ROMAN SCHOOL.
FOURTH EPOCH.
Restoration of the Roman School by Barocci, and other Artists, Subjects of the Roman State, and Foreigners.
The numerous works carried on by the Pontiffs Gregory and Sixtus, and continued under Clement VIII., while they in a manner corrupted the pure taste of the Roman School, contributed, nevertheless, at the same time, to regenerate it. Rome, from the desire of possessing the best specimens of art, became by degrees the resort of the best painters, as it had formerly been in the time of Leo X. Every place sent thither its first artists, as the cities of Greece formerly sent forth the most valiant of their citizens to contend for the palm and the crown at Olympia. Barocci, of Urbino, was the first restorer of the Roman School. He had formed himself on the style of Correggio, a style the best calculated to reform an age which had neglected the true principles of art, and particularly colouring and chiaroscuro. Happy indeed had it been, had he remained in Rome, and retained the direction of the works which were entrusted to Nebbia, Ricci, and Circignani! He was there, indeed, for some time, and assisted the Zuccari in the apartments of Pius IV., but was compelled to fly in consequence of some pretended friends having, in an execrable manner, administered poison to him through jealousy of his talents, and so materially injured his health, that he could only paint at intervals, and for a short space of time. Forsaking Rome, therefore, he resided for some time in Perugia, and a longer period in Urbino, from whence he despatched his pictures from time to time to Rome and other places. By means of these, the Tuscan School derived great benefit through Cigoli, Passignano, and Vanni, as we have before observed; and it is not improbable, that Roncalli and Baglione may have profited by them, if we may judge from some works of both the one and the other of these artists to be seen in various places.
However this might be, at the commencement of the seventeenth century, these five were in the highest repute as artists who were not corrupted by the prevailing taste. An idea had subsisted from the time of Clement VIII., of decorating the church of the Vatican, with the History of S. Peter, and of employing in that work the best artists. The execution of this design occupied a considerable time, the pictures being reduced to mosaic, as the painting on wood and slate did not resist the humidity of the church. The five before mentioned artists were selected to paint each a subject; and Bernardo Castelli, one of the first painters of the Genoese School, was the sixth, and the least celebrated. These artists were all liberally paid, and the five first raised to the rank of Cavalieri, and their works had a beneficial influence on the rising generation, and proved that the reign of the mannerists was on the decline. Caravaggio gave it a severe shock by his powerful and natural style, and Baglione attests, that this young artist, by the great applause which he gained, excited the jealousy of Federigo Zuccaro, then advanced in years, and entered into competition with Cesare, his former master. But the most serious blow the mannerists received, was from the Caracci and their school. Annibale arrived in Rome not much before the year 1600, invited by the Cardinal Farnese to paint his gallery; a work which occupied him for nearly eight years, and for which he received only five hundred scudi, a sum so inadequate that we can scarcely believe it to be correct. He also decorated several churches. Lodovico, his cousin, was with him for a short time; Agostino, his brother, for a longer period; and he had his scholars with him, amongst whom we may enumerate Domenichino, Guido, Albano, and Lanfranc. They came thither at different periods, matured in their talents, and able to assist their master not only in execution but design.
Rome had for some years seen only the two extreme styles of painting. Caravaggio and his followers were mere naturalists; Arpino and his scholars pure idealists. Annibale introduced a style founded in nature, yet ennobled by the ideal, and supported his ideal by his knowledge of nature. He was at first denounced as cold and insipid, because he was not affected and extravagant, or rather because great merit was never unaccompanied by envy. But though envy for a time, by her insidious suggestions and subterfuges, may derive a mean pleasure in persecuting a man of genius, she can never hope to succeed in blinding the public, who ever decide impartially on the merits of individuals, and whose judgment is not disregarded even by princes. The Farnese gallery was opened, and Rome beheld in it a grandeur of style, which might claim a place after the Sistine chapel, and the chambers of the Vatican. It was then discovered, that the preceding Pontiffs had only lavished their wealth for the corruption of art; and that the true secret which the great ought to put in practice lay in a few words: a judicious selection of masters, and a more liberal allowance of time. Hence, though somewhat tardy indeed in consequence of the death of Annibale, came the order from Paul V., to distribute the work among the Bolognese; for so the Caracci and their scholars were at that time designated; one of whom, Ottaviano Mascherini, was the Pope's architect.[[71]] A new spirit was thus introduced into the Roman School, which, if it did not wholly destroy the former extravagance of style, still in a great degree repressed it. The pontificate of Gregory XV. (Lodovisi) was short, but still, through national partiality, highly favourable to the Bolognese, amongst whom we may reckon Guercino da Cento, although a follower of Caravaggio rather than Annibale. He was the most employed in St. Peter's, and in the villa Lodovisi. This reign was followed by the pontificate of Urban VIII., favourable both to poets and painters, though, perhaps, more so to the latter than the former; since it embraced, besides the Caracci and their school, Poussin, Pietro da Cortona, and the best landscape painters that the world had seen. The leading masters then all found employment, either from the Pope himself, or his nephew the Cardinal, or other branches of that family, and were engaged in the decoration of St. Peter's, or their own palaces, or in the new church of the Capucins, where the altarpieces were distributed among Lanfranc, Guido, Sacchi, Berrettini, and other considerable artists. The same liberal plan was followed by Alexander VII. a prince of great taste, and by his successors. It was during the reign of Alexander, that Christina, Queen of Sweden, established herself in Rome, and her passion for the fine arts inspired and maintained not a few of the painters whom we shall mention. It must indeed be premised, that we are under the necessity of deferring our notice of the greatest names of this epoch to another place, as they belong of right to the school of Bologna, and some we have already recorded in the Florentine School. But to proceed.
Federigo Barocci might from the time of his birth be placed in the preceding epoch, but his merit assigns him to this period, in which I comprise the reformers of art. He learned the principles of his art from Batista Franco, a Venetian by birth, but a Florentine in style. This artist going young to Rome, to prosecute his studies there, was struck with the grand style of Michelangiolo, and copied both there and in Florence, all his works, as well his paintings and drawings as statues. He became an excellent designer, but was not equally eminent as a colourist, having turned his attention at a late period to that branch of the art. In Rome he may be seen in some evangelical subjects painted in fresco, in a chapel in the Minerva, and preferred by Vasari to any other of his works. He also decorated the choir of the Metropolitan church of Urbino in fresco, and there left a Madonna in oil, placed between S. Peter and S. Paul, in the best Florentine style, except that the figure of S. Paul is somewhat attenuated. There is a grand picture in oil by him in the tribune of S. Venanzio, in Fabriano; containing the Virgin, with the titular and two other protecting Saints. In the sacristy of the cathedral of Osimo, I saw many small pictures representing the life of Christ, painted by him in the year 1547, as we learn from the archives of that church; a thing of rare occurrence, as Franco was scarcely ever known to paint pictures of this class. Under this artist, whilst he resided in Urbino, Barocci designed and studied from the antique. He then went to Pesaro, where he employed himself in copying after Titian, and was instructed in geometry and perspective by Bartolommeo Genga, the architect, the son of Girolamo and the uncle of Barocci. From thence he passed to Rome, and acquired a more correct style of design, and adopted the manner of Raffaello, in which style he painted the S. Cecilia for the Duomo of Urbino, and in a still more improved and original manner, the S. Sebastian, a work which Mancini, in point of solid taste, sets above all the works of Barocci. But the amenity and gracefulness of his style led him almost instinctively to the imitation of Correggio, in whose manner he painted in his native city the delightful picture of S. Simon and S. Judas, in the church of the Conventuals.
Nevertheless this was not the style which he permanently adopted as his own, but as a free imitation of that great master. In the heads of his children and of his female figures, he approaches nearly to him; also in the easy flow of his drapery, in the pure contour, in the mode of foreshortening his figures; but in general his design is not so grand, and his chiaroscuro less ideal; his tints are lucid and well arranged, and bear a resemblance to the beautiful hues of Correggio, but they have neither his strength nor truth. It is however delightful to see the great variety of colours he has employed, so exquisitely blended by his pencil, and there is perhaps no music more finely harmonized to the ear, than his pictures are to the eye. This is in a great measure the effect of the chiaroscuro, to which he paid great attention, and which he was the first to introduce into the schools of Lower Italy. In order to obtain an accurate chiaroscuro, he formed small statues of earthenware, or wax, in which art he did not yield the palm to the most experienced sculptors. In the composition and expression of every figure, he consulted the truth. He made use of models too, in order to obtain the most striking attitudes, and those most consonant to nature; and in every garment, and every fold of it, he did not shew a line that was not to be found in the model. Having made his design, he prepared a cartoon the size of his intended picture, from which he traced the contours on his canvass; he then on a small scale tried the disposition of his colours, and proceeded to the execution of his work. Before colouring, however, he formed his chiaroscuro very accurately after the best ancient masters, (vol. i. p. 187,) of which method he left traces in a Madonna and Saints, which I saw in Rome in the Albani palace, a picture which I imagine the artist was prevented by death from finishing. Another picture unfinished, and on that account very instructive and highly prized, is in possession of the noble family of Graziani in Perugia. To conclude, perfection was his aim in every picture, a maxim which insures excellence to artists of genius.
Bellori, who wrote the life of Barocci, has given us a catalogue of his pictures. There are few found which are not of religious subjects; some portraits, and the Burning of Troy, which he painted in two pictures, one of which now adorns the Borghese gallery. Except on this occasion his pencil may be said to have been dedicated to religion; so devout, so tender, and so calculated to awaken feelings of piety, are the sentiments expressed in his pictures. The Minerva, in Rome, possesses his Institution of the Sacrament, a picture which Clement X. employed him to paint; the Vallicella has his two pictures of the Visitation and the Presentation. In the Duomo of Genoa is a Crucifixion by him, with the Virgin and S. John, and S. Sebastian; in that of Perugia, the Deposition from the Cross; in that of Fermo, S. John the Evangelist; in that of Urbino, the Last Supper of our Lord. Another Deposition, and a picture of the Rosario, and mysteries, is in Sinigaglia; and, in the neighbouring city of Pesaro, the calling of St. Andrew, the Circumcision, the Ecstacy of S. Michelina on Mount Cavalry, a single figure, which fills the whole picture, and esteemed, it is said, by Simon Cantarini, as his masterpiece. Urbino, besides the pictures already noticed, and some others, possesses a S. Francis in prayer, at the Capucins; and at the Conventuals, the great picture of the Perdono, in which he consumed seven years. The perspective, the beautiful play of light, the speaking countenances, the colour and harmony of the work, cannot be imagined by any one who has not seen it. The artist himself was delighted with it, wrote his name on it, and etched it. His Annunciation, at Loreto, is a beautiful picture, and the same subject at Gubbio, unfinished; the Martyrdom of S. Vitale, at the church of that saint, in Ravenna, and the picture of the Misericordia, painted for the Duomo of Arezzo, and afterwards transferred to the ducal gallery of Florence. The same subject exists also in the hospital of Sinigaglia, copied there by the scholars of Barocci, who have repeated the pictures of their master in numerous churches of the state of Urbino, and of Umbria, and in some in Piceno, and these are, occasionally, so well painted, that one might imagine he had finished them himself.
The same may be said of some of his cabinet pictures, which are to be seen in collections; such is the Virgin adoring the Infant Christ, which I remarked in the Ambrosian Library at Milan, in the Casa Bolognetti in Rome, and in a noble house in Cortona, and which I find mentioned also in the imperial gallery at Vienna. A head of the Ecce Homo has also been often repeated, and some Holy Families, which he varied in a singular manner; I have seen a S. Joseph sleeping, and another S. Joseph, in the Casa Zaccaria, in the act of raising a tapestry; and in the Repose in Egypt, which was transferred from the sacristy of the Jesuits at Perugia to the chamber of the Pope, he is represented plucking some cherries for the Infant Christ, a picture, which seems painted to rival Correggio. Bellori remarks, that he was so fond of it that he frequently repeated it.