I quote some thoughtful remarks on Botticelli by W.C. Lefroy in Macmillan's Magazine: 'Mr Ruskin, we know, divides Italian art into the art of faith, beginning with Giotto, and lasting rather more than 200 years, and the art of unbelief, or at least of cold and inoperative faith, beginning in the middle of Raphael's life. But whatever division we adopt, we must remember that the revival of Paganism, as a matter of fact, affected men in different ways. Right across the schools this new spirit draws its line, but the line is not a hard and sharp one. Some men lie wholly on one side of it, with Giotto, Angelico, and Orcagna; some wholly upon the other, with Titian and Correggio, but there are some on whom it seems to fall as a rainbow falls upon a hill-side. Such, for instance, is Botticelli. Now he tries to paint as men painted in the old days of unpolluted faith, and then again he breaks away and paints like a very heathen.
'The interest which this artist has excited in the present generation has been exaggerated into something like a fashion, and recent criticism has delighted to find or imagine in him the idiosyncrasies of recent thought. To us it may be he does in truth say more than he or his contemporaries dreamed of, but while true criticism will sternly refuse to help us to see in his pictures that which is purely subjective, it will, I think, recognise the fact that a day like ours is capable of reading in the subtle suggestions of ancient art thoughts which have only now come to be frankly defined or exquisitely analysed. To us, moreover, Botticelli presents not only the poem of the apparition of the young and beautiful manhood of humanism before the brooding and entranced, yet half expectant, maidenhood of mediævalism, but also the poem of the painter's own peculiar relation to that crisis. For us there is the poetry of the thing itself, and also the poetry of Botticelli's attempt to express it. The work of Botticelli does not supply a universal utterance for mankind like Shakespeare's plays, but when we stand before the screen on which his "Nativity" is hung, or contemplate in the adjoining room his two perplexed conceptions of "Aphrodite," we are face to face with a genuine outcome of that memorable meeting, mediævalism, humanism, and Savonarola, which no generation can afford to ignore, and our own especially delights to contemplate. There has been much dispute about the date of Botticelli's "Nativity," and some defenders of Savonarola have hoped to read 1511 in the strange character of its inscription, so that this beautiful picture, standing forth as the work of one for many years under the influence of "the Frate," may refute the common calumny that that influence was unfriendly to art. Our catalogue, indeed, unhesitatingly asserts of Botticelli, that "he became a follower of Savonarola and no doubt suffered from it;" but though there seems to be really little doubt that the "Nativity" was painted in 1500, the inscription, with its mystic allusion to the Apocalypse, and the whole character of the picture, afford unmistakable evidence of the influence of Savonarola.'
Pietro Perugino, 1446, died of the plague at Frontignano in 1522. Perugino is another painter who has been indebted to the last Renaissance. His fame, in this country rested chiefly on the circumstance that he was Raphael's master, whom the generous prince of painters delighted to honour, till the tide of fashion in art rose suddenly and floated old Pietro once more to the front. At his best he had luminous colour, grace, softness, and enthusiastic earnestness, especially in his young heads. His defects were monotony, and formality, together with comparative ignorance of the principles of his art. His conception of his calling in its true dignity was not high. His attempts at expressing ardour degenerated into mannerism, and he acquired habits and tricks of arrangement and style, among which figured his favourite upturned heads, that in the end were ill drawn, and, like every other affectation, became wearisome. In the process of falling off as an artist, when mere manual dexterity took the place of earnest devotion and honest pains, Perugino had a large studio where many pupils executed his commissions, and where, working for gain instead of excellence in art, he had the satisfaction, doubtless, of amassing a large fortune. Among his finest works is the picture of an enthroned Madonna and Child in the gallery of the Uffizi. Another fine Madonna with Saints is at Cremona. His frescoes in the Sala del Campio at Perugia are among his best works. The subjects of these frescoes are partly scriptural; partly mythological. In the execution there is excellence alike in drawing, colouring, and the disposal of drapery. A chef d'œuvre by the master is the Madonna of the Certosa at Pavia, now in, the National Gallery. Yet it is said to have been painted at the very period when Michael Angelo ridiculed Perugino's work as 'absurd and antiquated.' Vittore Carpaccio, date and place of birth unknown, though he is said to have been a native of Istria. He was a historical painter of the early Venetian School and a follower of the Bellini. His romantic genre pictures show the daily life of the Venice of his time, and are furnished with landscape and architectural backgrounds. His masterly and rich work is mostly in Venice. He introduces animals freely and well in his designs.
Carlo Crivelli was another master of the fifteenth century who deserves notice. He had strong individuality, yet was influenced by the Paduan and Venetian Schools. He displayed an old-fashioned preference for painting in tempera. Sometimes his drawing approaches that of Mantegna, while he has a gorgeousness of colouring all his own. His pictures occasionally show dignity of composition in combination with grace and daintiness; but he could be guilty of exaggerated vehemence of expression. He frequently introduced fruit, flowers, and birds in his work. He is fully represented in the National Gallery, his works there ranging from 'small tender pictures of the dead Christ with angels, to a sumptuous altar-piece in numerous compartments.'
Filippino Lipi was an adopted son and probably a relation of Fra Filippo's, though a scholar's use of his master's name was not uncommon. The date of his birth is earlier than 1460. Filippino was also a pupil of Botticelli's, while there was a higher sense of beauty and grace in the pupil than in the teacher. Among his last works is the Vision of St Bernard, an easel picture in the Badia at Florence. The apparition of the Madonna in this picture is said to be 'full of charm.' In his larger works he is one of the greatest historical painters of his country. Roman antiquities had the same keen interest for him which they held for the greatest of his contemporaries, and he made free use of them in the architecture of his pictures. He has fine work in the Carmelite Church, Florence, and in S. Maria Sopra Minerva, Rome. Much of some of his pictures is painted over. The National Gallery has a picture of Filippino's 'of grand execution,' though almost colourless—the Madonna and Child, with St Jerome and St Francis.
Antonella da Messina was the Neapolitan painter who brought the practice of painting in oils from the Netherlands into Italy, though it is now believed, from stubborn discrepancies in dates, that the story of his great friendship with Jan Van Eyck, as given by Vasari, is apochryphal. Very likely Hans Memling, called also 'John of Bruges,' was the real friend and leader of Antonella. His best work consisted of portraits. He is believed to have died at Venice in 1496.
Benvenuto Tisio, surnamed from the place of his birth Garofalo, was born in 1481, and died in 1559. He passed from the early school of Ferrara to that of Raphael. His conception was apt to be fantastic, while his colouring was vivid to abruptness, and he was deficient in charm of expression. He fell into the fault of monotonous ideality. At the same time his heads are beautiful, and his drapery is classic. His finest work is an 'Entombment' in the Borghese Palace, Rome. There is an altar-piece by Garofalo, a Madonna and Child with angels, in the National Gallery.
Bernardo Luini, who stands foremost among the scholars of Lionardo da Vinci, was born by the Lago Maggiore, the date unknown, came to Milan in 1500, was elderly in 1525, and is supposed to have died not long after 1530. His work is chiefly found in Milan. His great merit has been only lately acknowledged. He is not 'very powerful or original,' but for 'purity, grace, and spiritual expression,' he ranks very high. He unites the earnestness of the older masters with the prevailing feeling for beauty of the great masters of Italian Art. His pictures were long mistaken for those of his master, Lionardo, though it is said that when the difference between them is once pointed out, it is easily recognised; indeed, the resemblance is confined to a smiling beatific expression in the countenances, which abounds more in Luini's pictures. His heads of women, children, and angels present every degree of serenity, sweet cheerfulness and happiness, up to ecstatic rapture. 'Christ Disputing with the Doctors,' in the National Gallery, formerly called a Lionardo, is now known to be a Luini. He painted much, whether in tempera, fresco, or oil. His favourite subjects in oil were the Madonna and Child, with St John and the Lamb, and the Marriage of St Catherine. Probable he appears to greatest advantage in frescoes. He is said to have reached his highest perfection in the figure of St John in a Crucifixion in the Monasterio Maggiore, Milan.
Jacopo Palma, called Il Palma Vecchio, was born about 1480 near Bergamo, and died in 1528. He is believed to have studied under Giovanni Bellini, while he is also the chief follower of Giorgione. His characteristics are ample forms and gorgeous breadth of drapery. His female saints, with their large rounded figures, have a soft yet commanding expression. He had an enchanting feeling for landscape, which seems to have been the birthright of the Venetian painters. To Palma is owing what are called 'Santa Conversazione,' where there are numerous groups round the Virgin and Child, as if they are holding a court in a retired and beautiful country nook. Palma rivalled Giorgione and Titian as a painter of women's portraits. Among these is that of his daughter Violante, believed to have been loved by Titian. 'Palma's three Daughters,' in the Dresden Gallery, is a masterpiece of 'fair, full-blown beauty.' The hair of the women is of the curiously bleached yellow tint affected then by the Venetian ladies. Palma painted many pictures, leaving at his death forty-our unfinished.
Giovanni Antonio da Pardenone, born 1483, died 1538. He had many names, 'Pardenone' from his birthplace, 'Corticellis' from that of his father, and he is believed to have assumed the name 'Regillo' after he received knighthood from the King of Hungary. He was Venetian in his artistic qualities. Many of his works are in his native Pardenone and in obscure towns near. All have suffered and some are now hidden by whitewash. His chief strength lay in fresco. His scenes from the Passion in the cathedral, Cremona, are greatly damaged and wretchedly restored, but they still reveal the painter as a great master. They have 'fine drawing, action, excellent colouring, grand management of light and shade, with freedom of hand and dignity of conception.' In the prophets and sybils around the cupola of the Madonna di Campagna, Piacenza, Pardenone's power is fully proven. His immense works in fresco account for the rarity of his oil pictures and their comparative inferiority. There is only one picture, and that a portrait, indisputably assigned to Pardenone in England, in the Baring Collection.