L, 1905 MANTEGMA PRICE MD X7 ^3/i3 UC-NRLF B ^ sa^ aos Br^trliiiiflDiluiite^^ Jgsueftlft^^ MANTEGNA PART 64 VOLUME 6 JBatc?iantKJutttKJitnpan]|. 42«^»^^»^^»^^»«^»^^»^^»^^^^»^^»^^»^^M In answering advertisements, please mention Masters in Art MASTERS IN ART FOR EVERY SUBSCRIBER WHO DOES LET T _E_RJN G on the subject ever published, that we will refund the purchase want-toTe^rthe^boor"^'' ^""^" ''''''' '^ ^^^ «---" Vo'^o'Z andTetoLl;" iliar^l'^th'rtstu^^ler'ood'"^'^ f ^^ r T' '" '^^ '' return it, notify us by postal card and we will ref' "a^ '^'" '^ ^""^ '^''''' '° postage for returning the book '"'^"'^ >'°"'' """^^ ^"^ send ^^''"T ■^"IS OFFER FAIR ENOUGH TO ACCEPT?' Bates & Guild C O., Publishers, BOSTON, MASS. Please refer .o tki, ,d.e„ij,m™, „!,„ „i„;^. In answering advertisemem,, please mention Maste.s in A RT ASTERS IN A ^ntt ADUAN SCHO N l-^ / n 3 c::^-^ri'<' ^^.•^.^742 M A XT EG X A MASTEHS IN AHT PLATE 11 rHOTOGRAPM BY ANDERSON [l3l] MANTP'.GNA MKKTIxr. OP LOnOVlCO GOKZAGA ANll CAKDINAL F«ANCESCO GAMEKA DEGLI SJ'OSI, CASTELLO, MANTUA MASTEKS IN AKT PliATK III PHOTOGRAPH BY BR»UN, CLEMENT i. CIE MAXTKI^N'A TIIK IIOI.V KAMIT.Y CQLLKlvnOX OF J)H. l-LDWlc; MOXD, 2 2 ■J ^ ?4 H E « fe K '^ < 5 t- ^. B g K Hi ft -5 CO •. « o ■«1 IE * 5 •i i. X fe5 '-' p: 5 s MASTEHS IN A Kl' PHOTOGRAPH BY PRAUN, C I'l.ATK VI [lao] .MAXTKCrXA THE MAUOXNA OF VICTOKX LOUVKE. PAKiS MASTEHS IN A HI' PHOTOGRAPH HY Al [141] PI,A TK vir DERSON MAXTKd.VA ST. JAMES hf:fohk IIKKOI) AGRIPPA CHUKCH OF TltK KHKMITANI, PADUA MASTKHS IX AIM' PI.ATK Vltl PHOTOGRAPH »v ANDERSON M A.N rK(;.N'A M ADO.N XA A.\ n CIlII.ll Wnil ("IIKRI'HS i;hkha (;ai-i,khv. mii.ax MASTEKS IN AKT P1.ATK IX PHOTOQBAPH BY HANFSTAENGL [14.-,] MAXTKGXA POKTKAIT OK CAKIMNAI. SCAKAMPI HKHLI-\ C.Al.l.KKY < i HHOXZE HUST OF .M AN'IW; .\ A MA.VTFXIXAS CIIAPIOL, lUIUJiC.II Ol' SANl" A.\J)liKA, .MAXTIA Fifty years after Mantcgna's death, his grandson, Andrea, placed in the chapel of the Church of Sant' Andrea, Mantua, where the painter is buried, the now cele- brated bronze bust of Mantegna here reproduced. Formerly attributed to the medalist, Sperandio, this tine work is now ascribed by some to Bartolommeo di Virgilio Meglioli ; by others to Gian Marco Cavalli. Whoever the sculptor, the massive head crowned with laurel, and with eyes in which we are told diamonds once blazed, is superbly modeled, and in its strongly marked features are revealed the rugged strength, the proud and uncompromising spirit, the mighty energy, of the great artist. [ 1411 ] MASTERS IN ART ^ntirea iWanti^gna BORN 1431 : DIED loOG P ADU AN SCHOOL ANDREA MANTEGNA (pronounced Man-tane'yah) was born at Vi- -/a. cenza, in the neighborhood of Padua, in the year 1431. Nothing is known of his parentage except that his father's name was Biagio. The story told by Vasari, that, like Giotto, Mantegna was "occupied during his child- hood in the tending of flocks," is without foundation, and all that is actually known of his early years is that he went to Padua when very young, was there adopted by the painter Squarcione, and at the age of ten was admitted to the gild of painters in Padua, being registered in the books of the fraternity as "Andrea, the son of Messer Francesco Squarcione, painter." Although Squarcione's title to fame rests to-day largely upon the fact that he was Mantegna's earliest master, he occupies a not unimportant position in the history of the development of art in northern Italy. Originally a tailor and embroiderer by profession, he won a reputation as a connoisseur of antique art, his taste for which he indulged during travels in Italy, and some say in Greece, where he collected specimens of sculpture, bas-reliefs, architectural remains, and drawings made from inscriptions and decorative work. Upon his return to Padua he established an art school, where no less than one hun- dred and thirty-seven students from all parts of Italy were assembled. In this school the young Mantegna received his first instruction, and thus from his earliest years a love for antique art was formed, a love which re- mained throughout his life the dominant feature in his art, though other in- fluences contributed towards making him the finished master he became. Whether Jacopo BeUini, the Venetian painter, was one of the teachers em- ployed in Squarcione's school, or whether, during the residence in Padua which he is known to have made, he set up a separate and rival studio, can- not be determined, but in Mantegna's work, as well as in that of other Squar- cionesques, his influence is clearly perceptible. From the Florentine painter Paolo Uccello, who was at work in Padua in Mantegna's boyhood, the young student probably acquired an interest in the art of perspective and foreshort- ening in which Paolo excelled; but by a far greater master, the famous sculp- tor Donatello, who with a crowd of assistants went from Florence to Padua and there lived and worked for a period of about ten years, he was still more 24 MASTERS IN ART powerfully influenced. Donateilo's classic ideals and t}pes, his forceful in- terpretation of the spirit of the Renaissance, to say nothing of his marvelous technical skill, all made a deep impression upon Mantegna's mind. Bred up among such influences, and imbibing from his earliest youth the intellectual atmosphere of the old university town of Padua, the home of scholars, poets, artists, and philosophers, Mantegna grew to manhood. At seventeen he had painted his tirst recorded picture, a 'Madonna in Glory,' no longer in existence, for the Church of Santa Sofia in Padua. Four years later he painted a fresco over the portal of the Church of Sant' Antonio, and in 1454 he executed for the Church of Santa Giustina a large altar-piece of St. Luke with eight saints and a Pieta, now in the Brera Gallery, Milan. At the age of twenty-three he had, therefore, been employed in work for the three principal churches of Padua, from which it may be inferred that even at that early stage of his career he had acquired a reputation and was highly esteemed by his fellow-citizens. Before finishing the St. Luke altar-piece Mantegna was engaged upon a work which was to make his name famous. With others of Squarcione's pupils he was employed in decorating in fresco (or, more properly speaking, in tempera on the dry plaster, the method employed by Mantegna for all his wall-paintings) the Chapel of St. James and St. Christopher in the Church of the Eremitani in Padua, and in the six celebrated wall-paintings which re- main of his work there we have a priceless record of his early art. Before the completion of these paintings Mantegna's marriage with Nico- losia, daughter of Jacopo Bellini, took place. Two years later he broke off all connection with Squarcione, from whom he demanded and obtained his free- dom on the ground that when he had signed an agreement to work for him he was but a minor, and, moreover, that he had been deceived by his master. According to Vasari, the rupture between Squarcione and his pupil was caused by the latter's marriage with the daughter of Squarcione's "rival," Jacopo Bellini, which so displeased Mantegna's master that, whereas he had previously much extolled his pupil's works, he from that time censured them with violence, finding fault with Mantegna's frescos in the Church of the Eremitani because the figures therein resembled antique marbles. "Andrea," adds Vasari, "was deeply wounded by his disparaging remarks, but they were, nevertheless, of great service to him; for, knowing that there was truth in what Squarcione said, he forthwith began to draw from the life." By most modern critics the change which took place at about this period in Mantegna's manner of painting is attributed not to any adverse criticism from Squarcione, but to the counsel of his brother-in-law, Giovanni Bellini (between whose early works and some of Mantegna's a strong resemblance exists), who induced him to soften the rigor of his style and turn more to na- ture than to the cold and lifeless models of antique art. The fame of the Eremitani frescos quickly spread, and before long Man- tegna was regarded as the chief painter of Padua. His genius was extolled by scholars, and poems were written in his honor, while princes and church dignitaries sought to obtain examples of his art. While at work upon a large [150] MANTEGNA 25 altar-piece in six parts for the Church of San Zeno in Verona, he received, in 1457, a pressing invitation from Lodovico Gonzaga, marquis of Mantua, to enter his service and take up residence at the Mantuan court, then one of the most brilliant in Italy. But the painter, fully occupied with work, and loath to give up his home in Padua, a town to which he was so strongly attached that as long as he lived he frequently affixed to his signature the words "Civis Patavinus" (Citizen of Padua), hesitated to accede to Lodovico's wish, and it was not until the end of two years, and after repeated appeals from the marquis, who courteously but persistently plied him with letters filled with liberal promises, — a salary of fifteen ducats a month should be at his dis- posal, free lodging, corn and wood enough for six people, and all traveling expenses paid, — that Mantegna, after many excuses, — first, that he must be allowed to finish his altar-piece, then that he must go to Verona to place it in the Church of San Zeno, — finally yielded, and in 1459 removed with his fam- ily to Mantua. From that time on until his death he remained the special court painter and the devoted subject of the Gonzaga family, being privileged to make use with some slight change of the Gonzaga coat of arms, and being treated with the utmost regard by the successive rulers of the house, who were well aware that his presence added luster to their court and city. Among the earliest works executed after his arrival in Mantua were a small triptych, or altar-piece in three parts, now in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, and a 'Death of the Virgin' in Madrid. His decorations of Goito, the fa- vorite hunting-castle of the marquis, have perished, as have also his frescos in various neighboring palaces of the Gonzagas. In the summer of 1466 Mantegna went to Florence on business of his mas- ter's, but no account of his four months' stay there has come down to us. In December of that year he was in Mantua again, executing a variety of tasks for the marquis, from drawing designs for tapestries to painting the walls of a room in the Castello, known as the 'Camera degli Sposi.' These famous frescos were finished in 1474, and as a reward the marquis presented Mantegna with an estate upon which the painter began to build for himself a stately house, where, however, he seems never to have actually lived, but where it was his hope that he would be free from the annoyances he suffered from his neighbors. Again and again Mantegna, who seems to have been of an irascible temper, quick to imagine slights and to resent fancied in- juries, appealed to his master, the marquis, to redress his wrongs. Now it was to beg him to punish a tailor who had spoiled a piece of his cloth; now to bit- terly complain of a neighbor who, he declared, had robbed his garden of five hundred fine quinces; again, to beg for justice regarding the boundary-line between his estate and the next. To all appeals from his testy painter Lodo\ - ico turned a patient ear, adjusting matters to Mantegna's satisfaction when- ever possible, though sometimes forced to decide against the irritable artist, who on one occasion himself administered what he felt to be justice, and soundly thrashed an engraver whom he suspected of having purloined his plates. This time a lawsuit followed in which Mantegna fared badly, for we find him again appealing to the marquis for help. [ 1 r, 1 ] 26 MASTERS IN ART Lodovico, always ready to treat Mantegna with forbearance, was not, how- ever, so prompt to satisfy his frequent and more reasonable complaints that his salary was in arrears. In 1478 the painter wrote to remind his patron that the promises made to induce him to leave Padua had never been fulfilled, but that now, after laboring in the Gonzagas' service for nineteen years, he was still poor and in need. Lodovico replied kindly and with apologies, assuring Man- tegna that he should be paid, even if his own possessions had to be sold, but that money was scarce in the Mantuan treasury, and even then his own jewels were in pawn. Three weeks after this Lodovico died, after ruling for thirty- four years, and to his son, Federico, were left his dukedom and his debts. This new marquis had all his father's love of art and luxury, and towards the court painter he showed continued kindness and appreciation of his genius. He kept him, indeed, so constantly employed that Mantegna was forced to re- fuse many of the commissions he received from different parts of Italy. The painter was at the height of his powers and success when, in 1484, Federico died, and was in his turn succeeded by his son, Francesco, then but a boy; and Mantegna, seemingly uneasy as to his position at the Mantuan court, wrote to offer his services at that of Florence. What answer he received we do not know, only that he remained in Mantua and that his new patron, the young marquis, Francesco, proved as appreciative of the painter's genius as his father and grandfather had been before him. The first important work undertaken by Mantegna after the accession of Francesco was the execution of a series of nine large paintings representing 'The Triumph of Caesar,' now at Hampton Court, England, but long used to decorate a palace of the Gonzagas. This great work was interrupted by a journey to Rome in 1488, made in compliance with a request to Francesco Gonzaga from Pope Innocent viii. that he would send his favorite painter to Rome to decorate a chapel in the Vatican. Such a request could not be re- fused, and accordingly Mantegna was allowed to depart, having first had con- ferred upon him by his master the honor of knighthood. For two years he remained in Rome, but unfortunately the frescos with which in that time he decorated the pope's chapel have perished, the entire chapel having been destroyed in 1780, when Pope Pius vi. enlarged the Vat- ican. Several letters written by Mantegna to the marquis, Francesco Gon- zaga, during his residence in the papal city, have been preserved, in which he tells of the honor and favor shown him by the pope, who, he says, though gra- cious, was not generous, for that he had been obHged to work for a year with nothing in return but his board — a statement which would seem to be corrob- orated by the anecdote told by Ridolfi that the painter, having been bidden to portray the seven deadly sins, placed beside them an eighth figure, and that when the holy father asked him what that signified Mantegna replied, "In- gratitude," which he held to be the worst of all. To which the pope, seeing the meaning of the painter's words, replied, smiling, "On this side then paint the seven virtues, and for an eighth figure add Patience, which is not inferior to any of the rest." After this, however, it is said that Mantegna's money was promptly paid. [152] MANTEGNA 27 As time went on and the artist did not return, Francesco became impatient, and in December, 1489, when his marriage with the beautiful Isabella d'Este, daughter of the duke of Ferrara, was about to be celebrated, he wrote ur- gently to both the pope and the painter, stating that Mantegna's services were needed in Mantua. But when the wedding took place, in the following February, Mantegna was still in Rome, detained by sickness, and not until the next autumn was he able to return to Mantua. All his attention was then de- voted to the completion of his 'Triumph of Caesar,' about which he had been so anxious while in Rome that in his letters to the marquis he had more than once given explicit directions as to the care to be taken of these precious works, of which he says himself, "Truly I am not ashamed of having made them, and hope to make more, if God and your Excellency please." Henceforth Mantegna's life was passed without interruption in Mantua. His talents were in constant requisition by the marquis and by his accom- plished wife, Isabella, who, during the frequent absence of Francesco on mil- itary service, governed the state ably and wisely. To commemorate a battle in which the marquis, although defeated, had borne himself bravely, Man- tegna painted his famous 'Madonna of Victory '(plate vi); to adorn the private study of Isabella, he painted the two mythological scenes, 'Parnassus' (plate x) and the 'Triumph of Wisdom,' both now in the Louvre, Paris. For the monks of Santa Maria degli Organi he painted the altar-piece of the ' Madonna and Saints,' now owned by Prince Trivulzio in Milan; and when his brush was not actively employed his creative powers found expression through his pencil or his burin, for Mantegna was famous not only as a painter but as a draftsman and an engraver. Scarcely a dozen genuine examples of his drawings have survived, but these show him to have been a master in that branch of art, and as an engraver he stands in the foremost rank. Of the twenty-three plates formerly ascribed to his hand only seven are now regarded as unquestionably his. All these are notable for the beauty and originality of the designs, powerful imagination displayed, and great technical skill. Mantegna's irascible disposition, which rendered him an almost impossible neighbor, does not seem to have prevented his being held b)- the distinguished scholars of his day to be a delightfully agreeable companion, whose varied ac- complishments and cultivated tastes excited general respect and admiration. As a collector of antiquities he had acquired a reputation, and we are told that he took much pleasure in poetry, and even wrote verses himself. Upright, loyal, and proud, he was, as one of his biographers has said," a man who took life earnestly, ardently, with no doubts of its worth, or of the value of his own labors therein, and with no half-heartedness in the fulfilling of them; he was fired by the true Renaissance zeal, enthusiastic and devoted." To the very last he applied himself with characteristic energy to his art, and in his later years produced some of his most vigorous works. To this period many critics assign the powerful but repellent ' Dead Christ,' now in the Brera Gallery, Milan. A 'St. Sebastian' in the collection of Baron Franchetti, Ven- [15.S] 28 MASTERS IN ART ice, belongs to this period, also the monochrome painting called the 'Triumph of Scipio,' in the National Gallery, London. Mantegna's last years were saddened by pecuniar\ losses and domestic troubles. Partly through his own too lavish expenditures, and partly because of the misdeeds of one of his three sons, Francesco, who was in constant dis- grace at the Mantuan court and a sore trial to his father, he found himself deeply involved in debt. So urgent, indeed, was his need that, unable to work fast enough to satisfy his creditors, he was forced to part with the most precious of all his antiques, a Roman head of Faustina, his "dear Faustina," as he called it. This he offered to the marchioness, Isabella, for the sum of one hun- dred ducats, but Isabella, away from home at the time, strangely enough de- layed answering the pathetic appeal of the old painter, and when she did write it was to endeavor to acquire the bust at a lower price. Mantegna, deeply hurt by her long silence, angrily refused to part with his treasure for less than the sum named, and the marchioness finally acceded to his terms. Her agent, Jacopo Calandra, writing to her that he had at last obtained possession of the bust for her, tells how Mantegna put the precious marble into his hands with great reluctance, recommending it to his care with much solicitude and with such demonstrations of jealous aflfection that, adds Calandra, "if he were not to see it again for six days I feel convinced he would die." And, indeed, the end came soon after the parting from his dearest posses- sion. Mantegna was ill at the time, and six weeks later, on Sunday, the thir- teenth of September, 1506, he died, at the age of seventy-five. In accordance with his wish he was buried in the Church of Sant' Andrea, Mantua, in a small chapel there which in his old age he had purchased for a last resting- place. The marquis, Francesco Gonzaga, was absent from Mantua at the time of Mantegna's death, and one of the painter's sons, writing to apprise him of the event, tells him how, a few minutes before the end, Mantegna, loyal to the last to the family he had served so long and so honorably, had asked for his master, "and grieved much to think that he should never see his face again." Isabella seems to have taken the news of the old painter's death very casually, and in a letter written at the time to her husband, alludes to the event in merely passing terms. Others, however, felt the loss more keenly. Albrecht Durer, on his way from Venice to Mantua to visit the great Mantegna, to whose art he owed much and with whose genius his own was in deep sym- pathy, when he learned that the painter was no more, declared, and was often heard to repeat the words, that in all his life no sadder thing had ever be- fallen him; and Lorenzo da Pavia, the noted Venetian collector of antiquities, who had known and admired Mantegna, wrote to the marchioness, Isabella, "I grieve deeply over the loss of our Messer Andrea Mantegna, for in truth a most excellent painter — another Apelles, I may say — is gone from us. But I believe that God will employ him elsewhere on some great and beautiful work, tor my part I know that I shall never again see so fine an artist." [154] MANTEGNA 29 %\)t art of JHantegna EUGENE MUNTZ 'HISTOIRE DE L'ART PENDANT LA RENAISSANCE' AMONG the precursors of Raphael, Andrea Mantegna stands conspicu- L ously in the foremost rank between Masaccio on the one side and Leo- nardo da Vinci on the other. No artist is more representative of one of the two chief factors of the new era — the study of antiquity; and when in addition we remember that his imagination was the most powerful, his style the most re- strained and the most finished, we may indeed ask if he were not the greatest painter of the early Renaissance. . . . Besides the instruction Mantegna received from Squarcione and from Jacopo Bellini, Donatello's influence is noteworthy. The Florentine sculptor, as we know, lived in Padua from 1444 to 1453, ^^^ therefore it is probable that Mantegna knew him personally. At all events, the young Paduan painter modeled his style upon that of Donatello even more than upon that of either Squarcione or Bellini, borrowing from him the types of his children with their puffed-out cheeks and tiny mouths, as well as the type of Christ and of the Virgin. Finally, he learned from Donatello that quality of pathos which is found in his portrayals of the Crucifixion and the Entombment. Once in- deed, in one of his frescos in the Church of the Eremitani, Padua, he copied Donatello's 'St. George.' Instruction imparted more or less directly by a sculptor to a painter has its disadvantages. A too rigorous imitation of sculpture (I am speaking now not only of Donatello's bronzes but of antique statues as well) gave a cold quality to Mantegna's coloring, in which there is something hard and dry. Only at times, perhaps under the influence of his brothers-in-law Giovanni and Gen- tile Bellini, did he strike a warmer and more genial note, a richer and more golden tone. Another Florentine, Paolo Uccello by name, was his exemplar in linear per- spective and the art of foreshortening. This twofold preoccupation of Man- tegna's plays so important a part in all his compositions that it sometimes in- terferes with the painter's poetic inspiration. In both branches, perspective and foreshortening, he acquired a skill so consummate that it has never been surpassed, perhaps not even equaled. But the chief source of his indebtedness, that of all others from which he most freely drew, was antique art. To search with all the eagerness of an an- tiquary and all the scientific thoroughness of an archaeologist for the least fragment in the way of statues, bas-reliefs, coins, inscriptions, marbles, and bronzes, which could be useful to him in reconstructing an image of the Roman world; to study even to the most infinitesimal details the costume, the furni- ture, and the armor of the ancients; to consult the most learned scholars as to the shape of a sword, the bit of a horse, or the kind of boot used in the Roman armies, and then from this infinity of material and with inexhaustible patience to create a picture at once living and poetic, quickening with his imagination IU>'>] 30 MASTERS IN ART erudition which in another would have remained sterile; — such was the task which Mantegna accompHshed with signal success. His enthusiasm for the study of antiquity, however, did not lead him to neg- lect nature. Possibly if antiquity could have provided him with more numer- ous and more varied models, Mantegna would not have turned to nature for a guide; but much is lacking, especially for a painter, in the models offered by antique art. Types, it is true, it gave him, and costumes, armor, furniture, buildings — in short, a complete archaeological outfit; but no color, no vegeta- tion, no landscapes, and accordingly Mantegna, fortunately for us, was forced to turn his attention to the men and things of his own time; in a word, to com- plete his role of archaeologist by that of realist. And so it was that, like Dona- tello, his immortal prototype, and like Raphael in later years, his art embraced two entire worlds — the world of antiquity, of paganism, and the world of Christianity — and he became the enthusiastic student of the one, the fervent interpreter of the other. . . . Among the many high qualities of Mantegna's achievement, qualities which through him have become the common patrimony of Italian art, composition may be said to owe more to him than any other one branch of art. He was undoubtedly the first to give thought to the construction of a picture; that is to say, to substitute for a simple juxtaposition or a picturesque grouping of the figures an arrangement which had been thoroughly thought out as a whole, and of which the most insignificant parts should be placed as carefully as fig- ures on a chessboard in the hands of a skilful player. Throughout his work we are conscious of a firm will and a brain ceaselessly alert. The arrangement of some of his pictures is as studied in its accuracy as a demonstration in geometry — too studied, indeed, for if this great artist can be reproached with a fault it is with over-conscientiousness. A little more freedom, a little more spontaneity, would sometimes be acceptable. Science in the disposition of drapery w^as also carried by Mantegna to a point of perfection unknown before his day. His inspiration in this direction was derived from both the precepts of Paolo Uccello and from the Greek and Roman sculptors. He was not satisfied to skilfully arrange his draperies upon the human body, to make them follow the lines caused by the slightest move- ment, and dispose them in accordance with the most complicated anatomical problems — all this he regarded as but a preliminary step, not an end. He wished in addition to grapple with those problems of harmony and of elegance which had been solved with such marvelous perfection by the sculptors of antiquity. Thus it was that the flow of the drapery became bv turn in Man- tegna's hands picturesque, bold, and, again, truly elo(|uent. ... Here, too, the artist, conscientious above all, sinned through excess. When studied carefully his draperies will often be found to be too hard, too stiff. Striving with implacable logic to reproduce even the smallest folds, the tiniest ripples, of those surfaces which in their very nature are pliable, he gives them a metallic appearance; no matter how softly flowing their folds, his materials are frequently so painted that they seem to be made of tin. As was the case with Donatello, Mantegna's fame and influence were widely [150] ^XTA 31 M ANTEGNA e^enaea, a„a y« he canno, be ^^^::<^:Z::^::!::::!:^Z- callea. Butifhehaanoa.rectpup.ls(noneolh>stn Mantegna, attainea ,co, ana Berna,-aino, nor h,s f-^^^/^jf °|;';,^rre Cosi™" T-a ana Me- celebrity), his in,,tators -"\""" : °,"' JwhatTs best in their art; Raphael, lozzoaaForh.whoweremaebteatoh^iorw ^^^ ^^^^^^^ who borrowea from h.m the 77%^";'^^^^"^ ,he Vatican aerivea his in- his aecorations of the Stanza <»;="> Segnatura.nth ^^^^^^^^ ^^ ^^_^^^^_ spiration from Mantegna s ""^"'^ « '"f '^'^^^^^^„ ,„d countless others. C'^^rreggio, P^olo Veronese Albr-ht Du' ^""^^^^^^ ^^^ engraver eclipsea As is usually the case n "T^7°''■ °' P L quickly muhipliea ana spreaa. the painter. A prmt "-^'^'l^^^l^^ll^'^ ^Tt gnl's paintings, a hunarea For every ten avt.sts who couU see one ot ^ f ^^^^ ^.^ _ -Xtr AXr-S'elbu-low valuelaia more towards es- ra£il;ttme than' his most celebratea p.nt.n^s^ ^^^^ ^_^^ ^^ •£r:rn:ri:it;ii:=ZoT:iuime.- • ITALIAN CITIES* cHANDE.W.BLASHFIELD . • , .ro Kni- looked with passion and MANTEGNA lookea not only at "«"'=• H."V°„en who had been his devotion upon the art off^^^j/'^'pj^'/.fjn personality ana the forerunners by a -"enma^ an^ ^ ha^^ Jr m^J^'^ ^, ?,_ ,ig„ .Hythm work of the Greeks ana Romans he '=''7 , 6, ;„„ of nature he acquired measure; from his own personahty and ^e observa ^^^ ^^ ^^^.^.^^^ a robust naturaUsm to be used ."h^r^j^f^^^Xn personal^ ana his loving -ut^CltXhe glv^'mrnr:? Ms^gures^a kina of feverishly v.ta. "=g'=ni.t"^rrlVh^eS Roman, the realistic contemporaneo . and th d a yj ^^^^ ._^ and holy personages. It - "»" M n e'na aevelopea his Roman types; ana ;ra;:ner:'^::9pH;rr^^^ pictures, are also very notable. . ^- u^a his architecture, and has rev- ' In the frescos Mantegna has fairly 1^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^ .^^^^^^ ^^^ it may eled In his stage-setting. This ^ichitectu & • ^^re than his be said here that Mantegna ' f^^l'^'lZ^^o^^^^^^^^ P-^""'^ ^^ ^^^"^ elaboration of detail, interfered with the unity oH^ ^^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ fresco as a whole. The --"-;V'Lows the architecture is too emphatic, does n't mind your knowing that h ^ -ws the ar^^^^^^ ^^^.^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^.^_^ and the emphasis is increased by the ^^^^ ^^f^ ^ ,^hen he came to a mat- was. Uke most of the other primitives, sadly hampeiea r 1 fr "■ 1 32 MASTERS IN ART ter of atmospheric perspectl\e. He is, however, in hke case with many an- other; for, save in the hands of a very few Venetians and Umbrians, the fif- teenth-century background would no more "down" than would Banquo's ghost. Mantegna's buildings are, after all, only in the second plane, not the third or fourth; and, for all that atmospherically they do not "know their places," they are splendid and stately frames, more accountable perhaps than any other one thing for the effect ot the frescos. If his architecture is all an- tique, his costumes are, in three of the rectangles of the Eremitani frescos, frankly fifteenth-century; in the others they are of that pseudo-Roman char- acter which we may call Mantegnesque. That he would have had them altogether Roman we do not doubt; but the great artist cannot forget himself wholly, for even in his most earnest admira- tion Mantegna's personality asserts itself, as it should; he is more violent than the Greek, and he refines upon the later Roman. His people sometimes move with a nervous brusqueness that is unsculptural and therefore un-pagan; more often they stand statuesquely, or march rhythmically, as in the 'Triumph.' Their long, thin bodies are evolved directly from Mantegna's own personality. In the 'Triumph of Caesar' they have much of antique grace; in the frescos, ft is combined with a great deal of medieval meagerness. They are of that type which Mantegna preferred to all others, in which there is a mixture of ugliness and elegance and even beauty, leaning now to the beauty side, with the striplings and children of the Mantuan cartoons, now to the side of ultra- elongation, as in 'The Crucifixion' — the type with a powerful, sharply muscled thorax, slender but elegantly graceful arms and legs, and small heads. . . . In his purely sacred pictures Mantegna's type of the Madonna is akin to Bellini's, in that she is always the close-hooded descendant of the Byzantine Marys; there is no opportunity for the picturesque arrangement of hair and veil dear to the Tuscans; the limitation is trying and calls for greater feeling for facial beauty in women than Mantegna possessed. In the delightful army of Italian winged children Mantegna's hold honorable office; real babies hardly existed in antique art, so he could obtain no inspiration from his Ro- mans, and it is rather the little angels of Giovanni Bellini who are the brothers to Mantegna's children, who, we suspect, try to look like the little bronze mu- sicians of Donatello's famous Paduan altar; but they are not so forceful as Donatello's children, nor so w'inning as Bellini's. . . . In immediate relation to his flying children is a purely decorative and alto- gether delightful element in Mantegna's pictures, of which he was, if not the inventor, at least the typical adapter to pictorial purpose. He brought to a fuller color-life the Delia Robbia garlands of green and white, and swung them across his frescos. They are heavier and thicker than Luca's festoons — so heavy, indeed, that infant geniuses easily ride astride or climb them like trees. Flowers and fruits almost as solid-looking as the glazed earthern pears and apples of the Delia Robbia are set in them with a perfect regularity which, like the formalizing of Italian gardens, makes them but more decorative. . . . Having glanced, if ever so hastily, at types, architecture, and ornament, the material from which Mantegna evolved his art, let us even more briefly con- [158] MANTEGNA ^^ s,der h,s technique, his drawing color. -\7-P°r%htrU,cC;uttIol' we .ay not ca„ hi. the pnnce o a,, ts^^n of aU t,m. The ^^^ ^^<,^^^^ ^^ cannot be answered, for th"^"^ ™ l^^J^ho. as our mood changes, may Parnassus, and ,ts upper slopes 'Y™ . Mfrhdaneelo Leonardo and Titian. s,t in turn with Apollo. R^P''" L i«,o make up' a charmed circle, and ^r'^T\'l°ld'^:fX:i;t::th";i"-e7thegatesswingtogether. when the threshold ot the sixteenui j masters whom closing upon an older and a 'ff-^;; ^ , o^^hY^hoUy rounded perfect.on we call primitive must still linger, aepnvcu ,u„..„u thev may be without that came to those of the H.gh R^^-^lf^'^^ '',^\t earn 7Gio^L,ni Bellmi it nearest to this circle, m our hearts at least, sit tne and the lofty-minded Mantegna. K^^-note for Mantegna, in his chal- M. Mantx ,n his -*--^,;°7„t J h 'Koreans upon disign and style, lenge to posterity, stands firmly as one or n r ^^^ ^^^_ thole bases of pictorial art. No -f«^,''°"^^"tne and nearly all of his dis- line in most of his wall-pictures, all of ^'^ g"™f '^^ f ^„ ^^ „f ;„ temper panels is dehcate ^-"^ sensitive, fuh of charac^i^ .^ ^g^^ ^^^ ^:;-irt:s::t:. J^z:^:::::^^^'^ .. ^o..!.... almost ■'^'^- KtTgfmust be reckoned his J-™- .^ ^2^^.:^^: made an important, perhaps too ™P°"-';,f ^j „''rthe'attractiveness of he performed with it some very pretty f^"^' ^''"'^^^^^ ^ exactly upon his work, especially in l"^P'«'"S°f'^"J°X"een from below (as in the ^y-ilte-d^ £:r;t^:Sirof^r>em than for any enhancement afforded by it to his picture .^ ^^ _^^^^^.^, ^, Mantegna loved to compose -^ hked o h "d e a g_^^ ^^^^^ ^ ^.^^^ a time; the Madonna and C^'" J;^by^^^^^^ ^ i„,„nce. He liked a as a subject, as they did his bro her in '»™ ■^^ architecture and procession much better, or ^"'^"•^^^^"f.^'lt^.eneL d-P-i™"> were in de- landscape. His draperies, though dignified in gene^ p ^^^^^ ^|^_^ tail what the French would call tormented^ full ot fit y.^^ ^^^ ^^^^ seemed to suggest the copperplates ot N"«mbeig, and P ^^^.^^ that Mantegna was engraver -"^''^^PJ Effect of ligh falling upon objects he composed well with light. "^ 1^^" ^e ^nXd l^is figures, for he seemed in the round; yet it cannot be said 'hat he env p b expression ,o see everything in nature circumscribed ^V ^ P"" "" ^ed a little further through design he exhibited a dua ""f .^ P"^""^'^^; ^^ ^t form part of a in one direction, his drawmg of Judith m ^'^^""V^e Section, his Gou- Greek vase painting; pushed J,'"''^ f""^" '", ^::rcaricatures. Though an zaga nobles of the Mantuan Castello would ^e-^e ^^ ^f ^,„„,em- ea?nest student of the antique ""'''j;]';"y elevated realism and noble porary life as well. Moving in this wide gamut ol elevat 34 MASTERSINART idealism, he always preserved a loftiness of feeling which made him at times a peer of Michelangelo, while he possessed a ternbilita of his own a quarter of a j century before the great Tuscan began to work. His love of sculptural repose and dignity did not prevent him from being intensely dramatic in his predella of the San Zeno Madonna, and although his figures often grimace and distort I their features, yet the contortion which became pathos with Bellini deepened into tragedy with Mantegna. As might have been predicted, this lover of sculpture was lacking in feeling for color, a deficiency which few critics have noted, and which the late Paul Mantz has characterized admirably, remarking that Mantegna was a "bril- liant but rather venturesome colorist," and that, "tones which are fine, if con- sidered by themselves, are heard above the general harmony of the music, and are rather autonomous than disciplined.". . . In his earlier works, the frescos of the Eremitani of Padua, Mantegna is in his coloring like a child with a toy paint-box, spotting out impartially here a yellow mantle and there a green tunic, without reference to any general scheme of color. He learned later from Bellini to use rich, strong tones in the Ma- donnas of San Zeno, at Verona, and of Victory in the Louvre. Whether the unevenness, the lack of composition of color in those works, was wholly Man- tegna's fault we cannot tell; for in considering the color of these, as of many old pictures, we are unable to speak with confidence, since time has so altered the relations that we can no longer in anywise verify the master's original ar- rangement, and alterations would be peculiarly apt to occur in the heavy gar- lands of Mantegna, with their coral and fruits, where the strong reds may have remained brilliant, while the greens have fallen into warm, deep browns. Nevertheless, when all allowance is made, it must be confessed that this mighty master of style and of composition of lines was almost wholly lacking in the sense of color-composition. Indeed, it could hardly be expected that the same temperament which could so keenly perceive and so adequately render the grave music of noble and exquisite line could be equally susceptible to the deep-chorded harmonies of rich and subdued color. Considering his whole product, his cartoons and his wall-pictures, his tem- pera work and his engraving, we find that immediately after the five or six greatest names in the history of Italian art comes that of Andrea Mantegna; he stands at the head of the group of secondary painters which counted Ghir- landajo, Botticelli, and Filippino Lippi, Bellini, Signorelli, and Perugino among its members. His name brings with it the memory of a lofty and in- tensely characterized style, of figures of legionaries, long and lean as North American Indians, Roman in their costume, medieval in their sharp, dry sil- houette; of saints, hard and meager, but statuesquely meager; of figures stern almost to fierceness, yet exquisitely refined in the delicacy of their outline; of realistic Mantuan nobles impressive in their ugliness; of stately Madonnas; of charming boy angels, flying or holding up festoons of flowers and fruits; of delicate, youthful figures with long curling hair and crinkled drapery, where every tiny fold is finished as if in a miniature; of canvases filled with long files of captives, with chariots loaded with treasure, with sky-lines broken by [KiO] MANTEGNA 35 standards and trophies, with armored legionaries, curveting horses, elephants with jeweled frontlets, and with statues towering above the crowd; of proces- sions where the magnificent vulgarity of ancient Rome and the confused lav- ishness of an antique triumph are subdued to measured harmonies and sculp- tural lines. Mantegna's is essentially a virile genius; he does not charm by suggestive- ness, nor please by morbidezza; he lacks facile grace and feeling for facial beauty; he is often cold, sometimes even harsh and crude, and in his disdain for prettiness and his somewhat haughty distinction he occasionally impresses us with a rather painful sense of superiority. Something of the antique statues that he loved and studied and collected entered into his own nature and his work. As Fra Angelico was the Saint, and Leonardo da Vinci the Magician, Mantegna was the Ancient Roman of art. His were the Roman virtues, — sobriety, dignity, self-restraint, discipline, and a certain masterliness, as in- describable as it is impressive, — and to those who appreciate austere beauty and the pure harmonies of exquisite lines Mantegna's art will always appeal. C|)e l^orlts of iMantesna DESCRIPTIONS OF THE PLATES ♦ MADONNA WITH ST. JOHN AND MARY MAGDALENE' PLATE I TO the closing years of the fifteenth century may be assigned this pic- ture in the National Gallery, London. The Madonna, wearing a rose- colored robe and a gray-blue mantle, is seated upon a low throne, beneath a red canopy, humbly inclining her head towards the Christ-child, who stands firmly poised upon her knee. On one side is St. John the Baptist with cross and scroll, his gaunt figure draped in a garment of bluish purple; on the other, Mary Magdalene, with fair hair and majestic mien, clad in robes of green and pale purple. Dark green orange and lemon trees and a silvery sky form the background. "The tenderness and simplicity of the Virgin's face," writes Sir Edward |. Poynter, "the beauty of the heads of the two saints, the exquisite drawing and painting of the fruit-trees, the perfection of the execution, and the purity of the color, all combine to make this picture one of Mantegna's masterpieces. The draperies especially are of extraordinary beauty. The rose-colored dress of the Virgin is delicately heightened with gold, and the garments of the two saints are of materials shot with colors of exquisite harmonies. The whole work is in perfect preservation." 'MEETING OF LODOVICO GONZAGA AND CARDINAL FRANCESCO' PLATE II TEN years after his removal to Mantua, Mantegna began to decorate a room in the Castello known as the "Camera degli Sposi" (the nup- tial chamber), with frescos representing Lodovico, marquis of Mantua, sur- [Kil] 36 MASTERS IN ART rounded by his family and court. Over the entrance door is a group of winged boys bearing a tablet, and on the ceiling are medallions and mytho- logical subjects, with a simulated circular opening in the center through which figures in violent foreshortening look down over a balustrade. In plate ii, the principal portion of one of the best preserved of the wall- paintings of this famous room is reproduced. The marquis Lodovico, in short riding-coat and wearing long spurs, stands at the left with his two eldest grandsons, Francesco, afterwards marquis of Mantua, whose features even in this early picture are the same that we see in his portrait introduced into the 'Madonna of Victory' (plate vi), and a younger brother, Sigismondo, afterwards a cardinal, who holds the hand of his uncle, Lodovico, the youth- ful bishop of Mantua. Lodovico's hand in turn is clasped within that of his older brother. Cardinal Francesco Gonzaga, whose meeting with his father, the marquis, upon his return from Rome and prior to his state entry into Mantua in 1472, forms the subject of this picture. At the extreme right, in a stiffly plaited gold mantle, stands Federico Gonzaga, father of the two chil- dren represented, and heir to the Mantuan principality. Nobles and attend- ants are grouped about, and in the landscape background with its deep blue sky is a walled city with monuments and ruins suggestive of Rome. "Mantegna," as Mr. Blashfield has said, "here shows himself a realist. The portrait figures are of a monumental ugliness which impresses at once b)' its sincerity, and a dignity that is half grotesque and half majestic." The composition is stiff and the figures are posed without any attempt at ease or grace; but in spite of this, and notwithstanding the injured condition of the frescos, the Camera degli Sposi offers one of the most perfect existing ex- amples of domestic decoration. «THE HOLY FAMILY' PLATE III IN this picture, belonging to Dr. Ludwig Mond, London, the Christ-child stands on the marble rim of a well, representing the hortus tnclusus, or in- closed garden, the source, or fountain, of the Song of Solomon. In one hand he holds an olive-branch, in the other a crystal globe. Beside him is the infant St. John, pointing to the Lamb of God, and to the right St. Joseph, against whose garnet-colored cloak is outlined the delicate profile of the Virgin, in- clined in prayer. The background is composed of the dark green branches of an orange-tree, gleaming with golden fruit. "Whether we consider this canvas," writes Mr. Berenson, "from the point of view of line or of color — a quality of which Mantegna is not often abso- lute master — whether from the point of view of modeling or of expression, we shall rarely find its rival among the other works of the great Paduan, and never its superior." Mr. Claude Phillips says that "apart from the originality of its composition the most unusual feature of this work is the strange and profound spirit of mysticism which pervades it. This is no usual 'Holy Family,' where the Virgin, while adoring, protects the divine Child, nor is it any mere portrayal of the Infant Jesus; it is rather the Christ, who, with all the appearance of a [102] M ANTEGN A 37 God, stands erect upon the margin of the well as upon a throne, while all present devoutly humble themselves before this radiant manifestation of divinity." » T H E C R U C I F I X I O N • P I. A T E 1 V IN 1457-59 Mantegna painted a large altar-piece in six parts for the Church of San Zeno, Verona. The enthroned Madonna and Child, surrounded by singing angels, occupy the main central division; on either side are four stand- ing figures of saints, while the three lower panels forming the predella repre- sent, in the center, 'The Crucifixion,' and in the side compartments 'The Agony in the Garden' and 'The Resurrection.' This picture was carried off to Paris by the French in 1797, but in 18 15 the three panels composing the body of the altar-piece were restored to Italy, and are now in their original place in Verona. The predella, however, was not returned. Its two side di- visions are in the Tours Museum, while the finest of the three, 'The Cru- cifixion,' here reproduced, remained in Paris, and is now in the Louvre. In this little panel, measuring not much more than two feet high by three feet wide, many characteristics of Mantegna's art are to be found — the com- position, built up with geometrical precision, the carefully studied perspective, the figures unnaturally elongated, yet drawn with bold and severe realism, the sculpturesque draperies, the landscape, in which the rocky foreground has the appearance of being cut with a chisel; above all, the impressive dramatic effect, produced not so much by any violent movement as by contrast in the delineation of character and feeling. In his later works Mantegna displays a greater freedom, a less uncompro- mising severity, a keener sense of abstract beauty; but in depth of pathos and in power of dramatic feeling this picture of the Crucifixion is unsurpassed. «THE TRIUMPH OF CiESAR' [fourth SECTION] PLATE V IN this great work, painted between 1484 and 1492 for Francesco Gonzaga, Mantegna has portrayed in a series of nine pictures a triumphal procession of a Roman conqueror. Probably intended to adorn a long gallery in the mar- quis's palace of San Sebastiano, at Mantua, six of these canvases were at one time used as the stage decorations of a theater temporarily fitted up in the Castello for the performance of Latin plays. In 1627 the whole work was bought for King Charles i. by his agent in Italy, Daniel Nys, and taken to England, where it now forms the chief treasure of the Royal Gallery of Hamp- ton Court. In the eighteenth century it was barbarously "restored " b\- Louis Laguerre, so that to-day but little remains of Mantegna's splendid work save the composition and general forms; but even in its present state of ruined grandeur 'The Triumph of Caesar' ranks as one of the greatest achievements of the early Renaissance. The painting is on canvas, in tempera, and is light in color and decorative in effect. Each of the nine sections measures nine feet square, so that the whole work extends for a distance of eighty-one feet. The first section shows the trumpeters and standard-bearers heading the procession; these are fol- [l(>:n 38 MASTERS IN ART lowed by warriors with battering-rams and the captured images of gods, armor, and other trophies of war; then come bearers of costly vessels, more trumpeters, and white oxen wreathed for sacrifice and led by beautiful youths (see plate v); next come elephants carrying flaming candelabra on their backs, then soldiers with more booty, and, following these, a line of captives, men, women, and children, mocked and taunted by jesters and clowns; then more soldiers and standard-bearers, and finally, in the last section of all, the mag- nificent triumphal car in which Julius Caesar himself is seated, while behind a winged figure of Victory crowns the conqueror with laurel. 'The Triumph of Caesar' is, as has been said, "a superb exposition of what Mantegna loved best to study and express; it is the very quintessence of his genius." "This rhythmic procession," writes John AddingtonSymonds," mod- ulated to the sound of flutes and soft recorders, carries our imagination back to the best days and strength of Rome. . . . The life we vainly look for in the frescos of the Eremitani chapel may be found here — statuesque, indeed, in style and stately in movement, but glowing with the spirit of revived antiquity. The processional pomp of legionaries bowed beneath their trophied arms, the monumental majesty of robed citizens, the gravity of stoled and veiled priests, the beauty of young slaves, and all the paraphernalia of spoils and wreathes and elephants and ensigns, are massed together with the self-restraint of noble art subordinating pageantry to rules of lofty composition. What must the genius of the man have been who could move thus majestically beneath the weight of painfully accumulated erudition, converting an antiquarian motive into a theme for melodies of line composed in the grave Dorian mood ?" 'THEMADONNAOFVICTORy PLATEVI THIS picture, the most sumptuous of Mantegna's altar-pieces, was painted to commemorate what was claimed to be a victory by Francesco Gon- zaga, general of the Venetian troops, over the French army at Fornovo under Charles viii. Although Gonzaga acquited himself with bravery, the battle, as a matter of fact, terminated not in victory but in defeat for the young mar- quis, who had vowed, should success attend him, to dedicate a church to the Madonna; and exactly a year afterwards, on July 6, 1496, Mantegna's great canvas of the 'Madonna of Victory,' painted by order of Francesco, was con- veyed in solemn procession from the artist's studio in Mantua to the new church built after Mantegna's own designs for its reception. Three hundred years later, in 1797, the French carried off^the picture as a trophy of war to Paris, where it has ever since been one of the treasures of the Louvre. Under an arched bower of green foliage adorned with golden fruit' and red coral, the Madonna, wearing a red robe interwoven with gold and a blue mantle lined with green, and holding on her knee the upright figure of the Child, is seated upon a richly decorated throne of colored marble. At her feet, his dark face turned upward to the holy group, kneels Francesco Gonzaga, clad from head to foot in armor. Opposite him is the kneeling figure of St. Elizabeth, in a green dress and orange-colored head-dress, and beside her the little St. John. The heads of St. Andrew and St. Longinus, the patron [104] MANTEGNA 39 saints of Mantua, are seen in the background, while on either side of the Ma- donna, holding the hem of her outspread mantle, stand the warrior-saints, St. Michael and St. Georee. "In the 'Madonna of Victory,'" writes Herr Kristeller, "Mantegna goes far beyond the art methods of his day. The picture represents the freest and most mature form of religious composition which the art of the Renaissance was capable of attaining prior to Raphael, Titian, and Correggio, and was the prototype, or point of departure, of the creations of the great masters of the golden age." 'ST.JAMESBEFOREHERODAGRIPPA" I'LATE \1I MANTEGNA'S earliest important works are his famous frescos in the Chapel of St. James and St. Christopher in the Church of the Eremitani in Padua. The commission to decorate this chapel with scenes from the lives of their patron saints was given by its owners, the Ovetari family, to Squar- cione, who intrusted the work to his pupils, chief among whom were Niccolo Pizzolo and Mantegna, and so wide a reputation did these frescos attain that when completed the chapel became throughout the north of Italy a sort of school for the study of style. A difference of opinion exists among critics as to the extent of Mantegna's share in the decorations, but it is generally agreed that six of the principal wall- paintings — four from the life of St. James and two from that of St. Chris- topher — are attributable to his hand. Of these the one representing 'St. James before Herod Agrippa' is here reproduced. The scene, a Roman court- room, is imposing in its stately architectural setting. The saint, clad in a dark green mantle and surrounded by Roman soldiers, stands before the judgment- seat of Herod. We are conscious in this picture of the artist's preoccupation with the problems of perspective, as well as of his "tendency to subordinate the human to the architectural interests." A statuesque immobility marks many of the figures, notably that of Herod and of the isolated warrior to the left (said to be a portrait of the artist), but there are also perceptible — in the attitudes of some of the guards and in the natural pose of the officer within the marble paling — signs of the beginning of that gradual emancipation ot Mantegna's art from the lifeless rigidity of form which characterized his work at this early period to the broader, freer, and more natural treatment of his later productions. 'MADONNA AND CHILD WITH CHERUBS' PLATE VIII WHEN, in 1885, this picture, now in the Brera Gallery, Milan, was sub- jected to a thorough cleaning it was found to be not a work of the school of Giovanni Bellini, as it had long been considered, but a veritable Mantegna, a fine example of the artist's middle period. Signor Frizzoni, Signor Morelli, and others, believe it to be the identical picture painted by Mantegna in 1485 for the Duchess Eleonora of Ferrara, whose daughter, Isabella d'Este, was then betrothed to Francesco Gonzaga, marquis of Mantua, — the "painting on wood of Our Lady and the Child with Seraphim," concerning which [Kir,] 40 MASTERS IN ART many letters passed between the duchess and her future son-in-law, and which long remained in the possession of the Este family at Ferrara. The Madonna, one of the most beautiful ever painted by Mantegna, wear- ing a red robe and a hooded mantle of blue lined with green, holds on her knee the standing figure of the Child, who, with arms clasped about his mother's neck, is listening with rapt expression to the song of the encircling angels float- ing with outspread bright-colored wings among the clouds. 'I'ORTRAITOFCARDINALSCARAMPI' PLATEIX AMBITIOUS, talented, passionate, and unscrupulous, Lodovico Scarampi >. was one of the most remarkable men of his day in Italy. Born in Padua in 1402, he became distinguished as a leader of the papal troops, and as a re- ward for his military services was invested with high ecclesiastical honors, be- ing created archbishop of Florence, patriarch of Aquileia, bishop of Bologna, and finally given a cardinal's hat. From his rich revenues he amassed enor- mous wealth, and lived with a lavish display of luxury, dying in 1465, from disappointment, it was said, that he never succeeded to the papal chair. In Mantegna's famous portrait in the Berlin Gallery, painted probably in Padua in 1459, Cardinal Scarampi is clad in a red silk cloak and a finely plaited white surplice. The powerful head with its crop of short gray hair has the appearance of being cast in bronze, and the stern features, sharply cut mouth, keen eyes, and contracted brows reveal in all its force the character which history has handed down to us of the arrogant, iron-willed priest. 'I'ARNASSUS' PLATE X SOON after 1500, Mantegna, then seventy years of age, painted for the study of Isabella d'Este, in the Castello of Mantua, two pictures, repre- senting, one 'The Triumph of Wisdom,' the other 'Parnassus.' For all paintings destined for her own special room Isabella gave exact di- rections as to subject, composition, distribution of light, and dimensions. It was her custom to provide any artist she employed, not only with a sketch, but to send him pieces of ribbon denoting the requisite height and width of the picture ordered. In carrying out her wishes in regard to the work here reproduced, "Mantegna," writes Miss Cruttwell, "entered on a new phase of development, and showed himself already a sixteenth-century painter — the precursor, one might almost say, of Poussin and Watteau." The scene represents 'Parnassus,' the favorite haunt of Apollo and the Muses, where, upon a rocky archway crowned with orange-trees, stand Mars, god of war, and Venus, goddess of love and beauty. At their side is Cupid playfully casting darts at Vulcan, who is seen at his forge on the left. In a meadow below, the Muses, in light garments of varied tints, dance to the mu- sic of Apollo's lyre, celebrating the triumph of love, and at the right is Mer- cury, messenger of the gods, and himself the god of eloquence, with the winged horse, Pegasus, beside him. In this picture, conceived with the brightness of youth, "all the aged paint- er's knowledge of classic lore," writes Paul Mantz, "finds expression, but [16(1] M ANTEGN A •.•,"•'..'...' 1 '^fj'" ;\ : devoid of the archaism and austerity which characterize his early works. Such defects have disappeared, and only pure rhythm and harmony of line remain. It is the very flower, the essence, of the poetry of the Greeks." After the sack of Mantua in 1630, 'Parnassus' and its companion, 'The Triumph of Wisdom,' were taken to France, and are now in the Louvre, Paris. A LIST OF TUK PRINCIPAL PAINTINGS BY MA N TEG N A WITH THEIR PRESENT LOCATIONS M ANTEGN A'S wall-pa'ntings are spoken ot as frescos, but as a matter of fact they were executed in tempera upon a dry surface. Tempera was also the medium he invariably used tor his easel-pictures. AUSTRIA. Vienna, ImperialGallery: St. Sebastian — DENMARK. Copenhagen, .Museum: Christ upheld by Angels — ENGLAND. Hampton Court, Royal Gallery: Triumph of Ca;ar (nine sections) (see plate v) — London, National Gal- lery: Madonna with St. John and Mary Magdalene (Plate l); Agony in the Garden; Samson and Delilah; Triumj^h of Scipio — London, Owned by Lady Ashburton : Ado- ration of the Magi — London, Owned by Dr. Ludwig Mond: Holy Family (Plateiii) — FRANCE. AiGUEPERSE, Puy-de-D6me, Church of Notre Dame: St. Sebastian — Paris, LouvRE: Crucifixion (Plate iv); Madonna of Victory (Plate vi); Parnassus (Plate x); Triumph of Wisdom; Judgment of Solomon — Paris, Owned by Madame Andre- Jacquemart: Madonna and Saints — Tours, Museum: Agony in the Garden; Resurrec- tion— GERMANY. Berlin Gallery: Portrait of Cardinal Scanimpi (Plate ix); Pres- entation of Christ — Berlin, Owned by Herr Simon: Madonna and Child — Dresden, Royal Gallery: Holy Family — IRELAND. Dublin Gallery: Judith — ITALY. Bergamo, Carrara Gallery: Madonna and Child — Florence, Uffizi Gallery: Altar-piece in three parts; Madonna of the Quarries — Mantua, Castello, Camera de<;li Sposi: [wall frescos] Lodovico Gonzaga and his Family; Meeting of Lodovico Gonzaga and Cardinal Francesco (Plate li) ; Winged Children with Tablet; [ceiling frescos] Figures leaning over Balustrade with playing Children; Medallions; Mythological Scenes — Milan, Brera Gallery: Altar-piece of St. Luke with Saints and Pieta; The Dead Christ; Ma- donna and Child with Cherubs (Plate viii) — Milan, Poldi-Pezzoli Collection: Ma- donna and Child — Milan, Owned by Prince Trivulzio: Altar piece of Madonna and Saints — Naples, Museum: St. Euphemia; Portrait of the Prothonotary Lodovico Gonzaga — Padua, Church of Sant' Antonio: [fresco over portal] St. Anthony and St. Bernard — Padua, Church of the Eremitani, Chapel of St. James and St. Christopher: [frescos] St. James Bajitizing; St. James before Herod Agrippa (Plate vii); St. James led to Execution; Martyrdom of St. James; Martyrdom of St. Christopher; Rtmoval of the Body — Venice, Academy: St. George — Venice, Owned by Baron Franchetti: St. Sebastian — Venice, Querini-Stampalia Collection: Presentation of Christ — Verona, Church of San Zeno: Madonna Enthroned with Saints — SPAIN. Prado Gallery: Death of the Virgin — UNITED S FATES. Boston, Collection of Mrs. John L. Gardner: Madonna and Child with Saints. [1.17 1 42 MASTERSINART A LIST OF THE PRINCIPAL BOOKS AND MA(;AZ1NE ARTICLES DEALING WITH MANTEGNA THE most exliaustive work on Mantegna that has yet appeared is Paul Kristeller' s 'Andrea Mantegna,' translated into English by S. A. Strong (London, 1901), A brief and ex- cellent study of the artist is by Maud Cruttwell (London, 1901). Among other monographs may be mentioned those by Julia Cartwright (London, 1881), Paul Mantz (Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 1886), Henry Thode (Leipsic, 1897), and Charles Yriarte (Paris, 1901). ARCO, C. d\ Delle arti e degli artefici di Mantova, Mantua, 1857-59 — Arco, C. XA. d\ Storia di Mantova. Mantua, 187a — Bartsch, A. v. Le Peintre-Graveur. Vi- enna, 1803-21 — Blashfield, E. H. and E. W. Italian Cities. New York, 1901 — Brandolese, p. Testimonianze intorno alia Patavinita di Mantegna. Padua, 1805 — Campori, G. Lettere inedite. Modena, 1866 — Cartwright, J. Mantegna and Fran- cia. London, 1881 — CoDDE, P. Memorie biografiche dei pittori Mantovani. Mantua, 1837 — Crowe, J. A., and Cavalcaselle, G. B. History of Painting in North Italy London, 1871 — Delaborde, H. La gravure en Italic. Paris [1883] — Duplessis, G. CEuvre de A. Mantegna reproduit et public par Amand-Durand. Paris, 1878 — Gave, J. Carteggio incdito. Florence, 1839-40 — Goethe, J. W. von. Triumphzug von Man- tegna (in Schriften zur Kunst). Weimar, 1898 — Kristeller, P. Andrea Mantegna: Trans, by S. A. Strong. London, 1901 — Kugler, F. T. The Italian Schools of Paint- ing: Revised by A. H. Layard. London, 1900 — Law, E. The Royal Gallery of Hamp- ton Court. London, 1898 — Morelli, G. Italian Painters: Trans, by C. J. Ffoulkes. London, 1892-93 — Muntz, E. Histoire de Tart pendant la Renaissance. Paris, 1891- 95 — Ridolfi, C. Le maraviglie dell' arte. Venice, 1648 — Scardeone, B. De antiqui- tate Urbis Patavii. Basel, 1560 — Sf.lvatico,P.E. Squarcionestudii storico-critici. Padua, 1839 — Selvatico, P. E. Sul merito artistico del Mantegna. Padua, i 844 — Svmonds, J. A. Renaissance in Italy. London, 1897 — Thodf,, H. Mantegna. Leipsic, 1897 — Vasari, G. Lives of tlie Painters. New York, 1897 — Waagen, G. F. Uber Leben, Wirken und Werke der Maler Andrea Mantegna, etc. (in Historisches Taschenbuch). Leipsic, 1850 — Woltmann, a. Mantegna (in Dohme's Kunst und Kiinstler, etc.). Leipsic, 1878 — Yriarte, C. Mantegna. Paris, 1901. magazine articles ARCHIVIO storico dell' arte, 1888: C. de Fabriczy; II busto in rilievo di Man- -tegna attribuito alio Sperandio. 18S8: S. Davorij Lo stemma di Mantegna. 1889: E. Mimtz; Andrea Mantegna e Piero della Francesco. 1889: E. Miintz; Nuovi docu- ment!. L'Art, 1886: A. Milanij Un nouveau tableau de Mantegna au Musee Brera — Courrier de l'art, 1888: Fabriczy, C. de; Notes sur le buste de Mantegna, etc. — Gazette des Beaux-arts, 1866: A. Baschet; Recherches dans les archives de Mantoue. 1886: P. Mantz; Andrea Mantegna. 1894: C. Yriarte; Les Gonzague dans les fresques du Mantegna. 1895: C. Yriarte; Isabelle d'Este et les artistes de son temps — Giornale d'erudizione ARTisTiCA, 1872: W. Braghirolli; Alcuni document! relative ad Mantegna — Jahrbuch der Koniglich preussischen KuNSiSAMMLUNGEN, 1901: R. Forster; Studien zu Mantegna und den Bildern in Studierzimmer der Isabella Gonzaga — Qt'ARTERLY Review, 1902: Anonymous; Andrea Mantegna — Zeitschrift fur bildende Kunst, 1875: C. Brun; Andrea Mantegna im Museum zu Tours. 1876: C. Brun; Neue Doku- mente iiber Mantegna. 1881 : C. Brun; Ein Bild Mantegna's und der crste Entvvurf dazu. 1882: C. Brun; Andrea Mantegna luui D. Hopfer. 1886: G. Frizzoni; Ein merkwiirdi- ger Fall von malerischer Ausgrabimg. [168] MASTERS IN ART XIV LESSONS Guided by a Topic Book. THE cultivated American should become acquainted with the art of his own country. This can be done in your own home, satisfac- torily and practically, by joining WITH TOPIC BOOK No. VI. Subject of first lesson : "Artistic Resources of Our Country." This alone is worth knowing. ILLUSTRATIONS 40 selected Raphael Prints, 4x5, outline the course. 6 dozen 4x5 Raphael Prints give further light. 16 dozen miniature size add further examples of beauty. Send for leaflet of Raphael Prints and illustra- ted Booklet of The Traveler's Art Club, free. THE CHAFFEE STUDIO I Hancock Street, Worcester, Mass. BRAUN'S CARBON PRINTS FINEST AND MOST DURABLE IMPORTED WORKS OF ART /^NE HUNDRED THOUSAND direct ^"^reproductions from the original paintings and drawings by old and modern masters in the galleries of Amsterdam, Antwerp, Berlin, Dres- den, Florence, Haarlem, Hague, London, Ma- drid, Milan, Paris, St. Petersburg, Rome, Venice, Vienna, Windsor, and others. Special Terms to Schools. 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