Chapter L: Costa F (1)

This famous canvas shows a weakness of drawing and a “want of force that mars what is meant for grace.” Costa’s _Mythological Scene_ (No. 1262) is not now exhibited, but in it, as in the majority of his works, the figures have no real existence. The heads are usually “screwed on—not always at the proper angle—to crosspoles hung about with clothes.” His landscapes, however, “without being in any sense serious studies, are among the loveliest painted in his day.”

Costa’s shortcomings were to dominate to the end the school of Bologna, which was essentially, almost from its incipience, one of Decadence. He became the first direct master of Francesco Francia (1450-1517), the typical Renaissance painter in Bologna who seems to have taken to painting at the relatively advanced age of thirty-five. Francia had matriculated in the Goldsmiths’ Guild in 1482 and was Master of the Guild in 1483, the year of Costa’s arrival; but until he came under the influence of Costa he had worked only as an engraver of _paci_ in niello-work, a die-sinker, and a medallist. They soon went into partnership, the upper storey of their joint workshop being used for the painting of pictures, while metal-work was executed below. Francia is not seen to the best advantage in the Louvre. His _Christ on the Cross_ (No. 1436) is somewhat unusual in treatment, as a nude figure of St. Job, a plague saint, is painted in the foreground. This large picture bears the characteristic signature

FRANCIA AURIFABER,

and shows his practice of demonstrating the versatility of his many talents. The small _Nativity_ (No. 1435) is an authentic work. The _Madonna and Child, with St. George, St. Sebastian, St. Francis, and St. John the Baptist_ (No. 1436A), is known as the _Guastavillani Madonna_ from the inscription to the effect that Filippo Guastavillani, a Bolognese senator, ordered the picture of Francia. Nevertheless, this large panel appears to have been executed by his son, Giacomo. A _Madonna and Child_ (No. 1437) and a _Holy Family with St. Francis d’Assisi_ (No. 1437A) are only by pupils.

The Louvre contains no example of the work of the Umbrian artist, Timoteo Viti (1467-1524), who was a pupil of Costa, and from July 1490 to April 1495 worked in the studio of Francia. There are no other sixteenth-century Bolognese paintings in this collection.

THE SCHOOL OF CREMONA

This small and unimportant school includes Boccaccio Boccaccino (fl. 1460-1518?), who was formed on various Venetian and Milanese influences. The _Holy Family_ (No. 1168) which is credited to him, but not now exhibited, seems to be an unattributable panel by some artist of the Lombard school. This school includes an early-sixteenth-century imitator who has received the significant name of “Pseudo-Boccaccino,” but is not here represented.

The _Mater Dolorosa_ (No. 1202) appears to be by Bernardino Campi, a mediocre sixteenth-century painter of the Lombard and Cremonese schools. Sofonisba Anguissola (1528-1625), a female artist, was his pupil and the wife of Orazio Lomellini.

THE SCHOOL OF BRESCIA

This small town seems to have produced little local talent previous to the birth of Foppa. Ottaviano Prandino, who had worked with Altichiero at Padua, and Bartolommeo Testorino (died about 1429) are little more than names.

Vincenzo Foppa (1427?-1516?) was born near Brescia. The theory that he studied under Squarcione at Padua lacks confirmation. On the other hand, he seems to have been little affected by the Squarcionesque traditions, and is rather to be regarded as the artistic product of the school of Verona, where he would have come under the influence of Pisanello and Jacopo Bellini. He may have been a friend of Andrea Mantegna. It is, however, not in Brescia, but in Milan that Foppa’s art may be studied to-day. He arrived in Pavia about 1458, and became the founder of the school of Milan twenty years before Leonardo first took up his abode at the court of Lodovico Il Moro.

Foppa’s pupil Vincenzo Civerchio (1470?-1544) and Floriano Ferramola (1480-1528) were the joint founders of the school of Brescia; Romanino (1485-1566) was a pupil of the latter. The Louvre is singularly poor in its representation of this school, which cannot here be studied earlier than the (so-called) _Portrait of Gaston de Foix_ (No. 1518) by Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo (1480?-1548?). This canvas, which appears to be signed

_Opera di Jovanni Jeronimo di Bressia di Savoldi_,

shows unmistakably the conflicting influences, mostly Venetian, under which this artist worked.

Moretto (1498?-1555?), who was a pupil of Ferramola and was influenced by Savoldo and Romanino, produced large and striking altarpieces as well as portraits. He met with some success in his attempts to combine a subtlety of feeling peculiar to himself with the “silvery” tones of which he was so fond. His _St. Bernardino of Siena and St. Louis of Toulouse_ (No. 1175) and his _St. Bonaventura and St. Anthony of Padua_ (No. 1176) are arched panels on a much smaller scale than he often uses.

Moretto’s pupil, Giambattista Moroni (1525?-1578), painted many far better portraits than that of _An Old Man seated_ (No. 1395). The only other Brescian painting in this collection seems to be the _Portrait of a Man_ (No. 1646), who is seen at half length, seated three-quarters to the left and wearing a robe trimmed with fur. Although catalogued as an unattributable Italian work, it is in our opinion by Calisto Piazza of Lodi (fl. 1520-1560), the son of Martino Piazza of the Milanese school. To Calisto da Lodi has been assigned the _Portrait of a Knight of Malta_ (No. 1594) which is catalogued as being by Titian.

The Louvre is very inferior to the National Gallery in both the quality and quantity of pictures of this school.

THE SCHOOL OF MODENA

The city of Modena gave birth to the early painters Tommaso da Modena (1325-1379) and Barnaba da Modena (fl. 1377), who worked in many different parts of Tuscany. The prominent figure in this school, however, is Francesco Bianchi (1460-1510). This painter, whose name is sometimes given as Francesco Bianchi Ferrari, was in all probability a pupil of Cosimo Tura at Ferrara. He left that city about 1480 for Modena. His style of painting has been the subject of much discussion, chiefly because he is regarded as the master of Correggio of Parma. The _Madonna and Child, with St. Benedict and St. Quentin_ (No. 1167), although officially catalogued under his name, is not now generally accepted as his work. In 1725 it was in the Church of St. Quentin at Parma and attributed to Francia. Certain critics have ascribed it to Alessandro da Carpi and others to Pellegrino Munari of Modena (1450?-1523). Bianchi’s work can only be studied in the Pinacoteca Estense and in the churches at Modena.

The three pictures officially catalogued under the name of the third-rate artist Bartolommeo Schidone (1570?-1615) are not exhibited, nor are they missed,—a remark which will also apply to a _St. Cecilia_ (No. 1253) by Jacopo Cavedone (1577-1660).

THE SCHOOL OF VICENZA

The first Vicentine painter known to us is Battista da Vicenza (fl. 1450), but it was not until the last quarter of the fifteenth century that Vicenza produced a painter of any note. Bartolommeo Montagna (1460?-1523) studied the art of the Vivarini, and so became the central figure in an unimportant school. His _Ecce Homo_ (No. 1393), which bears the signature:

_Bartholomeus Montagna
Fecit_

in a _cartellino_ fastened to a twig, is a mature work. The delightful and late picture of _Three Angel Musicians_ (No. 1394), which is signed in a _cartellino_

_Opus Bartholomei
Montagna_,

shows the unmistakable influence of Gentile Bellini. The same motif is found in the three musician angels in Montagna’s magnificent _Madonna and Child, with St. Andrew, St. Monica, St. Ursula, and St. Sigismund_, of 1498, in the Brera.

Montagna’s son, Benedetto (fl. 1500-1540), Giovanni Buonconsiglio (1470?-1536?), and Giovanni Speranza (1480-1536) also practised as painters; but Vicentine art from the middle of the sixteenth century has little claim on our attention.

THE SCHOOL OF VERCELLI

One of the earliest painters in this school was an obscure artist of the Old Lombard school named Martino Spanzotti. He was the master of Gaudenzio Ferrari (1471-1546), whose frescoes are easily recognisable by the crude colour, exuberant imagination, and forceful, almost brutal, realism which have caused him to be termed, somewhat loosely, the Rubens of Italy. A very late work by him is the _St. Paul_ (No. 1285), which is signed and dated

1543
GAUDENTIUS.

Another of Spanzotti’s pupils was Sodoma, who was born at Vercelli in Piedmont, in 1477. He is best known for the large amount of work that he executed at Siena. This prolific artist, like a number of other painters of this unimportant school, is not represented in the Louvre. He died in 1551.

A faint echo of the teaching of Spanzotti may at times be detected in the works of Defendente Ferrari (fl. 1500-1535) and Girolamo Giovenone (fl. 1513-1527), who are not represented in the Louvre.

(1494-1534)

SCHOOL OF PARMA

No. 1117.—THE MYSTIC MARRIAGE OF ST. CATHERINE

(Mariage mystique de Sainte Catherine)

The Virgin, in a red tunic and blue mantle, is seated to the
left of the composition holding on her lap the Infant Christ. He
is about to place the wedding-ring on the third finger of the
outstretched right hand of the kneeling St. Catherine, who wears
a gold-brocaded robe. Behind her stands St. Sebastian, looking on
with interest and clasping in his hand the arrows, the symbol of
his martyrdom. In the landscape background are depicted scenes of
the martyrdom of the two Saints.

Painted in oil on panel.

3 ft. 5½ in. × 3 ft. 4 in. (1·05 × 1·02.)]

THE SCHOOL OF PARMA

One of the most distinctive and perhaps the most sensuous of the Italian masters is Correggio (1494-1534), who takes his name from his birthplace, Il Correggio, a small town near Modena. It was natural, therefore, that he should have become the pupil of Francesco Bianchi of the school of Modena. Correggio came under almost all the leading influences which distinguish the principal Italian schools of the early sixteenth century. His “sidelong grace,” his subtle gradations of tone, his daring foreshortening, his sublimity of space and light, his vivid imagination, his profound knowledge of chiaroscuro, render him an isolated phenomenon in Italian art at the moment when it was passing into precipitate decline. His _Marriage of St. Catherine_ (No. 1117, Plate XV.) entirely lacks the dignity and solemnity which are the dominant features of truly religious art. The figures which make up this fascinating composition are delicate, but by no means of an elevated type. This pseudo-religious picture, when studied together with the _Jupiter and Antiope_ (No. 1118), shows the justice of the criticism that Correggio’s pictures are “hymns to the charm of femininity the like of which have never been known before or since in Christian Europe.” It is more remarkable that this mythological canvas, which is so full of sensuous vitality, should have been added to the royal collection of England in the seventeenth century than that it should have been allowed by Cromwell to leave the country a few years later. Two Allegories of _Virtue_ and _Vice_, executed by Correggio in gouache, hang in one of the Rooms of Drawings.

Parmigianino (1504-1540), an imitator of Correggio and in a less degree of Raphael, who were both shortlived artists, painted the two small panels of a _Holy Family_ (No. 1385), and a _Holy Family and Saints_ (No. 1386).

THE SCHOOL OF BOLOGNA

After the deaths of Francia in 1517 and Lorenzo Costa in 1536, painting in Bologna rapidly decreased in quality, although not in volume. A distinctive feature was the work of Marc Antonio Raimondi (b. 1475), a pupil of Francia, who developed the process of engraving on copper.

Bologna, which like other cities of Italy felt the effects of humanism, acquired an increased importance in political activity through the meeting there of Pope Leo X. and Francis I., in 1515, and by the Coronation of Charles V., on Feb. 24, 1530. It also obtained within a few years a great reputation as an art centre, although it is not easy for us now to realise why. The esteem in which its art was held in foreign countries is also difficult to explain. Innocenzo da Imola, who had studied under Francia, was the master of Primaticcio, who was summoned to France by François I. in 1531. Primaticcio at that time was working at Mantua with Giulio Romano, the favourite pupil and the imitator of Raphael. While Primaticcio took with him the influence of Bolognese art to Fontainebleau, where he died in 1570, Pellegrino Tibaldi (1527-1591), a pupil of Bagnacavallo, carried the Bolognese influence into Spain.

The appreciation by a foreign artist of the art of Bologna is shown in the case of Denis Calvaert of Antwerp, who thought the Bolognese school to be in so flourishing a state, when he passed through on his way to study in Rome, that he decided to abandon his original intention and to stay on in the city of the Colonnades.

A striking feature of the literature and art of painting at Bologna was that its University had always accorded equal terms to women students with men, and had women professors. Female painters—they were without exception only of the third rank—had worked in Bologna from the days of Caterina di Vigri, painter and saint, who was born as early as 1413. In the last quarter of the sixteenth century, art in Bologna passed into the complete control of the Eclectics.

THE DECADENT SCHOOLS

In the Florentine and Roman schools the Decadence may be said to have begun with the death of Raphael in 1520. With the exception of the Venetian school, in which art did not languish until after the death of Tintoretto in 1594, painting rapidly degenerated during the second half of the sixteenth century. Paintings were, of course, produced in great profusion in every art centre of Italy, but form and subject were not in true harmony. To a great extent local traditions were abandoned, the earlier types varied, and three distinctive movements developed—the “Mannerists,” the “Eclectics,” and the “Naturalists.”

THE “MANNERISTS”

Giulio Romano (1492?-1546) was content to imitate the works of Raphael; and Daniele da Volterra (1509-1566) tried, as we have seen in his _David overcoming Goliath_ (No. 1462), to reproduce the swelling muscles of Michelangelo. Baroccio (1526-1612) in his _Circumcision_ (No. 1149), which is signed and dated 1570, and in his _Virgin in Glory, with St. Anthony and St. Lucy_ (No. 1150), sought to reproduce the ineffable grace of Correggio; while others endeavoured to repeat the enigmatic smile, the “greyhound” eye, and the mysterious chiaroscuro of Leonardo da Vinci.

Although the “Mannerists” were to be met with in most of the centres of painting in the sixteenth century, they made Rome the centre of their operations. Domenico Feti (1589-1624) is represented in the Louvre by four canvases, _Nero_ (No. 1286), _Life in the Country_ (No. 1287), _Melancholy_ (No. 1288), and _The Guardian Angel_ (No. 1289), the subjects being highly significant.

In the _Holy Family_ (No. 1493) by Sassoferrato (1605-1685) are shown the shallowness and empty formalism which produced the fair-haired, blue-eyed, hyper-sentimental _Madonnas_ with which his name is associated. Carlo Dolci is not represented in the Louvre.

One of the more estimable artists in the Late Roman school is Carlo Maratta (1625-1713), who may be judged by the unsigned _Portrait of Marie Madeleine Rospigliosi_ (No. 1379) and _His Own Portrait_ (No. 1380).

Two paintings of _Fruit_ (Nos. 1254, 1255) stand to the credit of M. A. Cerquozzi (1602-1660), and the art of G. B. Castiglione, of Genoa (1616-1670), is seen in his _Abraham and Melchizedek_ (No. 1250) and _Animals and Utensils_ (No. 1252).

THE “ECLECTICS”

A revolt against the methods of the “Mannerists” was made by the Carracci when they opened their school of art at Bologna in 1589. These “Eclectics” (“Pickers and Choosers”) advocated a careful study of “the drawing of Rome, the Venetian shadow, the terrific force of Michelangelo’s manner, the natural truth of Titian, the pure and sovereign style of Correggio, the true symmetry of Raphael, the dignity and principle of Tibaldi, the invention of the learned Primaticcio, together with a little of the grace of Parmigianino”! It is not surprising that they in their turn soon sank into mere academic mediocrity.

The Louvre is notoriously rich in representative examples of the “Eclectic” painters’ art. The name of Lodovico Carracci (1555-1619), the founder of this school at Bologna, is included in the official Catalogue, but neither of his two pictures is at present exhibited. Lodovico had as cousins, Agostino (1557?-1602) and Annibale (1560?-1609), who also worked in Rome. Six of Annibale Carracci’s fifteen pictures in this collection are now exhibited. The _Madonna of the Cherries_ (No. 1217) and the _Sleeping Child Jesus_ (No. 1218) are characteristic, while his huge canvas of _The Virgin appearing to St. Luke and St. Catherine_ (No. 1219) in every way exemplifies the art of this painter and his school. It is inscribed:

ANNIBAL CARACTIUS F. MDXCII.

Pictures of this type were much sought after and prized in the eighteenth century, when this one was seized by Napoleon in Italy, but to-day a higher standard of æsthetics has deservedly ruled them out of fashion. On the other hand, sufficient attention is not now paid to some of the landscape pictures which the “Eclectics” painted; Annibale’s _Fishing_ (No. 1233) and _Hunting_ (No. 1232) are worth the attention of the student. Antonio Carracci (1583-1618), a less-known member of this family, is the author of a large canvas depicting _The Deluge_ (No. 1235).

Guido Reni, after working under Denis Calvaert at Bologna, entered the school of the Carracci. This fitful sentimentalist indulged in idealised abstractions that were neither human nor divine, as may be seen from his _David and Goliath_ (No. 1439) and _St. Sebastian_ (No. 1450) on the one hand, and his _Ecce Homo_ (No. 1447) and _Mary Magdalene_ (No. 1448) on the other. Four of his large mythological paintings (Nos. 1453, 1454, 1455, 1457) show some technical ability.

Francesco Albani (1578-1660) was influenced by the Carracci and Guido Reni. The _Diana and Actaeon_ (No. 1111) may be selected out of his nine productions mentioned in the Catalogue. Domenichino (1581-1641), a pupil of the Carracci, the assistant of Annibale and a friend of Guido Reni in Rome, was a sentimentalist of the most pronounced order. His hard execution and unpleasant colouring can be judged in his _St. Cecilia_ (No. 1613),—her features are singularly ill-proportioned,—but nine of his other pictures do not take up any of the valuable wall space.

The self-taught artist and insipid Guercino (“The Squintling”) (1591-1666), after working in Rome, settled in 1642 at Bologna, where he died in affluent circumstances. His _Raising of Lazarus_ (No. 1139), the large _Patron Saints of Modena_ (No. 1143), together with a _Circe_ (No. 1147) and _The Painters Own Portrait_ (No. 1148), are now exhibited. These and such pictures as were painted by G. A. Donducci (1575-1655), G. F. Grimaldi (1606-1680), S. Cantarini (1612-1648), and G. M. Crespi (1665-1747), provoked a fresh reaction.

THE “NATURALISTS”

A natural reaction against the selective methods of the “Eclectics” gave rise to the “Naturalists,” who, headed by Michelangelo Caravaggio (1569-1609), made Naples the centre of their operations. The utterly repulsive picture entitled _The Death of the Virgin_ (No. 1121), by Caravaggio, is merely large. Neither _The Fortune Teller_ (No. 1122) nor the _Concert of Nine Musicians_ (No. 1123) can be compared with the really striking and well-painted _Portrait of Alof de Wignacourt, Grand-Master of Malta_ (No. 1124).

Salvator Rosa (1615-1675) is represented by _Tobias and the Angel_ (No. 1477) and a _Vision of Saul to Samuel_ (No. 1478). His _Landscape_ (No. 1480) shows that he delighted in “ideas of desolation, solitude and danger, impenetrable forests, rocky and storm-lashed shores, in lonely dells leading to dens and caverns of banditti, alpine ridges, trees blasted by lightning or sapped by time.” His _Battle_ (No. 1479) is a strange production.

Caravaggio was the master of Ribera (1588-1656), who is also called Spagnoletto, and is included in the Catalogue among the Spanish artists. This “Naturalist” school of Naples also included Luca Giordano (1632-1705), who lived in Spain at one period.

The aim of the “Naturalists” is displayed in the prominence they gave to all that was vulgar, coarse, and vile. With them art in Italy came to an ignominious end, although in technical accomplishment, in mere craftsmanship, they can hold their own with painters of much higher rank.

(1390?-1441)

EARLY FLEMISH SCHOOL

No. 1986.—THE VIRGIN AND CHILD AND THE CHANCELLOR ROLIN

(La Vierge au donateur)

An angel in a blue alb and with peacock-blue wings is placing an
elaborate gold crown on the head of the Madonna, who holds the
Infant Christ on her knee, and is seated towards the right of
the composition. On the other side the Chancellor, kneeling at
a _prie-Dieu_, and with his hands joined in adoration, wears a
richly brocaded robe, and is seen in profile towards the right. The
figures are grouped in a portico opening on to a flower-garden and
a crenellated wall; in the distance is seen a seven-arched bridge,
and beyond it a castled island.

Painted in oil on panel.

2 ft. 2 in. × 2 ft. 0½ in. (0·66 × 0·62.)]

THE EARLY FLEMISH SCHOOL

The early art of Flanders, unlike that of Italy, does not present itself at the Louvre, or indeed at any Gallery, in orderly sequence from the immature groping for artistic expression to masterly achievement. With the exception of the exquisite work of the late-fourteenth-century miniaturists, which forms a special branch of study, there is nothing to bridge the immense gulf that divides Melchior Broederlam, the earliest known Flemish painter, from the brothers Van Eyck, whose earliest known work, the wonderful Ghent polyptych of _The Adoration of the Lamb_, is, if not quite the starting-point, the noblest achievement of the Early Flemish school. The invention of oil-painting, in the sense of the word as it is applied to-day, with which the Van Eycks are credited, no doubt contributed largely towards this amazingly sudden progress; but their art also marks a new era in the conception of life and pictorial form. An ardent love of truth and nature takes the place of the earlier vague idealism. At the same time, the realism of the brothers Van Eyck and their followers, notwithstanding its insistence on literal truth in the representation of frequently ugly details, was kept in check by deep sentiment, love of splendid colour, and a great sense of style in composition. Details, even in the far-away distance, were certainly elaborated with minute precision, but they are never unduly obtrusive, and are invariably subordinated to the main motive.

JAN VAN EYCK

The earliest important Flemish painting in the Louvre is the famous _Virgin and Child with the Chancellor Rolin_ (No. 1986, Plate XVI.) by Jan van Eyck (_c._ 1390-1441), which was taken by order of Napoleon I. from the Collegiate Church of Autun in Burgundy. In a three-aisled colonnaded hall with stilted arches and pavement of geometrical inlay is seen Nicholas Rolin, Chancellor of Burgundy and Brabant, kneeling at a prayer-desk before the Virgin, on whose right knee is seated the Infant Saviour holding an orb in His left and raising His right hand in benediction. An angel with peacock-blue wings is floating above the Virgin and holding an elaborately wrought golden crown over her head. The exquisite detail of the river landscape with a view of Maastricht extending beyond the open colonnade, the sumptuous brocaded dresses, the carved capitals of columns and piers, and many other details painted with inimitable minute skill, help towards an ensemble of jewel-like splendour dimmed but not marred by the yellow varnish which covers the surface. The _Virgin with the Donor_ was formerly generally attributed to Hubert, but is most probably a late work by Jan van Eyck, painted perhaps about 1432.

THE SCHOOL OF TOURNAI

Neither Petrus Christus (1412?-1473), the only master who was directly influenced by Jan van Eyck, nor Robert Campin (1365-1444), who is now known to be identical with the so-called “Maître de Flémalle,” and who was the head of the important Tournai school, are represented at the Louvre. The official Catalogue ascribes to Campin’s greatest pupil, Rogier van der Weyden (_c._ 1400-1464), the two panels _The Virgin and Child_ (No. 2195), and _The Deposition from the Cross_ (No. 2196), of which at least the former is only a school version of an often repeated theme by the master, whilst the _Deposition_ is by no means an important example of his work. Rogier was born at Tournai, but went to Brussels after 1432, and practised in that city until his death in 1464. A journey to Italy in 1449 did not appreciably affect his art, which always retained an archaic flavour, especially in the rather tortured rendering of the nude. In this respect, and also in his utter disregard of beauty (except the beauty of rhythmic line), he compares unfavourably with the brothers Van Eyck, as may be clearly seen on comparing his work with Jan van Eyck’s _Virgin and Donor_. His occasional use of gold backgrounds, as in the _Virgin and Child_ (No. 2195), is another archaic trait.

The hand of a nameless contemporary and follower of Campin and Rogier van der Weyden, who is also represented at the Galleries of Vienna, Turin, and Antwerp, is to be recognised in the small panel of _The Annunciation_ (No. 2202), which was formerly attributed to the much later painter Lucas van Leyden, and has also been claimed to be only a copy of a picture by the Maître de Flémalle.

HANS MEMLINC

The influence of Rogier van der Weyden determined the entire course taken by the Flemish school until its decline with the introduction of those Italian Renaissance tendencies which only became a vital factor and led to the birth of a new Flemish art through the genius of Rubens. Again, Rogier’s chief pupil, Dierick Bouts (_c._ 1410-1475), is unrepresented at the Louvre. In the art of Hans Memlinc (_c._ 1430?-1494), who was the founder of the great school of Bruges, may be found clear traces of the influence of Rogier and of Bouts, although we have no certain knowledge as to that master’s actual pupilage. He may have been born at Mömlingen, near Aschaffenburg on the Main, and apparently had already risen to fame as a painter before 1467, the date of his great altarpiece at Dantzig. By that time he was settled at Bruges. Mr. W. H. J. Weale’s researches have shown that the legend, according to which Memlinc first came to Bruges as a wounded soldier and was nursed back to health at the Hospital of St. John, is not founded on fact. It is probable that Memlinc served his apprenticeship under some Cologne painter, but all theories regarding his early life must remain largely conjectural.

What is of real importance is that he introduced into the detailed realism of his precursors a note of pious fervour and tender idealism, which is the nearest approach in Northern art to the angelic sweetness of Fra Giovanni da Fiesole. Not without good reason has he been called “the Fra Angelico of the North.” Fromentin was certainly right in saying that “Van Eyck saw with his eyes, Memlinc begins to see with his soul.” It is this warmth of feeling that makes Memlinc the most lovable painter of the Flemish school, for he could neither rival the dramatic power and realistic truth of the Van Eycks, nor the firm draughtsmanship of Van der Weyden, nor Bouts’s skill in landscape painting. Nor did he take full advantage of the possibilities of the oil technique, his method remaining that of the tempera painters, although he availed himself of the new medium.

The earliest work by Memlinc in the great French national collection is the charming little diptych, painted about 1475, and representing on one leaf _The Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine_ (No. 2027), and on the other _The Donor, John du Celier, presented by St. John_ (No. 2027A). In the first the Virgin is seen seated in a flowering meadow in front of a rose-covered trellis and supporting the Infant Christ, who bends forward to place the ring on the finger of St. Catherine on the left. Behind the saintly bride are St. Agnes and St. Cecilia; whilst the group on the right comprises St. Barbara, with St. Margaret and St. Lucy, all accompanied by their characteristic attributes. On the other leaf the Donor is seen kneeling, with hands joined in prayer, in front of St. John the Baptist, who is pointing to Our Lord. The landscape background shows, on the left, the Apocalyptic vision of St. John the Evangelist, and on the right, St. George fighting the Dragon. This leaf, after passing through the collection of Mr. Herz and Mr. Heath, was presented to the Louvre in 1895 by Mme. André, and was thus reunited with its companion, which had been bequeathed to the Gallery fourteen years earlier by M. E. Gatteaux. It is on the whole in an excellent state of preservation, although some of the accessories in the background are so thinly painted that they have almost disappeared.

MEMLINC’S “VIRGIN AND CHILD, WITH DONORS”

About 1490 Memlinc must have painted the admirable _Virgin and Child, with Donors_ (No. 2026), which was commissioned by James Floreins, a member of the Bruges Merchant Grocers’ Guild, but subsequently found its way to Spain, whence it was taken to France by General d’Armagnac. The Donor, who is kneeling on the left, in front of his seven sons, is presented by St. James the Great, the same office being performed by St. Dominic for Floreins’s wife and her twelve daughters, on the opposite side. The scene is laid in a Romanesque church, with openings at either side, through which glimpses of the landscape beyond are obtained. The characterisation of all the faces, which bear a strong family likeness, is as admirable as the painting of the noble architecture. Remarkable, too, is the effect of perfect symmetry obtained in the arrangement of the two unequal groups through the simple device of placing the Virgin and Child more towards the less crowded side, although the canopy is in the exact middle of the panel. This altarpiece is certainly one of the most important works by Memlinc that are to be found outside Belgium.

The two little panels, _St. John the Baptist_ (No. 2024), and _St. Mary Magdalene_ (No. 2025), both standing in a landscape with small scenes from their respective legends, formed originally, with two further panels representing St. Christopher and St. Stephen, the shutters of a triptych. The centre part had disappeared before the wings, carefully sawn through the thickness of the panels so, as to separate the obverse from the reverse, came into the possession of Lucien Bonaparte, and afterwards of William II. of Holland. The two Saints now at the Louvre were purchased in 1851 for £469.

In 1908 the Louvre obtained, at the high price of £8000, the _Portrait of an Old Lady_ (Plate XVII.), to which attention was first drawn at the Bruges Exhibition in 1902, when it was shown by M. Nardus, from whom it passed into the hands of M. Kleinberger. Both the Paris portrait, which is drawn with exquisite precision but has apparently suffered from over-cleaning, and its companion, the portrait of this anonymous lady’s husband at the Berlin Museum, were until 1884 in the Meazzu collection in Milan.

The triptych (No. 2028) with (_a_) _The Resurrection_, (_b_) _The Ascension_, and (_c_) _The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian_, which was bought at Turin in 1860 for £540, and is officially considered to be of doubtful authenticity, is included by Mr. Weale in his catalogue of Memlinc’s works.

GERARD DAVID

The reconstruction and the rescuing from oblivion of the artistic personality of Gerard David, begun by Mr. Weale and completed by Freiherr von Bodenhausen, is one of the triumphs of the modern scientific method of criticism. The Louvre is fortunate in possessing two important examples from the brush of this master, who, born at Ouwater in Holland about 1460, was in his early studies influenced by Albert van Ouwater, but, after settling at Bruges in 1483, came under the spell of Van Eyck, Bouts, and above all of Memlinc, whom he succeeded as leader of the Bruges school. On his death in 1523, the supremacy of that school came to an end, and passed on to the city of Antwerp, which by that time had also superseded Bruges as a commercial centre. Gerard David was not Memlinc’s equal as regards intimate charm, but in his work is to be found a summing-up of all the achievement of the Flemish Quattrocento—“the last concentrated expression of the aims of all the great masters of that fertile age.”

(1430?-1494)

EARLY FLEMISH SCHOOL

No.—[4].—PORTRAIT OF AN OLD LADY

She is seen in full face and at half-length, wearing the costume of
the period; her hands are superposed; landscape background to the
left, with a winding sandy path. A porphyry column to the right.

Painted in oil on panel.

1 ft. 2¼ in. × 1 ft. (0·36 × 0·30.)]

[4] This picture has not yet received an official number.

After having been successively attributed to Van Eyck, Van der Weyden, Memlinc, and David’s pupil Ysenbrant, the _Marriage at Cana_ (No. 1957, Plate XVIII.) is now generally admitted to be designed and partly executed by Gerard David, although the panel shows unmistakable evidence of being completed by another and less skilful hand. Mr. Weale has shown, on the strength of a certain document, that the picture may have been finished by Ysenbrant, but he has been unable to establish that the document quoted by him refers to this particular picture. There can be no doubt that David himself painted the figure of the Donor, kneeling on the left, a marvellous example of early portraiture, and the Donor’s son, the Christ, and the boy carrying the cake. Some of the other heads are almost wooden in their hardness. The head of the Dominican looking into the hall through an opening beyond which is to be seen the Place du Saint-Sang, at Bruges, is clearly an afterthought, and is introduced so clumsily that the wall and the page-boy with the cake-dish really leave no room for the friar’s body. There is a curious lack of spiritual cohesion in the picture—the majority of the figures look away from the Saviour as well as from the bride, although the significance of the moment is such as to demand a concentration of everybody’s attention on the Christ. The picture, of which there are several replicas, notably one at the Stockholm Museum by David’s pupil Ambrosius Benson, was until 1580 in the Chapel of the Saint-Sang at Bruges, and then in the collection of Louis XIV., from which it passed into the Louvre.

The triptych (No. 2202A) of the _Virgin and Child, with Two Angels_, in the centre, and _Two Donors presented by St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist_, on the wings, is officially catalogued as an anonymous picture of the Flemish sixteenth-century school, but is unquestionably an early work of Gerard David. It is interesting to note that the male Donor is the same as the Donor in the _Marriage at Cana_, though younger in years, and that the delightful and strangely Italian _putti_ on the capitals of the columns that flank the Virgin’s throne recur again, reversed, in David’s _Judgment of Cambyses_, at Bruges. The _Adam_ and _Eve_ on the outside of the shutters are inspired by the corresponding figures on the great Van Eyck altarpiece at Ghent. The Louvre triptych was bought at the Garriga sale in Madrid, in 1890, for £248.

HIERONYMUS BOSCH

Before passing on to the school founded at Antwerp by Quentin Matsys (_c._ 1466-1530), mention should be made of Hieronymus Bosch van Aeken (_c._ 1462-1516), who, a follower of Ouwater, has as much right to be counted among the masters of the Dutch as of the Flemish school. Of his life we know but little. His pictures reveal that realistic observation of everyday life which was to become the characteristic of the Dutch school; but, added to it, there is a tendency towards the grotesque which made him delight in subjects that gave him full scope for the invention of weird monsters, devils, and spectres, such as the demons in _The Damned_ (No. 1900), which is attributed to Bosch in the official Catalogue, but is, like its companion, _Heaven_, at the Lille Museum, the work of the unknown painter of the famous _Last Judgment_ at Dantzig, which has by various experts been given in turn to Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, and Memlinc. There is at the Louvre a drawing which corresponds to so remarkable a degree with the panel No. 1900, that it has long been held to be a study from the same hand. This drawing is, however, more probably an early study by the German master Martin Schöngauer after the Louvre panel. The picture was formerly in the Duchâtel collection, and was given to the Louvre by the Duc de la Tremoïlle.

(1460?-1523)

EARLY FLEMISH SCHOOL

No. 1957.—THE MARRIAGE AT CANA

(Les Noces de Cana)

The scene takes place in a richly appointed chamber, which on the
left side looks out on to the Place du Saint-Sang at Bruges. The
Bride is seated on the farther side of the table; towards the left
the Virgin bows her head in the direction of the Christ. In the
left-hand corner of the composition kneels the Donor, wearing the
costume of a Provost of the Company of the Holy Blood; on the right
kneels the Female Donor. Guests and servants variously disposed
complete the picture.

Painted in oil on panel.

3 ft. 2 in. × 4 ft. 2½ in. (0·96 × 1·28.)]

THE ANTWERP SCHOOL

Quentin Matsys, the painter of _The Banker and his Wife_ (No. 2029, Plate XIX.), of which numerous replicas and variants are known, some probably from the hand of his pupil Marinus van Roymerswaele, still owes his training to the primitives of his race, but heralds the new era which was to culminate in the art of Rubens, by passing from the earlier minute precision of detail to a certain breadth of style and boldness of brushwork, necessitated partly by the larger scale adopted for his figures. Neither _The Saviour Blessing_ (No. 2030) nor _The Virgin and Child_ (No. 2030A), both of which are catalogued under his name, can be accepted as authentic; but the interesting genre group of _The Banker and his Wife_ is not only fully signed and dated

QVENTIN MATSYS, SCHILDER, 1514,

but is unmistakably the work of his brush, although the woman’s face and hands appear to have been badly repainted. It was bought in 1806 at the low price of £72. The best version of the same subject is the one in the Sigmaringen Gallery. By Quentin Matsys is also, probably, the _Pietà_ (No. 2203), which is catalogued officially as “Flemish XVIth Century.” Quentin’s son Jan, who followed his father’s tradition and achieved considerable distinction, is the painter of the hideous _David and Bathsheba_ (No. 2030B), which bears the inscription

1562. IOANES MASSIIS PINGEBAT.

Next in importance among the Antwerp masters is Jan Gossart (_c._ 1470-1533?), better known as Mabuse, from the name of his native town Maubeuge in the Hainault. In his early work he followed the tradition of the great masters of his own country, but a journey to Italy in 1508 made him change his manner, and led him to adopt, together with the amplitude of Italian design, a certain floridness which compares unfavourably with the honest realism of his precursors and which led to the rapid decadence of the Flemish school. In the magnificent portrait of _Jean Carondelet, Perpetual Chancellor of Flanders_ (No. 1997, Plate XX.), although it was painted as late as 1517, he is still faithful to the great tradition of his country for honest, straightforward, shrewdly observed, and delicately wrought portraiture. An inscription on the top of the arched gilt frame reads:

REPRÉSENTACION DE MESSIRE JEHAN CARONDELET,
HAVLT DOYEN DE BESANÇON, EN SON EAGE DE 48Ā,

and, below, “FAIT L’AN 1517.” In a niche behind the panel are the letters “I C” entwined with strings, and the motto “MATVRA.” The portrait was, therefore, obviously painted just before Carondelet accompanied Charles V. to Spain in 1517.

This portrait panel, together with _The Virgin and Child_ (No. 1998), which bears on the frame the inscription

MEDIATRIX NOSTRA QVE EST POST DEVM
SPES SOLA TVO FILIO ME REPRESENTA,

and the signature “JOHANNES MELBODIE PINGEBAT,” formed a diptych which was bought in 1847 from a Valenciennes architect for the ridiculous price of £40! A later portrait of Carondelet by Mabuse, dated 1531, appeared in 1907 at Christie’s under the name of C. Amberger, and realised the price of £3885. Another portrait of Carondelet, by B. van Orley, is in the Munich Gallery, where it is officially ascribed to Quentin Matsys, who is probably the painter of yet another portrait of the Chancellor which was recently in the Duchâtel collection in Paris. The _Portrait of a Benedictine_ (No. 1999) bears the date 1526 and the signature

JOANNE MALBOLD PINGE.

The decline of the Antwerp school through the introduction of Italian mannerisms is illustrated in _Young Tobias restoring Sight to his Father_ (No. 2001), a fully signed late picture by Jan van Hemessen, who flourished in that city towards the middle of the sixteenth century, and in whose art the last traces of the great national tradition disappear.

(1466?-1530)

FLEMISH SCHOOL

No. 2029.—THE BANKER AND HIS WIFE

(Le Banquier et sa femme)

On the far side of a table covered with a green cloth and strewn
with various objects, which include a crystal cup and a circular
mirror, are seated the banker, wearing a dark blue robe edged with
fur, and his wife who is turning over the leaves of an illuminated
book of hours. At the back are shelves, on which are displayed
books and many decorative objects.

Painted in oil on panel.

Signed on a roll of paper in the background:—“QUENTIN MATSYS,
SCHILDER, 1514.”

2 ft. 5¼ in. × 1 ft. 11¾ in. (0.74 × 0.60.)]

BAREND VAN ORLEY

Of the school that flourished in Brussels before Italianism appeared in the person of Barend van Orley (_c._ 1495-1542), the only name that has come down to posterity is that of Rogier van der Weyden’s follower, Colin de Coter, thanks to the clear inscription

_Colin de Coter pinxit me in Brabancia Bruxelle_

on the hem of the dress of the kneeling Magdalen in _The Holy Women_ (No. 1952B), which, with _The Trinity_ (No. 1952A) and another lost panel, probably originally formed a triptych. The signed wing was presented to the Gallery in 1903; whilst the _Trinity_ centre-piece was bought two years later from the Abbé Toussaint at St. Omer for £120.

Like Mabuse, Barend van Orley, after showing in his early work clear traces of his descent from the Flemish primitives, drank deeply at the fountain of Italian art. He was profoundly impressed by Raphael, from whom he endeavoured, with a certain degree of success, to learn the noble flow of drapery and the harmonious disposition of the design. On the other hand, he sacrificed the lustrous richness of Early Flemish colour and became addicted to dull grey shadows and pinkish lights. His _Holy Family_ (No. 2067A) does not rank with his finest works, _The Last Judgment_ at Antwerp and the _Holy Family_ at Liverpool. The architectural setting, with a statue of Neptune in a square in the background, indicates the advent of the Renaissance. The picture was bought at the Otlet sale in Brussels, in 1902, for £540. With Barend van Orley closes the chapter of the Early Flemish school. Indeed, he was rather the first of the new era than the last of the primitives.

(1470?-1533?)

EARLY FLEMISH SCHOOL

No. 1997.—PORTRAIT OF JEAN CARONDELET, PERPETUAL CHANCELLOR
OF FLANDERS

(Portrait de Jean Carondelet, chancelier perpétuel de Flandre
(1469-1544))

He is bare-headed and wears a blue robe; he is turned
three-quarters to the right; his hands are folded in prayer.

Painted in oil on panel.

Inscribed on the frame:—“REPRÉSENTACION DE MESSIRE JEHAN
CARONDELET, HAVLT DOYEN DE BESANÇON, EN SON EAGE DE 48Ā,” and,
below, “FAIT L’AN 1517.”

1 ft. 5 in. × 10¾ in. (0·43 × 0·27.)]

THE LATE FLEMISH SCHOOL

The period of the great struggle of the Netherlands for religious and political independence from the yoke of Spain and the Inquisition was not propitious for the fostering of the Fine Arts. Not only did the troubled provinces, as was quite natural, slacken in artistic production, but a vast portion of the treasures owned by churches and monastic establishments were destroyed by the fanaticism of Protestant iconoclasts. The separation of the Protestant North from the Catholic South by the Utrecht Union in 1579 became in a way the determining factor for the future course of painting in Holland and in the Belgic provinces. The Dutchmen practically had no further use for religious painting, and devoted themselves more exclusively to the domestic genre, portraiture, and landscape; whilst the Flemings applied themselves largely to infusing new vitality into the representation of Scriptural characters and incidents which, through constant mechanical repetition, had become mere allegorical hieroglyphics, or generalised ideas without the all-important sense of pulsating life. This regeneration was the great deed of Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), who, whilst still benefiting from the example of the great Italians, remained the very embodiment of Flemish character and thought, and became the founder of the second important period of Flemish national art. He was a man of exuberant vitality and boundless energy, endowed with a creative force unequalled in the whole history of art. He must rank for all time among the very giants of the brush, with Rembrandt, Titian, and Velazquez, his contribution to the progress in pictorial art being the use of pigment and sweeping brushwork as a constructive element—an advance as significant as the Venetians’ admission of light into the pictorial scheme, which with the Florentines was based entirely on linear design.

PIETER BRUEGHEL

But before considering the magnificent array of close on fifty authentic works by the master which form part of the French national collection, reference will have to be made to a few Flemish artists of the singularly barren decades that precede the advent of Rubens. First and foremost among these is Pieter Brueghel (or Breughel) the Elder (1530-1569), who was born at Breda in 1530, became a pupil of Pieter Koeck, and died at Brussels in 1569. In spite of his early travels in Italy—which were then already considered indispensable for the completion of an artist’s training—he remained unaffected by the all-pervading Italian influence. He was pure Flemish in thought and expression, and devoted himself to the realistic painting of peasant life. Certain realistic features which make his pictures sometimes appear obscene and coarse to modern eyes are merely an expression of the humour of his age. The exquisite little painting, _The Beggars_ (No. 1917), which is fully signed

PETER BRUEGHEL, M D L VIII,

is probably some satirical political allusion to the revolutionary party who called themselves the _Gueux_ (beggars). A similar political significance is probably the intention of _The Parable of the Blind_ (No. 1917A). The single file of blind men following their blind leaders into a river is meant to satirise the moral blindness of the artist’s compatriots following their political leaders into disaster. This excellent version of Brueghel’s famous masterpiece at Naples was bought at the Leys sale at Antwerp, in 1894, for £724. The type of picture to which the elder Brueghel owes his sobriquet “Peasant Brueghel” is exemplified at the Louvre by two little panels, _A Village_ (No. 1918) and _Peasants Dancing_ (No. 1918A), which can, however, only be accepted as school pictures.

JAN BRUEGHEL

Of Brueghel’s two sons, Pieter the younger, known as “Hell” Brueghel, is not represented at the Louvre, which, on the other hand, boasts possession of eight examples from the brush of “Peasant” Brueghel’s second son, Jan (1568-1625), known to fame as “Velvet” Brueghel, either owing to his love of splendid apparel or to the velvety softness of his brush. He began as a still-life and flower painter, in which capacity he often collaborated with Rubens. Having journeyed to Rome in 1593, he devoted himself more exclusively to landscape enlivened with many small figures, for which some Scriptural or mythological subject generally provided the excuse. Where his pictures contain figures on a larger scale, they are generally put in by Rubens, Rottenhammer, or Van Balen. The last-named is certainly responsible for the figures in _Air_ (No. 1920), one of a series of the Four Elements, painted by Jan Brueghel for his Roman patron, Cardinal Federigo Borromeo, in 1621. To the same series belongs _Earth_, or _The Earthly Paradise_ (No. 1919), a subject often repeated by him, as for instance in the versions at The Hague and at Budapest. Of his other pictures at the Louvre _The Bridge of Talavera_ (No. 1925), and the _Landscape_ (No. 1926), are signed and dated BRUEGHEL, 1619, and J. BRUEGHEL, 1620, respectively. _The Battle of Arbela_ (No. 1921) is a characteristic work with many minutely wrought figures. The _Landscapes_ (Nos. 1923 and 1924) are of doubtful authenticity, and were formerly attributed to Paul Bril. They are not now exhibited.

There are scarcely any Flemish characteristics in the art of Paul Bril (1556-1626), the younger brother and pupil of Matthias Bril. He was born at Antwerp, but worked nearly all his life in Rome. There is little to distinguish this precursor of Poussin in the art of landscape from his Italian contemporaries. In _Duck Shooting_ (No. 1908), _Diana and her Nymphs_ (No. 1909), and _Pan and Syrinx_ (No. 1911) the figures are believed to have been painted in by Annibale Carracci. _The Fishermen_ (No. 1910) bears his signature PA. BRILLI, and the date 1624.

THE FRANCK FAMILY

Although the Louvre owns no picture by Frans Floris, the head of the Italianising mid-sixteenth-century Antwerp school, his uninteresting style may be studied in _The Story of Esther_ (No. 1989) by his pupil Frans Franck (1542-1616). To that second-rate artist’s son, Frans Franck the Younger (1581-1642), who already benefited to a certain extent by the example of Rubens, is given in the official Catalogue _Ulysses recognising Achilles among the Daughters of Lycomedes_ (No. 1991A). _The Parable of the Prodigal Son_ (No. 1990), which is also catalogued under his name, is obviously by his son Frans Franck III., since the date 1663 precedes the signature, and F. Franck the younger died in 1642.

Frans Pourbus the Younger (1569-1622) was born at Antwerp, but spent the later part of his life in Paris, where, like his father, he enjoyed considerable reputation as a portrait painter. He had previously been working at the Mantuan Court, and became painter to Marie de Médicis after 1609. Although he occasionally produced altarpieces like the rather uninspired _Last Supper_ (No. 2068) and _St. Francis receiving the Stigmata_ (No. 2069), he was essentially a portrait painter. In this capacity he belongs rather to the age that was coming to a close than to the new era initiated by Rubens. His portraits are quite soundly painted, rich in colour, and convincing as likenesses, but lack depth of character and suavity of touch. By far his best pictures at the Louvre are the _Portrait of Henri IV._ (No. 2071) and the large _Portrait of Marie de Médicis_ (No. 2072), in which the details of the costume are particularly noteworthy. Less important is another _Portrait of Henri IV._ (No. 2070), and one of _Guillaume du Vair_ (No. 2074).

Octavius van Veen, or Otto Venius (1558-1629), the painter of _The Artist and his Family_ (No. 2191), owes his fame more to the fact that he was one of the three masters under whom Rubens studied than to any intrinsic merit of his art.

PETER PAUL RUBENS

The Louvre owes its almost unequalled wealth in paintings by Rubens to the master’s relations with Marie de Médicis and her Court; and to this reason is due the fact that by far the largest portion of the fifty-one authentic works wholly or partly from his brush, which now form part of this great collection, date approximately from, or immediately before and after, the time during which he was busy with the famous series painted by order of that queen for the decoration of the Luxembourg Palace, and now to be seen in a setting appropriate to their florid sumptuousness in the new Rubens Gallery at the Louvre. Even so, the collection comprises examples of every phase of the master’s colossal activity—religious and historical compositions, allegorical paintings, landscapes, portraits, still life, and even _genre_-pieces, like the _Kermesse_ (No. 2115), in which he successfully competes with Teniers on a ground peculiarly his own.