Chapter I: Paintings (3)

Now, still in the same connection, go on into the Long Gallery, and look, near Andrea del Sarto’s Holy Family, at a mannered and theatrical picture of the =Nativity= by =Giulio Romano=. This is not a Nativity simple, but one with selected saints looking on: it was painted for the altar-piece of the altar of the Chapel of St. Longinus in Sant’ Andrea at Mantua—the same in which Mantegna had earlier painted the Longinus pictures noted above. The central portion of this altar-piece consists of a tolerably conventional Nativity, with the adoring shepherds, Raphaelized by Giulio Romano (who was Raphael’s favourite pupil) in accordance with the ideas of the early 16th cent. (It is interesting to note, by the way, the nature of these modifications.) In the background is the herald angel appearing to the shepherds: this scene, prior in time to the other, was often so represented in the same picture or carving: look out for it elsewhere, and also for such non-contemporaneous episodes in general. But the attendant saints, to right and left, looking on at the sacred scene, are St. John the Evangelist (known by his chalice and serpent) and =St. Longinus=. The last-named holds in his hands a crystal vase—a pyx or reliquary, containing the sacred blood of Christ, which Longinus caught as it fell, and which was brought with the rest of the relics to =Mantua=, and preserved in the very chapel for which this picture was intended. Compare this dull Longinus with the two by Mantegna in this collection: and when you visit Mantua, remember that these pictures came from these two churches. By thus interweaving your facts, you will get a far clearer conception in the end of =the connection of art= than you can possibly do if you regard the various works in pure isolation.

But what was =Giulio Romano= doing at Mantua? After Raphael’s death, his pupils were dispersed; and this his favourite follower settled down in the service of Duke Federigo Gonzaga (the first Duke—the earlier lords were Marquises), for whom he decorated the Palazzo del Tè, with its grotesque Titans. =Primaticcio= and =Niccolo dell’ Abbate=, pupils again of Giulio’s, were educated at Mantua, and afterwards summoned by François I^{er} to France, where they became the founders of the =School of Fontainebleau=. They thus passed on the Raphaelesque traditions into the French capital. It is partly for this reason that I have selected for my first examples this particular Mantuan group of paintings, in order that you may realise the close interaction of French and Italian politics, and the continuity of the Italian with the French Renaissance.

It is worth while, too, to enquire =how= the different pictures =came into this collection=. The Madonna della Vittoria, we saw, was brought as a trophy of war from Italy by Napoleon. The Giulio Romano, after hanging for some time in the chapel at Mantua, for which it was painted, was shortly annexed by the Duke of Mantua, who sold it to Charles I of England. That king formed a noble collection of Italian and Flemish works, which, after his execution, was sold by the Commonwealth for a very small price to a dealer named Jabach, who in his turn disposed of most of the pictures to Louis XIV; they formed the nucleus of the Louvre collection. Look out for these works of which Puritan England thus deprived herself, and see how considerable a portion they form of the earlier treasures of this Gallery.

Lastly, return once more to the Mantegnas in the Salle des Primitifs, and notice that the so-called Parnassus—that is to say, the Mars and Venus discovered by Vulcan—as well as the Vices conquered by Wisdom, and the companion pieces by Perugino and Costa, were all painted for =Isabella d’Este-Gonzaga=, to decorate her boudoir at Mantua. Of these works, I think Mantegna’s are the oldest, and struck the keynote for figures and treatment. For after Mantegna’s death, the Ferrarese painter, Costa, was invited from Isabella’s home to become court-painter at Mantua: and the Perugino is one in that master’s latest manner, most tinged with the Renaissance. Giulio Romano, again, succeeded Costa. If you will now compare Mantegna’s two works in this series with his others in this Gallery, you will be able to form a clearer conception of his admirable fancy, his unvarying grace, and his perfect mastery of execution: while if you contrast them with those by the two contemporary artists—the Umbrian Perugino and the Ferrarese Costa—you will be enabled to observe what was the common note of these early Renaissance masters, and what their distinctive individual characteristics. In particular, you may notice in these works, when looked at side by side with those of earlier painters, the enormous advance Mantegna had made in anatomy and in perspective. He is the =scientific painter= of Upper Italy, as Leonardo is the scientific painter of Florence.

These four pictures again made their way to the Louvre by a different route. They were captured at the sack of Mantua in 1630, and originally came to France to decorate the _château_ of Cardinal Richelieu.

Once more, =Duke Alfonso d’Este=, Isabella’s brother, is the person whom you see in the portrait by Titian in the Salon Carré, together with his mistress Laura Dianti, painted about 1520. Familiarity with such facts alone can give you any adequate idea of the extraordinary rapidity in the development of art and the modernization of Italy in the 16th century.

* * * * *

For my next example I will take a quite obscure and unnoticed picture, also in the Salle des Primitifs, =Giovanni Massone’s altar-piece= in three compartments, number 261.

Savona is an unimportant little town between Nice and Genoa, chiefly noteworthy at the present day as the junction for a branch line to Turin. But in the 15th and 16th centuries it was a flourishing place, which gave employment to many distinguished Piedmontese and Lombard artists, the most famous of whom were Foppa and Brea. It also gave birth to two famous popes, Sixtus IV and Julius II, the latter of whom is familiar to most of us from the magnificent portrait by Raphael, three replicas of which exist, in the Uffizi and the Pitti Palace in Florence, and in the National Gallery in London. Sixtus IV erected for himself a superb sepulchral chapel in his native town of Savona: go and see it, if you pass by there, as well as the modern statue of the pope erected by his fellow-citizens. From that chapel this picture, by an otherwise unknown artist, has been abstracted and brought here. We know its author merely by the signature he has placed on a _cartellino_ or strip of paper in the picture itself: Joh[ann]es Mazonus de Alex[andri]a pinxit—shewing that he was born in the Piedmontese town of Alessandria. For the rest, he is a mere name to us.

The picture itself, by no means a masterpiece, has in its centre the Nativity, designed in the usual conventional fashion, and in a somewhat antiquated Lombard style. The Madonna and St. Joseph have very solid haloes: the action takes place in a ruined temple, as often, symbolising the triumph of Christianity over heathendom. In the background are a landscape, and some pleasing accessories. But the lateral subjects give it greater interest. In the compartment to the L stands St. Francis of Assisi, in his usual brown Franciscan robe, as protector of Sixtus IV, who kneels beside him. Notice this way of marking the name of a donor, for the pope was Cardinal Francesco della Rovere. Observe too the stigmata, as far as visible, and compare this much later figure of St. Francis with those in the picture by Giotto and its two imitators. On the R stands a second Franciscan saint, also in the coarse brown garb of his order—the same in whose church Andrea Mantegna studied Donatello, and whom we have seen more than once during our Parisian excursions holding in his arms the infant Christ—St. Antony of Padua. He lays his hand on the shoulder of a second votary—the Cardinal della Rovere, afterwards the stern and formidable pope, Julius II. If you know the National Gallery and the Vatican, see whether you can recognise an earlier stage of the same features which occur in the famous portrait, and also in the figure of the pope, borne on the shoulders of his stalwart attendants into the temple at Jerusalem, in a corner of the famous fresco of the Expulsion of Heliodorus.

Recollect, again, that it was for the tomb of this same Pope Julius II that Michael Angelo produced the two so-called Fettered Slaves, which you have seen or will see in the Renaissance Sculpture Room of this collection. Weave your knowledge together in this way, till it forms a connected whole, which enables you far better to understand and appreciate.

I call your special attention to this picture, among other things, for its historical rather than its artistic value. But I want you also to realise that the man who was painted in this rude and antiquated style in his middle age was painted again in his declining years by Raphael at the summit of his powers, and was a patron of the mighty Michael Angelo at the zenith of his development. This will help to impress upon you better than anything else the necessity for carefully =noting chronology=, and will also supply a needed caution that you must not regard any work as necessarily early on no better ground than because it is comparatively archaic in style and treatment.

* * * * *

Next inspect the two little companion pictures of =St. George and St. Michael= by =Raphael=, on the R wall of the First Compartment in the Long Gallery. These two small works are rare examples of Raphael’s very earliest pre-Peruginesque manner. Morelli has shewn that the great painter was first of all a pupil of Timoteo Viti at Urbino, his native town. If you have not visited Bologna and Milan, however, this will tell you little; for nowhere else can you see Timoteo to any great advantage; and I may observe here that the best time to visit the Louvre is _after_ you have been in Italy, where you ought to have formed a clear conception of the various masters and their relations to one another. But you can see at least, on the face of them, that these two simple and graceful little works are quite different in style and manner even from the _Belle Jardinière_, and certainly very unlike the much later St. Margaret which hangs close by them. They are still comparatively mediæval in tone: they have a definiteness and clearness of outline which contrasts strongly with the softer melting tones of Raphael’s later work: they show as yet no tinge of the affected prettinesses which he learned from Perugino—still less of his later Florentine and Roman manners. They are painted on the back of a chess or draught board, and were produced for Duke Guidobaldo of Urbino about the year 1500.

Look first at the =St. George=. The subject here is the Combat with the Dragon; and Raphael, in representing it, has strictly followed the conventional arrangement of earlier painters. No earlier picture for comparison with his treatment exists in this Gallery, though there are plenty elsewhere: but if you will look downstairs at the majolica relief of the same subject in the Della Robbia Room of the Renaissance Sculpture Gallery, you will see how closely Raphael’s work corresponds with earlier representations of the same pretty myth. As you will now have learned, there is always a regular way to envisage every stock subject: whoever produced a Combat of St. George with the Dragon was compelled by custom and the expectations of his patron to include these various elements—a St. George in armour, on horseback, the horse usually white, as here: a wounded dragon, most often to the right: the Princess running away in terror in the distance, or at least crouching abjectly. There is a Tintoretto of this subject, indeed, in the National Gallery, where some critics have blamed the great Venetian painter for making the Princess look away in terror, instead of turning with gratitude to thank her brave preserver. But the conventional representation _demanded_ that the Princess should flee or cower: people were accustomed to that treatment of the theme, and expected always to see it repeated. It was their notion of a St. George. We must set down a great deal in early art to this sense of expectation on the part of patrons. Tintoretto, who came much later than Raphael, after the mighty Renaissance painters had accustomed the world to put up with, or even to look for, novelty of composition, often ventured very largely to depart from traditional motives. In his picture, therefore, the Princess occupies the foreground—a most revolutionary proceeding—while the action itself is relegated somewhat to the middle distance. But if you compare the three representations of this scene to be found in the Louvre—this picture and the two reliefs by Della Robbia and Michel Colombe respectively—you will see that the Princess in earlier times is always represented quite small in the distance, and is usually running away, or at best kneeling with clasped hands in abject terror.

In the Raphael, the dragon is already wounded: but he has broken the saint’s lance, with part of which he is transfixed, while the remainder lies in fragments on the ground behind him. St. George on his prancing steed is drawing his sword to finish off the monster. In the Michel Colombe, on the other hand (downstairs in the French Renaissance Sculpture), the dragon is biting at the lance, which explains why it is broken here, and also why the St. George in Mantegna’s Madonna holds a broken shaft as his emblem or symbol. Observe, however, that while the French sculptor, with questionable taste, makes the dragon occupy the larger part of the field, so as somewhat to dwarf St. George and his steed, the Italian sculptor, and still more the Italian painter, have shewn greater tact in treating the dragon as a comparative accessory, and concentrating attention upon the militant saint, combating with spiritual arms the evil demon. In this picture, as Mrs. Jameson well observes, the conception is on the whole serenely allegorical and religious in spirit. But Raphael himself painted a second St. George, at a later date, for the Duke of Urbino to present to Henry VII of England. In this other picture, which is now in the Hermitage at St. Petersburg, St. George is treated rather as the patron saint of England than as the Champion of Right—to mark which fact he wears the Order of the Garter round his knee, with its familiar motto. As Champion of England, he is rushing on the monster with fiery energy: the picture is in this case more military than spiritual. The moment chosen is the one where he is just transfixing the dragon with his lance: the rescued Princess is here again in the background.

Note once more that these various works are pictures of the =combat= of St. George with the Dragon. In =devotional pictures= of the Madonna, St. George frequently stands by Our Lady’s side, in accordance with the wishes of the particular donor, as patron saint of that person himself, or of his town or family. In Venetian pictures, as we have seen, he is very frequent, being one of the patron saints of Venice, and more particularly of the Venetian army and the conquered territory. You will find it interesting, after you have finished the examination of the two Raphaels, to go round the devotional Italian pictures in the Salle des Primitifs, the Long Gallery, and the Salon Carré, in order to note his various appearances. He is usually marked by his lance and his armour: the absence of wings (a point not always noticed by beginners) will enable you at once to discriminate him from St. Michael—as man from angel. The more you learn to look out for such recurrences of saints, and to account for the reasons for their appearance, the more will you understand and enjoy picture galleries, and the more will you throw yourself into the devotional mediæval atmosphere which produced such pictures.

Now turn to the second little Raphael. This represents the closely cognate subject of =St. Michael and the Dragon=—the angelic as opposed to the human counterpart. The two ideas are at bottom identical—the power of good overcoming evil; the true faith combating heathendom. It is a world-wide myth, occurring in many forms—as Horus and Typhon, as Perseus, as Bellerophon. Hence Michael and George, the superhuman and the human soldier of right, often balance one another, as in these two pictures: you have seen them doing so already in the Madonna della Vittoria: look out for them elsewhere in this conjunction. Both are knights; both are in armour; but one is a man and the other an angel. In this second little picture, St. Michael is seen, clad in his usual gorgeous mail, treading on the neck of the dragon and menacing it with his sword. The dark and lurid landscape in the background contains many fearful forms of uncertain monsters: condemned souls are plagued in it by demons, while a flaming town flares murkily towards heaven in the far distance, the details being taken, as in many such works, from Dante’s Inferno. Or rather, they and the Inferno represent the same old traditional view of Hades. (The figures weighed down with leaden cowls are the hypocrites, while the thieves are tormented by a plague of serpents.) Close comparison of these two little works will give you a good idea of Raphael’s earliest Urbino manner. This fantastic picture, however, though full of imagination, is by no means so pleasing as the dainty St. George beside it.

Go straight from this combat to the =Great St. Michael=, also by Raphael, in the Salon Carré. It bears date 1518. Pope Leo X commissioned Raphael to paint this picture as a present for François I^{er}: the painter—to whom he left the choice of subject—chose St. Michael, the military patron of France, and of the Order of which the king was Grand Master. (You will find a bronze bust of François, wearing the collar and pendant of St. Michael, in the Renaissance Sculpture.) He chose it also, no doubt, because it enabled him to show his increased mastery over life and action. This great and noble picture, one of the finest as regards dramatic rapidity ever painted by Raphael, is celebrated for the instantaneous effect of its movement. (Compare the demoniac boy in the Transfiguration at the Vatican.) The warrior archangel has just swooped down through the air, and, hovering on poised wings, is caught in the very act of setting one foot lightly on the demon’s shoulder. The dragon, writhing, tries in vain to lift his head and turn on his conqueror. The noble serenity of the archangel’s face, the perfect grace of his form and attitude, the brilliant panoply of his celestial armour, the sheen of his wings, the light tresses of his hair floating outward behind him (as of one who has traversed space on wings of lightning) cannot fail to be remarked by every spectator. This is Raphael in the fulness of his knowledge and power, yet far less interesting to the lover of sacred art than the boy Raphael of Urbino, the dreamy Raphael of the Sposalizio at Milan, the tender Raphael of the Gran Duca at Florence, or of the Belle Jardinière in this same apartment. Notice that with the progress of Renaissance feeling the demon is now no longer a dragon but a half-human figure, with horns and serpent tail, and swarthy red in colour. He is so foreshortened as not to take up any large space in the composition, which is mainly filled by the victorious figure of the triumphant archangel. The more classical armour bespeaks the High Renaissance. The longer you compare these two extreme phases of Raphael’s art, the more will you note points of advance between them—technical advance, counterbalanced by moral and spiritual retrogression.

End by comparing this St. Michael with Mantegna’s, and with the playful Leonardesque archangel in the _Vierge aux balances_, the last point in the degeneracy of a celestial conception.

Raphael is one of the painters who can best be studied at the Louvre, with comparatively little need for aid from elsewhere.

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Pay a special visit to the Louvre one day in order to make a =detailed study of Madonnas=. Before doing so, however, read and digest the following general statement of principles on the subject.

[People who have not thrown themselves, or thought themselves,
or read themselves into the mental attitude of early art, often
complain that Italian picture galleries, and museums like Cluny,
are too full of merely sacred subjects. But when once you have
learnt to understand and appreciate them, to know the meaning
which lurks in every part, you will no longer make this
causeless complaint. As well object to Greek art that it
represents little save the personages of Greek mythology. As a
matter of fact, though the Louvre contains a fair number of
Madonnas, it does not embrace a sufficient number to give a
perfectly clear conception of the varieties of type and the
development of the subject—not so good a series in many
respects as the National Gallery, though it is particularly well
adapted for the study of certain special groups, particularly
the Leonardesque-Lombard development.

The simplest type of Madonna is that where =Our Lady= appears
=alone= with the Divine Infant. This modification of the subject
most often occurs as a half-length, though sometimes the Blessed
Virgin is so represented in full length, enthroned, or under a
canopy. Several such simple Madonnas occur in the Gallery. In
the earliest examples here, however, such as Cimabue’s, and the
cognate altar-piece of the School of Giotto, the Madonna is seen
surrounded by angelic supporters. This forms a second
group—=Our Lady with Angels=. Very early examples of this
treatment show the angels in complete isolation, as a sort of
framework. (See several parallels in sculpture in Room VI,
ground floor, at Cluny.) Grouping as yet is non-existent. No
specimen of this very original type is to be found in the
Louvre; but in the Cimabue of this Gallery the angels are
superimposed, so to speak, while in the Giottesque example close
by an elementary attempt is made at grouping them. In later
works, the angels are more and more naturally represented, from
age to age, singly or in pairs, or else grouped irregularly on
either side of Our Lady. You will note for yourself that as the
Renaissance developes, the nature of the grouping, both of
angels and saints, deviates more and more from the early strict
architectural symmetry.

A slight variant on the simple pictures of the Madonna and Child
are those, of Florentine origin, in which the =infant St.= =John
Baptist=, the patron Saint of the City of Florence, is
introduced at play with the childish Saviour. This class—the
=Madonna and Child, with St. John=—is well represented in the
_Belle Jardinière_, and several other pictures in the Louvre.

Most often, however, the Madonna is seen enthroned, in the
centre of the altar-piece or composition, and surrounded by one,
two, or three pairs of saintly personages. The =Madonna with
Saints= thus forms a separate group of subjects. These saints,
you will by this time have gathered, are _never_ arbitrarily
introduced. They were selected and commissioned, as a rule, by
the purchaser, and they are there for a good and sufficient
reason. Often the donor desired to pay his devotion in this
fashion to his own personal patron; often to the patron of his
town or village, of the church in which the picture was to be
deposited, or of his family or relations. Frequently, again, the
picture was a =votive offering=, as against plague or other
dreaded calamity: in which case it is apt to contain figures of
the great plague saints, Roch and Sebastian. Ignorant people
often object that such sets of saints are not contemporary. They
forget that this is the Enthroned Madonna, and that the action
takes place in the Celestial City, where the saints surround the
throne of Our Lady.

As regards =grouping=, in the earlier altar-pieces the selected
saints were treated in complete isolation. Most often the
Madonna and Child occupy in such cases a central panel, under
its own canopy; while the saints are each enclosed in a separate
little alcove or gilded tabernacle. Reminiscences of this usage
linger long in Italy. Later on, as art progressed, painters
began to feel the stiffness of such an arrangement: they placed
the attendant saints at first in regularly disposed pairs on
either side the throne, and afterwards in something approaching
a set =composition=. With the High Renaissance, the various
figures, instead of occupying mere posts round the seat of Our
Lady, and gazing at her in adoration, began to indulge in
conversation with one another, or to take part in some more or
less animated and natural action. This method of arrangement,
which culminates for the Florentine school in Fra Bartolommeo,
degenerates with the Decadence into confused and muddled groups,
with scarcely a trace of symbols—groups of well-draped models,
in which it is impossible to see any sacred significance. The
=Florentine= painters preferred, as a rule, such rather complex
grouping: the =Venetians=, influenced in great part by the
severer taste of Giorgione and of Titian, usually show a more
simple arrangement.

Any one of these various types of Madonna may also be modified
by the introduction of a =kneeling donor=. Thus, Van Eyck’s
glowing picture of the Chancellor Rollin adoring Our Lady is an
example of the simple Madonna and Child, enthroned, accompanied
by the donor; though in this case, the composition is further
slightly enriched by the dainty little floating angel in the
background, who places an exquisitely jewelled crown of the
finest Flemish workmanship on the head of the Virgin. The
Madonna della Vittoria, again, which we have so fully
considered, is essentially a Madonna and Saints, with the
kneeling donor. In very early pictures, you will observe that
the donors are often painted grotesquely small, while Our Lady
and the Saints are of relatively superhuman stature, to mark
their superiority as heavenly personages. In later works, this
absurdity dies out, and the figure and face of the donor become
one of the recognised excuses for early portrait painting.
Indeed, portraiture took its rise for the modern world from such
kneeling figures.

Another point of view from which it is interesting to compare
these various Madonnas is that of the =Nationality= or =School
of Art= to which they belong. The =early Italian=
representations of Our Lady are usually more or less girlish in
appearance, refined in features, and comparatively simple in
dress and decoration. The Flemish type is peculiarly insipid,
one might often say, even with great artists, inane and
meaningless; in the hands of minor painters, it becomes
positively wooden. The face here is long and rather thin; the
features peaky. The Madonna of Flemish art, indeed, like the
Christ of all art, is a sacred type which is seldom varied.
=Early French= Madonnas, once more, are regal and ladylike,
sometimes even courtly. They wear crowns as queens, and are
better observed in the Louvre in sculpture than in painting.
This Gallery hardly suffices to note in full the peculiarities
of the =sub-types= in various =Italian schools=; but they may
still be recognised. Of these, the =Florentine= are spiritual,
delicate, and strongly ideal; the =Lombard=, intellectual, like
well-read ladies; the =Venetian=, stately and matronly
oligarchical mothers, degenerating later into the mere
aristocratic nobility, soulless and materialised, of Titian and
his followers. The =Umbrians= and =Sienese= are distinguished
for the most part by their pure and saintly air of fervent
piety.

Do not confound with any of these =devotional Madonnas=, with or
without select groups of saints, various other classes of
picture which somewhat resemble them. Each of these has in early
art its own proper convention and treatment: it was a recognised
species. A =Holy Family=, for example, consists, as a rule, of a
Madonna, the Infant Christ, St. Joseph, St. Elizabeth, and the
child Baptist. Like the other subjects, it is sometimes
complicated by the addition of selected Saints as spectators or
assessors. A =Coronation of the Virgin=, again, is an entirely
celestial scene, taking place in the calm of the heavenly
regions. The Madonna is usually crowned by her Son, but
sometimes by angels or by the Eternal Father. (Several
interesting examples of this, for comparison, occur in Room VI,
ground floor, at Cluny.) =Nativities=, of course, belong rather
to the group of pictorial histories, such as the Life of Christ,
or the Seven Joys of Mary. The sculptures in the ambulatory at
Notre-Dame give one a good idea of such continuous histories.

One interesting set of Madonnas, largely exemplified here, to
take a particular example, is the later Lombard type of the
=School of Leonardo=. This type, well distinguished by its
regular oval features, its gentle smile of inner happiness, and
its peculiar waving hair with wisps over the shoulders, is
usually regarded as essentially belonging to Leonardo himself
and his immediate followers. It is foreshadowed, however, by
Foppa, Borgognone, and other early Lombard painters, specimens
of whom are not numerous in the Louvre. Leonardo, when he came
to Milan to Ludovico Sforza, adopted this local type, which he
transfused with Florentine grace and with his own peculiar
subdued smile, as one sees it already in the Mona Lisa. From
Leonardo, again, it was taken, with more or less success, by his
immediate pupils, Beltraffio, Solario, Cesare di Sesto, and
others, as well as by Luini, who was not a pupil of Leonardo
himself, but who was deeply influenced by the master’s methods
and his works in Milan. The number of these Leonardesque
Madonnas in the Louvre is exceptionally great, while Leonardo
himself can here be better estimated than in Italy. Nowhere else
perhaps, save possibly at Milan, can this type as a whole be
compared by the student to so great advantage.

While the Madonna herself usually occupies the central panel of
votive pictures, it sometimes happens that some =other saint=
is, on his own altar-piece, similarly enthroned; and in that
case he is flanked by brother saints, often more important in
themselves, but then and there subordinated to him. This special
honour under special circumstances is well seen in the case of
the St. Lawrence at the far end of the Salle des Primitifs.
Particular local saints often thus receive what might otherwise
appear undue recognition. For the same reason, minor saints in
the group surrounding a Madonna often obtain local brevet-rank
(if I may be allowed the simile) over others of far greater
general dignity, which they could not lay claim to in any other
connection. Thus, in the Nativity by Giulio Romano, to which I
called attention in connection with Mantegna’s Madonna, St.
Longinus (with his crystal vase) stood on Our Lady’s R, while
St. John was relegated to her L—a subordination of the greater
to the lesser saint which would only be possible in a chapel
actually dedicated to St. Longinus, and where he receives
peculiar honour. I now propose to escort you round a few rooms
of the Louvre, again calling attention very briefly, from this
point of view, to certain special Madonna features only.]

* * * * *

Now, go to the Louvre and test these remarks. Begin at the far end of the Salle des Primitifs. The Cimabue and the Giottesque of the Madonna and Angels we have already considered. Compare them again from our present standpoint. Close to them on the R, beneath the large Giotto of St. Francis, are two pretty little Madonnas, 1620 (I now give the large upper numbers alone) and 1667. The first of these exhibits below two tiny votaries—the small-sized donors—a Franciscan monk and a Dominican nun, with the robes of their orders; the centre consists of St. Paul and St. Catherine, as the attendant saints on the large Enthroned Virgin. The second has the choir of angels, both surrounding and beneath the throne, with St. Peter (keys), St. Paul (sword), St. John Baptist (camel-hair) and St. Stephen or St. Vincent (robed as deacon). St. Peter and St. Paul in 1625 are similar figures, once surrounding a central panel, with the Madonna now missing. Compare with this 1666, with its Enthroned Madonna of the early almond-eyed type, its group of angels round the throne, and its two saints at the base, John Baptist and Peter. Observe that the types of these also can be recognised. Each saint has regular features of his own, which you can learn to know quite as well as the symbols.

Higher up, 1664, another Madonna and Child, Enthroned, with similar angels, but with the addition of the figure of St Catherine of Alexandria, on whose finger the Christ is placing a ring. This is an early intermediate type of the Marriage of St. Catherine, hardly yet characterized. Most of these Madonnas have the characteristic softness and peculiar cast of countenance of the early School of Siena.

1279, Gentile da Fabriano, is almost a simple Madonna and Child, but for the addition of the smaller donor, Pandolfo Malatesta, Lord of Rimini. This picture shows the bland and round-faced Umbrian type which is closely allied to that of Siena. Both Schools are remarkable for the fervent pietism which blossomed out in full in St. Francis of Assisi and St. Catherine of Siena.

In the beautiful Perugino above, 1564, note the complete transformation in the later Umbrian school of the adoring angels into a graceful pair, and the beginning of an attempt to group in comparatively natural attitudes the accompanying saints, Rose and Catherine.

This feature is still more marked in 1565, also Perugino, (but later) where the Baptist and St. Catherine, well composed, are thrown into the background behind the Madonna. Observe that while earlier piety drapes the Child, in Gentile and still more in Perugino, the growing love for the nude begins to exhibit itself. A study of haloes is also interesting.

On the opposite or R side, 1315 is a good example of the simple Enthroned Madonna of the School of Giotto. Compare it with that next it, 1316, where the angels are grouped with some attempt at composition.

1397, by Neri di Bicci, is also a characteristic half-length simple Madonna, with the Child still draped after the earlier fashion affected by this belated follower of Giottesque models.

1345, beneath it, by Filippo Lippi or his school, shows a characteristic type of features which this painter introduced,—a modification of the older Florentine ideal: the face is said to be that of his model Lucrezia Buti, the nun with whom he eloped and whom he was finally permitted to marry. The angels in the background show well the rapid advance in the treatment of these accessories. Observe, as you pass, their Florentine lilies. Their features are like those of the Medici children, as seen in numerous works at Florence.

In 1295, by Botticelli, we get that individual painter’s peculiar mystical and somewhat languid type, while the angels are again like Medici portraits. Study these Botticellis for his artistic personality.

1344, by Filippo Lippi, next to it, exhibits Filippo’s very rounded faces, both in Madonna and angels. The type is more human. Here, again, we have the Florentine lily borne by the adoring choir, whose position should be compared as a faint lingering reminiscence of that in the Giottesques and the great Cimabue. Observe, at the same time, the division of the painting as a whole into three false compartments, a suggestion from the earlier type of altar-piece. At the Madonna’s feet are two adoring saints, difficult to identify—Florentine and local, probably. Do not fail to gaze close at the characteristic baby cherubs, perhaps Lucrezia’s. This picture should be compared in all its details with earlier pictures of angel choirs. It is a lovely work. Its delicate painting is strongly characteristic. The relief of the faces should be specially noted.

The Botticelli next it, 1296, introduces us to the infant St. John of Florence whom we meet again in the _Belle Jardinière_ of Raphael’s Florentine period. Another young St. John close by is full of suggestions of Donatello in the Sculpture Gallery.

493, above the last but one, is a very characteristic Madonna of the Florentine school, closely resembling the type of Botticelli. This once more is a simple Madonna and Child, without accessories.

In 1662, the sanctity has almost disappeared and we get scarcely more than a purely human mother and baby.

On the opposite side, 4573, is a half-length by Perugino, the affected pose of whose neck and the character of whose face you will now recognise; the Madonna floats in an almond-shaped glory of cherubs, which indicates her ascent to heaven. Several similar subjects exist in sculpture at Cluny.

1540, Lo Spagna, is again a simple half-length Madonna, whose purely Umbrian type recalls both Perugino and the earlier examples. Compare the Peruginos, Raphaels, and Lo Spagnas here, and form from them some conception of the Umbrian ideal.

Of the Bellini beside it I have already spoken sufficiently. Observe, here, the absolute nudity of the Child, and the reduction of the angels to sweet little cherub heads among clouds in the background. The graceful arrangement of the attendant saints strikes a Bellini keynote: it was followed in later developments of this subject by Venetian painters. Such half-lengths are common among the School of Bellini.

The treatment by Cima, 1259, introducing landscape, and the peculiarly high Venetian throne, is one of a sort also very frequent for full-length Madonnas at Venice and in the Venetian territory. The grouping of the saints, also, is here transitional. Compare it with the exquisite Lorenzo di Credi opposite.

On the opposite wall, 1367, by Mainardi, shows us a Florentine face, the St. John of Florence, and the typical sweet-faced Florentine angels, holding lilies; in the background, a view of the city.

Cosimo Rosseli’s, 1482, has again the almond-shaped glory of cherubs, the nude Child, the typical Florentine face (which you may now recognise) and also characteristic Florentine angels; but its St. Bernard and the Magdalen are introduced on clouds after a somewhat novel fashion. The St. Bernard is writing down his vision of the Madonna.

I have already called attention to the beautiful grouping in 1263 by Lorenzo di Credi; but observe now that the exquisite attendant saints, almost statuesque in their clear-cut isolation, still show a reminiscence of the earlier arrangement in tabernacles by the Renaissance archways at their back, combined with the niche in which the Madonna is enthroned. Only by the light of Giottesque examples can we understand the composition of this glorious picture. We do not know the circumstances under which it was produced: but St. Julian was the patron saint of Rimini, as St. Nicolas was of Bari. Both these towns were great Adriatic ports: and I believe it was painted for a merchant of the neighbourhood.

Do not be content in any of these cases with observing merely the points to which I call definite attention; try to compare each work throughout in all its details with others like it. The evolution of the grouping, in fact, will give you endless hints as to the history and development of the art of composition. This picture of Lorenzo’s may be regarded as exemplifying the finest stage in such works: those of later date are less pure and severe—show a tendency to confusion.

This will be quite enough to occupy you for one day. Another morning, proceed into the Long Gallery, where you can similarly compare the High Renaissance types and the Leonardesque Madonnas of the later School of Lombardy.

In the little Madonna of the School of Francia, 1437, observe the position of the attendant saint, the new type of face proper to the art of Bologna, and the way in which, as often, the infant Christ is poised on a parapet.

1553, by Garofalo, shows a later and softer development of a somewhat similar (Ferrarese) type; but the Child, instead of blessing with his two fingers as in most early cases, here displays the growing Renaissance love of variety and novelty: he is asleep in his cradle. Observe his attitude in this and other instances. With all these changes, however, you cannot fail to be struck by the fairly constant persistence of the red tunic and the blue mantle of the Madonna, as well as by the nature of her head-dress in each great School. Never fail to observe the characteristic head-dresses in the various Schools of Italian art. They will help you, like the faces, to form types for comparison.

1353, by Luini, introduces us at once to the Lombard-Leonardesque class of face and hair. Compare it closely with the Madonnas in the frescoes in the Salle Duchâtel. The introduction of Joseph makes this in essence a Holy Family. Note Luini’s development of the halo of Christ, cruciform in early cases, or composed of a cross inscribed in a circle, into a cross-like arrangement of rays of light.

The two works by Marco da Oggiono, close by, betray similar types, far inferior to Luini’s, with further loss of primitive reverence.

In 1181, Borgognone’s Presentation, an earlier Lombard work, the Madonna faintly foreshadows this Leonardesque type, though the Leonardesque features are far less markedly present than in many other examples by this silvery painter.

1530, by Solario, the famous Madonna of the Green Cushion, may be compared with those by Marco da Oggiono, which it resembles in motive.

In 1599, La Vierge aux Rochers, we get Leonardo’s own personal type, which is also seen in the Madonna and St. Anne of the Salon Carré. Compare all these with the Mona Lisa, for touch and spirit. Then continue your examination through the rest of this room with the Leonardesque types: after which, turn to the School of Venice, beyond them, and note the evolution of the Titianesque types from the primitive Venetians.

On the opposite side of the same room, observe, once more, how Fra Bartolommeo and his School arranged their extremely complex groups of saints into a composition resembling a state ceremonial. From this point on in the evolution of the Santa Conversazione you will see that the arrangement of the saints entirely loses all sense of sacred meaning. Artificial ecstasies replace natural piety. An attempt to be artistic, and a desire to introduce a mode of treatment fitter for the theatre than for the church, at last entirely obscure the original meaning of these groups, which are so full of ardour in Fra Angelico, so full of stateliness in Lorenzo di Credi.

Another day may well be devoted to the quaintly girlish Madonnas of the =Flemish School=. Begin by observing carefully the Van Eyck of the Salon Carré, which is a Madonna with donor, and the Memling of the Salle Duchâtel, which is a Madonna with donors, not one with saints; the patrons here being merely brought in to introduce the votaries to Our Lady’s notice. From these, proceed to the Early Flemish section of the Long Gallery, and note in detail the evolution of the type in later pictures. I need hardly call attention to the Flemish love for crowns, jewellery, and costly adjuncts. These reflect the wealthy burgher life of Bruges, Ghent, and Antwerp. The translucent colour of the Flemish painters, too, lends itself well to these decorative elements.

The best example of an =Early French Madonna= is the beautiful one which hangs by the R hand side of the door in the Salon Carré, leading into the Salle Duchâtel. This exquisite figure, a true masterpiece of its School, should be compared with later French developments in painting, as well as with the admirable collection of plastic works of this School in the Renaissance Sculpture Gallery down stairs. With these may also be mentioned, as a typical French example, the famous miracle-working Notre-Dame-de-Paris, a statue of the thirteenth or fourteenth century, which stands under a canopy against the pillar by the entrance to the choir in the south transept of Notre-Dame, and is popularly regarded as the statue of Our Lady to which the church is dedicated. The close connection between royalty and religion in France, well exemplified in the number of saints of the royal house at St. Germain l’Auxerrois, St. Germain-des-Prés, St. Denis, and elsewhere, is markedly exhibited in the extremely regal and high-bred character always given to French Madonnas. The Florentine, which form in this respect the greatest contrast, are often envisaged as idealised peasant girls, full of soul and fervour, but by no means exalted.

Finally, note as far as is possible with the few materials in this collection, the round-faced, placid type of the =German Madonna=—placid when at rest, though contorted (as the Mater Dolorosa) with exaggerated anguish. The fine wooden statue in the room of the Limoges enamels at Cluny will help to strike the key-note for this somewhat domestic national ideal. The early German Madonna is as often as not just a glorified housewife.

Many other subjects for similar comparative treatment may be found in the Louvre. Pick out for yourself a special theme, such as, for example, the Adoration of the Magi, the Nativity, the Presentation in the Temple, or the Agony in the Garden, and try to follow it out through various examples. Choose also a saint or two, and pursue them steadily through their evolution. Do not think that to examine paintings in this way is to be absorbed by the subject rather than by the art of the painter. Only superficial observers fall into this error. You will find on the contrary that the characteristics of each School and of each artist can best be discovered and observed by watching how each modifies or alters pre-existing and conventional conceptions. In order to thoroughly understand any early picture, you must look at it first as a representation of such-and-such =a given subject=, for which a relatively fixed and conventional set of figures or accessories was prescribed by tradition. The number and minuteness of the prescribed accessories will grow upon you as you watch them. You have then to observe how =each School as a whole= treats such works; what feeling it introduces, towards what sort of modification in style or tone it usually tends. Next, you must consider it relatively to =its age=, as exemplifying a particular stage in the progress of the science and art of painting. Last of all you must carefully estimate what peculiarities are due to the taste, the temperament, the hand, and the technique of the =individual artist=. For example, Gerard David’s Marriage at Cana is thoroughly Flemish in all its details; while Paolo Veronese’s is thoroughly Venetian. You may notice the Flemish and Venetian hand, not merely in the figures and the composition as a whole, but even in the extraordinarily divergent treatment of such details as the jars in the foreground, which for David are painted with Flemish daintiness of detail, though coarse and rough in themselves; while Veronese approaches them with Venetian wealth of Renaissance fancy, both in decoration and handling. But the David, again, is not merely Flemish: it has the distinctive marks of that particular Fleming, and should be compared with his lovely portrait of a kneeling donor with his three patron saints in the National Gallery: while the Veronese is noticeable for the voluptuousness, the over-richness, the dash and spirit, of that large free master of the full Renaissance, the Rubens by comparison among the Venetians of his time. So too, if you study attentively the Botticellis in the Salle des Primitifs, you can notice a close similarity of type in many of his faces with the types in certain pictures by Filippo Lippi and still more in those by other Florentines of the same period; while you are yet even more distinctly struck by the intense individuality and refined spiritual feeling of this very original and soulful master.

In order to study the Louvre aright, in short, you must be =continually comparing=. In a word, regard each work, first, as a representation of such-and-such a subject, falling into its proper place in the evolution of its series: second, as belonging to such-and-such a school or nationality: third, as representing such-and-such an age in the historical evolution of the art of painting: fourth, as exhibiting the individuality, the style, the characteristics, the technique, and the peculiar touch of such-and-such an individual painter. Only thus can you study art aright in this or any other gallery.

Try this method on Van Eyck’s Madonna, on Titian’s Entombment, on Sebastiano del Piombo’s Visitation, and on Memling’s little John Baptist, which is one attendant saint from a triptych whose Madonna is missing.

* * * * *

Some other time, consider in detail the two delicately luminous =frescoes by Luini=, in the Salle Duchâtel. Before doing so, however, read on the spot the following remarks.

I have spoken here for the most part from the point of view of those visitors who have not travelled much in Italy or the Low Countries. And, as a matter of fact, the Louvre is the first great picture gallery on the Continent visited by nine out of ten English or Americans. In reality, however, since this collection contains several isolated masterpieces of all the great schools, together with several unconnected pictures of minor artists, it requires, almost more than any other great gallery, to be seen by the light of information acquired elsewhere. It ought, therefore, to be examined _after_ as well as, and even more than, _before_ visits to other countries. This collection, for example, includes works by Van Eyck, by Memling, by Giotto, by Fra Angelico. But Van Eyck can only be fully understood by those who have visited Ghent; Memling can only be fully understood by those who have visited Bruges: it is impossible really to comprehend Giotto unless you have seen his great series of frescoes in the Madonna dell’ Arena at Padua: it is impossible really to comprehend Fra Angelico unless you have examined the saintly and ecstatic works at San Marco in Florence. Thus you have to bear in mind that the works in the Louvre are only =stray examples= of masters and schools with whom an adequate acquaintance must be obtained elsewhere. It was for this reason that I began these notes with special examples of Mantegna, because he is one of the very few artists, other than French, of whom you can form some tolerably fair conception in Paris alone, to be pieced out afterwards by observation in Italy.

Furthermore, it must be recollected that many artists can only be seen to advantage under the =conditions amid which= their works were produced. This is especially the case with the Italian painters of the 14th and 15th centuries. They were =a school of fresco-painters=. Their altar-pieces and other separate panels give but a very inadequate idea of their powers, and especially of their composition. Giotto and Fra Angelico, in particular, cannot possibly be estimated aright by any of their works to be seen north of the Alps. The altar-pieces, being more especially sacred in character, were relatively very fixed in type: they allowed of less variation, less incident, less action, than the histories of saints which frequently form the subjects of frescoes. You can judge of this to a slight extent in the Louvre itself, by comparing the Madonnas at the far end of the Salle des Primitifs with Giotto’s St. Francis which hangs by: for the Madonna was the most sacred and therefore the most bound by custom of any type. You will at once observe how much freer and more naturalistic is the treatment in the episode of the Stigmata than in the comparatively wooden figures of Our Lady by which it is surrounded. Still more is this the case when we come to compare any of these altar-pieces with frescoes such as those of the Arena at Padua, or Santa Croce at Florence. Similarly with Fra Angelico: the little crowded works which he produced as altar-pieces give a totally different conception of his character and powers than that which we derive from the large and relatively spacious frescoes at San Marco, or in Pope Nicolas’s Chapel at the Vatican. In such works, we see him expand into a totally different manner. Now frescoes, by their very nature, cannot easily be removed from the walls of churches without great danger. Therefore, the school of fresco-painters—that is to say, the Early Italian school—is ill represented outside Italy.