Chapter IX: Preface: By John Ruskin (7)

The circumstances under which the picture was painted gave the clue to its meaning. Rubens came to urge Charles to conclude peace, and here on canvas he sets forth its blessings. In the centre of the picture is the Goddess of _Wisdom_, with Minerva's helmet on her head, her right hand resting on her spear, now to be used no more. Before her flies _War_, reluctantly, as if he dared not resist Wisdom, yet employing his shield, in order still to shelter _Discord_, with her torch now extinguished. Last of all in the hateful train is _Malice_, whose very breath is fire, and who "endeth foul in many a snaky fold"--in the serpent's folds, which ever attend the hostilities of nations. Beneath Minerva's protection sits _Peace_ enthroned, and gives the milk of human kindness for babes to suck. From above, Zephyrus, the soft warm wind, descends with the olive wreath--the emblem in all ages of public peace, whilst at her side stands the "all-bounteous Pan," with Amalthea's storied Horn of _Plenty_. A band of happy children, led by _Love_ (whose torch, now that Discord's is gone out, burns aloft), approach to taste the sweets of Peace, and to minister to abundance. In the train of Plenty comes _Opulence_, bringing goblets, wreaths of pearl, and other treasures; whilst behind is _Music_, playing on her tambourine to celebrate the arts of peace. Last of all in the foreground is a leopard, not hurting or destroying any more, but playful as a lamb--

All crimes shall cease, and ancient fraud shall fail;
Returning Justice lift aloft her scale;
Peace o'er the world her olive wand extend,
And white-rob'd Innocence from heaven descend....
No more shall nation against nation rise,
Nor ardent warriors meet with hateful eyes....
The lambs with wolves shall graze the verdant mead,
And boys in flowery bands the tiger lead.

POPE: _Messiah_.

47. THE ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS.

_Rembrandt_ (Dutch: 1606-1669). _See_ 45.

A characteristic piece of "Bible by candle-light." There is, however, something spiritually instructive, as well as technically skilful, in the way in which such light there is all proceeds from Him who came to be the light of the world: compared with this divine light that in the lantern of the shepherds pales and is ineffectual. The picture is dated 1646. For the most part, however, the picture is a piece of pure realism, which may be contrasted in an instructive way with the essentially religious art of earlier schools. Here there is little, if any, symbolism, and "the decorative qualities with which a painter like Botticelli appealed to the imagination to heighten the impressiveness of the story have vanished also. In their stead we have pure naturalism,--naturalism of a very refined and cultured order, which appeals to the imagination as powerfully, but in a totally different way. The charm of the picture is independent of any exegetical qualities. Rembrandt treats the Nativity as a natural event, in a scientific spirit. The only connection between this picture and religious art is that it represents certain conventional attributes which are common to both. But just so much as we subtract from it as an exponent of strictly religious thought, just so much must we add to it as appealing to the intellect in general; its impressiveness, its sublimity, and its suggestiveness, and it has all these, are evolved out of the phenomena of natural effects by a poetical process" (J. E. Hodgson, R.A., in _Magazine of Art_, 1890, p. 42).

48. LANDSCAPE, WITH TOBIAS AND THE ANGEL.

_Domenichino_ (Eclectic-Bologna, 1581-1641).

Domenico Zampieri, called Domenichino for his small stature,
was born at Bologna, the son of a shoemaker. He entered the
school of the Carracci, and afterwards was invited to Rome
by Albani, in whose house he lived. Here he soon acquired
a great reputation, and was taken by Annibale Carracci as
assistant in the execution of the frescoes of the Farnese
Palace. The Cardinals Borghese and Aldobrandini were also among
his patrons. In 1617 he revisited Bologna, where he married.
In 1621 he was recalled to Rome by the Pope Gregory XV., who
appointed him principal painter and architect to the pontifical
palace. Some of the villas at Frascati were designed by him.
In 1630 he was invited to Naples to decorate the Cappella del
Tesoro of the Duomo, a commission which Guido Reni sought in
vain. Here Domenichino incurred the hostility of the Neapolitan
painters, and the machinations of the notorious triumvirate,
the "Cabal of Naples," were suspected of causing his death.
At Rome also he had been much persecuted by rival artists.
Accusations of plagiarism were levelled at him, and his more
pushing competitors "decried him to such a degree that he
was long destitute of all commissions." It is interesting
to contrast the conditions of (literally) "cut-throat
competition," under which the Italian painters of the decadence
worked, with the Guild System of the Flemish and the honourable
time and piece-work of the earlier Italians.

The varying fortunes of Domenichino's fame form a curious
chapter in the history of taste. In his own time and down to
the end of the eighteenth century he was ranked among the
greatest masters. Poussin placed him next to Raphael. Bellori
attributed to him "the same wand which belongs to the poetical
enchanters." Sir Joshua Reynolds speaks of him with high
respect, and Lanzi describes him as the admiration of all
professors, and records the enormous price which his pictures
still fetched (1809). Against these panegyrics we may set
Ruskin's invectives. "I once supposed," he says, "that there
was some life in the landscape of Domenichino, but in this I
must have been wrong. The man who painted the 'Madonna del
Rosario' and 'Martyrdom of St. Agnes' in the gallery of Bologna
is palpably incapable of doing anything good, great, or right,
in any field, way, or kind whatsoever.... Whatever appears
good in any of the doings of such a painter must be deceptive,
and we may be assured that our taste is corrupted and false
whenever we feel disposed to admire him.... I am prepared to
support this position, however uncharitable it may seem; a
man may be tempted into a gross sin by passion and forgiven,
and yet there are some kinds of sins into which only men of
a certain kind can be tempted, and which cannot be forgiven.
It should be added, however, that the artistical qualities
of these pictures are in every way worthy of the conceptions
they realise; I do not recollect any instance of colour or
execution so coarse and feelingless." Domenichino and the
Carraccis were, says Ruskin elsewhere, mere "art-weeds." "Their
landscape, which may in few words be accurately described as
'scum of Titian,' possesses no single merit, nor any ground
for the forgiveness of demerit." "The flight of Domenichino's
angels is a sprawl paralysed." "They are peculiarly offensive,
studies of bare-legged children howling and kicking in volumes
of smoke" (_Modern Painters_, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. i. ch.
vii. § 13; vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. ii. ch. v. § 17; vol. iii.
pt. iv. ch. xviii. § 20; _Stones of Venice_, travellers'
edition, vol. ii. ch. vi.; _On the Old Road_, vol. i. § 91).
Ruskin's estimate, "though expressed with such a clangour of
emphasis," yet fairly represents, as Mr. Symonds says, the
feeling of modern students. Perhaps, however, the reaction
against the once worshipped pictures of Domenichino has gone
too far. His celebrated "Diana and her Nymphs" in the Borghese
Gallery is "a charming picture," says Morelli, "worthy of a
purer period of art. Full of cheerful animation and naïve
and delightful details, it cannot fail to please" (_Roman
Galleries_, p. 228). Of the moral obliquity which Ruskin seems
to impute, Domenichino must be acquitted. He appears to have
been a simple, modest, painstaking, and virtuous person. "He
was misled by his dramatic bias, and also by the prevalent
religious temper of his age. That he belonged to a school which
was essentially vulgar in its choice of type, to a city never
distinguished for delicacy of taste, and to a generation which
was rapidly losing the sense of artistic reserve, suffices
to explain the crude brutality of the conceptions which he
formed of tragic episodes" (Symonds, _Renaissance_, vii. 220).
Lanzi says with truth that Domenichino's style of painting
is "almost theatrical." He tears the passion of his figures
to tatters--"exaggerated action destroying," as Ruskin says,
"all appearance of intense feeling." An interesting tale is
told of the way in which the artist worked himself up. He was
engaged on a scene of martyrdom, and "in painting one of the
executioners he actually threw himself into a passion, using
threatening words and actions. Annibale Carracci, surprising
him at that moment, embraced him, exclaiming with joy, 'To-day,
my Domenichino, thou art teaching me.'"

Tobias, directed by the angel, is drawing out of the water the fish that attacked him. _See_ the Book of Tobit, ch. vi. 4, 5, and the note on No. 781.

49. THE PORTRAIT OF RUBENS.

_Van Dyck_ (Flemish: 1599-1641).

Sir Anthony Van Dyck, the prince of court portrait-painters
and the most famous of Rubens's pupils, is one of the many
great artists whose gifts showed themselves almost from birth.
He was born at Antwerp, the seventh child of a tradesman in
good circumstances. His mother was a woman of taste, who
attained considerable skill in art-needlework, and from her
he doubtless derived many of the qualities for which his
works are conspicuous. At the age of ten the boy had already
begun to paint. His admission at the age of thirteen to the
crowded studio of Rubens is a proof of his precocious talent.
Documents recently discovered show that Van Dyck when seventeen
had already pupils of his own, and that his independent work
was sought after by artists and amateurs. At nineteen he was
admitted to the painters' Guild of St. Luke. For five years
(1620-25) he was for the most part travelling and painting
in Italy, with introductions from Rubens. Many of his best
works are still to be seen in Genoa and Turin. He also visited
Venice, where the spell of Titian's genius enchanted him.
Several sketches in the British Museum testify to his devout
study of the great Venetian. On his return to Antwerp at the
end of 1625, Van Dyck soon became the great court-painter of
his time. Queens visited him in his studio, and the nobility
of three nations considered it an honour to be painted by him.
Religious pictures were also produced by him at this time
with amazing rapidity. In 1632 he came to England. He had
already paid a short visit in 1620-21, when he had painted
James I., and was in receipt of a grant from the Exchequer
"for special service performed for His Majesty." This first
visit to England seems to have been due to the initiative
of the celebrated connoisseur, the Earl of Arundel. At the
court of Charles I. Van Dyck came at once into the highest
favour. Sir Kenelm Digby, a gentleman of the bedchamber, was
his bosom friend, and on his first presentation to Charles I.
he obtained permission to paint the king and queen. He was
appointed painter to the court, was knighted, and received a
pension of £200. A town-house was given him at Blackfriars,
and a country-house at Eltham. He "always went magnificently
dressed, had a numerous and gallant equipage, and kept so good
a table in his apartment that few princes were more visited
or better served." In England alone there are said to be
twenty-four portraits of the king by Van Dyck, and twenty-five
of Queen Henrietta Maria. Every one of distinction desired to
have his or her features immortalised by the court-painter,
and for seven years he worked at the portraits of the English
aristocracy with indefatigable industry. Some 300 of these
portraits exist in this country. The painter's health gradually
began to fail, from the constant drain upon his strength
caused by the incessant labour necessary to procure the means
of gratifying his luxurious tastes, and also by his irregular
mode of life. Van Dyck, says Mr. Law in his Catalogue of the
Hampton Court Gallery, "loved beauty in every form, and found
the seduction of female charms altogether irresistible." In
1639 he married Mary Ruthven, grand-daughter of the unfortunate
Lord Ruthven, Earl of Gowrie--a marriage promoted by the king,
who hoped thereby to effect a change in the painter's habits
of life. Margaret Lemon, the celebrated beauty, who lived with
Van Dyck for some time at Blackfriars, resented the marriage
most bitterly, and tried to maim the painter's right hand. In
1640-41 he travelled abroad with his wife, but returned to
this country a dying man. The king offered a special reward to
any doctor who could save the painter's life; but he expired
in his house at Blackfriars on December 9, 1641, at the early
age of forty-two. Two days afterwards he was buried in the old
cathedral of St. Paul's, and the king erected a monument to
record the death of one "who in life had conferred immortality
on many." A magnificent collection of his works was shown at
the Royal Academy in the winter exhibition of 1900.

The characteristics of Van Dyck's art may in large measure be
gathered from the circumstances of his life. He is essentially
the painter of princes. His sacred and other subject pictures
are often remarkable for force and vigour of handling.
"Van Dyck," says Ruskin, "often gives a graceful dramatic
rendering of received Scriptural legends." But it is not in
these subjects that Van Dyck is seen in his most interesting
and most characteristic manner. "Rubens is only to be seen in
the Battle of the Amazons, and Van Dyck only at court." No
more in him than in the other later Flemish artists is there
anything spiritual. The difference between him and Teniers, for
instance, is accidental rather than essential. "They lived,"
says Ruskin, "the gentle at court, the simple in the pot-house;
and could indeed paint, according to their habitation, a
nobleman or a boor, but were not only incapable of conceiving,
but wholly unwishful to conceive, anything, natural or
supernatural, beyond the precincts of the Presence and the
tavern." What distinguishes Van Dyck is the indelible mark of
courtly grace and refinement which he gives to all his sitters.
Nowhere clearer than in his portraits does one see the better
side of the "Cavalier" ideal. In this connection we may note
Van Dyck's feeling for the nobility of the horse (_see_ note
on No. 156). One thing "that gives nobleness to the Van Dyck,"
says Ruskin in describing one of his "cavalier" portraits, "is
its feminineness; the rich, light silken scarf, the flowing
hair, the delicate, sharp, though sunburnt features, and the
lace collar, do not in the least diminish the manliness,
but add feminineness. One sees that the knight is indeed a
soldier, but not a soldier only; that he is accomplished in all
ways, and tender in all thoughts." The reader who remembers
any large collection of Van Dycks will feel that the spirit
of Ruskin's description is true to a very large number of
them. One may forget the individual sitter; the impression
left by the Van Dyck type is indelible. Charles I. and his
Queen, though painted by several other painters, are known to
posterity exclusively through Van Dyck--not (says M. Hymans)
from a greater closeness of resemblance to the original, but
from a particular power of expression and bearing, which, once
seen, it is impossible to forget. The same may be said of Van
Dyck's portraits generally. He endowed all his sitters alike
with the same distinction of feature and elegance in bearing.
He excelled in giving delicacy to the hands, and is said to
have kept special models for this part of his work. He is not
what is called an "intimate" portrait painter. He does not
startle us with penetration in seizing points of individual
character; he charms us with the refinement of his type.
"In Titian," says Ruskin, "it is always the Man whom we see
first; in Van Dyck the Prince or the Sir." With regard to Van
Dyck's technique, his earlier productions (says Sir F. Burton)
"are scarcely to be distinguished from those of Rubens, and
there are cases in which dogmatism as to authorship would be
hazardous.[81] Differentiation is first visible in a greater
precision, a slenderer, it might be said, a more wiry touch,
and a cooler colouring, on the part of the pupil." At its
worst, Van Dyck's touch is distinguished by what Ruskin calls
a certain "flightiness and flimsiness"; at its best, by great
refinement: "there is not a touch of Van Dyck's pencil but he
seems to have revelled in--not grossly, but delicately--tasting
the colour in every touch as an epicure would wine." His
output was prodigious; in spite of his early death more than
1000 works are attributed to him. A considerable portion of
many of these was done by assistants, and his later works
are often hasty and careless. The references to Van Dyck in
Ruskin's books are numerous. (The most interesting are _Modern
Painters_, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. vi. §§ 5, 10, 22; ch. vii. § 23;
_Elements of Drawing_, appendix ii.; _On the Old Road_, i. §
154; _Art of England_, 1884, pp. 43, 83, 138, 212.)

A portrait of special interest as having been much prized by Sir Joshua Reynolds, to whom it formerly belonged. When Mr. Angerstein bought it, the great Burke is said to have congratulated him on possessing Sir Joshua's "favourite picture." It is commonly called "The Portrait of Rubens," but the principal figure does not greatly resemble the well-known face of Rubens; it is more probably a portrait of Luke Vostermann, a celebrated engraver of the time. He is discoursing, it would seem, on some point of art, suggested by the little statue which a man behind is holding.

50. ST. AMBROSE AND THEODOSIUS.

_Van Dyck_ (Flemish: 1599-1641). _See under last picture._

A copy, with some variations, of a large picture by Rubens now at Vienna. The subject is that described by Gibbon (ch. xxvii.). The Emperor Theodosius, for a massacre of the inhabitants of Thessalonica, was excommunicated by Ambrose, the Archbishop of Milan.

The emperor was deeply affected by his own reproaches, and
by those of his spiritual father; and, after he had bewailed
the mischievous and irreparable consequences of his own rash
fury, he proceeded, in the accustomed manner, to perform his
devotions in the great church of Milan. He was stayed in the
porch by the Archbishop; who, in the tone and language of an
ambassador of heaven, declared to his sovereign that private
contrition was not sufficient to atone for a public fault, or
to appease the justice of an offended Deity. Theodosius humbly
represented that if he had contracted the guilt of homicide,
David, the man after God's own heart, had been guilty not
only of murder, but of adultery. "You have imitated David in
his crime, imitate then his repentance," was the reply of the
undaunted Ambrose.

Observe as an instance of picturesque ornament properly introduced in subordination to the figure subject, the robes of St. Ambrose. "Tintoret, Titian, Veronese, Rubens, and Van Dyck would be very sorry to part with their figured stuffs and lustrous silks; and sorry, observe, exactly in the degree of their picturesque feeling. Should not _we_ also be sorry to have Bishop Ambrose without his vest in that picture of the National Gallery? But I think Van Dyck would not have liked, on the other hand, the vest without the bishop. And I much doubt if Titian or Veronese would have enjoyed going into Waterloo House, and making studies of dresses upon the counters" (_Stones of Venice_, vol. i. ch. xx. § 13).

51. A JEW MERCHANT.

_Rembrandt_ (Dutch: 1606-1669). _See_ 45.

One of the "heads of the people" whom Rembrandt saw around him; for the street in which he lived at Amsterdam swarmed with Dutch and Portuguese Jews. "In rendering human character, such as he saw about him, Rembrandt is nearly equal to Correggio, Titian, Tintoret, Veronese, or Velazquez; and the real power of him is in his stern and steady touch on lip and brow,--seen best in his lightest etchings,--or in the lightest parts of the handling of his portraits, the head of the Jew in our own Gallery being about as good and thorough work as it is possible to see of his" (_Academy Notes_, 1859, p. 52).

52. "PORTRAIT OF GEVARTIUS."

_Van Dyck_ (Flemish: 1599-1641). _See_ 49.

One of the most celebrated pictures in the Gallery. The title by which it is commonly known is incorrect; the sitter being not Gaspar Gevarts or Gevartius, but Cornelius van der Geest, an amateur of the arts and a friend of Rubens and Van Dyck. It is the grave learning of a scholar, the gentle refinement of an artist--notice especially "the liquid, living lustre of the eye"--that Van Dyck here puts before us. In point of execution this picture ranks as one of the finest portraits in the world. "From it," says Mr. Watts, R.A., "the modern student will learn more than from any I am acquainted with. The eyes," he adds, "are miracles of drawing and painting. They are a little tired and overworked, and do not so much _see_ anything as indicate the thoughtful brain behind. How wonderful the flexible mouth! with the light shining through the sparse moustache. How tremulously yet firmly painted. The ear: how set on ... so throughout there is no part of this wonderful portrait that might not be examined and enlarged upon; but I would ask my fellow-students to do this for themselves. Not a touch is put in for what is understood by 'effect.' Dexterous in a superlative degree, there is not in the ordinary sense a dexterous dab doing duty for honourable serious work: nothing done to look well at one distance or another, but to be right at every distance" (_Magazine of Art_, June 1889). Sir Edward Poynter is equally enthusiastic. "This wonderful portrait," he says, "is perhaps the most perfect head ever painted by this consummate painter. Not only for the brilliancy and purity of its flesh tints, the masterly drawing, and the vitality of the expression, does it rank as one of the masterpieces of portraiture existing; but for the brushwork, of which every touch expresses with supreme dexterity all the varieties of form, substance, and texture, it is unsurpassed, perhaps unrivalled, in the history of painting" (_National Gallery_, i. 152). Another P.R.A., Benjamin West, copied the "Gevartius," and at this day there is no picture in the Gallery more often copied by students.[82] Their preference is justified by that of the painter himself, who "used to consider it his masterpiece, and before he had gained his great reputation carried it about with him from court to court, and patron to patron, to show what he could do as a portrait painter."[83]

53. AN EVENING LANDSCAPE.

_Albert Cuyp_ (Dutch: 1620-1691).

Cuyp was born at Dort--the son of an artist who was one of the
founders of the Painters' Guild in that town. He was a deacon
and elder of his church, and was a citizen of importance,
holding various municipal and judicial offices. As a painter,
however, he had little reputation in his own country, and,
as is the case with so many of the Dutch masters, it was in
England that he was first appreciated. Even in 1750 one of
his pictures sold for thirty florins; in 1876 one fetched
at Christie's £5040. The high esteem in which his works are
thus held is justified alike by their own merits and by his
important position in the history of landscape art. He is, in
the first place, the principal master of pastoral landscape,
"representing peasant life and its daily work, or such scenery
as may naturally be suggestive of it, consisting usually of
simple landscape, in part subjected to agriculture, with
figures, cattle, and domestic buildings." In this respect Cuyp
is an interesting case of the detachment of an artist's life.
He was born and lived in troublous times; but in looking at his
works one would imagine (it has been said) "that he passed his
whole life in Arcadia, untroubled by any more anxious thought
than whether the sun would give the effect which he required
for his paintings, or the cows stay long enough for him to
depict them in their natural attitudes." Dwelling on the banks
of the placid Maas, he delighted also to reproduce the warm
skies of summer or autumn reflected in an expanse of water
overspread with marine craft. Secondly, Cuyp has been called
the "Dutch Claude," for he was the first amongst the Dutch to
"set the sun in the sky." "For expression of effects of yellow
sunlight, parts might be chosen out of the good pictures of
Cuyp, which have never been equalled in art." It is sun_shine_,
observe, that Cuyp paints, not sun _colour_. "Observe this
accurately. Those easily understood effects of afternoon light,
gracious and sweet so far as they reach, are produced by the
softly warm or yellow rays of the sun falling through mist.
They are low in tone, even in nature, and disguise the colours
of objects. They are imitable even by persons who have little
or no gift of colour, if the tones of the picture are kept
low and in true harmony, and the reflected lights warm. But
they never could be painted by great colourists. The fact of
blue and crimson being effaced by yellow and grey puts such
effect at once out of the notice or thought of a colourist."
The task of painting the sun _colour_ was reserved for Turner;
yet Cuyp's pictures had a great influence over him." He went
steadily through the subdued golden chord, and painted Cuyp's
favourite effect, 'sun rising through vapour,' for many a weary
year. But this was not enough for him. He must paint the sun in
his strength, the sun rising _not_ through vapour. If you turn
to the Apollo in the 'Ulysses and Polyphemus' (508), his horses
are rising beyond the horizon--you see he is not 'rising
through vapour,' but above it;--gaining somewhat of a victory
over vapour, it appears. The old Dutch brewer,[84] with his
yellow mist, was a great man and a good guide, but he was not
Apollo. He and his dray-horses led the way through the flats
cheerily, for a little time; we have other horses now flaming
out 'beyond the mighty sea'" (_Modern Painters_, vol. i. pt.
ii. sec. ii. ch. i. § 19; vol. v. pt. ix. ch. xi. §§ 3, 4).
Admirers of Cuyp should make a point of visiting the Dulwich
Gallery, which is peculiarly rich in works by this master. In
the British Museum are several of his drawings and studies.

An interesting study in what is called "truth of tone" may be made with this picture--by which is meant the "exact relation and fitness of shadow and light, and of the hues of all objects under them; and more especially that precious quality of each colour laid on which makes it appear a quiet colour illuminated, not a bright colour in shade." Now with regard to this Ruskin says, "I much doubt if there be a single _bright_ Cuyp in the world, which, taken as a whole, does not present many glaring solecisms in tone. I have not seen many fine pictures of his which were not utterly spoiled by the vermilion dress of some principal figure--a vermilion totally unaffected and unwarmed by the golden hue of the rest of the picture; and, what is worse, with little distinction between its own illumined and shaded parts, so that it appears altogether out of sunshine--the colour of a bright vermilion in dead, cold daylight.... And these failing parts, though they often escape the eye when we are near the picture and able to dwell upon what is beautiful in it, yet so injure its whole effect that I question if there be many Cuyps in which vivid colours occur, which will not lose their effect and become cold and flat at a distance of ten or twelve paces, retaining their influence only when the eye is close enough to rest on the right parts without including the whole. Take, for instance, the large one in our National Gallery. (Seen at a distance) the black cow appears a great deal nearer than the dogs, and the golden tones of the distance look like a sepia drawing rather than like sunshine, owing chiefly to the utter want of aerial greys indicated through them" (_Modern Painters_, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. ii. ch. i. §§ 11, 19).

54. A WOMAN BATHING.

_Rembrandt_ (Dutch: 1606-1669). _See_ 45.

"Those who have been in Holland," says Mrs. Jameson, "must often have seen the peasant girls washing their linen and trampling on it, precisely in the manner here depicted. Rembrandt may have seen one of them from his window, and snatching up his pencil and palette, he threw the figure on the canvas and fixed it there as by a spell." More probably, however, this is one of Rembrandt's many pictures of his servant and model, Hendrickje Stoffels. "The finest of the whole series," says M. Michel, "is the study of Hendrickje in the National Gallery, the so-called 'Woman Bathing.' It bears the date 1654, and is undoubtedly a masterpiece among Rembrandt's less important works. The young woman, whose only garment is a chemise, stands facing the spectator, in a deep pool. Her attitude suggests a sensation of pleasure and refreshment tempered by the involuntary shrinking of the body at the first contact of the cold water. The light from above glances on her breast and forehead, and on the luxuriant disorder of her bright hair; the lower part of her face and her legs are in deep transparent shadow. The brown tones of the soil, the landscape background and the water, the purple and gold of the draperies, make up a marvellous setting alike for the brilliantly illuminated contour and the more subdued carnations of the model. The truth of the impression, the breadth of the careful but masterly execution, the variety of the handling, proclaim the matured power of the artist, and combine to glorify the hardy grace and youthful radiance of his creation" (_Rembrandt: his Life, his Work, and his Time_, ii. 70).

55. THE DEATH OF PROCRIS (_see under_ 698).

_Claude_ (French: 1600-1682). _See_ 2.

"A most pathetic picture," says Constable (who made a copy of it when it was in Sir George Beaumont's possession). "The expression of Cephalus is very touching; and, indeed, nothing can be finer than the way in which Claude has told that affecting story throughout. Procris has come from her concealment to die at the feet of her husband. Above her is a withered tree clasped by ivy, an emblem of love in death,--while a stag seen on the outline of a hill, over which the rising sun spreads his rays, explains the cause of a fatal mistake.... It is the fashion to find fault with his figures indiscriminately, yet in his best time they are so far from being objectionable that we cannot easily imagine anything else according so well with his scenes; as objects of colour they seem indispensable. Wilson said to a friend who was talking of them in the usual manner, 'Do not fall into the common mistake of objecting to Claude's figures'" (Leslie's _Life of Constable_, 1845, p. 339).

56. LANDSCAPE WITH FIGURES.

_Annibale Carracci_ (Eclectic-Bologna: 1560-1609). _See_ 9.

57. THE CONVERSION OF ST. BAVON.

_Rubens_ (Flemish: 1577-1640). _See_ 38.

Bavon, a noble of Brabant, in the seventeenth century having determined to renounce the pomps and vanities of the world (his retinue is to be seen on the right), is met on the steps of the convent church by the bishop who is to receive him into his new life. To the left his goods are being given away to the poor, and above there is a group of ladies returning thanks for the noble penitent's conversion.

58. A STUDY OF TREES.

_Claude_ (French: 1600-1682). _See_ 2.

This picture, when in Sir George Beaumont's collection at Coleorton, was copied by Constable and called by him "The Little Grove." In 1823 Constable wrote to a friend, "I have likewise begun 'The Little Grove' by Claude; a noonday scene 'which warms and cheers, but which does not inflame or irritate.' Through the depths of the trees are seen a waterfall and a ruined temple, and a solitary shepherd is piping to some goats and sheep:--

'In closing shades and where the current strays,
Pipes the lone shepherd to his feeding flocks.'"

(Leslie's _Life of Constable_, 1845, p. 119.)

59. THE BRAZEN SERPENT.

_Rubens_ (Flemish: 1577-1640). _See_ 38.

"It is interesting to observe the difference in the treatment of this subject by the three great masters, Michael Angelo, Rubens, and Tintoret.... Rubens and Michael Angelo made the fiery serpents huge boa-constrictors, and knotted the sufferers together with them. Tintoret makes ... the serpents little flying and fluttering monsters, like lampreys with wings; and the children of Israel, instead of being thrown into convulsed and writhing groups, are scattered, fainting in the fields, far away in the distance. As usual, Tintoret's conception, while thoroughly characteristic of himself, is also truer to the words of Scripture. We are told that 'the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they _bit_ the people'; we are not told that they crushed the people to death. And, while thus the truest, it is also the most terrific conception.... Our instinct tells us that boa-constrictors do not come in armies; and we look upon the picture with as little emotion as upon the handle of a vase, or any other form worked out of serpents, when there is no probability of serpents actually occurring" (_Stones of Venice_: Venetian Index, "Rocco, Scuola di San," No. 24).

61. LANDSCAPE WITH FIGURES.

_Claude_ (French: 1600-1682). _See_ 2.

The history of this picture is curiously interesting. It belonged to Sir George Beaumont, who valued it so highly that it was, we are told, his travelling companion. He presented it to the National Gallery in 1826, but unable to bear its loss begged it back for the rest of his life. He took it with him into the country, and on his death, two years later, his widow restored it to the nation. Sir George Beaumont was not the only artist who thought highly of this little picture. Constable, we are told, "looked back on the first sight of this exquisite work as an important epoch in his life.... It is called _The Annunciation_; but the spring by which the female is seated, and the action of the angel who points to the buildings in the distance, leave little doubt that Claude's intention was to represent the first flight of Hagar from the presence of her mistress" (Leslie's _Life of Constable_, 1845, p. 6).

62. A BACCHANALIAN DANCE.

_Nicolas Poussin_ (French: 1593-1665). _See_ 39.

This picture, one of Poussin's masterpieces, is probably one of four Bacchanals painted for Cardinal Richelieu:--

Whence came ye, jolly Satyrs! whence came ye,
So many, and so many, and such glee?
Why have ye left your forest haunts, why left
Your nuts in oak-tree cleft?--
"For wine, for wine we left our kernel tree;
For wine we left our heath, and yellow brooms,
And cold mushrooms;
For wine we follow Bacchus through the earth;
Great god of breathless cups and chirping mirth!
Come hither, lady fair, and joined be
To our mad minstrelsy!"

KEATS: _Endymion_.

63. LANDSCAPE WITH FIGURES.

_Annibale Carracci_ (Eclectic-Bologna: 1560-1609). _See_ 9.

This picture was originally in the Giustiniani Palace at Rome; hence the figures are supposed to represent (as stated on the frame) Prince Giustiniani and his attendants returning from the chase.

64. RETURN OF THE ARK FROM CAPTIVITY.

_Sebastien Bourdon_ (French: 1616-1671).

This picture was a great favourite with Sir Joshua Reynolds, to whom it once belonged. He cited it, together with a picture by Salvator Rosa, to the students of the Academy (Discourse xiv.) as an instance of the "poetical style of landscape," calling particular attention to the "visionary" character of "the whole and every part of the scene." The subject is the return of the ark by the Philistines to the valley of Bath-shemesh, as described in I Samuel vi. 10-14. The painter was one of the original twelve _anciens_ of the old French Academy of painting, of which he died rector; he had formerly been painter to Queen Christina of Sweden, to whose country he had fled as a Protestant.

65. CEPHALUS AND AURORA.

_Nicolas Poussin_ (French: 1593-1669). _See under_ 39.

None of the "learned" Poussin's pictures in the Gallery shows so well as this how steeped he was alike in the knowledge and in the feeling of Greek mythology. Cephalus was a Thessalian prince whose love of hunting carried him away at early dawn from the arms of his wife Procris (see under 698). Hence the allegorical fable of the loves of Cephalus and Aurora, the goddess of the dawn, and her attempt to rival Procris in his affections. Cephalus here half yields to Aurora's blandishments, but a little Cupid holds up before him the portrait of his wife and recalls her love to his mind. Behind is Aurora's car, in which she is drawn by the white-winged Pegasus across the sky. But Pegasus, with that intermingling of many ideas which is characteristic of all Greek myths, is also "the Angel of the Wild Fountains: that is to say, the fastest flying or lower rain-cloud, winged, but racing as upon the earth."[85] Hence beside him sleeps a river-god, his head resting on his urn. But the mountain top is tipped with dawn; and behind, one sees a Naiad waking. Farther still beyond, in a brightening horizon, the form of Apollo, the sun-god whose advent follows on the dawn, is just apparent, his horses and his car melting into the shapes of morning clouds.[86]

66. A LANDSCAPE: AUTUMN MORNING.

_Rubens_ (Flemish: 1577-1640). _See_ 38.

Rubens "perhaps furnishes us with the first instances of complete, unconventional, unaffected landscape. His treatment is healthy, manly, and rational, not very affectionate, yet often condescending to minute and multitudinous detail; always, as far as it goes, pure, forcible, and refreshing, consummate in composition, and marvellous in colour" (_Modern Painters_, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. i. ch. vii. § 15). Notice especially the sky. "The whole field of ancient landscape art affords, as far as we remember, but one instance of any effort whatever to represent the character of the upper cloud region. That one instance is the landscape of Rubens in our own Gallery, in which the mottled or fleecy sky is given with perfect truth and exquisite beauty" (_ibid._, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. iii. ch. ii. § 9). Rubens's skill in landscape was partly due to fondness for the scenery he depicted. This picture was painted when he was at Genoa, but it is a purely Flemish scene--a broad stretch of his own lowlands, with the castle of Stein, it is said, which was afterwards his residence, near Mechlin, in the background, with Flemish waggon and horses fording a brook, and with a sportsman in the immediate foreground, carrying an old-fashioned firelock, intent on a covey of partridges.[87] "The Dutch painters are perfectly contented with their flat fields and pollards; Rubens, though he had seen the Alps, usually composes his landscapes of a hayfield or two, plenty of pollards and willows, a distant spire, a Dutch house with a moat about it, a windmill, and a ditch" (_ibid._, vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. xiii. § 20). The Dutch painters agreed, in fact, with the Lincolnshire farmer in Kingsley's _Alton Locke_, whom Ruskin goes on to quote: "None o' this here darned ups and downs o' hills, to shake a body's victuals out of his inwards," but "all so vlat as a barn's vloor, for vorty mile on end--there's the country to live in!"

This picture is one of four "seasons." (Spring is in the Wallace collection at Hertford House, Summer and Winter are in the Royal collection at Windsor.) It was presented to the nation by Sir George Beaumont. The painter Haydon, describing a visit to Sir George at Coleorton, writes:

"We dined with the Claude and Rembrandt before us, breakfasted with the Rubens landscape, and did nothing morning, noon, or night but think of painting, dream of painting, and wake to paint again." The picture is referred to also by Wordsworth in a very interesting passage. "I heard the other day," he writes to Sir George Beaumont, "of two artists, who thus expressed themselves upon the subject of a scene among our lakes: 'Plague upon those vile enclosures!' said one; 'they spoil everything.' 'Oh,' said the other, 'I never _see_ them.' Glover was the name of this last. Now, for my part, I should not wish to be either of these gentlemen, but to have in my own mind the power of turning to advantage, wherever it is possible, every object of Art and Nature as they appear before me. What a noble instance, as you have pointed out to me, has Rubens given of this in that picture in your possession, where he has brought, as it were, a whole country into one landscape, and made the most formal partitions of cultivation, hedgerows of pollard willows, conduct the eye into the depths and distances of his picture: and thus, more than by any other means, has given it that appearance of immensity which is so striking" (_Memorials of Coleorton_, ii. 135).

67. THE HOLY FAMILY AND ST. GEORGE.

_Rubens_ (Flemish: 1577-1640). _See_ 38.

On the left are the usual incidents of a "Riposo," or Repose in Egypt. St. Joseph is asleep, and the mule browses on the bank of the stream, while John the Baptist and attendant angels play with the Lamb. The Holy Child is on its mother's knee, and to them St. George is presenting his proselyte, the heathen princess whom he had saved from the dragon (see under 16). The dragon, now bridled with her girdle, follows her meekly, and St. George, as he introduces her to the mysteries of Christianity, plants the banner of the Faith. With the holy mother is St. Mary Magdalen--a penitent sinner herself, like the heathen princess, whom she now ushers into the Holy Presence.

Such appears to be the subject. As for the manner in which it is treated, it is interesting to know that the figures are portraits of the painter himself and his family. Rubens "is religious, too, after his manner; hears mass every morning, and perpetually uses the phrase 'by the grace of God,' or some other such, in writing of any business he takes in hand; but the tone of his religion may be determined by one fact. We saw how Veronese painted himself and his family as worshipping the Madonna. Rubens has also painted himself in an equally elaborate piece.[88] But they are not _worshipping_ the Madonna. They are _performing_ the Madonna, and her saintly entourage" (_Modern Painters_, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. vi. § 9).

68. A WOODY LANDSCAPE.

_Gaspard Poussin_ (French: 1613-1675). _See_ 31.

The scene is the beautiful avenue of oaks, called the "Galleria di Sopra," which skirts the upper margin of the Lake of Albano. Ruskin refers to this picture in illustration of his thesis that Turner's "truth of vegetation," in his representation of the exceeding intricacy of nature, is not to be paralleled among the old painters, and least of all in Gaspard Poussin with his regular "tree-patterns." The picture before us is "a woody landscape," which in nature would be a mass of intricate foliage--

"a mere confusion of points and lines between you and the
sky.... This, as it comes down into the body of the tree,
gets closer, but never opaque; it is always transparent,
with crumbling lights in it letting you through to the sky;
then, out of this, come, heavier and heavier, the masses of
illumined foliage, all dazzling and inextricable, save here
and there a single leaf on the extremities: then, under these,
you get deep passages of broken irregular gloom, passing into
transparent, green-lighted, misty hollows ... all penetrable
and transparent, and, in proportion, inextricable and
incomprehensible, except where across the labyrinth and mystery
of the dazzling light and dream-like shadow, falls, close to
us, some solitary spray, some wreath of two or three motionless
large leaves, the type and embodying of all that in the rest we
feel and imagine, but can never see.

"Now, with thus much of nature in your mind, go to Gaspard
Poussin's 'View near Albano.' It is the very subject to unite
all these effects, a sloping bank shaded with intertwined
forest. And what has Gaspard given us? A mass of smooth,
opaque, varnished brown, without one interstice, one change
of hue, or any vestige of leafy structure, in its interior,
or in those parts of it, I should say, which are intended to
represent interior; but out of it, over it rather, at regular
intervals, we have circular groups of greenish touches,
always the same in size, shape, and distance from each other,
containing so exactly the same number of touches each, that
you cannot tell one from another. There are eight or nine and
thirty of them, laid over each other like fish-scales; the
shade being most carefully made darker and darker as it recedes
from each until it comes to the edge of the next, against
which it cuts in the same sharp circular line, and then begins
to decline again, until the canvas is covered with about as
much intelligence or feeling of art as a house-painter has in
marbling a wainscot, or a weaver in repeating an ornamental
pattern. What is there in this, which the most determined
prejudice in favour of the old masters can for a moment suppose
to resemble trees? It is exactly what the most ignorant
beginner, trying to make a complete drawing, would lay down;
exactly the conception of trees which we have in the works of
our worst drawing-masters, where the shade is laid on with
the black lead and stump, and every human power exerted to
make it look like a kitchen grate well polished"[89] (_Modern
Painters_, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. vi. ch. i. §§ 16-19).

A further "untruth of vegetation" is the perpetration of the bough at the left-hand upper corner. This is--

"a representation of an ornamental group of elephants'
tusks, with feathers tied to the end of them. Not the
wildest imagination could ever conjure up in it the remotest
resemblance to the bough of a tree. It might be the claws of
a witch, the talons of an eagle, the horns of a fiend; but it
is a full assemblage of every conceivable falsehood which can
be told respecting foliage, a piece of work so barbarous in
every way, that one glance at it ought to prove the complete
charlatanism and trickery of the whole system of the old
landscape painters" (_ibid._, § 7).

69. ST. JOHN PREACHING IN THE WILDERNESS.

_Pietro Francesco Mola_ (Eclectic-Bologna: 1612-1668).

Mola, a native of Milan, and the son of an architect, studied
first at Rome and Venice, but afterwards at Bologna--returning
ultimately to Rome, where he held the office of President of
the Academy of St. Luke. "There is," says Sir Frederic Burton,
"a certain idyllic character in Mola's works which renders
them extremely attractive and of more artistic value than the
majority of works produced in his day."

The wild figure of the Baptist is well contrasted with the turbaned Pharisee and the rest of his audience:--

The last, and greatest, herald of Heav'n's King,
Girt with rough skins, hies to the desert wild:
There burst he forth--"All ye whose hopes rely
On God! with me amidst these deserts mourn;
Repent! repent! and from old errors turn."
Who listen'd to his voice, obey'd his cry?
Only the echoes, which he made relent,
Rung from their flinty caves--Repent!--repent!

DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN: _Flowers of Zion_.

The preacher places his right hand on his heart as if to attest his own sincerity, while with his left he points to the Saviour, who is seen approaching in the distance: "This is he of whom I said, After me cometh a man which is preferred before me, for he was before me."

70. CORNELIA AND HER JEWELS.

_Padovanino_ (Venetian: 1590-1650).

Alessandro Varotari was born at Padua, from which town he
derived the name by which he is generally known. He was the
son of a Veronese painter, but went early to Venice, where
he became a student and imitator of the works of Titian and
Paolo Veronese. His masterpiece is the "Marriage at Cana" in
the Academy at Venice. He painted children well, and often
introduced them into his pictures.

Cornelia, a noble Roman lady, daughter of the elder Scipio Africanus, and mother of the Gracchi, was visited by a friend, who ostentatiously exhibited her jewels. Cornelia being asked to show hers in turn, pointed to her two sons, just then returning from school, and said, "These are my jewels."

71. A PARTY OF MULETEERS.

_Jan Both_ (Dutch: 1610-1662).

Jan Both, born at Utrecht, was one of the first "Italianisers"
in landscape. He was the son of a glass painter, who gave him
his first lessons in drawing; he afterwards became the pupil
of Abraham Bloemaert. As soon as he was old enough to travel,
he set out with his brother Andries for Italy. Unlike Rubens,
who even at Genoa painted only the Netherlands, Both adopted
Italian scenery as his subject. At Rome he formed his style on
that of Claude. The two brothers travelled, studied, and worked
in Italy together. Jan excelled in landscape; the figures and
cattle in his pictures were generally sketched by Andries.
After some years at Rome, the brothers worked for a time at
Venice; here Andries, having dined one evening not wisely but
too well, fell from his gondola into the water and was drowned.
This was a terrible blow to Jan, who returned to Utrecht in
despair, where he survived his brother for some years, during
which Poelenburgh took the place of Andries (see No. 209). In
the year 1649 Jan was one of the chiefs of the Painters' Guild
at Utrecht, and the inscription on an engraved portrait of him
published in 1662 speaks of him as a "good and well-respected
landscape painter." Both loved to paint abruptly-rising rocks,
with mountain paths fringed with trees, and cascades or lakes
in the foreground. His best works are distinguished by the soft
golden tones of the declining day. Several good examples of
this master are to be seen at the Dulwich Gallery.

A reminiscence, doubtless, of one of Both's journeys in the Italian lake district. One may recall the reminiscence of Italy by another northern traveller--

Know'st thou the mountain bridge that hangs on cloud?
The mules in mist grope o'er the torrent loud,
In caves lie coil'd the dragon's ancient brood,
The crag leaps down and over it the flood:
Know'st thou it, then?
'Tis there! 'tis there
Our way runs; O my father, wilt thou go?

MIGNON'S song in _Wilhelm Meister_: Carlyle's translation.

72. LANDSCAPE WITH TOBIAS AND THE ANGEL.

_Rembrandt_ (Dutch: 1606-1669). _See_ 45.

73. THE CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL.

_Ascribed to Ercole di Giulio Grandi_ (Ferrarese: died 1531).

The confused character of this picture is sufficiently shown by the fact that whilst the official designation is as above, other critics have called it the "Destruction of Sennacherib." For a masterpiece by Ercole, see 1119. The ascription to him of this inferior work is decidedly doubtful.

74. A SPANISH PEASANT BOY.

_Murillo_ (Spanish: 1618-1682). _See_ 13.

Look at this and the other little boy near it (176), and you will see at once the secret of Murillo's popularity. "In a country like Spain he became easily the favourite of the crowd. He was one of themselves, and had all the gifts they valued. Not like Velazquez, reproducing by choice only the noble and dignified side of the national character, Murillo could paint to perfection either the precocious sentiment of the Good Shepherd with the lamb by his side, or the rags and happiness of the gipsy beggar boy" (W. B. Scott's _Murillo_, p. 76)--

Poor and content is rich and rich enough.

75. ST. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON.

_Domenichino_ (Eclectic-Bologna: 1581-1641). _See_ 48.

Compare this conventional representation of the subject with the imaginative one by Tintoretto (16). Amongst points of comparison notice the absence of anything terrible in the dragon, the crowd of spectators (on the walls in the distance), St. George's helmet; and where is his spear?

76. CHRIST'S AGONY IN THE GARDEN.

_After Correggio_. _See under_ 10.