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

This painter is conspicuous, says Lanzi (History of Painting in Italy, Bohn's edition 1847, ii. 181), for his "skill in imitating every kind of velvet, satin, or other cloth, either of gold or silver." His portraits are remarkable, as is noticed under 1025, for their poetic insight. He is not content with producing an obvious likeness in the flesh; he strives at portraying or suggesting some spiritual idea in all his sitters. These characteristics are conspicuous in the present picture. Thus notice, first, the splendid brocades. Then secondly, how the painter tells you not only that this was what the sitter looked like, but what was his character. It is clearly the portrait of some one who combined with an important position the tastes of a dilettante, and who had an aspiring soul. On his cap is a label inscribed ιου λιαν ποθω, which being literally interpreted means "Alas, I desire too much!" – an inscription which accords with the yearning upward gaze and the pose selected by the painter. But the motto has also a punning reference. Reading the two first words as one, it becomes ιουλιαν ποθω, "I desire Julia," or with a further pun on the last word, "Julia Potho." We thus obtain a clue to the identity of the sitter. The Potho or Pozzo family was well known at the time in Brescia. Francesco dal Pozzo, 3rd Marquis of Ponderano (born 1494), had as his first-born a daughter Julia. She became the wife of Giacomo Gromo, Signor di Ternengo, who was a man of official status in Biella in 1539, having to do with the fiscal arrangements of the district. This may be indicated in our picture by the two coins of bronze and gold, and the die or seal. The sandalled foot on the table (an antique lamp?) may indicate his love of antiquities. "It is to be hoped, if our picture be a portrait of Monsignor Giacomo Gromo di Ternengo, that he had not long to wait before he became the devoted husband of Julia Potho, for whom he so yearned, and whose favour he wore in his hat." (W. Fred Dickes in Athenæum, June 3 and Aug. 26, 1893).145

300. THE VIRGIN AND CHILD

Cima da Conegliano (Venetian: 1460-1518).

Some miles north of Venice, in the Friuli, rises the town of Conegliano, which, from its isolated and castled hill, overlooks the plain of Treviso. Cima, whose real name was Giovanni Battista, takes his title in art-history from the "cima," or castled "height," of his native place – a picturesque feature which he introduced, wherever it was at all possible, into his pictures. We see these towers of Conegliano in the present picture; and a window is opened in the large composition, No. 816, in order to give us a glimpse of a similar height. In his love of his native landscape is one of the principal charms of Cima's work. "Morning is his favourite time – morning among the hills; and then and there the painter enjoyed more happiness than any twilight gondola could give him. In our National Gallery are two examples of the Conegliano scenery, but the brilliant daylight that so distinguishes Cima is strangely absent" (Gilbert's Landscape in Art, p. 329). One of his best works is the "St. John the Baptist" in the church of S. Maria dell' Orto, Venice. "He is here painting," says Ruskin, "his name-saint; the whole picture full of peace and intense faith and hope, and deep joy in light of sky and fruit and flower and weed of earth. The picture was painted for the church of Our Lady of the Garden, and it is full of simple flowers, and has the wild strawberry of Cima's native mountains gleaming through the grass… He has given us the oak, the fig, the beautiful 'Erba della Madonna' on the wall, precisely such a bunch of it as may be seen growing at this day on the marble steps of that very church; ivy, and other creepers, and a strawberry plant in the foreground, with a blossom, and a berry just set, and one half-ripe, and one ripe, all patiently and innocently painted from the real thing, and therefore most divine… His own Alps are in the distance, and he shall teach us how to paint wild flowers, and how to think of them" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. i. ch. vii. § 9; vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. x. § 5; Oxford Lectures on Art, § 150; Catalogue of the Educational Series, p. 27). The charming landscape and fine colour of Cima are accompanied by earnestness of religious feeling, and a sense of peace and quiet, unmixed with any ascetism. "The painter," says Ruskin, of another of his pictures, "does not desire the excitement of rapid movement, nor even the passion of beautiful light. But he hates darkness as he does death. He paints noble human creatures simply in clear daylight; not in rapture, nor yet in agony. The unexciting colour will not at first delight you; but its charm will never fail, and you will find that you never return to it but with a sense of relief and of peace… Cima is not supreme in any artistic quality, but good and praiseworthy in all" (Lectures on Landscape, § 60; Guide to the Academy at Venice, p. 14). Cima is usually reckoned among the disciples of Giovanni Bellini, and is believed at one time to have superintended the workshop of that master.

In the background, on the right, are the towers of Conegliano; on the left, the neighbouring castle of Colalto. There is something very pretty in the way in which the earlier Venetian masters placed their Holy Families in their own fields and amongst their own mountains (compare e. g. the Madonna in the Meadow, No. 599), thus imagining the Madonna and her child not as a far-away sanctity in the sky, but as an actual presence nigh unto them, at their very doors.146 "There has probably not been an innocent cottage-home throughout the length and breadth of Europe during the whole period of vital Christianity, in which the imagined presence of the Madonna has not given sanctity to the humblest duties, and comfort to the sorest trials of the lives of women; and every brightest and loftiest achievement of the arts and strength of manhood has been the fulfilment of the assured prophecy of the poor Israelite maiden, 'He that is mighty hath magnified me, and holy is his name'" (Fors Clavigera, 1874, p. 105).

479. THE SUN RISING IN A MIST

J. M. W. Turner, R.A. (British: 1775-1851).

For the circumstances under which this picture by Turner and the "Dido Building Carthage" (498) hang not in the Turner Gallery but beside the Claudes, see under 12.

This picture was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1807, and belongs therefore to Turner's first period, which was distinguished by "subdued colour and perpetual reference to precedent in composition." This effect of sunrise in a mist was a favourite one with Dutch painters, and Turner, when he went to the sea-shore, painted it in the Dutch manner. A time was to come when he would paint the sun rising no longer in a mist. Yet from the first, the bent of his own mind was visible in his work. He paints no such ideal futilities as are pointed out above in Claude's picture, but fishermen engaged in their daily toil. One of his father's best friends was a fishmonger, whom he often visited: "which gives us a friendly turn of mind towards herring-fishing, whaling, Calais poissardes, and many other of our choicest subjects in afterlife." He was the painter not of "pastoral indolence or classic pride, but of the labour of men, by sea and land" (Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. ix.).

498. DIDO BUILDING CARTHAGE

J. M. W. Turner, R.A. (British: 1775-1851).

From the technical point of view this is not one of Turner's best pictures. It was exhibited in 1815, and belongs therefore to his first period, when he had still not completely exorcised "the brown demon." The picture, says Ruskin, "is quite unworthy of Turner as a colourist," "his eye for colour unaccountably fails him,"147 and "the foreground is heavy and evidently paint, if we compare it with genuine passages of Claude's sunshine" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. i. ch. vii. § 45, sec. ii. ch. i. § 13, ch. ii. § 18).

But there is a noble idea in the picture. Dido, Queen of Carthage, surrounded by her people, and with plans and papers about her, is superintending the building of the city which was to become the great maritime power of the ancient world. "The principal object in the foreground (on the left) is a group of children sailing toy boats. The exquisite choice of this incident, as expressive of the ruling passion which was to be the source of future greatness, in preference to the tumult of busy stone-masons or arming soldiers, is quite as appreciable when it is told as when it is seen, – it has nothing to do with the technicalities of painting; a scratch of the pen would have conveyed the idea and spoken to the intellect as much as the elaborate realisations of colour. Such a thought as this is something far above all art; it is epic poetry of the highest order" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. i. sec. i. ch. vii. § 2).

564. THE VIRGIN AND CHILD, WITH SCENES FROM THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS

Margaritone (Tuscan: 1216-1293).

Margaritone, famous in his time (like so many of his successors) for painting, sculpture, and architecture alike, was a native of Arezzo, and was "the last of the Italian artists who painted entirely after the Greek (or Byzantine) manner," from which Cimabue and Giotto were the first to depart.148 He died at the age of seventy-seven, "afflicted and disgusted (says Vasari) that he had lived to see the changes by which all honours were transferred to new artists." This picture being, according to the critics, the most important and characteristic picture of the artist still remaining, should, therefore, be carefully studied by those who are interested in tracing the history of art. Of the Greek manner, in which art was for so many centuries encased, one may notice, first, that there was no attempt to depict things like life. Art, as the phrase goes, was "symbolic," not "representative." Certain definite symbols, certain definite attitudes, were understood to mean certain things. Just as in earlier Greek painting white flesh, for instance, was taken to denote a woman, black or red flesh a man, so here such and such attitudes were accepted as meaning that the figure in question was the Virgin, and such and such other attitudes that it was the Christ. Secondly, these symbols were all expressive of various dogmas of the Church – of creeds and formulas peculiar to one sect rather than of spiritual truths common to all Christianity.

Both characteristics may be traced in almost every line of this picture. For instance, the humanity of Christ is not yet even hinted at, his divinity alone being insisted upon. Thus the young God is here represented in the form of a man-child; erect, with the assumed dignity of an adult, as he raises his hand to bless the faithful. With his left hand he holds the roll in which are written the names of the faithful saved: it is as a judge that he comes into the world. The Virgin again is here shown as elect of God to be the mother of God: not as the mother of Jesus, the mother of man's highest humanity. She wears on her head the fleur-de-lys coronet, symbol of purity; and the glory, or aureole, around her represents the acrostic symbol of the fish, the Greek word for fish containing the initials of the several Greek words meaning "Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour." Outside this "Vesica" (or "fish glory"), in the four corners, are four Jewish symbols (Ezekiel i. 10), adopted as emblems of the four Evangelists – the Angel (St. Matthew), the Ox (St. Luke), the Lion (St. Mark), and the Eagle (St. John). So again, in the scenes on either side of the central piece we see the same gloomy theology, in which the world is thought of solely as a place made hideous with evils, where saints are boiled by pagans, women slain by seducers, children devoured by dragons. By help of such pictured deeds of hell, men were taught by the early Church to "loathe this base world and think of heaven's bliss." The first subject (on the spectator's left) represents the birth of Christ in a cattle-shed; the second St. John the Evangelist, calm midst the cauldron of seething oil, the martyr's uplifted hand expressing the precept, "Pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you." The third subject depicts in a rude symbolic way incidents in the life of St. Catherine – her beheading, her soul's reception by angels, and the burial of her body by two angels on Mount Sinai. The fourth subject shows St. Nicolas appearing suddenly to some sailors, whom he exhorts to throw overboard a vase given by the devil. In the fifth is St. John resuscitating the body of Drusiana, a matron who had lived in his house previous to his departure, and whose bier he had chanced to meet on his return to Ephesus. In the next subject St. Benedict, founder of the Benedictine Order, is shown in the act of throwing himself into a thicket of briars and nettles, as he rushes from his cave to rid himself of the recollection of a beautiful woman he had once met in Rome, and whose image now tempts him to leave his chosen solitude. In the seventh, St. Nicolas liberates three innocent men; and in the eighth is represented St. Margaret, patron saint of women in childbirth, whom the devil in the form of a dragon confronts to terrify into abnegation of her Christian faith. Unable to persuade her, he devours her, but bursts in the midst, and by power of the Cross she emerges unhurt. It is interesting to observe that the two consecutive acts are here shown as co-existent: a thing frequently done, as we have seen, in early art. Finally, another characteristic feature is the introduction of the "grotesque" in the animals that support the throne as a relief from the strained seriousness of the rest of the picture (A. H. Macmurdo in Century Guild Hobby Horse, i. 21-28).

The picture, signed by the painter, was an altar-front in the church of Santa Margherita at Arezzo. It is painted in tempera on linen cloth attached to wood, and even in Vasari's day its preservation was deemed remarkable. "It comprises," he says, "many small figures, of better manner than those of larger size, designed with more grace and finished with greater delicacy; and this work deserves consideration, not only because the little figures are so carefully done that they look like miniatures, but also for the extraordinary fact that a picture on canvas should have continued in such good preservation during 300 years" (i. 89).

565. THE MADONNA AND CHILD

Cimabue (Florentine: 1240-1302).

Giovanni Cenni, called Cimabue, has been called the "Father of Modern Painting." He imitated the Byzantine style, says Vasari, but "improved the art and relieved it greatly from its uncouth manner." He did not entirely free himself from the dismal formalism of his predecessors, but he infused new life into the old traditional types. A contemporary of his was Niccola Pisano, whose work in the allied art of sculpture shows a more marked advance, and who perhaps really gave the new impulse which art received at this period – an impulse carried on in the field of painting by Cimabue's pupil, Giotto. Niccola Pisano, says Ruskin, "is the Master of Naturalism in Italy, – therefore elsewhere: of Naturalism and all that follows" (Val d'Arno, § 16). Well-authenticated pictures by Cimabue are the Madonna panel with angels in the Academy at Florence (formerly in the church of SS. Trinita), and the colossal Madonna still in the Rucellai chapel in S. Maria Novella. The latter is the picture of which the well-known story, referred to below, is told. Our picture, which is also mentioned by Vasari, was originally attached to a pilaster in the choir of S. Croce.149 Cimabue also executed some of the frescoes in the Upper Church at Assisi: and at the time of his death was occupied on the mosaics in the tribune of the Duomo at Pisa. Copies of Cimabue's frescoes may be seen in the Arundel Society's Collection.

The changes which Cimabue introduced into the art of painting were twofold. In the first place, his pictures show an increase of pictorial skill. This picture has suffered much from time. Thus in the Madonna's face, which was originally laid in green and painted over thinly, time and restorations have removed this over-painting, and left the green exposed (see also Duccio's 566). The green and purple of her dress also have changed into a dusky tone; but even so, the advance in pictorial skill may be seen in the shading of the colours, and the attempt to represent the light and dark masses of the drapery, whereas in earlier pictures the painters had been content with flat tints. But the advance made by Cimabue was even more in spirit than in technical skill. He combined the contemplation of the South with the action of the North. He gave the populace of his day something to look at – and something to love. "Is she not beautiful," asks a critic before this picture, "in simplicity and solemn majesty? Is she not a real mother with a half sad and foreboding wistful look that goes straight to the heart?" Cimabue's Madonna is still a Mater Dolorosa – "our Lady of Pain," but there is an attempt alike in her and in the child, and in the attendant angels, to substitute for the conventional image of an ideal personage the representation of real humanity. It was this change that explains the story told of one of Cimabue's works, that it was carried in glad procession, with the sound of trumpets, from his house to the church, and that the place was ever afterwards called "Borgo Allegro" (the joyful quarter) – a name which it bears to this day. "This delight was not merely in the revelation of an art they had not known how to practise; it was delight in the revelation of a Madonna whom they had not known how to love" (Mornings in Florence, ii. 48). In telling this story, Vasari adds that "they had not seen anything better"; the rudeness and quaintness which are all that at first sight are now discernible would then, it must be remembered, have been unseen. We may recall the poet's protest against those who,

Because of some stiff draperies and loose joints,Gaze scorn down from the heights of RaffaelhoodOn Cimabue's picture.Mrs. Browning: Casa Guidi Windows.

566. MADONNA AND CHILD

Duccio (Sienese: about 1260-1340).

Duccio, the son of Buoninsegna, did much the same for the Sienese School as Cimabue and Giotto did for the Florentine. He was the first, that is to say, who, forsaking partly the conventional manner of the Byzantine School, endeavoured to give some resemblance to nature, and in religious subjects to bring down heaven to earth. "He retained the ancient formulas, destroying, however, their formalism by the inspiration of new life." The development of Sienese art under his influence was parallel to, yet distinct from, that in Florence. "His feeling is quite distinct; his pure, sweet, transparent colouring is his own; his type of beauty more graceful and more classical, and he loved more gentle curves, more oval faces and longer limbs. In these things he followed his own temperament, and by so doing determined the characteristics of the Sienese School" (Monkhouse: In the National Gallery, p. 17). In 1285 Duccio was commissioned to paint a large Madonna for the church of S. Maria Novella at Florence. In 1308 he began the execution of his Maestà for the cathedral of Siena, of which some portions are now in the transept and others in the Opera del Duomo. The revelation that Duccio made of the new power of art was received, as was Cimabue's, with rapturous applause, and a portion of the famous picture just referred to was in 1310 carried in procession on a beautiful day in June to the Cathedral amidst the ringing of bells and the sounding of trumpets; the magistrates, clergy, and religious orders escorting it, followed by a multitude of citizens with their wives and families, praying as they went: the shops were closed and alms distributed to the poor. For that masterpiece Duccio received 16 soldi (8d.) the working day, paid to him in monthly instalments. The city, however, found him his materials, which, owing to the quantity of gold used (see 1139), raised the whole cost to 3000 gold florins. Works by Duccio are a speciality of the National Gallery, which has four of them to show, 566, 1139, 1140, and 1330. The present picture is the most important, and best illustrates the new departure made by Duccio.

The young Christ, for instance, instead of being depicted in the act of priestly benediction (as in 564), is shown as a true babe, drawing aside the veil that hides his Mother's face. In this little incident one may thus see the tendency which was to lead to the representation of the Mother and Child as a Holy Family (the spectator must have "charity of imagination" to ignore the green hue of the Madonna's face, for reasons stated under 565). "A conception like this of the Infant Saviour is not met with, so far as I know, in the whole range of Byzantine art from the fifth century onwards. The relation of the Child to his mother, as here represented, the gesture of childlike love, contrasting with the expression of melancholy in her face, which, perhaps, constitutes the principal charm of the picture – is an innovation. This motive does not occur in the work of Niccola Pisano, the great sculptor who had executed a famous work in the cathedral of Siena some twenty years previously. We find it, however, in contemporary Gothic sculpture of France; a very characteristic example is in the South Kensington Museum, a charming little ivory of the Madonna standing with the Child in her arms" (Richter's Lectures on the National Gallery, p. 18). Above are seen the prophets, headed by David their king, while on either side St. Catherine150 and St Dominic adore the vision of the mother of God. The Byzantine influence, on the other hand, may be seen in the Greek type of feature and long, slender fingers.

567. CHRIST ON THE CROSS

Segna di Buonaventura (Sienese: painted 1305-1326).

A ghastly and conventional work by one of the early Sienese painters – a pupil of Duccio.

568. THE CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN

School of Giotto (Giotto: 1266-1336). See also (p. xix)

Giotto di Bondone – great alike as a painter, a sculptor, and an architect – was the son of a shepherd in the country near Florence. One day when he was drawing a ram of his father's flock with a stone upon a smooth piece of rock, Cimabue (see 565) happened to be passing by, and, seeing the lad's natural bent, carried him off to be a painter. Cimabue taught him all he knew, and in time the pupil eclipsed his master. Dante mentions this as an instance of the vanity of Fame: "Cimabue thought to hold the field in painting, but now Giotto has the cry." But another poet holds

That Cimabue smiled upon the ladAt the first stroke which passed what he could do,Or else his Virgin's smile had never hadSuch sweetness in't. All great men who foreknewTheir heirs in art, for art's sake have been glad.Mrs. Browning: Casa Guidi Windows.

The earliest examples of his work extant are the frescoes forming the lower range in the Upper Church at Assisi. His frescoes of the virtues in the Lower Church are believed to belong to a later period. So great was his fame that in 1298 he was sent for to do some work for the Pope. It was for him that Giotto sent as his testimonial the famous circle drawn with a brush, without compasses. "You may judge my masterhood of craft," Giotto tells us, "by seeing that I can draw a circle unerringly." (Hence the saying, "rounder than the O of Giotto.") After a short time in Rome, Giotto returned to Florence and painted the chapel of the Podestà, or Bargello, of Florence, which was rescued from destruction in 1841. Some of Giotto's work in it was restored. Here is his famous portrait of Dante (traced previous to restoration and published by the Arundel Society). To a later period belong his frescoes in the church of Santa Croce. In 1303 Giotto was called to decorate the walls of the chapel of the Annunziata dell' Arena at Padua. This he did with a series of compositions which are the greatest monument of his genius. It was during the execution of this work that Dante visited Padua, being entertained by his friend the painter. "Thus went Giotto, a serene labourer, throughout the length and breadth of Italy. He engaged himself in other tasks at Ferrara, Verona, and Ravenna, and at last at Avignon, where he became acquainted with Petrarch. Then passed rapidly through Florence and Orvieto on his way to Naples, where he received the kindest welcome from the good King Robert. The King, ever partial to men of mind and genius, took especial delight in Giotto's society; and Giotto (says Vasari), who had ever his repartee ready, held him fascinated at once with the magic of his pencil and pleasantry of his tongue. Returning to Florence, Giotto was appointed chief master of the works of the Duomo then in progress. He designed the Campanile, modelled the bas-relief for the base of the building, and sculptured two of them with his own hand. He died full of honour and at the zenith of his strength. He was buried in the cathedral, at the angle nearest his campanile; and thus the tower, which is the chief grace of his native city, may be regarded as his own sepulchral monument." Only those who have seen Giotto's wall paintings at Assisi, Padua, and Florence can form any true conception of his greatness. It is pointed out below in what respects his work was remarkable and important for his time. It has also an abiding value in itself. "In nine cases out of ten," says Ruskin, "the first expression of an idea is the most valuable: the idea may afterwards be polished and softened, and made more attractive to the general eye; but the first expression of it has a freshness and brightness, like the flash of a native crystal compared to the lustre of glass that has been melted and cut. Giotto was not, indeed, one of the most accomplished painters, but he was one of the greatest men who ever lived. He was the first master of his time, in architecture as well as in painting; he was the friend of Dante, and the undisputed interpreter of religious truth, by means of painting, over the whole of Italy. The works of such a man may not be the best to set before children in order to teach them drawing; but they assuredly should be studied with the greatest care by all who are interested in the history of the human mind" (Giotto and his Works in Padua). Copies of many of his works are in the Arundel Society's Collection.