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

This was a picture painted very much to order. The figure of the Virgin was specially directed – so it appears from the original contract, dated 1461, still in existence – to be made similar in mode, form, and ornaments to one by Fra Angelico, now in the Florentine Academy, and it was also stipulated that "the said Benozzo shall at his own cost diligently gild the said panel throughout, both as regards figures and ornaments." The prices paid for such commissions in those days may be judged from the fact that in the case of his great frescoes at Pisa, Benozzo contracted to paint three a year for 10 ducats each (= say £100). As for Benozzo's own personal feelings, it is easy to see with what pleasure he put in the pretty flowers in the foreground for St. Francis, and the sweet-faced angels behind the throne, and with what gusto he shot the gold in their draperies. The figure on our extreme left is St. Zenobius. His embroidered cope is very rich. The details of needlework in the picture will well repay careful study. Compared with all this, the kneeling St. Jerome and St. Francis and the other saints appear somewhat perfunctory. Notice, too, the bright goldfinches on the alabaster steps, introduced, we may suppose, in honour of

Sweet St. Francis of Assisi, would that he were here again!He that in his Catholic wholeness used to call the very flowersSisters, brothers – and the beasts – whose pains are hardly less than ours!

284. MADONNA AND CHILD

Bartolommeo Vivarini (Venetian: painted 1450-1499).

Bartolommeo Vivarini of Murano was the younger brother of Antonio (see 768), with whom he began to work in partnership in 1450 – as is shown by the inscription on the great altar-piece by the two brothers, now in the Pinacoteca of Bologna. Bartolommeo appears to have studied at Padua, and the influence of Squarcione is manifest in the painter's striving after correctness of form. "The ornate character of his altar-pieces, with gold heightening, garlands of fruit and flowers and fluttering fillets, is also borrowed from the Paduans, and lends festal pomp and solemnity to the whole."

Of Bartolommeo Vivarini it is recorded that he painted (in 1473) the first oil picture that was exhibited in Venice. This one, however, is in tempera. "The figures in Bartolommeo's pictures are still hard in outline, – thin (except the Madonna's throat, which always in Venice, is strong as a pillar), and much marked in sinew and bone (studied from life, mind you, not by dissection); exquisitely delicate and careful in pure colour; – in character portraits of holy men and women, such as then were. There is no idealism here whatever. Monks and nuns had indeed faces and mien like these saints, when they desired to have the saints painted for them" (Guide to the Venetian Academy, p. 6).

285. MADONNA AND CHILD

Francesco Morone (Veronese: 1473-1529).

Francesco is one of the best masters in the earlier style of the Veronese School. He was the son of Domenico Morone (1211), the friend and fellow-worker of Girolamo dai Libri (748) and the master of Morando (735). His works are rarely to be seen out of Verona, but the present picture is characteristic. At Verona, his best work in fresco is to be seen in the decoration of the sacristry of S. Maria in Organo, described by Vasari. Among his altar-pieces, one in the same church and another in S. Bernardino are specially noteworthy. "There is," says Sir F. Burton, "something peculiarly winning in the type chosen for the Madonna by this painter. The small, round, delicately-featured head, slightly thrown back, so that the eyes are cast down towards the worshipper, conveys a mingled impression of sweetness and dignity. The finish of his easel pictures is remarkable; the eye is delighted by the intricate variegation of costly stuffs, where numerous tints broken together resemble what nature has wrought on the wings of some moths and butterflies. Such broken surfaces give additional value to the masses of whole colour where these more sparingly appear." "That the artist himself was of a harmless, lovable nature is evident from his will which we still possess, and Vasari's judgment is to the same effect when he calls him 'so good a man, so religious and so orderly that no word which was not a praiseworthy one was ever known to proceed from his mouth'" (Richter). Vasari adds that he was "buried in the church of San Domenico beside his father, and was borne to his grave clothed as he had desired to be, in the vestments of a monk of San Francesco."

"A youthful production, in which glowing colour, delicately balanced, is combined with fine drawing and powerful modelling. Characteristic are the regular oval of the Madonna's head and the look of simplicity and charm which breathes in the features" (Dr. Richter in Art Journal, Feb. 1895).

286. VIRGIN AND CHILD

Francesco Tacconi (Cremonese: painted 1464-1490).

The only signed picture by this painter still in existence. He was a native of Cremona and worked there: he and his brother pleased the Cremonese so much by painting in the Town Hall that the artists were given an exemption from taxes. But he may be classed as a Venetian, for he was an imitator of Giovanni Bellini. This picture at once recalls Bellini's No. 280, and is in fact a copy of a Madonna by that painter in the Chiesa degli Scalzi at Venice.

287. LUDOVICO MARTINENGO

Bartolommeo Veneziano (painted 1505-1530).

The Martinengo family seems to have patronised this painter, as the Senator Count Martinengo, of Venice, possesses as an heirloom a small picture by the master which is signed "Bartolommeo mezzo Veneziano e mezzo Cremonese." The present picture (dated 1530) is signed "Bartolom. Venetus," so that he was perhaps a Cremonese by birth and a Venetian by artistic training, being probably a pupil of Giovanni Bellini (see Morelli's Italian Works in German Galleries, p. 138).

A portrait of a young man, at the age of twenty-six (as the inscription tells us), in the costume of the Campagnia della Calza (the guild of the stocking).

288. THE VIRGIN AND CHILD, MICHAEL AND RAPHAEL

Pietro Perugino 133 (Umbrian: 1446-1523).

Pietro Vannucci, a native of Castello della Pieve, was called Perugino, from the town of which he afterwards became a citizen. His earliest master was probably Fiorenzo di Lorenzo, and he is known to have also worked under Piero della Francesca. Afterwards he went to Florence, where, it is said, he studied with Leonardo da Vinci under the sculptor Verrocchio. There is, however, no trace of any such discipleship in his works, which, on the contrary, show an untouched development of native Umbrian art, so that Perugino becomes the typical representative of what Ruskin calls the "purist ideal." It is probable that his first visit to Florence was not paid till he was already established in independent practice. "He there remained," says Vasari, "for many months without even a bed to lie on, and miserably took his sleep upon a chest; but, turning night into day, and labouring without intermission, he devoted himself most fervently to the study of his profession." And in time he became himself a famous master, with Raphael for his pupil, and "he attained to such a height of reputation that his works were dispersed, not only through Florence and all over Italy, but in France, Spain, and other countries." He was himself too of a roving disposition, and he multiplied his engagements beyond his power of fulfilling them. In 1475 he received his first public commission at Perugia, but the frescoes then painted for the Palazzo Communale have perished. In 1480 he was employed by the Pope Sixtus IV., together with Signorelli and Botticelli, to cover the walls of the Sixtine Chapel with frescoes. Of the four allotted to Perugino (which occupied him in part for six years) three were afterwards destroyed to make room for Michael Angelo's "Last Judgment"; the fourth, the "Delivery of the Keys to St. Peter," remains. Perugino's subsequent movements are not easy to follow,134 and we can only here allude to some of his most famous works. In 1494 he was at Venice, and in the same year painted his very beautiful altar-piece in S. Agostino at Cremona. In 1495 he contracted to paint for the monks of Cassino the noble Assumption now at Lyons. In 1496 he painted for the Cathedral of Perugia, the famous "Sposalizio," now at Caen. To the same period in his career belongs the picture now before us, painted for the Certosa of Pavia. Down to about 1493, Perugino's easel pictures were executed in tempera (see 181); he then adopted the new oil medium, which he used to such splendid effect in richness of colour. In 1499 he was at Perugia, engaged upon the beautiful frescoes in the Hall of the Bankers (Collegio del Cambio). He was afterwards in Florence, but in 1505 returned to Perugia, where in 1507 he painted the altar-piece, No. 1075 in our gallery. In his later years he erected a large studio in which several scholars were employed to execute commissions from his designs, and the works of this period show considerable inequality of execution, as well as repetition of design, and some falling off in richness of colouring. According to Vasari's gossip Perugino was very careful of his money – as one who had seen such hard times might well be; would only paint for cash down, and on all his wanderings carried his money box with him. "When it is fair weather," he used to say, "a man must build his house, that he may be under shelter when he most needs it." It was not, however, till middle life that he did literally build himself a house. At the same time he married a very beautiful girl, and is said to have had so much pleasure in seeing her wear becoming head-dresses that he would spend hours together in arranging that part of her toilet with his own hands. There is a tradition that she was the model for the angel who accompanies Tobias in our picture. The master was still painting in his 77th year, and was engaged on a fresco at Frontignano (now in this gallery, No. 1441), when he was carried off by the plague. The most famous of his pupils was Raphael; among the rest, the most accomplished were Giovanni lo Spagna (1032), and Giannicola Manni (1194).

Perugino's work is well represented in the National Gallery, and its several characteristics are pointed out under the pictures themselves (cf. especially 181 and 1075). He was, as we have said, the typical representative of the purist ideal. His technical supremacy set the seal of perfection upon pietistic art, and the masterpiece before us is unique for its combination of warmth of colour, with the expression of religious fervour. "What this artist seems to have aimed at, was to create for the soul, amid the pomps and passions of this world, a resting-place of contemplation tenanted by saintly and seraphic beings." Of his life as reflected in his work, Ruskin gives this summary: "A sound craftsman and workman to the very heart's core. A noble, gracious, and quiet labourer from youth to death, – never weary, never impatient, never untender, never untrue. Not Tintoret in power, not Raphael in flexibility, not Holbein in veracity, not Luini in love, – their gathered gifts he has, in balanced and fruitful measure, fit to be the guide, and impulse, and father of all" (Ariadne Florentina, § 72). But Perugino, like the times in which he lived, presents a study in contradictions. This idealist painted his portrait in the Sala del Cambio; it is an unsurpassed piece of realism, and the hard, unsympathetic features do not belie, but rather win credence for Vasari's tales about his sordid soul. He never deviated in his art from the pietistic path he had chosen; but according to Vasari135 (whose statements on this point are supported by some other evidence), he was himself an unbeliever, and on his death-bed rejected the last sacraments. In his art he is essentially a quietist. He is not successful when he represents action or movement. His ideal is of quiet rapture, and sacred peace. But the criminal records of Florence prove that he was not over-scrupulous to keep his hands from violence, and in the civil courts he pursued Michael Angelo with equal indiscretion and ill-success for defamation of character. His pictures reflect the landscape, but not the fortunes, of his native country: that the quietism of Perugino "should have been fashionable in Perugia, while the Baglioni were tearing each other to pieces, and the troops of the Vitelli and the Borgia were trampling upon Umbria, is one of the most striking paradoxes of an age rich in dramatic contradictions" (Symonds's Renaissance, iii. 218).

One of the most valuable pictures in the Gallery alike for its own beauty and for its interest in the history of art. For Perugino is the final representative of the old superstitious art, just as Michael Angelo and Raphael (in his later manners) were the first representatives of the modern scientific and anatomical art; the epithet bestowed on Perugino by Michael Angelo, goffo nell' arte (dunce, or blockhead, in art), shows how trenchant the separation is between these two forms of artists. One may notice, then, in this picture as a perfect example of the earlier art: First, that everything in it is dainty and delightful, and all that it attempts is accomplished. Michael Angelo, dashing off his impetuous thoughts, left much of his work half done (see 790); Perugino worked steadily in the old ways and indeed repeated ideas with so little reflection that, according to Vasari, he was blamed for doing the same thing over and over again. But everything is finished, even to the gilding of single hairs. Notice also the beautiful painting of the fish.136 Secondly, it is a work in the school of colour, as distinguished from the school of light and shade. "Clear, calm, placid, perpetual vision, far and near; endless perspicuity of space, unfatigued veracity of eternal light, perfectly accurate delineation of every leaf on the trees and every flower in the fields" (notice especially in the foreground the "blue flower fit for paradise" of the central compartment). "There is no darkness, no wrong. Every colour is lovely, and every space is light. The world, the universe, is divine; all sadness is a part of harmony; and all gloom a part of peace." In connection with the lovely blue in the picture (which was painted in 1494-98 for the Certosa of Pavia), one may remember the story told of an earlier picture, how the prior of the convent for which Perugino was painting doled out to him the costly colour of ultramarine, and how Perugino, by constantly washing his brushes, obtained a surreptitious hoard of the colour, which he ultimately restored to shame the prior for his suspicions. Thirdly, in its rendering of landscape, the picture is characteristic of the "purism" of older art as compared with the later "naturalism." "The religious painters impress on their landscape perfect symmetry and order, such as may seem, consistent with the spiritual nature they would represent. The trees grow straight, equally branched on each side, and of slight and feathery frame. The mountains stand up unscathed; the waters are always waveless, the skies always calm."137 Notice also that the sentiment of the whole picture is like its landscape; there is no striving, nor crying, no convulsive action; it is all one "pure passage of intense feeling and heavenly light, holy and undefiled, glorious with the changeless passion of eternity – sanctified with shadeless peace." Notice lastly, how in this, as in many sacred compositions, "a living symmetry, the balance of harmonious opposites, is one of the profoundest sources of their power. The Madonna of Perugino in the National Gallery, with the angel Michael on one side and Raphael on the other, is as beautiful an example as you can have" (Elements of Drawing, p. 258). The subject of the right-hand compartment is Raphael and Tobias (for which see 781); that of the left-hand one is "the orderer of Christian warfare, Michael the Archangel; not Milton's 'with hostile brow and visage all inflamed'; not even Milton's in kingly treading of the hills of Paradise; not Raphael's with expanded wings and brandished spear; but Perugino's with his triple crest of traceless plume unshaken in heaven, his hand fallen on his crossleted sword, the truth-girdle binding his undinted armour; God has put his power upon him, resistless radiance is on his limbs; no lines are there of earthly strength, no trace on the divine features of earthly anger; trustful and thoughtful, fearless, but full of love, incapable except of the repose of eternal conquest, vessel and instrument of Omnipotence, filled like a cloud with the victor light, the dust of principalities and powers beneath his feet, the murmur of hell against him heard by his spiritual ear like the winding of a shell on the far-off sea-shore." He is thus armed as the orderer of Christian warfare against evil; in his other character, as lord of souls, he has the scales which hang on a tree by his side (Ariadne Florentina, pp. 40, 265, 266; On the Old Road, i. § 529; Modern Painters, vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. i. ch. x. § 4; sec. ii. ch. v. § 20.)

289. "THE NIGHT WATCH."

Gerrit Lundens (Dutch: 1622-1677).

This is a copy, on a greatly reduced scale, of the famous picture by Rembrandt (painted in 1642), now in the State-Museum at Amsterdam. It is of interest as showing the pristine condition of its great original, which in the earlier part of the eighteenth century was maltreated on all four sides, and thereby shorn of some of its figures in order to suit the dimensions of a room to which it was at that time removed. The picture had so darkened by time or neglect, that it came to be called "The Night Watch." The real subject is the march out of a company of the Amsterdam Musketeers from their Headquarters' Hall, under the command of their captain, Frans Banning Cocq, who is seen advancing in the centre and giving orders to his lieutenant. The principal figures are all portraits, and the names were written on the back of the picture. Our copy was painted for Cocq himself, and after many vicissitudes reached England at the beginning of the nineteenth century.

290. A MAN'S PORTRAIT (dated 1432)

Jan van Eyck (Early Flemish: about 1390-1440). See 186.

A portrait of a friend of the artist, for it is inscribed "Leal Souvenir" – and a true recollection it obviously is, and was the more acceptable, one likes to think, for being so. "It is not the untrue imaginary Picture of a man and his work that I want, … but the actual natural Likeness, true as the face itself, nay, truer in a sense, Which the Artist, if there is one, might help to give, and the Botcher never can" (Carlyle, Friedrich).

291. PORTRAIT OF A GIRL

Lucas Cranach (German: 1472-1553).

Lucas Sunder (or possibly Müller), called Cranach from his native place, was one of the chief of the German painters, – after Dürer, the most famous artist of his day. He was the close friend of Martin Luther, whose features he several times represented. He may indeed be called the painter of the German Reformation, and in his later works the reformed doctrines receive symbolical illustration. The influences of the Renaissance were also at work in his art, as may be seen in his classical subjects. He was fond also of drawing birds and animals, and he often depicted hunting scenes. These he rendered with a realism of effect which won the admiration of his princely employers. It was, however, as a portrait-painter that he was chiefly employed. His engravings were also very numerous. In the lower left-hand corner of the picture before us, a crowned serpent will be noticed. This was the arms granted to him in 1508 by the Elector of Saxony, and it superseded his initials on all his pictures after that date. Of Cranach's earlier years, little is known. In 1504 he was established at Wittenburg as court-painter to Frederick the Wise, a post which he occupied under the next two Electors as well. He was a man of importance at Wittenburg, for he was twice mayor of the town, and carried on there, besides large art workshops, a book-printing business and an apothecary's shop. He was also employed in diplomatic missions, and when the Elector Frederick the Magnanimous was in captivity at Augsburg, Cranach was instrumental in procuring his release from the Emperor Charles V., whose portrait had in earlier years been taken by our painter.

"His female portraits have a sort of naïve grace that renders them very pleasing. There is one in the National Gallery, of a young girl in elaborate costume, which is entirely characteristic" (Bryan's Dictionary of Painters).

292. MARTYRDOM OF ST. SEBASTIAN

Antonio Pollajuolo (Florentine: 1429-1498).

This picture is expressly ascribed by Vasari to Antonio alone. On the other hand, Albertini, an earlier authority (1510), ascribes it to Piero, the younger brother of Antonio. It is known that many pictures were the joint production of both brothers – Antonio furnishing the design, and Piero putting it into colour. "In the 'St. Sebastian,'" says Sir F. Burton, "we probably have a work so produced; the severe and strenuous drawing of the elder brother, the sculptor and toreuta by profession, is visible throughout; whether he shared in the painting, and if he did, to what extent, may remain an open question."

Antonio Pollajuolo (the "poulterer," – so called from his grandfather's trade) is an interesting man from two points of view: first, as an instance of the union of the arts in old times; for he was a working goldsmith and engraver as well as a sculptor and painter. He took to painting comparatively late in life, desiring, says Vasari, "for his labour a more enduring memory" than belongs to works of the goldsmith's art; "and his brother Piero being a painter, he joined himself to him for the purpose of learning the modes of proceeding in painting. He acquired a knowledge in the course of a few months and became an excellent master." He became, indeed, an excellent draughtsman, but "neither harmony of colours nor grace was the strong point of this master" (Morelli's Italian Masters in German Galleries, p. 351). In 1484 Antonio was invited to Rome by Pope Innocent VIII., and executed some important monumental works in St. Peter's. His brother died in 1496; Antonio, two years later. The two brothers were buried in S. Pietro in Vincoli, where busts of them may be seen. Antonio is interesting, in the second place, for the developments he introduced into Italian painting. He was one of the first of the Florentines to adopt an oil medium, and the first (says Vasari) who had recourse to the dissection of the dead subject. To him, therefore, Ruskin attributes a baleful influence. "The virtual beginner of artistic anatomy in Italy was a man called 'the poulterer' – Pollajuolo, a man of immense power, but on whom the curse of the Italian mind in this age was set at its deepest. See the horrible picture of St. Sebastian by him in our National Gallery." He was the beginner of those anatomical studies, continues Ruskin, which, pursued and established by later masters, "polluted their work with the science of the sepulchre, and degraded it with presumptuous and paltry technical skill. Foreshorten your Christ, and paint Him, if you can, half-putrefied – that is the scientific art of the Renaissance" (Ariadne Florentina, Appendix IV.).

How popular this "scientific art" was in its day may be seen from the following enthusiastic account which Vasari gives of this picture: —

A remarkable and admirably executed work, with numerous horses, many undraped figures, and singularly beautiful foreshortenings. This picture likewise contains the portrait of St. Sebastian himself, taken from the life – from the face of Gino di Ludovico Capponi, that is. The painting has been more extolled than any other ever executed by Antonio. He has evidently copied nature in this work to the utmost of his power, as we perceive more particularly in one of the archers, who, bending towards the earth, and resting his weapon against his breast, is employing all the force of a strong arm to prepare it for action; the veins are swelling, the muscles strained, and the man holds his breath as he applies all his strength to the effort. Nor is this the only figure executed with care; all the others are likewise well done, and in the diversity of their attitudes give clear proof of the artist's ability and of the labour bestowed by him on his work; all which was fully acknowledged by Antonio Pucci, who gave him three hundred scudi for the picture, declaring at the same time that he was barely paying him for the colours. This work was completed in the year 1475.