In the class of portrait painters, we find at the beginning of the seventeenth century, Antiveduto Grammatica, and Ottavio Lioni of Padua, who engraved the portraits of the painters; and, on his death, Baldassare Galanino was preeminent. It must however be remarked, that these artists were also designers; and that even those who were held the first masters in composition were employed in portrait painting, as Guido for example, who executed for the Cardinal Spada one of the finest portraits in Rome.
Thus far of historical painters. We may now recur to landscape and other inferior branches of the art, whose brightest era may be said to have been in the reign of Urban VIII. Landscape, indeed, never flourished so greatly as at that period. A little time before this pontificate, died in Rome, Adam Elzheimer, or Adam of Frankfort, or Tedesco, who had already, under the pontificate of Paul V., established a school (in which David Teniers was instructed); an artist of an admirable fancy, who in an evening committed to the canvass, with singular fidelity, the scenery which he had visited in the early part of the day, and he so refined his style in Rome, that his pictures, which generally represented night scenes, were there held in the greatest request. Only a short time too had elapsed since the death of Giovanni Batista Viola in Rome, one of the first artists who, profiting from the instructions of Annibal Caracci, reformed the old, dry style of the Flemish, and introduced a richer mode of touching landscape. Vincenzio Armanno had also promoted this branch of art, adding to his landscapes a similitude to nature, which without much selection of ground, or trees, or accompaniments, charms us by its truth, and a certain stilness of colour, pleasingly chequered with lights and shades. He is highly to be commended too in his figures, and is copious in his invention. But the three celebrated landscape painters, whose works are so much sought after in the collections of princes, appeared under Urban; Salvator Rosa, a Neapolitan, and a poet of talent; Claude Gellée, of Lorraine; and Gaspar Dughet, also called Poussin, the relative of Niccolas, as I have already mentioned. That kind of fashion, which often aspires to give a tone to the fine arts, alternately exalted one or other of these three, and thus also obliged the painters in Rome to copy in succession, and to follow their various styles.
Rosa was the most celebrated of this class at the commencement of this century. A scholar of Spagnoletto, and the son, as one may say, of Caravaggio, as in historical composition he attached himself to the strong natural style and dark colouring of that master, so in landscape he seems to have adopted his subject without selection, or rather to have selected the least pleasing parts. Le selve selvagge, to speak with Dante, savage scenery, Alps, broken rocks and caves, wild thickets, and desert plains, are the kind of scenery in which he chiefly delighted; his trees are shattered, torn, and dishevelled; and in the atmosphere itself he seldom introduced a cheerful hue, except occasionally a solitary sunbeam. He observed the same manner too in his sea views. His style was original, and may be said to have been conducted on a principle of savage beauty, as the palate of some persons is gratified with austere wines. His pictures too were rendered more acceptable from the small figures of shepherds, mariners, or banditti, which he has introduced in almost all his compositions; and he was reproached by his rivals with having continually repeated the same ideas, and in a manner copied himself.
Owing to his frequent practice, he had more merit in his small than in his large figures. He was accustomed to insert them in his landscapes, and composed his historical pictures in the same style as the Regulus, so highly praised in the Colonna palace, or fancy subjects, as the Witchcrafts, which we see in the Campidoglio, and in many private collections. In these he is never select, nor always correct, but displays great spirit, freedom of execution, and skill and harmony of colour. In other respects he has proved, more than once, that his genius was not confined to small compositions, as there are some altarpieces well conceived, and of powerful effect, particularly where the subject demands an expression of terror, as in a Martyrdom of Saints at S. Gio. de' Fiorentini at Rome; and in the Purgatory, which I saw at S. Giovanni delle Case Rotte in Milan, and at the church del Suffragio in Matelica. We have also some profane subjects by him, finely executed on a large scale; such is the Conspiracy of Catiline, in the possession of the noble family of Martelli, in Florence, mentioned also by Bottari, as one of his best works. Rosa left Naples at the age of twenty, and established himself in Rome, where he died at the age of about sixty. His remains were placed in the church degli Angeli, with his portrait and eulogy; and another portrait of him is to be seen in the Chigi gallery, which does not seem to have been recognised by Pascoli; the picture represents a savage scene; a poet is represented in a sitting attitude, (the features those of Salvator,) and before him stands a satyr, allusive to his satiric style of poetry, but the picture is described by the biographer as the god Pan appearing to the poet Pindar. He had a scholar in Bartol. Torregiani, who died young, and who excelled in landscape, but was not accomplished enough to add the figures. Giovanni Ghisolfi, of Milan, a master of perspective, adopted in his figures the style of Salvator.
Gaspar Dughet, or Poussin, of Rome, or of the Roman School, did not much resemble Rosa, except in despatch. Both these artists were accustomed to commence and finish a landscape and decorate it with figures on the same day. Poussin, contrary to Salvator, selected the most enchanting scenes, and the most beautiful aspects of nature; the graceful poplar, the spreading plane trees, limpid fountains, verdant meads, gently undulating hills, villas delightfully situated, calculated to dispel the cares of state, and to add to the delights of retirement. All the enchanting scenery of the Tusculan or Tiburtine territory, and of Rome, where, as Martial observes, nature has combined the many beauties which she has scattered singly in other places, was copied by this artist. He composed also ideal landscapes, in the same way that Torquato Tasso, in describing the garden of Armida, concentrated in his verses all the recollections of the beautiful which he had observed in nature.
Notwithstanding this extreme passion for grace and beauty, it is the opinion of many, that there is not a greater name amongst landscape painters. His genius had a natural fervour, and as we may say, a language, that suggests more than it expresses. To give an example, in some of his larger landscapes, similar to those in the Panfili palace, we may occasionally observe an artful winding of the road, which in part discovers itself to the eye, but in other parts, leaves itself to be followed by the mind. Every thing that Gaspar expresses, is founded in nature. In his leaves he is as varied as the trees themselves, and is only accused of not having sufficiently diversified his tints, and of adhering too much to a green hue. He not only succeeded in representing the rosy tint of morning, the splendour of noon, evening twilight, or a sky tempestuous or serene; but the passing breeze that whispers through the leaves, storms that tear and uproot the trees of the forest, lowering skies, and clouds surcharged with thunder and rent with lightning, are represented by him with equal success. Niccolas, who had taught him to select the beauties of nature, instructed him also in the figures, and the accessary parts of the composition. Thus in Gaspar every thing displays elegance and erudition, the edifices have all the beautiful proportions of the antique; and to these may be added arches and broken columns, when the scene lay in the plains of Greece or Rome; or, if in Egypt, pyramids, obelisks, and the idols of the country. The figures which he introduces are not in general shepherds and their flocks, as in the Flemish pictures, but are derived from history, or classic fables, hawking parties, poets crowned with laurel, and other similar decorations, generally novel, and finished in a style almost as fine as miniature. His school gave birth to but few followers. By some Crescenzio di Onofrio is alone considered his true imitator, of whom little remains in Rome; nor indeed is he much known in Florence, although he resided there many years in the service of the ducal house. It is said that he executed many works for the ducal villas; and that he painted for individuals may be conjectured from some beautiful landscapes which the Sig. Cancelliere Scrilli possesses, together with the portrait of Sig. Angelo, his ancestor, on which the artist has inscribed his name and the year 1712, the date of his work. After him we may record Gio. Domenico Ferracuti, of Macerata, in which city, and in others of Piceno, are to be found many landscapes painted by him, chiefly snow pieces, in which kind of landscape he was singularly distinguished.
Claude Lorraine is generally esteemed the prince of landscape painters, and his compositions are indeed, of all others, the richest and the most studied. A short time suffices to run through a landscape of Poussin or Rosa from one end to the other, when compared with Claude, though on a much smaller surface. His landscapes present to the spectator an endless variety; so many views of land and water, so many interesting objects, that like an astonished traveller, the eye is obliged to pause to measure the extent of the prospect, and his distances of mountains or of sea are so illusive, that the spectator feels, as it were, fatigued by gazing. The edifices and temples, which so finely round off his compositions, the lakes peopled with aquatic birds, the foliage diversified in conformity to the different kinds of trees,[[82]] all is nature in him; every object arrests the attention of an amateur, every thing furnishes instruction to a professor; particularly when he painted with care, as in the pictures of the Altieri, Colonna, and other palaces of Rome. There is not an effect of light, or a reflection in the water, or in the sky itself, which he has not imitated; and the various changes of the day are no where better represented than in Claude. In a word, he is truly the painter, who in depicting the three regions of air, earth, and water, has embraced the whole universe. His atmosphere almost always bears the impress of the sky of Rome, whose horizon is, from its situation, rosy, dewy, and warm. He did not possess any peculiar merit in his figures, which are insipid, and generally too much attenuated; hence he was accustomed to observe to the purchasers of his pictures, that he sold them the landscape, and presented them with the figures gratis. The figures indeed were generally added by another hand, frequently by Lauri. A painter of the name of Angiolo, who died young, deserves to be mentioned as the scholar of Claude, as well as Vandervert. Claude also contributed to the instruction of Gaspar Poussin.
To the preceding may be added those artists who particularly distinguished themselves by sea views and shipping. Enrico Cornelio Vroom is called Enrico di Spagna, as he came to Rome immediately from Seville, although born in Haerlem in Holland. He was a pupil of the Brills, and seems rather to have aimed at imitating the national art of shipbuilding, than the varying appearances of the sea and sky. No one is more diligent, or more minute in fitting up the vessels with every requisite for sailing; and some persons have purchased his pictures, for the sole purpose of instructing themselves in the knowledge of ships, and the mode of arming them. Sandrart relates that he returned to Spain, and there painted landscapes, views of cities, fishing boats, and seafights. He places his birth in 1566, whence he must have flourished about the year 1600. Guarienti makes a separate article of Enrico Vron of Haerlem, as if he had been a different artist. Another article is occupied upon Enrico delle Marine, and on the authority of Palomino, he says, that that artist was born in Cadiz, and coming to Rome, there acquired that name; and that, without wishing ever to return to Spain, he employed himself in painting in that city shipping and sea views until his death, at the age of sixty in 1680. I have named three writers, whose contradictions I have frequently adverted to in this work, and whose discordant notices require much examination to reconcile or refute. What I have advanced respecting Enrico was the result of my observations on several pictures in the Colonna gallery, six in number, and which, as far as I could judge, all partake of a hard and early style, and generally of a peculiar reddish tone, often observed in the landscapes of Brill. Any other Enrico di Spagna, a marine painter, or of a style corresponding with that of him who died in 1680, I have not met with in any collection, nor is any such artist to be found in the works of Sig. Conca, as any one may ascertain by referring to the index of his work. Hence, at present, I can recognize the Dutch artist alone, and shall be ready to admit the claims of the Cadiz painter whenever I am furnished with proofs of his having really existed.
Agostino Tassi, of Perugia, whose real name was Buonamici, a man of infamous character, but an excellent painter, was the scholar of Paul Brill, though he was ambitious of being thought a pupil of the Caracci. He had already distinguished himself as a landscape painter, when he was condemned to the galleys at Leghorn, where through interest the laborious part of his sentence was remitted, and in this situation he prosecuted his art with such ardour, that he soon obtained the first rank as a painter of sea views, representing ships, storms, fishing parties, and the dresses of mariners of various countries with great spirit and propriety. He excelled too in perspective, and in the papal palace of the Quirinal and in the palace de' Lancellotti displayed an excellent style of decoration, which his followers very much overcharged. He painted many pictures in Genoa, in conjunction with Salimbeni and Gentileschi, and was assisted by a scholar of his born in Rome, and domiciled in Genoa, where he died. This scholar is called by Raffaello Soprani, Gio. Batista Primi, and he eulogizes him as an esteemed painter of sea views.
Equal to Tassi in talent, and still more infamous in his life, was Pietro Mulier, or Pietro de Mulieribus, of Holland, who, from his surprising pictures of storms, was called Il Tempesta. His compositions inspire a real terror, presenting to our eyes death, devoted ships overtaken by tempests and darkness, fired by lightning, or driving helpless before the demons of the storm; now rising on the mountain waves, and again submerged in the abyss of ocean. His works are more frequently met with than those of Tassi, as he almost always painted in oil. He was assisted in Rome by a young man, who in consequence obtained the name of Tempestino, though he often exercised his genius in landscape in the style of Poussin. He afterwards married a sister of this young artist, and subsequently procured her assassination, for which he was sentenced to death in Genoa, but his sentence was commuted for five years imprisonment. His pictures of storms, which he painted in his dungeon, seem to have acquired an additional gloom from the horrors of his prison, his merited punishment, and his guilty conscience. These works were very numerous, and were considered his best performances. He excelled also in the painting of animals, for which purpose he kept a great variety of them in his house. Lastly, he acquired celebrity from his landscapes, in some of which he has shewn himself not an unworthy follower of Claude in invention, enriching them with a great variety of scenery, hills, lakes, and beautiful edifices, but he is still far behind that master in regard to tone of colour and finishing. He was however superior to Claude in his figures, to which he gave a mixed Italian and Flemish character, with lively, varied, and expressive countenances. There are more specimens of his talents in Milan than in any other place, as he passed his latter years in that and the neighbouring cities, as in Bergamo, and particularly in Piacenza. His epitaph is given in the Guida di Milano, page 129.