet at a fountain near them. Through the breaks in the trees are mountains, and the clouds collecting about them with the most enchanting effects possible. It cannot be too much to say that this landscape is full of religious and moral feeling" (Leslie's _Life of Constable_, p. 90).

[76] "Hang these pictures in a very strong light," said Rembrandt of his early work. "The smell of paint is not good for the health," he said many years afterwards, when a visitor came close up to one of his later pictures.

[77] Baldwin Brown's _The Fine Arts_, p. 298, where Mr. Whistler's beautiful description of a "nocturne" on the Thames is cited as being in direct artistic descent from Rembrandt. "To Rembrandt," said the late Mr. Wornum (_Epochs of Painting_, 1864, p. 421), "belongs the glory of having first embodied in art and perpetuated [such] rare and beautiful effects of nature" as are referred to above. Ruskin took up the sentence, and replied with characteristic emphasis: "Such effects are indeed rare in nature; but they are not rare, absolutely. The sky, with the sun in it, does not usually give the impression of being dimly lighted through a circular hole; but you may observe a very similar effect any day in your coal-cellar. The light is not Rembrandtesque on the current, or banks, of a river; but it is on those of a drain. Colour is not Rembrandtesque, usually, in a clean house; but is presently obtainable of that quality in a dirty one. And without denying the pleasantness of the mode of progression, which Mr. Hazlitt, perhaps too enthusiastically, describes (in a criticism upon the present picture) as obtainable in a background of Rembrandt's, 'you stagger from one abyss of obscurity to another,' I cannot feel it an entirely glorious speciality to be distinguished, as Rembrandt was, from other great painters, chiefly by the liveliness of his darkness, and the dulness of his light. Glorious or inglorious, the speciality itself is easily and accurately definable. It is the aim of the best painters to paint the noblest things they can see by sunlight. It was the aim of Rembrandt to paint the foulest things he could see--by rushlight,"--a statement from which, of course, deduction must be made, in forming a general idea of Ruskin's estimate, for his appreciation of Rembrandt's portraits. _See_, _e.g._ under 51.

[78] To further understand Rembrandt's principle of choice, contrast that of Veronese. See the passage quoted under No. 26.

[79] Yet Rembrandt's pictures are often more deceptive--look more like reality--than others which are really more true. Why? It is because "people are so much more easily and instinctively impressed by force of light than truth of colour.... Give them the true contrast of light, and they will not observe the false local colour." The references to Ruskin are _Modern Painters_, vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. iii. § 16; vol. iv. pt. v. ch. ii. §§ 11-19; vol. v. pt. ix. ch. vi. § 10; _On the Old Road_, i. 498-505.

[80] Ruskin, writing to the _Times_ in 1847, said of the then condition of the picture: "I have no hesitation in asserting that for the present it is utterly, and for ever partially, destroyed. I am not disposed lightly to impugn the judgment of Mr. Eastlake (that is, the then Keeper and subsequent Director, the late Sir C. L. Eastlake), but this was indisputably of all the pictures in the Gallery that which least required, and least could endure, the process of cleaning. It was in the most advantageous condition under which a work of Rubens can be seen; mellowed by time into more perfect harmony than when it left the easel, enriched and warmed, without losing any of its freshness or energy. The execution of the master is always so bold and frank as to be completely, perhaps even most agreeably, seen under circumstances of obscurity, which would be injurious to pictures of greater refinement; and though this was, indeed, one of his most highly-finished and careful works (to my mind, before it suffered this recent injury, far superior to everything at Antwerp, Malines, or Cologne), this was a more weighty reason for caution than for interference. Some portions of colour have been exhibited which were formerly untraceable; but even these have lost in power what they have gained in definitiveness,--the majesty and preciousness of all the tones are departed, the balance of distances lost. Time may, perhaps, restore something of the glow, but never the subordination; and the more delicate portions of flesh tint, especially the back of the female figure on the left, and of the boy in the centre, are destroyed for ever" (_Arrows of the Chace_, i, 56, 57).

[81] The magnificent portrait No. 52 is by some critics ascribed to Rubens. Van Dyck hardly ever signed his pictures.

[82] Not all artists have learnt from this great work gladly. It was exhibited at the first exhibition of "Old Masters" at the British Institution in 1815, and B. R. Haydon tells the following story: "Lawrence was looking at the Gevartius when I was there, and as he turned round, to my wonder, his face was boiling with rage as he grated out between his teeth, 'I suppose they think we want teaching!'" (_Autobiography_, i. 292).

[83] Such is the tradition. By many modern critics the picture is, on internal evidence, taken away from Van Dyck and given to Rubens. Mr. Watts in the article cited above says: "Attributed to Van Dyck, but hardly, I think, suggesting his work, though it would be difficult to attribute it to any other painter, unless, perhaps, on some occasion Rubens might have been inspired with so fervent a love for art that he forgot his satisfaction in scattering his over-ripe dexterity."

[84] The statement found in many biographies of the painter that he was a brewer is a mistake. It arose from the fact that his daughter married a brewer, and that the painter himself was buried from his son-in-law's brewery.

[85] See _Modern Painters_, vol. v. pt. vii. ch. iv. § 13.

[86] Ruskin (_ibid._, vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. ii. ch. iv. § 16) notices this treatment of Apollo under the head of "Imagination Contemplative," as an instance of an imaginative abstraction "in which the form of one thing is fancifully indicated in the matter of another; as in phantoms and cloud shapes, the use of which, in mighty hands, is often most impressive, as in the cloudy-charioted Apollo of Nicolo Poussin in our own Gallery, which the reader may oppose to the substantial Apollo in Wilson's Niobe," see No. 110.

[87] This figure is specially good. It was to rival this great landscape that James Ward (see 688), as he avows in his autobiography, painted his "Fighting Bulls," now in the South Kensington Museum. "How full of lithe natural movement," says Mr. J. T. Nettleship, "is the man in the foreground, in heavy boots and feathered hat, stooping and creeping towards the covey of partridges under cover of bramble and bush, compared with the clumsy anatomical bulls in Ward's picture" (_George Morland_, p. 54).

[88] Ruskin is here speaking of the somewhat similar "St. George" picture in the Church of St. James at Antwerp.

[89] See also No. 98, in which the tree is said by Ruskin to be "a mere jest" compared to this.

[90] No. 78 was formerly Sir Joshua Reynolds's "Holy Family," on which notes will be found in Volume II. of this Handbook. The picture has now been withdrawn from exhibition and little remains of it, for owing to the excessive use of asphaltum the pigments have disappeared.

[91] "Garofano" is the Italian for "gillyflower" (or clove-pink), and Tisio sometimes painted this flower as his sign-manual (like Mr. Whistler's butterfly).

[92] Authorities differ between this title and "Pan teaching Apollo to play on the pipes." Certainly there is the "Pan's pipe," but then if it is Pan he ought to have goat's legs and horns. The fact that the picture is a companion to "Silenus gathering Grapes" makes also in favour of the description given in the text above.

[93] See also Ruskin's remarks on the companion storm piece, No. 36.

[94] It should be noted that this, as well as very many other pictures, has of late years been cleaned. Thus 98 and 68 (in 1880), 36 and 40 (in 1868), have been "cleaned and varnished." 31 was "relined, repaired, and varnished" in 1878; 161 was "cleaned and repaired" in 1868.

[95] The diminutive title "Il Canaletto" was originally applied to Antonio's nephew and pupil, Bernardo Bellotto, but came to be transferred to Antonio Canale himself. The two Canaletti painted so much alike that their works are not easily distinguished.

[96] Ruskin, on one of his latest visits to the National Gallery (1887), confessed that he had found himself admiring Canaletto. "After all," he said to me, "he was a good workman in oils, whereas so much of Turner's work is going to rack and ruin." Ruskin had made a similar concession long before to Claude. Writing to Mr. Fawkes on the death of Turner, he mentions a rumour that the artist had left only his finished pictures to the nation. "Alas! these are finished in a double sense--nothing but chilled fragments of paint on rotten canvas. The Claudites will have a triumph when they get into the National Gallery" (quoted in _The Nineteenth Century_, April 1900).

[97] An amusing instance of the naïve ignorance of the sea which underlay much of the excessive admiration of Vandevelde is afforded by Dr. Waagen, for many years director of the Berlin Gallery, and author of _Treasures of Art in England_. At the end of a passage describing his "first attempt to navigate the watery paths," he says: "For the first time I understood the truth of these pictures (Bakhuizen's and Vandevelde's), and the refined art with which, by intervening dashes of sunshine, near or at a distance, and _ships to animate the scene_, they produce such a charming variety on the surface of the sea." "For the first time!" exclaims Ruskin (_Arrows of the Chace_, i. 16, 17), "and yet this gallery-bred judge, this discriminator of coloured shreds and canvas patches, who has no idea how ships animate the sea until--charged with the fates of the Royal Academy--he ventures his invaluable person from Rotterdam to Greenwich, will walk up to the work of a man whose brow is hard with the spray of a hundred storms, and characterise it as 'wanting in truth of clouds and waves.'" Dr. Waagen, it should be explained, had, on the strength of his first "navigation of the watery ways" pronounced Turner's works inferior in such truth to Vandevelde. Clearly Dr. Waagen, more fortunate than most of our foreign visitors, had a calm crossing.

[98] It is interesting that another contemporary man of letters, the late Matthew Arnold, singled out these same lines for special praise: "No passage in poetry," he said, "has moved and pleased me more" (_Fortnightly Review_, August 1887, p. 299).

[99] In this town were born two other painters, who are sometimes known by its name. Curiously enough, all three were originally masons.

[100] Ruskin speaks of "the ruffian Caravaggio, distinguished only by his preference of candle-light and black shadows for the illustration and reinforcement of villainy" (_On the Old Road_, i. § 48).

[101] According to Morelli (_Italian Masters in German Galleries_, p. 56 _n._), this familiar tale is legendary, Francia being merely an abbreviation of his Christian name, Francesco. But the painter sometimes signed his name Franciscus Francia, a form which on Morelli's hypothesis would be tautological.

[102] Francia's friendship with Raphael, on which art historians have based many theories and spun many interesting tales, is now discredited, the documents in question being comparatively modern forgeries (see p. 366 of Kugler's _Italian Schools of Painting_, 5th edition, revised by Sir A. H. Layard, 1887, elsewhere referred to as _Layard_).

[103] Vasari's story that Francia died of chagrin on seeing how far the whole work of his own life was transcended by Raphael's picture of St. Cecilia, which was sent to its destination at Bologna about 1516, is hardly credible.

[104] Ruskin said of this picture in 1847: "The attribution to him of the wretched panel which now bears his name is a mere insult" (_Arrows of the Chace_, i. 64). "Petrus Peruginus" is inscribed in gold on the base of the mantle of the Virgin, but the picture may be the work of his disciple, Lo Spagna (see 1032).