This fine picture was originally the principal altar-piece of the church of San Guglielmo (St. William) at Ferrara. Hence the introduction of that saint (on our left)—a beautiful face, into which the artist has put, one may think, all his local piety. The saint is in armour, for William—the institutor of the hermit order of Guglielmites—was originally a soldier, and was "given," says one of his biographers, "unto a licentious manner of living, too common among persons of that profession." It was to escape from such temptations that he became a holy penitent, and fought thenceforward in mountain solitudes, as a soldier of Christ against the flesh and the devil. Beside him stands St. Clara, "the very ideal of a gray sister, sedate and sweet, sober, steadfast, and demure." She gazes on a crucifix, for she too had renounced the pomps and vanities of the world. Her wealth of golden hair was cut off, it is said, by St. Francis; her fortune she gave to hospitals, and herself became the foundress of the Order of "Poor Clares." St. Francis stands on the other side of the throne, and besides him is "good St. Anthony" (see under 776).
672. HIS OWN PORTRAIT.
Rembrandt (Dutch: 1606-1669). See 45.
"This portrait, dated 1640, describes the man well—strong and robust, with powerful head, firm and compressed lips and determined chin, with heavy eyebrows, separated by a deep vertical furrow, and with eyes of keen penetrating glance,—altogether a self-reliant man, who would carry out his own ideas, careless whether his popularity waxed or waned" (J. F. White in Encyclopædia Britannica).
673. "SALVATOR MUNDI."
Antonello da Messina (Venetian: 1444-1493)
A picture of special interest as being the earliest known work (it is dated 1465) of Antonello, of Messina in Sicily, who is famous as the man by whom the art of painting in oils, as perfected by the Van Eycks (see 186), was introduced into Venice. Vasari's story is that Antonello saw, on a visit to Naples, a picture by John Van Eyck, in which the brilliancy and fine fusion of the tints so struck him that he forthwith set out for Flanders, ingratiated himself with Van Eyck, and learnt from him the secret of his method. But the dates do not agree with this story. For Van Eyck died in 1440, and Antonello must therefore have been born early in the century, whereas, on the contrary, Vasari expressly states that he died in 1493, aged forty-nine. More probably Antonello learnt the Flemish technique from the painters of that school who are known to have been at Naples in the middle of the fifteenth century. In his native town, in the church of S. Gregorio, is a triptych by him, dated 1473. In the same year he was at Venice, where he remained until his death. "His practical mastery of the new method, still unknown in the city of the Lagoons, of glazing in oil colours a ground laid in tempera, must have given Antonello a higher status at Venice than his intrinsic merits as an artist would have warranted. We see that he is at once honoured with a commission from the wardens of S. Cassiano. Unhappily the altar-piece there, so highly praised by Matteo Collaccio and Sabellico, and signed with the year 1473, has long since disappeared. And not only did the church dignitaries of Venice patronise him, but the patricians were eager to have their likenesses taken on the new principle practised by Antonello; and, to judge by the number of portraits he turned out in those years, he must for a time have been the most popular portrait painter in Venice" (Morelli). Of his portraits there is a good example in our Gallery (1141). The splendid portrait in the Louvre is dated 1475; that in the Berlin Gallery, 1478. The "Crucifixion" in our Gallery is dated 1477. "It is evident to me," says Morelli, "that Antonello gradually formed himself by studying the works and seeking the society of the great Venetian masters, till he reached that degree of perfection which we miss in his early Ecce Homos and admire in his portraits of 1475-78. His Italian nature gradually works its way through the Flemish shell in which his first master had encased his hand as well as mind. In this transformation of Antonello as an artist Giovanni Bellini had obviously the greatest share. Whoever visits the churches of Messina, and of the towns and villages along that eastern coast of Sicily as far as Syracuse, will still find in many of them Madonnas, whether in colour or in marble, that remind him of Antonello and Giambellino. And not only did Antonello act powerfully on his own Sicilian countrymen; we also discern his influence in several portraits by painters of Upper Italy—for instance, those of Solario." No. 923, for example, the portrait of a Venetian Senator, by that master, is strongly reminiscent of Antonello's style. In fact, as Sir F. Burton says, "to Antonello and his Flemish education is due that type of portraiture which we find among the Venetian and North Italian painters of his time, and which, under a southern sun, and in the hands of a Titian, expanded itself in the noblest form." (The above account of Antonello follows Morelli: see his Italian Masters in German Galleries, pp. 376-390).
Christ as the "Saviour of the World," stands with his finger on the edge of a parapet, giving the blessing and gazing into eternity. The picture, being dated 1465,[164] must have been painted by Antonello in his twenty-first year. Both in conception and in the ruddy complexion peculiar to the school of Van Eyck (see 222 and 290) it suggests a Flemish influence. Notice also the pentimenti (or corrections): the right hand and border of the tunic were originally higher, and their forms, obliterated by the painter, have now in course of time disappeared. This again shows the hand of an experienced artist.
674. PORTRAIT OF A LADY.
Paris Bordone (Venetian: 1500-1570). See 637.