Chapter I: Preface

Many visits to Venice have brought home the fact that there exists, in English at least, no work which deals as a whole with the Venetian School and its masters. Biographical catalogues there are in plenty, but these, though useful for reference, say little to readers who are not already acquainted with the painters whose career and works are briefly recorded. "Lives" of individual masters abound, but however excellent and essential these may be to an advanced study of the school, the volumes containing them make too large a library to be easily carried about, and a great deal of reading and assimilation is required to set each painter in his place in the long story. Crowe and Cavalcaselle's _History of Painting in North Italy_ still remains our sheet anchor; but it is lengthy, over full of detail of minor painters, and lacks the interesting criticism which of late years has collected round each master. There seems room for a portable volume, making an attempt to consider the Venetian painters, in relation to one another, and to help the visitor not only to trace the evolution of the school from its dawn, through its full splendour and to its declining rays, but to realise what the Venetian School was, and what was the philosophy of life which it represented.

Such a book does not pretend to vie with, much less to supersede, the masterly treatises on the subject which have from time to time appeared, or to take the place of exhaustive histories, such as that of Professor Leonello Venturi on the Italian primitives. It should but serve to pave the way to deeper and more detailed reading. It does not aspire to give a complete and comprehensive list of the painters; some of the minor ones may not even be mentioned. The mere inclusion of names, dates, and facts would add unduly to the size of the book, and, when without real bearing on the course of Venetian art, would have little significance. What the book does aim at is to enable those who care for art, but may not have mastered its history, to rear a framework on which to found their own observations and appreciations; to supply that coherent knowledge which is beneficial even to a passing acquaintance with beautiful things, and to place the unscientific observer in a position to take greater advantage of opportunities, and to achieve a wide and interesting outlook on that cycle of artistic apprehension which the Venetian School comprises, and which marks it as the outcome and the symbol of a great historic age.

The works cited have been principally those with which the ordinary traveller is likely to come into contact in the chief European galleries, and, above all, in Venice itself. The lists do not propose to be exhaustive, but merely indicate the principal works of the artists. Those in private galleries, unless easy of access or of first-rate importance, are usually eliminated. It has not been thought necessary to use profuse illustrations, as the book is intended primarily for use when visiting the original works.

CONTENTS

PART I

CHAPTER I PAGE
VENICE AND HER ART 3

CHAPTER II
PRIMITIVE ART IN VENICE 11

CHAPTER III
INFLUENCES OF UMBRIA AND VERONA 21

CHAPTER IV
THE SCHOOL OF MURANO 29

CHAPTER V
THE PADUAN INFLUENCE 33

CHAPTER VI
JACOPO BELLINI 39

CHAPTER VII
CARLO CRIVELLI 44

CHAPTER VIII
GENTILE BELLINI AND
ANTONELLO DA MESSINA 48

CHAPTER IX
ALVISE VIVARINI 58

CHAPTER X
CARPACCIO 68

CHAPTER XI
GIOVANNI BELLINI 81

CHAPTER XII
GIOVANNI BELLINI (_continued_) 92

CHAPTER XIII
CIMA DA CONEGLIANO AND OTHER
FOLLOWERS OF BELLINI 103

PART II

CHAPTER XIV
GIORGIONE 121

CHAPTER XV
GIORGIONE (_continued_) 132

CHAPTER XVI
THE GIORGIONESQUE 140

CHAPTER XVII
TITIAN 144

CHAPTER XVIII
TITIAN (_continued_) 157

CHAPTER XIX
TITIAN (_continued_) 173

CHAPTER XX
PALMA VECCHIO AND LORENZO LOTTO 184

CHAPTER XXI
SEBASTIAN DEL PIOMBO 198

CHAPTER XXII
BONIFAZIO AND PARIS BORDONE 203

CHAPTER XXIII
PAINTERS OF THE VENETIAN PROVINCES 212

CHAPTER XXIV
PAOLO VERONESE 228

CHAPTER XXV
TINTORETTO 243

CHAPTER XXVI
TINTORETTO (_continued_) 254

CHAPTER XXVII
BASSANO 269

PART III

CHAPTER XXVIII
THE INTERIM 281

CHAPTER XXIX
TIEPOLO 297

CHAPTER XXX
PIETRO LONGHI 309

CHAPTER XXXI
CANALE 314