The earliest picture in the Gallery which was painted for domestic pleasure, not religious service. One of the earliest also in which a classical subject is attempted. It probably formed the end of a coffer or cassone,[152] such as were often given for wedding presents, and was no doubt a commission to the artist for that purpose. Hence the choice of subject (which has been variously given as the Rape of Helen and the Rape of the Venetian Brides), and the (surely intentional) comic extravagance of the drawing: the bridegroom takes giant's strides in lover's eagerness, and the ships scud along with love to speed them. The ludicrous unreality of the rocks and trees, contrasted with the beautifully painted flowers of the foreground, is very characteristic of the art of the time (cf. 283 and 582). Rocks, trees, and water are all purely "conventional" still; and "the most satisfactory work of the period is that which most resembles missal painting, that is to say, which is fullest of beautiful flowers and animals scattered among the landscape, in the old independent way, like the birds upon a screen. The landscape of Benozzo Gozzoli is exquisitely rich in incident of this kind" (Edinburgh Lectures on Architecture and Painting, ch. iii.).
592. THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI.
Filippino Lippi[153] (Florentine: 1457-1504). See 293.
See also (p. xix)
This picture, with its immense retinue of followers, is "full of life and swarms with incident and expression, from the dignified gravity of St. Joseph to the fantastic humour of the dwarf. No two figures are alike, except perhaps the two shepherds who are approaching from the right, and they are different from all the rest" (Monkhouse).
593. VIRGIN AND CHILD.
Lorenzo di Credi (Florentine: 1459-1537).
Lorenzo di Andrea Credi has been called by Morelli the Carlo Dolci of the fifteenth century. His pictures are sweet and gentle, but lack force or inspiration. His colouring tends towards crudeness; his careful execution and finish are remarkable. "He was a very careful and laborious workman, distilling his own oils and grinding his own colours; and when he was working he would suffer no movement to be made," says Vasari, "that would cause dust to settle on his pictures." What Vasari adds about him may be partly seen in this and the companion picture (648), with their bright colouring and pretty distances: "His works were finished with so much delicacy that every other painting looks but just sketched and left incomplete as compared with those from his hand." Lorenzo was the son and grandson of goldsmiths, and was placed when quite a child under the tuition of Verocchio (296), and was still working under him at the age of twenty-one, content with the modest salary of one florin (about £2) a month. Like his master, he was a sculptor as well as a painter, and Verocchio in his will requested that Lorenzo might finish his famous statue (at Venice) of Bartolommeo Colleoni. (The Venetians, however, gave it to Alessandro Leopardo to finish.) Lorenzo was one of the few men who lived through the Renaissance without swerving from the religious traditions of earlier art, and even without being much influenced by his fellow-pupils—though in his grave and sweet Madonnas there is yet a suspicion of the sidelong look, half sweet, half sinister, and of the long, oval face, which distinguish Leonardo. He was a disciple of Savonarola, and burnt his share of pictures in the famous bonfire. "His will bears witness to his contrition. After having assured the future of his old woman-servant, to whom he left his bedding and an annuity in kind; after having made certain donations to his niece and to the daughter of a friend, a goldsmith; he directed that the rest of his fortune should go to the brotherhood of the indigent poor, and that his obsequies should be as simple as possible" (Müntz: Leonardo da Vinci, i. 29). Lorenzo is not represented so well in the National Gallery as in the Louvre and at Florence. His "Nativity" in the Florentine Academy is perhaps his best work. Lorenzo's range was limited, and "Holy Conversations" or "Madonnas" were his most frequent subjects. A peculiarity of them is the large head and somewhat puffy and clumsy forms he gives to the Infant Christ.
594. THE "HOLY MONEY-DESPISERS."
Emmanuel (Byzantine: about 1660).