Chapter VII: English, Eighteenth Century 329–428 (5)

This picture came from the Collection of Prince Potenziani, of Rieti, Italy, and represents the Virgin standing behind a parapet and supporting the Holy Child who is standing upon it. Her mantle and tunic are decorated with a border of embroidery and over the mantle falls her heavy white veil which might be described as a hood, showing a little of her wavy hair. The face of the Virgin is a perfect oval, her eyes are set far apart, her nose is long and aquiline, and her mouth a little discontented. Her arm and wrist are beautifully modelled and so is the thumb of her right hand. This hand is noticeably wide. The left hand does not seem to match the right; it is coarser. The Holy Child is leaning against His mother’s left shoulder and looking out of the picture. He wears a little tunic over a white shirt with sleeves and a wide, blue sash with a striped pattern. A close-fitting cap is tied with ribbons under His chin. His right hand is lifted in blessing and His left is clasping the fingers of His mother’s right hand. On the right of the parapet a crystal ball is lying and on the left a capsicum-pod, and behind the Madonna’s head hangs a heavy swag of capsicum. The landscape in the background is noticeably fine. On the left, a road winds through trees to the gates of a city with high Gothic towers; on the right, a river flows past hills crowned with castles. Clouds fill the sky. The _nimbi_ are quite unusual. This is evidently an early work and not a little of Mantegna’s influence is apparent in it.

_Collection of Mr. Philip Lehman_

MADONNA AND CHILD

--_Giovanni Bellini_]

THE FEAST OF THE GODS.

(IL BACCANALE.)

_Giovanni Bellini
(1428–30–1516)._

_Collection of
Mr. Joseph E. Widener._

“In the year 1514”--this is Vasari’s narrative--“Duke Alfonso of Ferrara had caused a little chamber to be decorated and had commissioned Dosso, the painter of Ferrara, to execute in certain compartments stories of Æneas, Mars, and Venus and, in a grotto, Vulcan with two smiths at the forge; and he desired that there should also be there pictures by the hand of Gian Bellini. Bellini painted on another wall a vat of red wine with some _Bacchanale_ around it and Satyrs, musicians and other men and women all drunk with wine, and near them a nude and very beautiful Silenus riding on his ass, with figures about him that have their hands full of fruits and grapes; which work was in truth executed and colored with great diligence, inasmuch that it is one of the most beautiful pictures that Gian Bellini ever painted, although in the manner of the draperies there is a certain sharpness after the German manner (nothing, indeed, of any account) because he imitated a picture by the Fleming,[18] Albrecht Dürer, which had been brought in those days to Venice and placed in the Church of S. Bartolommeo, a rare work and full of most beautiful figures painted in oils. On that vat Gian Bellini wrote these words: ‘Joannes Bellinus Venetus P. 1514.’ That work he was not able to finish completely, because he was old, and Tiziano, as the most excellent of all the others, was sent for to the end that he might finish it.”

Titian’s work is to be found in the landscape-background,--which is an exact view of Titian’s own Cadore. This landscape, with its valley and rocky hill surmounted by a castle with towers, bathed in warm, luminous light, was the finest that had ever been painted up to that time. Bellini only lived two years after painting _The Feast of the Gods_. In 1515 he painted the so-called _Venus of the Belvedere_ and he died in the following year.

“So easy is the passage from Bellini’s art to Titian’s, that the transition creates no contrast. The tone throughout is harmonized, and the art of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries meets and mingles in perfect fellowship,” Crowe and Cavalcaselle note.

This picture, an oil painting on canvas (67 × 74 inches) came from the Collection of the Duke of Northumberland at Alnwick Castle, England, having been previously in the Collection of Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini and in that of Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi, Rome.

These two villas, upon whose walls _The Feast of the Gods_ hung for so many years, are very celebrated. The _Villa Aldobrandini_ is one of the most notable residences near Rome. It is situated on the slope of a mountain overlooking Frascati and was built by Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini, who entrusted its decoration to the most eminent artists of his day, such as Jacopo della Porta, Domenichino, Giuseppe Gesari, and Giovanni Fontana. Here, too, were gathered the most precious relics of ancient art, while the gardens, adorned with vases, statues, colonnades, and sparkling fountains, made the exterior a place of marvellous beauty and charm. The view of mountains and sea suggested the name of _Belvedere_. The Villa belongs to-day to the Borghese family, who inherited it from the Aldobrandini.

_Collection of Mr. Joseph E. Widener_

FEAST OF THE GODS

--_Giovanni Bellini_]

The _Villa Ludovisi_, frequently called the Piombino Palace, is situated on the site of the ancient gardens of Sallust. This palace was erected in 1622 by Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi, nephew of Pope Gregory XV, who selected Domenichino for his architect and the famous Le Nôtre for his landscape-gardener. The property passed by inheritance to the Princess of Piombino (Buonocampagni-Ludovisi).

Art-lovers know the name in connection with the colossal and magnificent head of the Juno Ludovisi (Fifth Century, B. C.); and it will be remembered that the Juno Ludovisi and other antiques from the Villa Ludovisi formed the Museo Buonocompagni.

THE VIRGIN AND CHILD.

_Titian
(1477?–1576)._

_Collection of
Mr. Jules S. Bache._

The Virgin, in profile, seated on a stone seat, has auburn hair--“Titian hair”--which is relieved against a dark-green curtain. Her robe is pale rose-color with slashes of white and her mantle of cobalt blue like the landscape, “which resembles the sea at midday.” She also wears a white veil. She is looking with great tenderness at the Holy Child, lying at full length on her lap and smiling at her.

The composition is most beautiful and the introduction of the trees gives perpendicular lines which contrast delightfully with the general horizontal effects.

Lionel Cust calls it a picture of great charm, as indeed it is, and says: “The Virgin leans tenderly over the Child lying upon her knees. This composition is treated in the same manner as the picture at Bergamo, the _Virgin and Child with St. Bridgit and St. Ulphus_, in the Prado at Madrid, and a few others. In all of these works the sentiment is that of Giorgione, even though the execution is of the hand of Titian; and one could not think of attaching another name than his to this picture and to that at Madrid. It will be noticed also that the two tree-trunks, so much in evidence at the back of the picture, constitute a _leit-motiv_, which Giorgione first employed and which Titian imitated.”

_Collection of Mr. Jules S. Bache_

THE VIRGIN AND CHILD

--_Titian_]

Herbert F. Cook in his _Giorgione_ (London, 1907), gives this painting to Giorgione, sustaining the claim by the following: “The marble parapet is a feature in Giorgione’s work, but not in Titian’s. But the most convincing evidence to those who know the master lies in the composition, which forms an almost equilateral triangle, revealing Giorgione’s supreme sense of beauty in line. The splendid curves made by the drapery, the pose of the Child, so as to obtain the same unbroken sweep of line, reveal the painter of the _Dresden Venus_. The painting of the Child’s hand over the Madonna’s is precisely as in the Madrid picture, where, moreover, the pose of the Child is singularly alike. The folds of drapery on the sleeve recur in the same picture, the landscape with the small figure seated beneath the tree is such as can be found in any Giorgione background. The oval of the face and the delicacy of the features are thoroughly characteristic, as is the spirit of calm reverie and tender simplicity which Giorgione has breathed into his figures.”

Whether by Titian, or by Giorgione, or by both, the painting is a gem. If by Giorgione, it would be even more valuable, as this master is so rare.

The painting, oil on panel (18 × 22 inches), came from the Benson Collection and was formerly at Burghley House, Stamford, Northamptonshire, having been acquired in Italy between 1690 and 1700 by the Earl of Exeter.

Tiziano Vecellio was born about 1477 at Pieve di Cadore, the son of Gregorio Vecelli, and was taken to Venice at the age of ten and apprenticed to a mosaic-worker. After this he studied in Giovanni Bellini’s _bottega_, where he had for a fellow-pupil, Giorgione, with whom he was associated in decorating the Fondaco dei Tedeschi. Titian visited Padua, Rome, and, in 1516, Ferrara. Commissions of all kinds followed rapidly and Titian became the most famous painter of his time. He lived in splendid style and his long life was filled with magnificent painting and magnificent results. Titian died of the Plague in 1576.

In his long life, crowned with every kind of success, Titian painted with superlative skill every sort of subject. Titian was one of the greatest masters the world has ever known.

“In attempting to picture Titian,” writes Taine, “we imagine a happy man, the happiest and the healthiest of his species, Heaven having bestowed upon him nothing but favors and felicities: the first among his rivals; visited in his house by the Kings of France and Poland; a favorite of the Emperor, of Philip II, of the Doges, of Pope Paul III, of all the Italian princes; created a knight and a count of the Empire; overwhelmed with orders; liberally paid, pensioned, and worthily enjoying his good fortune. He kept house in great state, dressed himself splendidly, and entertained at his table cardinals, lords, the greatest artists and the ablest writers of his day. Beauty, taste, cultivation, and talent play and reflect back upon him, as if from a mirror the brightness of his own genius. His brother, his son, Orazio, his two cousins, Cesare and Fabrizio, and his relative, Marco di Tiziano, were all excellent painters. His daughter, Lavinia, dressed as Flora, with a basket of fruit on her head, supplied him with a model of fresh complexion and ample form. His talent flows on like a great river in its bed, nothing disturbs its course, and its own increase is sufficient. Like Leonardo and Michelangelo, Titian sees nothing outside of his art.”

CATERINA CORNARO, QUEEN OF CYPRUS.

_Titian
(1477–1576)._

_Collection of
Mr. John Ringling._

Proud and handsome this famous Queen and beauty looks down upon us from the centuries. She is wearing a dress of gold and green striped velvet with a pink camelia at her neck and one of those fashionable, tall, sugar-loaf head-dresses--called in France the _hennin_--with jewelled band around the rim and a floating veil. Very beautifully are her pearls painted; and, fastened by a chain to a bracelet on her left wrist, is a pet chameleon.

This portrait, oils on canvas (43 × 38 inches), came from the Ricardi Palace, Florence, and from the Collection of R. S. Holford, Esq., Dorchester House.

Caterina Cornaro, “_La Reine de Chypre_,” famous in song and story, was the daughter of Marco Cornaro, a noble Venetian and descendant of the Doge of the same name, and Florence, daughter of Niccolò Crispo, Duca dell’ Archipelago. Caterina was born in Venice in 1454, educated at the Convent of San Benedetto in Padua, and reared in all the wealth and elegance of the time. At an early age she was married to the King of Cyprus, Jerusalem, and Armenia (Jacques de Lusignan), who chose her from sixty-two of the most beautiful women of Venice. The Senate, having adopted Caterina Cornaro as a daughter of the Republic, gave her a dowry of a hundred thousand golden ducats and agreed to defend the Kingdom of Cyprus against all enemies.

The wedding took place by proxy in Venice in 1472 and was celebrated with great magnificence. The Doge, himself, Cristoforo Moro, called for the bride at her palace in the Bucentaur and accompanied her to the Venetian ship in which she embarked with a regal suite for her new home. After experiencing several accidents at sea, the beautiful Venetian lady arrived in Cyprus, where her rare beauty and charming manners captivated the entire population. Within two years her husband died and Caterina then reigned over Cyprus for fourteen years, subject, however, to the strict surveillance of Venice. At last, wearied by restrictions and intrigues, the Queen of Cyprus in 1489 returned to Venice with her beloved brother, Giorgio Cornaro, and made a solemn transfer of all her claims in Cyprus to the Doge.

Caterina then went to Frattalonga, situated at the foot of the Asolani mountains, to meet the Emperor Maximilian, who was on his way home from Milan to Vienna; and the place pleased her so much that she obtained from the Doge, Agostino Barbarigo, the investiture of Asolo and its district. A few months later--in October 1489--Caterina returned to Asolo with a suite of four thousand persons and established a Court in the Castle, where she lived for twenty-one years, protected by troops granted to her by the Republic of Venice. In this beautiful residence Caterina was said to have held three Courts--that of the Muses; that of Love; and that of her own, which was of great magnificence. The leading spirit there was the celebrated poet, Pietro Bembo, (in later years Cardinal Bembo), who wrote his famous dialogues of love, _Gli Asolani_, here in 1490, for the superb marriage festivities of one of Caterina’s maids-of-honor. Every illustrious personage of the period visited the Court at Asolo.

_Collection of Mr. John Ringling_

CATERINA CORNARO

QUEEN OF CYPRUS

--_Titian_]

During the wars occasioned by the League of Cambrai (1508), Caterina returned for safety to Venice and died there in 1510, in the palace of her brother, Giorgio, who was then procurator of St. Mark’s.

Titian painted several other portraits of Caterina Cornaro, of which the one in the Uffizi is the most famous, representing the Queen of Cyprus with her golden crown studded with large pearls and an over-dress or coat of rich green brocade.

GIORGIO CORNARO WITH FALCON.

_Titian
(1489–1576)._

_Collection of
Mr. A. W. Erickson._

We have here a famous Venetian statesman and general of the Sixteenth Century, beloved brother of Caterina Cornaro, Queen of Cyprus (see page 143), representing him probably in the habit he liked best of all--that of a sportsman with his pet falcon. Here he stands, three quarters to the right, in a slate-colored hunting coat with brown fur collar and with a black belt at the waist from which hangs a sword, bound with a crimson sash. His curly hair and beard are chestnut color and his eyes are very bright. His head is raised and he looks intently at his falcon perched upon his left gloved hand, with hood, bill and jacket attached, and with his right hand grasps the bird’s breast.

From the left hand corner the head of a white, liver-spotted hound looks up. The background is dark. The painting, an oil on canvas (43 × 38 inches) was formerly in the Collections of the Carignan branch of the Royal House of Piedmont; Louis François de Bourbon, Prince de Conti; the Earl of Carlisle, Castle Howard, Yorkshire, England; and Dr. Edward Simon, Berlin. Crowe and Cavalcaselle in their _Life and Times of Titian_ (London, 1881) say of this work: “Titian never produced a finer picture than which now adorns the gallery of Castle Howard. This beautiful work is modelled with all the richness of tone and smoothness of surface which distinguishes polished flesh. The attitude is natural, the complexion warm and embrowned by the sun; and every part is blended with the utmost finish without producing want of flexibility.”

_Collection of Mr. A. W. Erickson_

GIORGIO CORNARO WITH FALCON

--_Titian_]

Giorgio Cornaro succeeded his father, Marco Cornaro in 1479, he being about twenty-five. Italian historians are fond of attributing the Victory of Cadore to Giorgio Cornaro, who lived until 1527, having played an important part all his life in Venetian politics.

MAXIMILIAN SFORZA, DUKE OF MILAN.

_Bartolommeo Veneto
(1480–1555)._

_Collection of
Mr. Henry Goldman._

This portrait, oil on panel (30⅞ × 23¼ inches), was formerly in the Palazzo Sforza and later hung in the Casa Perego, Milan, until the entire Casa Perego Collection was bought in the early Nineteenth Century by Senator Crespi of Rome, in whose gallery it remained until the Crespi Collection was sold. It is doubly interesting as a work of art and as the representation of an important character in Italian history. Bernhard Berenson calls it “one of the most manly portraits and one of the most beautiful paintings of the Italian Renaissance.”

The half-length figure is seen almost full front, but the head is turned slightly to the left. All the Italian Renaissance seems to be expressed in this proud, distinguished person and in his rich dress, which consists of a coat of green velvet trimmed with bands of gold, a finely embroidered white shirt, black waistcoat with horizontal gold stripes and a rich fur collar, which he clasps with his right hand on the index finger of which is a handsome ring. His dark hair falls to the shoulders and is surmounted by a black velvet cap, on the side of which is a gold and enamelled medal showing an allegorical female figure with the date 1512, of the kind that all the fashionable gentlemen were wearing at that period. A red curtain falls behind the figure and on the wall hangs a picture in which are introduced figures from Dürer’s famous woodcut, _The Knight and the Lansquenet_. In front of the sitter is a narrow ledge, or balustrade, with a card in the centre, which originally carried the signature of Bartolommeo Veneto.

_Collection of Mr. Henry Goldman_

MAXIMILIAN SFORZA

--_Bartolommeo Veneto_]

Maximilian Sforza was the son of Ludovico Sforza, “Il Moro,” Duke of Milan, the most illustrious prince of Italy, and Beatrice d’Este, one of the most fascinating and brilliant women of the Italian Renaissance. Maximilian was born on January 25, 1493, in the Castello of Milan, and was named Ercole out of compliment to his grandfather, Duke Ercole of Ferrara. He was brought up in the most brilliant of Courts and his education and training were of the very best. His mother was devoted to him and constantly mentions him in her letters. Ercole appears in the great altar-piece attributed to Zenale, now in the Brera, kneeling by the side of his father. The portrait of this little child must be a good one, for we see the same face grown older in the Veneto portrait before us. On the altar-piece, just mentioned, Ercole’s younger brother kneels by the side of Beatrice d’Este. It was during a visit of the Emperor Maximilian to Ludovico and his wife in 1496 that Ercole received his new name. The Emperor, again charmed by Beatrice, took great interest in her two sons and requested that the elder should be called Maximilian.

But the brilliant days passed and sorrows came. The beautiful, gifted mother died in January, 1497, and the French invaded Milan. Ludovico determined to seek safety in flight and sent his two sons to Germany under the care of his brother, Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, Cardinal Sanseverino, and their kinswoman, Camilla Sforza. “A truly piteous and heart-breaking sight it was,” wrote an eye-witness, “to see these poor children embrace their beloved father, whose face was wet with their tears.” Twenty mules laden with baggage and a large chariot drawn by eight horses and containing Ludovico’s precious jewels and 240,000 gold ducats followed in the train of the young princes. These young gentlemen never saw their father again, for “Il Moro” was captured, taken to Paris, and imprisoned in the castle of Loches, where he died in 1508.

An Italian writer, Marino Sanuto, exclaimed on the terrible fate of Ludovico: “Only think, reader, what grief and shame so great and glorious a lord, who had been held to be the wisest of monarchs and ablest of rulers, must have felt at losing so splendid a state in these few days, without a single stroke of the sword. Let those who are in high places take warning, considering the miserable fall of this lord, who was held by many to be the greatest prince in the world, and let them remember that when Fortune sets you on the top of her wheel, she may at any moment bring you to the ground.”

The rest of the story is well told in Mrs. Cartwright’s _Beatrice d’Este_ (London, 1889):

“Meanwhile Beatrice’s sons grew up at Innsbrück, under the care of their cousin, the Empress Bianca. It was a melancholy life for these young princes, born in the purple and reared in all the luxury and culture of Milan. And when their cousin, Bianca, died in 1510, they lost their best friend. But a sudden and unexpected turn of the tide brought them once more to the front. That warlike pontiff, Julius II, who, as Cardinal della Rovere, had been one of the chief instruments in bringing the French into Italy, entered into a league with Maximilian to expel them and reinstate the son of the hated Moro on the throne of Milan. They succeeded so well that in 1512, four years after Ludovico’s death at Loches, young Maximilian Sforza entered Milan in triumph amidst the enthusiastic applause of the people. Once more he rode up to the gates of the Castello, where he was born, and took up his abode there as reigning duke. But his rule over Lombardy was short. A handsome, gentle youth, without either his father’s talents or his mother’s high spirit, Maximilian was destined to become a passive tool in the hands of stronger and more powerful men. His weakness and incapacity soon became apparent, and when, three years later, the new French King, Francis I, invaded the Milanese and defeated the Italian army at Marignano, the young duke signed an act of abdication and consented to spend the rest of his life in France. There he lived in honorable captivity, content with a pension allowed him by King Francis and with the promise of a Cardinal’s hat held out to him by the Pope, until he died in May, 1530.”

Bartolommeo Veneto (or Bartolommeo Veneziano), born in 1480, was a pupil of Giovanni Bellini, whose influence is apparent in Veneto’s early pictures. In 1506–1508 Veneto was painting for Lucrezia Borgia in Ferrara and after that he was engaged at the Court of Milan, where he painted this portrait of _Maximilian Sforza_. The picture bears the date 1512, which was the year the young Duke returned to Milan.

Bartolommeo Veneto was famous for his portraits. He lived for sometime in Lombardy and, like all the painters of the time and place, fell under the influence of Leonardo da Vinci. As the last trace of him appears on a portrait in the Uffizi, dated 1555, it is supposed that Veneto died in that year.

A SCENE ALONG THE ADRIATIC COAST.

_Francesco Guardi
(1712–1793)._

_Collection of
Mrs. Charles B. Alexander._

Guardi, a pupil of Canaletto, devoted himself to the study of his native city, Venice, where he was born in 1712 and where he painted steadily until his death in 1793. Guardi ranks with Canaletto and Turner as one of the three greatest painters of the “Dream City” as Charles Dickens called Venice. In Guardi’s long list of pictures we have a perfect history in paint of the “Queen of the Adriatic” during the Eighteenth Century. There are innumerable views of the Grand Canal; of both the exterior and the interior of San Marco; of San Giorgio, the Salute, San Zaccaria, and other churches; of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi (the German banking-house); the Doges Palace; the Piazza and the Piazzetta; scenes on the outlying islands; views on the Lagoons; and pictures of processions of the Doges and of festivals of the church. The picture presented here shows a scene outside of Venice, but not far away; and it is a beautiful and characteristic work of Guardi, both as to composition and color. The painting came from the Collection of the Baron Maurice de Rothschild of Paris to its present owner, Mrs. Charles B. Alexander of New York.

_Collection of Mrs. Charles B. Alexander_

A SCENE ALONG THE ADRIATIC COAST

--_Francesco Guardi_]

FLEMISH PAINTING

_FLEMISH PAINTING_

Flemish Painting in the Fourteenth Century was based on the miniature-painting that illustrated the Mediæval manuscripts: indeed, many of the early paintings look like enlarged versions of the little pictures that adorn the vellum pages of missals and old _romans_. The early painters were influenced by the School of Cologne until the two Van Eycks (Hubert, 1366–1426, and Jan, 1380–1441), by their marvellous painting and by the followers they attracted, raised Flemish Art into importance and gave it a standing by itself as the School of Bruges.

Little is known of the lives of these painters except that they stood high in the favor of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, who frequently sent Jan on missions to foreign countries, and that the brothers painted the great and famous altar-piece, the _Adoration of the Lamb_, for the Cathedral of St. Bavon in Ghent. This great work, which is one of the most celebrated of all altar-pieces, is a landmark in the history of painting. It may be said to have inaugurated the Flemish School; and it marks an innovation as well. This _Adoration of the Lamb_ was ordered by Jodocus Vydts, a burgomaster of Ghent, and his wife, Isabella Borluut, for their mortuary chapel in the Cathedral of St. Bavon; and Van Mander relates that when it was finished “swarms of people” came to gaze upon it; but, as the wings were closed except on special festivals, “few but the high-born and those who could afford to pay the _custos_ saw it.” It must be remembered that at this period changes were also taking place in Italy under Gentile de Fabriano, Pisanello, and Masaccio. Whether the Van Eycks invented oil-painting or not, they had much to do with perfecting the process and influencing others to the use of the new method.

The Van Eycks had as pupils and followers all the Flemish and German painters of the day and their influence was even felt in Italy, where their pictures sold for their weight in gold.

In 1425 Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, took Jan van Eyck into his service as painter and “_varlet de chambre_;” and Jan, thereafter, seems to have spent his life at the Court, painting portraits and designing variously, going on embassies for the Duke, and painting in Bruges and in Lille. As a portrait-painter Jan van Eyck is ranked with Dürer, Holbein, Raphael, Titian, Van Dyck, and the other great ones in this line. Undoubtedly, Jan van Eyck moved about a good deal through the Duke of Burgundy’s immense domain, which included all the Low Countries and a great part of what is now France.

We are apt to think of these early painters who laid the foundations of modern art as living in a much simpler day than our own. It is true that in the Fifteenth Century the Middle Ages were still holding their own in Flanders--the Renaissance moved very slowly northward--but it was a time of great prosperity and great luxury, especially in the Burgundian country.

Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, son of the King of France, was the most luxurious prince of his time. His titles show his power. He was Duke of Burgundy, of Brabant, of Lothier and of Luxembourg; Count of Flanders, of Artois, and of Burgundy; Palatine of Hainault, of Holland, of Zeeland, of Namur, and of Charolais; Marquis of the Holy Empire; and Lord of Friesland, of Salins, and of Mechlin. The House of Burgundy, therefore, by its inheritances, alliances and conquests, had attained such power as even to overshadow the French throne. Philip the Good (1396–1467) was even more luxurious than his grandfather, Philip the Bold. His Court was unequalled in Europe and was subject to the strictest rules of etiquette. His palaces in Brussels, Dijon, and Paris were sumptuously furnished and his collections of tapestries, gold-work, silver-work, jewels, embroideries, illuminated manuscripts, and printed books excited the admiration of such travellers and chroniclers as were privileged to see them and who, fortunately for us, have left accounts for us to read. At this period, too, the Flemings were the great craftsmen of Europe and they produced every kind of article required for the tastes and comfort of the wealthy Burgundians. Brussels and Dijon became veritable Meccas for Mediæval artists, while Bruges, Tournay, Arras, Ypres, Ghent, and Dinant held a welcome for any able craftsman or artist, who, driven from England, France, or Italy by the civil wars, sought refuge and work.

And there was plenty of work to be done!

Artistic designs of all kinds were needed for tapestry-workers, for the goldsmiths and silversmiths, for the furniture-makers, and for craftsmen busy in making articles for household use or for personal decoration. Moreover, for the great entertainments, such as weddings, receptions of princes, or celebrations in honor of the Knights of the Golden Fleece, and other important functions, a veritable army of painters, sculptors, illuminators, carvers, and machinists was needed to design, plan, and execute the _entremets_ exhibited during the banquets and the grand decorations erected in the streets through which the processions passed.

We shall gain a better idea of the spirit of early Flemish Art if we pause for a moment to look into the palace at Lille, in 1454, when Philip the Good was celebrating the “Feast of the Pheasant.” The large hall was hung with tapestry representing the _Labors of Hercules_. The _dressoir_ of enormous size was adorned with magnificent gold and silver vessels and there were three large tables, splendidly laden with viands artistically decorated. One of the guests wrote: “On a raised platform at the head of the first table sat the Duke. He was arrayed in his accustomed splendor--his dress of black velvet serving as a dark ground that heightened the brilliancy of the precious stones, valued at a million of gold crowns, with which it was profusely decked. Among the guests was a numerous body of knights, who had passed the morning in the tilting-field, and fair Flemish ladies, whose flaunting beauty had inspired these martial sports. Each course was composed of forty-four dishes, which were placed on chariots painted in gold and azure and which were moved along the tables by concealed machinery. As soon as the company was seated, the bells began to peal from the steeple of a huge pastry church with stained windows that concealed an organ and choir of singers; and three little choristers issued from the edifice and sang a very sweet _chanson_. Twenty-eight musicians, hidden in a mammoth pie,[19] performed on various instruments and the fine viands and wines were circulated.”

After the exhibition of _entremets_, the _pheasant_ was brought in, the Crusade proclaimed against the Sultan, and the vows registered.

It is safe to conjecture that Hubert and Jan van Eyck were among the painters who were employed to design the _entremets_, triumphal arches, and curiosities executed in pastry and in confections made of sugar, as well as to paint portraits of distinguished Flemings and altar-pieces for their churches.

The Flemish Primitives certainly had many occasions to feast their eyes upon magnificence!

John Paston, who went to Bruges to attend Charles the Bold’s second marriage in 1468 to Margaret of York, was overwhelmed and dazed by what he saw. “Nothing was like it save King Arthur’s Court,” he wrote home. The streets were hung with tapestries and cloth-of-gold, triumphal arches were erected and at intervals along her way the bride was entertained by “Histories,” the joint production of painters, decorators, dramatists, and machinists. The banquet-hall was superbly decorated and the chroniclers say “lighted by chandeliers in the form of castles surrounded by forest and mountains with revolving paths on which serpents, dragons, and other monstrous animals seemed to roam in search of prey, spouting forth jets of flame that were reflected in huge mirrors, so arranged as to catch and multiply the rays. The dishes containing the principal meats were ships, seven feet long and completely rigged, the masts and cordage gilt, the sails and streamers of silk, each floating in a silver lake between shores of verdure and enamelled rocks and attended by a fleet of boats laden with lemons, oranges, and condiments. There were thirty of these vessels and as many huge pastries in the shape of castles with banners waving from their battlements and towers; besides tents and pavilions for the fruit; jelly-dishes of crystal supported by figures of the same material dispensing streams of lavender and rose-water; and an immense profusion of gold and silver plate.”

When Charles the Bold was killed on the battlefield of Nancy (1477), a New Era was about to dawn. America was soon to be discovered; Vasco da Gama was to find an ocean route to the East Indies; the Moors were to be expelled from Spain; the Wars of the Roses were to end in England; Ferdinand and Isabella were to marry their daughter, the “mad Joanna,” to Philip the Fair of Austria, heir through his mother, Mary of Burgundy, to the Burgundian dominions (the issue being Charles V, born in Ghent in 1500). Of still more importance to the world of Art than these important events was the discovery of Italy by the French, who crossed the Alps with Charles VIII. The French were dazzled by what they saw in Italy. On their return the Renaissance in France and the Netherlands may be said to have begun to blossom. _The ground had already been prepared by the art-loving Dukes of Burgundy._

Let us return, however, to the Bruges painters:

“The rise of the School was aided by the Fourteenth Century Art of Cologne best shown in the work of Meister Wilhelm. The Art of the movement was, for the period, strongly realistic. Natural objects were painted with the utmost fidelity, interest in still-life and _genre_ begin to appear, and details of architecture and landscape were rendered as carefully as the heads of the most sacred personages in the compositions. So pronounced was this tendency that superficial observers are led to consider Flemish painting fundamentally material; but a thoughtful analysis will reveal a spirituality in the art quite as sincere, if not so obvious, as in the painting of contemporary Italy. In the early School, the painting was almost wholly religious, and scenes and actors were handled with reverence and deep feeling.

“The Flemings, however, inherited from earlier art a religious type to which they clung with great tenacity and which to the modern eye is ugly. The exaggeratedly-domed forehead of the Madonna, a symbol of intellect to the Fleming, is to the modern a distortion. Similarly the tiny mouth, the eyes almost without brows,[20] and the other features which Flemish symbolism demanded, are now somewhat disturbing to the eye. When native realism and symbolism were coupled, as in the over realistic rendering of the ascetic Christ-Child, the effect is sometimes startling to the layman; and the beginner in the study of Flemish Art should beware of mistaking accidents of convention for artistic defects. If the conventions of Flemish Art make it at first difficult to appreciate, the technical perfection of the work must appeal to any one. Oil-painting, perfected if not necessarily invented in Flanders, gave a richness of color and a lustre of surface which specially distinguished the style. The play and delicate gradation of light over richly-colored surfaces was rendered so skillfully that the artists approached the expression of a complete visual effect, finally reached in Seventeenth Century Holland in the work of Vermeer.--_Mediæval and Renaissance Paintings_ (Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 1927).

Next in importance to the Van Eycks comes Roger van der Weyden (1400?–1464). By 1432 Roger had made a name for himself, for he had become a master painter in the Tournay Guild. In 1450 he went to Italy and seems to have visited Cologne on his way home (see page 166).

The Maître de Flémalle (Robert Campin?), who showed a great interest in still-life, is thought to have been the master of Roger van der Weyden. Petrus Christus (1410?–1473), a native of Baerle, Holland, free citizen of Bruges in 1444, is regarded as one of the ancestors of _genre_ painting (see page 169).

Hans Memling (1430–5–1494), a native of Holland, was a supposed pupil of Roger van der Weyden. It is believed that Roger van der Weyden took Memling with him to Italy in 1450. Memling was closely associated with his master Roger van der Weyden and sometimes painted the wing-panels for Roger’s great altar-pieces. Memling’s chief painting was done in Bruges (see page 172).

Taine thus sums up the Flemish Primitives: “A Flemish Renaissance underneath Christian ideas, such, indeed, is the two-fold nature of art under Hubert and Jan van Eyck, Roger van der Weyden, Memling, and Quentin Massys; and from these two characteristics proceed all the others. On the one hand, artists take interest in actual life; their figures are no longer symbols like the illuminations of ancient missals, nor purified spirits like the Madonnas of the School of Cologne but living beings and bodies. They attend to no anatomy, the perspective is exact, the minutest details are rendered regarding stuffs, architecture, accessories, and landscape; the relief is strong and the entire scene stamps itself on the eye and on the mind with extraordinary force and sense of stability; the greatest masters of coming times are not to surpass them in all this, nor even go so far. Nature is now discovered. The scales fall from their eyes; they have just mastered almost in a flash, the proportions, the structure, and the coloring of visible realities; and, moreover, they delight in them. Consider the superb copes wrought in gold and bedecked with diamonds, the embroidered silks, the flowered and dazzling diadems with which they ornament their saints and divine personages, all of whom represent the pomp of the Burgundian Court. Look at the calm and transparent water, the bright meadows, the red and white flowers, the blossoming trees and the sunny distances of their admirable landscapes. Observe their coloring--the strongest and richest ever seen, the pure and full tones side by side as in a Persian carpet and united solely through their harmony, the superb breaks in the folds of purple mantles, the deep azure of long, falling robes, the green draperies like a summer field permeated with sunshine, the display of gold skirts trimmed with black, the strong light which warms and enlivens the whole scene--and you have a concert in which each instrument sounds its proper note. They see the world on the bright side and make a holiday of it, a genuine _fête_, similar to those of this day, glowing under a more bounteous sunlight and not a heavenly Jerusalem suffused with supernatural radiance such as Fra Angelico painted. They are Flemings and they stick to the earth.”

Contemporary with Memling is Hugo Van der Goes (1430–1482), one of the last important figures in the Van Eyck School, more celebrated in his day than in ours, but powerful and austere, and painter of an altar-piece in 1476 for Tommaso Portinari, which was placed in the Church of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence and was greatly admired by Ghirlandaio and Piero di Cosimo. With Gerard David (1450–1523), a follower of Memling and Massys, we leave the Flemish Primitives for a world of newer ideas.

Quentin Massys (1460–1530), creator of the Antwerp School, belongs to an intermediate epoch. He is herald of the Italianiate Flemings--Jan Mabuse, Bernard van Orley, Lambert Lombard, Jan Mostært, Bellegambe, Launcelot Blondeel, and others--all of whom, dazzled by the Renaissance, tried to combine their Flemish coldness with Italian grace. Some of them lived to see the triumph of Rubens and the rise of another School.

Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640), is the recognized head of the Flemish School of Painting. His power was felt throughout Europe and he had more influence on taste in the Seventeenth Century than any other artist. Rubens painted more than two thousand pictures and made nearly five hundred drawings. In every style he proved himself a great master (see page 176).

Anthony Van Dyck (1599–1641) studied under Hendrik van Balen and then became assistant to and pupil of Rubens. After a long stay in Italy he returned to Antwerp and thence settled in England where he became Court-Painter to Charles I. In his short life he painted nearly a thousand pictures and acquired such proficiency in portraiture that he is ranked among the greatest in this line (see page 181).

The important Brueghel (or Breughel) family affords an example of heredity in painting and how in the course of generations there was transition from the old to the new art. Pieter (Peasant) Brueghel (1530–16--?) received lessons from Van Orley and Jerome Cœck, but his real master was the long dead Jerome Bosch, whose fantastic works fascinated him. Brueghel went to Italy and was delighted with the Alpine scenery; but, on his return he tried to preserve the Flemish ideas that were fast dying under the Italian cult. He persisted in portraying the familiar scenes of his boyhood and familiar humorous situations. Therefore, he received the sobriquets of “Peasant Brueghel” and “Droll Brueghel.” His two sons were equally famous. Jan or “Velvet Brueghel” (1568–1625), so-called from his fondness for wearing velvet, was famous for his flowers; and he frequently painted garlands in the pictures of Rubens. Pieter Brueghel (1574–1637), so loved painting infernal scenes that he was nicknamed “Hell-fire Brueghel.” Their sons continued their names and professions until the close of the Seventeenth Century.

Pieter Pourbus (1510–1584) and his son Frans (1540–1580) are among the best portrait-painters of the Sixteenth Century.

Frans Snyders (1579–1657) studied under Peter Brueghel and Hendrik van Balen, became the friend and associate of Rubens, and a brilliant and unsurpassed painter of fruits and animals.

Jacob Jordaens (1593–1678), born in Antwerp, son of a cloth merchant, depicted scenes from domestic life and popular festivities. He was astonishingly able to render mirth and jollity. Jordaens is distinguished for his unrestrained and boisterous humor and he often repeated his somewhat crazy home-concert, “As the old ones sing, so will the young ones twitter.” Jordaens sometimes collaborated with Frans Snyders, Jan Fyt, Adriaen van Utrecht, and others. Jordaens was entirely Flemish, absolutely unaffected by the foreign influences that charmed Rubens and Van Dyck.

David Teniers the Younger (1610–1690) is the greatest _genre_ painter of the southern Netherlands. Teniers is one of those Flemish painters who were sought after in Holland during their lifetime. This may have arisen from the fact that he was closely allied with the Dutch School and with Brouwer who lived and worked in Antwerp. Teniers was an indefatigable painter and left more than eight hundred pictures,--inn-interiors, _kermesses_, hawking-parties, drinkers, bagpipe-players and other musicians, “conversations,” bowling-games, kitchens, _Temptations of St. Anthony_, and monkey-scenes. Sir Joshua Reynolds admired him and said: “The works of David Teniers, jun., are worthy of the closest attention of a painter who desires to excel in the mechanical knowledge of his art. His manner of touching, or what we call handling, has perhaps never been equalled: there is in his pictures that exact mixture of softness and sharpness which is difficult to execute.”

One of the best artists of the second period of the Antwerp School is Gonzales Coques (1614–1684), a painter of interiors of elegance, wealth, gaiety, and happy serenity, and also portraits. His distinction he borrows from Van Dyck and his color is inspired by Rubens. However, in the dimensions of his pictures and their minuteness of detail and finish, Coques is reminiscent of the Dutch School,--particularly Terborch and Metsu.

In the Eighteenth Century there is little painting to claim attention. Charles Blanc has put the matter most succinctly:

“For the Flemish School the Eighteenth Century is a long _entr’acte_ during which the stage, so nobly occupied of old, is sad and deserted. Here and there an artist appears to remind us what Flanders was in color and decoration for two centuries. France was triumphing in spirit and grace; Italy, though decadent, was still ingenious and smiling; England at last was producing original masters; _but Flanders was asleep_.”

PORTRAIT OF A LADY.

_Roger van der Weyden
(1400?–1464)._

_Collection of the
Hon. Andrew W. Mellon._

This very striking portrait, an oil painting on panel (14⅜ × 10⅝), came from the Collection of the Duke of Anhalt, Ducal Castle of Dessau, and was previously in the Gothic Palace, Wörlitz, Germany.

_Collection of the Hon. Andrew W. Mellon_

PORTRAIT OF A LADY

--_Roger van der Weyden_]

The subject is a Flemish lady of high birth. She is not beautiful, but she has an air of great distinction. Her half-figure is turned three-quarters to the left and dressed in a dark robe with a turned-over collar, opening at the throat, where a transparent piece of soft, white muslin is arranged into a V-shape, and over this hangs a fine gold chain. A crimson girdle fastened with a gold clasp encircles her waist. The hair is brushed back from the forehead, or rather the forehead is rendered bald by the fashionable style of plucking out the hair, and covered by a close-fitting cap, composed of interlaced bands edged with a black ribbon, holding in place a thin veil; and over this a transparent white “wimple” is pinned to the cap, passing over the forehead and fastened at the back where it spreads in a wing on either shoulder. The right hand is placed over the left, presumably resting on a parapet, and a simple gold ring is on a finger of each hand.

Dr. Max Friedländer writes in _Meisterwerke der Niederländischen Malerei des XV u. XVI Jahrhunderts auf der Ausstellung zu Brügge_ (1902):

“This simple, proud, and very well preserved portrait, which has up to the present time not received a great deal of attention, in my estimation appears to be characteristic of Roger van der Weyden, in the severe and somewhat Moorish outline of the face, in the economic modelling of the shadows, and in the drawing of the lean hands. Similar women’s portraits are in the National Gallery, London, and in Adolphe de Rothschild’s Collection (from the Nieuwenhuij’s Sale).

Roger van der Weyden, or Rogier de la Pasture, the son of Henri de la Pasture, was born in 1400 in Tournai, where the family had been settled since 1260. His father was a sculptor and gave Roger his first training. Next he was apprenticed to the Maître de Flêmalle (Robert Campin) and later went to Brussels to live. Here he quickly gained a great reputation, for in 1436 he was appointed painter to the city of Brussels. While busy on his great _Last Judgment_, commissioned by Nicholas Rolin for the Hospital at Beaune (a polyptych, which has been classed with the Van Eyck _Adoration of the Lamb_), Roger went on a long trip to Italy. Visiting Rome, he greatly admired the frescoes begun by Gentile da Fabriano in St. John Lateran. He also went to Florence, Ferrara, and, it is supposed, Venice. Roger painted a good deal in Italy and even had orders. Among other things he painted a _Madonna and Child_ for Cosimo de’ Medici.

Roger returned home, it is thought, by way of Cologne. While on this trip, Roger was commissioned by Leonello d’Este to paint a picture.

Roger van der Weyden left as much in Italy as he brought home. His influence is seen in many of the contemporary Italians. In like manner, the influence of the Italians appears in the pictures that Roger van der Weyden painted on his return. German artists, too, fell under the spell of Roger van der Weyden, particularly Martin Schöngauer, the greatest German painter of the Fifteenth Century.

Roger van der Weyden was extremely versatile: he produced paintings in oil and painted miniatures, designed cartoons for tapestry-weavers, and made wood-engravings.

Fierens-Gevaert, the greatest authority on Flemish Primitives, says of Roger van der Weyden:

“His figures, among which males predominate, both in number and interest, do not all possess the impassibility sometimes attributed to them. Their beauty, or their moral significance, is merely restrained, just like the artist’s own emotions. Both need to be discovered. As for the expression of the color, the novel truth of the light, the profound feeling of the landscape--these are the incontestable merits in the Louvain painter. They explain his profound influence upon Memling, Gerard David, Quentin Massys, the Master of the Death of Mary, his _prestige_ with the Sixteenth Century Renaissants, and the growing admiration of modern criticism for his genius.”

Roger van der Weyden died in Brussels, June 16, 1464, leaving many pupils and followers, the most noteworthy of whom was Hans Memling.

PORTRAIT OF A CARTHUSIAN MONK AS A SAINT.

_Petrus Christus
(1410?–1473)._

_Collection of
Mr. Jules S. Bache._

This interesting panel (8½ × 11⅝ inches) came to America by way of Spain, having been in the Collections of Don Ramon de Oms, Majorca, and the Marquis de Dos Aguas, Valencia.

The picture is signed and dated 1446 at the base of the portrait, below a ledge, on which an insect is slowly walking. The identity of the subject and the reason for the presence of the fly, or grasshopper (or whatever it is), are equally unknown. However, we have here a marvellous human document, which grows more amazing the longer it is studied. The portrait preserves the personality and features of a strong, kindly, and interesting man, who must have been beloved and honored, or he would not have been represented with a golden ring around his head, proclaiming him a saint.

And the painter has done more than this: he has thrown such atmosphere around the man that the interesting life in the old abbeys seems to rise before us. We see the picturesque buildings set in emerald swards and shaded by leafy trees, and surrounded by cloisters where the monks take exercise, or read in some traceried recess; and we peer into the halls where the artistic members of the community are writing, composing music, copying, or painting and illuminating beautiful miniatures in manuscripts, destined--although undreamed of by these painters and gold-leaf workers--to bring thousands of dollars at auction-sales five hundred years in the future and to be prized as treasures in a then undiscovered country across the Atlantic Ocean, whose waters were thought by those very monks to break upon the shores of Far Cathay!

Our _Carthusian Monk_, in his white cassock, carries us into the Chapel, where we see him and others of his Order in prayer at midnight, at early dawn, or at the vesper hour; and again with him we stroll to the near-by river in the golden sunlight of the afternoon and sit under the soft willows, dangling a line from a long fishing-pole until we have a sufficient catch for supper. On our return to the abbey we notice how heartily our _Carthusian Monk_ welcomes a group of arriving travellers--for the abbeys were the hostelries in the Middle Ages--and we join them at supper in the refectory. Doubtless, too, our Carthusian gives us a _petit verre_ of golden Chartreuse of his own making.

While the rules in the ancient abbeys were rigid and inflexible and religion, of course, the chief business, it was in these secluded places that art and learning were preserved and fostered. The world to-day is apt to forget what civilization owes to the Mediæval Abbey, and Petrus Christus has brought this _Carthusian Monk_ to tell us something of what that is.

_Collection of Mr. Jules S. Bache_

PORTRAIT OF A CARTHUSIAN MONK AS A SAINT

--_Petrus Christus_]

Petrus Christus was born at Baerle, on the southern border of Holland, in 1410 (it is thought). In 1444 he became a free citizen of Bruges and, as he was a follower and probably a pupil of Jan van Eyck and Roger van der Weyden, he is classed as belonging to the School of Bruges. Petrus Christus painted religious pictures and portraits and is regarded as one of the direct ancestors of _genre_ painting. He died in 1473. Of late years his pictures have come into special prominence.

MADONNA AND CHILD WITH ANGELS.

_Hans Memling
(1430–5–1494)._

_Collection of the
Hon. Andrew W. Mellon._

This painting, an oil on panel (23 × 19 inches), came from the Collection of the Duke of Anhalt, Gothic Palace, Wörlitz, near Dessau, Germany.