A Popular Handbook to the National Gallery, Volume I, Foreign Schools

270. "NOLI ME TANGERE!"

Titian (Venetian: 1477-1576). See 4.

A picture of the evensong of nature and of the evening of a life's tragedy. "The hues and harmonies of evening" are upon the distant hills and plain; and whilst the shadows fall upon the middle slopes, there falls too "the awful shadow of some unseen Power" upon the repentant woman who has been keeping her vigil in the peaceful solitude; at the sound of her name she has turned from her weeping and fallen forward on her knees towards him whom she now knows to be her master. "The impetuosity with which she has thrown herself on her knees in shown by the fluttering drapery of her sleeve,127 which is still buoyed up by the air; thus with a true painter's art telling the action of the previous moment" (Quarterly Review, October 1888). She stretches out her hand to touch him, but is checked by his words; as Christ, who is represented with a hoe in his hand because she had first supposed him to be the gardener, bids her forbear: "Touch me not," "noli me tangere," "for I am not yet ascended to my Father: " it is not on this side of the hills that the troubled soul can enter into the peace of forgiveness.

This beautiful picture was bequeathed to the National Gallery by Samuel Rogers. It is usually ascribed to Titian's earlier or "Giorgionesque" period. "The Magdalen is, appropriately enough, of the same type as the exquisite golden-blond courtesans – or, if you will, models – who constantly appear and re-appear in this period of Venetian art" (C. Phillips: The Earlier Work of Titian, p. 52).

271. "ECCE HOMO!"

Guido (Eclectic-Bologna: 1575-1642). See 11.

For the subject, see under 15, by Correggio. It was from Correggio that the Eclectics borrowed the type of face for this subject – which was a favourite one with them; but notice how much more they dwell on the physical pain and horror, how much less on the spiritual beauty, than Correggio did.

272. AN APOSTLE

Unknown (Italian: 16th century).

From a church near Venice. Formerly ascribed to Pordenone.

274. VIRGIN AND CHILD

Andrea Mantegna (Paduan: 1431-1506).

Andrea Mantegna, the greatest master of the Paduan School, has a commanding name in art history, so much so that many writers describe the epoch of painting (from 1450 to 1500 and a little onwards), of which he was one of the chief representatives, as the Mantegnesque period. "No painter more remarkable for originality than Mantegna ever lived. Whoever has learned to relish this great master will never overlook a scrap by him; for while his works sometimes show a certain austerity and harshness, they have always a force and will which belong to no one else" (Layard). "Intensity may be said to be the characteristic of Mantegna as an artist. Deeply in earnest, he swerved from his purpose neither to the right nor to the left. In expressing tragic emotion, he sometimes touched a realism beyond the limits prescribed by poetic art. So, too, he never arrived at an ideal of female beauty. But he could be as tender as he was stern; and we forget the homely plainness of his Madonnas in the devoted and boding mother or the benign protectress. His children are always childlike and without self-consciousness. His drawing was remarkably correct. An occasional lengthiness in his figures adds to their dignity, and never oversteps possible nature. Drapery he treated as a means of displaying the figure. This peculiarity he derived from an almost too exclusive study of ancient sculpture. Yet so thoroughly does it accord with his whole style, that none would willingly miss a single fold which the master thought worthy of almost infinite care" (Burton). He was a tempera painter, and "excelled in harmoniously broken tones, but with little attempt at those rich and deep effects which by the practice of art his later Venetian contemporaries initiated." "He loved allegory and symbolism; but with him they clothed a living spirit." The beauty of classical bas-relief entered deep into his soul and ruled his imagination. His classical pictures are "statuesque and stately, but glow with the spirit of revived antiquity" (Symonds). He was equally distinguished as an engraver and a painter, and his plates spread his fame and influence widely abroad.

Mantegna was born at Padua,128 and according to Vasari, was originally, like Giotto, a shepherd boy. Like Giotto, too, he early displayed great aptitude for drawing, so much that when only ten years old he was adopted by Squarcione as son and pupil. Squarcione was an indifferent painter, but must have been an able teacher, and it was from him that Mantegna imbibed his love of the antique. It was Squarcione's intention to make him his heir, but Mantegna married a daughter of Jacopo Bellini, Squarcione's rival; "and when this was told to Squarcione he was so much displeased with Andrea that they were ever afterwards enemies." Of Mantegna's association with his brother-in-law, Giovanni Bellini, the pictures numbered 726 and 1417 in this gallery are an interesting record. Mantegna soon obtained recognition. Among the most important of his early works are the frescoes of the chapel of St. James and St. Christopher in the church of the Eremitani at Padua. Copies of some of these may be seen in the Arundel Society's collection. Of about the same date is "The Agony in the Garden," No. 1417. To his early period belong also the "St. George" in the Venice Academy, and the triptych in the Uffizi. The picture now before us, the beautiful "Madonna della Vittoria," and the "Parnassus" of the Louvre belong to a maturer time. In 1466 Mantegna went, at the invitation of the Marquis Ludovico Gonzaga, to the court of Mantua, and there he remained till his death, as painter-in-ordinary at a salary of £30 a year – with the exception of two years spent in painting for Pope Innocent VIII. at Rome. Many of Mantegna's frescoes at Mantua are now obliterated; but some are preserved in the Camera degli Sposi in the Ducal Palace, and in spite of restorations, exhibit some of the master's characteristics in perfection. For the palace of St. Sebastiano at Mantua, he painted in tempera on canvas the "Triumph of Cæsar," now at Hampton Court. Although much defaced, this large composition still proclaims the genius of the master who "loved to resuscitate the ancient world, and render it to the living eye in all its detail, and with all its human interest." The sketch by Rubens in our Gallery, No. 278, was made from a portion of Mantegna's cartoons. In a similar style is the master's "Triumph of Scipio," No. 902, completed shortly before his death. At Rome (1488-1490) he decorated the chapel of the Belvedere, now demolished.

Though in the service of princes, Mantegna knew his worth, and was wont to say that "Ludovico might be proud of having in him something that no other prince in Italy could boast of." He liked, too, to live in the grand style of his age. It appears that he spent habitually more money than he could afford, and after his death his sons had to sell the pictures in his studio for the payment of his creditors. Still more was he a child of his age – the age of the revival of classical learning – in his love for the antique. He spent much of his money in forming a collection of Greek and Roman antiquities, and the forced sale of its chief ornament, a bust of Faustina, is said to have broken his heart. "He was the friend of students, eagerly absorbing the knowledge brought to light by antiquarian research; and thus independently of his high value as a painter, he embodies for us in art that sincere passion for the ancient world which was the dominating intellectual impulse of his age." With Mantegna, classical antiques were not merely the foibles of a collector, but the models of his art. He was "always of opinion," says Vasari, "that good antique statues were more perfect, and displayed more beauty in the different parts, than is exhibited by nature." Of some of his works what Vasari adds is no doubt true – that they recall the idea of stone rather than of living flesh. But Mantegna studied nature closely too; for, as Goethe said of his pictures, "the study of the antique gives form, and nature adds appropriate movement and the health of life." Mantegna died at Mantua and was buried in a chapel of the Church of Sant' Andrea. The expenses incurred by him in founding and decorating this family chapel had added seriously to his embarrassments. "Over his grave was placed a bronze bust, most noble in modelling and perfect in execution. The broad forehead, with its deeply cloven furrows, the stern and piercing eyes, the large lips compressed with nervous energy, the massive nose, the strength of jaw and chin, and the superb clusters of the hair escaping from a laurel-wreath upon the royal head, are such as realise for us our notion of a Roman in the days of the republic. Mantegna's own genius has inspired this masterpiece, which tradition assigns to the medallist Sperando Maglioli. Whoever wrought it must have felt the incubation of the mighty painter's spirit, and have striven to express in bronze the character of his uncompromising art" (Symonds: The Renaissance in Italy, iii. 203). A plaster cast from this bust hangs on one of the staircases in our Gallery. Mantegna's second son, Francesco, who in his father's later years had assisted in his studio, afterwards practised independently. See Nos. 639, 1106, 1381.

"One of the choicest pictures in the National Gallery," exquisite alike in sentiment, in drawing, and in purity of colour. "Being in an admirable state of preservation, it enables us to become acquainted with all the characteristics of Mantegna's style, and above all to enjoy the refinement in his rendering of the human forms, the accuracy in his drawing, the conscientiousness in the rendering of the smallest details" (Richter). For the latter point notice especially the herbage in the foreground. Mantegna, says Mr. Ruskin, is "the greatest leaf-painter of Lombardy," and the "exquisite outlines" here show "the symmetry and precision of his design" (Catalogue of Educational Series, p. 52). The draperies also are "of extraordinary beauty in design and colour. The rose-coloured dress of the Virgin is most delicately heightened with gold, and the draperies of the two saints are of materials shot with changing colours of exquisite harmonies" (Poynter). Very sweet is the expression of mingled humility and tenderness in the mother of the Divine Child. On her right stands St. John the Baptist, the great preacher of repentance; on her left Mary Magdalen, the woman who repented. The Baptist bears a cross and on the scroll attached to it are written the words (in Latin), "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world." The Magdalen carries the vase of ointment – the symbol at once of her conversion and her love ("She brought an alabaster box of ointment, and began to wash his feet with tears… And he said unto her, Thy sins are forgiven"). "Mantegna combines with the most inexhaustible imagination and invention and power, which include the whole range of art, from the most playful fantasy to the profoundest and most passionate tragedy, a skill of workmanship so minutely and marvellously delicate as to defy imitation. Look at the refinement with which the drapery is drawn, the wonderful delicacy of handling with which the gold-lights are laid on, the beautiful and loving spirit which has presided over the execution of the foliage in the background, and indeed of every detail in the picture, and you will begin to have an understanding of what I mean by workmanship as such, and how an artist proceeds whose hand has been thoroughly trained, and who is truly in love with his art" (Poynter's Lectures on Art, p. 127).

275. VIRGIN AND CHILD, ST. JOHN AND AN ANGEL

Sandro Botticelli (Florentine: 1447-1510). See 1034.

A beautiful and characteristic work.129 "At first glance you may think the picture a mere piece of affectation. Well – yes, Botticelli is affected in the way that all men of his century necessarily were. Much euphuism, much studied grace of manner, much formal assertion of scholarship, mingling with his force of imagination. And he likes twisting the fingers of hands about" – just as he likes also dancing motion and waved drapery (see 1034) (Mornings in Florence, iii. 59). The picture is characteristic also of two faculties which Botticelli acquired from his early training as a goldsmith: first, his use of gold as a means of enriching the light (as here in the Madonna's hair); and, secondly, the "incomparable invention and delicacy" with which he treated all accessory details and ornaments (as here in the scarves and dresses). But chiefly is the picture characteristic of his "sentiment of ineffable melancholy, of which it is hard to penetrate the sense, and impossible to escape the spell." It may help one in understanding the spirit of such pictures to remember that in Botticelli there met in perfect poise the tenderness of Christian feeling with the grace of the classical Renaissance. He was "a Greek reanimate. The first Greeks were distinguished from the barbarians by their simple humanity; the second Greeks – these Florentine Greeks reanimate – are human more strongly, more deeply, leaping from the Byzantine death at the call of Christ, 'Loose him, and let him go.' And there is upon them at once the joy of resurrection and the solemnity of the grave"130 (Ariadne Florentina, § 161; and Fors Clavigera, 1872, xxii.).

276. TWO APOSTLES

School of Giotto. See under 568. See also (p. xix)Here's Giotto with his Saints a-praising God,That set us praising.Browning.

These solemn heads seem to breathe the very spirit of the master; but the history of the painting forbids the supposition that we have here the handiwork, or even the direct influence of Giotto. It is a fragment from one of the wall-paintings in the chapel of St. John the Baptist in the church of S. Maria del Carmine at Florence. The frescoes were not executed till 1350, some years after the death of Giotto. The subject of the composition to which our fragment belongs was the burial of the Baptist. The history of these frescoes is typical of that of many a vicissitude, and recalls the idea suggested in one of Browning's Dramatic Lyrics, in which the soul of the painter watches the gradual decay and dispersal of his life's work: —

Wherever a fresco peals and drops,Wherever an outline weakens and wanesTill the latest life in the painting stops,Stands One whom each fainter pulse-tick pains:One, wishful each scrap should clutch the brick,Each tinge, not wholly escape the plaster,– A lion who dies of an ass's kick,The wronged great soul of an ancient Master.

This and two portions from other paintings of the series, now in the institution at Liverpool, were saved from the fire which destroyed this chapel in 1771, and became the property of Mr. Thomas Patch, the engraver. They were brought to England by Mr. Townley. This fragment was subsequently in the collection of the Right Hon. C. Greville, from whom it passed into the possession of Mr. Rogers, and at the sale of his pictures in 1856 was purchased for the National Gallery. Some other fragments are preserved in the Cappella dell' Ammannati, in the Campo Santo at Pisa, and one is in the town gallery at Pavia.

277. THE GOOD SAMARITAN

Bassano (Venetian: 1510-1592). See 173.

The wounded Jew, who had fallen among thieves, is beneath the shadow of a great rock. The Levite is behind, engaged in sanctimonious prayer. The good Samaritan is busy in good works. He has brought out his flask and is raising the Jew to place him on his mule. The picture is of additional interest as having been a favourite with Sir Joshua Reynolds, to whom it once belonged, and who is said to have kept it always in his studio. It was afterwards in the collection of Samuel Rogers.

278. THE TRIUMPH OF JULIUS CÆSAR

Rubens (Flemish: 1577-1640). See 38.

One of the fruits of Rubens's visit to Italy. This picture was in Rubens's possession at his death, and is described in the inventory as "Three cloathes pasted upon bord, beinge the Triumph of Julius Cæsar, after Andrew Mantegna, not full made." Mantegna's procession (somewhat similar to the Triumph of Scipio, No. 902) was painted for the Duke of Mantua, and is now at Hampton Court.

Any one who cares to see by a single illustration what "classic purity of style" means, should compare Mantegna's original with this transcript by Rubens. "The Flemish painter strives to add richness to the scene by Bacchanalian riot and the sensuality of imperial Rome. His elephants twist their trunks, and trumpet to the din of cymbals; negroes feed the flaming candelabra with scattered frankincense; the white oxen of Clitumnus are loaded with gaudy flowers, and the dancing maidens are dishevelled Mænads. But the rhythmic procession of Mantegna, modulated to the sound of flutes and soft recorders, carries our imagination back to the best days and strength of Rome. His priests and generals, captives and choric women, are as little Greek as they are modern. In them awakes to a new life the spirit-quelling energy of the Republic. The painter's severe taste keeps out of sight the insolence and orgies of the Empire; he conceives Rome as Shakespeare did in Coriolanus"131 (Symonds's Renaissance, iii. 200).

279. THE HORRORS OF WAR

Rubens (Flemish: 1577-1640). See 38.

"Mars, leaving the temple of Janus132 open, is held back by Venus, while Europe bewails the inevitable miseries of war; but he is drawn on by the Fury Alecto, who is preceded by Plague and Famine; the figure on the ground with the broken lute represents Concord overthrown. Mars and the two female figures behind him are said to be the portraits of Rubens and his two wives" (Official Catalogue).

This is a sketch of the large picture painted by Rubens in 1637 for his friend Sustermans, and now in the Pitti palace at Genoa. This sketch, with the preceding one, was in the collection of Mr. Rogers, where Ruskin saw it, as recorded in the following extract from his autobiography, in which he describes "a lesson given to me by George Richmond at one of Mr. Rogers's breakfasts (the old man used to ask me, finding me always reverent to him, joyful in his pictures, and sometimes amusing, as an object of curiosity to his guests), date uncertain, but probably in 1842": —

Until that year, Rubens had remained the type of colour power to me, and Titian's flesh tints of little worth! But that morning, as I was getting talkative over the wild Rubens's sketch (War or Discord, or Victory or the Furies, I forget what), Richmond said, pointing to the Veronese beneath it, "Why are you not looking at this – so much greater in manner?" "Greater – how?" I asked, in surprise; "it seems to me quite tame beside the Rubens." "That may be," said Richmond, "but the Veronese is true, the other wildly conventional." "In what way true?" I asked, still not understanding. "Well," said Richmond, "compare the pure shadows on the flesh in Veronese, and its clear edge, with Rubens's ochre and vermilion, and outline of asphalt" (Praeterita, ii. 181).

280. THE MADONNA OF THE POMEGRANATE

Giovanni Bellini (Venetian: 1426-1516). See 189.

A prophetic sense of the Saviour's sufferings is signified by the symbol of the pomegranate —

Pomegranate, which, if cut deep down the middle,Shows a heart within blood-tinctured, of a veined humanity.Mrs. Browning: Lady Geraldine's Courtship.Years pass and change; mother and child remain.Mother so proudly sad, so sadly wise,With perfect face and wonderful calm eyes,Full of a mute expectancy of pain:Child of whose love the mother seems so fain,Looking far off, as if in other skiesHe saw the hill of crucifixion rise,And knew the horror, and would not refrain. Love in Idleness (1883).

This picture, which is signed by the painter, probably dates from 1485-88.

281. ST. JEROME READING

Marco Basaiti (Venetian: painted 1500-1521).

Basaiti – born in Friuli; according to some writers, of Greek parents – was assistant to Alvise Vivarini. He was one of the early Venetian painters in oils. His works when well preserved are (says Sir F. Burton) brilliant in colour, and display great ability in the general management of the accessories, especially in the landscape backgrounds, which, according to Zanetti, he contrived to unite with his figures more skilfully than his contemporaries.

The scenery, says Gilbert (Cadore, p. 42), is that of Serravalle in Titian's country – Serravalle, "the true gate of the hills," with walls and towers rising steeply on the hill-side. The way in which the old masters thus consigned their saints and anchorites to the hill-country is very typical of the mediæval view of landscape. "The idea of retirement from the world for the sake of self-mortification … gave to all mountain solitude at once a sanctity and a terror, in the mediæval mind, which were altogether different from anything that it had possessed in the un-Christian periods… Just in so much as it appeared necessary for the noblest men to retire to the hill-recesses before their missions could be accomplished, or their spirit perfected, in so far did the daily world seem by comparison to be pronounced profane and dangerous; and to those who loved that world and its work, the mountains were thus voiceful with perpetual rebuke… And thousands of hearts, which might otherwise have felt that there was loveliness in the wild landscape, shrank from it in dread, because they knew that the monk retired to it for penance, and the hermit for contemplation" (Modern Painters, vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. xiv. § 10).

282. THE GLORIFICATION OF THE VIRGIN

Bertucci (Umbrian: 16th Century).

Formerly ascribed in the Official Catalogue to Lo Spagna (for whom see under 1032); by other critics attributed to Giovanni Battista of Faenza, called Bertucci (the monkey), an artist who borrowed both from the Umbrian School and from Lorenzo Costa. The similarity between this picture and No. 629, by the latter artist, especially in the playing angels at the foot of the throne, is remarkable (see Richter's Italian Art in the National Gallery, p. 52). Works by Bertucci are to be seen in the picture gallery of Faenza.

The little angels are very pretty. Notice the three peering out from under the Virgin's robe. On the marble platform below one angel plays a white-headed pipe; the other, a six-stringed rebec, which is very accurately represented.

283. VIRGIN AND CHILD ENTHRONED

Benozzo Gozzoli (Florentine: 1420-1498).

Benozzo Gozzoli was the favourite pupil of the "angelical painter," Fra Angelico. From him Benozzo borrowed the devotion in his pictures, the bent of his own mind being altogether different. It must be remembered that "in nearly all the great periods of art the choice of subject has not been left to the painter; … and his own personal feelings are ascertainable only by watching, in the themes assigned to him, what are the points in which he seems to take most pleasure. Thus in the prolonged ranges of varied subjects with which Benozzo Gozzoli decorated the cloisters of Pisa, it is easy to see that love of simple domestic incident, sweet landscape, and glittering ornament, prevails slightly over the solemn elements of religious feeling, which, nevertheless, the spirit of the age instilled into him in such measure as to form a very lovely and noble mind, though still one of the second order" (Modern Painters, vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. iii. § 8). The earlier works of Benozzo are entirely in Fra Angelico's manner. His later style (of which an example may be seen in No. 591) presents the greatest contrast to that master; for Benozzo is "the first of all the Florentine painters who seem to have been smitten with the beauty of the natural world and its various appearances. His later pictures overflow with the delighted sense of this beauty. He was the first to create rich landscape backgrounds, with cities, villas, and trees, rivers, and richly-cultivated valleys, bold rocks and hills. He displays the richest fancy for architectural forms, – open porticoes, elegant arcades, and balconies. In the representation of the human figure, we find gaiety and whim, feeling and dignity, in the happiest combination" (Layard). Like other painters of the time Benozzo began his career as a worker in metal, and his name is found amongst the artificers who assisted Ghiberti in making the celebrated gates for the Baptistery at Florence. He next entered the school of Fra Angelico, accompanying his master to Rome and Orvieto. In 1459 he was employed to decorate the walls of the small chapel in the Medici, now Riccardi Palace, and here he first gave rein to his own fancies. Copies from these frescoes are included in the Arundel Society's collection, as well as from those in the church of S. Agostino at S. Gimignano, where Benozzo was next employed. The chief work of his life was, however, the painting of the Campo Santo at Pisa. This occupied him from 1469-1485. Twenty-one of the frescoes were by his own hand. They are much injured; for "when any dignitary of Pisa was to be buried, they peeled off some Benozzo Gozzoli and put up a nice new tablet to the new defunct" (Praeterita, vol. ii. ch. vi., where Ruskin gives a charming account of happy days spent in copying Benozzo's work). These frescoes are remarkable for their wealth of fancy and picturesque detail. The Pisans themselves were so well pleased that they presented the painter in 1478 with a tomb, that his body might repose amidst the great works of his life. He died at Pisa twenty years later.