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

629. MADONNA AND CHILD

Lorenzo Costa (Ferrarese: 1460-1535).

Lorenzo Costa was a pupil of Cosimo Tura, at Ferrara, but was soon drawn away to Bologna, where he worked with Francia. The friendship of these two men is a good instance of the unity between the different arts in the Middle Ages. Thus the workshop of Francia at Bologna consisted of two stories. In the upper story, pictures were painted under the supervision of Costa; whilst in the lower, gold and silver works were executed, and coins stamped, under the direction of Francia. Costa remained for twenty-three years at Bologna, where many of his principal works still exist. The altar-piece in the church of S. Giovanni in Monte is the most remarkable. In 1509, invited by the Marquis Francesco Gonzaga, whose wife was Isabella d'Este, Costa fixed his abode in Mantua, where he remained till his death. He depicted their court in an allegorical composition, now in the Louvre. "Costa's style," says Sir F. Burton, "varied during his long career. His earlier works bear signs of his filiation to Tura and Cossa. In later productions we may trace more of the amenity of Umbrian art, and finally the influence of his own pupil Francia. His best merits are a gentle gravity and a sense of colour. Want of force mars what is meant for grace."

This picture (which is signed, and dated 1505) should be compared with the Perugino in the next room (288), for Lorenzo Costa has been called "the Perugino of Ferrara," and works of his are in many galleries wrongly attributed to Perugino. Every one will feel that there is a grace and a sweetness here which recalls Perugino. Lorenzo, too, has Perugino's fondness for a "purist" landscape (see 288); and note the curious device, peculiar to the Ferrarese School, by which he introduces it. The Madonna's throne is constructed in two parts, so that between the base and the upper part a vacant space is left, through which we look into the open air ("Thus saith the Lord, the heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool"). One of Costa's weaknesses may be observed in the figures of the standing saints. "His figures are seldom planted firmly on the ground – a fault which he shared with Francia. The ill-understood folds of their garments obscure the form, and trail upon the ground in meaningless tags. This insensibility on the part of Costa to one of the noblest means of expression in art is remarkable, inasmuch as the works of Francesco Cossa might have set him an example of draperies carefully studied, true to fact, and often grandly disposed" (Burton).

630. MADONNA AND CHILD WITH SAINTS

Gregorio Schiavone (Paduan: painted about 1470).

A picture of historical interest, as being the earliest in the Gallery of the Paduan School. Gregorio, the Sclavonian (i. e. Dalmatian), though not, one must think, a very good artist, was proud of his master, and this picture is signed (on the little card below the throne) "the work of Schiavone, the pupil of Squarcione." That master's style was distinguished by its sculpturesque quality; and in the works of a somewhat clumsy pupil like Gregorio ("this Dalmatian clodhopper," Morelli calls him) one sees this tendency carried to excess; the outline of the Madonna's face here, and still more in 904, is quite grotesquely sharp. Another characteristic of the school is exemplified in both Gregorio's pictures – the choice, namely, of antique embellishments, of bas-reliefs, and festoons of fruit, in the accessories. Thus note here the bas-relief behind the Madonna's chair, and in 904 the festoons of fruit upon the arch.

631. PORTRAIT OF A LADY

Ascribed to Francesco Bissolo (Venetian: painted 1500-1528).

By one of Bellini's pupils and imitators. Observe the rich dress of a Byzantine stuff embroidered with strange animals, such as one sees in the old mosaics at Venice. The lady wears too a long gold chain, as the Venetian women do to this day.

632, 633. TWO SAINTS

Girolamo da Santa Croce (Venetian: painted 1520-1550).

Girolamo – a relation probably of Francesco Rizo, also of Santa Croce (a village near Bergamo) – was one of the weaker followers of Giovanni Bellini. Morelli mentions, as a sign by which Girolamo's pictures, which are frequently met with in North Italian galleries, may often be recognised, that "he introduced a parrot whenever the subject he was treating would allow it, just as Paolo Farinato used to put a snail into his paintings as a sort of mark."

These two panels were formerly the doors of an altar-piece.

634. THE MADONNA OF THE GOLDFINCH

Cima da Conegliano (Venetian: 1460-1518). See 300.

The Madonna here wears a graver expression than is common with Cima. There is the usual hilly background, with the ruins of a Roman temple introduced on the left.

635. THE "REPOSE."

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

The subject of this radiantly beautiful picture is the familiar "Repose" of the Holy Family during their flight into Egypt; "perfect serenity and repose" are the keynote of the composition. The introduction of St. John the Baptist, and St. Catherine157 embracing the Holy Child, and in the distance the angel appearing to the shepherds, serve as the sign-manuals to mark the sacred subject. For the rest it is a simple domestic scene, laid amongst the hills of Titian's country, near Ceneda, on the way to Cadore: —

To this Ceneda scenery I would assign those charming mixtures of woodland and plain, – those sweeping intermingling lines of hill, here broken by a jutting rock, sinking there into the sudden depth of bosky shades, – which are another characteristic of Titian's landscape. The play of light and shade over such a country, throwing out now this, now that, of the billowy ranges as they alternately smiled in sunshine, or frowned in shadow; now printing off a tower or a crag, dark against a far-off flitting gleam, now touching into brightness a cottage or a castle; he specially delighted to record… It must have been from the village of Caverzano, and within an easy walk from Belluno, that he took the mountain forms, and noted the sublime effect upon them of evening light, introduced in the "Madonna and St. Catherine." The lines of hill and mountain are identical with a record in my sketch-book, and the sharp-pointed hill, almost lost in the rays, is one of the most familiar features in the neighbourhood of Belluno (Gilbert: Cadore, pp. 36, 59).

Mr. Gilbert makes another interesting remark, which may be verified in this picture with its flocks of sheep, as well as in 270, with its farm buildings:

Another characteristic of Titian's landscape, and new in his time, is his perception of its domestic charm – the sweetness of a home landscape. A cottage, a farm, a mill, take the place with him of the temples, towers, and lordly palaces of town-bred painters… Honest travellers on a country track, or sleeping in the shade; the peasant going forth to labour, or returning with his tools; the high-roofed, quaintly gabled farm, with its nondescript surroundings, and all set snugly on the bosky knoll … these are his favourite subjects. But they never would have been so to a thorough Venetian. They show us the man of the hills – the breezy, happy hills: the man of many pleasant memories, upon the sward, beside the brook, under the bending boughs: the man who carried no city apprehensions, or city squeamishness to country places, but was at home anywhere under the broad heaven (ibid. p. 60).

The colour-scheme of this masterpiece is worth noting. It is in keeping with the effect of coolness and repose aimed at in the composition. "The dominant chord is composed by the cerulean blues of the heaven and of the Virgin's dress, the deep luscious greens of the landscape and the peculiar pale citron hue, relieved with a crimson girdle, of the robe worn by St. Catherine. With this exception there is not a trace of red in the picture. Contrary to almost universal usage, it might almost be said to orthodoxy, the entire draperies of the Virgin are of one intense blue. Her veil-like headgear is of a brownish-gray, while the St. Catherine wears a golden-brown scarf, continuing the glories of her elaborately dressed hair. The audacity of the colour-scheme is only equalled by its success; no calculated effort at anything unusual being apparent" (Claude Phillips: The Later Work of Titian, p. 10).

This picture, which is signed TICIAN, was formerly in the Sacristy of the Escurial; it has the Escurial mark on the back. A "Madonna with St. Catherine" by Titian is mentioned in a letter of 1530 written by Giacomo Malatesta to Federigo Gonzaga at Mantua. The reference is supposed by Crowe and Cavalcaselle to be to the "Vierge au Lupin" of the Louvre; but it may be to our picture (see Phillips: The Earlier Work of Titian, p. 82 n.).

636. "PORTRAIT OF A POET."

Titian; or Palma Vecchio (Bergamese: 1480-1528). See also (p. xix)

This picture was long ascribed to Titian; then for many years to Palma (of whom, therefore, some notice is here retained); now it has been restored by the officials to Titian. Others believe it to be the work of Giorgione (see below).

Jacopo Palma, the elder (II Vecchio), is one of the most illustrious of the "post-Bellinian School" of painters at Venice. But he was born near Bergamo and "could never entirely lay aside his mountain nature in his works" (see Morelli's German Galleries, pp. 13-18, 24-31, for the best account of Palma's place in art history). He was especially great in the Holy Families, called by the Italians "Sante Conversazioni," in which the figures of sacred story are grouped together in restful attitudes and enframed with blue mountain landscapes. He painted so many of these compositions that Ruskin says – somewhat too sweepingly – that he painted "no profane subject of importance" (Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. iii. § 17). He was also a magnificent painter of female and fancy portraits – a branch of art in which he rivals even Titian. Palma's works are sometimes divided into three manners – the Bellinesque, the Giorgionesque, and the blonde. Among the most famous of his productions are the "Adoration of the Shepherds," in the Louvre; the "Jacob and Rachel," at Dresden; and the altar-piece in St. Sebastiano at Vicenza – "his finest and most perfect work," according to Morelli. His "St. Barbara," in S. Maria Formosa at Venice, is also celebrated. The so-called "Bella da Tiziano," at Rome, and the "Three Sisters," at Dresden, are among the best-known of his portraits.

This fine portrait was formerly supposed to represent Ariosto (1474-1533), who was acquainted with Titian and commemorates him as one "who honours Cadore not less than Sebastiano del Piombo and Raphael honour Venice and Urbino." But the portrait bears little resemblance to the poet as he is known to us by authenticated likenesses. The title "Portrait of a Poet" is based partly on the character of the face, partly on the bush of laurel in the background. The evidence for the ascription to Palma is by no means conclusive (see Notes and Queries, Dec. 28, 1889). Mr. W. Fred Dickes has suggested – ingeniously, if not convincingly – that the portrait is of the famous "Liberator of Italy," Prospero Colonna (1464-1523), painted in 1500, when he was living in temporary retirement as a lay brother in a Benedictine monastery. Prospero is described as "tall in person, ruddy in countenance; his eyes were black, his beard reddish, and the locks of his hair of a chestnut character." The laurel would be appropriate to a victorious captain, no less than to a poet. Mr. Dickes ascribes the portrait to Giorgione (see Magazine of Art, March and April 1893). This ascription is accepted by Mr. Herbert Cook. "The conception is characteristic of Giorgione – the pensive charm, the feeling of reserve, the touch of fanciful imagination in the decorative accessories, but, above all, the extreme refinement… Where can the like be found in Palma, or even Titian? Titian is more virile in his conception, less lyrical, less fanciful; Palma, infinitely less subtle in characterisation" (Giorgione, p. 84).

637. DAPHNIS AND CHLOE

Paris Bordone (Venetian: 1500-1570).

Paris Bordone, one of the most splendid colourists of the Venetian School, was born of a noble family of Treviso. "He was taken," says Vasari, "at the age of eight to certain of his mother's kindred in Venice, where, having studied grammar and become an excellent musician, he was sent to Titian." With him he remained for a few years, and afterwards "set himself to imitate the manner of Giorgione to the utmost of his power." "Though Venetian in his education, he took a path peculiar to himself, and it is only a very inexperienced eye that can mistake him for Giorgione or Titian. He is remarkable for a delicate rosy colour in his flesh, and for the purple, crimson, and shot tints of his draperies, which are usually in small and crumpled folds" (Kugler). His most famous work – the large picture in the Venetian Academy of "The Fisherman presenting the Ring of St. Mark to the Doge" – is a masterpiece of gorgeous colouring. "The moment you come before the picture you say, 'What a piece of colour!' To Paris the Duke, the Senate, and the miracle are all merely vehicles for flashes of scarlet and gold on marble and silk" (Ruskin's Guide to the Venetian Academy, p. 17). He painted sacred subjects, mythology, and portraits. In all alike he found occasion for the same brilliant display of flesh-tints and stuffs. Visitors to the Italian lakes will find a Holy Family by Bordone at Lovere, in the Accademia Tadini, which is another of his masterpieces. There are some fine portraits by him at Hampton Court, and No. 674 in our Gallery is a very characteristic example. Chloe in the picture before us belongs to the same type. "The ideal of beauty for women in Italy during the sixteenth century was – perhaps because so difficult of attainment! – extreme blondness. Palma seems to have had no other aim than to fill his canvases with expanses of fair flesh and yellow hair. Paris Bordone succeeded Palma as the fashionable beauty-painter, and continued the tradition" (Mary Logan: Guide to the Italian Pictures at Hampton Court, p. 28). The fame of Bordone led to his being invited to France by Francis II. in 1558-1559 to paint the ladies of the Court. He was knighted by the king. He also visited Augsburg to execute commissions for the merchant princes of that city. "He lives quietly in his own house," says Vasari, "working only at the request of princes, or others of his friends, avoiding all rivalry and those vain ambitions which do but disturb the repose of man."

Daphnis and Chloe, a shepherd and shepherdess, whose life and love were a favourite Greek story, are about to be crowned by Cupid with a wreath of myrtle.

638. THE VIRGIN AND CHILD, WITH SAINTS

Francia (Ferrarese-Bolognese: 1450-1517).

For more important pictures by this master, see 179 and 180. The saint with the palm-branch here will be recognised in one of the angels in 180.

639. "NOLI ME TANGERE!"

Francesco Mantegna (Paduan: about 1470-1517).

Francesco was the pupil and assistant of his father Andrea, whose style is very obvious in this and the two companion pictures (1106, 1381). Francesco completed some work which Andrea had left unfinished.

(For the subject see 270.) The three little pictures by Francesco (639, 1106, 1381) are all noticeable for their dainty detail, often selected for symbolic meaning. Thus, notice here the vine with purple grapes supported on a dead tree which hangs over the figure of Christ – an emblem of life and death. The vine is the most ancient of all symbols of Christ and his Church, being founded on His own words: "I am the vine, ye are the branches." On the other side a bird is seen defending its nest against a snake which has crept up the tree; on the left is a beehive.

640. ADORATION OF THE MAGI

Dosso Dossi (Ferrarese: 1479-1542).

Giovanni di Lutero, who adopted the name of Dosso Dossi, was the greatest colourist of the Ferrarese School. "His masterpiece is the great altar picture formerly in the Church of S. Andrea at Ferrara, but now in the public gallery of that city, and one of the principal art treasures of Italy. This sumptuous work, notwithstanding the irreparable injuries it had sustained from injudicious restorations and repaints, is still a perfect blaze of colour" (Kugler). The little picture before us gives an inadequate impression of the painter's powers. No. 1234 is more characteristic. For Dossi's real bent lay towards portraiture and romantic subjects. Portraits by him of the Dukes of Ferrara and of other personages are in the public gallery at Modena. Of his subject-pictures the "Circe" of the Borghese Gallery at Rome is the most sumptuous. The records of Dossi's career are scanty; but his works "point strongly to two widely different currents of influence, the one Venetian, the other Ferrarese." He is supposed to have been for some years at Venice, but to have studied first under the Ferrarese Lorenzo Costa at Bologna. "His education in art, the main characteristics of his style, and his long residence at Ferrara, where he was attached to the court, and where he chiefly worked, entitle him to a place in the Ferrarese School… His colouring is much admired, and justly, for its force, brilliancy, and novel harmonies: but it would be a mistake to class it with that of the great Venetian masters who had a profounder knowledge and a purer ideal of colour" (Burton). Dossi's romantic genius was no doubt fostered by his friendship with Ariosto, who celebrated Dosso and his brother Battista in somewhat exaggerated terms, naming them in the same breath with Leonardo, Mantegna, Bellini, Michael Angelo, Raphael, and Titian. "The name of Dosso," says Vasari ill-naturedly, "had then obtained greater fame from the pen of Messer Ludovico than from all the pencils and colours consumed by himself in the whole course of his life." Dosso was highly favoured, he adds, by Duke Alphonso, of Ferrara, "first because of his abilities in art, and next on account of his excellent qualities as a man and the pleasantness of his manners, which were advantages always highly acceptable to the Duke" (iii. 256). There are many pictures by Dosso in private collections in England. The exhibition of the Ferrarese School at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1894 included thirteen of them. He is well represented at Hampton Court. "His works," says Mary Logan in an interesting appreciation of the painter, "are distinguished from all Venetian paintings by effects of light in dreamland rather than in the everyday world (and have in them) … a fascinating touch of the bizarre" (Kyrle Society's Guide to the Italian Pictures at Hampton Court). Many pictures passing under other names have been restored to Dosso by Morelli (see his Borghese and Doria-Pamfili Galleries, pp. 214-219).

641. THE WOMAN TAKEN IN ADULTERY

Ludovico Mazzolino (Ferrarese: 1480-1528). See 169.

A picture chiefly remarkable, like 169, for its accessories. Notice the ornamental sculpture, the paintings in imitation of bronze relievo, and the modelled plaster work on the walls.

642. CHRIST'S AGONY IN THE GARDEN

Garofalo (Ferrarese: 1481-1559). See 81.

It is interesting to compare this with other versions of the subject in the Gallery —e. g. 76, 726, 1417. What we may call the necessary component parts of the picture are all present – the angel with cup and cross, the sleeping apostles, a crowd with torches approaching. But Garofalo's picture seems cold and unimaginative as compared with Correggio's, Bellini's, or Mantegna's.

643. THE CAPTURE OF CARTHAGENA

Ascribed to Rinaldo Mantovano (Roman: early 16th century).

This and the companion picture, 644, formerly ascribed to Giulio Romano, are now ascribed to Rinaldo of Mantua, one of the scholars whom Giulio formed when at work in that city. Rinaldo is mentioned by Vasari as the ablest painter that Mantua ever produced, and as having been "prematurely removed from the world by death."

In the upper compartment is represented the capture of New Carthage by the Roman general, Publius Cornelius Scipio, B.C. 210. He distinguished himself on that occasion by the generosity with which he treated the Spanish hostages kept there by the Carthaginians. This is the subject of the lower compartment. Among the hostages was a girl – hardly represented here as in the story, "so beautiful that all eyes turned upon her" – whom Scipio protected from indignity and formally betrothed to her own lover, who is here advancing to touch the great man's hand, and when they brought thank-offerings to Scipio, he ordered them, as we see here, to be removed again: "accept them from me," he said, "as the girl's dowry" (Livy, xxvi. ch. 50).

644. THE RAPE OF THE SABINES

Ascribed to Rinaldo Mantovano (Roman: early 16th century).

Romulus, the founder of Rome – so the story goes – had collected a motley crew of men about him, and demanded women from the neighbouring states wherewith to people his kingdom. And when they refused, he determined to take them by stratagem. He appointed a day for a splendid sacrifice, with public games and shows, and the neighbouring Sabines flocked with their wives and daughters to see the sight. He himself presided, sitting among his nobles, clothed in purple. As a signal for the assault, he was to rise, gather up his robe, and fold it about him. Many of the people wore swords that day, and kept their eyes upon him, watching for the signal, which was no sooner given than they drew them, and, rushing on with a shout, seized the daughters of the Sabines, but quietly suffered the men to escape. This is the subject of the upper compartment of this picture. But afterwards the Sabines fought the Romans in order to recover their daughters. The battle was long and fierce, until the Sabine women threw themselves between the combatants and induced them to ratify the accomplished union with terms of friendship and alliance. This is the subject of the lower compartment – the intervention of the Sabine women in the right-hand part, the reconciliation in the left.

645. VIRGIN AND CHILD

Albertinelli (Florentine: 1474-1515).

Mariotto Albertinelli, a pupil of Cosimo Rosselli, was the friend and assistant of the painter-monk, Fra Bartolommeo (see 1694). He himself, being of an impatient character, "was so offended with certain criticisms of his work," says Vasari, "that he gave up painting and turned publican."

This picture is often now attributed to a later painter – Sogliani, 1492-1544.

646. ST. CATHARINE

Unknown (Umbrian School: 15th century).

This, and the companion picture (647), formerly deposited in the South Kensington Museum, were at the time of their purchase (in 1860) from the Beauconsin Collection "ascribed to Ridolfo Ghirlandajo."

647. ST. URSULA

Unknown (Umbrian School: 15th century).

The emblem of her martyrdom, an arrow, is in her right hand.

648. VIRGIN AND CHILD

Lorenzo di Credi (Florentine: 1459-1537). See 593.

A pretty landscape background, with a ruin, and the angel appearing to the shepherds in the distance – the whole charmingly harmonious in its blue-grays. "A pure and simple-minded man, Lorenzo delighted in pure, bright, and simple landscapes, in which one reads something of the gentle Angelico's feeling. Nature with Credi, as with the saint of Fiesole, must show no stain, no trouble, no severity, no sign of the transient. Far be it from him to introduce the jagged ranges that Leonardo reared upon his far, mysterious horizons. No, he must have all that is green and blue, and cheerful" (Gilbert's Landscape in Art, p. 225). With regard to the landscape backgrounds of the Italian painters, Mr. Mackail, in a letter to F. T. Palgrave (Journals and Memories, p. 256), raises the question "whether landscape painting has not lost as well as gained by being elevated from the background into the substance of a picture; whether, that is, the moral or human interest that is essential to all great art can exist in pure landscape painting without putting a greater strain on it than it will bear. Take, for instance, the landscape backgrounds of Lorenzo di Credi's pictures in the National Gallery, or of the great Perugino triptych. Have they not a moral or spiritual quality, as they stand in their place in the picture, that they can only have through this elusive (if one may say so) treatment?"