We have now surveyed the labours and merits of the old masters—the patriarchs of modern art. The establishment of the four primitive schools embraces likewise the golden age of painting. How brief was the reign of lofty genius! The same individual might have lived with all the masters now enumerated,—he might have survived them all,—beholding the art in its infancy, and in its manhood, he might have witnessed also its decline, and yet have viewed all this within the ordinary span of existence. The same brevity in the duration of excellence we also remarked in the arts of Greece. Is it, then, the fate of the human spirit, like human institutions, to fall away immediately on attaining a degree of perfection? or rather, is not this evidence of powers which shall hereafter expand, grow, and unfold their activities,—here on earth chilled, and cramped, and broken?
Among the minor fathers of the art who not unworthily supported the glory of the sixteenth century, and who continue the history of painting in the Roman and Florentine schools through the remainder of that period, the chief were the immediate disciples of Raphael and Michael Angelo. The favorite pupil of the former, Julio Romano, was an artist of highly poetic imagination, but less informed with pure taste than his master; his ambition appears to have aimed at uniting the grace of his instructer with the science and energy of Florence. Penni, Perin del Vaga, Polidore Caravaggio, and Maturino, not unsuccessfully studied in the same school; but we find a gradual disappearance of the more simple style of Raphael, and long before the middle of the century, the two schools may almost be said to have merged in the overwhelming despotism of the principles of Michael Angelo. Even the names now mentioned, though at first following the Roman in their later works, are scarcely to be distinguished from the disciples of the Florentine school. Of those who were truly disciples of the latter, and who derived their science immediately from the founder, was Daniel de Volterra, who survived till 1566. The designs of this latter have frequently been assigned to his master; and in the opinion of Poussin, his Descent from the Cross, in fresco, in the church of Trinita del Monte at Rome, is—or rather was, for it perished under French experiment,—one of the three best pictures in the world. Andrea del Sarto was more an independent master, who held between the two styles, and added better coloring than either. Mazzuoli, better known as Parmegiano, though by birth and early study belonging to the school of Corregio, his better taste was formed at Rome; his style of design is noble, coloring forcible, and general effect sweet and gracious. He died in 1540, ten years after the preceding. But of all the followers of Michael Angelo, Tibaldi approached nearest to the sublimity, without the extravagance, of his model. It soon becomes difficult, indeed impossible, to follow decidedly the division of the ancient schools. In the progress of the century, their principles become united in the works of the minor painters, who are henceforth to be distinguished by the place of their birth, rather than by their style. The design of Michael Angelo prevailed; but to this were added, in proportion to the abilities of the artist, the various discoveries of the other masters. The art however, was in rapid retrogression. A style which suited only the most transcendent genius, which only under such inspiration could be at all pleasing, and from whose sublimity one step led into the turgid and the false, became a most dangerous instrument of ill in the hands of mere imitators. The ingrafting, also, upon its severe simplicity, the more luxurious modes of Venice and Lombardy, tended still more effectually to extinguish character and truth of distinctive representation.
Towards the close of the sixteenth and early part of the seventeenth century, the progress of decline was stayed for a time by the establishment of a new school. This was the Bolognese or Eclectic, founded by the Caracci, and which, in some measure, was the concentration of all the Lombard artists, who, separately following, in a great measure, the style of Corregio, had yet never united into a seminary of which that master could be called the head. The grand principle of this new academy, and thence deriving the appellation of Eclectic, was to select what was most excellent in the primitive schools; design from the Florentine, and grace from the Roman, from the Venetian color, from the Lombard light and shade, uniting all in due proportion and harmonious effect. The plan was arduous and aspiring, but the idea was good; the failure which ensued, for, abating the success of individual talent, the final result disappointed expectation, arose not from the intention pursued, but from the means employed. The Bolognese masters sought to effect the combination of these elements by rules of art, instead of taking nature as the connecting and vivifying principle. In the study of her effects they would have found the very union they contemplated—the previous separation, in fact, of pictorial excellence into departments, had been occasioned by partial or peculiar views of nature. Still the success of the attempt was great, and threw the last rays of glory over the native seat of modern art.
The founders and great ornaments of this school were the three Caracci; Ludovico the eldest, born in 1555, died in 1619, was the instructer of his two cousins—Agostino, three years younger, and Annibale, born in 1560, both of whom Ludovico survived. The association formed by these relatives was, in the strictest sense of the term, a school of design, and conducted upon an admirable plan; students being instructed in anatomy, in drawing, in painting, and in the principles of composition, by actual superintendence and personal instruction. The unaffected breadth, solemnity, yet grace of effect—the simplicity of character, which distinguish the works of Ludovico, are justly admired. Augustino excelled more in the theory than the practice of his art; but one of the best pictures of this school, the St Jerome of the Certosa, is his. Engravings by him are numerous and valuable. Of all the Caracci, Annibale is the most magnificent in his compositions, and may be taken as the true representative of the school; bold, splendid, broad, his pencil deals its touches with firm, almost unerring certainty, to its aim—but too frequently that aim is style in art, rather than truth in feeling.
Of the immediate pupils of the Bolognese academy, the first undoubtedly is the modest and tender Domenichino. Though participating in the common fault of his school, loaded design, yet his heads have a feeling and expression approaching to the sublime in sentiment. The Communion of St Jerome is pronounced by Poussin to be one of the three best pictures in the world—the Transfiguration of Raphael, and Volterra's Descent from the Cross, completing the number. We shall not easily forget our impressions on beholding the Transfiguration and the Communion side by side in the Vatican. Guido's name instantly calls up all our associations of the graceful and the benign; but his expression is too often artificial: perhaps in his works we first decidedly mark those academic abstractions and refinements of precept, which, formed independently of nature, hastened the downfall of art in this its last resting place. Guercino wants power and individual character; Albani is agreeable and poetic, the painter of the Loves and Graces. Carlo Dolci, a Florentine, imitates Guido. Lanfranco is bold, but incorrect in his design; as are likewise Pietro Cortona, and Luca Giordano, mannerists in whom is lost every distinction of character. Contemporary with the Carracci, but self-taught, and belonging to no school, was Caravaggio, strong but ungraceful in design, harsh in the disposition of his lights, but of undoubted genius:—his pupil was Spagnoletto. The history of painting in Italy, at least of painting animated by genius, may be closed with the name of Salvator Rosa, who died in 1673, the only native landscape painter which that delightful and picturesque country has produced. The old masters, indeed, have left the grandest and most perfect landscape compositions—but these are subservient to the figures. Rosa succeeded in both, and stands nobly, but peculiarly, original in an age of decay and mannerism.
The eighteenth century opens under the auspices of Carlo Maratti, an affected mannerist, but not altogether devoid of talent. After his death, in 1713, his rivals, Garzi and Cignani, sustained for a little the expiring reputation of the Roman school. But it is quite unnecessary to continue the narrative; the state of the arts during the early part of this century has already been noticed, and the names of Bianchi, Costanzi, Manchini, the early contemporaries of Canova, and of the revival, are now forgotten. The only artists of those times still regarded with some respect, are, Solemena, who died in 1747; Sebastian Conca, in 1764; and Pompeo Battoni, who brings down the history of the art to 1787; Mengs belongs to Germany.
Over the living art of Italy, Camuccini at Rome, and Benvenuti at Florence, preside. The former is perhaps the best draughtsman in Europe, but is inferior as a colorist; he wants depth, harmony, and force; his grouping also is defective in richness and variety, approaching too nearly to the linear as in relievo. His expression, though noble, is cold—deficient in that warm gush of sentiment, which, in the ancient masters, seemed to 'create a soul under the ribs of death.' Benvenuti excels his contemporary as a colorist, in the disposition of his group, and in the force of chiar' oscuro; but in purity of drawing, in classical taste, and in the selection of form, he is inferior. Each has chosen his subjects principally from profane history. Camuccini's best performance is the Departure of Regulus; Benvenuti's a scene in the recent history of Saxony. Rome possesses several other good painters, but few natives—for, to the artist as to the poet of every nation, she has become
'——His country—city of the soul.'