Chapter L: DA VINCI The Last Supper Milan 290 (8)

The Cenci Palace is of great extent; and, though in part modernized, there yet remains a vast and gloomy pile of feudal architecture in the same state as during the dreadful scenes which are the subject of this tragedy. The palace is situated in an obscure corner of Rome, near the quarter of the Jews; and from the upper windows you see the immense ruins of Mount Palatine, half hidden under their profuse overgrowth of trees. There is a court in one part of the palace (perhaps that in which Cenci built the chapel to St. Thomas) supported by granite columns, and adorned with antique friezes of fine workmanship, and built up, according to the ancient Italian fashion, with balcony over balcony of open work. One of the gateways of the palace, formed of immense stones, and leading through a passage dark and lofty, and opening into gloomy subterranean chambers, struck me particularly....

The most wicked life which the Roman nobleman, Francesco Cenci, led in this world not only occasioned his own ruin and death, but also that of many others and brought down the destruction of his house. Concerning his religion, it is sufficient to state that he never frequented any church; and, although he caused a small chapel, dedicated to the Apostle St. Thomas, to be built in the court of his palace, his intention in so doing was to bury there all his children, whom he cruelly hated. He cursed [his sons] and often also struck and ill-treated his daughters. The eldest of these, being unable any longer to support the cruelty of her father, exposed her miserable condition to the Pope and supplicated him either to marry her according to his choice, or shut her up in a monastery, that by any means she might be liberated from the cruel oppression of her parent. Her prayer was heard, and the Pope, in pity to her unhappiness, bestowed her in marriage to Signore Carlo Gabrielli, one of the first gentlemen of the city of Gubbio, and obliged Francesco to give her a fitting dowry of some thousand crowns.

Francesco, fearing that his youngest daughter would, when she grew up, follow the example of her sister, bethought himself how to hinder this design, and for that purpose shut her up alone in an apartment of the palace, where he himself brought her food, so that no one might approach her; and imprisoned her in this manner for several months, often inflicting on her blows with a stick.

In the meantime ensued the death of his two sons, Rocco and Cristoforo--one being assassinated by a surgeon, and the other by Paolo Corso, while he was attending mass. The inhuman father showed every sign of joy on hearing this news; saying that nothing would exceed his pleasure if all his children died, and that, when the grave should receive the last, he would, as a demonstration of joy, make a bonfire of all that he possessed. And on the present occasion, as a further sign of his hatred, he refused to pay the slightest sum towards the funeral expenses of his murdered sons....

Beatrice, finding it impossible to continue to live in so miserable a manner, followed the example of her sister; she sent a well-written supplication to the Pope, imploring him to exercise his authority in withdrawing her from the violence and cruelty of her father. But this petition, which might, if listened to, have saved the unfortunate girl from an early death, produced not the least effect.

Francesco, having discovered this attempt on the part of his daughter, became more enraged, and redoubled his tyranny; confining with vigour not only Beatrice, but also his wife. At length, these unhappy women, finding themselves without hope of relief, driven to desperation, resolved to plan his death.... Beatrice communicated the design to her eldest brother, Giacomo, without whose concurrence it was impossible that they should succeed. This latter was easily drawn into consent, since he was utterly disgusted with his father, who ill-treated him, and refused to allow him a sufficient support for his wife and children.... Giacomo, with the understanding of his sister and mother-in-law, held various consultations and finally resolved to commit the murder of Francesco to two of his vassals, who had become his inveterate enemies; one called Marzio, and the other Olimpio: the latter, by means of Francesco, had been deprived of his post as castellan of the Rock of Petrella.... He [Francesco] received an honourable burial; and his family returned to Rome to enjoy the fruits of their crime. They passed some time there in tranquillity. But Divine Justice, which would not allow so atrocious a wickedness to remain hid and unpunished, so ordered it that the Court of Naples, to which the account of the death of Cenci was forwarded, began to entertain doubts concerning the mode by which he came by it, and sent a commissary to examine the body and to take informations....

The Pope, after having seen all the examinations and the entire confessions, ordered that the delinquents should be drawn through the streets at the tails of horses and afterward decapitated.

Many cardinals and priests interested themselves, and entreated that at least they might be allowed to draw up their defence. The Pope at first refused to comply, replying with severity, and asking these intercessors what defence had been allowed to Francesco when he had been so barbarously murdered in his sleep....

The sentence was executed the morning of Saturday the 11th of May. The messengers charged with the communication of the sentence, and the Brothers of the Consorteria, were sent to the several prisons at five the preceding night; and at six the sentence of death was communicated to the unhappy brothers while they were placidly sleeping. Beatrice, on hearing it broke into a piercing lamentation, and into passionate gesture, exclaiming, "How is it possible, O my God, that I must so suddenly die?" Lucretia, as prepared and already resigned to her fate, listened without terror to the reading of this terrible sentence, and with gentle exhortations induced her daughter-in-law to enter the chapel with her; and the latter, whatever excess she might have indulged in on the first intimation of a speedy death, so much the more now courageously supported herself, and gave every one certain proofs of a humble resignation. Having requested that a notary might be allowed to come to her, and her request being granted, she made her will, in which she left 15,000 crowns to the Fraternity of the Sacre Stimmate, and willed that all her dowry should be employed in portioning for marriage fifty maidens; and Lucretia, imitating the example of her daughter-in-law, ordered that she should be buried in the church of S. Gregorio at Monte Celio, with 32,000 crowns for charitable uses, and made other legacies; after which they passed some time in the Consorteria, reciting psalms and litanies and other prayers with so much fervour that it well appeared that they were assisted by the peculiar grace of God. At eight o'clock they confessed, heard mass, and received the holy communion. Beatrice, considering that it was not decorous to appear before the judges and on the scaffold with their splendid dresses, ordered two dresses, one for herself and the other for her mother-in-law, made in the manner of the nuns--gathered up, and with long sleeves of black cotton for Lucretia, and of common silk for herself, with a large cord girdle. When these dresses came, Beatrice rose, and, turning to Lucretia--"Mother," said she, "the hour of our departure is drawing near; let us dress therefore in these clothes, and let us mutually aid one another in this last office." Lucretia readily complied with this invitation, and they dressed, each helping the other, showing the same indifference and pleasure as if they were dressing for a feast....

The funereal procession passed through the Via dell' Orso, by the Apollinara, thence through the Piazza Navona; from the church of S. Pantalio to the Piazza Pollarolla, through the Campo di Fiori, S. Carlo a Catinari, to the Arco de' Conti Cenci; proceeding, it stopped under the Palace Cenci, and then finally rested at the Corte Savilla, to take the two ladies. When these arrived, Lucretia remained last, dressed in black, as has been described, with a veil of the same colour, which covered her as far as her girdle. Beatrice was beside her, also covered with a veil. They wore velvet slippers, with silk roses and gold fastenings; and, instead of manacles, their wrists were bound by a silk cord, which was fastened to their girdles in such a manner as to give them almost the free use of their hands. Each had in her left hand the holy sign of benediction, and in the right hand a handkerchief, with which Lucretia wiped her tears, and Beatrice the perspiration from her forehead. Being arrived at the place of punishment, Bernardo was left on the scaffold, and the others were conducted to the chapel. During this dreadful separation, this unfortunate youth, reflecting that he was soon going to behold the decapitation of his nearest relatives, fell down in a dreadful swoon, from which, however, he was at last recovered, and seated opposite the block....

While the scaffold was being arranged for Beatrice, and whilst the Brotherhood returned to the chapel for her, the balcony of a shop filled with spectators fell, and five of those underneath were wounded, so that two died a few days after. Beatrice, hearing the noise, asked the executioner if her mother had died well, and, being replied that she had, she knelt before the crucifix, and spoke thus: "Be thou everlastingly thanked, O my most gracious Saviour, since, by the good death of my mother, thou hast given me assurance of thy mercy towards me." Then, rising, she courageously and devoutly walked towards the scaffold, repeating by the way several prayers with so much fervour of spirit that all who heard her shed tears of compassion. Ascending the scaffold, while she arranged herself, she also turned her eyes to Heaven, and thus prayed: "Most beloved Jesus, who, relinquishing thy divinity, becamest a man, and didst through love purge my sinful soul also of its original sin with thy precious blood; deign, I beseech thee, to accept that which I am about to shed, at thy most merciful tribunal, as a penalty which may cancel my many crimes, and spare me a part of that punishment justly due to me." Then she placed her head under the axe, which, at one blow, was divided from her body as she was repeating the second verse of the psalm _De profundis_, at the words _fiant aures tuæ_. The blow gave a violent motion to her body, and discomposed her dress. The executioner raised the head to the view of the people; and in placing it in the coffin placed underneath, the cord by which it was suspended slipped from its hold, and the head fell to the ground, shedding a great deal of blood, which was wiped up with water and sponges.... The bodies of Lucretia and Beatrice were left at the end of the bridge until the evening, illuminated by two torches, and surrounded by so great a concourse of people that it was impossible to cross the bridge. An hour after dark, the body of Beatrice was placed in a coffin, covered by a black velvet pall richly adorned with gold: garlands of flowers were placed, one at her head, and another at her feet; and the body was strewed with flowers. It was accompanied to the church of S. Peter in Montorio by the Brotherhood of the Order of Mercy, and followed by many Franciscan monks, with great pomp and innumerable torches. She was there buried before the high altar, after the customary ceremony had been performed. By reason of the distance of the church from the bridge, it was four hours after dark before the ceremony was finished. Afterwards, the body of Lucretia, accompanied in the same manner, was carried to the church of S. Gregorio upon the Celian hill; where, after the ceremony, it was honourably buried.

Beatrice was rather tall, of a fair complexion, and she had a dimple on each cheek, which, especially when she smiled, added a grace to her lovely countenance that transported every one who beheld her. Her hair appeared like threads of gold; and, because they were extremely long, she used to tie it up, and when afterwards she loosened it, the splendid ringlets dazzled the eyes of the spectator. Her eyes were of a deep blue, pleasing, and full of fire. To all these beauties she added, both in words and action, a spirit and a majestic vivacity that captivated every one. She was twenty years of age when she died.

_The Cenci: Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley_, edited by
William M. Rossetti (London 1878).

THE TRANSFIGURATION

(_RAPHAEL_)

MRS. JAMESON

The Transfiguration is an early subject in Christian Art, and has gone through different phases. It is given in the mosaics of S. Apollinare in Classe, at Ravenna (Sixth Century), in that reticence of form and emblematical character significant of classic Art. By the uninitiated the subject would not be readily deciphered. In the centre of the domed apse is a large jewelled cross, in the middle of which is the head of Christ. This represents the Lord. On each side are bust-lengths of Moses and Elijah, while below are three sheep, emblems of the three disciples.

Another form is seen in early miniatures--for instance, in a magnificent Evangelium preserved in the Cathedral at Aix-la-Chapelle. Here Christ is seen with three rays above Him; at His side are the full-length figures of Moses and Elijah; below are the three disciples--two crouching low in terror, while Peter raises himself, saying "Lord, it is good for us to be here," etc.

The next form is that given by early Byzantine artists, of a very formal and conventional character. Christ is in the mandorla, from which five rays of glory proceed. These five rays touch the prophets at His side, and the disciples, all three crouching low at His feet. We see Giotto scarcely emerging from this convention in his series in the Accademia.

Fra Angelico has a more fanciful representation. The Christ has his arms extended, as a type of the death He was to suffer on the Cross. The disciples retain the traditional Byzantine positions. At the sides are the mere heads of the prophets, while the painter's adoration of the Virgin, and his homage toward St. Domenic, the founder of his order, are shown by their attendant figures.

It must be allowed that there could be no more daring or more difficult undertaking in Art than to represent by any human medium this transcendent manifestation of the superhuman character of the Redeemer. It has been attempted but seldom, and of course, however reverent and poetical the spirit in which the attempt has been made, it has proved, in regard to the height of the theme, only a miserable failure. I should observe, however, that the early artists hardly seem to have aimed at anything beyond a mere _indication_ of an incident too important to be wholly omitted. In all these examples the representation of a visible fact has been predominant, the aim in the mind of the artist being to comply with some established conventional or theological rule.

Only in one instance has the vision of heavenly beatitude been used to convey the sublimest lesson to humanity, and thus the inevitable failure has been redeemed nobly, or, we might rather say, converted into a glorious success.

When Raphael, in the last year of his life, was commissioned by the Cardinal de' Medici to paint an altar-piece for the Cathedral of Narbonne, he selected for his subject the Transfiguration of our Lord.

Every one knows that this picture has a world-wide fame; it has, indeed, been styled the "greatest picture in the world;" it has also been criticised as if Raphael, the greatest artist who ever lived, had been here unmindful of the rules of Art. But it is clear that of those who have enthusiastically praised or daringly censured, few have interpreted its real significance. Some have erred in ignorantly applying the rules of Art where they were in no respect applicable. Others, not claiming to know anything, or care anything about rules of Art, insisting on their right to judge what is or is not intelligible to _them_, have given what I must needs call very absurd opinions about what they do not understand. It has been objected by one set of critics that there is a want of unity, that the picture is divided in two, and that these two parts not only do not harmonize, but "mutually hurt each other." Others say that the spiritual beatitude above, and the contortions of the afflicted boy below, present a shocking contrast. Others sneer at the little hillock or platform which they suppose is to stand for Mount Tabor, think the group above profane, and the group below horrible. Such as these, with a courage quite superior to all artistic criticism, and undazzled by the accumulated fame of five centuries, venture on a fiat which reminds one of nothing so much as Voltaire's ridicule of Hamlet, and his denunciation of that _barbare_, that _imbécile de Shakespeare_, who would not write so as to be appreciated by a French critic.

Now, in looking at the Transfiguration (and I hope the reader, if the original be far off, will at least have a good print before him while going over these following remarks), we must bear in mind that it is not an historical but a devotional picture--that the intention of the painter was not to represent a scene, but to excite religious feelings by expressing, so far as painting might do it, a very sublime idea, which it belongs to us to interpret.

I can best accomplish this, perhaps, by putting down naturally my own impressions, when I last had the opportunity of studying this divine picture.

If we remove to a certain distance from it, so that the forms shall become vague, indistinct, and only the masses of colour and the light and shade perfectly distinguishable, we shall see that the picture is indeed divided as if horizontally, the upper half being all light, and the lower half comparatively all dark. As we approach nearer, step by step, we behold above, the radiant figure of the Saviour floating in mid air, with arms outspread, garments of transparent light, glorified visage upturned as in rapture, and the hair uplifted and scattered as I have seen it in persons under the influence of electricity. On the right, Moses; on the left, Elijah; representing, respectively, the old law and the old prophecies, which both testified of Him. The three disciples lie on the ground, terror-struck, dazzled. There is a sort of eminence or platform, but no perspective, no attempt at real locality, for the scene is revealed as in a vision, and the same soft transparent light envelops the whole. This is the spiritual life, raised far above the earth, but not yet in heaven. Below is seen the earthly life, poor humanity struggling helplessly with pain, infirmity, and death. The father brings his son, the possessed, or, as we should now say, the epileptic boy, who ofttimes falls into the water or into the fire, or lies grovelling on the earth, foaming and gnashing his teeth; the boy struggles in his arms--the rolling eyes, the distorted features, the spasmodic limbs are at once terrible and pitiful to look on.

Such is the profound, the heart-moving significance of this wonderful picture. It is, in truth, a fearful approximation of the most opposite things; the mournful helplessness, suffering, and degradation of human nature, the unavailing pity, are placed in immediate contrast with spiritual light, life, hope--nay, the very fruition of heavenly rapture.

It has been asked, who are the two figures, the two saintly deacons, who stand on each side of the upper group, and what have they to do with the mystery above, or the sorrow below? Their presence shows that the whole was conceived as a vision, or a poem. The two saints are St. Lawrence and St. Julian, placed there at the request of the Cardinal de' Medici, for whom the picture was painted, to be offered by him as an act of devotion as well as munificence to his new bishopric; and these two figures commemorate in a poetical way, not unusual at the time, his father, Lorenzo, and his uncle, Giuliano de' Medici. They would be better away; but Raphael, in consenting to the wish of his patron that they should be introduced, left no doubt of the significance of the whole composition--that it is placed before worshippers as a revelation of the double life of earthly suffering and spiritual faith, as an excitement to religious contemplation and religious hope.

In the Gospel, the Transfiguration of our Lord is first described, then the gathering of the people and the appeal of the father in behalf of his afflicted son. They appear to have been simultaneous; but painting only could have placed them before our eyes, at the same moment, in all their suggestive contrast. It will be said that in the brief record of the Evangelist, this contrast is nowhere indicated, but the painter found it there and was right to use it--just the same as if a man should choose a text from which to preach a sermon, and, in doing so, should evolve from the inspired words many teachings, many deep reasonings, besides the one most obvious and apparent.

But, after we have prepared ourselves to understand and to take into our heads all that this wonderful picture can suggest, considered as an emanation of the mind, we find that it has other interests for us, considered merely as a work of Art. It was the last picture which came from Raphael's hand; he was painting on it when seized with his last illness. He had completed all the upper part of the composition, all the ethereal vision, but the lower part of it was still unfinished, and in this state the picture was hung over his bier, when, after his death, he was laid out in his painting-room, and all his pupils and his friends, and the people of Rome, came to look upon him for the last time; and when those who stood round raised their eyes to the _Transfiguration_, and then bent them on the lifeless form extended beneath it, "every heart was like to burst with grief" (_faceva scoppiare l' anima di dolore a ognuno che quivi guardava_), as, indeed, well it might.

Two-thirds of the price of the picture, 655 _duccati di camera_, had already been paid by the Cardinal de' Medici; and, in the following year, that part of the picture which Raphael had left unfinished was completed by his pupil Giulio Romano, a powerful and gifted but not a refined or elevated genius. He supplied what was wanting in the colour and chiaroscuro according to Raphael's design, but not certainly as Raphael would himself have done it. The sum which Giulio received he bestowed as a dowry on his sister, when he gave her in marriage to Lorenzetto the sculptor, who had also been a pupil and friend of Raphael. The Cardinal did not send the picture to Narbonne, but, unwilling to deprive Rome of such a masterpiece, he presented it to the Church of San Pietro in Montorio, and sent in its stead the _Raising of Lazarus_, by Sebastian del Piombo, now in our National Gallery. The French carried off the _Transfiguration_ to Paris in 1797, and, when restored, it was placed in the Vatican, where it now is. The _Communion of St. Jerome_, by Domenichino, is opposite to it, and it is a sort of fashion to compare them, and with some to give the preference to the admirable picture by Domenichino; but the two are so different in aim and conception, the merits of each are so different in kind, that I do not see how any comparison can exist between them.

_The History of Our Lord, as exemplified in Works of Art_,
continued and completed by Lady Eastlake (2nd ed., London, 1865).

THE BULL

(_PAUL POTTER_)

EUGÈNE FROMENTIN

_The Lesson in Anatomy, The Night Watch_, and Paul Potter's _Bull_ are the most celebrated things in Holland. To the latter the Museum at The Hague owes a great part of the interest it inspires. It is not the largest of Paul Potter's canvases; but it is, at least, the only one of his great pictures that merits serious attention. _The Bear Hunt_ in the Museum of Amsterdam (supposing it to be authentic), even by ridding it of the retouches which disfigure it, has never been anything else save the extravagance of a young man, the greatest mistake he committed. _The Bull_ is not priced. Estimating it according to the present value of Paul Potter's other works, nobody doubts that in a European auction it would fetch a fabulous sum. Then is it a beautiful picture? By no means. Does it deserve the importance attached to it? Incontestably. Then is Paul Potter a very great painter? Very great. Does it follow that he really does paint as well as is commonly supposed? Not exactly. That is a misapprehension that it will be well to dissipate.

On the day when this suppositious auction of which I speak opened, and consequently when every one had the right freely to discuss the merits of this famous work, if anyone dared to let the truth be heard, he would speak very nearly as follows:

"The reputation of the picture is very much exaggerated and at the same time very legitimate; it is contradictory. It is considered as an incomparable specimen of painting, and that is a mistake. People think it is an example to be followed, a model to be copied, one in which ignorant generations may learn the technical secrets of their art. In that again they deceive themselves entirely. The work is ugly and very ill-conceived, and the painting is monotonous, thick, heavy, dull, and dry. The arrangement is of the poorest. Unity is lacking in this picture, which begins one knows not where, does not end anywhere, receives light without being illuminated, and distributes it at random, escapes on every side and runs out of the frame, so exactly like flowered linen prints does it seem to be painted. The space is too crowded without being occupied. Neither the lines, nor the colour, nor the distribution of the effects, give it even those first conditions of existence which are essential to any fairly well-ordered work. The animals are ridiculous in their size. The painting of the fawn cow with the white head is very hard. The ewe and the ram are modelled in plaster. As for the shepherd, no one would think of defending him. Only two portions of this picture seem to be intended for our notice, the great sky and the enormous bull. The cloud is well in place: it is lighted up where it should be, and it is also properly tinted according to the demands of the principal object, its purpose being to accompany or serve as a relief to the latter. With a wise understanding of the law of contrasts, the painter has beautifully graded the strong tints and the dark shading of the animal. The darkest part is opposed to the light portion of the sky, and the most energetic and ingrained characteristic of the bull is opposite to all that is most limpid in the atmosphere. But this is hardly a merit, considering the simplicity of the problem. The rest is simply a surplus that we might cut away without regret, to the great advantage of the picture."

That would be a brutal criticism, but an exact one. And yet public opinion, less punctilious or more clear-sighted, would say that the signature was well worth the price.

Public opinion never goes entirely astray. By uncertain roads, often by those not most happily chosen, it arrives definitely at the expression of a true sentiment. The motives that lead it to acclaim any one are not always of the best, but there are always other good reasons that justify this expression. It is deceived regarding titles, sometimes it mistakes faults for excellencies, it estimates a man for his manner, and that is the least of all his merits; it believes that a painter paints well when he paints badly and because he paints minutely. What is astonishing in Paul Potter is the imitation of objects carried to the point of eccentricity. People do not know, or do not notice, that in such a case the soul of the painter is of more worth than the work, and that his manner of feeling is of infinitely greater importance than the result.

When he painted _The Bull_ in 1647, Paul Potter was not twenty-three years of age. He was a very young man; and according to the usual run of young men of twenty-three years, he was a child. To what school did he belong? To none. Had he any masters? We do not know of any other teachers than his father Pieter Simonsz Potter, an obscure painter, and Jacob de Wet (of Haarlem), who had no force to influence a pupil either for good or evil. Paul Potter then found around his cradle and afterwards in the studio of his second master nothing but simple advice and no doctrines; very strange to say, the pupil did not need anything more. Until 1647 Paul Potter divided his time between Amsterdam and Haarlem, that is to say, between Frans Hals and Rembrandt in the focus of the most active, the most inspiring and the richest art of celebrated masters that the world had ever known except during the preceding century in Italy. Professors were not lacking, the choice was only too embarrassing. Wynants was forty-six; Cuyp, forty-two; Terburg, thirty-nine; Ostade, thirty-seven; Metzu, thirty-two; Wouwerman, twenty-seven; and Berghem, about his own age, was twenty-three years of age. Many of the youngest even were members of the Guild of St. Luke. Finally, the greatest of all, the most illustrious, Rembrandt, had already produced the _Night Watch_, and he was a master to tempt one.

What became of Paul Potter? How did he isolate himself in the heart of this rich and swarming school, where practical ability was extreme, talent universal, style somewhat similar, and, nevertheless--a beautiful thing at that happy time--the methods of feeling were very individual? Had he any fellow-pupils? We do not see them. His friends are unknown. He was born,--it is the utmost we can do to be sure of the exact year. He reveals himself early, signing a charming etching at fourteen; at twenty-two he is ignorant on many points, but on others his maturity is unexampled. He laboured and produced work upon work; doing some things admirably. He accumulated them in a few years in haste and abundance, as if death were at his heels, and yet with an appreciation and a patience which render this prodigious labour miraculous. He married, young, for any one else but very late for him, for it was on July 3, 1650; and on August 4, 1654, four years afterwards, death seized him in the height of his glory, but before he had learned his whole ground. What could be simpler, shorter, and more fully accomplished? Genius and no lessons, ardent study, an ingenuous and able product, attentive observation and reflection; add to this great natural charm, the gentleness of a meditative mind, the appreciation of a conscience filled with scruples, the sadness inseparable from solitary labour, and, perhaps, the natural melancholy belonging to sickly beings, and you very nearly have all Paul Potter.

To this extent, if we except its charm, _The Bull_ at The Hague represents him wonderfully well. It is a great _study_, too great from the common-sense point of view, not too great for the research of which it was the object, nor for the instruction that the painter drew from it.

Reflect that Paul Potter, compared with his brilliant contemporaries, was ignorant of all the skill of the handicraft: I do not speak of the tricks of which his frankness can never be suspected. He especially studied forms and aspects in their absolute simplicity. The least artifice was an embarrassment which would have spoiled him, because it would have altered his clear view of things. A great bull in a vast plain, an immense sky, and no horizon, so to speak,--what better opportunity is there for a student to learn once for all a host of very difficult things, and to know them, as they say, by rule and compass. The action is very simple; he did not fail with it; the movement is true, and the head admirably full of life. The beast has his age, his type, his character, his disposition, his length, his height, his joints, his bones, his muscles, his hair rough or smooth, in flocks or curls, his hide loose or stretched,--all is perfection. The head, the eye, the neck and shoulders, the chest, from the point of view of a naïve and powerful observation, form a very rare specimen, perhaps, really without an equal. I do not say that the pigment is beautiful, nor that the colour is well chosen; pigment and colour are here subordinated too visibly to preoccupations of form for us to exact much on that head, when the designer has given all, or nearly all, under another. Moreover, the work in that field accomplished with such force results in rendering nature exactly as she is, in her reliefs, her nuances, and her power, and almost in her mysteries. It is not possible to aim at a more circumscribed but more formal result and attain it with more success. People say _Paul Potter's Bull_, and that is not enough, I assure you: they might say _The Bull_, and, in my opinion, that would be the greatest eulogy that could be bestowed upon this work, so mediocre in its weak parts and yet so decisive.

_Les Maîtres d'Autrefois_ (Paris, 1876)

CORÉSUS AND CALLIRHOÉ

(_FRAGONARD_)

EDMOND AND JULES DE GONCOURT

Poets were lacking in the last century. I do not say rhymers, versifiers and mechanical arrangers of words; I say poets. Poetry, taking the expression in the truth and height of its meaning; poetry, which is an elevation or an enchantment of the imagination, the contribution of an ideal of reverie or gaiety to human thought; poetry, which carries away and suspends above the world the soul of a period and the spirit of a people, was unknown to the France of the Eighteenth Century, and her two only poets were two painters: Watteau and Fragonard.

Watteau, the man of the North, the child of Flanders, the great poet of Love! the master of sweet serenity and tender Paradises, whose work may be likened to the Elysian Field of Passion! Watteau, the melancholy enchanter who has made nature sigh so heavily in his autumn woods, full of regret around dreamful pleasure! Watteau, the Pensieroso of the Regency; Fragonard, the little poet of the _Art of Love_ of the time.

Have you noticed in _L'Embarquement de Cythère_ all those naked little forms of saucy and knavish Loves half lost in the heights of the sky? Where are they going? They are going to play at Fragonard's and to put on his palette the hues of their butterfly wings.

Fragonard is the bold narrator, the gallant _amoroso_, the rogue with Gallic malice, nearly Italian in genius but French in spirit; the man of foreshortened mythology and roguish undress, of skies made rosy by the flesh of goddesses and alcoves lighted with female nudity.

Upon a table beside a bunch of roses let us allow the leaves of his work to be ruffled by the wind of a lovely day: from landscapes where robes of satin are escaping in coquettish flight, our glance skips to meadows guarded by Annettes of fifteen years, to granges where the somersaults of love upset the painter's easel, to pastures where the milk-maid of the milk-jug reveals her bare legs and weeps like a nymph over her broken urn, for her sheep, her flocks, and her vanished dream. Upon another page a maiden in love is writing a beloved name on the bark of a tree on a lovely summer evening. The breeze is always turning them over: now a shepherd and shepherdess are embracing before a sun-dial which little Cupids make into a pleasure-dial. It keeps on turning them; and now we have the beautiful dream of a pilgrim sleeping with his staff and gourd beside him, and to whom appears a host of young fays skimming a huge pot. Does it not seem that your eye is upon a vision of a fête by Boucher, shown by his pupil in Tasso's garden? Adorable magic lantern! where Clorinde follows Fiammette, where the gleams of an epic poem mingle with the smiles of the _novellieri_! Tales of the fay Urgèle, little comic jests, rays of gayety and sunshine which one might say were thrown upon the cloth upon which Béroalde de Verville made his cherry-gatherer walk. Tasso, Cervantes, Boccaccio, Ariosto (Ariosto as he has drawn him, inspired by Love and Folly), it recalls all his genii of happiness. It laughs with the liberties of La Fontaine. It goes from Properce to Grécourt, from Longus to Favart, from Gentil-Bernard to André Chénier. It has, so to speak, the heart of a lover and the hand of a charming rascal. In it the breath of a sigh passes into a kiss and it is young with immortal youth: it is the poem of Desire, a divine poem!

It is enough to have written it like Fragonard for him to remain what he will always be: the Cherubino of erotic painting....

He leaped into success and fame at one bound, with his picture of _Callirhoé_, that painting of universal approbation, which caused him to be received into the _Académie_ by acclamation; that painting which aroused public enthusiasm at the Salon in the month of August, and which had the honour of a Royal command for its reproduction upon Gobelin tapestry.

Imagine a large picture nine feet high by twelve feet long, where the human figures are of natural size, the architecture in its proper proportion and the crowd and sky have their own space. Between two columns of a shining marble with its iris-coloured reflections, above the heavy purple of a tapestry with golden fringe spread out and broken by the ridge of two steps, opens the scene of an antique drama which seems to be under the curtain of a theatre. On this tapestry, on this pagan altar-cloth, stands a copper crater near an urn of black marble half veiled with white linen. A column cuts in half a large candelabra smoking with incense and ornamented with goats' heads, a superb bronze which must have been taken from the lava of Herculaneum. A young priest has thrown himself on his knees against this candelabra and embraces its pedestal; in terror he has allowed his censer to fall to the earth. Standing by his side is Corésus, the high priest, crowned with ivy, enveloped in draperies, and seemingly floating in the sacerdotal whiteness of his vestments; a beardless priest, of doubtful sex, of androgynous grace, an enervated Adonis, the shadow of a man. With a backward turn of one hand he plunges the knife in his breast; with the other he has the appearance of casting his life into the heavens, whilst across his effeminate face pass the weakness of the agony and grief of violent death. Opposite the dying high-priest is the living though fainting victim, nearly dead at the belief that she is about to die. With her head resting on her shoulder, she has glided before the smoking altar. Her body has lost all rigidity on her bending legs, her arms hang down at her side; her glance is distracted; she has lost all volition in the use of her limbs; and she is there, sinking motionless, her throat scarcely distending with a breath, turning white under her crown of roses, which the painter's brush has made to pale in sympathy. Between her body and the altar a young priest is leaning in horrified curiosity. Another, upon one knee, perfectly terrified, with fixed gaze and parted lips, holds before the young girl the basin used to receive the blood of the victims. In the background are visible figures of old grey-bearded priests, aghast at the horrible spectacle. Above them the smoke of the temple, the flames, the perfumes, and the incense of the altar mingle with the cloudy sky, a sky of a night of miracles and hell, wild and rolling, a sky of fiery and sombre whirlwind, in which a genie brandishing a torch and dagger bears Love away in sombre flight enveloped in a black mantle. From that shadow, let us go to the shadow at the base of the picture: two women, writhing with fear, shrink back veiling their faces; a little boy clings about their knees and holds fast to them, and a ray of sunlight, falling across the arm of one of the women, illumines the hair and the little rosy hands of the child.

Such is Fragonard's great composition, that striking unexpected production, for which he must have taken the idea, and, perhaps, even the effect from one of the revivals of _Callirhoé_ by the poet Roy;[27] a painting of the opera, and demanding from the opera its soul and its light. But what a magnificent illusion this picture presents! It must be seen in the Louvre so that the eyes may feast upon the clear and warm splendour of the canvas, the milky radiance of all those white priestly robes, the virginal light inundating the centre of the scene, palpitating and dying away on _Callirhoé_, enveloping her fainting body like the fading of day, and caressing that failing throat. The rays of light and the smoke all melt into one another; the temple smokes and the mists of incense ascend everywhere. Night is rolling above the day. The sun falls into the gloom and casts a reflected glare. The gleams of sulphur flames illuminate the faces and the throng. Fragonard lavishly threw the lights of fairyland upon his masterpiece: it is Rembrandt combined with Ruggieri.

And what movement, what action are in this agitated and convulsive painting! The clouds and the garments whirl, the gestures are rapid, the attitudes are despairing, horror shudders in every pose and on every lip, and a great mute cry seems to rise throughout this entire temple and throughout this entire lyrical composition.

This cry of a picture, so new for the Eighteenth Century, is Passion. Fragonard introduces it into his time in this picture so full of tragic tenderness where we might fancy the entombment of Iphigenia. The phantasmagoria raises his art to the level of the emotion of the _Alceste_ of Euripides; it reveals a future for French painting: pathos.

_L'Art du Dix-Huitième Siècle_ (3d ed., Paris, 1882).

FOOTNOTES:

[27] _Callirhoé_ by Pierre-Charles Roy, was written in 1712.--E.S.

THE MARKET-CART

(_GAINSBOROUGH_)

RICHARD AND SAMUEL REDGRAVE

It is said that Sir Joshua at an Academy dinner gave "the health of Mr. Gainsborough, the greatest landscape painter of the day," to which Wilson, in his blunt, grumbling way, retorted, "Ay, and the greatest portrait painter, too." In Gainsborough's own time, the world of Art patrons seem to have employed his talents as a portrait painter, but to have disregarded his landscape art. Beechey said that "in Gainsborough's house in Pall Mall the landscapes stood ranged in long lines from his hall to his painting-room, and that those who came to sit to him for his portraits, on which he was chiefly occupied, rarely deigned to honour them with a look as they passed them." After his death, however, and the eulogium Reynolds had pronounced on his landscapes and rustic children, these came to be considered his finest works, and it is usual now to speak of him as a landscape rather than as a portrait painter. But it is more than doubtful whether Wilson did not judge more truly of his talent than Sir Joshua; and without wishing to place him above Reynolds in that painter's peculiar branch, it is certain that Gainsborough, in his finest portraits, formed a style equally original, and produced works that are every way worthy to take rank with those of the great President. They contrast with the latter in being more silvery and pure, and in the absence of that impasto and richness in which Reynolds indulged, but his figures are surrounded by air and light, and his portraits generally are easy and graceful without affectation....

Reynolds says: "It is difficult to determine whether Gainsborough's portraits were most admirable for exact truth of resemblance, or his landscapes for a portrait-like representation of Nature,"--a strange judgment, written more with a view to a well-rounded period than to any true criticism on his rival's landscape art. It is certainly true that Gainsborough put aside altogether the early foundation of Dutch landscape on which he had begun to build, and took an entirely original view of Nature, both as to treatment and handling. Yet in the sense in which the artists of our day paint "portrait-like representations of Nature," Gainsborough's art was anything but portrait-like. It has been objected to the great Italian landscape painters that they did not discriminate between one tree and another, but indulged in a "painter's tree." There is far more variety in those of our native artist, yet it would puzzle a critic to say what his trees really are, and to point out in his landscapes the distinctive differences between oak and beech, and elm. The weeds, too, in his foregrounds, have neither form nor species. On the margins of his brooks or pools a few sword-shaped dashes tell of reeds and rushes; on the banks of his road-side some broad-leaved forms catch the straggling sun-ray, but he cared little to go into botanical minutiæ, or to enable us to tell their kind. His rocks are certainly not truly stratified or geologically correct--how should they be?--he studied them, perhaps, in his painting-room from broken stones and bits of coal. The truth is, however, that he gave us more of Nature than any merely imitative rendering could do. As the great portrait painter looks beyond the features of his sitter to give the mind and character of the man, often thereby laying himself open to complaint as to his mere _likeness_ painting; so the great landscape painter will at all times sink individual imitation in seeking to fill us with the greater truths of his art. It may be the golden sunset or the breezy noon, the solemn breadth of twilight, or the silvery freshness of morn--the something of colour, of form, of light and shade, floating rapidly away, that makes the meanest and most commonplace view at times startle us with wonder at its beauty, when treated by the true artist.

And did he study such merely from broken stones and pieces of coal, from twigs and weeds in his painting-room? Vain idea! these were but the _memoria technica_, that served to call up in his mind the thoughts he had fed on in many a lonely walk and leisure moment, when they of common clay plodded on and saw nothing--brooded on with a nature tuned to the harmonies of colour and of form, organized in a high degree to receive and retain impressions of beauty; and gifted with the power to place vividly before us by his art objects which had so delighted and pleased himself. Does any one think otherwise--let him try what can be got out of stones and coals; let him try how his memory will aid him, with such feeble helps as broken twigs and dry mosses, and then he may be able to appreciate, in a degree, how this man had won the mastery of paint and canvas and turned their dross into the fine gold of true Art.

But in the history of British Art, the great merit of Gainsborough is, to have broken us entirely loose from old conventions. Wilson had turned aside from Dutch art to ennoble landscape by selecting from the higher qualities of Italian art; but Gainsborough early discarded all he had learned from the bygone schools, and gave himself up wholly to Nature; he was capable of delicate handling and minute execution, but he resolutely cast them aside lest any idol should interfere between him and his new religion. There may be traced a lingering likeness in his landscapes to those of Rubens; but this arose more from his generalization of details, his sinking the parts in the whole, than to any imitation of the great Fleming. It is like the recollection of some sweet melody which the musician weaves into his theme, all unconscious that it is a memory and not a child of his own creation.

The pictures of Gainsborough, on the whole, stand better far than those by Reynolds. "Landscape with Cattle," a picture belonging to the Marquis of Lansdowne, is lovely for colour and freshness; it has been lined and repaired, but evidently had parted widely in the lights. Could any closeness of individual imitation give the truth, beauty of colour, and luminous sunlight of this picture? It somewhat reminds one of Zuccarelli, but how completely has Gainsborough sucked the honey and left the comb of the master! Viewed near, this picture is somewhat loose in texture, and hesitating in execution; the colour obtained by semi-transparents, as yellow-ochre, terra-verte, and ultramarine; while viewed at a proper distance, it is in perfect harmony.

In examining the landscapes of this painter, much must, however, be allowed for the present state of some of his works. Many are covered with a dark-brown varnish, obscuring the silvery freshness of their first state. This has cracked up in the darks and quite changed them. The _Market-Cart_ and the _Watering-Place_, as well as others in the National collection, are in a very different condition to that in which they left the easel. The world, however, has become so conservative, and has such belief in the picture-vamper's "golden tones," that so they must remain. It would be most impolitic to touch them until they have become too dark to be seen at all.

_A Century of Painters of the English School_ (London, 1866).

BACCHUS AND ARIADNE

(_TINTORET_)

HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE

It is more difficult for me to speak to you of the Venetian painters than of any others. Before their pictures one has no desire to analyze or reason; if one does this, it is by compulsion. The eyes enjoy, and that is all: they enjoy as the Venetians enjoyed in the Sixteenth Century; for Venice was not at all a literary or critical city like Florence; there painting was nothing more than the complement of the environing pleasure, the decoration of a banqueting-hall or of an architectural alcove. In order to understand this you must place yourself at a distance, shut your eyes and wait until your sensations are dulled; then your mind performs its work....

There are certain families of plants, the species of which are so closely allied that they resemble more than they differ from each other: such are the Venetian painters, not only the four celebrities, Giorgione, Titian, Tintoret, and Veronese, but others less illustrious, Palma "il vecchio," Bonifazio, Paris Bordone, Pordenone, and that host enumerated by Ridolfi in his _Lives_, contemporaries, relatives, and successors of the great men, Andrea Vicentino, Palma "il giovine," Zelotti, Bazzaco, Padovinano, Bassano, Schiavone, Moretto, and many others. What first appeals to the eye is the general and common type; the individual and personal traits remain for a time in shadow. They have worked together and by turns in the Ducal Palace, but by the involuntary concord of their talents their pictures make an harmonious whole.