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

FOOTNOTES:

[38] It is worth noting that a similar incident (which in this picture has greatly shocked some of the critics) is introduced in Orcagna's great fresco of the Triumph of Death. "The three kings of the German legend are represented looking at the three coffins containing three bodies of kings, such as themselves, in the last stage of corruption.... Orcagna disdains both poetry and taste; he wants the facts only; he wishes to give the spectator the same lesson that the kings had, and, therefore, instead of concealing the dead bodies, he paints them with the most fearful detail. And then, he does not consider what the three kings might most gracefully do. He considers only what they actually, in all probability, would have done. He makes them looking at the coffins with a startled stare, and one holding his nose" (Lectures on Architecture and Painting, pp. 209, 210).

A comparison of the various opinions expressed on this picture would form a diverting chapter in the history of art criticism. Thus in Kugler's Handbook we are told that it is "in many respects one of the noblest pictures existing"; Sir Henry Cole ("Felix Summerly") called it "doubtless the greatest Italian painting in this country"; Hazlitt said it was "one of the best pictures on so large a scale that he was acquainted with"; Waagen pronounced it to be "the most important specimen of Italian art in England"; Solly called it "the second picture in the world"; and Mrs. Jameson saw in it a combination of "the characteristic power and beauty of the finest school of design and the finest school of colouring in the world." For an equally uncompromising condemnation see Landseer's Catalogue, pp. 92-119. It is interesting to note that in some cases the admiration excited by the picture was due to the dirt with which by long neglect and lapse in time it had come to be discoloured. Thus Hazlitt says that "the figure of Lazarus is very fine and bold. The flesh is well-baked, dingy, and ready to crumble from the touch, when it is liberated from its dread confinement to have life and motion impressed on it again" (Criticisms on Art, 1843, p. 9). Thus it was inferred that Sebastiano stooped to the trivial artifice of imparting an appearance of half putrefaction to the exhumed corpse. The absurdity of this criticism is well exposed by Henry Merritt, the famous picture restorer, in his essay on "Dirt and Pictures Separated" (Art Criticism and Romance, i. 69). The fact is that the whole picture was sadly darkened with time, and that it had become "embedded beneath a thick covering, compounded of half opaque varnish, patches of modern paint, and dirt." It has only been found possible partly to remove this covering. It may not be uninteresting to add that the picture was a favourite with Charles Darwin. "Many of the pictures in the National Gallery," he wrote, "gave me much pleasure; that of Sebastian del Piombo exciting in me a sense of sublimity" (Life, i. 49).

The poet Tennyson was another great admirer of the picture. His son, describing visits with the poet to the National Gallery, says, "he always led the way first of all to the "Raising of Lazarus," by Sebastian del Piombo, and to Titian's "Bacchus and Ariadne."" "The Christ I call Christlike," said Tennyson on one occasion to Carlyle, "is Sebastian del Piombo's in the National Gallery" (Memoir, ii. 235). It is possible that the poet may have written the stanzas cited above with his eye on Sebastiano's picture.

[39] "When they went to nature, which I believe to have been a very much rarer practice with them than their biographers would have us suppose, they copied her like children, drawing what they knew to be there, but not what they saw there" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. ii. ch. iii. § 7).

[40] The "Claude Lorraine glass"—a convex dark, or coloured hand-mirror used to concentrate the features of a landscape in a subdued tone—"gives the objects of nature," says an old writer, "a soft mellow tinge like the colouring of that master."

[41] But Ruskin does not quite keep his promise. "If Claude had been a great man he would not have been so steadfastly set on painting effects of sun; he would have looked at all nature, and at all art, and would have painted sun effects somewhat worse, and nature universally much better" (Modern Painters, vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. xviii. § 23).

[42] The passages quoted from Sir F. Burton are to be found in his edition of the Official Catalogue (unabridged) of the Foreign Schools. That work, which occupied the late Director's leisure for many years, is a worthy monument of his wide learning and fastidious taste. A large-paper edition was issued by the Stationery Office in 1892.

[43] See, however, the sunset picture of his predecessor, Bellini (726). Connoisseurs should note that this picture is referred to by Richter as bearing on the vexed question of Palma Vecchio's relation with Titian, and showing that the latter imitated the former rather than vice versâ (Italian Art in the National Gallery, p. 85. See also Morelli's German Galleries, p. 25).

[44] Called also "Sinon before Priam" (Æneid, ii. 79).

[45] The two pictures were bought by the nation in 1834 for £11,550. The sum was then thought a very large one, and the trustees fortified themselves with the opinion of experts. Amongst these Sir David Wilkie, R.A., wrote, "It is certainly a large sum for two pictures; but giving this difficulty its due weight, I would decidedly concur in giving this sum rather than let them go out of the country, considering the rarity of such specimens even in foreign countries, and their excellence as examples of the high school to which they belong, to which it must be the aim of every other school to approach."

[46] The picture is inscribed "Mariage d'Isaac avec Rebecca," but it is a repetition with some variations in detail of the Claude known as Il Molino (The Mill) in the Doria palace at Rome. Ruskin characterises this version of the subject as a "villainous and unpalliated copy." "There is not," he adds, "one touch or line of even decent painting in the whole picture; but as connoisseurs have considered it a Claude, as it has been put in our Gallery for a Claude, and as people admire it every day for a Claude, I may at least presume it has those qualities of Claude in it which are wont to excite the public admiration, though it possesses none of those which sometimes give him claim to it; and I have so reasoned, and shall continue to reason upon it, especially with respect to facts of form, which cannot have been much altered by the copyist" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. iii. ch. i. § 9, sec. iv. ch. ii. § 8).

[47] The following is the text of this portion of Turner's will: "I give and bequeath unto the Trustees and Directors for the time being of a certain Society or Institution, called the 'National Gallery' or Society, the following pictures or paintings by myself, namely Dido Building Carthage, and the picture formerly in the De Tabley collection. To hold the said pictures or paintings unto the said Trustees and Directors of this said Society for the time being, in trust for the said Institution or Society for ever, subject, nevertheless, to, for, and upon the following reservations and restrictions only; that is to say, I direct that the said pictures or paintings shall be hung, kept, and placed, that is to say, always between the two pictures painted by Claude, The Seaport and Mill." The "picture formerly in the De Tabley collection" is the "Sun rising in a Mist," 479. Turner bought it back at Lord de Tabley's sale at Christie's in 1827 for £514: 10s., and ever afterwards refused to part with it. The other picture, the Carthage (498), was returned unsold from the Academy, and Turner always kept it in his gallery. His friend Chantrey used to make him offers for it, but each time its price rose higher. "Why, what in the world, Turner, are you going to do with the picture?" he asked. "Be buried in it," Turner replied—a remark he often made to other friends.

[48] "So in N. Poussin's 'Phocion' (40) the shadow of the stick on the stone in the right-hand corner, is shaded off and lost, while you see the stick plainly all the way. In nature's sunlight it would have been the direct reverse: you would have seen the shadow black and sharp all the way down; but you would have had to look for the stick, which in all probability would in several places have been confused with the stone behind it" (ibid.).

[49] Compare on this point G. Poussin's "Abraham and Isaac" (31).

[50] One may compare with Ruskin's description the similar one by Tennyson of a distant view of Monte Rosa—

How faintly-flush'd, how phantom-fair,
Was Monte Rosa, hanging there
A thousand shadowy-pencill'd valleys
And snowy dells in a golden air.

The Daisy.

[51] "In some of the convents (in Mexico) there still exist, buried alive like the inmates, various fine old paintings ... brought there by the monks" (Dublin National Gallery Catalogue). The Spanish influence gave birth, moreover, to a native Mexican School of painting, said to be of considerable merit.

[52] "Murillo, of all true painters the narrowest, feeblest, and most superficial, for those reasons the most popular" (Two Paths, § 57 n.)—"The delight of vulgar painters (as Murillo) in coarse and slurred painting merely for the sake of its coarseness, opposed to the divine finish which the greatest and mightiest of men disdained not" (Modern Painters, vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. i. ch. x. § 3).

[53] The French partiality for Murillo is traditional, dating back to Marshal Soult's time, from whose collection the "Immaculate Conception" was bought. Murillos were his favourite spoils from the Peninsular War. "One day, showing General G—— his gallery in Paris, Soult stopped opposite a Murillo, and said, 'I very much value that, as it saved the lives of two estimable persons.' An Aide-de-camp whispered, 'He threatened to have both shot on the spot unless they gave up the picture'" (Ford's Handbook).

[54] "He was not a bad painter," continued Ruskin, "but he exercises a most fatal influence on the English School, and therefore I owe him an especial grudge. I have never entered the Dulwich Gallery for fourteen years without seeing at least three copyists before the Murillos. I never have seen one before the Paul Veronese.... I intend some time in my life to have a general conflagration of Murillos." Ruskin would have been relieved to know that of late years at the National Gallery Paul Veronese—and especially his St. Helena—has been very frequently copied.

[55] Amongst the curiosities of criticisms are the differences between experts as to whether this is a morning or an evening effect. Contradictory opinions on the point were submitted to the Select Committee of 1853, but as the picture had been "restored," each side was able to impute the difficulty of deciding to the "ruinous" nature of that operation.

[56] It may be interesting to note on the other side that Dr. Waagen (whose experience of the sea is given under No. 149) finds the waves in this picture to "run high," and to be "extraordinarily deep and full."

[57] Compare for equally defective perspective the covered portico in 30.

[58] Visitors to Venice may like to be reminded that most of Ruskin's criticism upon Tintoret's works there is now easily accessible in (1) The Relation between Michael Angelo and Tintoret, (2) The Stones of Venice, travellers' edition, and (3) the reissue of the second volume of Modern Painters. Mr. Ruskin always accounted his "discovery" of Tintoret as one of the chief works of his life. "I have supplied," he wrote in Stones of Venice (1853), "somewhat copious notices of the pictures of Tintoret, because they are much injured, difficult to read, and entirely neglected by other writers on art." "I say with pride," he wrote in the epilogue to the second volume of Modern Painters (1883), "what it has become my duty to express openly, that it was left to me, and to me alone, first to discern, and then to teach, so far as in this hurried century any such thing can be taught, the excellency and supremacy of five great painters, despised until I spoke of them;—Turner, Tintoret, Luini, Botticelli, and Carpaccio. Despised,—nay, scarcely in any true sense of the word, known." For the Pre-Ruskinian view of Tintoret, the reader may consult Kugler's Handbook of Painting.

[59] For an exhaustive and interesting history of the legend see Mr. J. R. Anderson's Supplement to St. Mark's Rest. One account, it seems, places both Perseus and St. George in the Nile Delta. Politicians who say that England has gone to Egypt to save that country from itself may perhaps see some significance in this. The superstitious in such things will not forget either that one of Gordon's names was George.

[60] It is proper to mention that most of the critics dispute the genuineness of this picture, and consider it a copy by some scholar or imitator. "It is but a school repetition of a signed picture in The Hermitage, with the omission, however, of a charming figure of St. Catherine." In connection with this disputed point, it may not be out of place to recall the famous forgery in which Andrea himself played the chief part. The Duke of Mantua coveted Raphael's portrait of Leo X., and obtained permission from the Pope to appropriate it. The owner determined to meet force by fraud, and employed Andrea to make a copy which was sent to the Duke as the original. The copy, when at Mantua, deceived even Giulio Romano, who had himself taken part in the execution of the original—a fact which might well induce some modesty of judgment in connoisseurs.

[61] The title usually given to this picture, "Christ Disputing with the Doctors," cannot be correct, for the figure of Christ is too old for an incident which occurred when he was twelve years old.

[62] In the little-known collection in the library of Christ Church, Oxford, there is a powerful but unpleasantly realistic picture of a group in a butcher's shop, by one of the Carracci, which is perhaps a family portrait.

[63] See Blake's Auguries of Innocence.

[64] Gaspard was particularly unfaithful to the variety of nature in his representation of leaves (see 98). It is interesting therefore, as showing how long it passed for truth, to note that Lanzi (i. 481) singles out this point for special praise: "Everything that Gaspard expresses is founded in nature; in his leaves he is as various as the trees themselves."

[65] Compare on this point Claude's "Isaac and Rebecca," No. 12.

[66] This anecdote is a modern counterpart of that of Protogenes, the rival of Apelles, who worked continuously, we are told, during the siege of Rhodes by Demetrius Poliorcetes, notwithstanding that the garden in which he painted was in the middle of the enemy's camp. Demetrius, unsolicited, took measures for the painter's safety, and when he was told that one of the masterpieces by Protogenes was in a part of the town exposed to assault, he changed his plan of operations.

[67] "If you live in London you may test your progress accurately by the degree of admiration you feel for the leaves of vine round the head of the Bacchus in Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne" (Elements of Drawing, p. 82). Another technical beauty referred to in the same book (p. 77 n.) is "the points of light on the white flower in the wreath of the dancing child-faun." Similarly, "the wing of the cupid in Correggio's picture (10) is focused to two little grains of white at the top of it." Elsewhere Ruskin calls attention to "the leaves which crown the Bacchus, and the little dancing faun: every turn of the most subtle perspective, and every gradation of colour, is given with the colossal ease and power of the consummate master" (Academy Notes, 1855, p. 22).

[68] Ruskin's analysis of Rubens's technical method, which is here omitted as foreign to the scope of this handbook, will be found in his review of Eastlake's History of Oil Painting, now reprinted in On the Old Road, i. §§ 98-136.

[69] "The conditions of art in Flanders—wealthy, bourgeois, proud, free,—were not dissimilar to those of art in Venice. The misty flats of Belgium have some of the atmospheric qualities of Venice. As Van Eyck is to the Vivarini, so is Rubens to Paolo Veronese. This expresses the amount of likeness and difference" (Symonds: Renaissance, iii. 265 n).

[70] See, for a further instance of this, what is said of Rubens's landscapes below, under 66.

[71] Dr. Elisabeth Denio, in her monograph on Poussin (1899), adduces good reason for altering the commonly accepted date 1594 to 1593.

[72] See Lanzi, i. 477, and a paper by Mr. R. Heath in the Magazine of Art for September 1877, where Poussin's theory is illustrated from his pictures in the Louvre. English readers may be reminded that Poussin is particularly well represented in the Dulwich Gallery.

[73] Elsewhere Ruskin says of Poussin, "Whatever he has done has been done better by Titian." Also, "the landscape of Nicolo Poussin shows much power, and is usually composed and elaborated on right principles, but I am aware of nothing that it has attained of new or peculiar excellence; it is a graceful mixture of qualities to be found in other masters in higher degrees. In finish it is inferior to Leonardo's, in invention to Giorgione's, in truth to Titian's, in grace to Raphael's" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. i. ch. vii. § 14).

[74] "He feared the fascinations of colour, and once wrote from Venice that he must flee from a place where they lured him too much. He did not know how needless was the alarm" (Sir F. Burton).

[75] Constable, who made some studies from this picture, was of the same opinion. In a letter to Fisher he describes it as "a noble Poussin: a solemn, deep, still summer's noon, with large umbrageous trees, and a man washing his feet at a fountain near them. Through the breaks in the trees are mountains, and the clouds collecting about them with the most enchanting effects possible. It cannot be too much to say that this landscape is full of religious and moral feeling" (Leslie's Life of Constable, p. 90).

[76] "Hang these pictures in a very strong light," said Rembrandt of his early work. "The smell of paint is not good for the health," he said many years afterwards, when a visitor came close up to one of his later pictures.

[77] Baldwin Brown's The Fine Arts, p. 298, where Mr. Whistler's beautiful description of a "nocturne" on the Thames is cited as being in direct artistic descent from Rembrandt. "To Rembrandt," said the late Mr. Wornum (Epochs of Painting, 1864, p. 421), "belongs the glory of having first embodied in art and perpetuated [such] rare and beautiful effects of nature" as are referred to above. Ruskin took up the sentence, and replied with characteristic emphasis: "Such effects are indeed rare in nature; but they are not rare, absolutely. The sky, with the sun in it, does not usually give the impression of being dimly lighted through a circular hole; but you may observe a very similar effect any day in your coal-cellar. The light is not Rembrandtesque on the current, or banks, of a river; but it is on those of a drain. Colour is not Rembrandtesque, usually, in a clean house; but is presently obtainable of that quality in a dirty one. And without denying the pleasantness of the mode of progression, which Mr. Hazlitt, perhaps too enthusiastically, describes (in a criticism upon the present picture) as obtainable in a background of Rembrandt's, 'you stagger from one abyss of obscurity to another,' I cannot feel it an entirely glorious speciality to be distinguished, as Rembrandt was, from other great painters, chiefly by the liveliness of his darkness, and the dulness of his light. Glorious or inglorious, the speciality itself is easily and accurately definable. It is the aim of the best painters to paint the noblest things they can see by sunlight. It was the aim of Rembrandt to paint the foulest things he could see—by rushlight,"—a statement from which, of course, deduction must be made, in forming a general idea of Ruskin's estimate, for his appreciation of Rembrandt's portraits. See, e.g. under 51.

[78] To further understand Rembrandt's principle of choice, contrast that of Veronese. See the passage quoted under No. 26.

[79] Yet Rembrandt's pictures are often more deceptive—look more like reality—than others which are really more true. Why? It is because "people are so much more easily and instinctively impressed by force of light than truth of colour.... Give them the true contrast of light, and they will not observe the false local colour." The references to Ruskin are Modern Painters, vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. iii. § 16; vol. iv. pt. v. ch. ii. §§ 11-19; vol. v. pt. ix. ch. vi. § 10; On the Old Road, i. 498-505.

[80] Ruskin, writing to the Times in 1847, said of the then condition of the picture: "I have no hesitation in asserting that for the present it is utterly, and for ever partially, destroyed. I am not disposed lightly to impugn the judgment of Mr. Eastlake (that is, the then Keeper and subsequent Director, the late Sir C. L. Eastlake), but this was indisputably of all the pictures in the Gallery that which least required, and least could endure, the process of cleaning. It was in the most advantageous condition under which a work of Rubens can be seen; mellowed by time into more perfect harmony than when it left the easel, enriched and warmed, without losing any of its freshness or energy. The execution of the master is always so bold and frank as to be completely, perhaps even most agreeably, seen under circumstances of obscurity, which would be injurious to pictures of greater refinement; and though this was, indeed, one of his most highly-finished and careful works (to my mind, before it suffered this recent injury, far superior to everything at Antwerp, Malines, or Cologne), this was a more weighty reason for caution than for interference. Some portions of colour have been exhibited which were formerly untraceable; but even these have lost in power what they have gained in definitiveness,—the majesty and preciousness of all the tones are departed, the balance of distances lost. Time may, perhaps, restore something of the glow, but never the subordination; and the more delicate portions of flesh tint, especially the back of the female figure on the left, and of the boy in the centre, are destroyed for ever" (Arrows of the Chace, i, 56, 57).

[81] The magnificent portrait No. 52 is by some critics ascribed to Rubens. Van Dyck hardly ever signed his pictures.

[82] Not all artists have learnt from this great work gladly. It was exhibited at the first exhibition of "Old Masters" at the British Institution in 1815, and B. R. Haydon tells the following story: "Lawrence was looking at the Gevartius when I was there, and as he turned round, to my wonder, his face was boiling with rage as he grated out between his teeth, 'I suppose they think we want teaching!'" (Autobiography, i. 292).

[83] Such is the tradition. By many modern critics the picture is, on internal evidence, taken away from Van Dyck and given to Rubens. Mr. Watts in the article cited above says: "Attributed to Van Dyck, but hardly, I think, suggesting his work, though it would be difficult to attribute it to any other painter, unless, perhaps, on some occasion Rubens might have been inspired with so fervent a love for art that he forgot his satisfaction in scattering his over-ripe dexterity."

[84] The statement found in many biographies of the painter that he was a brewer is a mistake. It arose from the fact that his daughter married a brewer, and that the painter himself was buried from his son-in-law's brewery.

[85] See Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. vii. ch. iv. § 13.

[86] Ruskin (ibid., vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. ii. ch. iv. § 16) notices this treatment of Apollo under the head of "Imagination Contemplative," as an instance of an imaginative abstraction "in which the form of one thing is fancifully indicated in the matter of another; as in phantoms and cloud shapes, the use of which, in mighty hands, is often most impressive, as in the cloudy-charioted Apollo of Nicolo Poussin in our own Gallery, which the reader may oppose to the substantial Apollo in Wilson's Niobe," see No. 110.

[87] This figure is specially good. It was to rival this great landscape that James Ward (see 688), as he avows in his autobiography, painted his "Fighting Bulls," now in the South Kensington Museum. "How full of lithe natural movement," says Mr. J. T. Nettleship, "is the man in the foreground, in heavy boots and feathered hat, stooping and creeping towards the covey of partridges under cover of bramble and bush, compared with the clumsy anatomical bulls in Ward's picture" (George Morland, p. 54).

[88] Ruskin is here speaking of the somewhat similar "St. George" picture in the Church of St. James at Antwerp.

[89] See also No. 98, in which the tree is said by Ruskin to be "a mere jest" compared to this.

[90] No. 78 was formerly Sir Joshua Reynolds's "Holy Family," on which notes will be found in Volume II. of this Handbook. The picture has now been withdrawn from exhibition and little remains of it, for owing to the excessive use of asphaltum the pigments have disappeared.

[91] "Garofano" is the Italian for "gillyflower" (or clove-pink), and Tisio sometimes painted this flower as his sign-manual (like Mr. Whistler's butterfly).

[92] Authorities differ between this title and "Pan teaching Apollo to play on the pipes." Certainly there is the "Pan's pipe," but then if it is Pan he ought to have goat's legs and horns. The fact that the picture is a companion to "Silenus gathering Grapes" makes also in favour of the description given in the text above.

[93] See also Ruskin's remarks on the companion storm piece, No. 36.

[94] It should be noted that this, as well as very many other pictures, has of late years been cleaned. Thus 98 and 68 (in 1880), 36 and 40 (in 1868), have been "cleaned and varnished." 31 was "relined, repaired, and varnished" in 1878; 161 was "cleaned and repaired" in 1868.

[95] The diminutive title "Il Canaletto" was originally applied to Antonio's nephew and pupil, Bernardo Bellotto, but came to be transferred to Antonio Canale himself. The two Canaletti painted so much alike that their works are not easily distinguished.

[96] Ruskin, on one of his latest visits to the National Gallery (1887), confessed that he had found himself admiring Canaletto. "After all," he said to me, "he was a good workman in oils, whereas so much of Turner's work is going to rack and ruin." Ruskin had made a similar concession long before to Claude. Writing to Mr. Fawkes on the death of Turner, he mentions a rumour that the artist had left only his finished pictures to the nation. "Alas! these are finished in a double sense—nothing but chilled fragments of paint on rotten canvas. The Claudites will have a triumph when they get into the National Gallery" (quoted in The Nineteenth Century, April 1900).

[97] An amusing instance of the naïve ignorance of the sea which underlay much of the excessive admiration of Vandevelde is afforded by Dr. Waagen, for many years director of the Berlin Gallery, and author of Treasures of Art in England. At the end of a passage describing his "first attempt to navigate the watery paths," he says: "For the first time I understood the truth of these pictures (Bakhuizen's and Vandevelde's), and the refined art with which, by intervening dashes of sunshine, near or at a distance, and ships to animate the scene, they produce such a charming variety on the surface of the sea." "For the first time!" exclaims Ruskin (Arrows of the Chace, i. 16, 17), "and yet this gallery-bred judge, this discriminator of coloured shreds and canvas patches, who has no idea how ships animate the sea until—charged with the fates of the Royal Academy—he ventures his invaluable person from Rotterdam to Greenwich, will walk up to the work of a man whose brow is hard with the spray of a hundred storms, and characterise it as 'wanting in truth of clouds and waves.'" Dr. Waagen, it should be explained, had, on the strength of his first "navigation of the watery ways" pronounced Turner's works inferior in such truth to Vandevelde. Clearly Dr. Waagen, more fortunate than most of our foreign visitors, had a calm crossing.

[98] It is interesting that another contemporary man of letters, the late Matthew Arnold, singled out these same lines for special praise: "No passage in poetry," he said, "has moved and pleased me more" (Fortnightly Review, August 1887, p. 299).

[99] In this town were born two other painters, who are sometimes known by its name. Curiously enough, all three were originally masons.

[100] Ruskin speaks of "the ruffian Caravaggio, distinguished only by his preference of candle-light and black shadows for the illustration and reinforcement of villainy" (On the Old Road, i. § 48).

[101] According to Morelli (Italian Masters in German Galleries, p. 56 n.), this familiar tale is legendary, Francia being merely an abbreviation of his Christian name, Francesco. But the painter sometimes signed his name Franciscus Francia, a form which on Morelli's hypothesis would be tautological.

[102] Francia's friendship with Raphael, on which art historians have based many theories and spun many interesting tales, is now discredited, the documents in question being comparatively modern forgeries (see p. 366 of Kugler's Italian Schools of Painting, 5th edition, revised by Sir A. H. Layard, 1887, elsewhere referred to as Layard).

[103] Vasari's story that Francia died of chagrin on seeing how far the whole work of his own life was transcended by Raphael's picture of St. Cecilia, which was sent to its destination at Bologna about 1516, is hardly credible.

[104] Ruskin said of this picture in 1847: "The attribution to him of the wretched panel which now bears his name is a mere insult" (Arrows of the Chace, i. 64). "Petrus Peruginus" is inscribed in gold on the base of the mantle of the Virgin, but the picture may be the work of his disciple, Lo Spagna (see 1032).

[105] Up to the time of the Van Eycks the general process of artistic painting for detached pictures was tempera. In this method the colours, after being ground with chalk, were laid on with a medium of water, white of eggs, juice of unripe figs, or some similar substance. Some kind of oil varnish was, however, often laid on afterwards, and a few Italian artists sometimes tried to mix their colours with oil in the first instance; but the results cannot have been satisfactory, for even Crivelli, who died in 1495, was still exclusively a painter in tempera. The objection to tempera, so far at any rate as northern countries were concerned, was that it suffered from the damp. Thus in an old retable in Westminster Abbey, so painted, the painting has flaked off. The objection to the early attempts at using oil as a medium was that it took a long time to dry. This caused Van Eyck incessant annoyance; his knowledge of chemistry led him to make experiments, and at last he obtained a medium which hastened the drying without the necessity of exposure to the sun. This medium was probably a mixture of linseed and nut oils. This method is different from that now called oil-painting. Now the colours are laid on by an oily medium, and when the picture is finished the whole surface is protected by a transparent varnish. Then the varnish was incorporated with the surface colours (see Conway's Early Flemish Artists, p. 119; and Wauters's Flemish School of Painting, p. 35).

[106] Arrows of the Chace, i. 66. "John Bellini is the only artist who appears to me to have united, in equal and magnificent measures, justness of drawing, nobleness of colouring, and perfect manliness of treatment, with the purest religious feeling. He did, as far as it is possible to do it, instinctively and unaffectedly, what the Carracci only pretended to do. Titian colours better, but has not his piety; Leonardo draws better, but has not his colour; Angelico is more heavenly, but has not his manliness, far less his powers of art" (Stones of Venice, Venetian Index). Morelli's estimate is the same; see German Galleries, p. 361.

[107] This letter of Dürer's gives an interesting glimpse into the art life of the time. "I have many good friends among the Italians, who warn me not to eat and drink with their painters. Many also of them are my enemies; they copy my things for the churches, picking them up whenever they can. Yet they abuse my style, saying that it is not antique art, and that therefore it is not good. But Giambellini has praised me much before many gentlemen; he wishes to have something of mine; he came to me and begged me to do something for him, and is quite willing to pay for it. And every one gives him such a good character that I feel an affection for him. He is very old, and is yet the best in painting; and the thing which pleased me so well eleven years ago has now no attractions for me" (Catalogue of Standard Series in the Ruskin Drawing School, P. 7).

[108] See Report of Select Committee on the National Gallery, 1853, p. 432, where the whole story will be found very frankly told in Sir C. Eastlake's evidence.

[109] Similarly Raphael Mengs, a later Spanish painter, said of Velazquez that he appeared to have painted with his will only, without the aid of his hand.

[110] I read the other day in an otherwise intelligent memoir of Ruskin that "a generation which admired Velazquez had outlived the art criticism of Ruskin." Not outlived, but absorbed, and so forgotten. It was Ruskin who, half a century before, proclaimed the consummate excellence of Velazquez—the "greatest artist of Spain," and "one of the great artists of the world"; the master to all schools in his "consummate ease"; the man who was "never wrong." In his admiration of Velazquez Ruskin never wavered. The citations above given are from his earlier books. In his later period, a picture by Velazquez was included among the "Four Lesson Photographs" as "an example of the highest reach of technical perfection yet reached in art; all effort and labour seeming to cease in the radiant peace and simplicity of consummated human power" (Fors Clavigera, 1876, p. 188).

[111] This was written in 1846. In 1853 some "horrible revelations" were made about the picture before the Select Committee on the National Gallery. Ruskin turned out to be curiously wrong, but also curiously right. He was wrong; for so far from the picture being "in genuine and perfect condition," a considerable portion of the canvas, as we now see it, turned out to be not by Velazquez's hand at all. Lord Cowley, its former owner, had sent it to a Mr. Thane, a picture dealer, to be relined. A too hot iron was used, and a portion of the paint entirely disappeared. Thane was in despair. The picture haunted him at nights. He saw the figure of it in his dreams becoming more and more attenuated until it appeared at length a skeleton. He was near going mad over it, when a good angel came to his rescue in the shape of Lance, the flower and fruit painter, who offered to restore the missing parts out of his head. So far Ruskin was decidedly wrong. But he was also right. The parts which Lance painted in "out of his head" were the groups on the left of the foreground, and some of the middle distance. "I endeavoured," he says, "to fill up the canvas, such as I supposed Velazquez would have done; and I had great facility in doing that, because if there was a man without a horse here, there was a horse without a man there, so I could easily take his execution as nearly as possible, and my own style of painting enabled me to keep pretty near the mark"(!). But the high lights of the sky, he particularly added, were untouched by him. So that there Ruskin was right. The picture, when restored to its owner, gave complete satisfaction, and Lance's share in it was kept a secret. A year or two later he must have felt a proud man. The picture was being exhibited at the British Gallery. In front of it Lance met two cognoscenti of his acquaintance. "It looks to me," he said, testing them, "as if it had been a good deal repainted."—"No! you're wrong there," they said; "it is remarkably free from repaints." It should be added that soon after the Parliamentary inquiry referred to above, a tracing of Goya's copy, procured from Madrid, showed in fact that the restored work differed but slightly from the copy, and Lance's work was probably far less important and extensive than he asserted. An idea of the original condition of the picture may be had from a reduced replica, or first sketch, now in the Wallace Collection.

[112] The view Diderot thus took of Greuze's art suggests the importance of historical perspective in criticism. Pictures, like everything else, should be judged with reference to contemporary circumstances, as well as by the standard of abstract principle. From the former point of view Greuze, as we have seen, is a moralist in painting. From the latter Ruskin suggests the consideration "how far the value of a girl's head by Greuze would be lowered in the market if the dress, which now leaves the bosom bare, were raised to the neck" (Modern Painters, vol. iii. pt. iv. chap. v. § 7).

[113] Another instance of this intimate union of art with business may be seen in the number of Dutch artists of the period who themselves held municipal office. See, for instance, Terburg (864) and Delen (1010). Many of the Italian painters also were men of business and of official standing. Thus Titian was a timber merchant; whilst Manni, Perugino, and Pinturicchio were all magistrates.

[114] "The bit of bluish ribbed paper on which he made his design in light and dark strokes, now gone brown, and which he had pricked through for the purpose of tracing the design on the panel, is framed beside it. He left it about, not thinking that in 350 years it would be under glass in the distant city of London, stared at by English roughs, who would say, "Sithee Bill, he's pricked it a' through with a pin, and spilt th' ile on it!" for there are two or three of these amber-coloured blurs which come from a sketch being inadvertently put down on a palette knife" (Letters of James Smetham, p. 168).

[115] These pictures, like the other Florentine works here exhibited, except 564 (which is on linen cloth attached to wood) and 276 (which is in fresco), are painted in tempera on wood. Tempera (or distemper) painting is a generic term for the various methods in which some other substance than oil was the medium. Various substances were thus used—such as gum, glue or size, flour-paste, white of egg, milk of figs. Cennino Cennini, who wrote a treatise on painting at the end of the fourteenth century, professes to give the exact method of Giotto. Egg beaten up with water was preferred by him, except where the yellowness of the mixture injured the purity of the colour. The colours thus mixed were laid on to a panel (or on to a cloth stretched over the panel) previously prepared with a smooth white ground of plaster. And finally oil or albumen was used to go over the whole surface. This was the practice in general use for all detached pictures until the middle of the fifteenth century, when what is known as "the Van Eyck method" came into vogue (see under 186).

Fresco painting is painting upon walls of wet plaster with earths of different colours diluted with water. It is so called from the colour being applied to the fresh wet surface of lime, but it is of two kinds: (1) fresco secco, when the plaster of lime has been allowed to dry on the wall and is then saturated with water before painting; this was the method in use till after Giotto's time; (2) buon fresco, when the colours are laid on to the fresh plaster before it is yet dry. (The fullest account of these various technical processes and their history is Sir C. Eastlake's "Materials for a History of Oil Painting," a review of which by Ruskin appeared in the Quarterly Review, and is reprinted in On the Old Road, vol. i.).

[116] The note in the Official Catalogue says that the picture does not correspond in the scheme of colour to the works of Velazquez's early period. On the other hand, "it shows so decided an affinity with the fine picture by Zurbaran, in the Palace of San Telmo, at Seville, not only in colouring but in every detail of the treatment, that there can be no doubt that the attribution to Velazquez was an error, and that Zurbaran is the true painter of this beautiful work, which may be considered the best picture he ever painted." But "we would fain see proof," says another critic, "that Zurbaran ever painted a head like that of the Divine Child. The rest of the picture recalls the early Seville manner of Velazquez in the style of Ribera" (Quarterly Review, April 1899).

[117] This picture, when first purchased for the National Gallery in 1853, was ascribed to Giorgione. For many years it was given to the "School of Bellini." In 1883 it was identified by Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle as a work by Catena. Signor Morelli and other critics of his school supported this view, which in 1898 was adopted by the authorities of the Gallery. No. 694 has also been so attributed to him in the Catalogue. Other pictures which have at one time or another been connected with Catena are 599, 812, and 1160.

[118] "The roguish little terrier pretends not to see what is going on. But what are the partridges doing behind the chair of the Blessed Virgin? Was the Knight a worldling, given to sport, but arrested in the pursuit of pleasure by some inward voice or vision; and so, taking the result of the day's work, he lays it at the feet of the Divine Child and His Mother? Or was worship simply the pious Knight's godly commencement of the day? Why, too, is the dog so sly looking? Is that little mass of curly white wool a sceptic, doubting his master's good resolutions?" (Sophia Beale in Good Words, July 1895).

[119] Ruskin, in his classification of artists from this point of view, calls them "sensualists," reserving the traditional title "naturalists" to the greatest men, whose "subject is infinite as nature, their colour equally balanced splendour and sadness, reaching occasionally the highest degrees of both, and their chiaroscuro equally balanced between light and shade." This class represents the proper mean. In excess on one side are the "purists" (Angelico, Perugino, Memlinc, Stothard), who take the good and leave the evil. "The faces of their figures express no evil passions; the skies of their landscapes are without storm; the prevalent character of their colour is brightness, and of their chiaroscuro fulness of light." Then in excess on the other side are the "sensualists" (Salvator Rosa, Caravaggio, Ribera), who "perceive and imitate evil only. They cannot draw the trunk of a tree without blasting and shattering it, nor a sky except covered with stormy clouds; they delight in the beggary and brutality of the human race; their colour is for the most part subdued or lurid, and the greatest spaces of their pictures are occupied by darkness" (Stones of Venice, vol. ii. ch. vi.). Elsewhere, Ruskin speaks of Caravaggio and Ribera as "the black slaves of painting" (Elements of Drawing, p. 317).

[120] This is the story told by Dominici, the Neapolitan historian. According to Cean Bermudez, following Palomino (the Spanish historian), Ribera died at Naples honoured and rich.

[121] The tradition that he was a natural son of the Barbarella family, and in consequence called Barbarelli, appears to be unfounded.

[122] "Two figures of Giorgione's are still traceable, one of them (wrote Ruskin in 1846), singularly uninjured, is seen from far above and below the Rialto, flaming like the reflection of a sunset" (Modern Painters vol. i. ed. 3 pt. ii. sec. i. ch. vii. § 30). This beautiful figure was engraved by Ruskin for his fifth volume; he called her from her glowing colour "the Hesperid Aeglé."

[123] Ruskin's seven are Giorgione, Titian, Veronese, Tintoret, Correggio, Reynolds, and Turner (Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. xi, § 8, n).

[124] A reaction in this respect is observable in the latest writer on Giorgione (Mr. Herbert Cook in the "Great Masters" Series), who shows good cause for restoring many pictures to the master. The National Gallery, he says (p. 95), affords unrivalled opportunity for studying the various phases of Giorgione at different stages of his career. Nos. 1160 and 1173 represent his earliest style; No. 1123, his later; Nos. 269 and 636 are intermediate.

[125] A contemporary document, recently discovered, proves that the artist died of the plague. (See appendix to Mr. Herbert Cook's Giorgione, 1900).

[126] Lecture at Oxford 1884 (reported in Cook's Studies in Ruskin, p. 251). See also the "Traveller's edition" of the Stones of Venice, vol. ii. ch. vi., where the picture is described as "one which unites every artistic quality for which the painting of Venice has become renowned with a depth of symbolism and nobleness of manner exemplary of all that in any age of art has characterised its highest masters." A copy of this masterpiece is in the collection of the Arundel Society, now to be seen in the National Gallery.

[127] In an interesting discussion with Sir J. E. Millais, R.A., Mr. Watts, R.A., refers to the colours in this picture. Sir J. Millais had said that time and age are the greatest old masters, and that old Venetian colours were crude. Mr. Watts replied: "The colour of the best-preserved pictures by Titian shows a marked distinction between light flesh tones and white drapery. This is most distinctly seen in the small 'Noli me Tangere' in our National Gallery, in the so-called 'Venus' of the Tribune, and in the 'Flora' of the Uffizi, both in Florence, and in Bronzino's 'All is Vanity,' also in the National Gallery (651). In the last-named picture, for example, the colour is as crude and the surface as bare of mystery as if it had been painted yesterday. As a matter of fact, white unquestionably tones down, but never becomes colour; indeed, under favourable conditions, and having due regard to what is underneath, it changes very little. In the 'Noli me Tangere,' to which I have referred, the white sleeve of the Magdalen is still a beautiful white, quite different from the white of the fairest of Titian's flesh—proving that Titian never painted his flesh white" (Magazine of Art, January 1889).

[128] Or possibly at Vicenza. See Layard, i. 283 n. The words in the document relied upon to establish his birth at Vicenza are ambiguous, and may refer to his father.

[129] Its ascription to Botticelli's own hand is, however, questioned by many critics. Thus Dr. Richter says, "I know of no authentic picture by Botticelli in which the drawing of the hands and feet is so poor and coarse as are here, for instance, those of the Infant Saviour; the type of the child is positively repulsive, whereas in Botticelli's own works it is pre-eminently in the representation of the Infant Christ that his great merits are strikingly apparent" (Lectures on the National Gallery, p. 62). The child, whether painted by Botticelli or by another hand, is undeniably ugly; but the expression of the Madonna, and the figures of the Baptist and the Angel seem to me to show certainly the work of the master himself. Moreover, the critics who dispute the authenticity of this picture admit that of No. 915. Yet, as "D. S. M." says, "the mother here is the same person as the Venus, looking out of the picture with the same effect of gentle detachment, circumscribed with the same draughtsman's lines; the infant, whose type Dr. Richter finds 'positively repulsive,' is the same infant as the Satyrs of the other picture, and so all through" (Saturday Review, Feb. 18, 1899). On the back of the panel is written in the style of the 16th century the name of Giuliano da San Gallo, the celebrated architect, who was also a painter. There are drawings from his hand in the British Museum, which show that he came from Botticelli's school. His name on the back of this picture proves, it is argued, that it is by him. It may, however, very probably only signify that the picture formerly belonged to him.

[130] Mr. Pater, in a well-known passage, gives a different explanation of the peculiar sentiment in Botticelli's Madonnas. "Perhaps you have sometimes wondered why they attract you more and more, and often come—although conformed to no obvious type of beauty—back to you when the Madonnas of Raphael and the Virgins of Fra Angelico are forgotten. At first, contrasting them with those, you may have thought that there was something even mean or abject in them, for the lines of the face have little nobleness, and the colour is wan. For with Botticelli she too, though she holds in her hands the 'Desire of all Nations,' is one of those who are neither for God nor for his enemies (see under III. 1126), and her choice is on her face. She shrinks from the presence of the Divine Child, and pleads in unmistakable undertones for a warmer, lower humanity" (W. H. Pater: Studies of the Renaissance).

You promise heavens free from strife,
Pure truth and perfect change of will;
But sweet, sweet is this human life,
So sweet I fain would breathe it still.
Your chilly stars I can forgo:
This warm, kind world is all I know.

Ionica: Mimnermus in Church.

[131]

The moon of Rome, chaste as the icicle
That's curdied by the frost from purest snow
And hangs on Dian's temple.

[132] The doors of the temple of "two-headed Janus" at Rome were always thrown open when the State was at war, and only closed in time of peace.

[133] The whole, or part, of this picture was at one time freely ascribed to Raphael; but Morelli has effectually disposed of the superstition by showing, amongst other arguments, that the drawings for Tobias and the Angel (in the Oxford University Gallery and in the British Museum) are undoubtedly by Perugino (Italian Art in the German Galleries, 1883, p. 289). The Oxford drawing is described and discussed, on the assumption that it is by Raphael, in Sir J. C. Robinson's Drawings by Michael Angelo and Raffaello, p. 129.

[134] For a record of his movements the reader may refer to Morelli's Italian Masters in German Galleries, 1883, pp. 285-291.

[135] Vasari's bias against the Umbrian master is too marked for any of his attacks to be accepted without corroboration.

[136] In a critique of F. Walker's "Fishmongers' Stalls," Ruskin says: "If the reader will waste five minutes of his season in London in the National Gallery, he may see in the hand of Perugino's Tobias a fish worth all these on the boards together" (Arrows of the Chace, i. 177).

[137] With regard to the "purist ideal" it should be noticed that "these fantasies of the earlier painters, though they darkened faith, never hardened feeling; on the contrary, the frankness of their unlikelihood proceeded mainly from the endeavour on the part of the painter to express, not the actual fact, but the enthusiastic state of his own feelings about the fact; he covers the Virgin's dress with gold, not with any idea of representing the Virgin as she ever was, or ever will be seen, but with a burning desire to show what his love and reverence would think fittest for her. He erects for the stable a Lombardic portico, not because he supposes the Lombardi to have built stables in Palestine in the days of Tiberius, but to show that the manger in which Christ was laid is, in his eyes, nobler than the grandest architecture in the world. He fills his landscape with church spires and silver streams, not because he supposes that either were in sight at Bethlehem, but to remind the beholder of the peaceful course and succeeding power of Christianity" (Modern Painters, vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. iv. § 10). For a different kind of feeling in "naturalistic" art, see under 744.

[138] Visitors who are interested in such points of connoisseurship may be glad of this summary with regard to the works ascribed in the Official Catalogue to the associated painters, Fra Filippo Lippi, Filippino Lippi, and Botticelli. The undisputed pictures of Fra Filippo are 248, 666, and 667; of Filippino, 293 and 927. The pictures 592 and 1033 have marked resemblances both to Fra Filippo, Filippino, and to Botticelli, and are ascribed by different critics to one or other of those masters or pupils. 598 and 1124 are often ascribed to a pupil of Filippino; the pictures 586 and 589 to a pupil of Fra Filippo. The undisputed pictures of Botticelli are 1034 and 1126. The pictures 226, 275, 782, 915, and 916, are all ascribed by some critics to a pupil of his only, whilst to Botticelli himself has now been ascribed the portrait 626, formerly classed as "Unknown." To a supposed painter, christened by the critics "Amico di Sandro," 1124 and 1412 are attributed.

[139] Layard, ii. 621. Similarly Ruskin says: "The possession of the Pisani Veronese will happily enable the English public and the English artist to convince themselves how sincerity and simplicity in statements of fact, power of draughtsmanship, and joy in colour, were associated in a perfect balance in the great workmen in Venice" (Catalogue of the Turner Sketches and Drawings, 1858, p. 10). As an instance of Veronese's "economical work"—a sure sign of a great painter—Ruskin refers to "the painting of the pearls on the breast of the nearer princess, in our best Paul Veronese. The lowest is about the size of a small hazel nut, and falls on her rose-red dress. Any other but a Venetian would have put a complete piece of white paint over the dress, for the whole pearl, and painted that into the colours of the stone. But Veronese knows beforehand that all the dark side of the pearl will reflect the red of the dress. He will not put white over the red, only to put red over the white again. He leaves the actual dress for the dark side of the pearl, and with two small separate touches, one white, another brown, places its high light and shadow. This he does with perfect care and calm: but in two decisive seconds. There is no dash nor display, nor hurry, nor error. The exactly right thing is done in the exactly right place, and not one atom of colour, nor moment of time spent vainly. Look close at the two touches,—you wonder what they mean. Retire six feet from the picture—the pearl is there!" (Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. viii. ch. iv. § 18). "One of the chief delights which any one who really enjoys painting finds in that art as distinct from sculpture, is in the exquisite inlaying or joiner's work of it, the fitting of edge to edge with a manual skill, precisely correspondent to the close application of crowded notes without the least slur, in fine harp or piano-playing. In many of the finest works of colour on a large scale, there is even some admission of the quality given to a painted window by the dark lead bars between the pieces of glass. Both Tintoret and Veronese, when they paint on dark grounds, continually stop short with their tints just before they touch others, leaving the dark ground showing between in a narrow bar. In the Paul Veronese in the National Gallery, you will find every here and there pieces of outline which you would suppose were drawn with a brown pencil. But no! look close, and you will find that they are the dark ground left between two tints, brought close to each other without touching" (Lectures on Landscape, § 68). Elsewhere, Ruskin calls special attention to the painting of "the drooped left hand of the princess, holding her crown" (Academy Notes, 1858, p. 46).

[140] An even more striking instance is to be found in Veronese's picture of the Last Supper, now in the Academy of Venice. Here too he introduced his favourite dog, as well as dwarfs and armed retainers. He was summoned before the Inquisition for such irreverent anachronisms; and the account of his cross-examination is most amusing and instructive reading. A translation will be found in the appendix to Ruskin's Guide to the Academy at Venice.

[141] Some readers may like to be referred to the passages in which Ruskin discusses the place of the dog in art, with special reference to Veronese. They are, Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. vi., and The Eagle's Nest, i. ch. viii.

[142] Richter (Italian Art in the National Gallery, p. 74) disputes this. The kneeling girls are, he believes, the artist's daughters, whom he has also introduced into a picture in the Louvre, and the courtier presenting them is Veronese himself.

[143] The pattern of the Madonna's robe in this picture is worth notice—"a good specimen of the treatment, probably taken from Persian examples, of a ground sprinkled with conventional sprays of flowers spaced regularly" (Vacher).

[144] The three portraits, 1022, 1023, and 1025, formerly in the Casa Fenaroli at Brescia, were there all attributed to Moretto. Signor Morelli was the first to recognise in the two former the hand and mind of Moroni, under whose name they were sold to the National Gallery.

[145] Mr. Dickes's ingenious and interesting explanation is now accepted by the authorities, and there can be little doubt of its correctness. The motto had previously been misread as του λιαν ποθω which was interpreted "by the desire of the extreme." The picture was for many years in the possession of the Martinengo Cesaresco family, and passed for a portrait of their ancestor Count Sciarra. The motto was interpreted as referring to the Count's desire to avenge the death of his father, who had been assassinated. The desire of the extreme, the activity of a restless spirit, was with the Count to the end, and he died fighting in France in the campaign which ended in a defeat of the Huguenots at the battle of Moncontour, October 3, 1569. But the Count Sciarra was a soldier-adventurer, showing no characteristics accordant with the nobleman before us other than that, according to a Brescian historian, "his eyes gleamed with an unconquerable desire." But the inscription is undoubtedly as given in the text, the accents being all clearly marked. The portrait is clearly not of a restless man of action, so much as of a dilettante. The dates of the Count Sciarra's career are also inconsistent with his being painted in this picture of Moretto's best period. The statements on behalf of the traditional identification made by the Contessa Evelyn Martinengo Cesaresco (Athenæum, Aug. 12, 1893) do not touch the points.

[146] The feeling which one may thus find in these paintings of four centuries ago still lingers amongst the Italian peasantry, as readers of Miss Alexander's Roadside Songs and Christ's Folk in the Apennine (both edited by Mr. Ruskin) will know.

[147] It may be worth noting that, according to the son of Turner's friend, Trimmer, this picture "had an entire new sky painted at the desire of Lawrence and other brother artists, who, when he had altered it, said the picture was ruined" (Thornbury's Life of Turner, i. 175).

[148] Dr. Richter, in laying down the law to the contrary, gives too narrow an interpretation to Vasari's words. The Margaritone is certainly inferior to the best Byzantine work, but it adheres to the characteristics noticed above. Dr. Richter says: "This curious, if uninteresting painter, in all probability would never have emerged from his modest sphere of awkward provincialism into the full light of history but for the special praise bestowed upon him by his obliging countryman, Vasari. The latter states definitely, among other things, that Margaritone painted in the maniera greca; nevertheless, a single glance at the picture in the National Gallery is sufficient to convince the beholder that in reality this is not the case. Margaritone's pictures appear to me to be drawn in the wild and grotesque style prevalent in Italy during the early middle ages" (Lectures on the National Gallery, p. 11).

[149] Dr. Richter ascribes all these pictures to the School of Duccio (see Lectures on the National Gallery, pp. 4-10.).

[150] So described in the Official Catalogue. But "is the female saint on the right wing of the triptych really St. Catherine of Alexandria? Only the beginning of the inscription on either side of the figure containing the name can here still be deciphered. It runs thus: SCA (Saint) AL. The reading 'Catherine' thus apparently becomes inadmissible. Besides, the emblems of this female saint are decidedly not those of Catherine of Alexandria, who is always represented with a wheel as the emblem of her martyrdom, while the saint in the picture before us holds in her right hand a palm branch (?) and in her left a small cross, the emblem of confessors" (Richter's Italian Art in the National Gallery, p. 9).

[151] This head is said to bear a marked resemblance to Mr. Swinburne as a young man (see W. B. Scott's Autobiographical Notes, ii. 18).

[152] It was a practice at Italian weddings that the bride should be presented, as part of her dowry, with a coffer, which was intended to hold her trousseau and wedding presents. Some very fine specimens of these cassoni may be seen in the South Kensington Museum. They belong principally to the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries. The typical cassone measured about six feet in length by two in height and two in breadth. The front and ends were decorated with paintings or carvings. The subjects depicted are either marriage scenes or stories borrowed from the Scriptures, from the classics, or from Petrarch. Many of the panel pictures in the National Gallery once adorned these cassoni. See, for instance, Nos. 1218 and 1219. A favourite subject was the allegory entitled "The Triumph of Love, Chastity, and Death," of which an excellent example is at South Kensington. The panel in this Gallery, No. 1196, has a similar subject.

[153] This picture and the tondo of the same subject (1033) are by many critics ascribed to Botticelli. "In my opinion," says Morelli, "the two excellent but somewhat defaced pictures in the National Gallery, 592 and 1033, are works not of Filippino, but of Botticelli, whose dramatic powers are well displayed here" (Italian Masters in German Galleries, p. 236). For a full discussion leading to the same conclusion, see Monkhouse's In the National Gallery, p. 73.

[154] Miss Betham-Edwards, on a visit to the painter at By, was shown some sketches for "The Horse Fair." "'There you have a Boulonnais,' I observed, as we contemplated the study of a fine black cart-horse. This remark gratified her. 'I am glad to find a stranger so much interested in our cart-horses'" (Anglo-French Reminiscences, ch. xxv.). Rosa Bonheur's knowledge of the animal world of France was very wide and precise.

[155] This was Rosa Bonheur's own faith. "I believe," she once said, "in a just God, and a Paradise of the just. But religion (i.e. the religion of Rome) does not altogether satisfy me. I hold it monstrous that animals are supposed to be without souls. My poor lioness loved me. Thus she had more soul than certain human beings who do not know what it is to love anything."

[156] "Giulio Romano did a little of everything for the Dukes of Mantua,—from painting the most delicate and improper little fresco for a bedchamber, to restraining the Po and Mincio with immense dykes, restoring ancient edifices and building new ones, draining swamps and demolishing and reconstructing whole streets, painting palaces and churches, and designing the city slaughter-house" (W. D. Howells's Italian Journeys, "Ducal Mantua"). Giulio's departure from Rome to Mantua was due to the scandal caused by the publication of some obscene designs of his (see Symonds, v. 341).

[157] "The piece of St. Catherine's dress over her shoulders is painted on the under dress, after that was dry. All its value would have been lost, had the slightest tint or trace of it been given previously. This picture, I think, and certainly many of Tintoret's, are painted on dark grounds; but this is to save time, and with some loss to the future brightness of the colour" (Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. viii. ch. iv. § 17 n.).

[158] Robert Browning, however, notes "the bonne bourgeoisie of his pictures; the dear common folk of his crowds, divinely pure they all are, but fresh from the streets and market-place" (Letters of Robert and E. B. Browning, i. 197). Mr. Langton Douglas in an illustrated monograph on Fra Angelico (1900) lays stress on the painter's "strength and freedom" as shown in the "Adoration of the Magi" at San Marco, or the "San Lorenzo giving alms" in the studio of Pope Nicholas; illustrates the influence of contemporary architecture and sculpture on his work; and characterises him not as "a saint with a happy knack of illustration," but as "an artist who happened to be a saint."

[159] "This," says Mr. Hipkins of the present picture, "is the grandest and most extended mediæval band on record, worthy of the heavenly Host, to declare the praises of the Blessed Trinity." Mr. Hipkins gives an interesting identification and description of the instruments employed. To the left of the centre compartment we may find a viol, a rebec, a clarion, trumpets, harp, cither, double flute, and psaltery—also a tambourine, beaten with the hand, a tabor, and a portable organ. In the centre, under Christ, are two organs. The player on the pipe and tabor, left of the Redeemer, blows what seems to be a short French whistle. "Next to this musician is a cymbal player. The time beater is apparently no less required where time exists no more than he is in our terrestrial world; such discipline of rhythm is hereby sanctified." "In the upper rows, on the left hand of the Redeemer, we see one of those large guitar-viols which were used by the troubadours" (see further The Hobby Horse, No. 1, 1893, pp. 14-16).

[160] "The many small figures which are seen here surrounded by a celestial glory are so beautiful," says Vasari of this picture, "that they appear to be truly beings of paradise; nor can he who approaches them be ever weary of regarding their beauty."

[161] Now ascribed by many critics to Bouts (see 783).

[162] Or more correctly, Piero dei' Franceschi, after the family name of his mother. Her Christian name was Romana, and Piero's father, it has now been ascertained, continued living during many years of his son's career. The year of Piero's birth is unknown.

[163] This is a more charitable judgment than contemporary documents would suggest. In 1450 Fra Filippo was thrown into prison for a debt which he denied, and under torture confessed that he had forged the receipt. He was deprived of his rectory, and appealed to the Pope, who, however, confirmed the sentence, in a brief in which the painter is accused of "numerous and abominable wickednesses."

[164] It is interesting to note the cartellino, or little card at the foot of the picture, on which Antonello inscribes his name and the date. This cartellino was taken as a model by Giovanni Bellini and subsequent Venetian artists (see e.g. 189 and 280).

[165] Comparing him with Italian painters, his period of activity is seen to be coincident with the earlier work of Carpaccio and Perugino; he died while Raphael was still a boy. Crowe and Cavalcaselle have shown that Memlinc's work was well known and appreciated among Italian connoisseurs of the time.

[166] I venture to retain this title, though the Official Catalogue assures us that it is but "a pleasing illusion," as "the features and the general form of head have little or no resemblance to the quite authentic portraits of Andrea" at Florence, "or to that engraved by Vasari, who was personally acquainted with the painter. If (adds the catalogue) the object in the hands represents, as it well may, a piece of modelling-clay, the subject of the portrait was probably a Florentine sculptor." In that case we may perhaps save our "pleasing illusion" by supposing that Andrea interpreted the expression of a fellow-artist by his own experience. But the case is by no means clear. The earlier portrait in the Uffizi is not very unlike ours. In the later some resemblance remains, though the face has coarsened. But this is a matter on which every one must see resemblances or otherwise for himself. (Reproductions will be found in the monograph on the painter in the "Great Masters" series. The author, H. Guinness, considers the authenticity of our portrait to be "beyond question," p. 23).

[167] Lucrezia's character has, however, been whitewashed of late years: see Gazette des Beaux Arts, December 1876 and three following months.

[168] This delightful picture, which has hitherto been ascribed to Bellini himself, is now (1898) attributed in the official catalogue to Catena (see 234).

[169] "The pet portrait of the lecturer was Moroni's 'Tailor.' Luckily the original painting was in the National Gallery, and all interested could judge for themselves whether, for simplicity, expression, drawing, colour, and above all, soul, the portrait had a rival" (Report of a lecture on "Portraiture" by Mr. Harry Furniss).

[170] In a red-figured vase in the British Museum (E 477 in the Third Vase Room) there is a picture of this same subject. "The drawing," says Miss Harrison, "is somewhat coarse, and the painter seems to be struggling with a subject that is expressively too much for him. Procris sinks in death in an odd, ill-drawn attitude; her soul escapes in the form of a bird, Kephalos smites his head in despair, the dog Lailaps watches concerned. Erechtheus, the old king-father, is at hand to sympathise; the curt archaic symbolism of attitude, the utterance of mere gesture, is at fault here. The story was pregnant with modern suggestion. It had to wait, so to speak, for the delicate imagination of the Renaissance painter, Piero di Cosimo, to make us feel the contrast between the dead woman, over-sentient, passion-slain, and the shaggy faun, kindly perplexed, and the dumb, faithful dog; between the soft slack peace of the woodland and the terrible tension of humanity" (Magazine of Art, 1894, p. 61).

[171] Formerly ascribed to Margaret van Eyck.

[172] Formerly ascribed to Van der Goes.

[173]

The clouds that gather round the setting sun
Do take a sober colouring from an eye
That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality.

Wordsworth.

[174] The existence of this supposed younger Foppa, and the date 1492 (rather than 1502) must be considered doubtful in view of the researches published by C. J. Ffoulkes in the Athenæum, February 15, 1902.

[175] "Velazquez has left a great number of striking pictures, each containing a single figure. The Count de Pourtalès, in the collection at Paris (from which this picture was bought in 1865), has an excellent specimen of one of these studies, called 'The Dead Orlando'" (Stirling's Annals of the Artists of Spain, 1848, p. 680). Other authorities ascribe the picture to Valdes Leal (see 1291).

[176] Among other points we may notice the beautiful landscape; "Nothing can be more perfect in pictorial effect than the old wall, the distant roofs, the gleams of light on water, and the exquisite tones of gray" (Gilbert's Landscape in Art, p. 263).

[177] It may be interesting to note what Raphael's method actually was. He writes to Count Baldassare Castiglione, in a complimentary way: "To paint a beautiful woman, I must see several, with this condition, that your lordship be near me to select the loveliest. But there being a dearth both of good judges and of beautiful women, I make use of a certain idea that comes into my mind. Whether with benefit to art, I know not; but I strive to form such an ideal in my mind."

[178] Readers of Ruskin will remember the high praise accorded to Richter's illustrations of the Lord's Prayer and other engravings in The Elements of Drawing.

[179] See their Vittore Carpaccio et la Confrérie de Sainte Ursule, pp. 9-10, and Vittore Carpaccio, Le Vite e le Opere.

[180] Raphael was born in 1483. In 1491 his mother died.

[181] "Pisano's dragon is a pleasant-looking animal, wild-boar faced, and smilingly showing his fangs, as he crouches by the eminently gentlemanly St. George in the silver-plated and gilt armour; and a word in passing must be said for the lovely hog, with a broad grin overspreading his countenance, who accompanies the placid St. Anthony. Is not St. George, in the broad Tuscan hat, the personification of John Inglesant as il Cavaliere di San Giorgio?" (S. Beale in Good Words, July 1895).

[182] "A splendid example of the naïve humour of the painter. There is the father, somewhat sly, and the eldest son resembling him but less 'cute. The next head is that of a jolly, sandy-haired fellow. Then comes the reprobate, with a sensual upper lip, the only one in the family; all the others have thin, long slit mouths, as well as long straight noses. Behind, are the poor relations. We see the good, hard-working cousin, who has found life too much for him; the self-approving fellow, who thanks God he is not as other men are; and above him the man who, if he has been saved from committing some terrible crime, certainly owes his exemption to God's mercy, not, we may be sure, to his own strength of will. On the other side are the ladies of the family. The severe mamma, with flat brow, a veritable Mrs. Grundy. The daughter, evidently a worldling by the jewelled band round her forehead, is praying, because it is the business of the moment. The easy-going maiden above her has taken to religious life because it affords her a certain amount of distinction, with a little soul-saving. Behind, is the old great-aunt, a really pious soul, who has adopted conventual life from a devout conviction that she could live better and do more good as a member of a community than dwelling in the world. Above, are two fat-faced children, both more or less bored; and behind them is another, fascinated by the jewels of her kinswomen" (S. Beale in Good Words, July 1895).

[183] See Richter's Italian Art in the National Gallery, p. 44, where a résumé of recent criticism and a facsimile of the Albertina drawing will be found. Signor Frizzoni, cited with approval by Richter, says: "Although the composition seems to me not in the least attractive, nor even successful (and for this very reason the picture might have been left unfinished), yet I cannot but consider it to be an original, and, moreover, a specially interesting one, and worthy of being looked at closely by those who wish to study the master in the numerous characteristic features of his style. In my opinion it is an early work by him; and this becomes evident especially from the purity and delicacy in the features of one of the Maries, standing on the right side, in which, if I am not mistaken, the pure types of his first master, Domenico Ghirlandaio, are much more perceptible than Buonarroti's own grand style. In other parts, however, the sculpturesque manner of modelling peculiar to him is not less noticeable—in the muscles, sturdy as usual, and in the prominent rendering of the corpse." Symonds, on the other hand, has no hesitation in rejecting the picture. "It is," he says, "painful to believe that at any period of his life Michelangelo could have produced a composition so discordant, so unsatisfactory in some anatomical details, so feelingless and ugly. It bears indubitable traces of his influence; that is apparent in the figure of the dead Christ. But this colossal nude, with the massive chest and attenuated legs, reminds us of his manner in old age; whereas the rest of the picture shows no trace of that manner. I am inclined to think that the Entombment was the production of a second-rate craftsman, working upon some design made by Michelangelo at the advanced period when the Passion of our Lord occupied his thoughts in Rome. Even so, the spirit of the drawing must have been imperfectly assimilated; and, what is more puzzling, the composition does not recall the style of Michelangelo's old age. The colouring, so far as we can understand it, rather suggests Pontormo" (The Life of Michelangelo, 1893, i. 68). Sir Edward Poynter, on the other hand, will hear of no doubt: "There is," he says, "no doubt whatever that this picture is the work of the great master. The originality of the composition, the magnificent dignity of the poses, the perfection of the modelling, combined with the profound knowledge and subtle play of the anatomical forms where the work is complete, and the exquisite beauty of the drapery, all stamp it as a work which, if completed, would have been one of the masterpieces of the world, and possible to no one but the great master of design. It is thought desirable to insist on the grand qualities of this picture, because it has been ascribed to Bandinelli, a bombastic sculptor, quite incapable either of the refinement or of the subtle feeling for nature which is evident in all the finished portions of this work" (The National Gallery, i. 72).

[184] According to one of the dramatic critics in the daily press, Sir Henry Irving in playing Richelieu was made up to resemble closely this picture; and (added the critic) the actor brought out the three sides of Richelieu's character here depicted. "At times we see him as the pitiless, unscrupulous man who forced himself from obscurity to a power greater than his monarch's; at others we see the fine courteous gentleman who patronised literature, founded the French Academy, and collaborated in half a dozen bad plays; and there is also not a little of the paltry, small-minded tyrant of whom Corneille said—

Il m'a trop fait de bien pour en dire du mal.
Il m'a trop fait de mal pour en dire du bien."

[185] See Morelli's German Galleries, p. 393. He dismisses the idea of an original Vicentine School as one which "cannot be entertained at all."

[186] "By Gentile Bellini, and not by Giovanni, as stated in the Catalogue. The latter artist drew the ear of a different shape than did his brother Gentile" (Morelli: German Galleries, p. 10 n.). If by Gentile, the signature is forged or altered.

[187] "I subjoin," writes the poet to his mother (December 23, 1880), "a sonnet I have done on the Michelangelo in the National Gallery. In this picture the Virgin is withdrawing from the child the book which contains the prophecy of his sufferings—I suppose that of Isaiah. The idea is a most beautiful one; and behind the group are angels perusing a scroll. Shields was helpful to me in the interpretation of this" (Letters and Memoir, ii. 365).

[188] Signed Joannes Bellini, but by some critics ascribed to Gentile Bellini. See Frizzoni's Arte Italiana del Rinascimento, p. 314.

[189] To the same effect, Sir Edward Poynter: "The painting of the green forest is the most perfectly beautiful piece of workmanship that ever was put into a picture" (Lectures on Art, p. 128).

[190] But see note on No. 53.

[191] "Unfortunately, Hobbema has allowed some one, apparently Wyntrank, to put a few ducks into the foreground. They are not wanted, and the manipulation required to fit them in has caused the lower part of the picture to darken disagreeably" (Armstrong: Notes on the National Gallery, p. 38).

[192] Ruskin speaks of him as an artist "first-rate in an inferior line" (On the Old Road, i. 558).

[193] Some of Mr. Gladstone's purchases for the National Gallery are noticed in the introduction to Appendix II. The "Ansidei Madonna" was also purchased by a special vote when he was in power. The Gallery owes the present picture to Mr. Disraeli's taste. "I happened," says Sir William Fraser in his Disraeli and his Day, "to be at the saleroom in King Street: the crowd was considerable. A picture was on the easel for sale; I did not know the name of the painter: the subject, 'The Nativity,' of the pre-Raphaelite school. I was so charmed with it that I bid up to two thousand pounds. I then felt that I could not trust my judgment further: that I might be mistaken: and that the picture might be 'run up' for trade purposes. It was bought for £2415. A few days afterwards I met Mr. C. Having noticed him in the crowd, I said, 'Do you happen to know who bought that "Francesca"?' 'I did. Disraeli told me to buy it for the National Gallery.'"

[194] The fondness of the Old Masters for the brute creation is illustrated in this picture, as in so many others. The ox is evidently fascinated by the music; the ass is disturbed and brays fiercely. Note also the goldfinch upon the roof.

[195] "The painter must, for the present, remain as an unknown Umbrian, almost equally influenced by Pinturicchio and Signorelli, and with peculiar qualities of simple grace and romance, which give his work an extremely individual character" (Cruttwell's Signorelli, p. 117).

[196] English readers will find some account, with occasional translations, of Poliziano's poem in Symonds's Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, ii. 334, and Renaissance, iv. 350. Symonds, had already remarked that much of the poem is like a picture of Botticelli. The same painter's "Birth of Venus" may have been suggested by stanza 99 of Poliziano, though the peculiar sentiment of that famous picture is the painter's own. See also under 916.

[197] "We venture to ask," says Dr. Richter, "is this really an Italian picture?" (Italian Art in the National Gallery, p. 87).

[198] The figures are by Tiepolo (see under 1192).

[199] Visitors who have been to Venice will remember that "Carpaccio trusts for the chief splendour of any festa in cities to the patterns of the draperies hung out of windows" (Bible of Amiens, p. 3).

[200] Or, according to Mr. Berenson, of Alvise Vivarini and Lotto (see his Lorenzo Lotto, pp. 113, 304).

[201] It was exhibited at the "Old Masters" exhibition in 1873 as a Raphael. Mr. Ruskin, who had noticed it there, wrote to Mr. Fairfax Murray, "Please look at the Raphael, and tell me how far the colour may have changed on St. John's shoulder and in Judas' dress, and how far the fantastic shot silks of this last are absolutely as they were."

[202] It is a repetition with but slight variations of the Medici picture in the Uffizi.

[203] "The early Italian masters felt themselves so indebted to, and formed by, the master-craftsman who had mainly disciplined their fingers, whether in work on gold or marble, that they practically considered him their father, and took his name rather than their own; so that most of the great Italian workmen are now known, not by their own names, but by those of their masters (or of their native towns or villages—these being recognised as masters also), the master being himself often entirely forgotten by the public, and eclipsed by his pupil; but immortal in his pupil, and named in his name.... All which I beg you to take to heart and meditate on concerning Mastership and Pupilage" (Fors Clavigera, 1872, xxii. 3, 4). Vasari's story may be true, says Dr. Richter, "even though no contemporary record of a goldsmith called Botticello has been found. We know, however, that he had a brother, Giovanni Battista, a carpenter and frame-maker of some repute, nicknamed Botticegli, i.e. 'Little Barrel'; this nickname may have been inherited by the younger brother" (Lectures on the National Gallery, p. 48).

[204] See Richter's Lectures on the National Gallery for the list, p. 46.

[205] Reference may be made also to Mr. Swinburne's "Notes on Designs of the Old Masters at Florence" (first published in the Fortnightly Review for July 1868), in which he speaks of "the faint and almost painful grace which gives a distinct value and curious charm to all the works of Botticelli." At an auction in 1867 D. G. Rossetti picked up a Botticelli for £20. "If he had not something to do," writes his brother, "with the vogue which soon afterwards began to attach to that fascinating master, I am under a misapprehension." Pater's essay first appeared in the Fortnightly Review of August 1870. Ruskin's first mention of Botticelli was in a lecture delivered at Oxford during the Lent Term, 1871. Carpaccio had been proclaimed in a lecture of the preceding year, and it became a standing joke among the profane to ask who was Ruskin's last "greatest painter." It was in answer thereto that Mr. Bourdillon wrote:

To us this star or that seems bright,
And oft some headlong meteor's flight
Holds for awhile our raptured sight.
But he discerns each noble star;
The least is only the most far,
Whose worlds, may be, the mightiest are.

[206] "The dress appears to have been originally crimson or pink. If so, it has faded to so agreeable a tone that one could hardly wish it otherwise" (Poynter).

[207] The visitor should contrast Canaletto's painting of still water with Turner's (see under 535).

[208] "Upon asking how he had been taught the art of a cognoscento so very suddenly, he assured me that nothing was more easy. The whole secret consisted in a strict adherence to two rules: the one, always to observe that the picture might have been better if the painter had taken more pains; and the other to praise the works of Pietro Perugino" (Vicar of Wakefield, ch. xx.).

[209] The author of the catalogue of the Burlington Fine Arts Club's Exhibition of 1898 maintains that the two side panels are later in date than the central panel, and have no connection with it (p. xxxvii.).

[210] Sir Walter Armstrong attributes No. 1079 to David. "The National Gallery possesses one of the best of David's authenticated works (1045), and a comparison between it and the "Adoration of the Magi," numbered 1079, goes far to prove them to be by one hand. Compare, for instance, the figure of the beggar in the one picture with that of St. Joseph in shadow behind the Virgin, in the other. And the evidence of style is confirmed by a curious discovery that I happened to make one bright day, when the glass was off the latter picture. Low down in the left-hand corner the word Ouvvater is written in a way that precludes the notion of forgery, for it has been scratched with, perhaps, the butt end of a brush, while the paint was still wet, so that the red under-painting shows through the letters. David was born at Ouwater, or Oudewater, about 1450, and did not migrate to Bruges till 1484" (Notes on the National Gallery, p. 29).

[211] See Morley's Diderot, ii. 62. "Yet he cannot refuse to concede about one of Boucher's pictures that after all he would be glad to possess it. Every time you saw it, he says, you would find fault with it, yet you would go on looking at it. This is perhaps what the severest modern amateur, as he strolls carelessly through the French school at his leisure, would not in his heart care to deny."

[212] Ruskin speaks under the head of typical beauty (of beauty, that is, as typical of divine attributes) of the absolute necessity in pictures for some suggestion of infinity. "Escape, Hope, Infinity, by whatever conventionalism sought, the device is the same in all, the instinct constant" (Modern Painters, vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. i. ch. v. §§ 7, 8).

[213] Ruskin finds Leonardo's landscape unconvincing. "In realisation of detail he verges on the ornamental; in his rock outlines he has all the deficiencies and little of the feeling of the earlier men. The rocks are grotesque without being ideal, and extraordinary without being impressive." "The forms of rock in Leonardo's celebrated 'Vierge aux Rochers' are literally no better than those on a china plate" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. i. ch. vii. § 13; Edinburgh Lectures on Architecture and Painting, p. 157). A high authority on the Alpine region, Mr. Douglas Freshfield, has suggested that the originals of Leonardo's backgrounds are to be found among the mountains between Val Sassina and the Lago di Lecco: "The last spurs of the Alps are here singularly picturesque. The bold forms of the Corno di Canzo and Monte Baro break down to display the shining pools of the Laghi di Pusiano and d' Annone. Hither Leonardo may have come, and looking across the narrow lake or from beside some smaller pool or stream at the stiff upright rocks of the Grigna and the Resegone, have conceived the strange backgrounds with which we are all familiar" (Italian Alps, 1875, p. 126). Mr. Freshfield's suggestion is borne out by Leonardo's own topographical notes, since published. He had visited the district and specially remarks upon its fantastic rocks.

[214] When in the Hamilton Collection, this picture was ascribed to Giorgione. Some critics strongly dispute the ascription (see, e.g., Richter's Italian Art in the National Gallery, p. 87), others accept it (see, e.g., an article in the Times, July 26, 1882). Sir Edward Poynter says: "The qualities of colour and painting in this picture so closely resemble those of the famous 'Fête Champêtre' by Giorgione in the Louvre, that it is difficult not to believe that the two pictures are by the same hand, and that, if the Louvre picture is rightly named, the original attribution to Giorgione may be correct" (National Gallery, i. 24). Mr. Herbert Cook is of the same opinion: "The figures, with their compactly built and rounded limbs, are such as Giorgione loved to model, the sweep of draperies and the splendid line indicate a consummate master, the idyllic landscape is just such as we see in the Louvre picture and elsewhere, the glow and splendour of the whole reveal a master of tone and colouring" (Giorgione, p. 94). As an illustration of the uncertainty of criticism it may be interesting to append the observations on Sir E. Poynter's remarks made by a writer in the Daily Telegraph of Dec. 29, 1899: "In reality no two works belonging to more or less the same period of Venetian art could be more utterly different. The Hamilton Palace picture is a soulless and second-rate production, dating a good many years later than the Louvre idyll, wholly different from it in handling, and remarkable only for its beautiful golden tone. The Louvre 'Fête Champêtre'—a late example of the divine master—is one of the loveliest and most characteristic pieces produced in the early prime of Venetian painting. Should the 'Venus and Adonis' be set down to Giorgione, the misrepresentation in the National Gallery of a unique figure in art would be complete."

[215] By Mr. Berenson to "Amico di Sandro."

[216] "The figures are ill-proportioned and want expression and character. They are more probably by a scholar or imitator" (Layard's Kugler, vol. i. p. 289).

[217] Critics of the modern school assert that the picture was not executed by Botticelli, even if it was designed by him; it bears, they say, "no trace of his style" (see, e.g., Richter's Lectures and Frizzoni's Arte Italiana del Rinascimento). Ruskin was on the same side: "I hope you know Botticelli well enough," he wrote to Mr. Fairfax Murray (February 14, 1873), "not to think you'll have to copy stuff like that arms-akimbo thing. By the way, what have they all got, like truncheons? They look like a lot of opera-directors." Dr. Uhlmann in his work on Botticelli ascribes the picture to Botticini; Vasari, he thinks, confused the two painters,—a theory for which there is no sort of proof. There is only one work of Botticini which has been identified with certainty. It is at Empoli, and was executed in 1490, or fifteen years at least before this picture. Vasari's account is precise, and is confirmed, as we have seen, by historical records. Very convincing internal proofs are necessary to overthrow this external evidence. Where are such proofs? The idea of the picture is entirely in accordance with what we know of Botticelli. "The wonderful energy of the angels and the boldness of the design attest his invention" (Monkhouse's In the National Gallery, p. 64). The case in this sense is very well put by Mr. Maurice Hewlett in the Academy of January 9, 1892. He points out among other things that the picture agrees with the general spirit of Botticelli's designs for the "Paradiso."

[218] Some account of the poem is given in an appendix to vol. v. of Symonds's Renaissance in Italy.

[219] The traveller will find a convenient handbook to these frescoes in Mr. J. L. Bevir's Visitor's Guide to Orvieto.

[220] It came from the Hamilton sale (1882), and was bought for the small price of £157:10s.

[221] Owing to the similarity of initials IVO the picture was ascribed by its former owner to Isaac van Ostade, who, however, died in 1649.

[222] Materials for such comparison—which is not the least interesting of the many lines of study offered by a collection of pictures—are provided in Mrs. Jameson's books, or may be formed still better by every student for himself by a collection of photographs. A capital series of articles by Mr. Grant Allen in the Pall Mall Magazine of 1895 traced, in a few of the most popular subjects, the process of "Evolution in Early Italian Art."

[223] Visitors to Venice will remember a beautiful use of this arrangement on the southern side of the Rialto, the Dove forming the keystone of the arch.

[224] A piece of paper of the last century, glued to the back of this panel, contains a memorandum in now faded ink, in the handwriting of the great-grandfather of Signor G. Molfini (from whom the picture was bought in Genoa in 1883), to the following effect:—"Antonello of Messina, a city of Sicily, a famous painter.... And this is his portrait, painted by himself, as was to be seen by an inscription below it which I, in order to reduce it (i.e. the picture) to a better shape, sawed away." Some traces of further writing are now illegible.

[225] Ford Madox Brown, who was not one to be impressed by any authority, has some very scathing remarks on this picture: "Bad in colour, in drawing, in grouping, and in expression, with the figure of Jesus falling on its nose, this work seems to shine solely by reason of the varnish with which it has recently been so polished up" (Magazine of Art, 1890, p. 135).

[226] He enumerates them in an official return of his property: "Further, I have a monkey, moreover, a raven which can talk, and which I keep by me in order that he may teach from his cage a theological jackass also to speak. Item: an owl to frighten the witches, two peacocks, two dogs, a sparrow-hawk, and other birds of prey, six fowls, eighteen chickens, two moor-fowl, and many other birds, to name all of which would only cause confusion."

[227] According to Nonius Marcellus: "By old Roman law, brides used to bring three asses (pennies), and to give one, which they held in the hand, to the bridegroom, as though to purchase him; to place another, which they held in the foot, on the hearth of the family Lares; and to put the third in their pocket and rattle it at the next cross-road."

[228] See, however, for some deductions afterwards made from this estimate, ibid. vol. iv. pt. v. ch. iii. §§ 6, 7.

[229] Elsewhere Ruskin makes some exception in favour of Ary Scheffer: "Though one of the heads of the Mud sentiment school, he does draw and feel very beautifully and deeply" (Letters on Art and Literature, p. 37).

[230] It was placed in their chapel in the church of S. Lorenzo in that city. There it remained till 1764, when it was bought for the Duke of Marlborough, and a copy replaced the original in the chapel.

[231] This picture and Van Dyck's "Charles the First" (1172) were bought in 1884 from the Duke of Marlborough for £87,500. Sir F. Burton, the Director of the National Gallery, had valued them at £115,500 and £31,500 severally. I remember once hearing Mr. Gladstone refer to this matter. His economic conscience seemed to give him some qualms on the score of the unprecedented price. But he took comfort in the fact that, large as was the price actually paid, the price asked by the owner, as also the valuation of the Director, was very much larger. "At any rate," he said with a smile, "I saved the taxpayers £45,000 on this Raphael, by not listening to the advice of the Director of the Gallery." The purchase had been pressed upon the Government by all sorts and conditions of men. The Royal Academy memorialised Mr. Gladstone, and pleaded especially for the Raphael—"a work produced in that happy period in which the reverent purity and the serene grace of the master's earliest work are already mellowing into the fuller dignity of his middle style." The Trustees of the National Gallery declared that the purchase would at once raise the Collection to a rank second to none, and superior to most, of the great Continental Galleries; whilst a memorial from members of Parliament of all parties, after referring to the Raphael as the finest in point of colouring that ever came from his hand, assured Mr. Gladstone that "their constituents and the whole nation will approve and applaud" a departure from "the hard line of severe economy." It appears from The Life and Correspondence of Mr. Childers (ii. 163), who was Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time, that the purchase was first suggested by Queen Victoria.

[232] Sir Edward Poynter. The luminous quality of the picture conquered Mr. Ruskin. After one of his last visits to the National Gallery, he said to me: "The new Raphael is certainly lovely—quite the loveliest Raphael in the world. The 'San Sisto' is dark and brown beside it."

[233] In this matter of the open sky also the "Ansidei Madonna" is curiously transitional. "Raphael," says Ruskin (ibid. § 10), "in his fall, betrayed the faith he had received from his father and his master, and substituted for the radiant sky of the Madonna del Cardellino, the chamber-wall of the Madonna della Sediola, and the brown wainscot of the Baldacchino." Here we have both—the Baldacchino and the open sky behind.

[234] Mr. Monkhouse suggests alternative explanations. Who is the figure on the throne? "Is he meant for some intellectual Dives, learning too late that happiness exists not in luxury or knowledge? Is he the poet, musing in sadness and mental solitude on the mysteries of life, who cannot taste of its fruit or listen to its music, unconscious of the brute forces symbolised by the panther, and the vanity of human pride imaged by the peacock on the dead branch; or is he a philosopher imparting wisdom to the young? What matter, the picture charms like nature, because we cannot fathom it" (In the National Gallery, p. 234). In the case of Giorgione's frescoes at Venice, Vasari frankly "gave it up": "I, for my part, have never been able to understand what they mean, nor, with all the inquiries that I have made, could I ever find any one who did understand, or could explain them to me." But the theory that the subject in Renaissance pictures meant nothing—that details were treated from a purely pictorial point of view—is, as Dr. Richter has well observed, more convenient than correct. The clue to many of these unknown subjects is to be found in classical or Italian literature. Bellini's allegorical compositions have recently been thus interpreted. Titian's so-called "Sacred and Profane Love" has been identified by Herr Franz Wickhoff as an illustration of the story of Medea as told in the seventh book of the Argonautica of Valerius Flaccus, and the same author has also found the key to several works ascribed to Giorgione.

[235] Dr. Richter, who found these pictures in a Veronese palace, points out that the architecture in the background represents the old tower of the castle of Mantua (Art Journal, Feb. 1895). It has, however, been urged amongst other objections that the eagle on the banners belongs to neither of the two houses. Perhaps, therefore, the subject of the pictures is purely imaginary or borrowed from some romance of the time.

[236] See note on No. 591.

[237] One portrait, however, was found by Mr. Petrie, not fixed over the face of the mummy, but framed and glazed for hanging on the wall of a tomb. The frame, now in the British Museum, is very like what is called an "Oxford frame."

[238] Two other members of the family are known as painters—Ambrosius, brother of the younger Hans; and Sigmund, brother of the elder. A portrait ascribed to the latter is in our Gallery, No. 722.

[239] The picture is painted on ten boards joined vertically; and it is interesting to speculate how far the composition may have been directed by the necessity of avoiding any joint in the faces.

[240] Cf. what Ruskin says of "the glorious severity" of Holbein's portraits (Modern Painters, vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. 1. ch. xiv. § 19).

[241] The contrast between the picture as it was before being cleaned and as it is now is very great. The accessories have come out in astonishing clearness, and the crucifix in the left-hand corner has been unveiled. The dingy green of the curtain background has given place to a rich damask, and the gown of the younger man—which Wornum described as "brownish green"—is now seen to be not green at all. Mr. Dyer, to whose art this successful restoration was due, removed the obscuring dirt and varnish entirely by manual friction.

[242] Several pages would be required to give a résumé of all the theories propounded, and of all the pros and cons in each case. An account of the principal theories was given in the fourth edition of this Handbook, and the story forms an entertaining chapter in the curiosities of criticism. The most elaborately sustained of the theories is that which identifies the "ambassadors" with the Counts Palatine Otto Henry and his brother Philip (see the monograph on the picture by W. F. Dickes).

[243] The following is the text of the document:—

Remarques sur le suject d'un tableau excellent des Srs. d'Inteville Polizy, et de George de Selve.[244]

En ce tableau est representé au naturel Messire Jean de D Intevile chevalier sieur de Polizy près de Bar-sur-seyne Bailly de Troyes, qui fut Ambassadeur en Angleterre pour le Roy François premier ez années 1532 & 1533 & de puis Gouverneur de Monsieur Charles de France second filz diceluy Roy, le quel Charles mourut a forest monstier en l'an 1545, & le dict sr. de D Intevile en l'an 1555, sepulturé en l'eglise du dict Polizy. Est aussi representé audict tableau Messire George de Selve Evesque de Lavaur personnage de grandes lettres & fort vertueux, & qui fut Ambassadeur pres de L Empereur Charles cinquiesme, le diet Evesque Filz de Messire Jean de Selve premier president au parlement de Paris, iceluy sr. Evesque decedé en l'an 1541 ayant des la susdicte année 1532 ou 1533 passé en Angleterre par permission du Roy pour visiter le susdict sieur de D Intevile son intime amy & de toute sa famile, & eux deux ayantz rencontrez en Angleterre un excellent peinctre holandois, l'employèrent pour faire iceluy tableau qui a esté soigneusement conservé au mesme lieu de Polizy iusques en l'an 1653.

[244] Evesque de Lavour (sic) contenant leurs emplois, et tems de leur deceds.

[245] The words in the choir-book are thus identified by Mr. Eastlake (see a very interesting letter to the Times, 17th August 1891).

On the left-hand page:—

Kom Heiliger Geyst herzegott erfüll mit deiner gnaden und (?) deiner gleubge hertz mut un sin dein brustig lib entzüd in ihn.

O herz durch deines lichtes glast (?) züdem glaube versamlet hast das volck aller welt zunge ...(?) dir herzu lob gesungen ... gesungen ...

On the right-hand page:—

Mensch wiltu (?) leben seliguch und bei Gott blibene
Solch (?) halten die zehen gebot die uns gebeut unser Gott ... unser ...

"It seems to have been assumed," adds Mr. Eastlake, "that the choir-book is a Protestant one, and therefore inconsistent with the presence of the silver crucifix recently revealed in the left-hand upper corner of the picture. But it is evident that the hymn or anthem above mentioned is merely a paraphrase of the well-known 'Veni Sancte Spiritus,' which for ages past has appeared in the Roman Catholic breviary for use on Whit Sunday or the Feast of Pentecost, and still survives in the Anglican Ordination Service." The music in the book has been identified by Mr. W. B. Squire, of the British Museum, as the counterpoint sung by the tenor in Johann Walther's setting for the Wittenberg hymn-book of 1524. Mr. Squire adds his opinion that Holbein chose those compositions for copying in the picture, "on account of the bearing which the words had upon either the individuals portrayed, or some incident connected with them, and intended to be commemorated" (Letter to the Times, 14th November 1891). Miss Hervey finds an explanation in the fact that the Bishop of Lavaur was devoted to the cause of religious re-union between the Roman Catholic and the Reformed Churches. The doctrine expressed by the two hymns was common to all the churches.

[246] For further particulars the reader is referred to Holbein's 'Ambassadors': the Picture and the Men, by Mary F. S. Hervey (1900). Miss Hervey gives an interesting account of her identification of the sitters, and many curious speculations as to the details of the picture.

[247] It has been suggested by some high authorities that the lower portion of the picture was probably left to some pupil to finish; for the Admiral's legs are very flabbily drawn. They look as if there were no bone or muscle in them, but only sawdust or padding. Señor de Bereute, in spite of the very definite history of the picture given by Palomino, attributes the whole work not to Velazquez but to his pupil and son-in-law, J. B. del Mazo (1308). If this be correct, Mazo was another Velazquez. There is nothing in Mazo's known works to justify such an estimate of his powers. "Mazo, still in his early youth, had in 1634 married a daughter of Velazquez, and had only recently got a subordinate place in Philip's court. It is hard to believe that he could have painted this superb picture when only about 25 years of age, or that Philip would have entrusted him with the portrait of a favourite when he had beside him his trusty Court painter, Velazquez" (Quarterly Review, April 1899, p. 521).

[248] "Congratulate me (he wrote to his old friend and colleague, Sir H. A. Layard) on a real trouvaille. The picture I bought at G. Bentinck's sale has come out splendidly, and is in first-rate condition. Burton is greatly struck with it. It is a wonderful bit of luck to have picked up so fine a picture from among so many of the cognoscenti." No wonder that Sir William Gregory, who bought his pictures so cheap, was aghast at the large and even fancy price which the nation sometimes has to pay. "The cost of them," he writes of the Longford pictures (Nos. 1314-1316) "makes me blush when I think of it."

[249] The composition, however, has been blamed on the ground that the square picture on the wall interferes with the girl's head in a very awkward manner. The Cupid represented in that picture is also very clumsy. A correspondent replying to these criticisms writes: "The composition depends not upon the rhythm of the lines, but upon the arrangement of patches of colour, somewhat in the manner of the Japanese. Dutch painters often represented inferior pictures upon the walls of their interiors, perhaps as a kind of humorous contrast to their own masterpieces. See, for instance, the daub in De Hooch's picture in the National Gallery (No. 834)."

[250] By Mr. Berenson ascribed to "Amico di Sandro."

[251] "Hung on each side of the great Vandyck, on the east wall of the principal Dutch and Flemish room, they have given the completing touch to that collection of chefs d'œuvre, and made it now beyond question the finest wall of masterpieces of those schools in Europe" (Sir Edward Poynter's speech at the Royal Academy Banquet, 1899).

[252] The purchase for the nation was at one time in jeopardy. Early in 1899 the two pictures were offered by Lord de Saumarez to the National Gallery for the sum of £12,500. A special grant was obtained from Her Majesty's Treasury for this sum on the condition that the Trustees should forego the annual grant for 1899-1900, estimated at £5000. Lord de Saumarez found, however, that he had no power to sell the pictures without an order from the Court of Chancery, and having been subsequently offered the sum of £15,000 for these two pictures, the Court decided they could only be sold to the National Gallery for an advance on the sum offered. The Trustees, therefore, offered the sum of £15,050, for which the Court awarded them to the Trustees. Towards the balance of the purchase money, amounting to £2550, two of the Trustees, Mr. Alfred de Rothschild and Mr. Heseltine, liberally contributed £500 each, and the remainder, amounting to £1550, was paid out of the grant for the year 1898-99.

[253] Mr. Roger Fry (in The Pilot, Jan. 5, 1901) attributes our picture, which he calls "a distressing production," to "some journeyman painter who treated Fra Bartolommeo's design in the spirit of the earlier furniture painters, but without their charm and naïveté."

[254] "His early pictures have only a hint of personal expression. Some of his Madonnas are still almost Byzantine in their hieratic solemnity. It is possible to follow Giovanni Bellini's career almost from year to year by the increase of personal expression in his figures and landscapes" (Mary Logan: Guide to the Italian Pictures at Hampton Court, p. 9).

[255] See Bernhard Berenson's Lorenzo Lotto, 1895, pp. 21-120.

[256] See Mr. Herbert Cook's Giorgione, pp. 68-74.

[257] That fine picture came from the Manfrini Palace at Venice; and though by some called a "bad and late copy" (Mündler, Beiträge zu B.'s Cicerone, 1870, p. 61) is by others highly praised. Thus Waagen, in his Treasures of Art in Great Britain (vol. iii. 1854, p. 19), in describing the Cobham Hall pictures, says of the picture now in the National Gallery that it "agrees essentially with the fine portrait in the Manfrini collection at Venice. But the tone of the flesh is heavier here, and the grey colour of the dress unites too much with the grey ground, while in the Manfrini picture, the brown tones of the dress stand out decidedly from it."

[258] See the Second Annual Report of the National Art Collections Fund, 1906, pp. 35, 36. Until the matter was cleared up by the researches of Señor de Beruete, summarised in that Report, it was supposed that our picture was one of five mythologies painted by Velazquez for the Gallery of Mirrors in the Alcazar of Madrid, two of which perished in the great fire of 1734. Knowledge of this fire was doubtless the origin of a suggestion that our picture also had been damaged and repainted. There was correspondence on this subject, and on others connected with the picture, in the Times of November and December 1905 and the early part of 1906.

[259] The intermediate processes by which the price of the picture rose from £30,500 to £45,000 have not been disclosed. Towards the latter sum, the largest contributions were—"An Englishman" £10,000; Lord Michelham, £8000; and Messrs. Agnew, £5250.

[260] See pp. 75-78 of The Barbizon School, by D. C. Thomson, from whose translation I borrow a few sentences.

[261] According to William Morris, most visitors to the Gallery are apt to pass by some of its principal treasures. "If ordinary people go to our National Gallery, the thing which they want to see is the Blenheim Raphael, which, though well done, is a very dull picture to any one not an artist. While, when Holbein shows them the Danish princess of the sixteenth century yet living on the canvas ...; when Van Eyck opens a window for them into Bruges of the fourteenth century; when Botticelli shows them Heaven as it lived in the hearts of men before theology was dead, these things produce no impression on them, not so much even as to stimulate their curiosity and make them ask what 'tis all about; because these things were done to be looked at, and to make the eyes tell the mind tales of the past, the present, and the future" (Mackail's Life of William Morris, ii. 273).

[262] The precise nature of the transaction was this:—Lady Carlisle received in cash £40,000 and the Treasury paid the death-duties (£2776). Of these sums, the National Gallery funds contributed £15,000; the National Art-Collections' Fund, £10,000; and the Treasury £17,776 (see House of Commons Debate, February 28, 1912).

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