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A Popular Handbook to the National Gallery, Volume I, Foreign Schools
1157. THE NATIVITY
Bernardo Cavallino (Neapolitan: 1622-1654).This painter was a pupil of Massimo Stanzioni (a rival of Spagnoletto), and showed such ability that "at first he created a jealous feeling in Massimo himself. Finding afterwards that his talent lay more in small figures than in large, he pursued that department and became very celebrated in his school. In the galleries of the Neapolitan nobility are to be seen by him, on canvas and copper, subjects both sacred and profane. Life was alone wanting to him, which he unfortunately shortened by his irregularities" (Lanzi, ii. 41).
A characteristic work in the "naturalistic" manner.
1159. THE CALLING OF ABRAHAM
Gaspard Poussin (French: 1613-1675). See 31.A very impressive picture in spite of the somewhat grotesque angel who accosts Abraham and points him to the Almighty seated in the clouds above (Genesis xii.). And indeed it is in his skies that Gaspard points us to the Infinite – in the open sky, stretching far away into that yellow horizon. To what does this strange distant space owe its attractive power?
"There is one thing that it has, or suggests, which no other object of sight suggests in equal degree, and that is – Infinity… For the sky of night, though we may know it boundless, is dark; it is a studded vault, a roof that seems to shut us in and down; but the bright distance has no limit – we feel its infinity, as we rejoice in its purity of light… Of the value of this mode of treatment (i. e. the rendering of open sky) there is a farther and more convincing proof than its adoption either by the innocence of the Florentine or the ardour of the Venetian, namely, that when retained or imitated from them by the landscape painters of the seventeenth century, when appearing in isolation from all other good, among the weaknesses and paltrinesses of Claude, the mannerisms of Gaspar, and the caricatures and brutalities of Salvator, it yet redeems and upholds all three, conquers all foulness by its purity, vindicates all folly by its dignity, and puts an uncomprehended power of permanent address to the human heart upon the lips of the senseless and the profane"228 (Modern Painters, vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. i. ch. v. §§ 5, 12).
1160. THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI
School of Giorgione (Venetian: early 16th century). See 269. See also (p. xx)This picture – ascribed by Morelli and others to Catena (see 234) – is by some connected with the name of Giorgione. It displays, says Sir Edward Poynter, "the qualities which we should expect to find in a picture by Giorgione, and does not seem so far removed from the only absolutely authenticated work by him – the altar-piece at Castelfranco – as to make it impossible to attribute it to his hand. In qualities of drawing and composition it is superior to what we know of the work of Catena" (The National Gallery, i. 23). "The figures are Bellinesque, yet with that added touch of delicacy and refinement which Giorgione always knows how to impart. The richness of colouring, the depth of tone, the glamour of the whole, is far superior to anything we can point to with certainty as Catena's work; and no finer example of his 'Giorgionesque' phase is to be found than the sumptuous 'Warrior adoring the Infant Christ' (234) which hangs close by. Catena's work seems cold and studied beside the warmth and spontaneity of Giorgione's little panel" (Herbert Cook's Giorgione, p. 54). "Whoever painted it, it is worth many much larger canvases. The simple, flowing cast of the drapery, the general scheme of colour, and the quality of individual tints, such as the mellow yellow shaded with red, and the greenish-blue of the Virgin's mantle, are not like what I know of Catena. The lively, well-drawn child, with its supple limbs; the faces of the women, with full faces, short noses, and square jaws; the straight-necked horses, and many other things in this charming picture, – seem to me to proclaim a distinct, if unknown, master. Above all things distinct, perhaps, is the particular tone of reverence – naïve, quiet, but deep – that pervades the picture, a feeling which can scarcely have been imitated, but must have proceeded from the very character of the painter himself" (Monkhouse, In the National Gallery, p. 224).
1165. ST. HIPPOLYTUS AND ST. CATHERINE
Il Moretto (Brescian: 1498-1555). See 299.Two saints who were not divided in the manner of their martyrdom, and who are united therefore on the painter's canvas. Each holds the martyr's palm. St. Catherine places her left hand on the hilt of a sword – the instrument by which she was ultimately beheaded, whilst her foot rests upon the wheel on which she was to have been torn to death, had not an angel from heaven broken it. St. Hippolytus's death was not unlike that which had been devised for St. Catherine. He is clad in armour, for he was the soldier stationed as guard over St. Lawrence (see 747), but he is represented as bareheaded, and with his face upturned in reverence, for that "he was so moved by that illustrious martyr's invincible courage and affectionate exhortations that he became a Christian with all his family." Wherefore he was tied to the tails of wild horses and torn to death. On the fragment of stone in the foreground is an inscription in Latin, telling by what death the two saints glorified God – "Membris dissolvi voluerunt ne vinculis divellerentur aeternis: " they chose to be torn limb by limb rather than by renouncing their faith to be thus torn hereafter by eternal chains. The members of the body are the chains of the soul, and the martyrs freed themselves from temporary fetters rather than submit to the fetters of everlasting punishment.
1166. THE CRUCIFIXION
Antonello da Messina (Venetian: 1444-1493). See 673.Signed, and dated 1477, two years later than the very similar picture at Antwerp. Notice the harmonious colouring, and the expression of abandon and lassitude, following more poignant grief, in the Virgin's attitude, with her arms falling down on each knee. "The subject was never more truly felt, and the little figure of the Virgin at the foot of the cross contains in it an expression of concentrated grief I never saw equalled. The eyes are shut, the hands simply rest on the knees, but this very simplicity gives it a truth which far surpasses the extravagant attitudes of the later painters" (from a letter by Louisa, Lady Waterford, from whom the picture was purchased in 1884; see Hare's The Story of Two Noble Lives, iii. 77). This picture shows, says Mr. Gilbert, "the dawning loveliness of Venetian colour, as distinguished from the vivid beauty of the early Flemish. Instead of the minute definition of every object characteristic of the Van Eyck School, we find, spread over a scene of the utmost simplicity, a delicious silvery haze, melting into the warm tones of a shadowless foreground. In this small picture we may see already what Venice owed to Flanders – how Venice would enrich the gift" (Landscape in Art, p. 311).
1168. PORTRAIT OF A JESUIT
Willem van der Vliet (Dutch: 1584-1642).Works by this artist are rare and very little known. He belonged to Delft – a town as active in painting as in pottery. This picture is signed and dated 1631.
An admirable portrait. The Jesuit father, here depicted with so much quiet truth and skill, is a good representative of the great order which had at that time saved the Papacy. He is a student, but the crucifix is ever on his books. "The Jesuits appear," says Macaulay, "to have discovered the precise point to which intellectual culture can be carried without risk of intellectual emancipation." But he turns round from his book and looks with a smile of tender sadness on the spectator – he is ready to read your heart and to give you sympathy in return for confidences.
1169. MRS. ROBERT HOLLOND
Ary Scheffer (French-Dutch: 1795-1858).An artist who once enjoyed a great vogue (a version of this picture was bought in 1845 by the ex-Queen of the French for £1000), and whose pictures are historically interesting for their extraordinary absence of the colour-sense. Ary Scheffer's pictures, says Ruskin (Academy Notes, 1858, p. 40), are designed "on the assumption that the noblest ideal of colour is to be found in dust," and what he said in 1846 of the German School is equally true of Ary Scheffer:229 "Brightness of colour is altogether inadmissible without purity and harmony; and the sacred painters must not be followed in their frankness of unshadowed colour, unless we can also follow them in its clearness. As far as I am acquainted with the modern schools of Germany, they seem to be entirely ignorant of the value of colour as an assistant of feeling, and to think that hardness, dryness, and opacity are its virtues as employed in religious art; whereas I hesitate not to affirm that in such art, more than in any other, clearness, luminousness, and intensity of hue are essential to right impression" (Modern Painters, vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. ii. ch. v. § 15). Ary Scheffer, whose father was court painter at Amsterdam, was born at Dordrecht. On the death of his father in 1809 his mother removed to Paris, and he became a pupil of Pierre Guérin. In 1826 he became drawing master in the Orleans family, and for the rest of his life he was attached to them. In 1830, in company with Thiers, he brought Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans, to Paris; in 1848 he helped the king to fly, and went with him to Brussels. The events of the next few years shocked him so much that for a time he "could neither paint, eat, nor sleep," and he ceased altogether to exhibit. His best known works are "Paolo and Francesca" (1822), and "Dante and Beatrice" (1839). The former of these sold in 1842 for over £2000; but at the posthumous exhibition of his works, held shortly after his death, his reputation suffered greatly, and at subsequent sales the prices paid for his pictures went down with a rush. Their sentimentality made them popular for a while, but it could not save them from the condemnation due to their commonness of thought and poverty of colour.
A portrait of the lady – an English resident in Paris, and a friend of Ary Scheffer – who sat to him for St. Monica. The two pictures were bequeathed to the Gallery by her husband.
1170. ST. AUGUSTINE AND ST. MONICA
Ary Scheffer (French-Dutch: 1795-1858).To illustrate the popularity which Ary Scheffer enjoyed forty years ago, it may be interesting to cite what Mrs. Jameson said of this picture: "I saw in the atelier of the painter, Ary Scheffer, in 1845, an admirable picture of St. Augustine and his mother Monica. The two figures, not quite full-length, are seated; she holds his hand in both hers, looking up to heaven with an expression of enthusiastic undoubting faith; – 'the son of so many tears cannot be cast away!' He also is looking up with an ardent, eager, but anxious, doubtful expression, which seems to say, 'Help thou my unbelief.' For profound and truthful feeling and significance, I know few things in the compass of modern art that can be compared to this picture" (Sacred and Legendary Art, 1850, p. 186).
1171. THE "ANSIDEI MADONNA."
Raphael (Urbino: 1483-1520).The genius of Raphael Santi (or Raffaello Sanzio, as the modern Italians write his name) is an example of the force alike of hereditary transmission of gifts and of surrounding circumstances. He was the second son (born April 6) of Giovanni Santi (see 751), a painter and poet of Urbino. The son inherited the father's aptitude for painting; but as Giovanni died when Raphael was only eleven, the boy's actual teacher was Timoteo Viti, of whom there is a portrait in chalks by Raphael in the British Museum. The young Raphael's hereditary gifts were nurtured by the artistic atmosphere in which he lived. Urbino, the Athens of Umbria, was at this time one of the chief centres of artistic and intellectual life in Italy; the ducal palace contained a fine collection of pictures both by Italian and Flemish painters. Amongst the latter were some by Van Eyck, and it is perhaps to this influence that we may attribute the miniature-like care of Raphael's earliest work, which is conspicuous in the "Vision of a Knight," and may be seen again in the jewel painting here. An intense power of assimilation – of learning all things from all men – characterised Raphael throughout his life, and is one of the main causes of the width of range and catholicity of taste to which he owes his universal popularity. Thus when he went (probably not before 1500) to study under Perugino, he so quickly assimilated the style of that master that he has been credited with some of the design and even of the work in Perugino's masterpiece, just as some of his pictures were, says Vasari, mistaken for Perugino's. In 1504 he went to Florence, which was his headquarters for the next four years. He at once took a leading part in the artistic fraternity there, and put one great artist after another under contribution for some special power of drawing, beauty of colour, or grace of composition. Thus from Signorelli and Michelangelo he learnt to study the human form; it was at Florence, says Vasari, that Raphael began to study the nude and to make anatomical drawings from dissected corpses. From Leonardo da Vinci (sketches from whom by Raphael may be seen at Oxford) he learnt soft beauty of expression, and it is to this master's influence perhaps that the smile of his Madonnas may be traced. In 1508 Raphael was invited by the Pope Julius II. to Rome, and there he spent the greater part of his life – painting, besides innumerable altar-pieces and cabinet pictures, his famous cartoons and frescoes. And yet he was only thirty-seven when he died. His time was partly occupied too with portraiture, in which he excelled. In 1514 he accepted the responsible office of architect of St. Peter's, left vacant by the death of his friend Bramante. A year later he was installed as director of the excavations then in progress among the ruins of ancient Rome, and flung himself into the work with devoted ardour. In the heavy and multifarious work thus crowded upon him, Raphael employed many assistants, among whom were Giulio Romano, Giovanni da Udine, and Perino del Vaga, and in some of the pictures of his Roman period the master's own hand executed little more than the finishing touches. All that we know of Raphael's private life and character reflects that innate love of beauty which fused all he borrowed into something of his own. "All were surpassed by him," says Vasari, "in friendly courtesy as well as in art; all confessed the influence of his sweet and gracious disposition, which was so replete with excellence and so perfect in all the charities, that not only was he honoured by men but even by the very animals, who would constantly follow his steps and always loved him." In morals he was pure, and might indeed be called almost immaculate, judged by the lax standard of his age. The Cardinal Bibiena designed his niece for Raphael, but —
Rafael made a century of sonnets,Made and wrote them in a certain volumeDinted with the silver-pointed pencilElse he only used to draw Madonnas:These, the world might view – but one, the volume.Who that one, you ask? Your heart instructs you.He lived a painter among princes – "a model," says Vasari, "of how we should comport ourselves towards great men," but also a prince among painters – jealous of none, kindly to all. "Whenever any other painter, whether known to him or not, requested any assistance, he would invariably leave his work to do him service; and his school – consisting of some fifty painters, all men of ability and distinction – continued in such unity and concord that all harsh feelings and evil dispositions became subdued and disappeared at the sight of him." And so when he died – having impaired his constitution by a life of ceaseless toil – Rome went into a paroxysm of grief, and flocked, as he lay in state, to catch a last sight of the "divine painter." He died on his birthday, April 6, and was buried in the Pantheon with great solemnities.
With regard to Raphael's position in the history of art, it is important to distinguish between his different "periods," which correspond, as will be seen, with the divisions of his life. The National Gallery is fortunate in having specimens of all the periods, and the importance of the pictures from this point of view is noted under the several numbers, but it may be convenient to summarise the matter briefly here. (1) First, or Perugian period, down to 1504 – which again may perhaps be subdivided as explained under 213. During this period his works closely resemble Perugino's – the most typical of them are the "Sposalizio," at Milan, copied from Perugino's painting of the same subject, now at Caen; and the "Crucifixion," in Mr. L. Mond's Collection, of which Vasari says: "If it were not for the name of Raphael written upon it, it would be supposed by every one to be a work of Pietro Perugino." (2) Second, or Florentine period: 1504-1508. To this period belong the "Madonna del Granduca" at Florence, "La Belle Jardinière" at the Louvre, and in this country the Madonna at Lord Cowper's (Panshanger), the Bridgewater Madonna (929), the St. Catherine (168), and this "Ansidei Madonna." The importance of this picture in the history of art is that it shows the transition from the first to the second period, being dated (on the border of the Virgin's robe below her left arm) MDVI, 1506. A glance at the Perugino No. 288 will show how much of that master's influence remains. "To his earlier Perugian manner we ascribe," says Waagen (Treasures of Art in Great Britain, iii. 128), "the head of the Virgin, which, however, is the most beautiful and noble development of this whole style, the rather too round body of the otherwise very lovely child, the expression of ardent yearning in St. John, as well as the position of his feet, resembling that of St. Joseph in the 'Sposalizio,' the cast of the draperies of the Virgin and St. Nicholas, the use of several colours which have turned very dark, such as the blue in the robe of the Virgin, the green in the canopy, in the upper garment of St. Nicholas, and in the landscape, and the use of gold in the hems, in the glories, in the two Greek borders, and in the inscription SALVE MATER CHRISTI on the wooden throne." Another point of special value in this picture is that, like the Sistine Madonna, it is entirely by Raphael's own hand, no pupil or assistant having touched it. (3) Third, or Roman period, 1508-1520. The chief works of this period are the frescoes in the Vatican. But in this country there are the famous cartoons (at South Kensington), and in the National Gallery the portrait of Julius II. (27), and the Garvagh Madonna (744). The characteristics of this period are, besides the perfection of executive power, the substitution of classical for religious motive, and the straining after dramatic effect.
From the technical point of view, this division into three (or four) periods is instructive, but from the point of view of motive a better division is that between his earlier and his later work, the turning-point being his arrival in Rome. "In his twenty-fifth year," says Ruskin (Edinburgh Lectures on Architecture and Painting, p. 213), "one half-year only past the precise centre of his available life, he was sent for to Rome, to decorate the Vatican for Pope Julius II., and having until that time worked exclusively in the ancient and stern mediæval manner, he, in the first chamber which he decorated in that palace, wrote upon its walls the Mene, Tekel, Upharsin of the arts of Christianity. And he wrote it thus: On one wall of that chamber he placed a picture of the World or Kingdom of Theology, presided over by Christ. And on the side wall of that same chamber he placed the World or Kingdom of Poetry, presided over by Apollo. And from that spot, and from that hour, the intellect and the art of Italy date their degradation… And it was brought about in great part by the very excellences of the man who had thus marked the commencement of decline. The perfection of execution and the beauty of feature which were attained in his works, and in those of his greatest contemporaries, rendered finish of execution and beauty of form the chief objects of all artists; and thenceforward execution was looked for rather than thought, and beauty rather than veracity… The mediæval principles led up to Raphael, and the modern principles lead down from him." The position of Raphael in the history of art is thus closely parallel to that of his great contemporary Michael Angelo (see 790). In Michael Angelo the art of Florence reached its culmination and fell rapidly to Giulio Romano and Venusti. In Raphael the art of Umbria was perfected and led down to the conventional sentimentalities against which the "Pre-Raphaelites" have in modern times revolted.
The "Ansidei Madonna," so called from having been painted for the Ansidei family at Perugia,230 was bought from the Duke of Marlborough by the nation for £70,000 – more than three times the highest price ever before paid for a picture, and equal to more than £14 per square inch. The importance of the picture to the student has been partly described above; but to this must be added its unusual size and excellent state of preservation, and the fact that whilst on the one hand the National Gallery had before no chef d'œuvre of Raphael, the number of such works not already placed in foreign galleries was very small.231 On its own merits the "Ansidei Madonna" is by common consent one of the most perfect pictures in the world. It has all the essentials of the greatest art. First it is "wrought in entirely consistent and permanent materials. The gold is represented by painting, not laid on with real gold, and the painting is so secure that nearly four hundred years have produced in it no harmful change." "The exquisite purity of the colour and the silvery and luminous quality of its tones"232 are as remarkable to-day as they must have been when the panel left the painter's easel. Secondly, "the figures are in perfect peace. Those are the two first attributes of the best art. Faultless workmanship and perfect serenity; a continuous, not momentary, action, or entire inaction; you are to be interested, in the living creatures, not in what is happening to them. Then the third attribute of the best art is that it compels you to think of the spirit of the creature, and therefore of its face, more than of its body. And the fourth is that in the face you shall be led to see only beauty or joy – never vileness, vice, or pain" (Relation between Michael Angelo and Tintoret, pp. 14, 15). In fulfilling these essentials of the highest art, the picture becomes also one of the noblest embodiments of Christianity. Raphael is above all the painter of motherhood and childhood – of the self-forgetting love of the one, and the fearless faith of the other – the human relationship which of all others is the most divine. On either side are two saints – types both of them of the peace of Christianity. In the figure of St. John the Baptist on the left – with his rough camel skin upon him, and an expression of ecstatic contemplation on his face – the joy that comes from a life of self-sacrifice is made manifest; in that of the good Bishop Nicholas of Bari, the peace that comes from knowledge. The three balls at his feet are a favourite emblem of the saint; typical partly of the mystery of the Trinity, but referring also to the three purses of gold which he is said to have thrown into a poor man's window that his daughters might not be portionless. Further we may notice how the same impression of infinite peace is conveyed by the landscape, and especially by the open sky visible on either side of the throne. This open sky "is of all visible things the least material, the least finite, the farthest withdrawn from the earth prison-house, the most typical of the nature of God, the most suggestive of the glory of His dwelling-place. For the sky of night, though we may know it boundless, is dark; it is a studded vault, a roof that seems to shut us in and down; but the bright distance has no limit: we feel its infinity, as we rejoice in its purity of light" (Modern Painters, vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. i. ch. v. § 5).233
