Chapter VII: English, Eighteenth Century 329–428 (8)

In 1538 Holbein went to Basle on a mission for the King, visited his wife and children and, refusing liberal offers from the municipality of Basle to remain there, returned to London. Back again in his English quarters, he continued his painting until he died in 1543, supposedly of the Plague, which was then raging.

SIR THOMAS MORE.

_Hans Holbein
(1497–1543)._

_Collection of the late
Mr. Henry Clay Frick._

This was one of the first portraits that Holbein painted in England and was done in 1526–1527, while Holbein was a guest in Sir Thomas’s delightful home at Chelsea. It is a life-size, half-length portrait on panel (23¼ × 29¼ inches), representing Sir Thomas in a dark-green coat with purple velvet sleeves, fur collar, and large hat. The conspicuous and heavy double S-chain of gold with a double rose pendant, significant of the union of the Red and White Roses of Lancaster and York, was only permitted to Knights. His right hand holds a paper and the arm rests on a table, on which the date is inscribed.

This portrait was painted before Sir Thomas More became Lord Chancellor in 1529.

“His face,” says Dr. Alfred Woltman, “shows that calm repose which indicated the utmost harmony of nature and inward peace; but the expression is one of the deepest seriousness, though gentleness is linked with it. The finely-cut lips are firmly closed; there is something almost visionary in the bright and penetrating glance, though otherwise the features betoken clear judgment, combined with moral strictness and nobility of feeling. In looking at the picture the words occur to us with which Erasmus in another passage concisely sums up More’s characteristics: ‘He possessed that beautiful ease of mind, or, still better, that piety and prudence with which he joyfully adapts himself to everything that comes, as though it were the best that could come.’”

Sir Thomas More was born in 1478 in Cheapside, London, the son of Sir John More, and was beheaded in 1535 for refusing to support the Act of Supremacy. More was one of the most intellectual and highly cultured men of his time. He wrote one of the most famous of books, _Utopia_. Sir Thomas was also a fine critic of painting. He was knighted in 1521.

_Collection of the late Mr. Henry Clay Frick_

SIR THOMAS MORE

--_Hans Holbein the Younger_]

Erasmus gives a picture of Sir Thomas and his home in a letter to Ulrich von Hutten, written from Chelsea. He says:

“More has built near London upon the Thames a modest but commodious house. There he lives surrounded by his large family--his wife, his son, his son’s wife, his three daughters and their husbands with eleven grand-children. There is not any man living so affectionate to his children as he, and he loveth his old wife as if she were a girl of fifteen. Such is the goodness of his nature that whatsoever cometh about which cannot be helped he is as cheerful and well satisfied as if the best had happened. In More’s house you would say that the Academy of Plato lived again save that whereas in the Academy the conversation turned upon geometry and the power of numbers, the house at Chelsea is a true school of Christian religion. In it is no one, man or woman, but studdieth the liberal arts, yet above all piety is their care. There is never any seen idle; the head of the house governs it, not by lofty demeanor and frequent rebukes, but by gentle and lovable manners. Everyone is busy in his place doing his business with diligence; nor is sober mirth absent.”

DIRK BERCK OF COLOGNE.

_Hans Holbein
(1497–1543)._

_Collection of the
Hon. Andrew W. Mellon._

When Holbein returned to England on his second trip in 1532, his friend and patron, Sir Thomas More, was out of favor. However, he found a cordial welcome among his compatriots--the German merchants of the Steelyard. These German merchants had formed themselves into an association of real power: indeed, they had made a little city of their own, which went by the name of Stahlhof, where they managed all their business, kept their stores, had their counting-houses, their Bourse, their Guildhall, and their homes; and, being Germans, of course they had a festival-hall and spacious gardens on the bank of the Thames, where they could enjoy themselves. The company, forming a part of the great Hanseatic League, was opulent and dealt largely in iron and precious metals.

_Collection of The Hon. Andrew W. Mellon_

DIRK BERCK OF COLOGNE

--_Hans Holbein the Younger_]

Consequently, among the group were skilled goldsmiths, watch-makers, armorers, and many other prosperous artisans as well as bankers. The brilliant painter had no difficulty in getting orders for portraits; and we may be very sure that after he had produced such a masterly likeness as that of _Georg Gisze_ (now in the Berlin Museum), he must have been in even greater demand, as the numbers of “steelyard portraits” scattered in various galleries attest.

This particular portrait in oils on panel (21 × 16¾ inches) was painted in 1536, as we learn from the right hand corner, which bears the date and the sitter’s age, “An 1536 Aeta. 30.” Dirk Berck of Cologne appears at half-length facing us full face from a background of blue relieved by a green curtain with red strings. Dirk Berck is dressed in a heavy, black, and lustrous silk cloak with a wide collar, an embroidered shirt showing at the opening at the neck, a flat cap (something like a _biretta_) at a slight angle on his head, with his hair cut in a fringe (or “bobbed”) that nearly covers his ears. He has a slight moustache and a full square-cut beard, which makes him appear older than his thirty years. His small eyes are dark blue and intelligent, his brows are black, his cheek bones are prominent, and his general expression is serious and rather kindly. His hands rest one upon the other, the right one on top, while the left, placed on the table, holds a letter addressed to himself: “_Dem Ersame ’U (N) d fromen Derick berk i. London upt. Stalhof_” with the trademark of his house and the motto, “_besad dz end_” (consider the end). A small piece of paper lying on the red-covered table bears this Latin sentence from Virgil: “_Olim meminisse juvabit_” (Hereafter I shall be remembered) which speaks well for Dirk Berck’s estimation of Holbein and his intelligent forecast of ours.

The portrait came from the Collection of Lord Leconfield, Petworth, Sussex, and was formerly in the Collection of Colonel Egremont Wyndham, also of Petworth, Sussex, and the Earls of Egremont.

JEAN DE DINTEVILLE.

_Hans Holbein
(1497–1543)._

_Collection of
Mr. Henry Goldman._

This gentleman in black costume with black cap and white shirt sits at a table covered with a red cloth (one of Holbein’s favorite arrangements), and in front of an apple-green curtain. Around his neck he wears a fine gold chain and a black ribbon, to which is attached a little case of gold studded with jewels. His eyes are very blue but rather cold, giving one the idea that Jean de Dinteville is something of a dreamer. His hands, beautifully drawn and painted, gain additional grace from the fine ruffles at his wrists. In his right hand he holds a roll of paper (most likely a musical composition), and the left fingers close around the neck of a lute. On the table before him two books are lying--one shut and one open--and both books are supplied with green book-marks, that draw the rest of the picture into harmony with the green curtain at the back.

_Collection of Mr. Henry Goldman_

JEAN DE DINTEVILLE

--_Hans Holbein the Younger_]

This portrait, in oils on panel (17½ × 17½ inches), is supposed to be the same one listed in the inventory of Alethea, Countess of Arundel, in 1654 as _Ritratto d’un Musico_.

It was in the Collection of Ralph Bernal, London, and sold at Christie’s in 1855 to Mr. Morant for 100 guineas; subsequently, the picture was in the Collection of Sir John Ramsden, Bart., Bulstrode Park, Buckinghamshire, having been purchased by him at an auction in Scotland in 1860.

Jean de Dinteville, Lord of Polisy and Bailly of Troyes, was born in 1504 and died in 1555. After having served as a diplomat in the Court of Francis I, he was sent as Ambassador to England in 1553, in which year Holbein painted him with George de Selve in the large picture known as _The Ambassadors_, now in the National Gallery, London. In this picture Jean de Dinteville stands on the left, wearing a black kilted costume, which includes a cloak lined with white fur. Around his neck is a heavy gold chain with the French Order of Saint Michel, at his side is a dagger with gold hilt and sheath, and his black cap is ornamented with a silver skull set in gold. A lute, a case of flutes, and a music-book near him proclaim the musician. This picture is dated 1553.

CARDINAL ALBRECHT AS SAINT HIERONYMUS.

_Lucas Cranach the Elder
(1472–1553)._

_Collection of
Mr. John Ringling._

This picture (49 × 35¼ inches), came into possession of the present owner from Baron Viehweg of Hanover, in whose family it had been since the time of Cranach.

All of Cranach’s delightful characteristics are represented here. It is interesting to compare this painting with Dürer’s print of _St. Jerome in his Study_, the latter so serious and the one represented here so merry. Cranach’s St. Jerome reminds us of a jolly old German folksong. In this perfectly Teutonic setting with characteristic German furniture and the favorite “antler” chandelier, nothing has been forgotten; and St. Jerome in his red Cardinal’s robe and _biretta_ sits propped up before his reading-desk truly monarch of all he surveys. His crucifix and devotional books are placed conveniently on his table and he has just looked up for a moment from his task of translating the Scriptures.

His big red Cardinal’s hat, too, is placed in the foreground, so that we cannot miss it and the picture of the _Madonna and Child_ on the wall is purposely turned out of proper perspective so that we cannot lose any of its “beauties.” St. Jerome takes good heed of time; for on the wall, at his left, an hour-glass trickles away the minutes. It is to be hoped that he feeds his birds and animals regularly! And how deliciously these little friends are painted. Every member of St. Jerome’s menagerie looks happy except the lion. There is still the “call of the wild” in his eye and he seems to be trying to control himself; but if St. Jerome does not watch his hour-glass and should happen to delay the dinner-hour, it looks as if things might go very badly for the pheasant family.

There were three traditional ways of representing St. Jerome: St. Jerome as Penitent in the Desert; St. Jerome as Patron Saint and Doctor of the church; and St. Jerome as Translator and Commentator of the Scriptures. When St. Jerome is seen translating the Bible, the lion is so frequently present that he seems to be an editorial necessity; and almost invariably the Cardinal’s hat is lying somewhere near St. Jerome.

There is no authority for making St. Jerome a Cardinal; because Cardinals were not ordained until three centuries after St. Jerome’s death.

Lucas Cranach the Elder was born in Kronach in Franconia in 1472 and died in Weimar in 1553. Cranach was the first painter of importance of the Saxon School and took his name from his native town. He was a pupil of his father and has as important a reputation for his engravings on wood and copper as for his paintings. Cranach seems to have lived in Vienna, Innsbrück, Augsburg, Wittenberg, and Weimar; and it is said that he visited the Holy Land in 1493, with the Elector Frederic the Wise. In 1504 he settled permanently in Wittenberg as Court-Painter to the Elector Frederic the Wise; and he continued as Court-Painter to the three succeeding Electors. In 1509 he was sent by the Elector on an embassy to the Emperor Maximilian; and on this visit he painted the portrait of his son, the Archduke Philip (father of Charles V). Cranach was evidently of importance in Wittenberg, for he was Burgomaster in 1537 and 1540. He had an art-studio, a book-printing business, and an apothecary-shop. His house, called the “Adler,” was burned down in 1871.

_Collection of Mr. John Ringling_

CARDINAL ALBRECHT AS SAINT HIERONYMUS

--_Lucas Cranach the Elder_]

Cranach was an intimate friend of Luther and Melancthon and, consequently, was greatly affected by the Reformation. He painted Luther many times. Cranach always painted with oils on panels of wood and his coloring is warm and rich. His drawing is somewhat archaic; but often very amusing. His cheerful fancy led him to introduce birds and animals into his pictures. Cranach excelled in portraiture and always gives a realistic and somewhat gay presentation of the German people of his day.

SPANISH PAINTING

_SPANISH PAINTING_

Spanish Painting developed slowly although there were schools in all the provinces. Even in the Fourteenth Century little was known about Spanish Art in other countries. Starnina, who spent nine years in Spain (having taken refuge from his part in civil disturbances in Florence), painting pictures in the Escurial for John of Castile, had much to tell when he returned to Florence in 1387 and introduced Spanish costumes into the frescoes he made in the Carmine.

Other Italian painters followed Starnina and Italian ideas dominated Spanish Art until the Emperor Charles V became King of Spain. Charles, although heir of Maximilian and of the Holy Roman Empire, was also a direct descendant of the Dukes of Burgundy, the great-grandson of Charles the Bold. Charles V was born in Ghent and spent his first sixteen years in the Netherlands, brought up by his aunt, Margaret of Austria. Charles’s devotion to his birthplace is well-known; and his pun that he could put the whole of Paris into his _Gant_ (glove), shows how far superior he considered Ghent to Paris. Charles took with him to Spain a vast horde of artists and artisans from the Low Countries; and he also imported the punctilious and traditional etiquette of the old Burgundian Court, which, absorbed into Spain, eventually became known as “Spanish etiquette.”

Spanish artists were profoundly affected with Flemish technique and realism. The leading early Spanish painters are Bartolomé Vermejo, active in the late Fifteenth Century, a native of Cordova in Andalusia, who combined Flemish and Arabian ideas with native traditions; Pedro Berruguete (active 1483–1504); Luis de Vargas (1502–1568); and Luis de Morales (1509?–1586).

Then again an important foreigner arrived--Antonio Moro (or Mor), who, after serving Cardinal Granvella, was sent by Mary of Hungary to Madrid, where he became Court-Painter to the House of Hapsburg. Thenceforward Moro was constantly employed by Philip II to paint portraits in various Courts, although his headquarters seem to have been in Utrecht.

Moro trained the Spaniard, Alonso Sanchez Coello (1515?–1590), who, like himself, was rather stiff and hard, but able to paint a satisfactory portrait.

Then in 1575 another foreign painter arrived. This time it was a Greek, Domenico Theotocopoulos (1545?–1614), a native of Crete and said to have studied under Titian in Venice. “El Greco,” however, caught none of the glowing colors of Venice on his palette. Austere and gloomy, he settled in austere and gloomy Toledo, where he lived all the rest of his life painting religious pictures and portraits from a strange and morbid point of view.

Francisco de Ribalta (1551?–1628), revolting against Classic taste, founded his style on Caravaggio and painted darkly in the “_tenebroso_” manner. His pupil, Jusefe Ribera (1589–1652), called “_Lo Spagnoletto_,” born near Valencia, settled in Naples, where he filled many orders for Philip IV.

Francisco Pacheco (1571–1654), and Francisco de Herrera the Elder (1576–1656) are chiefly notable because they were the masters of Velasquez. Herrera originated the “_bodegones_” (shop-pictures), which are scenes of popular life.

Francisco Zurbaran (1598–1662), of the School of Seville, was called “the Spanish Caravaggio.” Through the influence of his friend, Velasquez, he entered the service of the King. It is said that Philip IV called him “_Pintor del Rey y Rey de los Pintores_” (Painter of the King and King of the Painters). Zurbaran painted the great altar-piece in the Cathedral of Seville.

Don Diego de Silva y Velasquez (1599–1660), a native of Seville, became painter to Philip IV in 1623 and continued in his service all his life. His works range from such groups as _Las Meninas_ and _Las Hilanderas_ to portraits of kings, queens, princes, princesses, ladies, gentlemen, dwarfs, and idiots.

Bartolomé Estéban Murillo (1617–1682), a native of Seville, came of the poor, laboring class and developed into a beloved painter, particularly famous for his Holy Families and Immaculate Conceptions.

After Velasquez and Murillo there was no important painter until the original, versatile, and prolific Goya y Lucientes (1746–1828), a native of Aragon, who rose from a laborer in the fields to Court-Painter. Goya had a profound influence on modern art, greatly affecting, for instance, Manet and John Singer Sargent.

CARDINAL QUIROGA.

_El Greco_
(_1545?–1614_).

_Collection of the late
Mr. Henry Clay Frick._

This picture, oil on canvas (37½ × 43¼ inches), was discovered, coated with the dust and dirt of ages, in a dark corner of the sacristy of the Cathedral of Valladolid, where it had evidently been hidden for centuries. A Parisian dealer, having heard of it, purchased it, and from him it passed through several hands until it reached its present home. The subject represents a Cardinal seated before a table on which a volume is lying and the Cardinal’s hands are conspicuously posed upon opposite pages. The right thumb pointed downwards emphatically upon a certain verse might possibly point to a special text that the Cardinal was associated with as betokening a famous sermon delivered by him, or, perhaps, an important controversy with which his name was associated. The figure, face, and hands are very elongated, as in all of El Greco’s performances; but the general effect is more reposeful than usual with this painter. Perhaps El Greco pulled the Cardinal out on his bed of Procrustes as far as he dared, but the Cardinal was long and thin and attenuated anyway, so that he was a model, as it were, ready made. It is one of El Greco’s best works. The silvery hair and mist of beard are marvellously painted, as are also the piercing eyes, keen and searching, yet betraying the philosopher and man of much reading. The face is intensely intellectual, but hard and cruel. No one would care to attempt to break a lance with this gentleman in any kind of an argument. With all his high-bred atmosphere, as both gentleman and student, Quiroga expresses a narrow bigotry and remorseless cruelty.

The picture is also known as _St. Jerome_; and there are five replicas of it, one of them being in the National Gallery, London.

_Collection of the late Mr. Henry Clay Frick_

CARDINAL QUIROGA

--_El Greco_]

“El Greco” is the name by which Domenico Theotocopoulos became known to his contemporaries. He was born in Crete, and in 1570, when he was about twenty-five or thirty, he went to Venice, and, it is said, studied under Titian. About 1575 he settled in Toledo, where he lived for thirty-four years until his death in 1614, and where “La casa del Greco” is still shown to tourists. El Greco painted a number of pictures, chiefly religious, notwithstanding the fact that “the individuality and strangeness of his work always more or less disconcerted his patrons.” El Greco also painted portraits and seems to have elongated every sitter to conform to his own ideas. Everything that he painted proclaims his own fervor and love of motion. El Greco also designed the dome for the then unfinished tower of the west front of the Toledo Cathedral, which presents a very strange contrast with its companion, the ornate Gothic tower.

Hugh Stokes says:

“El Greco stands apart, both in his portraiture and his large subject compositions. A Greek by family, Theotocopoulos does not fail to remind us of the archaic Byzantines. At first his limited palette, his crudity, his angularity excite repulsion. All his figures are muscularly distended as if they had recently passed the ordeal of the rack. Gradually these very defects attract. There is a movement and passion in his pictures which can be found in very few purely Spanish works. These agitated patriarchs and apostles, with draperies caught by every wind of heaven, are almost demoniac. Nature herself assists, for each horizon in the background frowns with a gathering maelstrom of black thunderclouds.”

THE VIRGIN APPEARING TO ST. DOMINIC.

_El Greco_
(_1545?–1614_).

_Collection of
Mr. J. Horace Harding._

The Virgin, in the traditional red robe and blue mantle, has floated on a cloud into the church where St. Dominic has been praying. The vision, as told here by El Greco, seems as real to us as it does to the astonished monk. Dominic de Guzman, who founded the Dominican Order of Preaching Friars in 1215, was born in Calaroga, Old Castile, in 1170. St. Dominic went on a mission to the Albigenses in Languedoc. and the Dominican Order grew out of the volunteers who joined him there. The rest of his life was spent in Toulouse and Rome. He died in 1221 and was canonized in 1234 by Gregory IX. The Dominican Order was known in England as the Black Friars (from their black habit) and in France as Jacobins, because their chief house in Paris was in the rue St. Jacques.

_Collection of Mr. J. Horace Harding_

THE VIRGIN APPEARING TO ST. DOMINIC

--_El Greco_]

This picture, oils on canvas (24 × 39¼ inches) came from the Collection of Henri Rouats of Paris and shows El Greco’s ecstasy with less exaggeration and eccentricity than is customary with him. Elie Faure has well defined the characteristics of El Greco: “Remorse at having been born,” he says “pursues the painter until the end, but when he expresses it in his art, the magnificence which it takes on atones for his terrors. At the end of his life he painted like one in an hallucination, in a kind of ecstatic nightmare, where preoccupation with expressing the spirit engrossed him. Deformation appears in his pictures more and more, lengthening the bodies, attenuating the fingers, and hollowing the faces. His blues, his wine-like reds, and his greens seem lit by some livid reflection sent to him from the near-by tomb and from Hell, caught sight of from eternal bliss. If there is a place where shadows wander, if in some sinister valley there are corpses that stand upright and living spectres that have not yet lost their form, Domenico Theotocopoulos alone after Dante has found it. One would say that he is exploring a dead planet, that he is descending into extinct volcanoes, where ashes accumulate and a pale half moon sheds her light.”

MARIANNE OF AUSTRIA.

_Velasquez_
(_1599–1660_).

_Collection of
Mr. Philip Lehman._

This picture (14½ × 19 inches) was for many years a valued possession of the Zenon Gallery, Cadiz, and represents the little girl, daughter of Ferdinand II, who became the wife of Philip IV in 1649 and who had first been betrothed to Philip’s son, Don Balthazar Carlos. The latter died in 1646. Three years later Philip IV sent for the little Grand Duchess to be his second wife. The reason for this marriage was a dynastic one, for it united the Spanish branch of the House of Hapsburg with the German branch of the House of Hapsburg, Marianne being a descendant of Ferdinand, brother of Charles V, and, therefore, of exactly the same blood as Philip IV.

_Collection of Mr. Philip Lehman_

MARIANNE OF AUSTRIA

--_Velasquez_]

Velasquez was one of those painters favored by the gods. Like Rubens, he early attracted Royal patronage and held it all his life. There were no struggles of genius for recognition: all he had to do was to complete and develop his gifts and talents. In 1623 he was introduced to Philip IV by Olivares and Philip took him into his service. Rubens, visiting Madrid in 1628, begged Velasquez to go to Italy. Velasquez did so and spent a year in Rome, visited Naples, where he met his countryman, Ribera. On his return to Madrid, he was given a painting-room in the Royal Palace. Velasquez visited Italy several times in the future; and on one visit to Rome painted the famous portrait of Pope Innocent X, now in the Doria Gallery (with a replica in The Hermitage). Back again in Madrid, Velasquez was decorated with the Cross of St. Iago by Philip IV, who made him Aposentador Major (grand marshal of the palace). To the last period belong his most important portraits, the series of court freaks, and the famous _Las Hilanderas_ and _Las Meninas_.

Velasquez died in Madrid in 1660.

PHILIP IV OF SPAIN.

_Velasquez_
(_1599–1660_).

_Collection of the late
Mr. Henry Clay Frick._

This portrait known as the “Parma Velasquez,” because it belonged to the Grand Duke of Parma, is painted in oils on canvas (38¾ × 52½ inches). It was painted in 1644 in Cataluna, where Philip had gone to try to raise the siege of Lerida invested by the French. Velasquez went with the King and painted the picture in a dilapidated hovel, which was fitted up for the purpose of a studio. A contemporary record says: “The King dressed as a soldier posed to Velasquez in fitted hose edged with silver embroidery, sleeves of same, plain buck jerkin, red sash edged with silver, cape of red fustian, falling collar, and black _sombrero_ with crimson plumes.”

The King was kept amused by his dwarf, El Primo, while the portrait was being painted. The costume is the one that Philip usually appeared in before his army as commander-in-chief.

“From the figure itself,” says Carl Justi, “it is evident that it was taken far from the atmosphere of the Alcazar. It is freer than those tall figures in black, which are perpetually receiving despatches, and which are the incarnation of unrelenting monotony, of the weariness of etiquette. To this effect the color contributes much, for the picture is all light and brightness. The legs seem to stand in profile, but the body and head face to the right; the white _bâton_ in the right hand is planted against the hip; the elbow of the left which holds the hat, rests on the hilt of the sword, and, curiously enough, both arms are disposed in a somewhat parallel position. The lines of the King’s features, now in his thirty-ninth year, are firmer, the color fresher than hitherto. The otherwise inseparable _golilla_ is here replaced by a broad lace collar falling on the shoulders; the hands are white in unison with the white sleeves, the most luminous parts of the whole picture--well nurtured, royal hands, ringless, but by no means ‘washed out,’ as has been supposed by those unacquainted with the master’s habit of dispensing with shade to indicate the fingers.

_Collection of the late Mr. Henry Clay Frick_

PHILIP IV OF SPAIN

--_Velasquez_]

“Philip wears a rich, light red doublet with hanging sleeves, the narrow opening showing the leather jerkin underneath. Of like color and also covered with silver embroidery are the _bandolier_ and hose. The only patch of gold is the Golden Fleece, all else--collar, sleeves of jerkin (pearl tone), lace cuffs, lace ruffle of boots, silver sheath--being white. This white on the red produces the well-known effects of a lighter or ‘camellian red.’ The hat alone is black, which is not in keeping with the costume, and may probably be due to license on the part of the artist, who here wished to avoid white on white, and who needed a dark part in softening contrast to the silvery red of the whole. At the same time the red of the _bandolier_ and plume on the red of the doublet shows the painter’s indifference to such matters. To all this must be added the full flood of daylight which even projects an oblique shadow from the _mustachios_ on to the cheek. The stupendous relief is effected by the empty, dark-grey surface of the ground and by the spare brown shadows, which help to bring out the collar, arm, and hat.”

When the portrait was finished “it was hung in the church under a canopy embroidered in gold where much people congregated to see it.” The record adds that “copies thereof are already being made.” The one in the Dulwich Gallery, England, is one of these.

The picture was sent by Ferdinand VI, King of Spain, to his step-brother, the Grand Duke of Parma; and it remained in the Parma Palace until recent times, when it was sold by Prince Elias.

Philip IV was born in 1605, died in 1665, and ascended the throne when he was only sixteen. He was a solemn person, with coarse tastes and was fond of horse-play. He, however, gave his patronage to Velasquez, Calderon, and Lope de Vega, which is much to his credit.

GENERAL NICOLAS GUYE.

_Goya_
(_1746–1828_).

_Collection of
Mr. J. Horace Harding._

The Spanish General represented in oils on canvas (33⅜ × 41¾ inches) wears a brilliantly colored uniform resplendent with gold lace and decorated with medals. His knee-breeches are white, and he holds his _chapeau bras_ in his hand. The picture was given to Vincent Guye, the General’s brother, in 1810.

Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes was born in Fuendetodos in Aragon, March 30, 1746. His parents were humble cottagers and he worked in the fields until he was eighteen. Through the interest of a monk he was sent to Zaragoza to the studio of José Martinez. Goya distinguished himself both in the studio and in quarrels, which sometimes resulted in bloodshed. After a fight Goya fled to Madrid, where he copied Velasquez and became embroiled in more disturbances. He escaped to Italy; and in 1772 took the second prize for painting at the Academy in Parma. Back in Zaragoza in 1771, he painted a fresco in the Cathedral. Revisiting Italy he formed a friendship with Jacques Louis David. In 1774 he returned to Spain, married the sister of a painter, and began to paint furiously. In 1789 Goya became painter of the Chamber--“_pinter de camera_”--to Charles IV, with a large salary. During the occupation of Spain by the French and the expulsion of the latter by Wellington, Goya lived quietly without taking any part in the exciting events; but he had been observing. On the return of Ferdinand VII, he published his series of _Desastres de la Guerra_, in which the horrors and bestialities of war are set forth in so frank a manner and with such commanding technique that they make a magnificent appeal for the abolition of war.

_Collection of Mr. J. Horace Harding_

GENERAL NICOLAS GUYE

--_Goya_]

Goya had previously published his series of prints, _Los Caprichos_, a most amazing presentation of humanity in brutal and revolting caricatures, the origin and significance of which are neither fully known nor understood; but, mingled with the demonology and repulsiveness, there are occasional gleams of beauty. Equally celebrated are his plates, the _Tauromachia_, dealing with the bull-ring.

Goya had an uncanny facility for every medium,--etching, lithographs, drawings, and aquatints, as well as oil-paintings. Goya spent the year 1825 in Bordeaux and returned to Madrid, where he died in 1828.

“My only masters have been Nature, Velasquez, and Rembrandt,” Goya said. Being so independent Goya left no pupils and founded no school. He was always hostile to the academic: “Always lines and never _body_,” he exclaimed when criticising his contemporaries, “but where do we find these lines in Nature? I can only see masses in light and masses in shadow, planes which advance or planes which recede, reliefs or backgrounds. My eye never catches outlines or details. I do not count the hairs on the head of the man who passes me in the street. The buttons on his coat are not the chief object to catch my glance. My brush ought not to have better eyesight than its master!”

PEPITO COSTA Y BONELLA.

_Goya_
(_1746–1828_).

_Collection of
Mrs. William Hayward._

This delightful picture, oils on canvas (33¼ × 41⅝ inches), is brilliant with many colors delightfully harmonized and contrasted. The little boy, with fair hair and dark complexion, wears a green velvet jacket with gilt braid, lace collar, white trousers, rose-colored stockings, light-yellow slippers, and red and white plumes in his dark hat. The drum is blue.

_Collection of Mrs. William Hayward_

PEPITO COSTA Y BONELLA

--_Goya_]

The picture comes from the Collection of the Countess Uda de Gandomar of Madrid.

FRENCH, EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

_FRENCH, EIGHTEENTH CENTURY_

We have now come to the age of elegance in painting. In the preceding sections of this book we have passed through many periods and many schools and have brought forward superb examples of great masters of several countries, but we now come to a time when the Art of Painting may be said to have reached _perfection_. The French Painters of the Eighteenth Century show us something entirely new in manner and in subject. They have grace, elegance, delicacy, style, beauty, brilliancy, clarity, and translucence of color. What can, for instance, equal the lightness of Watteau and Fragonard, or the dewy freshness of Greuze?

There are such things as the floating silk of the thistle’s parachute; such things as the feathery dust on the wings of “painted butterflies”; such things as the velvet pile on the petals of flowers; such things as the purple bloom on the plum and the grape; such things as the down on the breast of the cygnet; such things as the roseate gleam of the Oriental pearl; such things as the prismatic twinkle of the morning dew; and such things as the liquid silver of the moon’s bright ray.

All these most precious and evanescent beauties Watteau, Lancret, Pater, Fragonard, Drouais, Chardin, and other painters of the Eighteenth Century caught upon their palettes.

It was the genius Antoine Watteau (1684–1721) who opened the magic casements into this new world of fairy-like color and fairy-like lightness.

In the reaction from the heavy solemnity and gloom of the last years of Louis XIV, when the Sun-King was setting under the dark clouds of the bigoted and severe Madame de Maintenon’s influence, French taste swung to the other extreme of gaiety, fancy, gallantry, and caprice. Law’s Mississippi Bubble, while it lasted, enabled a great many persons to become suddenly rich; and, as is always the case with a new state of society, new styles of fashion came to meet its requirements. Moreover, the tastes of the Regent--the Duc d’Orléans--and the young King Louis XV were gay and playful; and, consequently, they were both glad to see all the traditions of Louis XIV swept away. The _Art nouveau_ of the period was most graceful and charming in its early expression. The playful curves and fantastic motifs from the Far East--pagodas, mandarins, umbrellas, monkeys, little bells, dripping water, and strange, wreathing vines, were all transmuted by the great decorative artists and designers into that delicious and delightful French _mélange_ known as _Chinoiserie_, which is, perhaps, more _French_ than Chinese. The riotous curves, most of which were derived from the volutes of the shell, the shell itself, and the dripping water (or hanging icicles), were used so prolifically and so universally that their name _rocaille_ (rock and shell) or _rococo_, is almost synonymous with that of the “_style Louis Quinze_,” although it does not include all the motifs nor all the spirit of the age.

Watteau was followed in his fascinating portrayal of _pastorales galantes_, _fêtes champêtres_, and all the light pleasures of society and its beautifully dressed men and women, by Nicolas Lancret (1690–1743) and Jean Baptiste Joseph Pater (1695–1736); and to this group belongs Jean Baptiste Huet (1745–1811), who in his first years followed Watteau closely; and as a decorative designer, he also expressed the taste of the Directoire and Empire period through which he lived.

Of the portrait painters, Jean Marc Nattier (1685–1766) stands first as Court-Painter and portrayer of lovely ladies in flowing draperies, rose-colored or blue scarfs, and wreaths and garlands of flowers, appearing as Hebe, Diana, Flora and other goddesses of Grecian mythology. Close to him comes Maurice Quentin de la Tour (1704–1788), who early abandoned oil-painting for pastels (his masterpiece, the portrait of Madame de Pompadour is now in the Louvre), was called a magician by Diderot and his work is described by de Goncourt as “a magic mirror, in which is seen all the talent, all the glory, all the wit, and all the grace of the reign of Louis XV.”

Carle Van Loo (1705–1765) is another portrait-painter of delicate and distinguished taste and performance. François Hubert Drouais (1727–1775) also expresses all the beauty, charm, and grace of the day in his presentations of the fashionable world.

François Boucher (1703–1770), the friend and successor of Carle Van Loo as first painter to the King, is so idyllic and fanciful that he has been characterized as the “Anacreon of Painting.”

Alexandre François Desportes (1661–1743), painter of hunting-scenes and animals, and Jean Baptiste Oudry (1686–1755), painter of hunting-scenes, animals, flowers, fruit, and still-life, blazed the trail for Jean Baptiste Siméon Chardin (1699–1779), one of the greatest colorists in the entire history of painting. Jean Baptiste Greuze (1725–1805), full of grace, charm, and freshness, painter _par excellence_ of pretty girls, and Jean Honoré Fragonard (1732–1806), pupil of Chardin and Boucher, famous for his delicate color and lightness of touch, lived into the new _régime_ and their work became unappreciated. Hubert Robert (1733–1808), painter of delicate and highly decorative garden-scenes and classical ruins, and Madame Labille-Guiard (1749–1803) also lived into the Directoire and Napoleonic period when they were forced to leave their quarters in the Louvre formerly accorded to them by Royal permission. Madame Labille-Guiard was in her day ranked with Madame Vigée LeBrun (1755–1842), wife of the grand-nephew of the great painter, Charles LeBrun, who won distinction for her portraits, her brilliant _salon_, and her charming personality.

JUPITER AND CALISTO.

_Nicolas Poussin_
(_1594–1665_).

_Collection of
Mr. Carroll Tyson._

This famous picture was first owned by the great painter Charles LeBrun. It subsequently belonged to the Collections of Baron Holback, 1789; Baron Clary, 1868; and Baron de Tournelle in Paris. Painted about 1635, this large canvas (53½ × 70½ inches), is in a fine state of preservation, the colors, in consequence, appearing richer than is usual in Poussin’s works. The greens, browns, and pinks are warm; the flesh tints are glowing; and the draperies and the sky are a deep _lapis-lazuli_ blue.

The puzzle is to find Jupiter! In Smith’s _Catalogue raisonné_ we read:

“The god under the form of Diana is represented sitting on a shady bank embracing the beautiful nymph, who sits by his side with a spear in her hand; seven Cupids are sporting around them, one of which, while flying, is discharging an arrow from his bow; a second is playing with the hounds of the supposed huntress; a third holds up the blazing torch of love; and two others, buoyant among the trees, are casting flowers on the heads of the lovers.

“In his very beautiful pictures illustrative of ancient mythology Poussin has treated the various subjects in a style that proves he perfectly understood the mystery of the allegories therein contained and employed with the happiest effect the numerous symbolical figures to denote qualities, places, and things. His style, although unquestionably of French origin, owes all its beauty to his subsequent study of a few of the great Italian Masters, and of ancient sculpture. To such an extent was he carried in his enthusiastic admiration of the latter, that most of the celebrated statues and monuments, both of Greek and Roman origin, may be recognized in his pictures. This fondness for the chaste beauty of the antique may have led him in some instances so far as to give to his figures a rigidity which ill accords with the elasticity of nature. This defect (if it be one), is amply compensated by the grace and dignity of attitude and the chaste correctness of drawing which pervades his works. Execution, that medium by which the conceptions of a painter are embodied, and by which the connoisseur is frequently enabled to judge of the originality of a picture, is distinguished in the Artist (in his best period) by breadth and precision of hand, and a firm and decided outline; every touch of the pencil appears the result of consideration and profound knowledge, and in this respect it is the very reverse of that rapidity and dexterous freedom of hand observable in the works of Rubens, Paul Veronese, and Giordano.”

_Collection of Mr. Carroll Tyson_

JUPITER AND CALISTO

--_Nicolas Poussin_]

Poussin spent almost his entire life in Rome. Born at Villiers near Les Andelys in Normandy in 1594, he went to Paris at the age of eighteen to study art, having had some training under Quentin Varin at Les Andelys. In Paris he studied under Ferdinand Elle, a Flemish portrait-painter, and L’Allemand, a native of Lorraine. In 1620 he started for Rome, but only got as far as Florence. Compelled to return to Paris he now formed a friendship with Philippe de Champaigne (also a pupil of L’Allemand) and worked with him on the decorations of the Luxembourg under Duchesne. Four years later Poussin arrived in Rome, his long desired goal, and plunged enthusiastically into the study of ancient art, also working in the studio of Domenichino. For a long time Poussin had to struggle with poverty, illness, and Italian hatred,--for the Italians and French were enemies at this time. Marriage with the daughter of a wealthy compatriot changed matters and Poussin bought with his bride’s dowry a handsome house on the Pincian Hill. Cardinal Barberini’s patronage now brought Poussin fame, for the Cardinal commissioned two paintings, _The Death of Germanicus_ and _The Capture of Jerusalem_--besides other important orders. Poussin’s reputation soared rapidly and in 1640 Louis XIII called him to Paris, appointed him first painter-in-ordinary, and gave him a residence in the garden of the Tuileries for life. For two years Poussin worked industriously, producing many paintings, cartoons for tapestries, and illustrations for books; but he longed for his beloved Rome and in 1642 returned to that city, where he spent the remainder of his life in the tranquil pursuit of his art. Poussin painted for twenty-three more years and died in Rome in 1665. His works are numerous; and, with the exception of a few portraits, are chiefly devoted to mythological, classical, historical, and Biblical subjects. Titian was his idol. However, despite his Italian inspiration and taste, Poussin is regarded as the head of the French School. His devotion to classical subjects and his deep study of the antique in all its expressions make Poussin one of the most scholarly of painters.

Sir Joshua Reynolds says: “In contemplating his classical pictures the mind is thrown back into antiquity or remote ages; and it would be no difficult matter for the spectator to imagine that such pictures were coeval, or nearly so, in their production with the mythological metamorphosis and Bacchanalian festivals that are set before him. His shepherds, fauns, nymphs, satyrs, and Bacchanals appear a primitive progeny, the native inhabitants of the mountains and woodlands of the genial climate of Greece and of that Golden Age when Hellas and Asia Minor may be supposed to have been overspread with aboriginal forests and life was careless resignation to present enjoyment.”

From Nicolas Poussin and Claude Lorrain (1600–1682), landscape-painter of idealized Classic scenes, poetic in spirit and suffused with dreamful, golden light, the Eighteenth Century French painters may be said to have found their fountain-head of inspiration.

LA DANSE.

_Antoine Watteau._
(_1684–1721_).

_Collection of
Mr. Charles A. Wimpfheimer._

With the exception of the superb _Embarquement pour l’Ile de Cythère_, we do not think of individual paintings of Watteau. We consider his work as a whole and we have a composite picture in our minds of _assemblées galantes_ under the trees in beautiful parks and gardens. Although he derived his themes from his master, Gillot, who was painting all the fashionable follies and fancies of the time, Watteau surpassed him so entirely in his approach to these subjects, as well as in his technique, that we are wont to look upon Watteau as the originator of _fêtes champêtres_, _pastorales galantes_, _concerts champêtres_, monkeys in all kinds of attitudes and costumes satirizing the modes and manners of the day, ladies and gentlemen playing Blind Man’s Buff (_Colin Maillard_) under the trees, ladies swinging or flirting with their fans, love-scenes beside statues in leafy dells, members of the Italian Comedy--Pierrot, Arlequin, Scaramouche, Mezetin, Columbine, and Scalpin--and charming people making music or dancing under the trees.

This characteristic picture which came from the S. R. Bertron Collection to its present owner, is a charming illustration of Watteau’s style. Here we have dancing and music and merry conversation. The light is concentrated on the chief figure--the dancer--clad in that white satin that Watteau painted so marvellously. But why single out any special object for that facile and versatile brush? Did not an eminent critic of the Nineteenth Century proclaim that Watteau was “the most brilliant and vivid painter the world has ever seen”?

Watteau created an Arcadia of his own--a Watteau world; and it is not without reason that another critic called him “the Shakespeare and the Aristophanes of Art.”

The world has long recognized that Watteau was a poet. Élie Faure asks why it is that the _ensemble_ always produces the sensation so near to sadness, and then he gives the reason:

“The spirit of the poet is present. Watteau had brought back from his Flemish country and from a visit he had made to England the love of moist landscape, where the colors in the multiplied prism of the tiny suspended drops take on their real depth and splendor. Music and trees, the whole of Watteau is in them. The sound does not interrupt the silence, but rather increases it. Barely, if at all, a whispered echo reaches us from it. We do indeed see the fingers wandering from the strings: the laughter and the phrases exchanged are to be guessed from bodies bending forward or turning backward and from fans that tap on hands. The actors in the charming dramas are at a distance from their painter and are dispersed in the depths of the open spaces. Watteau fears to come near them, to penetrate their mystery; for to see them too close would destroy the aërial veil that trembles between them and himself. He caresses them only with his delicate tones that hover here and there as would some bee from the north flying about in the damp forests or under the lights of the _fête_, among the powdered gold of the hair, the rose of the costumes, the bluish, milky haze, the flower-sprinkled moss, the grass on which rest skirts and mantles of silk and satin, and the nocturnal phosphorescence given to jewels and velvets by the gleam of moonlight and the flare of waving torches. It is the irised air which makes the marble statues seem to quiver, which gives agitation to the sprightly and piquant faces, movement to the fingers plucking guitars, and to delicate fine legs in stockings of transparent silk. Watteau never comes near the scene: the vision is as distant as an old dream. Observe it in detail. The structure of the figures--solid, moving, and substantial--makes them appear as if on the plane of man. Watteau’s little personages are as large as his conception of them: he paints with the breadth, the fire, and the freedom of Veronese, of Rubens, of Velasquez, and of Rembrandt.”

_Collection of Mr. Charles A. Wimpfheimer_

LA DANSE

--_Antoine Watteau_]

Antoine Watteau, born at Valenciennes, Oct. 10, 1684, was turned adrift by his father, a tile-maker, and he went to Paris, where he gradually became a fine draughtsman. He entered the studio of Claude Gillot (1673–1722), well known for his mythological pictures, his _Chinoiserie_, his _fêtes galantes_, his _singerie_, and his buffoonery of the Italian Comedy. Watteau soon surpassed his teacher and left him to study for a short time with Claude Audran (1658–1734). In 1717 Watteau became a member of the Academy; in 1719 he visited England; and in 1721 he died at Nogent, near Paris.

The de Goncourts have summed up his qualities so well that no excuse is needed for placing their analysis here:

“It is doubtless owing to the early decorative work executed by Watteau that he acquired a taste for the theatre of which in after days his cunning brush drew so many pleasing representations, so many curious pictures and that he so often depicted the Italian and French Comedians, those friends and intimates of his brush, whose motley family he painted in that beautiful and striking picture which is a companion to _Comédiens Français_. He painted their companion picture when Madame de Maintenon drove them out of France in 1697; he painted their amusements, their nocturnal amours and serenades, their holidays, their open-air sports. Mezetin and Columbine appear on a hundred panels. But there would be little reason to thank the chance that led Watteau at the outset of his career to work under an obscure decorator if he had only copied the silken folds of their costumes and had not conceived the idea of using these Trans-alpine types as the poetic habitants of his _scènes galantes_ and _scènes champêtres_. In fact, by the introduction of these Merry Andrews, these gracious mummers, these elegant incarnations of dainty laughter and fine comedy, these men and women whose materiality is so vague and their reality so veiled beneath symbol and myth, the compositions of the painter no longer seem like pictures of a real world. The greensward of his _scènes galantes_ seems peopled with mythical beings to whom Watteau’s imagination and lightness of touch have left nothing of the actors who served as his models; and we have the illusion of looking into a verdant country inhabited by creations of whim and fancy.”

MADAME BONIER DE LA MOSSON.

_Jean Marc Nattier_
(_1685–1766_).

_Collection of
Mr. Edward J. Berwind._

Nolhac calls the portrait of Madame Bonier de la Mosson “_une des plus belles de ses Dianes ou de ses Nymphes chasseresses_.” The picture (51 × 38 inches) was exhibited in the Salon of 1742. From the Collections of Debatz, Reims, and Tamvaco, Cairo, it passed into that of Mr. Berwind. This handsome lady, radiant in her leopard skin and flowers, was the wife of M. Bonier de la Mosson, who was also painted by Nattier four years later (1746), in his “cabinet of curiosities,” for M. Bonier de la Mosson was one of those amateur scientists of the age. In his rich _hôtel_ in the rue Saint Dominique in Paris, he had a laboratory and an “_apothicairerie_,”--his pots, bottles, mortars and pestles and crucibles surrounded by furniture of the most superb description. The portrait of M. Bonier de la Mosson was in great contrast to that of his beautiful wife. The portrait of the gentleman is a fine work, but the portrait of the lady shows Nattier in his most characteristic aspect. Here is the _real_ Nattier, for Nattier specialized in what was called in his day the “historic portrait,”--that is to say the sitter was represented as a mythological, or historical, personage with all the attractive symbolical and picturesque accessories. Nattier’s vogue during his lifetime was very great and all the aristocratic and fashionable ladies wanted, above all things, to have themselves perpetuated as Dianas, Floras, Hebes, and Auroras. Consequently, many old families in France cherish a fine allegorical portrait of a handsome ancestress caught as it were on Mount Olympus with the gods and goddesses.

“_Nattier l’élève des Graces,
Et le peintre de la beauté_”

is a tribute in some verses in 1727.

“It may seem fantastic,” Sir Walter Armstrong writes, “to bracket Van Eyck with a painter like Nattier, but a little consideration will show that in a sense they belonged to the same faction, that is to say that if Van Eyck had lived in Paris in 1760, he would have conceived a portrait much in the same way as Nattier, and so _mutatis mutandis_ with the Frenchman. The conscious desire of both was to _reproduce_ their sitter, choosing a moment when he or she was thinking of nothing in particular, and surrounding him with his familiar properties carefully marshalled into a design.”

Jean Marc Nattier came of a family of artists. His father, Marc Nattier, was an Academician, his mother, Marie Courtois, was a miniature-painter of reputation, and his brother, J. B. Nattier, was also a painter. Jean Marc Nattier was born in Paris, March 17, 1685, and was trained at a very early age by his father. Admitted to the classes at the Académie, he won a prize in drawing and at the age of fifteen was given a stipend. In 1715 Nattier went to Holland, where Peter the Great was staying, and painted the Czar, the Empress Catherine II, and several members of the Russian Court; but he declined all inducements to follow the Czar to Russia and returned to Paris.