GIORDANO'S FAME AND REPUTATION.
Perhaps no artist ever enjoyed a greater share of contemporary fame than Luca Giordano. Possessed of inexhaustible invention, and marvellous facility of hand, which enabled him to multiply his works to any required amount he had the good fortune to hit upon a style which pleased, though it still farther corrupted the declining taste of the age. He despatched a large picture in the presence of Cosmo III., Grand Duke of Florence, in so short a space of time as caused him to exclaim in wonder, "You are fit to be the painter of a sovereign prince." The same eulogium, under similar circumstances, was passed upon him by Charles II. A similar feat at Naples, had previously won the admiration and approbation of the Viceroy, the Marquess de Heliche, and laid the foundation of his fortune. It became the fashion, to admire everything that came from his prolific pencil, at Madrid, as well as at Naples. Everywhere, his works, good or bad, were received with applause. When it was related as a wonder that Giordano painted with his fingers, no Angelo was found to observe, "Why does not the blockhead use his brush." That Giordano was a man of genius, there can be no doubt, but had he executed only a tenth part of the multitude he did, his fame would have been handed down to posterity with much greater lustre. Cean Bermudez says of his works in Spain, "He left nothing that is absolutely bad, and nothing that is perfectly good." His compositions generally bear the marks of furious haste, and they are disfigured in many cases by incongruous associations of pagan mythology with sacred history, and of allegory with history, a blemish on the literature as well as the art of the age. Bermudez also accuses him of having corrupted and degraded Spanish art, by introducing a new and false style, which his great reputation and royal favoritism, brought into vogue. Still, he deserves praise for the great facility of his invention, the force and richness of his coloring, and a certain grandeur of conception and freedom of execution which belong only to a great master. The royal gallery at Madrid possesses no less than fifty-five of his pictures, selected from the multitude he left in the various royal palaces. There are also many in the churches. Lanzi says, "Naples abounds with the works of Giordano, both public and private. There is scarcely a church in this great city which does not boast some of his works."
REMARKABLE INSTANCE OF GIORDANO'S RAPIDITY OF EXECUTION.
Giordano, on his return to Naples from Florence, established himself in Ribera's fine house, opposite the Jesuit's church of S. Francesco Xavier. In 1685 he was commissioned by the Fathers to paint a large picture for one of the principal altars, and agreed that it should be completed by the approaching festival of the patron saint. Giordano, having other engagements on hand, put off the execution of the altar-piece so long, that the Jesuits began to be clamorous, and at length appealed to the Viceroy to exercise his authority. Determined to see for himself how matters stood, that great man paid an unexpected visit to Giordano's studio. The painter had barely time to escape by a back door to avoid his wrath, when the Marquess de Heliche entered, who perceiving that he had not touched the vast canvas with his brush, as suddenly retired, muttering imprecations and menaces. Luca's dashing pencil now stood him in good stead. He immediately sketched the outlines of his composition, and setting his disciples to prepare his palettes, he painted all that day and night with so much diligence that by the following afternoon, he was able to announce to the impatient Fathers the completion of the picture. The subject was the patron of the church, St. Francis Xavier, the great Jesuit missionary, baptizing the people of Japan. He is represented standing on a lofty flight of steps; behind him, in the distance, is a party of zealous converts pulling down the images of their gods, and beneath in the foreground, kneels St. Francis Borgia in the attitude of prayer. The picture was executed with such boldness and freedom, and excellence of coloring, that at the proper distance it produced a grand and magnificent effect. It was immediately carried to the church, and placed over the destined altar, the day before the appointed festival, and the Viceroy whose anger had hardly cooled, invited to inspect it. Charmed with the beauty of the work, and amazed by the celerity of its execution, he exclaimed, "the painter of this picture must be either an angel or a demon." Giordano received his compliments, and made his own excuses with so much address, that the Marquess, forgetting all past offences engaged him to paint in the palace, and passed much of his time by his side, observing his progress, and enjoying his lively conversation.
REVIVAL OF PAINTING IN ITALY.
"Poetry, Painting, and Sculpture," says Cunningham, "are of the same high order of genius; but, as words provide at once shape and color to our thoughts, Poetry has ever led the way in the march of intellect: as material forms are ready made, and require but to be skillfully copied, Sculpture succeeded; and as lights and shadows demand science and experience to work them into shape, and endow them with sentiment, Painting was the last to rise into elegance and sublimity. In this order these high Arts rose in ancient Greece; and in the like order they rose in modern Italy; but none of them reached true excellence, till the light of knowledge dawned on the human mind, nor before civilization, following in the steps of barbarism, prepared the world for the reception of works of polished grace and tranquil grandeur.
"From the swoon into which the Fine Arts were cast by the overthrow of the Roman Empire, they were long in waking: all that was learned or lofty was extinguished: of Painting, there remained but the memory, and of Sculpture, some broken stones, yet smothered in the ruins of temples and cities the rules which gave art its science were lost; the knowledge of colors was passed away, and that high spirit which filled Italy and Greece with shapes and sentiments allied to heaven, had expired. In their own good time, Painting and Sculpture arose from the ruins in which they had been overwhelmed, but their looks were altered; their air was saddened; their voice was low, though it was, as it had been in Greece, holy, and it called men to the contemplation of works of a rude grace, and a but dawning beauty. These 'sisters-twin' came at first with pale looks and trembling steps, and with none of the confidence which a certainty of pleasing bestows: they came too with few of the charms of the heathen about them: of the scientific unity of proportion, of the modest ease, the graceful simplicity, or the almost severe and always divine composure of Greece, they had little or none. But they came, nevertheless, with an original air and character all their own; they spoke of the presence of a loveliness and sentiment derived from a nobler source than pagan inspiration; they spoke of Jesus Christ and his sublime lessons of peace, and charity, and belief, with which he had preached down the altars and temples of the heathen, and rebuked their lying gods into eternal silence.
"Though Sculpture and Painting arose early in Italy, and arose with the mantle of the Christian religion about them, it was centuries before they were able to put on their full lustre and beauty. For this, various causes may be assigned. 1. The nations, or rather wild hordes, who ruled where consuls and emperors once reigned, ruled but for a little while, or were continually employed in expeditions of bloodshed and war. 2. The armed feet of the barbarians had trodden into dust all of art that was elegant or beautiful:—they lighted their camp-fires with the verses of Euripides or Virgil; they covered their tents with the paintings of Protogenes and Apelles, and they repaired the breaches in the walls of a besieged city, with the statues of Phidias and Praxiteles;—the desires of these barbarians were all barbarous. 3. Painting and Sculpture had to begin their labors anew; all rules were lost; all examples, particularly of the former, destroyed: men unable, therefore, to drink at the fountains of Greece, did not think, for centuries, of striking the rock for themselves. 4. The Christian religion, for which Art first wrought, demanded sentiment rather than shape: it was a matter of mind which was wanted: the personal beauty of Jesus Christ is nowhere insisted upon in all the New Testament: the earliest artists, when they had impressed an air of holiness or serenity on their works, thought they had done enough; and it was only when the fears of looking like the heathen were overcome, and a sense of the exquisite beauty of Grecian sculpture prevailed, that the geometrical loveliness of the human form found its way into art. It may be added, that no modern people, save the Italians alone, seem to share fully in the high sense of the ideal and the poetic, visible in the works of Greece.