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

693. ST. CATHERINE OF ALEXANDRIA

Pinturicchio (Umbrian: 1454-1513).

Bernardino di Betto, or the son of Benedetto, was commonly called Pinturicchio, "the little painter." He is not strongly represented in our Gallery. His principal works are the decorated ceiling and frescoes in the Library of Siena, which represent the life of the Pope Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (Pius II.). A drawing of this Library and copies of some of the frescoes are in the Arundel Society's Collection. Pinturicchio, says Symonds, is "a kind of Umbrian Gozzoli, who brings us here and there in close relation to the men of his own time. His wall-paintings in the library of the Cathedral of Siena are so well preserved that we need not seek elsewhere for better specimens of the decorative art most highly prized in the first years of the 16th century. These frescoes have a richness of effect and a vivacity of natural action which, in spite of their superficiality, render them highly charming. The life of Pius II. is treated like a legend. Both Pope and Emperor are romantically conceived, and each portion of the tale is told as though it were a part in some popular ballad. So much remains of Perugian affectation as gives a kind of childlike grace to the studied attitudes and many-coloured groups of elegant young men" (Renaissance, iii. 220). In the foreground of one of the frescoes is a charming figure, supposed to be a portrait of the young Raphael. Vasari states and subsequent writers have repeated that Pinturicchio was assisted in these frescoes by Raphael. This supposition rests on three drawings attributed to Raphael, but now proved to be by Pinturicchio, who bound himself to execute the whole work with his own hand. Morelli's attribution to Pinturicchio of the so-called "Raphael's sketch-book" at Venice is one of the most important of that critic's discoveries. "If (says Morelli) in representing serious religious subjects, he does not come up to Perugino as regards proportion, finish, and the filling of space; if his forms are not so noble, and the expression of religious sentiment not so deep as in Pietro; yet, on the other hand, Pinturicchio is, to my mind, less conscious, more fresh and racy than Perugino, and does not so often fatigue us by monotony and that conventional sweetness which, especially in the productions of his last twenty years, makes Pietro positively wearisome. And, as an imaginative landscape-painter, Pinturicchio surpasses almost all of his contemporaries" (German Galleries, p. 285). Pinturicchio's frescoes at Siena occupied him from 1502 to 1509. He probably studied first under Fiorenzo di Lorenzo (No. 1103); afterwards he entered into partnership with Pietro Perugino. He went to Rome in 1479 and was honoured by commissions from cardinals and popes. Among his works in Rome are frescoes representing the stories of the Virgin and St. Jerome in S. Maria del Popolo; frescoes in the Appartamenti Borgia in the Vatican, and frescoes of S. Bernardino of Siena in the Bufalini Chapel, S. Maria Aracoeli. Morelli attributes to him also two of the frescoes in the Sixtine Chapel (the Baptism of Christ and the History of Moses). In 1500 he commenced the beautiful series of frescoes, now much disfigured, in the collegiate church at Spello (see Arundel Society's copies). That he was held in high esteem by his fellow-citizens is shown by his having been elected in 1501 Decemvir of Perugia in place of Pietro Perugino. Unlike Perugino, he never mastered the use of oil, but painted in tempera. Vasari, who did not like Pinturicchio, describes him as somewhat of a hack, and still more of a lover of money. "Among other qualities he possessed that of giving considerable satisfaction to princes and nobles because he quickly brought the works commanded by them to an end." As for his love of money, he died of vexation, Vasari assures us, "because a certain trunk which he had insisted on being removed from his painting-room in Siena was afterwards found to be full of gold pieces." According, however, to a contemporary writer, his wife left him alone in his house when ill, and he was starved to death.

St. Catherine of Alexandria was of all the female saints next to Mary Magdalene the most popular: she meets us in nearly every room in the National Gallery, and even in London, churches and districts once placed under her protection still retain her name. Her general attributes are a book, a sword, and a wheel. The meaning of these will be seen from the legend of her which crusaders brought from the East. She was the daughter of a queen, and of marvellous wisdom and understanding. And when the time came that she should govern her people, she, shunning responsibility and preferring wisdom before sovereignty, shut herself up in her palace and gave her mind to the study of philosophy. For this wilful seclusiveness her people wished her to marry a husband who should at once fulfil the duties of government and lead them forth to battle. But she, to prevent this repugnant union, made one more spiritual by her mystical marriage with Christ. And for this and other unworldly persistencies, the heathen tyrant Maximin would have broken her on a wheel, but that "fire came down from heaven, sent by the destroying angel of God, and broke the wheel in pieces." Yet for all this the tyrant repented not, and after scourging St. Catherine with rods beheaded her with the sword, and so having won the martyr's palm, she entered into the joy of her Lord.

694. ST. JEROME IN HIS STUDY

School of Giovanni Bellini. 168 See under 189.

Besides translating the Bible, St. Jerome (see 227) is famous as one of the founders of the monastic system, "of the ordered cell and tended garden where before was but the desert and the wild wood," and he died in the monastery he had founded at Bethlehem. This picture shows us the inside of monastic life. St. Jerome, with the scholar's look of quiet satisfaction, is deep in study; his room has no luxury, but is beautiful in its grace and order; the lion, who seems here to be sharing his master's meditation, and the partridge peering into the saint's slippers, speak of the love of the old monks for the lower animals; and the beautiful landscape seen through the open window recalls the sweet nooks which they everywhere chose and tended for their dwelling. The effect of the whole picture is to suggest the peaceful simplicity of the old religious life in contrast to the "getting and spending" with which we now "lay waste our powers."

The picture belongs to what Ruskin has called the "Time of the Masters," who desire only to make everything dainty and delightful. "Everything in it is exquisite, complete, and pure; there is not a particle of dust in the cupboards, nor a cloud in the air; the wooden shutters are dainty, the candlestick is dainty, the saint's blue hat is dainty, and its violet tassel, and its ribbon, and his blue cloak, and his spare pair of shoes, and his little brown partridge – it is all a perfect quintessence of innocent luxury – absolute delight, without one drawback in it, nor taint of the Devil anywhere" (Verona and other Lectures, § 26). For another specimen of this "pictorial perfectness and deliciousness," see 288 (especially the compartment with Raphael and Tobit).

As for the partridge, this is frequently introduced into sacred pictures, especially those of the Venetian School. There is a pretty legend of St. John which perhaps accounts for it, and which makes its introduction very appropriate in the picture of a recluse. St. John had, it is said, a tame partridge, which he cherished much, and amused himself with feeding and tending. A certain huntsman, passing by with his bow and arrows, was astonished to see the great apostle, so venerable for his age and sanctity, engaged in such an amusement. The apostle asked him if he always kept his bow bent. He answered that would be the way to render it useless. "If," replied St. John, "you unbend your bow to prevent its being useless, so do I thus unbend my mind for the same reason" (Mrs. Jameson: Sacred and Legendary Art, p. 100).

695. MADONNA AND CHILD

Andrea Previtali (Bergamese: about 1480-1528).

This painter (whose personality is in some art-histories merged in that of Cordelle Agii, see 1409) was one of Bellini's numerous pupils – a provincial from Bergamo, "a dry, honest, monotonous" painter (see Morelli's German Galleries, pp. 178-181, and under 1203). "As regards technique, Previtali is certainly very eminent; in brilliance of colouring he is not behind any of Bellini's pupils, and the landscapes in the background of his pictures are for the most part neatly and faultlessly executed. But he lacks the main attributes of a great artist – invention and the power of original representation." Whilst painting in Venice, he signed his pictures Andreas Bergomensis; on his return to Bergamo, Andreas Previtalus. His pictures at Bergamo are numerous; the best is the altar-piece in S. Spirito.

A characteristic example of the painter. The figure of the monk in adoration is somewhat hard. The landscape background is pleasant.

696. MARCO BARBARIGO

Unknown (Flemish: 15th century). See also (p. xx)

He was Venetian Consul in London in 1449, and holds in his hand a letter addressed to him there. He was subsequently elected Doge, but died (in 1486), after holding the office for six months. It is recorded of him as Doge that he was a specially mild-tempered and good man – a character which is not belied in this portrait of him in his earlier days. This portrait was formerly ascribed to Gerard van der Meire (see under 1078). It is now by some attributed to Petrus Cristus.

697. PORTRAIT OF A TAILOR

Moroni (Bergamese: 1525-1578).

Giambattista Moroni is one of the greatest of the Italian portrait-painters, and this picture is perhaps his best-known and most popular production.169 The works of Moroni appeal alike to the general public and to the painter. He gave to his figures a vitality and ease, and impressed upon them a verisimilitude which appeal to every spectator. His works (adds Sir F. Burton) "will always be highly estimated by the painter, as they exhibit rare technical merits, perfect knowledge and command of means, facility of execution without display of dexterity, truth of colour, and the finest perception of the value of tones." "No portrait-painter ever placed the epidermis of the human face upon canvas with more fidelity, and with greater truth than Moroni: his portraits have all a more or less prosaic look, but they must all have had that startling likeness to the original which so enchants the great public, who exclaim 'The very man! just how he looks!' And it was with the eyes of the great public that Moroni did look at his subjects; he was not a poet in the true sense of the word, but a consummate painter. Yet, now and then, he manages to go beyond himself, and to pierce the surface till he reaches the soul of the sitter. In such cases his portraits may rank with those of Titian" (Morelli's German Galleries, p. 48). His colouring varied at different periods of his life. For examples of his manner before he came under Il Moretto's influence see 1023 and 1316 – the reddish hue of his flesh-tints being characteristic. In his second period he adopted the "silvery" manner of Il Moretto: seen here and in 1022; whilst for his third, or naturalistic manner see 742. Moroni is a distinguished ornament of the school of Bergamo – a provincial school characterised, says Morelli, by "manly energy," but also by "a certain prosaic want of refinement." See, for other Bergamese painters, Previtali (695) and Cariani (1203). Palma Vecchio, the greatest of them, is represented by the "Portrait of Ariosto," 636. Giambattista Moroni was a painter without honour in his own country, and when people from Bergamo came to Titian to be painted, he used to refer them to their own countryman – no better face painter, he would tell them, existed. Moroni is believed to have entered the studio of Moretto at Brescia when fifteen years of age. His religious pictures are inferior reflections of his master's. Upon one of them, still preserved in the church of Gorlago (between Bergamo and Brescia) he was engaged at the time of his death. No admirer of Moroni should omit to visit Bergamo: a splendid series of his portraits is to be seen in the Carrara gallery of that town. There too, as also in the gallery at Verona, is a pretty portrait by him of a little girl.

A "speaking portrait." "The tailor's picture is so well done," says an old Italian critic, "that it speaks better than an advocate could." A portrait that enables one, moreover, to realise what was once meant by a "worshipful company of merchant tailors." Tagliapanni – for such is his name – is no Alton Locke – no discontented "tailor and poet"; neither is he like some fashionable West-End tailor, with ambitions of rising above his work. He is well-to-do – notice his handsome ring; but he has the shears in his hands. He does the work himself, and he likes the work. He is something of an artist, it would seem, in clothes: his jacket and handsome breeches were a piece of his work, one may suppose; and the artist has caught and immortalised him, as he is standing back for a minute to calculate the effect of his next cut.

698. THE DEATH OF PROCRIS

Piero di Cosimo (Florentine: 1462-1521).

A very characteristic work, and the most interesting of those extant, by Piero, called di Cosimo, after his godfather and master, Cosimo Rosselli. Piero's peculiarities are well known to all readers of George Eliot's Romola, where everything told us about him by Vasari in one of his most amusing chapters is carefully worked up. The first impression left by this picture – its quaintness – is precisely typical of the man. He shut himself off from the world and stopped his ears; lived in the untidiest of rooms, and would not have his garden tended, "preferring to see all things wild and savage about him." He took his meals at times and in ways that no other man did, and Romola used to coax him with sweets and hard-boiled eggs. His fondness for quaint landscape ("he would sometimes stand beside a wall," says Vasari, "and image forth the most extraordinary landscapes that ever were") may be seen in this picture; so also may his love of animals, in which, says Vasari, he took "indescribable pleasure." Piero accompanied his master, Cosimo Rosselli, to Rome in 1480, and painted the landscape to that master's "Sermon on the Mount" in the Sixtine Chapel. He painted several altar-pieces, but his true bent was towards mythological subjects and quaintly decorative treatment. Vasari describes in detail a Carnival triumph devised by Piero. This and the adornment of dwelling-rooms and marriage-chests were the forms in which his fantastic originality found the most congenial expression. He was also a good portrait-painter: No. 895 in this gallery has recently been recognised as his work.

The subjects of Piero's pictures were generally mythological. In Romola he paints Tito and Romola as Bacchus and Ariadne; here he shows the death of Procris, the story in which the ancients embodied the folly of jealousy. For Procris being told that Cephalus was unfaithful, straightway believed the report and secretly followed him to the woods, for he was a great hunter. And Cephalus called upon "aura," the Latin for breeze, for Cephalus was hot after the chase: "Sweet air, O come," and echo answered, "Come, sweet air." But Procris, thinking that he was calling after his mistress, turned to see, and as she moved she made a rustling in the leaves, which Cephalus mistook for the motion of some beast of the forest, and let fly his unerring dart, which Procris once had given him.

But Procris lay among the white wind-flowers,Shot in the throat. From out the little woundThe slow blood drained, as drops in autumn showersDrip from the leaves upon the sodden ground.None saw her die but Lelaps, the swift hound,That watched her dumbly with a wistful fear,Till at the dawn, the hornèd wood-men foundAnd bore her gently on a sylvan bier,To lie beside the sea, – with many an uncouth tear.

Piero's treatment of the theme is, it should be noted, romantic, rather than classical; in which respect his picture is characteristic of the earlier Renaissance. "In creating his Satyr the painter has not had recourse to any antique bas-relief, but has imagined for himself a being half human, half bestial, and yet wholly real; nor has he portrayed in Procris a nymph of Greek form, but a girl of Florence. The strange animals and gaudy flowers introduced into the landscape background further remove the subject from the sphere of classic treatment. Florentine realism and quaint fancy being thus curiously blended, the artistic result may be profitably studied for the light it throws upon the so-called Paganism of the earlier Renaissance. Fancy at that moment was more free than when superior knowledge of antiquity had created a demand for reproductive art, and when the painters thought less of the meaning of the fable for themselves than of its capability of being used as a machine for the display of erudition" (Symonds's Renaissance, iii. 187). Piero seems to have taken his background from Lake Thrasymene.

Piero's poetic fancy in this picture has aroused a responsive echo in the poets of our own day. The lines quoted above are from "The Death of Procris; a version suggested by the so-named picture of Piero di Cosimo in the National Gallery," in Mr. Austin Dobson's Old World Idylls. Another version of the picture may be found in Michael Field's Sight and Song: —

And there she lies half-veiled, half-bare,Deep in the midst of nature that abidesInapprehensive she is lying there,So wan;The flowers, the silver estuary afar —These daisies, plantains, all the white and redField-blossoms through the leaves and grasses spread;The water with its pelican,Its flight of sails and its blue countrysides —Unto themselves they are;The dogs sport on the sand,The herons curve about the reedsOr one by one descend the air,While lifelessly she bleedsFrom throat and dabbled hand.

Mr. Ruskin also has written a piece around our picture, which he reads with a different eye from "Michael Field,"170 seeing in it not so much the inapprehensiveness of nature as the pathetic fallacy whereby the moods of nature are made to sympathise with human joy or sorrow: —

"The next best landscape (to Bellini's 'Peter Martyr') in the National Gallery is a Florentine one on the edge of transition to the Greek feeling; and in that the distance is still beautiful, but misty, not clear; the flowers are still beautiful, but, intentionally, of the colour of blood; and in the foreground lies the dead body of Procris, which disturbs the poor painter greatly; and he has expressed his disturbed mind about it in the figure of a poor little brown (nearly black) Faun, or perhaps the god Faunus himself, who is much puzzled by the death of Procris, and stoops over her, thinking it a woful thing to find her pretty body lying there breathless, and all spotted with blood on the breast" (Lectures on Landscape, § 94).

699. AGOSTINO AND NICCOLO DELLA TORRE

Lorenzo Lotto (Venetian: 1480-1555).

To this great painter full justice has scarcely been done by writers on art – an omission which in recent years Morelli and still more Mr. Berenson, in his elaborate monograph, have sought to repair. Lotto led a wandering life, which took him much away from Venice; hence his pictures are comparatively little known. Again, as Sir F. Burton points out, "great versatility and remarkable impressibility are among the chief characteristics of Lotto, who certainly was possessed of genius but whose development was oscillating and affected by many influences. Only by extremely careful study and comparison can his hand be traced throughout in works, which at first sight exhibit little or nothing in common. Were none of Lotto's works signed or otherwise attested they would certainly bear very various attributions, as indeed many of his unsigned pictures have done, and as it is likely some do still." The portrait, for instance, of Andrea Odoni at Hampton Court was for several centuries attributed to Correggio, but recent cleaning has uncovered Lotto's signature and the date 1527. Of his power as a portrait-painter visitors to the National Gallery can form a good idea. His works in this sort will bear comparison with the best of his contemporaries. They have, says Morelli, "all that refined, inward elegance of feeling which marks the culminating point in the last stage of progressive art in Italy, and which is principally represented by Leonardo da Vinci, Lotto, Andrea del Sarto, and Correggio; whereas the elegance of Bronzino in Tuscany, and of Parmigiano in North Italy, is an outward affected one, which has nothing to do with the inner life of the person represented, and therefore characterises the first stage of declining art." His sympathetic nature enabled him to seize the finer traits of his sitters, and they in turn "look out from his canvasses as if begging for the sympathy" of the spectator. No. 1047 in our Gallery is especially characteristic. Lotto's altar-pieces, which were numerous, must be studied at Treviso, Recanati, Jesi, Bergamo, and Trescorre (frescoes), near the latter place. His pictures at different periods (they are for the most part dated) show strong resemblances to different painters – to Bellini and the Vivarini, to Palma, to Titian, to Giorgione, and to Correggio. He was born at Venice, and, according to Vasari, was a disciple of John Bellini. Mr. Berenson, on the contrary, maintains on internal evidence that Lotto must have belonged to the rival school of Alvise Vivarini. Of Palma, he was, according to Vasari, the friend and companion. With Titian he was on friendly terms, though if we may judge from a letter by Pietro Aretino, the attitude of the worldly Titian coterie to the gentle Lotto, was not unmixed with some contempt. "O Lotto," he writes, "as goodness good, and as talent talented, Titian from Augsburg, in the midst of the high favour everybody is eager to show him, greets and embraces you by the token of the letter which I received from him two days ago. He says that it would double the pleasure that he takes in the emperor's satisfaction with the picture he is now painting, if he had your eye and your judgment to approve him. And indeed, the painter is not mistaken, for your judgment has been formed by age, by nature, and by art, with the prompting of that straightforward kindliness which pronounces upon the works of others exactly as if they were your own. Envy is not in your breast. Rather do you delight to see in other artists certain qualities which you do not find in your own brush, although it performs those miracles which do not come easy to many who yet feel very happy over their technical skill. But holding the second place in the art of painting is nothing compared to holding the first place in the duties of religion, for Heaven will recompense you with a glory that passes the praise of this world. – Venice, April 1548." The resemblance between Lotto and Correggio was founded on no personal intercourse or artistic "influence," but on similarity of temperament. It is most conspicuous in the works of Lotto's "Bergamask period" (1518-1526). But whereas Correggio's sensitiveness is to impressions of outward joy and beauty, Lotto's is attuned rather to states of the human soul. Titian's sitters, it has been well said, are as if on parade, and his religious pictures tell of the pomp or rapture of public services. Lotto's sitters commune rather with their own souls, and in his devotional pieces he aims at a personal interpretation of religious motives. "As a colourist," says Burton, "Lotto remained throughout a Venetian. His flesh tints are true, and various as the age, sex, and temperament of the persons depicted." All that we know of his life suggests a reserved, sensitive, and unworldly nature. Unlike so many of his contemporaries, he never sued the favour of the mighty. In his account book recently discovered at Loreto he speaks again and again of having done excellent work for people who remunerated him with pence where if a contract had been made they would have had to pay him in pounds. He lodged sometimes with friends, sometimes with monks. His life was that of a lonely wanderer, very industrious, but laying up no store. In 1554 he made over himself and all his belongings to the Holy House at Loreto, "being tired of wandering and wishing to end his days in that holy place." During the last years of his life he had almost entirely lost his voice. In one of his wills is a reference which shows us the temperament of the man. Among his scanty possessions were a number of antique gems. These he speaks of lovingly, because they were engraved with mystic symbols for the spirit to brood upon (see Lorenzo Lotto: an Essay in Constructive Criticism, by Bernhard Berenson, 1895; and Morelli's German Galleries, pp. 31-40; Roman Galleries, p. 301).