Ruysdael (Dutch: 1628-1682). See 627.
This picture is signed and dated 1673.
747. ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST AND ST. LAWRENCE.
Ascribed to Hans Memlinc. See 686.
St. Lawrence may nearly always be distinguished by his gridiron—the emblem of his martyrdom. He was a pious deacon of the Christian Church, who was put to death by the Romans. A new kind of torture was, says the legend, prepared for him. He was stretched on a sort of bed, formed of iron bars in the manner of a gridiron, and was roasted alive. "But so great was his constancy that in the middle of his torments he said, 'Seest thou not, O thou foolish man, that I am already roasted on one side, and that, if thou wouldst have me well cooked, it is time to turn me on the other?' Then St. Lawrence lifted up his eyes, and his pure and invincible spirit fled to heaven."
748. MADONNA AND CHILD, WITH ST. ANNE.
Girolamo dai Libri (Veronese: 1474-1556).
Girolamo inherited his surname ("of the books") from the occupation of his father, who was an illuminator of manuscripts. Girolamo himself excelled in this branch of art, but he also became famous as a painter of altar-pieces. He had "a playful fancy, and loved to introduce into his pictures festoons of flowers and fruit, trees of rich green foliage bearing lemons and oranges, and angels singing and playing on musical instruments. He was a true Veronese in his feeling for colour, which in his works is always rich and gay. In his backgrounds are frequently seen distant views of his native city, with her castellated hills and blue mountains" (Layard, i. 269). Girolamo, whose friendship with Francesco Morone (285) is on record, was born in Verona, and it is there that many of his principal works are preserved. In the Pinacoteca are several charming pictures, and there also is a collection of Girolamo's missals. In S. Giorgio Maggiore is a "Madonna Enthroned," dated 1526, which is by many considered the painter's masterpiece. The German artist Ludwig Richter,[178] thus records (in his Lebenserinnerungen) the impression it made upon him:—"I thought that I had scarcely ever seen anything so beautiful and touching. The picture was by Girolamo dai Libri, an old master of whom until then I had never heard, nor, indeed, have I seen any other picture by him since. Here it was that there first arose in me a suspicion of what a depth of spiritual life, and of the heavenly beauty that is born of it, lay in the masters of the pre-Raphaelite period. The master's way of seeing and feeling, his style—and the style is the man—impressed me deeply and permanently, touched me sympathetically. In fact this dear old painter became veritably my patron saint, for he it was who first opened to me the gates of the inner sanctuary of Art" (quoted by Dr. Richter, in the Art Journal, February, 1895).
A picture "with a pedigree," being mentioned by Vasari. "In the church of the Scala (at Verona)," he says, in his life of the painter, "the picture of the Madonna with St. Anna is by his hand, and is placed between the San Sebastiano of Il Moro and the San Rocco of Cavazzola (Morando)." The latter picture (735) and Girolamo's now hang on the same wall of our Gallery. In the composition of this picture one may trace, perhaps, the influence of the dainty work Girolamo was first accustomed to. Thus the trefoil, or cloverleaf pattern, is followed both in the arrangement of the Virgin, St. Anne, and the Child, and in that of the little playing angels below. Notice the pretty trellis-work of roses on either side, and the slain dragon at the Virgin's feet, emblematic (the latter) of Christ's victory over the powers of evil, and (the former) of the "ways of pleasantness" and "paths of peace" that he came to prepare.