GREAT VENETIANS
Bellini was as famous for his pupils as for his work, he having been the master, or the influencer, of almost all the great Venetians. Giorgione (Jor-jo´-nee) and Titian were his direct pupils, and the difference between the portrait of the “Doge Loredano” and the portrait of “Ariosto” by Titian is the difference between master and pupil. Both portraits are reproduced herewith in photogravure, and the student has a good opportunity to compare them. Bellini belonged to the Early and Titian to the High Renaissance, and, in a measure, the portraits emphasize a difference in time, though they may have been painted in the same year. Bellini lived to be old—lived into the High Renaissance—and must have painted this portrait after 1501, when Loredano became Doge; Titian was young, and probably painted the “Ariosto” about 1508; but the style of the one is early, the style of the other late. The “Doge” has great dignity, but with it rigidity of poise, sharpness of line, paucity of light and shade, thinness of color. It is emphatic rather than insinuating, and a little awkward in its positive truth. The “Ariosto,” on the contrary, is superb in its easy graceful poise, its inherent nobility of look, its perfect repose. The workmanship of it is infallibly right in its composition, its full light and shade, and its gamut of greys, browns and flesh colors. Compare the drawings of the robes for the difference between the men, and other differences will make themselves manifest. Both portraits are excellent, but they are by no means alike in point of view or method.
A YOUNG LADY AT A SPINET
By Jan Vermeer
PORTRAIT OF A TAILOR
By Giambattista Moroni
A MAN’S PORTRAIT
By Jan Van Eyck
Titian was perhaps the master-painter of the craft in Italy, and the “Ariosto” is not his only masterpiece in the National Gallery. There is an early “Madonna” and a “Christ and the Magdalen,” both of them excellent, and yet giving way in interest to his large “Ariadne and Bacchus,” the most considerable of his figure pictures north of the Alps. It is a little cold in its blue color, but perfect in workmanship, and a marvel of life and movement. Tintoretto’s “St. George and the Dragon” is a romantic canvas that in life and spirit presses the Titian very hard. It is not possible to pick flaws in it, which cannot be said about every Tintoretto. The charging St. George, the hurrying princess, the dead body, the sea, the sky, the distance, are quite as they should be. And what a beautiful piece of color! Tintoretto was a genius of exalted rank, as was also Paolo Veronese, some of whose best canvases are here—notably the large “Family of Darius at the Feet of Alexander.”
The “St. Helena” (reproduced herewith) is put down to Paolo in the catalogue, and, though it may not be by him, is, nevertheless, a fine picture in decorative arrangement and color. Lotto in a superb “Family Group” and Paris Bordone (bor-do´-nee) in the “Portrait of a Lady,” of a patrician type, are both extremely well represented in the gallery; but perhaps they do not attract so much attention as a more commonplace portraitist—Moroni. The reason of this is that the National Gallery has two of the very best works by Moroni—the “Tailor” and the “Lawyer.” The “Tailor” is very much admired, and justly so. He is shown standing at his cutting board, shears in hand, and as the door opens he looks up to see who has entered. What a very natural action! And what a serene, even noble, type of man! The portrait is modern enough in method to have been done today, only there is no painter of today who could do it. It is not, however, in the class with the Titian “Ariosto.” Compare them and you will see that intellectually the Titian is the more profound, as technically it is the more subtle.