This painter was a pupil of Massimo Stanzioni (a rival of Spagnoletto), and showed such ability that "at first he created a jealous feeling in Massimo himself. Finding afterwards that his talent lay more in small figures than in large, he pursued that department and became very celebrated in his school. In the galleries of the Neapolitan nobility are to be seen by him, on canvas and copper, subjects both sacred and profane. Life was alone wanting to him, which he unfortunately shortened by his irregularities" (Lanzi, ii. 41).
A characteristic work in the "naturalistic" manner.
1159. THE CALLING OF ABRAHAM.
Gaspard Poussin (French: 1613-1675). See 31.
A very impressive picture in spite of the somewhat grotesque angel who accosts Abraham and points him to the Almighty seated in the clouds above (Genesis xii.). And indeed it is in his skies that Gaspard points us to the Infinite—in the open sky, stretching far away into that yellow horizon. To what does this strange distant space owe its attractive power?
"There is one thing that it has, or suggests, which no other object of sight suggests in equal degree, and that is—Infinity.... For the sky of night, though we may know it boundless, is dark; it is a studded vault, a roof that seems to shut us in and down; but the bright distance has no limit—we feel its infinity, as we rejoice in its purity of light.... Of the value of this mode of treatment (i.e. the rendering of open sky) there is a farther and more convincing proof than its adoption either by the innocence of the Florentine or the ardour of the Venetian, namely, that when retained or imitated from them by the landscape painters of the seventeenth century, when appearing in isolation from all other good, among the weaknesses and paltrinesses of Claude, the mannerisms of Gaspar, and the caricatures and brutalities of Salvator, it yet redeems and upholds all three, conquers all foulness by its purity, vindicates all folly by its dignity, and puts an uncomprehended power of permanent address to the human heart upon the lips of the senseless and the profane"[228] (Modern Painters, vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. i. ch. v. §§ 5, 12).
1160. THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI.
School of Giorgione (Venetian: early 16th century). See 269.
See also (p. xx)
This picture—ascribed by Morelli and others to Catena (see 234)—is by some connected with the name of Giorgione. It displays, says Sir Edward Poynter, "the qualities which we should expect to find in a picture by Giorgione, and does not seem so far removed from the only absolutely authenticated work by him—the altar-piece at Castelfranco—as to make it impossible to attribute it to his hand. In qualities of drawing and composition it is superior to what we know of the work of Catena" (The National Gallery, i. 23). "The figures are Bellinesque, yet with that added touch of delicacy and refinement which Giorgione always knows how to impart. The richness of colouring, the depth of tone, the glamour of the whole, is far superior to anything we can point to with certainty as Catena's work; and no finer example of his 'Giorgionesque' phase is to be found than the sumptuous 'Warrior adoring the Infant Christ' (234) which hangs close by. Catena's work seems cold and studied beside the warmth and spontaneity of Giorgione's little panel" (Herbert Cook's Giorgione, p. 54). "Whoever painted it, it is worth many much larger canvases. The simple, flowing cast of the drapery, the general scheme of colour, and the quality of individual tints, such as the mellow yellow shaded with red, and the greenish-blue of the Virgin's mantle, are not like what I know of Catena. The lively, well-drawn child, with its supple limbs; the faces of the women, with full faces, short noses, and square jaws; the straight-necked horses, and many other things in this charming picture,—seem to me to proclaim a distinct, if unknown, master. Above all things distinct, perhaps, is the particular tone of reverence—naïve, quiet, but deep—that pervades the picture, a feeling which can scarcely have been imitated, but must have proceeded from the very character of the painter himself" (Monkhouse, In the National Gallery, p. 224).