Although Longhi, as a personality, is clearly not of the same type as Hogarth, there are certain points of similarity between the men as artists. Both were taught the goldsmith's trade, and both learned painting under Bolognese influences. Both eventually found their sphere in the delineation of the life around them. There the similarity ceases. Longhi lacks, as I have said, the humour, the satire, the penetrative imagination, the broad sympathy with human nature in its coarser aspects, which make Hogarth unrivalled as a pictorial moralist. At the same time, it is difficult to imagine that Longhi was not influenced by Hogarth. In the technique of his art he displays something which appears to be derived from the elder and stronger master—a choice of points for observation, an arrangement of figures in groups, a mode of rendering attitude and suggesting movement; finally, the manner of execution reminds us of Hogarth. Longhi abandoned his false decorative style, the style of the Palazzo Sagredo, at some time after 1734. This date corresponds with Hogarth's triumphant entrance upon his career as a satirical painter of society. Possibly Longhi may have met with the engravings of the Marriage à la Mode, and may have been stimulated by them to undertake the work, which he carried on with nothing{353} of Hogarth's moral force, and with a small portion of his descriptive faculty, yet still with valuable results for the student of eighteenth-century manners.
VI.
In 1763 an Academy for the study of the arts of design was opened by some members of the Pisani family in their palace at S. Stefano. The chiefs of that patrician house were four sons of the late Doge Alvise Pisani. According to Lazari, my sole authority for this passage in Longhi's biography, the founder of the Academy was a Procuratore di S. Marco, who had a son of remarkable promise. This son he wished to instruct in the fine arts; and Pietro Longhi was chosen to fill the chair of painting, which he occupied for two years. At the end of that time young Pisani died, and the institution was closed—now that the hopes which led to its foundation were extinguished.[94]
Among the few facts of Longhi's life this connection{354} with the Pisani Academy has to be recorded. It is also of some importance in helping us to decide whether a large portrait-picture, representing the chiefs of the Pisani family, together with the wife and children of one of its most eminent members (Luigi, a godchild of Louis XIV.), is rightly ascribed to him. The huge canvas, which is now in the possession of the Contessa Evelina Almorò Pisani, was found by her rolled up and hidden away in a cabinet beneath the grand staircase of the Palazzo Pisani at S. Stefano.[95] It proved to be in excellent preservation; and it is signed in large clear text letters—opus Petri Longi. So far there would seem to be no doubt that the picture is genuine; and I, for my part, am prepared to accept it as such, when I consider that Longhi enjoyed the confidence of the Pisani family and presided over their Academy about the period when it was executed. Yet the student of his works cannot fail to be struck by marked differences of style between this and other authentic pictures from his hand.
The central group consists of the noble Lady{355} Paolina Gambara, wife of Luigi Pisani, seated with her children round her.[96] Her husband stands behind, together with his three brothers and an intimate friend of the house. Allegorical figures representing the arts and sciences complete the composition. In the distance is seen the princely palace of Stra upon the Brenta, which was designed in part by one of the Pisani brothers. The arrangement of these inter-connected groups is excellent; the characterisation of the several heads, admirable; the drawing, firm and accurate; and the whole scene is bathed in a glow of roseate colour which seems actually to radiate light. Longhi, so far as I am aware, produced nothing in the same style as this complicated masterpiece of portraiture and allegorical suggestion. In conception, execution, and scheme of colour, it reminds us of a French painter; and if he had left a series of such works, he might have deserved what now seems the inappropriate title of the Venetian Boucher.
I cannot pretend to have seen more than a small portion of Longhi's pictures. But this portrait of the Pisani family detaches itself as something in a different key of feeling and of workmanship from any with which I am acquainted. Admirers of his art should not fail to pay it the attention it deserves; and if the{356} day comes when a thorough study of this interesting master shall be made, it is not impossible that genuine paintings in the same manner may be discovered.
VII.
A series of frescoes attributed to Pietro Longhi should also here be mentioned. They decorate three sides of the staircase of the Palazzo Sina (formerly Grassi) on the Grand Canal. The balustrades of an open loggia or gallery are painted with bold architectural relief. Behind the pilasters of this balcony a motley company of life-sized figures promenade or stand about in groups. Some are entering in Carnival costume, with masks and long mantles. Others wear the gala dress of the last century. Elderly ladies are draped in the black zendado of Venetian aristocracy. Grave senators bend their courtly heads beneath the weight of snowy periwigs. Lacqueys in livery and running footmen in Albanian costume wait upon the guests, handing chocolate or wines on silver trays. This scene of fashionable life is depicted with vivacity; the studies of face and attitude are true to nature; an agreeable air of good tone and sober animation pervades the whole society. Probably many of the persons introduced were copied from the life; for it is reported of Longhi that one of his greatest merits was the{357} dexterity with which he reproduced the main actors in the bel monde of Venice—so that folk could recognise their acquaintances upon his canvas merely by the carriage of their mask and domino.
Owing to restoration, it is difficult to say how far the fresco-painting was well executed, and to what extent the original tone has been preserved. At present the colouring is somewhat chalky, dull, and lifeless; and I suspect Longhi's brush-work suffered considerably when the palace was internally remodelled some years ago.