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

It has been said above that the Ansidei Madonna is "by common consent one of the most perfect pictures in the world." Criticisms which have been published since its acquisition by the National Gallery require that statement to be modified. Thus, Mr. G. A. Storey, R.A., in the course of a public lecture, has remarked that "as compared with Raphael's other works, the Ansidei Madonna lacked the touch of nature, the play and harmony that were characteristic of the master. All the heads were looking in the same direction, and the figure of the Virgin was scarcely graceful. Nor was there the unity necessary to a complete composition, for each figure seemed unconnected with the rest, and, indeed, they seemed to be almost unconscious of each other's existence." Mr. Ford Madox Brown (Magazine of Art, Feb. 1890) is more severe still. "The Bishop saint of Bari," he says, "is certainly a fine figure, worthy of the master it is attributed to. The Virgin and Child, however, are for sentiment just like two wax doll lay figures, making it hard to conceive how the same mighty hand can have produced anything so tame; while the figure of the Baptist, with ill-drawn legs, is positively repulsive both for pose and for expression of countenance. Surely Raphael could have had no hand in it." Mr. Pater, on the other hand, commends the Ansidei Madonna to students of Raphael as more worthy of admiration than any other work of the master: "I find there, at first sight, with something of the pleasure one has in a proposition of Euclid, a sense of the power of the understanding, in the economy with which he has reduced his material to the simplest terms. He is painting in Florence, but for Perugia, and sends it a specimen of its own old art – Mary and the babe enthroned, with St. Nicholas and the Baptist in attendance on either side. The kind of thing people there had already seen so many times, but done better, in a sense not to be measured by degrees, with a wholly original freedom and life and grace, though he perhaps is unaware, done better as a whole, because better in every minute particular, than ever before. The scrupulous scholar, aged twenty-three, is now indeed a master, but still goes carefully. Note, therefore, how much mere exclusion counts for in the positive effect of his work. There is a saying that the true artist is known best by what he omits. Yes, because the whole question of good taste is involved precisely in such jealous omission. Note this, for instance, in the familiar Apennine background, with its blue hills and brown towns, faultless, for once – for once only – and observe, in the Umbrian pictures around, how often such background is marred by grotesque natural, or architectural detail, by incongruous or childish incident. In this cool, pearl-gray, quiet place, where colour tells for double, – the jewelled cope, the painted book in the hand of Mary, the chaplet of red coral, – one is reminded that among all classical writers Raphael's preference was for the faultless Virgil. How orderly, how divinely clean and sweet the flesh, the vesture, the floor, the earth and sky! Ah, say rather the hand, the method of the painter! There is an unmistakable pledge of strength, of movement and animation in the cast of the Baptist's countenance, but reserved, repressed. Strange, Raphael has given him a staff of transparent crystal. Keep, then, to that picture as the embodied formula of Raphael's genius. Amid all he has here already achieved, full, we may think, of the quiet assurance of what is to come, his attitude is still that of the scholar; he seems still to be saying, before all things, from first to last, 'I am utterly purposed that I will not offend'" (Miscellaneous Studies, p. 53).

1172. CHARLES THE FIRST

Van Dyck (Flemish: 1599-1641). See 49.

This famous picture was one of many equestrian portraits of Charles I. which Van Dyck painted at his court. It is, however, unique among them. In all the others, – the Windsor picture, the replica at Hampton Court, and the pictures in the Earl of Warwick's and the Marquis of Lothian's Collections, the king faces the spectator, and rides, as it were, straight out of the picture, the horse being white. The size, proportions, and composition of this picture are different. The horse is dun-coloured, and the king is seen in profile. A small picture at Buckingham Palace was probably the original design or sketch of it. It was sold after Charles's death for £150 by the Parliament, and in 1885 was bought by another Parliament – from the Duke of Marlborough – for the great price of £17,500 (see under 1171).

It is a courtier's portrait of the idol of the cavaliers – a portrait of the good side of a bad king. Notice first the prominence given to the noble horse (cf. under 156), almost to the point of clumsiness. Then in Charles himself, note the stately bearing, the personal dignity, the almost feminine refinement. It is a portrait of personal courage – with no suspicion of any fatal want of presence of mind; of dignity – with the obstinacy, which was its reverse side, left out. In such a portrait "of a Cavalier by a Cavalier" Van Dyck's work is invested with an enduring pathos for all Englishmen. One remembers only, in looking upon this picture of him, Charles's graces, not his faults. One thinks of him as the man who "nothing common did, nor mean, upon that memorable scene." And so considered, how eloquent becomes the isolation in which the painter has here left him. With him, indeed, is Sir Thomas Morton, his equerry, but the king does not see him. Bareheaded he sits, gazing into futurity.

1173. AN UNKNOWN SUBJECT

School of Giorgione (Venetian: 16th Century). See 269.

Another picture of the golden age (cf. 1123) such as Giorgione, we are told, loved to paint, – "men and women enjoying the golden tranquillity; here is seen the haughty lion, there the humble lamb; in another part we behold the swift flying hart, with many other terrestrial animals." The picture before us precisely agrees with this general description, but the particular subject of it is unknown.234 A child, it would seem, is being initiated into some order of the golden age – he is being dedicated, perhaps, to a life of song, for the stately personage on the throne wears the poet's crown of wild olive, whilst the young man on the steps below him lightly touches a lute, and has books by his side. The page bears a rich dish of fruits and herbs, for the golden age is vegetarian; whilst fawns and a leopard, with a peacock and other birds, attend the court of the king of song. When in the Bohn Collection, this picture was ascribed to Giorgione. For some interesting remarks on its possible authorship and subject, see the Times, December 22, 1885, where resemblances in this picture to pictures of Carpaccio and Pordenone, as well as of Giorgione, are pointed out. Sir Edward Poynter says that the picture "has considerable affinity with the two pictures attributed to Giorgione in the Uffizzi Gallery at Florence, but is weaker in execution and effect, especially in the landscape" (The National Gallery, i. 26). "True," says Mr. Herbert Cook, "the landscape has been renovated; true, the Giorgionesque depth and richness is gone, the mellow glow of the 'Epiphany' (1160) is sadly wanting; but who can deny the charm of the picturesque scenery, which vividly recalls the landscape background elsewhere in the master's own work? who can fail to admire the natural and unstudied grouping of the figures, the artlessness of the whole, the loving simplicity with which the painter has done his work? Sincerity and naïveté are too apparent for this to be the work of any but a quite young artist, and one whose style is so thoroughly 'Giorgionesque' as to be none other than the young Giorgione himself. In my opinion, this is one of his earliest essays into the region of romance, painted probably before his twenty-first year" (Giorgione, p. 92).

1188. THE BETRAYAL OF CHRIST

1189. THE PROCESSION TO CALVARY

Ugolino (Sienese: died 1339).

Ugolino was one of the founders of the Sienese School. So great was his reputation that he was unanimously chosen by the Florentines, in preference to their own artists, to paint the altar-pieces of their two great churches; whilst another picture that he painted for them was credited with miraculous powers. These little pictures are portions of the one painted by him for the high altar of Sta. Croce. "He always adhered," says Vasari (i. 138), "in great part to the Greek manner, as one who, having grown old in that method, was induced by a sort of obstinacy to follow the manner of Cimabue, rather than that of Giotto." The points which have been already noticed as characteristic of his contemporary, Duccio (see 566), may be traced equally in Ugolino.

Notice in 1188 that the disciples are not mere conventional types, but that an attempt is made to give them each an individuality, and to express their characters on their faces. The same expressions may be noticed again in 1189. It is interesting, too, to observe how the first attempts of painting (as of poetry) to express action were epic, rather than dramatic. The painter tries to tell the whole story at once; here is Judas giving the traitor's kiss, there is Peter cutting off the ear of the high priest's servant, and beside them are all the other characters of the story (cf. under 579). As art advances, it becomes on the other hand dramatic; the painter seizes on the essential point and makes his picture out of that. The difference may be seen by contrasting Ugolino's picture with one of the same subject at Florence by Giotto, which Ruskin thus describes: "See what choice Giotto made of his moments. Plenty of choice for him – in pain. The Flagellation – the Mocking – the Bearing the Cross; all habitually given by the Margheritones, and their school, as extremes of pain. 'No,' thinks Giotto. 'There was worse than all that. Many a good man has been mocked, spitefully entreated, spitted on, slain. But who was ever so betrayed?' … He paints the laying hands on him in the garden, but with only two principal figures – Judas and Peter, of course: Judas and Peter were always principal in the old Byzantine composition, – Judas giving the kiss, Peter cutting off the servant's ear. But the two are here not merely principal, but almost alone in sight, all the other figures thrown back; and Peter is not at all concerned about the servant, or his struggle with him. He has got him down, but looks back suddenly at Judas giving the kiss. 'What! —you are the traitor, then – you!' 'Yes,' says Giotto; 'and you, also, in an hour more'" (Mornings in Florence, ii. 41).

1190. A BOY'S PORTRAIT

Ascribed to Clouet (French: about 1510-1572). See 660.

This picture was presented to the Gallery by Mr. G. F. Watts, R.A., and it is interesting to note the sage-green background which Mr. Watts has himself sometimes employed.

1192, 1193. SKETCHES FOR ALTAR-PIECES

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (Venetian: 1692-1769).

Tiepolo, one of the leaders in the revival of Venetian art (see under 1100), was the Paul Veronese of the eighteenth century. "Living," says Sir F. Burton, "in the era of periwig in art as a dress, he was at a sore disadvantage as compared with his great prototype of the sixteenth century; but he steered a pretty clear course between vapid classicality and buckram fashion. Gifted with a brilliant fancy, and master of all the resources of his art, Tiepolo formed a style which, whatever its shortcomings, is splendidly decorative. In his easel pictures, he is at his very best. Here he was not tempted by vast surfaces into that looseness of composition and hastiness of execution that often lessen the value of his frescoes; here, therefore, he could indulge his feeling for compact architectonic arrangement, display force of harmonious colour, and exercise a brilliant method of handling akin to that of Paul Veronese." Tiepolo worked for most of his life at Venice; but went also to execute commissions at Milan, Wurzburg (where his paintings in the Archbishop's Palace may still be seen), and Madrid, in which latter city he died. Of his frescoes at Venice the finest are those of "Antony and Cleopatra" in the Palazzo Labia. Copies of these are in the Arundel Society's Collection.

"Touched in with all the brilliant, flashing, dexterous bravura of the last of the rear-guard of the Venetians. The pictorial art of Venice finished with Tiepolo, and it seemed as if he was resolved that it should not die ignominiously, for in spirit and gaiety he was little inferior to Veronese himself. He had not the stronger qualities of his model; Veronese's grasp of character, his air of nobility, his profound and imaginative harmonies of colour, are wanting in the eighteenth century painter" (Times, December 22, 1885).

1194. CHRIST DRIVING OUT THE TRADERS

Marcello Venusti (Florentine: 1515-1579).

Venusti, a native of Como, was a pupil of Perino del Vaga, but best known as assistant to Michelangelo, of whose works he supplied copies with variations to suit different patrons. In the oil copy of "The Last Judgment," now at Naples, he introduced in the left-hand corner a portrait of the master himself. He was also employed to put into colour designs made by Michelangelo.

There are drawings by Michelangelo in the British Museum for the figures in this composition. Notice how everything is sacrificed to violent action and contorted position – the money-changers whom Christ is driving out of the Temple are composed as it were for a ballet of limbs. Notice also the "debased" architectural background – the absurdly distorted pillars with their puerile capitals.

1195. THE BIRTH OF VENUS

Rubens (Flemish: 1577-1640). See 38.

A finished study for a salver which was executed in silver for Charles I.

"The central oval shows a goddess borne along and attended on the surface of the waves by nymphs and tritons; sea gods and goddesses, riding on aquatic monsters, disport themselves in the broad flat border surrounding the central panel. Rubens may be said to have here surpassed himself in those qualities of movement and brilliant execution in which he was unrivalled. His form, often florid in contour, although always supple, has here a grace and beauty entirely in harmony with the classic theme, and the personages are inspired with that immortal gaiety which has so rarely found expression, save in the work of the master's contemporary, our national poet, since it vanished at the final decay of Greek art and literature. Of a piece with the delightful imaginative qualities so prodigally lavished on the present panel is the truly marvellous execution. The hand has played over the surface with a lightness and delicacy surprising even to those familiar with the touch of the master in his first sketches for important compositions. The method employed is simple and direct; the figures have been outlined in pen and ink, then a general glaze has been spread over the entire surface, on which the forms were modelled in white and gray, the ultimate result being a warm silvery tone" (Times, December 22, 1885).

This design, which was sold at the Hamilton sale (1882) for £1680, was bought for the nation three years later at the Beckett Denison sale for £672.

1196. A COMBAT BETWEEN LOVE AND CHASTITY

Unknown (Florentine School; 15th Century).

Probably by some unknown disciple of Botticelli. Formerly ascribed to Botticelli himself – an ascription which, owing to the absence of that master's predominating facial type, as well as to the accuracy of landscape such as he never attempted, has now been abandoned. But the exquisite workmanship – visible only in a good light – of the shield and the quiver indicates the hand of one of the goldsmith painters, whilst the allegorical invention and the atmosphere of imaginative poetry have "the true Botticellian ring" (see Times, December 22, 1885; see also Morelli's Borghese Gallery, p. 87 n.). The picture is one of a series which were probably painted for furniture-panels. The one giving the sequel to our story, and representing Chastity on a triumphal car, with Love sitting bound in front, is in the Turin Gallery.

Chastity clothed only in white innocence is assailed by Love. She receives his arrows on a shield of polished steel; the points of the arrows break and burst forth into tiny golden flames – each temptation only causing the sacred fire of Chastity to burn more brightly. The scene is laid in a romantic landscape where everything is pure and beautiful. The field is enamelled with flowers —

Where the virgins are soft as the roses they twine;And all, save the spirit of man, is divine.

Beyond, in the bend of a river, two swans float on its tranquil surface: a tall oak sapling rises straight and firm, and over all rests a clear blue sky. The picture recalls the scene in Milton's Comus—

My sister is not so defenceless leftAs you may imagine; she has a hidden strength,Which you remember not.Second Brother. What hidden strength,Unless the strength of Heaven, if you mean that?First Brother. I mean that too, but yet a hidden strengthWhich, if Heaven gave it, may be term'd her own.'Tis Chastity, my brother, Chastity;She that has that, is clad in complete steel.

1199. MADONNA AND CHILD

Unknown (Florentine: 15th Century). See also (p. xxi)

On the right is St. John; on the left an angel crowned with a chaplet of roses and bearing the annunciation lily. Notice that the frame ornamented with modelled stucco forms part of the picture, and is indeed part of the same panel.

1200, 1201. GROUPS OF SAINTS

Macrino d'Alba (Lombard: about 1470-1528).

Macrino was born at Alba in Piedmont. "There is no foundation for the belief that his name was Giangiacomo Fava. His early Lombard training was considerably modified by a visit to Rome, and a study of the Florentine masters and Ghirlandajo's influence is to be seen in his work. His pictures are easily recognisable from the frequent recurrence of similar types and attitudes" (Catalogue of the Burlington Fine Arts Club's Exhibition, 1898, p. lxxvii.). The dates on his works range from 1496 to 1508. They are to be found in the Certosa of Pavia, at Alba, and in the Turin Gallery. He belongs to the pre-Leonardo school of Lombardy, and was perhaps a pupil of Vincenzo Foppa (729).

In the first group (1200) are St. Peter Martyr (for whom see 812), with the knife and plenty of blood on his head, and a bishop in full robes. In the second (1201), St. Thomas Aquinas looking with an almost comic squint at a crucifix, and John the Baptist. On the pages of St. Thomas's book are the words in Latin, "I have kept the commandments of my father"; on those of St John the Baptist, "Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world."

1202. MADONNA AND CHILD, WITH SAINTS

Bonifazio, the elder (Veronese: about 1490-1540).

Morelli disentangles from the confusions of art-historians and critics three different painters of this name, whom he calls respectively Bonifazio Veronese I., Bonifazio Veronese II., and Bonifazio Veneziano (see German Galleries, pp. 184-194). The elder Bonifazio Veronese, the painter of this picture, was a pupil of Palma Vecchio, and one of the most brilliant of the later Venetian painters. "His bright conception," says Morelli, "and the light gracefulness of his figures seem to me never to belie his native home, Verona; yet, as a technician, he is an out-and-out Venetian. While the chords of his colouring are neither so delicate and startling as in Giorgione, nor so profound and powerful as in Palma and Titian, nor so ingenious as in Lotto, yet they wield a peculiar charm over the eye of the spectator by their bright, cheerful, and harmonious lustre." Bonifazio's earlier works have been frequently ascribed to Palma. Such was the case with the present picture, a work of gorgeous colour and in admirable preservation. In his later works the influence of Giorgione makes itself felt. A much-damaged picture by Bonifazio at Hampton Court, "Diana and Actæon," was long ascribed to Giorgione. Venice possesses many works of this "God-made painter," as Ruskin calls him. None is finer than the "Dives and Lazarus" in the Accademia, a picture of sumptuous colour and exquisitely poetical sentiment. In the Brera at Milan is another splendid work by Bonifazio, long attributed to Giorgione – the "Finding of Moses," a subject of which he was fond, and into which he introduced numerous figures in the gorgeous Venetian costumes of his day.

A composition belonging to a class which Palma Vecchio brought into favour, and which the Italians call Sante Conversazioni– groups, in restful attitudes, framed in sunny landscapes, with blue mountain distances. Bonifazio's landscape backgrounds are very fine, and he was fond, like Titian, of introducing into them the scenery of the Dolomite mountains. On the right is St. Catherine holding a fragment of her wheel, while the youthful St. John the Baptist, standing on another fragment, stoops to kiss the infant Christ's foot – an action symbolical of the kingship of the Saviour ("Thou hast put all things under him"). On the left is St. James – with his staff, borne always by him as the first of the apostles who departed to fulfil the Gospel mission, and dressed as a pilgrim – Campostella, where his body was reputed to be, being in the middle ages a favourite place of pilgrimage. Behind St. James is St. Jerome. Notice the significance of the incident in the middle distance – a shepherd asleep, while a wolf is devouring a sheep ("But the Good Shepherd giveth his life for the sheep").

1203. MADONNA AND CHILD

Cariani (Bergamese: about 1480-1541).

Of Giovanni Busi, called Cariani, no personal details are known. He was born near Bergamo, and many works by this fine colourist are in the galleries of that town. Others may be seen at the Brera in Milan. Cariani, who seems to have resided at Venice, is supposed to have been a pupil of his fellow-countryman, Palma Vecchio. Morelli thus distinguishes Cariani's style from that of Bonifazio Veronese (see 1202), who was also a pupil of Palma: "The type of the Madonna in Cariani is rustic, but more energetic and serious, less worldly than in Bonifazio, whose holy virgins and female martyrs, with their soft, sweet expression and gentle grace, often border on the sentimental. These masters also differ in the harmony of their colours: the Bergamese is pithy and powerful, but often heavy and dull; the Veronese, clear, lovely, and brilliant; Bonifazio's landscapes are the lightest among those of the Venetians, those in Cariani's pictures are brownish, and the lines far from beautiful" (Italian Masters in German Galleries, 1883, p. 193).

Notice the rustic type of the Madonna; she is a daughter of the mountains – the mountains above Bergamo, from which the painter came, and which figure in the background. The picture is a characteristic piece of provincial art; the expression of "a simple, sturdy, energetic mountain-folk who do not always know how to unite refinement and grace with their inbred strength and vigour" (Morelli, ibid. p. 4). The picture is "interesting mainly," says Mr. Monkhouse, "for its costumes, its light-heartedness and florid colour, and as another of those Sante Conversazioni of which his master, Palma, was the inventor, and which took the place of the more holy 'Holy Families' of an earlier art, – pictures in which the Virgin became a simple woman of a wholly mundane beauty, and the saints but her friends in rich costumes, enjoying themselves somewhat sadly in the open air" (In the National Gallery, p. 248).

1206. LANDSCAPE AND FIGURES

Salvator Rosa (Neapolitan: 1615-1673). See 84.

A good example of Salvator's scenic effects in landscape. The sense of power in the painting, the "vigorous imagination, the dexterous and clever composition" of Salvator are well shown; but "all are rendered valueless by coarseness of feeling, and habitual non-reference to nature." (See for further examination of Salvator's deficiencies in this respect Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. i. ch. vii. § 5, sec. iii. ch. iii. § 7, sec. vi. ch. i. § 11; vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. ii. ch. ii. § 19.)