A Popular Handbook to the National Gallery, Volume I, Foreign Schools / Including by Special Permission Notes Collected from the Works of John Ruskin

by Unknown

776. ST. ANTHONY AND ST. GEORGE.

Vittore Pisano (Veronese: 1380-1452).

The earliest picture of the Veronese School in the Gallery. "No school of painting in Italy except the Florentine shows," says Morelli, "so regular and uninterrupted a development, from the thirteenth to the seventeenth century, as the graceful school of Verona. If we look, for example, at some of the oldest frescoes at St. Zeno, at the frescoes of the great Pisanello in S. Anastasia of the first half of the fifteenth century, at the pictures of Liberale (1134 and 1336) and Domenico Morone (1211), and of their pupils Francesco Morone (285), Girolamo dai Libri (748), Michele da Verona (1214), Giolfino (749), and Morando (735 and 769), and then to Paolo Veronese and his followers, we find everywhere the same cheerful and graceful character looking out of each of these works of the Veronese School. The Veronese do not penetrate so deep into the essence of art as the Venetians, but they are, with few exceptions, more gracious and serene. And to this day the population of this beautifully situated town is reckoned the cheeriest and gayest in all Italy: Veronesi, mezzo natti" (German Galleries, p. 395). In the National Gallery the development of the Veronese School may, as will be seen from the references inserted above, be well studied. The importance and independence of the Veronese painters are shown by the career of Vittore Pisano, commonly called by the endearing diminutive Pisanello. He was born at St. Vigilio, near the Lake of Garda, and was probably a pupil of Altichiero, an older master of the Veronese School, and was famous as the inventor of a method of casting medals; but though better known now as a medallist, in his own day he was equally famous as a painter. In the frame of this picture are inserted casts from two of his medals, and it will be noticed that the lower one—a profile of himself—is inscribed Pisanus Pictor; Pisano the Painter. The medal above is that of Leonello d'Este, his patron, for whom this picture was probably painted, and whose portrait by a pupil of Pisano is in our Gallery (770). At Bergamo is a portrait of Leonello by Pisano himself (reproduced in the Illustrated Catalogue of the Morelli Gallery by Signor Frizzoni). Another evidence of Pisano's practice as a medallist will be noticed in the gilt embossed work of St. George's sword and spurs. Leonello wrote of Pisano as "the most illustrious of all the painters of this age," and contemporary writers similarly extol his fame. In 1421 he was summoned to Venice. "When, in the beginning of the fifteenth century, great monumental works in painting were to be carried out at Venice, the local school was still so insignificant that no native artist could be entrusted with the commission. They were obliged to summon Vittore Pisano, notwithstanding that he had once been on the list of the politically obnoxious, and as such was liable to penal consequences" (Richter). Pisano was accompanied by Gentile da Fabriano. "The presence of those two eminent artists in the city of the Lagoons gave," says Morelli, "a new impulse to its school of painting. Jacopo Bellini became a scholar of Gentile, and when his master had finished his work at Venice he accompanied him to Florence. During the few years of their stay at Venice, Gentile and Pisanello must not only have instructed Bellini in their art, but their influence on Antonio Vivarini of Murano also seems to me undeniable.... Taking him all in all, I consider that Giovanni Bellini was the greatest painter in North Italy in the fifteenth century, though undoubtedly Pisano was in the first half of the century as great a painter as was Bellini in the second half" (German Galleries, p. 357; Roman Galleries, p. 267). Of Pisano's wall-paintings in the Doge's Palace, in that of the Pope, and in the castles of the foremost princes of the century, no traces remain. His fresco of "St. George mounting for the fight" may be seen in the church of St. Anastasia at Verona. Among his very rare easel-pictures the one now before us is signed and very original in conception; No. 1436 is the most important, and is especially interesting as illustrating Pisano's love of representing animals, and the high reputation he enjoyed for his skill in doing so. "Vittore lived," says Sir F. Burton, "at a time when the traditions and forms of chivalry had not yet died out; and all his works, including his delicate and spirited pen-drawings in the Louvre, have a certain stamp of knightly grace which is singularly attractive: in this respect they resemble the creations of Gentile da Fabriano."

The subject of the picture—a meeting between St. George and St. Anthony, with a vision of the Virgin and Child above—is not to be found in the legends of the saints, and Pisano's conception is quite original. St. George appears to have been a favourite subject with the artist—probably because of the way in which his armour lent itself to medallion-like treatment. There is a good instance of frank anachronism in the large Tuscan hat of Pisano's own day which he quaintly makes St. George wear, "according to the everyday custom of the Italian noblemen at their country-seats in the summer."[181] Perhaps too the painter chose St. George partly because he involved a horse and a dragon, and Pisano, says Vasari, "took especial pleasure in the delineation of animals." This may have given him a weakness for the boar of good St. Anthony—the hermit saint whose temptations have passed into a proverb. The saint carries a bell, for "it is said that the wicked spirits that be in the region of the air fear much when they hear the bells ringen," and a staff, another means of exorcising the devil; whilst the boar, now tamed into service, is symbolical of the demon of sensuality which St. Anthony vanquished. And here perhaps we find the clue to the idea in the picture. For the dragon whom St. George slew represents the same sensual enemy. St. George conquered by fighting, St. Anthony by fasting. The two saints now meet when "each on his course alone" has "worked out each a way." The old man, whose life has been spent in struggle, greets the triumphant youth with curious surprise; and St. George too, with the thoughtful look on his face, will have much to say and learn. But over them both, as to all who overcome, the heavens open in beatific vision; for though there be diversity of gifts, it is the same spirit. The signature of the painter (Pisanus pinxit) is fantastically traced by herbage in the foreground.