..,iS)\. OF J9^
c*MINTERS
d:^^ O F
4 DI660 ;
A BRIEF HISTORY
PAINTERS OF ALL SCHOOLS.
ILLUSTRATED.
./
a-^
RF.MIJRAVDT'S MOTHER. By Rembrandt.
In the fJermilagf, Si. Petersburg
'\ Brief History
oi THl-
Painters of All Scihjols
BY
LOLIS XIARDOT AND OTHER WRITERS.
ILLUSTRATED.
LONDON:
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE. 8: RIVINGTON.
CROWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STREET.
1877.
PREFACE
o>©{o
THE more important parts of this Work — such as the Introductions to the
Foreign Schools, and the criticisms upon the pictures of the great
masters — are from the pen of M. Louis Viardot, by whom they were
originally written for Les Merveilles de la Peinture, published by Messrs,
Hachette & Co., in their Bibliotheque des Merveilles. But this author included
in his volumes only those painters whom he styles the 'Divinities of Art,'
and of their personal history he gives but brief details. In order, therefore, to
make a comprehensive book — which may lay claim to be of value to students
of art, not only as a brief History of the Painters of all Schools, but also
as a work of reference — it has been considered desirable to supplement
M, Viardot's writings by short memoirs of many additional artists, whom he
has not mentioned. Even then, a list of those whose names appear in the
dictionaries, but who are here omitted as but of little importance in the
history of art, would fill many pages.
M. Viardot has had the advantage of visiting all the great picture-
galleries of Europe, and writing his criticisms with the paintings before his
eyes. That he may have sometimes erred in judgment is probable ; that he
has taken great pains to examine the best pictures is certain, and that he
has given us his honest convictions is quite evident. If his enthusiasm has
now and then led him to speak of a painting in exaggerated terms of
praise, it is hoped that his raptures may be forgiven.
The rest of the volume, which consists chiefly of biographical details, has
been gleaned with much care from well-known sources ; Le Monnier's
annotated edition of 'Vasari;' Charles Blanc's ' Histoiredes Peintresde toutes
les ecoles,' whence many of the illustrations have been obtained ; Mr.
Wornum's trustworthy catalogue of the Pictures in the National Gallery ;
Lady Eastlake's new edition of Kugler's ' Handbook of the Italian Schools,'
by far the most valuable work on this subject that has ever appeared ; the
PREFACE.
' German, Flemish, and Dutch schools ' of the same series, lately revised and
in part re-written by Mr. J. A. Crowe ; the ' History of Painting in North
Italy ' and the ' Early Flemish Painters,' both by Messrs. Crowe and Caval-
caselle ; the 'English Encyclopedia ;' Bryan's 'Dictionary of Painters,' and
many other standard works.
For the English section the editor is largely indebted to Allan Cun-
ningham's 'Lives of the most eminent British Painters ;' and Mr. Redgrave's
'Century of Painters' — a charming series of art-biographies; for notices of
recently deceased artists, to writers in the ' Art Journal,' the ' Athenseum,'
and the 'Academy ;' and for the information concerning American painters,
to Tuckerman's ' Book of the Artists.'
J. C.
SuKunoN, November, 1S76.
CONTENTS
PREFACE .
LIST OF THE PRINCIPAL ILLUSTRATIONS
BOOK I.
CHAP.
I. Introduction— Classic Greek School— Greco-Roman School , . . i
II. Painting in the Middle Ages— Painting in Mosaic— Illumination of
Manuscripts— Painting in Fresco and in Distemper— Painting in Oil . 14
III. Italian Renaissance— Romanesque School— Early Tuscan School— Early
Sienese School ^^
IV. Early Florentine School
V. Schools of Northern Italy— Bolognese—Paduan—Ferrarese- Veronese-
Milanese— Cremonese
VI. Umbrian School of the Fifteenth Century 73
VII. Venetian School of the Fifteenth Century
S8
VIII. Leonardo da Vinci and his School
IX. Florentine and Sienese School of the Sixteenth Century . . • 97
X. Michelangelo and his Followers '°^
XI. Raphael and his Followers "3
XIL Titian and the Venetian School of the Sixteenth Century . • '34
XIII. Corkeggio and the School of Parma '53
XIV. The Mannerists
II. School of Valencia
'59
XV. Eclectic Schools of Bologna, Cremona, Milan, Florence and Rinir. . 164
XVI. The Naturalisti of Rome, Naples and Venice '^2
BOOK II.
I. Spanish Schools -Introditc-tion '92
J9S
IQQ
FIT. School of Andalusia ^'
IV. School of Castile ^ '^
CONTENTS.
BOOK III.
CHAP
I. German Schools— Introduction— Schools of Bohemia— Cologne— West-
phalia— Swabia—Franconia AND Saxony 231
II. German Painters of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries— the
Revival of Art in Germany 254
BOOK IV.
I. Early Flemish School— Introduction— Schools of Bruges and Antwerp . 269
II. Revival of Art in Flanders— Rubens, his Pupils and his Followers . 294
BOOK V.
I. Early Dutch School— Rembrandt, his Pupils and his Followers . . 321
II. Later Dutch School— Painters of Domestic Life— Painters of Land-
scape and Battle-Pieces — Painters of Marine Subjects — Still Life and
Architecture 339
BOOK VI.
I. Early French Painters 3^9
IL Later French School 387
BOOK VII.
I. Early Painters in England 397
II. English School of the Eighteenth Century ...... 402
III. Modern English School ........... 417
IV. Painters in Water-colours .......... 444
BOOK VIII.
American School ............ 453
PRINCIPAL ILLUSTRATIONS
a>tKo
The Angelic Choir .
Madonna Enthroned
Coronation of the Virgin
Virgin Enthroned .
Marriage of the Virgin .
Enthronement of the Virgin
Descent from the Cross .
The Sistine Chai'el .
Madonna della Sedia
Entombment
St. Jerome (// Giorno)
St. Petronilla .
Deposition from the Cross
The Beggar Boy
Water-Carrier of Seville
Archbishop Wariiam
Nativity of Christ .
Itinerant Musicians
The "Pala" Madonna .
St. Luke painting the Virgin
The Money-Changers
Duck-shooting .
Bear Hunt
King Charles the First .
Musical Party .
Temptation of St. Anthony
Rembrandt's Mother
Paternal Instruction
The Hunchhack Fiddler
I'ACK
By Benozzo Gozzoli
to /ace 55
,, Signorelli
59
„ Sandro Botticelli .
60
)> Francia . . . .
62
M Perugino . . . .
76
)> Fra Bartolommeo
98
,, Daniele da Vol terra
,, IIO
„ Michelangelo
,, X12
„ Raphael
116
,, Titian
140
,, Correggio
154
,, Oner ci no
175
,, Rider a
,, 196
,, Mnrillo
,, 211
,, Velasquez
,, 220
„ Hans Holbein
„ 238
,, Albrecht Diirer .
.. 246
,, Dietrich
261
,, Jan van Eyck
272
<
,, Rogier van der lVe}'den
274
,, Quint in Matsys .
280
„ PaulBril .
,, 291
„ Snyder s
303
M Vandyck
306
>> Jordaens
308
>. David Tcnicrs
314
>> Rembrandt .
334
,, Gerard Terburg .
340
„ Van Ostade .
340
PRINCIPAL ILL USTRA TIONS.
The Encampment
The Young Bull
Landscape .
Flo'.ver-piece
Une Fete Galante .
Sleeping Girl .
Marriage a la Mode
Cottage Door .
"The Golden Bough"
The Valley Farm
Village Politicians
By Cuyp .
Paid Potter .
Hobbema
Van Htiysum
IVatteau
Gretize
Hogarth
Gainsborough
Turner
Constable
Wilkie
FACE
to face 351
357
363
366
382
384
402
40S
420
422
424
BY MICHELANGELO.
PORTRAITS OF THE MOST EMINENT PAINTERS.
PAGE
Giovanni Cimabue to face 38
TOMMASO GuiDi. (Masaccio) ..51
Sandro Filh'epi, (Botticelli) ,. S8
Francesco di Marco Raiholini. (Francia) ,,64
PiETRO DI Vanuccio. (Perugino) ..77
Giovanni and Gentile Bellini ,,82
Leonardo da Vinci ,,94
Bartolommeo Baccio della Porta. (Fra Bartoiommeo) , . . . .,97
Michelangelo Buonarroti .,105
Raphael Sanzio d'Urbino ,,113
GiULio Pippi de' Giannuzzi. (Giulio Romano) ,, 128
TiziANO Vecellio ,,134
Jacopo Palma. (Palma II Vecchio) ,, 143
Paolo Cagliari. (Paul Veronese) „ 150
Antonio Allegri da Correggio ,, 156
LoDovico Carracci ,, 164
Domenico Zampieri. (Domenichino) ..173
Luca Giordano. (Luca, Fa Presto) ,, 188
Josef de Ribera ,, 198
Francisco de Zurbaran ,, 203
Bartolom^ Esti!ban Murillo ,, 210
Diego Velasquez de Silva ,, 222
Martin Schongauer. (Martin Schon) ,, 234
Hans Holbein ,, 240
ALBRECHT DiJRER ,, 248
Lucas Cranach „ . 252
Friedrich Owerbeck ,, 265
Hubrecht and Jan Van Eyck ,.271
Hans Memling ,, 277
Ouintin Matsvs ,, 282
PORTRAITS OF PAINTERS.
Peter Paul Rubens to face 294
Antony Vandyck ....
David Teniers, the Younger
Luc Jacobsz. (Lucas van Leyden)
Rembrandt Hermanszoon van Rijn
Adriaan van Ostade .
Jan Steen
Jacob Ruysdael ....
Adriaan van de Velde
Nicolas Poussin ....
Claude Gelee of Lorraine
Jacques Louis David .
Emile Jean Horace Vernet
Paul Delaroche ....
William Hogarth
Sir Joshua Reynolds .
Thomas Gainsborough .
Sir Thomas Lawrence .
Joseph Mallord William Turner
Benjamin West ....
308
313
321
330
339
345
359
363
372
378
386
392
394
402
406
409
417
421
453
ILLUSTRATED HISTORY
PAINTERS OF ALL SCHOOLS
CHAPTER I.
CLASSIC GREEK SCHOOL.
« -ny /pANY writers," says Vasari, "have asserted that Painting and Sculpture
IV/I originated with the Egyptians; others attribute to the Chaldeans the
discovery of the bas-relief, and give to the Greeks the invention of painting :
for my own part, I hold that a knowledge of Drawing, the creative principle of all art,
has existed since the beginning of the world."
There can be no doubt that, to a certain extent, Vasari was right. Among the
remains of pre-historic times, the dates of which no man can tell, we find, on the
blade-bones of animals, drawings of the reindeer and the elephant scratched with some
pointed implement by men who must have been artists : sometimes we discover bronze
vessels decorated with well-designed tracery ; or ornaments for personal adornment,
betraying, though in fantastic shapes, a primitive knowledge of beauty of form.
From remains that are left to the present day, we know that the people of Egypt,
Phoenicia, and Assyria, of Persia, India, and China, were all acquainted with the art
of painting, but it was always symbolical and as an accessory to Architecture. We
find fresco paintings as decorations of walls and pillars, manuscripts on papyrus
ornamented with coloured figures, and mummy cases covered with hieroglyphics ; but
no movable Pictures, in our present acceptation of that term, have come down to us,
nor have any been mentioned by the early historians of those Eastern nations.
It is not till the fifth century before Christ that we have any record of Painting as a
fine-art by itself, and then it must have quickly reached to the highest eminence. It is
to Athens that we must give the glory of its birthplace, though, by a fatality ever to
be deplored, no work of the famous Greek painters remains to the present day.
In spite of the ravages made by time and many generations of barbarians, Archi-
tecture and Sculpture have left monuments numerous and magnificent enough to
enable us to judge of the state of both these arts in Greece. The master-pieces of
two thousand years ago continue to excite at once the delight and despair of the
student We can still see the ruins of the Parthenon and the temple of Theseus at
Athens and of the temple of Neptune at Pcestum. The museums of Italy are full
of beautiful relics of Greek statuary. At Paris are the Fcyius of Mc/os, Diana the
Huntress the Gladiator, the Achilles. Munich possesses the marbles of ^gina, and
London the frac^ments of Pheidias from the Parthenon. But Painting, using more fragile
B
ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [b.c. 490.
materials, has not been able to survive the tempests which entirely engulfed ancient
civilization, and tlirew back the human mind, like another Sisyphus, from the heights
it had attained, to the humble commencement of a new road, which it has had to
re-mount by a long and painful way. The style of painting adopted by the ancients is,
strictly speaking, almost unknown to us, but we can arrive at some estimate of its
merits by evident analogies and indications.
And firstly. Painting occupied, in the esteem of the people of antiquity, the same
place that it now holds, relatively to other arts, in public opinion ; and the names of
Apelles, Zeuxis, Parrhasius, Polygnotus, Aristides, Pamphilus, Timanthes, Nico-
machus, are no less great, no less illustrious as painters than those of Pheidias,
Alcamenes, Polycletus, Praxiteles, Myron, Lysippus, as sculptors, or than those of
Hippodamus, Ictinus, and Callicrates, as architects.
This high esteem in which the ancient painters were held by their contemporaries
is shown again clearly in the value which their works commanded. If it be true that
a marble statue, made by an inferior artist, was worth currently 480/. of our money
in that Rome where statues, as Pliny says, were more numerous than the inhabitants,
where Nero brought five hundred, in bronze, from the temple of Delphi alone, and
from the soil of which had been dug — in the time of the Abbe Barthelemy — more than
seventy thousand ; if it be true that for the Diadiimcnos, Polycletus was paid a hundred
talents (21,600/.), and that Attalus in vain oftered the inhabitants of Cnidus to pay all
their debts in exchange for the Vcmis of Praxiteles, — the other productions of high art,
of which Athens acquired a monopoly, must have risen to a value whicli in our days
can scarcely be believed. According to the uniform testimony of Plutarch and Pliny,
who would have been contradicted if they had asserted falsehoods or exaggerations,
Nicias refused for one of his pictures sixty talents (12,960/.), and made a present of it
to the town of Athens; Caesar paid eighty talents (17,280/.) for the two pictures by
Timomachus, which he placed at the entrance to the temple of Venus Genetrix ; a
picture by Aristides, which was called the Beautiful Bacchus, was sold for one hundred
talents (21,600/); and when the town of Sicyon was laden with debts which its revenues
were not sufficient to pay, the pictures which belonged to the public were sold, and
the produce of these works sufficed to discharge the amount.
Enough has been said to show that the painting of the ancients was held by them
in equal esteem with their sculpture and their architecture ; it follows that the excel-
lence of the remains of the two latter arts proves, at the same time, the excellence
of the former. Certainly, if in future ages our civilization were to perish under fresh
invasions of barbarians, and that, to make it known to a new generation born in after
ages, there only remained parts of St. Peter's at Rome and of the Venetian palaces,
with some of the statues which adorn them— would not the men of those future times
— seeing in what esteem we hold Leonardo, Raphael and Titian, Rubens, Velazquez
and Rembrandt — think that the lost works of these painters must have been equal to
the works still preserved of Bramante and Michael Angelo, Palladio and Sansovino ?
But there also remain to us some descriptions of pictures in default of the pictures
, themselves ; and, yet more than this, some fragments of ancient paintings have been
found, which confirm this reasoning, and leave no doubt as to the excellence of the art
which these precious remains represent. Passing over the detailed eulogies of Cicero
and Quintilian, we have the descriptions which Pausanias gives of the paintings in the
Poecile at Athens, and of the Lesche of the Cnidians at Delphi ; those which Pliny
gives of the pictures of Venus and of Calumny, by Apelles, and of Penelope, by Zeuxis,
CLASSIC GREEK SCHOOL.
I'-C. 45°-]
and that which Lucian gives of Helen the Courtesan, also by Zeuxis. The painted
vases, boih of Etruscan and of Greek manufacture, must be included among the actual
remains of ancient pictorial art. Such again are the arabesciues in the baths of Titus,
discovered under the church of San Pietro in Vincula, at the time of the excavations
ordered by Leo X. ; the frescoes found in the sepulchre of the Nasos ; those in the
pagan catacombs ; and more recently the frescoes of Herculaneum and Pompeii, which,
although merely decorations of ordinary citizens' houses in little towns, fifty leagues
from Rome, are of great importance. There are also monochrome designs on marble
and stone, for example, Theseus killing the Centaur and the Ladies playing at the game
of talus (huckle-bones), wonderful compositions, traced on marble with a red pigment,
which Pliny calls einnaharis indica, both in the museum at Naples.
Examples of Greek and Greco-Roman mosaics also remain ; amongst others the
THE liATTLE OK ISSUS.
A Mosaic disccn'crcd at Pompdi in the " House of the Faunr
beautiful mosaic found at Pompeii in the " House of the Faun^ so called because it had
already yielded the charming little Danei?ig Faun, the pride of the cabmet of bronzes :
both are in the same museum at Naples. This mosaic, the most important vestige of
the painting of the ancients which has come down to us, cannot be otherwise than the
copy of a picture; probably of one of the Greek pictures brought to Rome after the
conquest of Greece, not impossibly of one by Philoxenus of Eretria, a pupd of Nico-
machus, who is, indeed, known to have painted, for King Cassander, one of the battles
of Alexander against the Persians. The mosaic formed the pavement of the trulimum
(dining-room). Surrounded by a sort of frame, it contains twenty-five persons and
twelve horses, of nearly the size of life, and thus forms a real historical picture. It
certainly represents one of the battles of Alexander against the Persians, and probably
the victory of Issus, for the recital of (Hiintus Curtius (lib. iii.) agrees perfectly with
the work of the pn inter.
ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [b.c. 450.
If the original picture, of which this mosaic was a copy, were of Greek origin, the
painter and historian must have drawn from the same traditions ; if of Roman origin,
the artist must have described on his panel the details given by the historian of
Alexander.
A study of the various remains to whicli reference has been made, shows first, that
the painters of antiquity knew how to treat all subjects, mythology, history, landscape,
sea-pieces, animals, fruit, flowers, costume, ornament, and even caricature ; and also
that, while treating great subjects and embracing vast compositions, they knew how to
attain a perfect order, a happy arrangement of groups, various planes, foreshortenings,
chiaroscuro, movement, action, expression by gesture and by countenance, all the
qualities in short of high painting, which the people of modern times have usually
denied to the ancients.
The works of the best known of the Greek painters have been described by
Herodotus, Aristotle, Pausanias, Lucian, Plutarch and Phny; and mentioned by
many other classic writers.
Dionysius of Colophon, one of the earliest of the Greek painters whose names have
been handed down to us, was probably born about b.c. 490 ; it is known that he lived
in the time of Pericles. Aristotle and Plutarcli both speak of his works as being
forcible and full of spirit. He was probably a good portrait painter (AvOpwiroypacjio^),
as Aristotle says " Polygnotus painted men better than they are ; Dionysius, as they are."
.'Elian (a Roman author of the third century), says that Dionysius and Polygnotus
painted similar subjects — Polygnotus in large, and Dionysius in small. Whether the
writer referred to the style of the painters or the size of their pictures, it is difficult to
determine.
Polygnotus, a native of the island of Thaos, was known as a painter in Athens in
B.C. 460. His principal pictures were : In the Lesche, an open hall at Delphi, TAe
Taking 0/ Troy ; The Return of the Greeks; and the Ulysses visit'mg the Shades; — fully
described in seven chapters by Pausanias. In the porch at Athens, called the Poecile,
in which he painted the Destruction of Troy. — For this work it is said he would
not receive payment, and consequently the Public Council gave him a house in Athens,
and made him a guest of the state at the public expense. — In the temple of the
Dioscuri at Athens, The Marriage of the daughter of Lezicippus ; and in the temple of
Minerva at Plataea, Ulysses after the slaughter of the suitors of Penelope. It is said that
Polygnotus first used the yellow earth found in the silver mines, and a purple colour
prepared from the husks of grapes. Aristotle speaks of him as " the painter of noble
characters," and Pliny says he was the first who gave expression to the features.
It seems probable that the style of painting of the celebrated artists of these days
was extremely simple — and very like the best class of decorative art upon the Greek
vases in the Louvre and the British Museum.
Panasnus of Athens was the brother of the great sculptor Pheidias ; so Pliny tells us.
Strabo seems to think he was the nephew.
He was one of the earliest of the Greek painters, though younger than Polygnotus
and Micon by some few years. Pansenus's most celebrated picture was the Battle of
Marathon, in the Ptecile at Athens. This picture contains the Iconics, or portraits of
celebrated generals (botli of the Athenians and the barbarians) ; these could not have
been portraits from life, for the picture was not panited tilt at least thirty years after
B.C. 43o] CLASSIC GREEK SCHOOL.
the Ixittlc. Pana^nus painted several pictures on the tlirone and on the wall round the
throne of the Olympian Jupiter. I'he subjects of some of these were : Atlas supporting:::
Heaven and Earth ; Theseus and Firithous ; allegorical figures of Greece and Sa/amis :
The Combat of Hercules with the Nctnean Lion ; and se\ eral other historical subjects.
The Puecile was built by Cimon H.c. 470, therefore supposing Pancenus to have
painted his great picture ten years after its erection, we may take n.c. 460 to have been
about the most important period of his life. Nothing certain is known either of his
birth or death.
Parrhasius, born about n.c. 470, was instructed in the art of painting by his father,
lie was a native of Kphesus, but removed early in life to' Athens, where he became by Hir
the greatest artist of his time. He compared the works of Polygnotus, Apollodorus, and
Zeuxis, and adopted from each that quality which he most admired. Parrhasius was
by no means ignorant of the excellence of his own works. He took for himself the
title of the Elegant ('A)8po8tatTos), and called himself the Prince of Painters. Pliny,
says, and not without reason, that he was '' the most insolent and most arrogant of
artists." Parrhasius excelled especially in outline, form, and expression. Among the
principal works of this artist may be mentioned his Allegorical figure of the Athmian
People; a Theseus (it w^as probably this picture that gained for him his citizenship at
Athens) ; a Naval commander in his artnour ; Meleager ; Hercules and Perseus .•
Castor and Pollux ; Archigallus (bought by the Emi)eror Tiberius for 60,000 sesterces,
about 510/.), and many portraits of warriors. Pliny says that in a competition with
Timanthes of Cythnos he painted The Contest of Ajax and Ulysses ; and that when
the award was given to his rival, he said to his friends, " It is not I who should
complain, but the son of Telamon, who has a second time become a victim to the
folly of his judges." Parrhasius became so rich that at last he would not sell his
pictures, saying that no price was sufficient for their value.
Pliny also tells us that Zeuxis acknowledged his painting of Grapes to be beaten
by the Curtain of Parrhasius. It is related by Seneca tlrat he selected a very old man
from among the captives that Philip of Macedon had brought home from Olynthus,
and crucified him, in order to see the true expression of pain, as a model for his
Prometheus Chained. This story, even if true, could not refer to this Parrhasius, as
he would have been about 120 years of age, if living, when Philip took Olynthus.
The last record we have of Parrhasius is about B.C. 400.
Zeuxis, one of the most celebrated painters of ancient times, was prol)al)ly born
between b.c. 460 and n.c. 450, in one of the cities named Heraclea ; Pliny fixes the
time at B.C. 400, but this is ajjparently too late a date, for he was at the height of his
renown in the reign of Archelaus, which was from B.C. 413 until B.c. 399 (Diodorus
Siculus). Lucian terms Zeuxis the greatest painter of his time, but he was unciuestion-
ably surpassed by Parrhasius, who w^as his contemporary. The excellence of Zeuxis's
painting is noticed by several ancient writers, among whom may be mentioned
Aristotle, Quintilian, and Cicero. One of the most celebrated of Zeu.xis's pictures
is The Family of Centaurs, the original of which was lost at sea. Lucian
graphically describes a copy of it which he saw at Athens ; but even this picture
was surpassed by his celebrated Helen the Courtesan, which he painted for the city
of CrOton, and which, according to yKlian, he exhibited at a fixed charge. Other
famous works by him are: The Infant Hercules strangling the serpait : Jupiter in
the assembly of the Gods: Penelope bewailing the absence oj her husband: Menelaus
6 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [b.c. 420.
mourning the fate of Agamemnon ; an AtJilete; under which he wrote, " It is easier to
find fault than to imitate ;" and a Cupid croivncd with j'oses. It is related of Zeuxis
that he wore a mantle with his name woven in gold on the border. ^Elian records
that on one occasion he reproved Megabyzus, a high priest of Diana, v/ho while on a
visit to the artist's studio, showed such palpable ignorance of any knowledge of art,
that the boys whom the artist employed to mix his colours, laughed at him : where-
upon Zeuxis quietly remarked, "While you were silent, these boys admired you for the
richness of your dress and the number of your servants; but now that you disclose
your ignorance they cannot refrain from laughter." Plutarch relates this same story
of Apelles and Megabyzus, and Pliny of Apelles and Alexander. The story told by
Pliny of Zeuxis deceiving the birds with a picture of ripe grapes, at which they came
to peck, and of being himself deceived by a painting of a curtain so ably imitated by
Parrhasius that Zeuxis asked him to draw it aside, is often quoted. Zeuxis also
painted a picture of a Boy with Grapes, which likewise deceived the birds, but the
artist was not entirely satisfied with it, for he justly remarked, " Had the boy been
painted as well as the grapes the birds would have been afraid to come near them." It
is said that Zeuxis amassed such a large fortune by the sale of his pictures that he
would not sell any more. He gave his picture of Fan to Archelaus, and his Alcmena
to the town of Agrigentum. The place and date of Zeuxis's death are unknown.
Sillig remarks — with justice — that he must have died before the io6th Olympiad
(B.C. 355), for in that year Isocrates, in his oration, praised Zeuxis, which he would
not have done had the painter been then living.
Micon, a contemporary and fellow-worker with Polygnotus, was born about B.C. 450.
He excelled in painting horses, which are generally introduced into his pictures.
In the celebrated Colonnades of the Poecile, Micon painted The Battle of the Amazons,
and assisted Pan^nus in The Battle of Marathon, in which he painted the Persians
larger than the Greeks; for this, it is said, he was fined half-a-talent (about 108/.). He
also painted battle-pictures in the temple of Theseus ; and assisted Polygnotus with his
work in the temple of the Dioscuri. Micon painted horses with such truth to nature,
that the only fault an Athenian art critic named Simon could find with them was that
he had given lashes to their under eyelids !
Apollodorus, a native of Athens, lived about b.c. 430. It is said that he was the
first to introduce light and shade into his pictures ; for this reason he was called the
" shadow painter," He must have been surpassed in this branch of painting by
Zeuxis, for he complains that the latter had robbed him of his art. The line, " It is
easier to find fault than to imitate," which Zeuxis wrote under a picture of an athlete,"
is attributed by Plutarch to Apollodorus.
Eupompus, a native of Sicyon, was more famous as the founder of the school of
Sicyon, which Parophilus, his pupil, afterwards more fully established, than as a painter.
One of his principles was, that man should be represented as he ought to appear, not
as he really is (Pliny). The period of Eupompus is sufficiently certain from the fact
that he taught Pamphilus, who flourished from about B.C. 388 to B.C. 348.
Timanthes of Cythnos lived about b.c. 400. His paintings were especially admired
for their expression and reality of representation. Though Timanthes was undoubtedly
one of the greatest painters of his time, only five of his works are mentioned by writers
of antiquity. I'liny mentions him with great praise ; he says of his painting, " Though
R.c. 350.] CLASSIC GREEK SCHOOL.
in execution he was always excellent, the execution is invariably surpassed by the
conception." The pictures by this painter of which we read were : a Sleeping Cyclops :
The Stoning of I\ilamciies ; The Contest of Ajax and Ulysses (ia^ \s\\\c\\ picture he
was declared victor against Parrhasius in a competition at Sanios) ; The Sacrifice of
Iphigenia (with which he defeated in competition Colotes of Tecs — an otherwise
unknown artist).
There is no other painting of ancient times which has been the subject of so much
criticism as this, on account of the concealment of the fixce of Agamemnon. Ancient
writers have given it unlimited praise, but modern critics have questioned its excellence
and called it a trick. The fifth and last work known to us was the picture of a Hero
in the Temple of Peace at Rome.
Nicias, a native of Athens, was probably born about B.C. 370, for we hear that
Praxiteles employed hijn to colour his statues about R.c. 350. He refused sixty talents
(12,960/.) offered him by Ptolemy I. of I'.gypt, for his famous picture NcKi'ta, or The
Region of the Shades, and gave it to his native town, Athens. Ptolemy assumed the
title of king in B.C. 306, when Nicias would be about sixty-four years of age, and
consequently likely to be rich and have a reputation, and able to refuse the enormous
sum offered by the king. Pliny doubts very much whether the painter of the Nc/cvia
and the assistant of Praxiteles can be the same. Pausanias tells us that Nicias was the
most excellent animal painter of his time. It is true that he was very studious, even to
al«ent-mindedness, for ^lian tells us that he frequently forgot to take his meals. His
j)icture of Neniea sifting on a lion is one of the most famous of his works. Nicias
wrote on this picture that he had ])ainted it in encaustic. Nicias also painted the
interiors of tombs, notably that of the high jjriest Megabyzus.
Pamphilus, a native of Amphipolis, lived from about R.c. 388 to r.c. 348. He
studied under Eupompus of Sicyon, and helped to establish the style of painting which
Eupompus had begun, and which was eventually perfectetl by Euphranor, Apelles,
and Protogenes. Pamphilus, Pliny tells us, was himself a man skilled in all sciences:
omnibus Uteris eruditus. He occupied himself more with the theory of art anil with
teaching others, than with actual painting. He founded a school at Sicyon, the admis-
sion to which was one talent (216/.). Pliny says that Apelles and Melinthius both
paid the fee, and studied at this school, and that Pausias received instruction in
encaustic painting from Pamphilus. The sons of the Greek nobles attendeil the
school, and Painting at this time occupied the first place among the liberal arts.
Slaves were not allowed to use the cestrnni or graphis. Four pictures only by this
artist are recorded : The Heraclidic (mentioned by Aristophanes) ; The Battle of
Phliiis ; Ulysses on the raft: and a Taniily Portrait (Plin)-).
Euphranor, born in the Isthmus of Corinth, is calletl by Pliny " the Isthmian."
He was contemporary with Apelles, and flourished from about r.c. 360 to r.c. 320. He
was celebrated as a sculptor as well as a painter, and the same author tells us that
he was " in all things excellent." He was chiefly famous as a portrayer of Gods and
Heroes. Like Pausias and Aristides of Thebes, he painted in encaustic. Three of
his most celebratetl pictures were at Ejihesus : A Group of Philosophers in consulta-
tion ; A Portrait of a General; and The feigned madness of Ulysses. But his most
celebrated works were. The Tu>clve Gods, and a Battle of Mantinca, painted in the
Keramicus at Athens.
8 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [b.c. 340.
Theon, a native of Samos, lived about b.c. 350. He was much admired for the
gracefuhiess of his painting. Phny mentions two of his works : Orestes in the act of
killitig his mother; and Thamyris playing the cithara. NXwxs. describes A youthful
Warrior hastening to meet the foe.
Athenion, a pupil of Glaucion of Corinth, and a native of Maronea in Thrace, was
probably a contemporary of Nicias, and painted about the year B.C. 330. Among
•other works, he executed a Portrait of Phyla rchus, the historian, and Achilles discovered
by Ulysses disguised as a girl. Pliny tells us that, had Athenion lived to maturity, no
artist would have been worthy to be comjjared to him.
Pausias, a native of Sicyon, was a fellow-student with Apelles and Melanthius in
the school of Pamphilus, and consequently we may place his date at about B.C. 350.
He was fond of small pictures, but occasionally painted large ones. He was the first
to brine the use of encaustic to perfection. Pausias was celebrated for his fore-
shortening, especially to be remarked in a picture — The Sacrifice of an C'.r— which in
the time of Pliny was in the Hall of Pompey. He introduced the decorative ceiling
paintings, afterwards common, consisting of single figures, flowers, and arabesques
(Miiller). A portrait of this maiden, with a garland called the 'S^TccjiavrjirXoKos or garland
wreather, was reckoned one of his best paintings. He also painted a picture of a
boy, called 'H/xepios, because it was executed in a single day, in order to silence the
reproaches of his rivals who said he was a slow painter.
Nicomachus, a native of Thebes, lived from about B.C. 360 to b.c. 300. He was
the most celebrated of all Greek painters for quickness of execution. In illustration
of this Pliny mentions the decorations of the monument erected to the honour of the
poet Telestes by Aristratus, the tyrant of Sicyon, which were completed in a few days
in order to fulfil the contract that they should be ready by a certain date. A few of
the best pictures of Nicomachus were : a Victory in a quadriga ; Apollo and Diana.,
a Cybele and a Scylla. Stobasus relates that Nicomachus, hearing some one remark
that he saw no beauty in the Helen of Zeuxis, observed, " Take my eyes and you will •
see a goddess." He had several scholars, the principal of whom was his brother
Aristides. The unfinished picture of the Tyndaridce by this artist was valued more
highly than any of his completed works.
Melanthius was one of the most careful painters of the Sicyonic school. Pliny
mentions that he paid the talent — the price of admission — and studied in the
school of Pamphilus. He shared with his instructor, according to Quintilian, the
honour of being the most renowned among the Greeks for composition.
We also learn from Plutarch that Aratus, wishing to make a present to Ptolemy,
.sent him pictures by Melanthius and Pamphilus worth 150 talents {32,400/.). Melan-
thius lived in the fourth century B.C.
Protogenes was bora at Caunus in Caria (according to Suidas, the Greek historian,
he was born at Xanthus in Lycia, but Pausanias and Pliny are both in favour of
Caunus). He was a contemporary and friend of Apelles, and was at the height of his
fame in B.C. 332. Protogenes was by no means a prolific painter, for, as Quintilian.
says, " excessive carefulness was his predominating idea." He is said by ^lian to have
taken seven years to complete his most celebrated picture. The Rhodian hero lalysus
and his dog. Apelles greatly admired this picture. A tale is related that Protogenes,
B.C. 330.] CLASSIC GREEK SCHOOL. 9
after trying in vain for a long time to represent the foam at the dog's mouth, to his
own satisfaction, in a fit of anger and disgust threw his sponge at the animal's head,
and thus by accident obtained in a second that which many hours of labour had been
unable to acquire. Pliny tells us that the renown of this picture was so great, that
Demetrius Poliorcetes, when besieging Rhodes in B.C. 304, refrained from setting fire
to that part of the town in which Protogenes lived, for fear of damaging the picture.
It is said that Apelles gave Protogenes fifty talents for each picture that he found in
his studio, and thus made the fortune of this artist, who was, Pliny tells us, in very
needy circumstances. All ancient writers agree in praising his works.
Apelles was a native of the little island of Cos in the ^gean Sea. Neither the
date of his birth nor death is known, but he was at the height of his fame in the year
B.C. 332. He studied chiefly under the Macedonian painter Pamphilus, at Sicyon, and
was a most indefatigable worker. He frequently painted figures of Fe/ius; he also
painted many portraits of Alexander the Great, who, it is said, would not sit to any
other artist. He received four talents (864/.), for a portrait of this monarch wielding
a thunderbolt, which he painted on the walls of the Temple of Diana at Ephesus.
A picture of Venus Anadyoinene was valued at 100 talents (21,600/.). This was one
of the most famous of all the Greek paintings ; the goddess was represented as rising
from the sea, wringing from her hair the water which fell in a silver shower around her.
A story is related of him which is said to have given rise to the well-known saying,
" A shoemaker should not go beyond his last." Apelles exhibited a finished picture,
and concealed himself near by in order to hear the criticisms which he rightly imagined
would be made upon it. A shoemaker found fault with a defect in a sandal, which
Apelles accordingly rectified ; on another occasion the shoemaker, encouraged by the
success of his former remark, began to criticise the leg : upon this the artist, coming
forth from his hiding-place, angrily told him to keep to his trade. Once, it is said,
when Alexander visited Apelles, and remained unmoved before an equestrian portrait,
his horse neighed at the sight of the charger represented in the painting : " Your
horse," said the artist to the king, '' knows more about pictures than you do." Apelles
wrote a work on painting which has unfortunately been lost. Pie is said to have been
the original author of the well-known saying, " A'ul/a dies sine linea."
Aristides, who was a native of Thebes, was born about b.c. 330. He was a brother
and pupil of Nicomachus, and contemporary with Apelles. He excelled in painting
battle pictures; one of his most celebrated was The Capture of a City, in which the
expression of a dying woman and her infant was much admired : Alexander the Great
took this picture to Macedonia. Aristides also painted a Battle 7oith the Persians, in
which there were one hundred figures ; this was purchased for a large sum by Mnason
of Elatea. Attains, king of Pergamus, bought a picture by y\ristides, A Siek Man on his
bed, for 100 talents (about 2 1,600/.), and Pliny says that Lucius Mummius refused more
than 200 talents for a Father Bacehus which he captured at the siege of Corinth.
Many of the best paintings of Aristides were sent to Rome with the rest of the plunder
from the cities of Greece. An unfinished picture of Iris was the most highly valued.
Asclepiodorus was contemporary with Aristides and Apelles. He painted twelve
figures, representing the twelve Gods, and sold them to Mnason the tyrant of Elatea
for five talents (1,080/.) each.
Philoxenus, a native of Eretria, and a pupil of Nicomachus, was renowned for the
rapidity of his execution. Nothing is known concerning the dates of his birth or death.
c
ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PALNTERS. [b.c.
He probably painted his famous picture of the Battle of Alexander and Darlus,'hy
order of Cassander, king of Macedon, shortly after B.C. 315, in which year
Cassander succeeded in driving Polysperchon out of Macedon, and certainly not later
than B.C. 296, for in that year Cassander died. It is not improbable that the mosaic
representing the Battle o/Lssus, found in the " House of the Faun " at Pompeii in 1831,
is a reproduction of this picture, for Darius and Alexander are the most conspicuous
figures (see p. 35). Only one other work by Philoxenus is mentioned by Pliny. It
is a representation of Three Satyrs feasting. Pliny also tells us that Philoxenus
discovered various methods of facilitating execution in painting.
Timomachus, a native of Byzantium, was imagined by many to have been contem-
porary with Julius Caesar, from a statement to that effect by Pliny ('' Julii Csesaris
setate "). Durand thinks that ataie is an addition of the copyist. This seems quite
within the bounds of possibility, for Pliny himself speaking of him elsewliere mentions
him among the ancient and renowned painters of Greece. Timomachus was probably
a contemporary of Nicias, and consequently lived about B.C. 300. His most celebrated
pictures, Ajax h-ooding over his misfortunes, and Medea meditating the destruction of
her children, were bought by Julius Csesar for the enormous sum of eighty Attic talents
(17,280/.), and placed in the temple of Venus Genetrix. Ovid alludes to them in his
' Tristia ' :
" Utque sedet vultu fassus Telamonius iram,
Inque oculis facinus barbara Mater habet."
Pliny says that the picture of Medea was not completed, yet it was more admired than
any of the finished works of the same artist. The fact that the picture was left
unfinished proves beyond a doubt that Timomachus did not sell it himself to Julius
Caesar, and therefore was not likely to have been his contemporary. Pliny mentions
among other works by this artist an Orestes, Iphigenia in Tauris, and a celebrated
picture of a Gorgon.
Timanthes of Sicyon (?) is only known to us by his picture of the Battle of Fellene,
in Arcadia, in which Aratus defeated the ^tolians in B.C. 240. He was contemporary
with Aratus, who lived from B.C. 271 to B.C. 213. He was probably a native of Sicyon,
though nothing certain is known either of the date or place of his birth.
Neacles, probably a native of Sicyon, painted about the year B.C. 250. Pliny
who mentions him with praise, tells us of two pictures by him, a Venus, and a Battle
between the Persians atid the Egyptia?is on the Nile. In the latter, he introduced an ass
drinking in the stream, and a crocodile, in order that the river might not be mistaken
for the sea. It is also related of Neacles that by painting over the figure and intro-
ducing a palm-tree in its stead, he managed to save the Portrait of AristratJis by
Melanthius and Apelles, from the fury of Aratus.
GRECO-ROMAN SCHOOL.
From Athens let us now pass to Rome. Ashamed of being in all matters
of taste the disciples of the conquered Greeks, the Romans boasted of having a
national school of painting, although the ancient religious law of the Latins was,
like that of the Hebrews, hostile to images. Their writers pretended that about
IJ.C. ^oo.
GRECO-KOMAN SCHOOL.
the year a.u.c. 450, a member of the illustrious family of Fabius, surnamed Pictor,
who derived his name from his profession, had executed paintings in the Temple of
Health. They cited also, in the following century, a certain dramatic poet, named
Pacuvius, a nephew of the old Knnius, who had himself painted the decorations
of his theatre ; as did also, a hundred years later, Claudius Pulcher. It is related,
besides, that Lucius Hostilius exhibited in the Forum, a picture where he had repre-
sented himself advancing to the assault of Carthage, which obtained him so much
l-LOUA.
AittiijiH- Piiiiiting, in the AriLsYiim at A'ti/'/rs.
popularity that he was named consul the following year. All this appears as doubtful
as the tales of Livy about the foundation of Rome. What is certain is that, when they
penetrated as con([uerors into Greece, the Romans showed neither taste for, nor know-
ledge of the arts. They began, like true ])arl)arians, by breaking the statues and
tearing tho jMctures. At last, Mclcllus and Mummius stopped the stupid fury of the
12 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [b.c. 300.
soldiers^ and sent pell-mell to Rome whatever they found in the temples of Greece,
without, however, having any true idea of the value of these precious spoils. This
Lucius Mummius, who placed in the temple of Ceres the celebrated Bacchus of
Aristides, was so ignorant, that after the siege of Corinth, he threatened those who
conveyed to Rome the pictures and statues taken in that town, that if they lost the
pictures, they must replace them !
The Romans, imitating their neighbours the Etruscans, whose industry and arts
they borrowed, became great architects, and especially great engineers ; they
constructed roads, highways^ bridges^ aqueducts, which, surviving their empire, still
excite our astonishment and admiration. But their only knowledge of the arts of
painting and sculpture was through the works of the Greeks. Still more : at Rome
itself there were scarcely any artists but the Greeks, who had gone, like grammarians
and schoolmasters, to practise their profession in the capital of the world. It was a
Greek painter, Metrodorus of Athens, who came to Rome to execute for the triumph
of Paulus ^milius the paintings of the Procession of the victorious general. Trans-
planted out of their country, reduced to the condition of artisans, the Greek artists had
no longer at Rome those original inspirations which independence and dignity alone
can give. They formed there a school of imitation, which could not but alter and
deteriorate. Architecture, being necessary to the great works commanded by the
emperors, was everywhere held in honour : so also was Sculpture, which provided
the new temples with statues of the deified Cresars. But Painting, reduced to
decorate the interior of houses, became a kind of domestic art, a simple trade.
At the same time that the Romans prohibited their slaves from becoming painters,
they disdained to recognize the art as worthy of being followed by themselves. It is
true that amongst their painters is mentioned a certain Turpilius, belonging to the
equestrian order ; but he lived at Verona. Quintus Pedius, the son of a consul, is also
cited ; but he was dumb from his birth \ and to enable liis family to allow him to learn
painting as an amusement, the express permission of Augustus was required. The
painter Amulius, who has left some reputation, worked without taking off the toga
{pingebat semper togatus—Y\\\\y), in order not to be confounded with foreigners, and to
preserve the dignity of a Roman citizen. The consequent decadence of the art of
painting was inevitable. By degrees the Romans came to prefer richness to beauty, the
precious metals to simple colours. Pompey exhibited his portrait made of pearls ; and
Nero proposed to gild the bronze Alexander of Lysippus ; after having caused himself
to be represented in a portrait one hundred and twenty feet high. In short. Painting,
losing all nobility and all character, was reduced to the decoration of the interior of
houses, in a style in accordance with such a degraded taste.
Thus things went on to the reign of the Antonines, who attempted to restore
some vigour and dignity to the arts. After Marcus Aurelius, the evil increased, the
decay became more serious ; the end approached. Constantly-recurring civil wars,
military disasters, internal troubles, risings in the provinces, the resistance to the
barl)arians who were attacking the provinces, the general confusion ; in short,
all the scourges let loose upon the world in the years which immediately preceded tlie
ruin and dismemberment of the Empire, were far from calculated to reanimate taste,
to raise fallen art, or to restore it to its brilliancy and power. Here, then, we must no
longer occupy ourselves with its transformations, its phases, its fashions of art, but
with its very existence. In our next chapter we must inquire if this decay amounted
to abandonment or total extinction ; and ask if it be true that ihere is in the History
B.C. 200.] GRECO-ROMAN SCHOOL. 13
of Painting an immense lacuna, bounded on one side by the death of ancient art, on
the other by the birth of modern art.
The most important of the Roman painters of this period that have been
mentioned by the classic writers were : —
Fabius Pictor, one of the sons of Marcus Fabius Ambustus the consul, was called
Pictor because he painted various objects in the Temple of the ('lOddess of Health, in
\\x. 304. Pliny and Livy l)0th mention these works, which existed until the destruction
of the temple in the reign of Claudius.
Marcus Pacuvius, a native of Brundusium, was born about n.c. 2 1 9. He was a
nephew of Ennius the epic poet, and, though renowned as a painter, was more cele-
brated for his poems. Pliny mentions paintings by him in the Temple of Hercules at
Rome ; he also tells us that Pacuvius was the last to paint " Jioncstis manibusr He
died at Tarentum in the ninetieth year of his age, which, if the date of his birth be
correct, would be about n.c. 130. He wrote an epitaph on himself which runs as
follows : —
" Adolesccns, tamcnetsi properas, te hoc saxum rogat, uti ad se adspicias, deinde quod scripluni
est, legas. Ilic sunt pocetae Pacuvii Marci sita ossa. Hoc volebam, nescius ne esses ; vale."
Metrodorus, a distinguished painter and philosopher, was born at Athens (?) about
n.c. 200. ^^'hen Paulus ^'^hnilius had defeated the Greeks in b.c. 168, he ordered the
Athenians to send him their best artist, to perpetuate his triumph, and their most
renowned philosopher, to educate his sons. The Athenians paid Metrodorus the
extraordinary honour of declaring that he was both their best artist and their
most renowned philosopher ; and it is said that ^milius was (juite satisfied. The
l)ainting of this Triumph must have been a most stupendous undertaking, for in the
procession, which is partly described by Plutarch, there were no less than 250
waggons containing Greek works of art, called by Livy simulacra pugnarutn picta.
The spectacle lasted the entire day. Metrodorus, though a Greek, well deserves
a mention among the RomanSchool, as he painted at Rome, and very likely helped to
introduce a better style of painting among the Romans.
Laia or Lala, of Cyzicus, a female artist, lived about b.c. 100. and was especially
renowned for her portrait painting.
Claudius Pulcher, lived about b.c. 100, and is said to have painted decorations for
theatres. There is little else known of him.
Ludius, the painter^ lived in the time of Augustus. Pliny tells us he " invented the
art of decorations for the walls of apartments, whereon he scattered country houses,
porticoes, shrubs, thickets, forests, hills, ponds, rivers, banks — in a word, all that fancy
( ould desire." Paintings of this kind have been discovered at Pompeii and Hercula-
neun) and elsewhere. They are very beautiful, though it must be admitted they are
but imitations of the Greek works whicli had preceded them.
Dionysius of Rome lived about the time of the first Roman Emperors. Pliny tells
us that he was a very prolific ]iainter, so much so, in fact, that his ])ictures filled whole
galleries. I'liuy also calls him AvOfM-oyixLfpos, because he i)ainteil figure subjects only.
14 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 300.
CHAPTER II.
PAINTING IN THE MIDDLE AGES.
IN our last chapter we spoke of the gulf which apparently separates modern from
ancient pictorial art. It may perhaps be possible, by taking up the links of
the broken chain of tradition, to trace a connection, however slight, between
the two periods.
Constantine removed the seat of the empire from Rome to Byzantium, precisely
at the period to which we have come. This great event obliges us to divide the
history of art into two parts. We shall follow it first in the Eastern Empire, until
the taking of Constantinople ; then we shall find it once more in Italy.
After having enthroned Christianity, Constantine set himself to decorate his new
capital — to make it another Rome. He built churches, palaces, baths ; he carried
objects of art from Italy, and he was followed by the artists to whom proximity to
the court was a necessity of existence. As it happened at Rome under Augustus,
who boasted of having found a city of brick and left it of marble, so architecture
quickly grew at Byzantium to be the first of the arts. Painting, although occupying an
inferior position, was not abandoned. The Emperor Julian, to show at once his
tastes, his talents, and his success, caused himself to be painted crowned by Mercury
and Mars ; we know, too, that Valentinian, who prided himself on his caligraphy, was
also a painter and sculptor.
To avenge themselves for the Pagan reaction attempted by Julian the Apostate, the
Christians began to destroy many of the vestiges of antiquity anterior to Christ —
temples, books, and works of art. " Eager to destroy all that might recall Paganism,
the Christians," says Vasari, " destroyed not only the wonderful statues, the
sculptures, the paintings, the mosaics, and the ornaments of the false gods, but also
the images of the great men which decorated the public edifices."
Under the Emperor Theodosius the Great, in the fourth century, the fatal sect of
Iconoclasts (breakers of images) arose. This was the signal for a fresh destruction of
statues and ancient pictures. However, if the column of Theodosius — the worthy rival
of tliat of Trajan — testifies to the cultivation of the arts of design, the writings of St. Cyril,
who lived in the time of that emperor, furnish irrefragable proofs of it. In the sixth of
the ten books which he wrote against the Emperor Julian, one chapter has for its
motto : " Our paintings teach piety " {nostrce pictune puiafan doccnt). In it he entreats
painters to teach children temperance, and women chastity. In his book against the
Anthropomorphitcs^ the same St. Cyril supports the ojnnion of the artists of his time.
A.D. 300. J
EARLY CHRISTIAN ART.
»5
who believed tliey must make Jesus " the least beautiful of the children of men." It
is remarkable that on this question— whether our Blessed Lord should have in His
images the beauty that charms and recalls His celestial origin, or the deformity which
the extreme humility of His mission seems to require— the Church has never decided.
The Fathers, as well as the Schoolmen, have always been divided on this point. The
o[)inion that Jesus should \vA be beautiful, sustained by St. Justin, St. Clement, St.
THE GOOD SHKl'UKRI).
A ftnntiiii^ on the mlitig of the Catacombs at Rome.
Basil, and St. Cyril, was then most generally received. Celsus, the Pagan physicLan,
triumphed at it. "Jesus was not beautiful," said he : "then he was not God." The
most eminent of the Fathers, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Jerome, St. .\ugustine, and St.
Chrysostom, vainly sustained the contrary opinion. Va.nly again, in the twelfth
century,, did St. Bernard affirm that, as the new Adam. Jesus surpassed even the angels
in beauty. Tlie greater number of theologians, down to Saumaise and the Bene-
1 6 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 400.
dictines, Pouget and Delarue, in the last century, reproached painters with having
taken too much Ucence in ascribing physical beauty to Him of whom the prophet
Isaiah said, " He hath no form nor beauty that we should desire Him."
In any case, the writings of the Fathers suffice to prove that Christian paintings
were till the seventh or eighth century very common. They frequently assumed
allegorical forms. Jesus was represented, as well as His mission and sacrifice, under the
features of Daniel in the den of Uons ; of Jonah swallowed by the whale ; of the Good
Shepherd carrying back to the fold the.lost sheep ; of Orpheus charming the animals ; of
the Submissive Lamb ; and of the Phosnix rising from its ashes. It was the Council of
Constantinople, held in a.d. 692, which ordered artists to abandon emblems, and to return
to the painting of Sacred History. Taste, however, continued to change more and
more, to the detriment of painting. That only was considered beautiful which was rich.
When marble seemed too poor a material for sculpture, when statues were made of
porphyry, of silver, or gold, they could no longer be contented with pictures on
panels. Painting existed, no doubt, for it is stated that the portraits of the emperors
were sent into the provinces at their accession ; for example, with Eudoxia, the wife
of Arcadius, when she took the title of Augusta, in 395. And Theodosius II., who
erected, in 425, a sort of university at Constantinople, cultivated painting, like
Valentinian. But the more brilliant mosaic, often formed of precious materials,
was preferred for the decoration of temples and palaces. Later — at the time of
the sanguinary disturbances which accompanied and followed the reign of Zeno
(a.d. 474 to A.D. 491)— painting was prostituted to the lowest employment to which it
could descend, serving to trace those coarse and strange figures used as talismans,
abraxas, and amulets of all sorts, which had become fashionable amongst a super-
stitious people.
It is known that Justinian ordered great works in architecture. He caused a new
temple (St. Sophia) to be erected to The Divine Wisdom, by the architects Anthemius
of Tralles and Isidorus of Miletus, and was called, like Adrian, Reparator orlns. It
was at this period, and precisely on the occasion of these architectural constructions,
that the complete triumph of mosaic over painting took place. Procopius says
positively, that to ornament certain rooms of the emperor's palace, they employed
instead of fresco or painting in encaustic, brilliant mosaics in coloured stones, which
commemorated the victories and conquests of the imperial arms. From that time
mosaic was held in honour, and dethroning true painting, it became especially the art
of the Greeks of the Eastern empire. With them taste was becoming depraved,
and their works, as well as their actions and character, showed great debasement of
mind. Architectural art, corrupted by oriental taste, was seldom anything but a
confused prodigality of capricious ornaments. Statuary, no less degenerated and
strange, created only small images in metal, or even mixtures of metals ; and Painting
itself became merely a working with enamels and precious stones, with chasings in
gold and silver.
After Justinian, the bitter theological quarrels led to civil wars; and whilst
Mahomedanism, itself iconoclastic, grew up almost in the vicinity of the holy places,
the sect of the Iconoclasts, still increasing, finished by ascending the throne in the
person of Leo the Isaurian (a.d. 726). The other Leo, the Armenian, and Michael
the Stammerer, joined themselves to the same party, which carried their proceedings
against their opponents to such a point, that Theophilus, the son of Michael, caused a
monk named Lazarus to be burned, in a.d. 840, as punishment for having painted
A.D. 450.] PAINTING IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 17
sacred subjects. At last Basil the Macedonian, an enemy to the iconoclastic party and
its excesses, re-established in a.d, 867 the worship of images, and restored to the arts their
free exercise. It seems that either old artists must have been preserved from the pro-
scription, which, indeed, had only alighted on religious images, or new artists must have
speedily arisen ; since historians tell us that Basil, the greatest constructor of edifices
after Constantine and Justinian, had in his palaces so many pictures representing the
batdes he had gained and the towns he had taken, that the porticoes, the walls, the
ceilings, tind the jjavements were covered by them. Delivered from the Iconoclasts,
the Arts of design could take breath again, and continued to flourish unchecked to the
time of. the Crusades, at the end of the eleventh century.
Everyone knows that these great armed migrations threw Europe as much on
Constantinople as on Antioch or Jenisalem ; and that in 1204 the capital of the
Eastern Empire was carried by assault by the Crusaders, under Baldwin of Flanders.
In the sack of this town the Jupiter Olympius by Pheitlias, the Juno of Santos by
Lysippus, and other great works of antiquity, perished at the same time with a number
of works of art which a fashion in bad taste had laden with precious ornaments. But
after the brief division of the Grecian empire between the French and the Venetians,
and after the establishment of the Genoese and Pisans in the Bosphorus, when a more
regular state succeeded to the disorders of conquest, the communication of ancient
Greek art to the western nations commenced. The monuments of that art were then
much better preserved at B}zantium than at Rome, which had been so many times
sacked by the barbarians. At the same time with the ancient, a new art was also
communicated, that of the modern Greeks, who had dieir architecture, their statuary,
their frescoes, and their mosaics. Then, after the expulsion of the Crusaders and the
destruction of their ephemeral empire, Michael Palreologus, who raised for one moment
the Greek empire, also restored some life to the fine arts, and amongst them painting
was not forgotten.
This prince had his principal victories depicted in his palace, and j^laced a portrait
of himself in St. Sophia. After Michael, the empire was occupied almost exclusively
with resistance to its enemies until the time of Mahomed II., who carried Constanti-
nople by assault, on the 29th Ma}', 1453. Arts and letters then alike took refuge in
Italy, where we sh.dl resume their history from the reign of Constantine the Great.
Between the translation of the seat of empire to Byzantium and the taking of Rome
by Odoacer and the discontented mercenaries in a.d. 476, there is little to relate
beyond the attacks and the invasions of barbarians. We must then start from their
conquest of Rome. It is known with what frightful disasters this was accompanied,
and how many inestimable objects jierished in the reiterated pillages that Rome had
to undergo. During the short rule of the first hordes from the north, a deep slumber
seemed to have fallen on all the works of intellect, and the only jjroductions of this
sad period which can be considered as in any way belonging to painting are some
mosaics serving as pavements in the halls of the bath-rooms.
At last the Goths appeared, drove out tlie nations which had preceded them, and
founded an empire. Their appearance in Italy was a deliverance, as it was also in
Spain, for in both peninsulas they showed the same mildness of manners, the same
spirit of justice, order, and of conservatism, l^nfortunately for Italy, their rule was of
i8 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 600.
shorter duration there than in Spain. The great Theodoric — great at least until his
old age — who had attached to himself Symmachus, Boethius, and Cassiodorus, stopped
the ravages as much as he could, and took every care to preserve the monuments of
antiquity. "Having had the happiness," to adopt his own expression, "to find at
Rome a nation of statues and a troop of bronze horses," he had several buildings
erected to receive them. We are surprised to find this barbarian recommending the
imitation of the ancients to bis architect Aloisius, whom he had made a Count {comes),
and whom he called your sublimity., and especially urging him, by a rare instinct of
good taste, to make the new buildings agree with the old ones. His worthy minister,
Cassiodorus, himself cultivated painting, at all events that of the time. He relates in
his ' Epistolae,' that he took pleasure in enriching the manuscripts of the monastery
he had founded in Calabria, with ornaments painted in miniature. Bede, who had,
it is asserted, seen these figures and ornaments of the manuscripts of Cassiodorus, says,
that nothing could be more carefully executed or more perfect. Unfortunately all these
works afterwards perished, and nothing of this period has been preserved to us but
mosaics.
The Goths, " closely resembling the Greeks," says their historian Jornandes, did
not stand long against the civil wars which broke out after the death of Theodoric ; the
attacks of the Romans from Byzantium, conducted by Narses ; and those of the fresh
tribes which precipitated themselves across the Alps from the North.
In the middle of the sixth century, the Lombards, under Alboin, made themselves
masters of Italy. The dominion of these new conquerors was continually disturbed by
intestine quarrels, and contested by the exarchs of Ravenna, acting as lieutenants of
the emperor at Constantinople. In such a situation, when feudal anarchy was
beginning to people Italy with petty tyrants, the arts could be but feebly cultivated.
However, the king, Antharis, who had become a Christian to please his wife
Theodelinda (as Clovis had at the prayers of Clotilda), caused churches to be built or
repaired, which he decorated with sculptures and paintings. Then Theodelinda
herself, when a widow and queen, founded the celebrated residence of Monza, near
Milan. We find in the writings of the Lombard Warnefridus of Aquileia, known by
the name of Paul the Deacon, a minute description of the paintings in the Palace of
Monza, which recorded the exploits of the Lombard armies. From these pictures,
which were before his eyes, he described all the accoutrements of his fellow-country-
men, or rather of his ancestors, for he lived two centuries later. Luitprand continued
the work of Theodelinda. An enemy to the Iconoclasts, he began, by the advice of
Gregory III., to decorate the churches with frescoes and mosaics.
The removal of the imperial court, in the first place, and then the rule of the
barbarians — now become Christians and devotees— had given great importance to the
bishops of Rome. Under cover of the long wars between the Lombard kings and
the exarchs of Ravenna, the popes founded their temporal power, acquired territory,
and became sovereigns. This circumstance was fortunate for the arts, which found in
them natural protectors, and Rome, restored by the papacy, became the centre and
the capital of art. In spite of the approach of Attila, whom St. Leo stopped at the
gates of the holy city — in spite of the pillage to which Genseric, less awed than the
fierce king of the Huns, delivered it — we see the successive labours of the popes for
the restoration of Rome begun and continued. Before leaving that ancient capital
of the world, Constantine had built the old St. Peter's, the old St. Paul's, St. Agnes,
and St. Lawrence. The popes decorated these churches magnificently, and we may
A.u. 700.] PAINTING IN THE MIDDLE AGES.
19
mention principally the great work of St. Leo, who caused the w liole series of popes
from St. Peter to himself to be painted on the wall of the basilica of St. Paul. This
work, begun in the fifth century, has lasted to our own day, having been spared in the
great fire which destroyed the greater part of that edifice in 1824; and Lanzi jusdy
quotes it in proof of the assertion with which he begins his book : " That Italy was not
without painters, even during the dark ages, appears not only from history, but from
various ])ictures that have resisted the attacks of time. Rome still retains some of
very ancient date."
In the ' Liber Pontificalis,' Anastasius the librarian, or whoever else may be the
author of that book, gives a very complete detail of the sculpture, the carving, and
the works in gold and silver in the churches founded by Constantine. As for the
paintings, of which he also speaks, they have all perished, except the mosaics and
frescoes* in the Christian catacombs. But Anastasius speaks of the new kind of
painting, which was just becoming fashionable, in those times when metals alone were
considered valuable ; I mean painting in embroidery, that is to say, worked with
gold and silver threads on silk stuffs. He speaks among other things of a chasuble of
Pope Honorius I., a.d. 625, the embroidery on which represented the Deliverance
of St. Peter and the Assumption of the Virgin.
The art of embroidery had been brought from the East by the Greeks of Byzan-
tium. It was known to the ancient Greeks, even from the earliest times, as is
evidenced by the tapestry of Penelope, wherein figures were represented in difterent
colours. It was also known to the Romans, according to Cicero's allusion when
reproaching Verres with his thefts in Sicily (" neque ullam picturam, neque in tabula,
necjue teytili fuisse "). In the time of St. John Chrysostom (fourth century), the toga
of a Christian senator contained as many as six hundred figures, which made the
eloquent orator say with grief, '•' All our admiration is now reserved for goldsmiths and
weavers." It was especially in Italy that the art of embroidery gained ground. It is
enough to mention the famous tapestry of the Countess Matilda, -that celebrated friend
of Gregory VII.. who reigned over Tuscany, Modena, Mantua, and Ferrara, from 1076
to 1 125, and who by her donations so largely added to the "■ Patrimony of St. Peter."
When Charlemagne, after having destroyed the Lombard kingdom, was crowned,
at Rome, Emperor of the West, there was a moment of great hope for the arts, ^^'hat
might not have been expected from the powerful protection of a prince who understood
— though without possessing it — the advantages of science, who collected around his
person the Lombard Paul the Deacon, Peter of Pisa, Paulinus of Aquileia, the English
Alcuin, and his pupil Eginhard ? But continual military expeditions left him too little
leisure to permit him to give an impulse to arts which would have recjuireil his whole
care and time. Charlemagne only caused some bas-reliefs, mosaics, and illuminated
manuscripts to be executed for his much-loved church of Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle),
But the popes, tranquil in Italy under his j)rotection, took the part he could not fulfil.
Adrian I., who praises in his letters the works of painting ordered by his predecessors,
caused a picture of Feeding the poor to be painted on the walls of St. John Lateran ;
and his successor, Leo III., had the PreacJiing of the Apostles represented in fresco in
the gallery of the triclinium at the palace of the Lateran, the vaulted roof of which was
decorated in mosaic.
The division and the weakening of empire of Charlemagne tended to the aggran-
disement of the popes, whose jiolicy always was to foster disunion in Italy in order
to profit by ii. Hut as this division increased, their own power became more
2 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. iooo.
frequently attacked and their reigns more turbulent. The great schism of the East,
the numerous anti-popes, the long quarrels of Gregory VII. and the emperor
Henry IV., from which arose the factions of the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, — from
these causes sprung up such sanguinary and prolonged troubles, that for the second
time we find the cultivation of the arts interrupted. There is, between the ninth and
eleventh centuries, that is to say, during the period of the grossest ignorance and
thickest darkness of the middle ages, a complete blank, of which no memorial is left
us. In. this period we can only find, in the way of painting, the works of some
cenobites who illuminated their missals in the peace and obscurity of the cloister.
There was then, as the annotators of Vasari (MM. Jeanron and Leclanche) judiciously
remark, " less an ignorance of the works of antiquity, of which so many remains still
existed, than a general weariness of the ancient science, an insurmountable apathy for
its requirements, a perpetual indifference to its formulas."
It was in the eleventh century, — after that terrible year i ooo, which it had been
generally expected would bring the end of the world, during that period when,
favoured by the ever-reviving quarrels between the emperors and the popes, the
Italian republics, Venice, Florence, Genoa, Pisa, and Siena, were in process of forma-
tion, and when the Normans regaining Sicily from the Arabs, were establishing an
empire in the south of Italy, — that we see clearly how to take up the links of the tradi-
tional chain, and find the first symptoms of the future revival It is to this time that
the different images of the Virgin, which have been attributed to St. Luke, the
paintings also in the vaults of the Duomo of Aquileia, of Santa Maria Prisca at Orvieto,
the Madonna delle Grazie, and the Madonna di Tressa, in the cathedral of Siena, all
belong. At the same period, and even before the crusades, an intercourse was begun
between the artists of the Eastern Empire and those of Italy. This had become very
important to the latter, after such a long interruption in the practice of art. Many
Greek paintings were then brought from Constantinople and Smyrna, amongst others
a Madonna, which is at Rome in Sta. Maria in Cosmedin, and another Madonna in the
Camerino of the Vatican, which is said by Lanzi to be the best work of the Byzantines
in Italy, both in regard to its painting and its state of preservation. It was also in the
eleventh century that the Venetians sent for Greek workers in mosaic, to whom we
owe the large mosaics in the singular and quite oriental basilica of St. Mark's at
Venice. Other Greek workers in mosaic were invited to Sicily, and many were found
already there, m the twelfth century, by the Norman William the Good, when he built
his celebrated cathedral of Monreale.
Then at last national art awoke in Italy, and after the long period of obscurity
which we call the dark ages, the first streaks of light were seen announcing the dawn
of a new civilization soon to arise on the world. And yet this was not because the
country was either peaceful or prosperous. The quarrels of the Emperor Otho IV.-
and the Pope Innocent III. had revived the hatred of the Guelph and the Ghibelline
factions. Under Frederick II. the league of the Lombard towns, the claims of
Gregory IX. and Innocent IV., kept up the incessant war between the empire and the
papacy. But in the midst of these conflicts, not only of words, but also of arms, and
in which every one wished to prove that he had right as well as might on his side,
intellect had thrown off its drowsiness, and the human mind once more moved forward.
Notwithstanding his reverses, Frederick II. contributed much to this movement. He
was a clear-sighted jjrince, learned for his period, and had gathered around him a polite
and elegant court. King of the Two Sicilies, as well as emperor of Germany, he
A.I), iioo.l PAINTING IN THE MIDDLE AGES.
almost constantly resided in Italy. He composed verses in the vulgar idiom and
causetl a number of Greek or Arabian books to be translated into Latin. He erected
several palaces, which he delighted in decorating with columns and sUxtues. The
medals of his reign are of a style and finish till then forgotten since ancient times.
Lastly, he had books of his own composition illuminated with miniature paintings, the
execution of which he himself directed and superintended. The princes of the house
of Anjou followed his example, anil the po[)es would not yield to the emperor in art
any more than in the rest of their pretensions. The sovereign pontifls of this age,
Honorius HI., Gregory L\., Innocent IV., Nicholas IV., caused the porticoes and the
immense galleries of their churches to be ornamented with frescoes antl mosaics.
By a result scarcely perhaps to be expected, even the agitation of the period
fostered an increased .growth of all the sciences, and also especially of art. The
republics, the free cities, the small states, all the fragments of divided Italy, in every-
thing disputed pre-eininenre with each other. Each wished to triumph over its rival
by the importance of its establishments and the beauty of the works of its artists.
Again, the rulers whom the greater number of these states had chosen, or those who
had raised themselves to be masters, each considering himself a new Pericles, antl
forestalling the Medici, wished, whilst he flattered the vanity of his fellow<-itizens,
at the same time to occupy their attention and to satisfy their wishes. We can under-
stand what this double sentiment, this double want, must have produced. From it
there resulted indeed vast cathedrals, sumptuous monasteries, grand palaces, and halls.
From the same cause sprang up a universal taste, a spirit of emulation, a passionate
ardour, all the stimulating qualities of a noble labour perfonned publicly, which, while
it seeks, is at the same time rewarded by the i)ublic approval. When in a.d, 1204
Florence decreed the erection of her cathedral, the podest^ of the seignory was
enjoined " to trace the plan of it with the most sumptuous magnificence, so that the
industry and power of man shall never invent and undertake anything more vast or
beautiful ; inasmuch as no one ought to put his hand to the works of the community
with any less design than to make them correspond with the lofty spirit which biniis
the souls of all the citizens into one single, uniteil, identical will." Who is it that
holds such magnificent and haughty language ? Was it Pericles giving orders to
Ictinus and Pheidias for the erection of tlie temple to the virgin daughter of Zeus ?
No. It was simi)ly the seignory of Florence ; — but Florence was then a modern
Athens.
Having succinctly given the history of art in general through the events and
changes of political revolutions, it remains for us to trace the i)articular historv of the
various processes which form the links between ancient and modern art.
There are three princijjal kinds of jjainting which have come down to us l)y
tradition from the ancients, and the cultivation of which, although sometimes
interrupted, has never been really abandoned : mosaic, illumination, and painting
properly so called, whether in fresco, distemper, or in oil.
ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS.
PAINTING IN MOSAIC.
We have already said that mosaic was really the link connecting the two epochs of
painting, ancient and modern, and that this branch of art suffered the least from
alteration and interruption ; that, transported from Italy to Byzantium, it was carried
on there with more success than any other kind of painting, and that the Greeks of the
Eastern empire, in their turn, constantly furnished the Italians with models, not only
at the period of their expulsion from the Bosphorus and their return to the West, but
during the whole of the intermediate time.
Working in mosaic is very ancient, as ancient as painting itself It was cultivated
by the Greeks, who taught it to the Romans. The latter employed it so much that
it became at once an object of art and of domestic use. It was at first a simple
pavement, called, according to its material and design, op2is tesselatiim, opus scctile,
opus vermiculatunu In the latter style, by the use of vitreous pastes, the Romans
succeeded both in imitating paintings, and making pictures themselves. According
to Pliny, they adorned the pavements, the vaults, and the ceilings of their dwellings
with mosaics ; and Caesar, according to Suetonius, carried mosaics with him in his
military campaigns {in expeditionibus tesselata et sectilia circumtulisse). These were the
opus tesselatum and the opus sedile, which latter M. Quatremere calls marqiieterie de
marbre. Some mosaics of antiquity found in excavations, having been thus preserved
in the bosom of the earth from the devastations of men and of time, suffice to teach
us to what a degree of perfection the ancients carried this branch of art. Such is
the mosaic of Hercules at the Villa Albani, that of Perseus and Andromeda in the
museum of the Capitol, that of the Nine Muses, found at Santi Ponci, in Spain
(the ancient Italica, founded by the Scipios), and also that previously mentioned, of
the Battle of Issus, at Pompeii.
The Greek artists of the Eastern empire made mosaic work their principal study.
In their hands and in their time it became the most highly prized style of painting ;
they carried into it the false taste of the period, which mistook the rich for the beauti-
ful, and mixed gold with everything. Mosaics were made at Constantinople by
slipping under the pieces of glass gold and silver leaves, enamels and precious stones.
As for the cultivation of mosaic in Italy after the destruction of the Roman empire,
memorials left from all ages prove that it was never abandoned or interrupted. In the
primitive churches of Rome and Ravenna there are still found mosaics of the fourth
and fifth centuries, amongst others those in Santa Maria Maggiore at Rome, which
represent the siege of Jericho and other scenes from the Old Testament. The mosaics
in the church of St. Paul beyond the walls belong to the sixth century, as do also the
mosaics in the churches of Torcello, near Venice, and of Grado in Illyria, where the
patriarch of Aquileia had fixed his residence about the year 565. To the seventh and
eighth centuries are to be attributed several Madonnas, also Si. Agnes, Si. Euphemia,
a Nalivily, and a Transfiguration. To the ninth belongs the famous mosaic of the
Triclinium, which St. Leo caused to be added to the Lateran palace for the celebra-
tion of the ayaTrr/. This mosaic represents Charlemagne, in the midst of his court,
receiving a standard from the hands of St. Peter. Until this period it is difficult to
distinguish between the work of Italian artists and that of the Greeks. There is no
PAINTING IN MOSAIC.
doubt that during the time between the invasion of the barbarian.-> and liic tenth
century there were many mosaics executed in Italy by Italians, but there is no doubt,
also, tliat a great number were done by CJreeks.
After the tenth century, the darkest period of the middle ages, the work of the
Greek artists in Italy is no longer conjectural but historical. In the eleventh centur)',
under the Doge Selvo, the Venetians brought over some Greek mosaic-workers to
decorate their Basilica of St. Mark, the construction of which had been commenced by
the Doge Orseolo towards the close of the preceding century. Their principal works
were the Baptism of Christ and the celel)rated ' Pala d'oro.' This wonderful work
of art, which still remains, forms a kind of reredos over the high altar of the church.
It was made at Constantinople, and subsequently enlarged at Venice. It is composed
of gold and silver plates coated with translucent enamel. It represents various sacred
events narrated in the gospel of St. Mark, surrounded by symmetrical ornaments.
MOSAIC riCTl'RE :
Forming the floor of a house at Pompeii.
among which are introduced semi-barbarous Greek and Latin inscriptions. There are
both on the inside and the outside of the same basilica a number of other mosaics of the
same period and by the same artists. After the taking of Constantinople by the
Crusaders (a.d. 1204), the Cireek mosaic-workers in Venice founded in that city a
corporation and a great school, which soon extendeil itself to Florence, where it
flourished until after the time of Giotto, and furnished artists to the whole of Italy.
It is also to the eleventh century that the two large mosaics in the old church of
St. Ambrose at Milan belong, one of which represents The Saviour seated on a golden
throne., having St. Gervasius and St. Protasius at his side ; the other, an event in the
life of St. Ambrose. About the same time (a.d. 1066), Didiei, abbot of Monte Cassino,
sent for Greek workers in mosaic to execute embellishments — of which portions still
remain- -for that cclchratod monastery. When, a hundred vears later, the Norman
24 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS.
William, surnamed the Good, built his famous church of Monreale, in Sicily, he
employed, for the interior decorations, Greek mosaic-workers, whom he could easily
find in Palermo without sending to the East for them. In fact, when the Normans
took possession of Sicily under Tancred de Hauteville, at the end of the tenth century,
they found a number of Greeks, who had been settled in that country ever since its
conquest by Belisarius under Justinian. As for the mixture of arabesques with
Byzantine paintings in the Siculo-Norman churches, they are evidently imitated
from the works of the Arabians, who had remained masters of Sicily for two hundred
and" thirty years until the Norman conquest, and who have left many memorials in
that country.
During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries all the mosaics executed at Rome were
the work of Florentines, pupils of 'the Greek school at Venice. We may mention
among the principal works of that time, and by those artists, those in Santa Maria
Maggiore and in Santa Maria in Trastevere, both of which represent the Assumption
of the Virgin. In the beginning of the fourteenth century, after Andrea Tafi and Fra
Mino di Turrita, the Sienese painter Duccio began to bring mosaic pavements into
vogue. On this account Vasari calls him the inventor of painting in niarhlc. It was
continued by his pupil Domenico Beccafumi, who was also a painter and worker in
metals. At the same period the decorations of the ancient fa9ade of Santa Maria
Maggiore were executed by the Florentine Gaddo Gaddi, a pupil of Cimabue, himself
a disciple of the Greeks, whom he had seen paint in Santa Maria Novella. At length
Giotto constituted himself the restorer of this mode of painting by composing his
famous inosaic of the Miraculous Draught of Fishes, usually called the Navicella, in
which we admire, not only the well-arranged colours and the harmony of light and
shade, but also a movement — ra feeling of life and action which was unknown to the
Greek workers in mosaic. After Giotto, and from the time of his pupil Pietro Cavalli,
the conventional type of the Byzantines was more and more abandoned. They had
confined themselves to putting in the figures evenly on a background devoid of per-
spective, and had made mosaics simply architectural decorations ; but now the art
followed the progress of painting step by step. Several fine works were executed in
the fifteenth century under the Popes Martin V., Nicholas V., and Sixtus IV., even in
small towns like Siena and Orvieto, and, towards the close of the century, the brothers
Francesco and Valerio Zuccato of Treviso began the magnificent modern decorations of
St. Mark at Venice. These are no longer the stiff, motionless, conventional images
of the Byzantines ; true painting is to be found in them, with all its qualities and
effects. 'J'he Zuccati executed these mosaics in the same way that frescoes were then
done, by means of coloured cartoons, furnished by the best artists, among whom were
a'fterwards included Titian himself, Giorgione, Tintoretto, and Palma.
At a somewhat later period we have Giuliano and Benedetto of Maiano, uncle and
nephew, who, both architects, brought into fashion the art of marquetry, the continua-
tion of mosaic, and carried it to the highest degree of perfection ; Alesso Baldovinotti,
a painter in mosaic, who taught his art to Domenico Ghirlandajo, Michelangelo's
master ; Mariani, the architect of the Gregorian chapel ; the Cristofori, who boasted
of being able to produce on glass cubes as many as fifteen thousand varieties of tints,
each divided into fifty degrees, from the very lightest to the darkest ; and lastly, the
Provenzale, who brought into the face of a portrait of Paul V. one million seven
hundred thousand pieces, the largest of which was not the size of a millet-seed.
(' Annotations sur Vasari,' par MM. Jeanron et Leclanche.)
ILLUMINATION OF MANUSCRIPTS. 25
We must also mention the famous copies of the Transfi^ration from Raphael ;
q{ St. Jerome, from Domenichino : oi St. Petronil/a, from Guercino, etc.: works of
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which now occupy in St. Peter's the places
of the original pictures transported to the museum of the Vatican. The authors of
these well-known mosaics carried their art to such a state of perfection as to rival all
that a j)ainter can do with the colours on his palette, even to imitating the transparency
of the sky and water, the dititerenc e between the beard and hair of men, the fur and
feathers of animals, the materials and colours of clothes, and the expression of faces, in
short, to copy all the refinements of drawing and all the charms of colouring. If in
future ages, and among the calamities of a fresh invasion of barbarians, the original
pictures were to perish, these admirable mosaics, as durable as the building which
contains them, would be sufficient to teach the men of a later age what painting was
at the greatest period of Italian art, and what those masterpieces were that are here
copietl with so much fidelity and completeness.
ILLUMINATION OF MANUSCRIPTS.
If it be true that the pictorial representation of beings and objects preceded written
language, we might carry back the art of painting on manuscripts to a very distant age,
as the first manuscripts must have been, like hieroglyphics, nothing but a series of
objects represented by drawing, ^^'e will not, however, lose ourselves in such remote
antiquity, we will merely take up the art when it was separated, by the brilliancy and
arrangement of the colours, from the simple ornaments which had been at first traced
either with a pointed pen on tablets covered with wax, or on pajHTus and parchment
with a reed dipped in ink.
After the sacred and symbolical writing of the Egyptians, we must look to ancient
Greece for the origin of this mixture of j)ainting and manuscrij)t. Pliny says expressly
that Parrhasius painted on parchment (/// vwinbranis). There is no doubt that the
' Natural History ' of Aristotle, written under the patronage of Alexander, combined
pictorial representation with the text. There must have been books of this kind in
the library of the Ptolemies at Alexandria, since under the seventh of these princes
(him who is called Euergetes II.), a "painter" was attached to the royal library.
Again, the vo/uviinn, which Paulus /Kmilius and Sulla caused to be borne before
them in triumph among the spoils of Greece, could have been nothing but these rich
manuscripts. At Rome, where the example of the Greeks was followed, there are
positive memorials of the mixture of painting with writing. It is spoken of in the
'Tristia' of Ovid (Kleg. 1), and in Pliny in Book xxviii. It is also known that Varro
added portraits to the ' Lives of the Seven Hundred Illustrious Persons,' which he
wrote. Vitruvius had combined designs with the ilescriptions contained in his
treatise ' De .Vrchitectura,' designs which, unhappily, have not come down to us.
Seneca also says that peoi)le liked to see the portraits of authors with their writings ;
and Martial seems to allude to this custom when he thanks Siertinius, " who wished
to place my portrait in his library " {qui iinaginem meant ponere in bibliothec& sud
vobiit).
It is known that, by a special order, the rescripts of the emperors were traced
in gold and silver letters on sheets of a purple colour. From this, the imperial scribes
E
26 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS.
received the name of chrysographs. The same method was adopted for the sacred
books, and also for certain secular writings, which the public veneration had surrounded
with a kind of religious homage. Thus, the Empress Plautina gave her young son,
Maximin, as soon as he could read Greek fluently, a Homer written in golden letters,
similar to the decrees of the emperors. This custom was very ancient. At a later
period, after simple embellishments had been employed, that is to say, illuminated
capital letters, margins adorned with designs, and arabesques surrounding the text,
painting at length was introduced into the manuscripts. There was then, as Montfaucon
explains (' Palaeog. Graeca,' lib. I. cap. viii.), a class of copyists who became real artists.
Usually two artists worked at the same manuscript, the scribe and the painter ; and to
the latter we may accord this title, since he himself claims it, as is shown by one cited
by Montfaucon, who signed himself Georgius Staphinus, pidor.
After the establishment of the Christian religion, and especially after its final
triumph under Constantine, this art of illumination seems to have been used exclusively
for the Scriptures, the writings of the Fathers, and liturgical works. We can trace it, as
we have already done the art of mosaic, first in the lower empire and then in Italy.
Illuminating manuscripts soon became the common occupation of the anchorets, with
whom the Christian countries of the East were quickly filled, and who gave to the
West the example, together with the precepts of the monastic life. In the fifth century
there was an emperor surnamed the Caligrapher, because of his taste for illumination.
This was Theodosius the younger, grandson of Theodosius the Great. At a later time
we find Theodosius III., who was dethroned in a.d. 717, occupying his leisure time,
when he had become a simple priest at Ephesus, by writing the Gospels in golden
letters and embellishing them with paintings.
During the triumph of the Iconoclasts there was a time when illumination was only
carried on in secret, and the emperors caused a number of these illustrated books to be
burned. But afterwards the taste returned more strongly than ever, and assumed all
the ardour of a long-suppressed religious feeling. In the ninth century, Basil the
Macedonian and Leo the Wise applied themselves to revive the art of illumination. It
was in the same century that the Emperor Michael sent to the Pope Benedict III. a
magnificent copy of the Gospels, enriched with gold and precious stones, as well as
with admirable illuminations by the well-known pencil of the monk Lazarus. In the
tenth century the East made a still more important gift to the West — the famous
Mcnology of the Emperor Basil II., which, a long time afterwards, came into the
possession of the Duke of Milan, Ludovico Sforza, then into that of Paul Sfondrati,
who made a present of it to the library of the Vatican, whence Benedict XIII. took it
in order to publish a fac-simile. This Menology was a kind of missal, which contained
prayers for every day in the first six months of the year, and also four hundred and
thirty pictures, representing a number of figures of animals, temples, houses, furniture,
arms, instruments, and architectural ornaments. The greater part of these pictures —
very curious for the illustration they afford of the history of painting, as well as for the
light they throw on the habits and costumes of the period — are signed by their authors,
Pantaleo, Simeon, Michael Blachernita, Georgios, Menas, Simeon Blachernita, Michael
Micros, and Nestor.
The custom of illuminating books lasted without interruption, in the East, to the
time of the last emperors — the Palasologi ; and since the ATeno/ogy, there are magni-
ficent illuminated manuscripts of all periods, even of that which immediately preceded
the taking of Constantinople by the Turks. One, of the eleventh century, in the
ILLUMINATION OF MANUSCRIPTS. 27
library of the Vatican, contains drawings of surgical operations. This reminds us of
the Arabs, who, not being able to embellish their manuscripts with paintings properly
so called, and being reduced, as in their mosques, to simple ornaments, added drawings
to the text of their scientific treatises. There are, for example, at least thirty diflerent
instruments represented in the manuscripts of the book of Al-Faraby, entitled ' Ele-
ments of Music,' from which the Maronite, Miguel Casiri, has translated several
l)assages in his ' Bibliotheca Arabico-escurialensis.'
We have already seen in Italy the first kings of the Ostrogoths encouraging illumi-
nation, and Cassiodorus, the minister of Theodoric, becoming a caligrajiher in Calabria.
In the ninth century an abbot of Monte Cassino, the Frenchman Bertaire, spread the
taste for illumination in the south of Italy ; whilst at Florence, many monks had made
themselves celebrated in the art of illuminating manuscripts. Vasari mentions several
of these in the course of his book. Many real painters, some of them celebrated, did
not disdain to use their pencils in illumination. Both Cimabue and Giotto had been
thus occupied in their youth. Dante, a little later, mentions Oderissi of Gubbio, and
Franco of Bologna —
" Onor di qucir arte
Ch'alluminare c cliiainata in Parisi — "
who must have enjoyed great renown, since he represents them as expiating in Purga-
tory the pride with which their skill inspired them. It was Simone Memmi, of Siena,
who painted the illuminations in the ' Virgil ' of Petrarch, preserved in the Ambrosian
Library at Milan ; and in the fifteenth century, when this art of illuminating attained
l)erfection, there flourished at Naples the famous Antonio Solario, surnamed the
Zingaro (the Gipsy), and at Florence, Bartolomeo della Gatta, who devoted himself to
the same work. Under these two masters Rent^ of Anjou, count of Provence, studied
the art of illuminating whilst disputing the crown of Naples with the princes of Arragon.
Last came the illustrious Fra Angelico da Fiesole, who left in Santa Maria del Fiore
(the cathedral of Florence) two enormous volumes, filled with illuminations painted by
his hand, and of whom it might be said, even before the execution of his admirable
pictures and monumental frescoes, that he had attained a very high position in the art
of illuminating. At the end of the fifteenth century valuable illuminated manuscripts
were executed for the Sforza, the Gonzaga, the Sicilian princes of the house of Anjou,
those among the kings of Arragon who were also kings of Naples, for the dukes
of Urbino, Ferrara, Modena, for Matthias Corvinus, king of Hungary, Henry V. of
England, Rene of Provence, and for the Medici and the popes. Amongst others we
may distinguish the illuminations of a certain Attavante, otherwise unknown, those of
Liberals of Verona, especially those of the celebrated Dalmatian, Giulio Clovio, wiio
was buried with great pomp in San Pietro in Vincula.
England also had its illuminators, who were no way behiml their Continental
neighbours in decoration. Among the Saxons at the close of the tenth centur}-,
says Sir F. Madden (in the Introduction to Shaw's ' Illuminated Ornaments ; selected
from MSS., and early printed books, from the sixth to the seventeenth century ') a
peculiar style of ornament prevailed, which for boldness, correctness of design and
richness, is not surpassed by any works executed on the Continent at the same period.
The ' Benedictional of St. Ethelwold,' belonging to the Duke of Devonshire, written and
illuminated between 963 and 970, is the most complete example of this art in England
(see the accompanying engraving). It was executed liy a monk of Hyde Abbey (then
the most celebrated place in England for such works), named Godeman, for Ethelwold.
28
ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS.
Bishop of Winchester. It is a foHo of 119 leaves of vellum, measuring 11^ inches
in height, by 8i in width, and contains thirty large and richly-coloured drawings.
(See Mr. Gage's ' Dissertation on the St. Ethelwold Benedictional ' in the ' Archseologia,'
vol. xxiv. p. 22, where all the illustrations are engraved.)
For further details on this subject we must consult the Histoirc de PArf par Ics
/^ Q (gj B © [S]
FROM ST. ETHELWOLD S BENEDICTIONAL. ILLUMINATION V.
Alo/iiiiiicnts, by Seroux d'Agincourt. He makes known, by descriptions and plates, the
most celebrated manuscripts of different centuries to be found in the library of
the Vatican, which now contains not only the library of the popes, but also those
of the electors Palatine, of the dukes of Urbino, and of Queen Christina of Sweden.
PAINTING IN FRESCO. 29
We shall rest in the conviction that, if these illuminations are not of equal excellence
with frescoes and pictures, they have at least been better preservecl, and hence, like
mosaics, are memorials of periods of which every other jjainting has been lost, and
are of great value in marking and in proving the traditional succession of art.
PAINTING IN FRESCO AND IN DISTEMPER.
\\ c have no means of learning what were the usual processes of painting among
the ancients. Neither examples of their paintings, properly so called, nor the treatises
of Parrhasius and Apelles on the theory of painting, remain to us ; and the written
descriptions are too incomplete and uncertain to enlighten us much about pictures
which have long since perished. Although Pliny relates that there were two schools,
the Greek and the Asiatic, and that the (ireek was divided into Ionic, Attic, and
Sicyonic ; although he speaks of a very fine black varnish which Apelles put on
his works when comi)lete(l, and which, while giving lustre to the colours, preserved
them from dust and damp ; althougli, further, he incjuires, without however answering
the tiuestion, who was the inventor of encaustic, or of painting by means of wax and
fire : all this teaches us but little of the processes employed by the painters of antitjuity.
The mosaics, even if copies of paintings, teach us nothing more on this subject. We
are then reduced to the paintings on walls found in excavations, which are improperly
called frescoes, and which may have differed as much from the paintings on canvas or
wood as, in modern times, frescoes difter from easel-pictures.
The fragments of Egyptian painting presei-ved in the subterranean caverns of
Thebes and Samoun, those of Assyrian painting which adorned the sculptured slabs
of Nimroud and Khorsabad, and also the remains of Grecian or Roman painting found
in the catacombs, in the baths and ruins of Herculaneum and Pompeii, are paintings in
distemper, a sort of body colour executed on a prepared plaster, with which the wall
was covered. It is indeed easy to recognise the fact that this painting does not mix
with the layer of lime, plaster, or alabaster, like real fresco, and that it may be efiaced
either by scraping or even by washing, without injuring the surfoce upon which the
pencil of the artist has been employed. But whatever the painting of the ancients may
have been, it is certain, that until the employment of oil-painting, and during the
whole intermediate time, painters only usetl fresco and distemper, or sometimes
encaustic. Fresco-painting, employed in the decoration of edifices with a view to its
remaining as a part of the architecture, is that which is executed on a single layer of
lime still fresh (J'resca) and damp, so that the colours with which this layer remains
impregnated, dry at the same time as the material itself, and become a part of the
])laster of the wall. Vasari calls this manner of painting ** the most masterly and
the most beautiful, because," he says, " it consists in completing in a single day that
whicli in other manners may be retouched at one's pleasure." Is not this to take the
van(iuished difticulty as an advantage ? Painting in distemper (<? tempera) is done on
a movable frame of wood or canvas, which forms the picture, with colours mixed in an
adhesive substance — gum or the white of an egg beaten up ; painting in encaustic
{a fiioeo), on a layer of wax covering the canvas or panel. These explanations being
given, it must be understood that until the invention of painting in oil, by the term
f'ainting or picture will I)e indicated simply a work in distemper or encaustic.
30 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS.
The works of ancient painting having all been destroyed, it is not astonishing that a
great part of the works of intermediate ages should have experienced the same fate, and
that we should find it necessary to have recourse to mosaics as well as to illuminations
in order both to prove and to mark clearly the gradual progress of art.
We have already seen that immediately after the victory of the Christian religion
over paganism, the new churches were filled with pictures. Between the time of
Constantine and the eighth century the rage for painting was carried to an extreme.
The walls of the temples and palaces were covered both inside and out, as were also
even the fronts of simple houses. The church of St. Mark at Venice may still give us
an idea of Byzantine profusion. It was an excess to be regretted, as affording the
Iconoclasts some justification for their opposition to all sacred art. But after this
Iconoclastic interval, painting was again restored to honour. All the emperors from
the ninth to the twelfth centuries, continually employed painters to represent not
only their victories but also their hunting exploits, and Constantine Porphyrogenitus,
himself a painter, found in the exercise of this talent an alleviation of his misfortunes
after his fall from the throne. The custom of representing history in pictures was
followed by the courtiers, who decorated their dwellings with paintings of the warlike
deeds of their prince. A relation of Manuel Comnenus is mentioned as having been
disgraced for neglecting thus to flatter the emperor ; and the father of Manuel, John^
Comnenus, on his death-bed (1143), said to him, " In the present critical position of
the empire, an active, enterprising prince is required, and not one who will supinely
remain in his palaces like the mosaics and paintings which cover the walls." In the
thirteenth century the emperor Michael caused the principal achievements of his reign
to be painted, and especially the triumph which, in 122 1, after the custom of the
Roman consuls, he decreed for himself Unfortunately the Turks, great destroyers of
images, in obedience to the precepts of the Koran, soon effaced all the decorations
they found in Constantinople ; and we know the Greek works of the Eastern Empire
only by fragments collected in western Europe.
These fragments serve to show that the bad effects of the Iconoclastic heresy long
survived the period of its ascendency (726-867), as by an exaggeration of severe
simplicity, the drawing of the nude was for a time entirely proscribed, and the human
figure invariably represented as clothed from head to foot.
But the same cause which for a time depressed art in the East, had a contrary
effect in Italy, inasmuch as many artists, forbidden to exercise their profession in their
native country, sought refuge in the West, and settled in great numbers in various parts
of Italy, especially in that part termed Magna Graecia. They were eagerly received
by their compatriots, who, since the campaigns of Belisarius and Narses, had dwelt in
Sicily and Naples ; by monasteries, such as that of Monte Cassino, where the celebrated
abbot Didier offered them an asylum ; and by several cities, where they founded
schools of mosaic and painting. Elsewhere, the maritime establishments of the
Venetians, the Pisans, and the Genoese, in the isles of the Grecian archipelago and on
the shores of the Bosphorus, kept up continual relations between Italy and Greece.
Objects of art, especially pictures, became one branch of their commerce. At the
period of the crusades, the nobles and the monks whom they had led to the Holy
Land brought back these Greek pictures as memorials of their conquest and as objects
of luxury or devotion. It was then that those pictures of Christ, strangely called
axetpoTToiT^rai, because it was believed that they had not been done by human hands,
were spread over Europe, and also those Byzantine Madonnas, which are called Virgins
PAINTING IN DISTEMPER. 3,
of St. Luke, usually black or brown, because of the words of Solomon, ni^a sum sed
formosa (I am black but comely). These pictures the Greek generals had caused to
be carried in front of the imperial armies against the Mussulmans, to indicate that the
Virgin Mary was their conductress.
From the foundation of these Greek schools in Italy arose a mixed school, which
replaced the primitive Italian school, and which, in its turn, was rejilaced by the school
of the Renaissance, again become purely Italian. There were, therefore, in the
general history of art, three principal intermediary periods from the ancients to the
moderns : one of them Greek in Greece and Italian in Italy ; the second, (ireco-Italian,
the time of mixed painting ; the third, entirely Italian. Curious specimens of purely
Greek painting have been preserved in different countries. For example, in Italy,
some Madonnas, by Andrea Rico of Candia, who flourished in the eleventh century,
and a great composition which represents the Obsequies of Si. Ephrem. This picture,
in distemper and on wood, was painted at Constantinople about the same period by
Kmmanuel Transfurnari, and brought into Italy by Francesco Squarcione, that old
master who founded at Padua the school which produced Andrea Mantegna. It is in
the Museo Cristiano of the Vatican library, and is considered one of the best
specimens of purely Grecian painting. Its colours, heightened doubUess by some
glazing, are so bright that many have believed it painted in oil — a manifest error.
The later Greek paintings, until the thirteenth century, show a sensible decadence even
in form. \Ve no longer find anything but fripfyc/is, pictures in three parts, a principal
one in the centre, with two wings which close over it. This shape remained in fashion
a long time, not merely amongst the Russians, who embraced the Greek confession,
but also in Catholic countries, and especially in Flanders.
In Italy — as soon as we arrive at this thirteenth century, and authentic memorials
allow the history of art to be written with exactness — we see the imitation of the
Greeks, and the servile copying of their works practised by Italian artists. It is to be
traced in everything, from the ornaments of manuscripts, and the embroider}' of the
.sacred vestments, to mosaic and poetry. It is seen in the arrangement of com-
positions, in the attitudes of the figures, in the drawing of every object, in the colours
used, and in the manner of using them. The Italians, who did not yet know how to
blend colours into each other, or to produce shade, and who knew none of the secrets
of chiaroscuro, were content to j^aint by hatching with their pencil, following the
operation which they called trattegiare, the simple placing of lines side by side. The
earliest well-known artists in each of the three most ancient schools — Giunta of Pisa,
Guido of Siena, and Cimabue of Florence — were litde more than imitators of the
Greeks.
PAINTING IN OIL.
Until now we have only spoken of painting in fresco or in liistemper ; we now
come to the last term of trailition ; and to true modern art — oil-painting.
We do not in the least know if this art was possessed by the ancients. Nothing
authorises us to believe that they used it, and that the employment of oil in tlie
preparation of colours had been merely abandoned during the mournful period of
tlie dark aijes. and thence forsjotten. through the lircakinq; uf the chain of tradition, to
32 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS.
be found once more with the other discoveries of the Renaissance. According to the
generally received opinion, it was the brothers Hubert and Jan Van Eyck, of Bruges,
who, in the commencement of the fifteenth century, found out the secret of oil-painting.
No one seriously contests the fact of their having done so, and even the Itahans
Vasari and Lanzi confess that the painters in their country learnt the process from
the Fleming, John of Bruges (Jan Van Eyck). It does not however follow that the
invention was at first so perfect that no one was able to improve upon it, or that no
one could have paved the way by preceding experiments. It has indeed been proved,
by quotations and formal testimony, amongst others by the treatises of the painter-
monk Heraclius in the tenth century, of the German monk Roger, surnamed
Theophilus, in the twelfth, and of the Italian, Cennino di Andrea Cennini, in the
thirteenth — that the brothers Van Eyck had rather the merit of a practical application
of the process than that of the invention itself
Lanzi seems to have explained perfectly well what was really the invention of the
illustrious Flemish painter. There is no doubt that, much before his time, the use of
oil was known in painting ; but the manner of employing it was imperfect, being very
slow and difficult. According to the old method only one colour could be placed on
the canvas or the panel at a time ; and to add a second, it was necessary to wait until
the first had dried in the sun, which was, according to the same Theophilus, " too
long and tiresome for figures." It is easy then to understand why distemper and
encaustics were preferred. John of Bruges, who at first did as other painters, having,
tradition says, placed one of his pictures in the sun, the wooden panel burst from
the excessive heat. This accident induced him, with the help of his elder brother,
to seek some means of drying his colours alone and without artificial help. He tried
numerous experiments with linseed oil, and succeeded at last in making a varnish,
which, according to Vasari, " once dry, no longer fears water, brightens the colours,
renders them moje transparent, and blends them admirably."
From the dates of the most ancient works of Jan Van Eyck, preserved at Bruges,
Ghent, and Antwerp, we may conjecture that he made or completed his discovery
between 1410 and 1420. But at this period communication was difficult, especially
between the countries of the North and those of the South. It was not till the
year 1442, that the king of Naples, Alphonso V., received a picture by John of Bruges
(Jan Van Eyck), since lost, but believed to have been an Adoration of the Ala gi. It is
known that anothei: picture by Van Eyck came to the duke of Urbino, Frederick II.,
and another — a St. Jerome — ^to Lorenzo de' Medici. The sight of them caused general
admiration, and it was not long before the technical methods employed were discovered
and practised throughout Italy.
According to Vasari, a certain Antonello of Messina having seen the picture at
Naples, set out for Flanders in the hope of penetrating the secret of these new
processes. He obtained the knowledge he sought by giving a large number of Italian
drawings in exchange. He could not have learnt it from Van Eyck himself, as has
long been thought, for we know that he died in 1441, but it was doubtless from one of
his pupils, possibly from Rogier Van der Weyden, who is called Roger of Bruges. On
his return to Italy, where he soon became celebrated, Antonello of Messina com-
municated his discovery to his intimate friend Domenico Veneziano, who after having
executed several works at Loretto and Perugia, established himself at Florence about
the year 1460. Without being a great artist, Domenico found in his secret a means
of incontestable su])eriority. He excited the astonishment of the public and the
PAINTING IN OIL. 33
jealousy of his rivals. The most formidable of the latter was Andrea del Castagno,
a man of great talent, but, says Vasari, of a low and ferocious character. Through
a pretended friendship he persuaded Domcnico to teach him his secret ; then, in order
to possess it alone, he assassinated the unfortunate Venetian. This atrocious crime, of
which many innocent people were suspected, remained unpunished. Andrea del
Castagno only revealed it on his death-bed. But, as if in expiation of the infamous
way in which he had obtained the secret of Domenico, he made no m\stery of it, and
announced it openly at the same time that he proved its truth by his works. Recent
research has thrown great doubt on the whole of this account by Vasari ; indeed, the
crime alleged against Andrea del Castagno has been disproved by the discovery that
Domenico Veneziano survived him by at least four years.
34 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d.
CHAPTER III.
THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE.
IT was in Tuscany, the ancient Etruria, the first teacher of Rome, that the
regeneration of art began. Nicola Pisano, a sculptor of Pisa, by studying
with care the bas-reliefs on an old sarcophagus— in which the body of
Beatrice,, mother of the Countess Matilda, had been laid, and which represented the
chase of Meleager^ — recognised the grandeur of the style of the ancients, which he
succeeded in imitating in his own works. He is called Nicola dalF Urna, on
account of having made, in 1231, the beautiful urn or sarcophagus of St. Dominic at
Bologna. If we look back at the coarse sketches of bas-reliefs by which, half a
century before, a certain Anselmo, called "Daedalus alter," had celebrated the retaking
of Milan by Frederic Barbarossa, we perceive how far this first restorer of art had
advanced. After Nicola Pisano came successively his son Giovanni, his pupil Arnolfo,
his brothers Agostino and Agnolo of Siena, then Andrea Pisano, then Orcagna, and at
last, at Florence, Donatello and Ghiberti,
"Painting and Sculpture," says Vasari, "those two sisters born on the same day
and governed by the same soul, have never made a step the one without the other."
Painting, then, must closely have followed the movement which Nicola of Pisa and his
successors had given to art. Cimabue was born in 1240 ; and Vasari, who found it
convenient to open his History with the name of the old Florentine master, says that in
his time the whole race of artists was extinct (spento affatto tutto il numero degl' artifici),
and that God destined Cimabue to bring again to light the art of paintmg. There is,
in these words of the Plutarch of painters, who endeavours to raise so high the first of
his ' Illustrious Men,' a manifest exaggeration, contradicted by all that remains to us
of that time. When Cimabue came into the world, the Pisans had already a school,
formed by the Greek artists whom they had brought from the East with the architect
Buschetto, when they raised their cathedral in 1063. There are still to be seen in
this ditomo several old paintings of the twelfth century.
Giunta of Pisa executed, about a.d. 1235, some great works in the church of
Assisi, where Padre Angeli, the historian of that basilica of the Franciscans, wrote the
following inscription : " Juncta Pisanus, ruditer Grrecis instructus, primus ex Italis
artem apprehendit." The works of Giunta, although hard, dry, and destitute of grace,
yet show, as Lanzi says, in the study of the nudes, in the expression of grief, in the
adjustment of the drapery, a real superiority over the Greeks, his contemporaries.
Ventura and Ursone of Bologna painted in the beginning of the thirteenth century ;
Guido of Siena, about 1221 ; Bonaventura Berlinghieri, of Lucca, about 1235 ; the first
A.i). 1300.] THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE.
35
Hartolommeo, of Florence, who is believed to have painted the highly venerated
. Annundation, still in the church of the Servi, about 1236; and lastly, at the same
l)erio(l, Margheritone of Arezzo, who first painted on canvas, as Vasari himself allows.
" He extended," he says, " canvas on a panel, fastening it down with a strong glue
made of shreds of parchment, and covered it entirely with plaster before beginning to
paint." Thus Margheritone united the three processes of painting, on panel, canvas, and
fresco. Cardinal Bottari, whom Vasari often cites in support of his assertions, simply
says of Cimabue, " that he was the first who left the Greek style of painting, or who at
all events went further from it than others." Hence we may conclude that, as might
have been expected, there was a progress in the tradition of art, not a new creation, and
Cimabue's merit, as a disciple of the Greeks and yet superior to his masters, as Bottari
well calls him, is sufficiently great without being styled the inventor of painting.
The fourteenth century was no less agitateil than its predecessor. The popes,
forced to leave Rome, and transporting the seat of the Church to Avignon ; Joanna I.
of Naples and her four husbands overturning Southern Italy ; the Guelphs and the
Ghibellines fighting even in the streets of Venice and Genoa, — republics which should
have had no share in their strifes ; during that obstinate war between the empire and
the papacy, the smaller states given up to civil discord and ephemeral tyrants, and
moreover attacking and absorbing one another ; Pisa obliged to submit to Florence,
and Padua to Venice ; the emperors under the necessity of selling franchises to cities,
titles and honours to military leaders; such is the abridged history of this strange
century, full of noise, agitation, and passion.
In the midst of this turmoil a steady progress was being made in the realms of
intellect. Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, by settling the Italian language and
rejecting obsolete idioms, opened a way for the whole of modern literature. The
learned Greeks, flying from Constantinople, were beginning to take refuge in Italy.
Whilst Leontius Pilatus, the guest of Boccaccio, explained and difiused the knowledge
of the tongue of Homer and Plato, Greek artists brought over the knowledge of new
modes of working, and communicated them to those who, as d'Agincourt justly
observes, " had always existed in Italy."' Such was that Andrea Rico of Candia,
the freshness and brilliancy of whose colouring has led to the supposition that,
before the discovery of oil-painting, he had emi)loyed some mixture of wax to fix
and brighten his colours in encaustic.
Art in advancing assumed a position of greater dignity. Included hitherto as parts
of the ordinary guilds, painters now — Italian and Greek — first attached themselves to
the architects and sculptors; and then succeeded in forming a separate corporation,
governed by its own statutes, under the name and patronage of .St. I.u'kc, whom
tradition calls the first Christian painter.
The statutes of the painters of Florence are dated in the year 1349 ; those of the
painters of Siena, 1355 ; and the other schools followed their example. Then, whilst
lords, princes of the church, and even sovereigns, no longer disdained to have personal,
and often intimate relations with artists, great poets, as Dante, himself an artist, and
Petrarch, who had his manuscripts illustrated, spread everywhere their fame. Thus,
before the end of the centurj', a crowd of painters are seen following in the steps of
the eminent masters, Cimabue and Giotto, of whom Dante had sung in his ' Divina
Commedia.' Bufftilmacco, the two Orcagnas, Taddeo Gaddi, Simone Memmi, Stefano
of Verona. Gherardo Stamina, Andrea di Lippo, continued and brought the art
forward from the point where Giotto had left it.
36 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1400.
At last the fifteenth century dawned, and Art advanced towards perfection. The
popes, who had returned to Rome in 1378, had resumed their works of embeUishment.
Martin V., Sixtus IV., Benedict XL, Urban VIII. , and especially the learned
Nicholas V., who first conceived the idea of the new St. Peter's, freely ordered
works of architecture, statuary, and all kinds of painting, then practised in fresco and
mosaic, and finally, as soon as the invention became known, in oil.
The emperors now retained but a nominal dominion in Italy, and the expedition of
Charles VIII. to Naples, lasting only one year, was merely a passing flash of foreign
rule in the midst of an age in which Italy remained more thoroughly Italian and more
free than in any other.
This period is characterised by a rising emulation among the different states of
which Italy was then composed, each endeavouring to excel its rival in the empire of
art, which recals those ancient times when the Peloponnesus, Attica, Greece proper, the
Isles of the Archipelago, and the towns of Asia Minor, disputed the pre-eaninence in
high art. At Milan, the Visconti and the Sforza, particularly Ludovico il Moro, whose
court was called Reggia dclle Aluse ; at Ferrara, the house of Este ; at Ravenna, the
Polentani ; at Verona, the Scala ; at Bologna, the Asinelli ; at Venice, the doges ;
and lastly, at Florence, the family of the Medici, from Giovanni and Cosmo I. to
Lorenzo the Magnificent, father of Leo X.; all these secular princes carried on this
noble strife of emulation with the popes. The sciences were also called in to the
assistance of art, and fresh discoveries helped it forward.
In the beginning of the century (from 141 o to 1420), the brothers Hubert and
Jan van Eyck, of Bruges, if they did not invent oil-painting, at least first showed its
real value. Engraving on copper and wood followed the invention of printing, and
thenceforth insured immortality and wide diffusion to the art of drawing, as printing
had already given to letters and to science. The grotcschi (the fragments of ancient
decorative painting found in the excavations or groftc), copied, imitated, and multiplied
by Squarcione and Filippo Lippi, strengthened those lessons of correct taste and the
knowledge of true beauty which the remains of the statuary of the ancients had given.
Lastly, physics and mathematics, which had led to the discovery of a new world, and
soon afterwards led to that of the great laws of the universe, lent a fraternal support to
the arts. It was indeed by the help of geometry that the illustrious architect,
Brunelleschi, and the painters Pietro della Francesca and Paolo Uccello, created in a
manner the science of perspective.
Art was now cultivated with so much passion, and admired with such sincere
enthusiasm, that it was employed in everything, and became as common as bread and
air. Painting was no longer confined to the decoration of temples, of palaces, and
public buildings ; it penetrated also the houses of citizens and artisans, even for
domestic objects. Men painted the walls of their apartments, their movable
furniture, and their chests for clothes ; they painted shields for war and the
tournament, and the saddles and harness of horses. In Tuscany and the Roman
states no girl was married without having received her wedding presents in a cassone, or
large chest, painted by some master (Giotto, Taddeo Gaddi, Simone Memmi, and
Orcagna, did not disdain to paint these cassoni), or without having a good picture, not
merely among her treasures, but as part of her dowry, and mentioned in the marriage
contract. What a long list of great painters unrolls itself before us in this the
fifteenth century ! Masolino da Panicale, who sensibly improved chiaroscuro ; the
two Peselli, the two Lippi, Era Giovanni Angelico da Fiesole, Bartolommeo della
A.D. I400.] THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE. 37
Gatta, Benozzo Gozzoli, who painted an entire wing of the Campo Santo in
Pisa ; Masaccio, surpassing all who preceded him ; Antonello da Messina, who went to
Flanders to discover the secret of Jan van Kyck, and taught it to the Italians;
Andrea del Castagno, Andrea del Verrocchio, the two Pollajuolos, Francesco Francia,
the Bellini, Ghirlandajo, and Perugino. After them, and towards the close of the
fifteenth century, we find at the same time Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo,
Giorgione, Titian, Raphael, Correggio, Fra Bartolommeo, and Andrea del Sarto.
At the opening of the sixteenth century, Art in all its branches had obtained in Italy
the highest possible degree of perfection ; but we have long since jiassed the limits of
our subject, which only embraces historically the traditions by which modern painting
is connected with ancient art.
It is not only in Italy that this chain of tradition is found. It is to be traced
everywhere, as well in the north as in the south. The art of the middle ages was not,
any more than the Italian art of the Renaissance, of spontaneous growth. It was not
a tree without roots, a child without •\x\cq%\.ox?>,'M\o\\\qx proles sine mat re crcata. Like
Italian art, it derived its origin from the Byzantines, who had preserved, though not
without modifications, the ancient art of Rome and Athens. There is no doubt of the
fact that, in the times of the iconoclastic emperors, in the eighth century, some
Byzantine artists took refuge in Germany, as others did in Italy, and that the
sovereigns in their palaces, the bishops in their cathedrals, the abbots in their
monasteries, eagerly employed these foreigners. Others came in the train of the
(keek Princess Theophania, who married Otho II. in the following century. It is also
beyond doubt that the successors of Charlemagne, who was crowned Emperor of the
West at Rome, frequently brought from their states in Italy to those in Ciermany,
artists educated in the Byzantine schools of Venice, Florence, or Palermo. Otho III.,
for example, had for his painter and architect an Italian named Giovanni, who could
only have been a pupil of the Byzantines established in Italy. From the eleventh
century, when the Venetians and Normans of Sicily sent for (ireek mosaic-workers to
embellish their oriental basilicas of St. Mark and Monreale. all the arts in Germany —
aichitecture, sculpture, and painting— became Byzantine.
At the time of the Crusades, the intercourse with the East became more acti\ e, and
the models more common. The nobles, and the monks who followed their standards,
brought back into every jxxrt of Euroi»e. Byzantine paintings, valued by them as objects
of luxury as well as devotion, and notably those Greek Madonnas, so long looked upon
as the work of St. Luke. Ciermany kept uj) this intercourse both with the Greek
empire — through its frontier jjrovinces and the trade on the Danube — and with Italy,
where the ever-recurring (|uarrels of the i)oi)es and the emperors lasteil until the end
of the thirteenth century.
German art of the fourteenth century was then, like Italian art, founded on that of
the Greeks of the Eastern empire, and, like Italian art, it soon asserted its indepen-
dence. It had already thrown off the traditional symbolism of Greek religious art, and
had aimed at the free imitation of nature in the full independence of the artist The
German ])aintings of the fourteenth century are still called Byzantine ; but merely
because, before the invention of oil-painting, artists employed the Byzantine processes
of painting on a gold background, and in distemper, with encaustics to brighten and
preserve the colours. However, they are free from the shackles of symbolism, and
enjoy all the liberty which the great Giotto and his disciples had obtained in Italy.
38 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d.
ROMANESQUE SCHOOL.
And now, in order that students may the more easily refer to the Avorks of each
painter under his own particular school, we propose to give short biographical accounts
of all the principal masters, enlarging more fully on those of the most distinguished.
Giunta of Pisa was born in 1202. We have already mentioned the frescoes
painted in the church of Assisi, in 1235, Let us take the most important of them,
the Crucifixion. It is a very large composition, of fine and noble conception, but
in it the personages are symmetrically arranged, grave and motionless, as in Greek
compositions, always in strict submission to the rules then universally followed by
painters. The colouring, much inferior to that of the earlier examples, is composed
only of yellowish and reddish tints, which, standing out from a dark background, indi-
cate the flesh and the draperies. A thousand minor details besides disclose the
Grecian origin of this picture ; thus, the figure of Christ is fastened to the cross
by four nails, and his feet are placed on a large tablet, serving as a support, ac-
cording to the constant custom of the Greeks ; the angels also are clothed in long
garments, and their bodies terminate in empty clothing, under which nothing indicates
either legs or feet ; they end /;/ aria, as Vasari says, another feature wholly Byzan-
tine. Among other existing works attributed to this artist, are a Crucifixio?i in San
Ranieri at Pisa ; a picture of Saints in the chapel of the Campo Santo ; and a
Martyrdom of St. Peter in San Francesco at Assisi. Giunta died, it is believed, in
or about 1258.
Guido of Siena improved the style of painting imitated from the Greeks, but
still continued to copy it. It is enough to mention his great picture in the church of
San Domenico, at Siena, which bears the date 1221. In the painting of the Virgin,
the Child, and the choir of angels grouped on a gold background, it is impossible not
to recognise the style, the forms, and all the peculiarities of the painters of Byzantium.
Andrea Tafi, who was born at Florence in 12 13, is famous for having been the
first to introduce the art of mosaic-painting to his fellow-citizens. He was instructed
in this art by Apollonius of Venice, whom he induced to remove to Florence, where
they conjointly executed several important works, which were much admired. Tafi
died in his native city in 1294.
Margheritone w^as born at Arezzo in 12 16. He executed many works in that city
in tempera and in fresco. Most of the works by this artist have now perished, but
that, which, according to Vasari, Margheritone considered one of his masterpieces,
namely San Frajicesco, is still in existence. There is in Santa Croce, in Florence,
an old wooden cross painted by Margheritone which is placed by the side of a
similar work by Cimabue. Vasari says that Margheritone was even more successful as
a sculptor than as a painter ; he was also celebrated as an architect. " Weary of life,"
Margheritone died at Arezzo in 1293, and was buried in the old cathedral of that
town. There is a painting (No. 564) by this artist, in the National Gallery, represent-
ing the Virfi^in and Child, with Scenes fj-om the Lives of the Saints, which was formerly
in the church of Santa Margherita at Arezzo.
Giovanni Cimabue, who was of a noble family, was born at Florence in 1240. He
'4.a)'-^f-*
GIOVAXXl cniADUi:.
A.l). 1200.]
R OMANESQ UE SCHO OL.
39
was a more intelligent imitator of the Greeks than his predecessors, but still not
emancipated from the school of his masters, and having neither indei)endence nor
originality. Let any one examine his famous Madonna, painted for the church of
Santa Maria Novella, at Florence, and religiously preserved there to this day ; that
picture which Charles I. of Anjou went to see in tlie studio of the painter — ^that picture
in honour of which a public procession was held, with sound of trumpets, as though
to welcome in it the full revival of art ; or his frescoes in the church of St. Francis
at Assisi, or the //Vrj.r aux ani:^ts which is in the Gallery of the Louvre, and he will be
convinced that although superior to Guido of Siena, and still more to Giunta of Pisa,
THK MAl^ONNA ENTHRONED.
From the colossal picture by Cimabne, in Santa Maria Novella, at Florence.
yet Cimabue is not, as V'asari terms him, the first of Italian jjaintcrs, but, accordinq; to
the opinion of D'Agincourt and Lanzi, the last of the Cheek painters. Cimabue died
about 1302. A Madonna atid Child by this artist — formerly in Santa Crocc at
Florence — is now in the National Gallery (No. 565).
Jacobus de Turrita. The name of this artist is found inscribed on the mosaics on
the tribune of San Giovanni in Laterano, and Santa Maria >Liggiore in Rome. These
works were executed about 1290, and are in imitation of the style of Cimabue.
Jacobus di Camerino, a Franciscan monk, who assisted Turrita with the mosaics in
tlie church of San Giovanni in Laterano, is knov/n to have worked about a.d. 1290.
His compositions are in a style similar to tliosc of Cimabue.
40 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1250.
Gaddo Gaddi, who was born at Florence in 1249, '^^^ ^'^ artist in mosaic. He
executed the Coronation of the Madomia in Santa Maria del Fiore, which still exists.
This picture gained him great fame all over Italy, and in 1308 he was ordered by-
Clement V. to execute mosaics in the church and palace of San Giovanni in Laterano
which had been lately rebuilt after the fire of 1307. There is a Madonna by this artist
in the cadiedral of Pisa. Gaddo Gaddi died in 13 12, and was buried in Santa Croce.
EARLY TUSCAN SCHOOL.
Giotto di Bondone (x\ngiolo, Angiolotto, Giotto), was born at the village of
Vespignano, in 1276. It is to this little shepherd-boy, whom Cimabue found drawing
his sheep upon a stone, and whom, out of charity, he took as a student — it is to
Giotto we must ascribe the honour of having founded the modern Italian school,
and the still greater honour of having been the true promoter of the Renaissance in all
JESUS STRIPPED OK HIS VESTMENTS.
By Giotto.
the arts. A painter, sculptor, architect, engineer, worker in mosaic and illuminator,
embracing, in short, all the arts known at that time, Giotto served as a model to the
whole of Italy, through which he travelled from Avignon — where he had followed
Pope Clement V. — to Naples, where he had worked a long time for Robert of Anjou,
surnamed the Wise. At Lucca he made the plan of the impregnable fortress of the
Giusta ; at Florence he designed the Campanile, afterwards carried out by his pupil
Taddeo Gaddi ; at Rome he executed his celebrated mosaic called the Navicclla di
San Pietro. But it is the art of painting especially which is most deeply indebted to
him. Called from Padua to Rome by Pope Boniflice VIII., Giotto, by a happy
inspiration ("/^r dono di Dio" as Vasari says), freed himself entirely from the imitation
of the Greeks, and copied only from Nature. Without being less elevated, his
treatment of the subjects was more varied, more animated, and more appropriate.
A. a 1300.] ROMANESQUE SCHOOL.
41
His drawing became simple and natural, without conventional forms, or types settled
beforehand and rigidly adhered to ; his colouring also improved, and showed tints at
once true anti more deep and varicil. He revived the forgotten art of portrait-
painting ; he first daretl to employ foreshortening and perspective ; he carried
draperies to a perfection which remains unsurjiassed ; he found expression, to the great
astonishment of his contemporaries, who might have said of him as Pliny of the (ireek
Aristides, " He painted the soul, and expressed human feelings." This painting, which
the men of that time called miraculous, was indeed real painting— art escaped from the
trammels of servitude. Giotto also improved the materials and the technical ])rocesses
of his art. as the preparation of colours, and of the wooden panels and canvas, On
viewing the princii)al works of Giotto, dispersed over the whole of Italy— for example,
the series of pictures called the Life and Death of San Francesco ifAssisi—wQ recog-
nise how much he surpassed his immediate predecessors ; in his pictures we see Italian
separating itself from Greek art ; we understand and repeat the magnificent praises
heaped on him by Dante, Petrarch, Pius II., and by Poliziano, who makes him say:
"Ille ego sum per qut-m pictura extincta revixit" (I am he through whom extinct
painting has again lived).
A\ hen Pope Boniflice wished to decorate the interior of St. Peter's he despatched
an envoy to Florence and Siena for examples of the ability of the fiimous artists of
those cities. Giotto simply sent a circle drawn in red paint with a brush, without aid
of compasses. This circle was so true that the Pope was more struck with it than
with the elaborate specimens of the other competitors. According to Vasari this
is the origin of the well-known saying, " Rounder than the O of Giotto." Giotto dieil
at Florence in 1336, and was buried with much pomj) in the Cathedral.
Taddeo Gaddi was born at Florence in 1300. He was a son of the before-
mentioned Gaddo Gaddi, after whose death he resided for twenty-four years with
Giotto, who was his godflither. Taddeo is the most distinguished of Giotto's scholars.
Vasari attributes to him the five subjects from the Life of the Magdalen on the altar-
piece of Santa Croce in Florence. Taddeo was equal, although not superior, to his
mstructor, Giotto, in exjjression, and was undoubtedly the best artist of his time. He
was also distinguished as an architect ; he acquired great riches, by which means he
established his flimily, which was for many centuries one of the most important in
Florence. His most distinguished scholars were Giovanni da Milano and Jacopo da
Casentino. Of his sons Giovanni antl Agnok>, the former died young, after having
given great promise as an artist; the latter will be mentioned immediatelv. Rumohr
has shown that Taddeo Gaddi was still living in 1366, but it appears that year was
also the date of his death. There are three of his i)aintings-(Nos. 215. 216, 579) in
the National Gallery.
Agnolo Gaddi, who was born about 1326,- excelled in colour and the technicalities
of his art. He was a son of the above-mentioned Taddeo CJaddi, whom he imitateil.
He painted several large works, especially in Santa Croce, and realised a considerable
fortune, cliiefly through his painting and mercantile pursuits. Agnolo Gaddi died
in 1396.
Buonamico Cristofani, called Buffalmacco, was born 1262. and was a pupil of
Andrea Tafi. Rumohr and Kugler and many other writers have doubted his existence,
but his name has been discovered in the register of tlie Florentine Company of
Painters, with tlie dale 1351 (Crowe and Cavalcaselle. vol. i. \\ 3S7, note). Boccaccio
G
42 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1350.
nicknames him Bufifalmacco, and some suppose that the name Buonamico, used
by Ghiberti, is a nickname also. Vasari mentions many works by Buffahiiacco, few
of which still remain. Of these, some are in the Campo Santo and some at Arezzo.
Others, which no longer exist, are mentioned by Vasari, as being superior to those
at Pisa and Arezzo ; he adds that Buftalmacco, when he chose, could paint as well as
any of his contemporaries. Most absurd stories have been related of this artist by
Vasari, and by Boccaccio in his ' Decameron.' He seems to have been a man of
a keen sense of humour. Vasari states that he died in 1340, but Baldiucci says he
was still living in 135 1, as indeed the date in the register of the Florentine painters
proves.
Giovanni Jacopi, who was called Giovanni da Milano from his birthplace, was
a pupil of Taddeo Gaddi, and to him, together with his fellow-worker Jacopo da
Casentino, Gaddi intrusted the care of his two sons, Giovanni and Agnolo, the former
of whom died young. Giovanni painted several works in conjunction with his
instructor, but nothing now remains of them. Very few works by his own hand alone
still exist. The date of his death is unknown; he is known to have painted about 1360.
Stefano, called Fiorentino, was born at Florence, in 1301. He was called " La
Scimia della Natura " — ^the ape of nature — because he copied nature so closely. He is
supposed to have been the father of Giottino. All his most celebrated pictures in
Florence and Rome have perished, but he deserves to be mentioned, not only on
account of his having been a pupil of Giotto, but because, according to Vasari, he
surpassed his master in every branch of his art. There is no authentic picture by him
in Tuscany. Stefano died in 1350.
Giottino, who was so called from the resemblance of his works to those of Giotto,
was born at Florence, 1324. His real name has never been discovered. Vasari
speaks of him as " Tommaso di Stefano," called Giottino. Ghiberti mentions some
frescoes in Santo Spirito at Florence, and says they are by one Maso, and Vasari
mentions the same frescoes, only remarking that they are by Giottino. The inference
is that Maso and Giottino were the same. He is supposed to have been the son of
the above-mentioned Stefano Fiorentino. Vasari says he finished his works with
great care. Giottino died in 1356.
Pietro Cavallini was born at Rome in the latter part of the thirteenth century. He
was one of the earliest painters of the modern Roman School, He was both painter
and architect, and also worked in mosaics. Cavallini assisted Giotto in the naviceUa of
the porch of St. Peter's : and some of his own mosaics, in Santa Maria in Trastevere,
are still in existence. All his paintings have now perished ; the last were destroyed by
the fire in 1824, which consumed almost the whole of the Basilica of San Paolo,
though a few mosaics by the same artist were spared. Manni and Lanzi state that he
died in 1344; but Vasari says he was still living in 1364, and that he was eighty-five
years old when he died.
Don Sylvester, a Camajdolese monk, was celebrated for his illuminations. Very
few of his works still exist. A few drawings by liim are in the Liverpool Institution.
He painted about 1350.
Andrea da Florentia is celebrated for having painted several frescoes in the Campo
Santo at Pisa. Several illustrations of the life of San Raniero, after having been for
a long time attributed to Simone Memmi, have been finally ascertained to be by
A.D. 1350.] ROMANESQUE iiCIIOOL. 43
k _^^__
Andrea da Florentia and Antonio da Venezia ; Andrea doing the three upper ones,
and Antonio the three lower. Tliis artist painted about 1380,
Andrea di Clone, c illcd Orcagna, was born at Florence, according to Vasari, in
1329, some say about 1315 to 1320. He was the son of one Cione, a celebrated
goldsmith of Florence. To Rumohr is due the credit of first discovering that the name
given to this artist was 1' Arcagnuolo (the Archangel), corrujjted by Vasari into
Orcagna, and by which he is usually known. The Triumph of Death and the
Last Judgment in the Campo Santo were supposed to be by Orcagna and his brother
Bernardo Cione, but Signor Cavalcaselle, by recent research, has proved that this is
incorrect, for the style is not like that of the known works of this artist in Santa
Maria Novella. Orcagna was painter, sculptor and architect. He was also a poet,
and Vasari mentions some sonnets which he addressed to Burchiello. Orcagna
painted, in conjunction with his brother, the Heaven and Hell from Dante in the
Strozzi chapel. He also painted the Triumph of Death in Santa Croce. The
Coronation of the Virgin by Orcagna, now in the National Gallery (No. 569), was
formerly an altar-piece in the church of San Pietro Maggiore in Florence; in 1677
it was removed to the Delia Rena chapel; and in 1857 was purchased from the
Lombardi-Baldi collection by the trustees of the National Gallery. This picture is
painted in tempera on wood ; in the middle is Christ crowning the Virgin, with two
angels standing on each side of the throne ; in each of the side pictures are twenty-
four saints kneeling in adoratiofi. Nine other pictures (Nos. 570 to 578 inclusive)
were formerly portions of the Coronation of the Virgin. Orcagna was the greatest
of all Giotto's followers, and appears to have been a man of great genius and of
noble mind. He died at Florence in 1376.
Antonio da Venezia, one of the best of the Italian painters of the fourteenth century,
was born about 1309, Vasari says, at Venice; Baldinucci states that he was a native
of Florence, Antonio studied with Agnolo Gaddi at Florence, and acijuired a certain
likeness in style to that artist. He was employed by the seignorj-- of Venice to paint
one of the walls of the council-hall in fresco, which he did in a masterly manner, but
owing to some petty jealousy he did not receive a reward befitting the work, and
consequently left Venice in disgust, and went to Florence, where he had previously
resided for some time. There he painted in the convent of Santo Spirito, and elsewhere,
but all these works have since perished. From Florence he went to Pisa, and
executed several paintings in the Campo Santo illustrating the life of San Raniero,
which was begun by Andrea da Florentia. Tow^ards the close of his career he turned
physician, in which capacity he obtained great fame. Antonio da Venezia was
remarkable for the purity of his colouring, the truth and grace of his composition and
beauty of expression. He died of the ])lague at Florence in 1384.
Jacopo Landine, called Jacopo di Casentino, was born at Prato Vecchio in the
Cascntino, about 13 10. He studieil under Taddeo Gaddi, and, as has been before
stated, sharetl with Giovanni da Milano in the education of Agnolo Gaddi. He exe-
cuted a large number of works in his native place, and in Arezzo and Florence. In
1350 he founded the academy of St. Luke in the latter city, in the chapel of which
he painted one of his most famous pictures, .S7. Luke draicing a portrait of the Virgin.
Jacopo's most celebrated scholar was Spinello d' Arezzo, who was the last painter of
merit of the school of Giotto. His best work, which represents St. John the Ei'angelist
44 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1350.
. »
lifted np into Heaven, with various saints, and other scenes from the Ufe of the
EvangeUst, in all twenty-two pictures, is in the National Gallery (No. 580). This
picture was formerly in the church of San Giovanni Evangelista, at Prato Vecchio,
and was purchased from the Lombardi-Baldi Collection. A Predella in the Ufhzi
(No. 1292) is also by this artist. Jacopo was chiefly famous as a fresco painter. He
died at the age of eighty, in his native place, about 1390.
Spinello di Luca Spinelli, commonly called Spinello Aretino, was born at Arezzo,
about 1330. He was a pupil of Jacopo Casentino, whom he surpassed. He worked
chiefly at Casentino, Arezzo, Pisa, and Florence. He obtained a reputation by the
frescoes he painted in a church dedicated to San Niccolb at Arezzo ; these procured him
an invitation to decorate the choir of Santa Maria Maggiore in Florence. At Arezzo
he painted, also in the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, frescoes illustrating the
History of Lucifer, and the Fall of the Angels, which have been recently destroyed.
Spinello painted the frescoes in the Campo Santo, illustrating the lives of SS. Efiso
and Potito, which he finished in 1392, and which are considered by Vasari to be his
masterpieces. A Coronation of the Virgin is in the Academy at Florence. A picture
in the National Gallery (No. 581), St. John the Baptist^ with SS. John the Evangelist
and James the Greater, was formerly in the Hospital church of SS. Giovanni e Niccolb,
near Florence. It was purchased, with many others from the Lombardi-Baldi Collection
in 1857. Vasari says that Spinello's sketches were better than his pictures, and that
he was a better painter than Giotto. He excelled in expression, and though his
execution is slight his colouring is good, and he painted drapery with great skill.
The absurd story that Vasari relates of Spinello's dying from fright at the apparition
of Lucifer, who had come to reproach him for painting him too black in his frescoes
of the History of Lucifer, is entirely refuted by the fact that Spinello was living long
after the reputed vision. The date of his death is uncertain, but he died at a great age
— Vasari says ninety-two — at Arezzo, about 141 8.
Cennino di Andrea Cennini, a distinguished scholar of Agnolo Gaddi, was the author
of the earliest existing treatise on painting — ' Trattato della Pittura ' — which was
written in 1437. It has been translated into English by Mrs. Merrifield.
EARLY SIENESE SCHOOL.
Duccio di Buoninsegna was born at Siena about 1260. He was the first of this
school to throw aside the Byzantine style and to strive to imitate nature. In 1285 he
entered into a contract to paint, for 150 florins, an altar-piece for the chapel of the Virgin
in Santa Maria Novella at Florence. His masterpiece, which still exists, is the high
altar-piece in the Cathedral of Siena. It occupied him from the 9th of October,
1308, till the 9th of June, 13 10, when it was carried with great pomp — like the Madonna
of Cimabue — to the cathedral.
For this great work Duccio received only sixteen soldi (or pence) a day, but the
materials, Avhich were very costly, owing to the amount of gold and ultramarine used,
amounting to upwards of 3,000 gold florins, were supplied for him. As the high
altar was open all round, Duccio painted pictures on both sides. The front
represented the Virgin and Child, with numerous saints and angels, and four bishops
A.D. I350.] J<OMA.\ESQLE SCHOOL. 45
kneeling in front. On the back were twenty-six scenes from the life of our Lord, from
the Entry into Ji-nisalttn to the Mcttin\; at Evnnaus. It was removed from the altar,
in the early part of the sixteenth century, to make room for a tabernacle, and then
after having been divided, the halves were placed in the choir, where they still remain.
A Triptych (Xo. 566) by Duccio is in the National (iallery ; it represents the
Maihmna and Child with atii^i-ls. Above, is David with six prophets, and on the doors
are St. Dominic and St. Catherine. One of the finest works by this artist — indeed,
it is usually said to be second to none but the altar-piece in Siena cathedral — was
in the collection of the late Prince Consort. Delia Valle supposes Duccio to have
died about 1340, but Rumohr makes the date about 1320.
Segna di Buonaventura was a jjupil of Duccio. He painted at Siena, between the
years 1305 and 13 19. A picture on which his signature "Hoc opus pinxit Segna
Senensis " has recently been discovered, is in the church of Castiglione Fiorentino,
near Arezzo (* Handbook of Painting,' Lady Eastlake). A portion of an altar-piece by
him is in the gallery of Siena, in which he signs "Segna me fecit" on the .sword of
St. Paul. A painting by him in the National Gallery (No. 567) represents Christ on
the Cross, with the Virgin and St. John at the side. This was formerly in the Vanni
Collection, ami was bought from the Lomliardi-Pakli Collection.
Simone Martini, called Simone Memmi, was born at Siena in 12S3. He was called
Mcmmi by \'asari and Lanzi, ])robab]y from the fact that he married the daughter of
Memmi di Filipuccio, who was the father of Lippo Memmi. Some writers suppose, on
the authority of Vasari, that he was a pupil of Giotto, but there seem to be no
sufficient grounds for such a supposition. He was, however, his rival, and Petrarch
mentions them together in a letter : " I have known two excellent painters — Giotto of
Florence, whose fame with the moderns is great, and Simone of Siena." An early
work by Simone is a fresco in the Palazzo Pubblico at Siena, re])resenting the Madonna
and Child. This fresco has formerly been ascribed to an unknown painter, Mino, but
is now generally believed to be the work of Memmi. There are only two frescoes by
Simone in his native city — the one mentioned above, and an equestrian figure in the
Sala del Consiglio. There is a jHcture in San Lorenzo Maggiore at Naples, representing
the Archbishop of Toulouse eroicnin:^' his brother Robert of JVaples. In the chapel of
San Martino at Assisi, Simone i)ainted several frescoes— portraits of eight saints — and
others illustrating the Life of Si. Martin. These frescoes are considered very fine,
especially in the portraiture, in which capacity he greatly excelled. He is believed
to have been assisted by Lippo Memmi, his brother-in-law, in the altar-piece of
Sant' Ansano at Siena: this work is now preserved in the Uffizi. In 1338 Simone
moved, with his wife and brother Donato, to the papal court at Avignon, where he
had the society of the poet Petrarch. Here he is recorded to have painted the portrait
of Laura, which, unhappily, no longer exists. A small panel jiicture by him is now in
the Liverpool Institution. It represents the subject of the text, •' Behokl, thy Hither
antl I have sought thee sorrowing." Some say that Simone painted portraits for
Petrarch's sonnets; and a few illuminations in a MS. Virgil in the .\mbrosian Library
at Milan are ascribed to him. Petrarch wrote two sonnets (Nos. 56 and 57) on this
painter, which have given him an undying fame. Simone Memmi |)ainteil with much
grace and care, but with a total lack of perspective. He died in 1344-
Lippo Memmi was born at Siena, in what year is not known. He was chielly
famous for having helped Simone in some of his pictures. He also finished some that
46 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1350.
were uncompleted when Simone died. Though a better colourist, he was not equal
to his brother-in-law. Lippo painted in Siena, San Geniignano, and Orvieto. One of
the best specimens of his work is in the Berlin Museum. Lippo Memmi was still living
in 1361.
Pietro Lorenzetti, called by Vasari Pietro Laurati, was born at Siena, about the end
of the thirteenth century. The first record of his painting was in 1305, but this
picture no longer exists. His earliest work extant is dated 1328. A Madonna and
Child, signed " Petrus Lorentii de Senis, 1340," is in the Ufifizi. Pietro painted much
in conjunction with his younger brother, Ambrogio, who is better known than himself.
A painting by him is in the Stanza del Pilone — a room near the sacristy— of the
Cathedral of Siena, and is signed " Petrus de Senis me pinxit a. mcccxlii "; it represents
passages from the life of John the Baptist. An altar-piece by him is in the Church of
Arezzo. Vasari says that Pietro's fame was greater than either Cimabue's or Giotto's ;
and mentions many pictures by him in various cities of Tuscany, and among others
the frescoes of the Early Fathers and Hermits — for some time ascribed to Orcagna
— in the Campo Santo at Pisa. In 1355 Pietro is said to have painted twelve stories,
in fresco, from the life of the Virgin, in the Cathedral of Arezzo, but they have long
since perished, though they existed in the time of Vasari, who restored them, and
called them the best that had been done in Italy. In his painting Pietro was a close
imitator of nature, and was famous for the spirited action of his figures; he was
especially fortunate in representing strong impressions on the faces of his portraits. It
has been ascertained that Pietro Lorenzetti married, and lived chiefly at Siena, but the
date of his death is not known ; some say he died of the plague in 1348.
Ambrogio Lorenzetti, like his brother Pietro, was born at Siena, about the end of
the thirteenth century, or the beginning of the fourteenth. We learn that they were
brothers from the following inscription, which was formerly attached to the pictures of
the Presejitation and the Marriage of the Virgin ■ — " Hie opus fecit Petrus
Laurentii, et Ambrosius ejus frater, 1330." Ambrogio painted much in conjunction
with his elder brother. His principal picture, which is described by Ghiberti as
a wonderful thing for a painted story — ^" per una storia picta mi pare una maravigliosa
cosa" — exists no longer. It was painted in the Minorite Convent at Siena, and
represented the Adventures and Death of some Missionary Monks. Of the other
I)ictures by this artist mentioned by Ghiberti, one only remains, the Presentation of
the Virgin /« the Te//iJ>le, dated 1342, in the Scuole Regie, but it is much injured. He
painted three immense allegorical pictures in the Sala delle Balestre, in the Palazzo
Pubblico of Siena, representing the Effects of Good and Bad Government. They
occupied him from 1337 to 1399. There are several pictures in various galleries
attributed both to Ambrogio and Pietro Lorenzetti, without evidence of their author-
ship, but there is a genuine one by Ambrogio in the Academy of Siena, representing
the Annunciation. In painting he came nearer to Giotto than any others of the Sienese
School, and is placed by Ghiberti before Simone. His brother Pietro deserves the same
fame. The date of Ambrogio Lorenzetti's death is unknown.
Taddeo di Bartolo was born about 1362. The earliest specimen of his art is an
altar-piece, painted for San Paolo of Pisa, dated 1390 : this picture is now in the
Louvre. In 1400-1401 Taddeo painted in tlxe Palazzo Pubblico; but of the works
he executed then only nine small panels exist. In 1403 he painted, at Perugia, an
altar-piece representing the Virgin and Child, ivith St. Bernard and tivo Angels. A
A.D. 1400.] ROMANESQUE SCHOOL. 47
Descent of the Holy Ghost, also painted in 1 403 in the church of Sant' Agostino at
Perugia, is especially to be admired. In 1406 he was commissioned to paint jiictures
on the walls of the chapels of the Palazzo della Signoria at Siena, representing
incidents in the Life of the Virgin. Taddeo di Bartolo upheld the Sienese School by
the excellence of his painting, but he did not raise it above the style of his prede-
cessors. He died in 1422.
Ansano di Pietro Mencio was licjrn in 1406. He was a very prolific painter, which
fact, perhaps, helped to keep him in a lower grade than he might otherwise have held.
His paintings were less crude than those of his predecessors, and he is remarkable for
the delicacy of his execution. He is sometimes called " Angelico da Siena," from the
resemblance of his painting to that of the celebrated Fra Angelico. A Virion and
Saints, now in the Academy of Siena, in which gallery there are no less than forty-
seven pictures by Ansano, is signed and datetl 1443. The most important work by
him is a fresco of the Coronation of the Viri^in, in the Palazzo Pubblico at Siena,
dated 1445. He died in 14S1.
Matteo di Giovanni di Bartolo, called Matteo da Siena, was born at Siena (?) about
1435. He was considered one of the best Sienese painters of his time, though he was
decidedly inferior to his Florentine contemporaries. The Madonna della Neie at
Siena is a fine example of his art; it is signed and dated 1477. Matteo painted
several pictures rejjresenting the Murder of the Innocents, two of which are still
])reserved in Siena. A Madonna in the Sienese Academy, engravcil in Rosini. is
a good specimen of this artist. Matteo da Siena died in 1495.
48 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS [a.d. 1300.
CHAPTER IV.
THE FLORENTINE SCHOOL.
AT the period of the Renaissance — notwithstanding the aspirations of Dante — Italy
was divided into a number of states ; every state had its own school, and
hence every school requires a separate history. We shall conform to this
necessity by following the usual division, and, having already spoken of the Early schools
of the fourteenth century, shall begin with Florence ; for in a history of Italian art it
is to Florence that the first rank most incontestably belongs.
We have seen that the celebrated Tuscan Giotto was the great promoter of the
revival in all the arts. After him, the most illustrious name found in the annals of
Tuscan painting is that of a monk to whom public admiration gave, even during his
lifetime, the title of " Fra Beato Angelico."
Guido di Pietro, born in the town of Vecchio in 1387, took the name of Fra
Giovanni da Fiesole when he entered the order of Dominicans in that town in 1407.
Modest, simple, pious, charitable, sober, and chaste, Fra Angelico. set a good example in
virtue as well as in talent. He refused the archbishopric of Florence, and caused a poor
monk in his convent to be nominated by Nicholas V. instead of himself. A very labo-
rious and fertile painter of altar-screens, frescoes, pictures, and illuminations, he never
painted without a special prayer, nor commenced any work without the permission of
his prior ; and he never retouched any of his works, saying that God wished them to
be as they were. After Fra Angelico, his pupil Benozzo Gdzzoli alone remained faithful
to strictly religious and mystic art, without any intermixture from pagan antiquity.
The date of the birth and death of Fra Angelico show sufficiently that he painted in
distemper, for he could only have known oil-painting at the close of his life, at an age
when an artist no longer changes his processes. Among the best of the numerous
works he has left is his Descent from the Cfoss, which is to be found in Florence, in the
Academy of the Fine Arts. But there is in the Louvre one of the finest works of the
Angelic Painter. The Coronation of the Virgin is a large composition which contains
more than fifty figures, and is surrounded besides by seven medallions, in which the
miracles of St. Dominic are represented — he being the patron saint of the convent for
which the picture was painted. It is of this noble work that Vasari says, " Fra
Giovanni surpassed himself in a picture ... in which Jesus Christ crowns the
Virgin in the midst of a choir of angels and saints ... so varied in attitude and
expression, that one feels an infinite pleasure and delight in regarding them. It seems
A.U. 1400.]
FLORENTINE SCHOOL.
49
as if the happy souls can look no otherwise in heaven ; for all the saints, male and
female, assembled here, have not only life and expression most delicately and truly
rendered, but the colouring of the whole work seems done by the hand of a saint or
angel like themselves. As for myself, I can affirm with truth that I never see this
work without finding in it something new, nor can I ever satisfy myself with a sight of
it, or have enough of beholding it." This Coronation of the Viri^in, about which
August Schlegel has written a whole volume, and which M. Paul Mantz rightly calls
" an enormous miniature," was placed for a long time in the church of San Domenico
at Fiesole, and in some degree worshipped as a holy relic of its saintly author. Th6
Predella of an altar-piece formerly in the same church is now in the National Gallery
(No. 663). This picture contains two hundred and sixty-six figures, " so beautiful "
says Vasari, " that tliey appear to be truly beings of paradise." Fra Giovanni died
at Rome in 1455, and was buried in Santa Maria sopra Minerva.
CORONATION OF THE VIRCIN.— BY KRA ANGELICO.
/// the Miisettm, of the Loinn; Paris.
Tommaso di Cristoforo Fini, called Masolino da Panicale, was born af Florence in
1383. Masolino has hitherto been chielly known by frescoes in the Carmine— which
he probably commenced, but recent research has proved that many of them are the
works of Masaccio and Filippino Lippi. Some frescoes, signed " Masolino da Florentia
pinxit," have lately been brought to light in the church of Castiglione d'Olona near
Milan, which are believed to have been completed in 1428 for Cardinal Branda
Castiglione; and are undoubtedly by Masolino. He is supposed to have been the
instructor of Masaccio. He died in 1430. h
50 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1400.
Don Lorenzo, called II Monaco, was a Camaldolese monk who lived at the beginning
of the fifteenth century. The most famous of his remaining works is a Corotiatioji of
the Virgin in the Abbey at Cerreto, painted in 141 4. One of his best preserved
paintings is in the Bartolini chapel at Florence, where he mostly resided. Two
side wings of an altar-piece in the National Gallery (Nos. 215, 216), of the school of
Taddeo Gaddi are attributed by some writers to II Monaco, and indeed Vasari says
that he adhered to the style of that master, though he seems to have acquired a little
from that of Fra Angelico. The dates of 11 Monaco's birth and death are unknown.
Andrea del Castagno, who was born in 1390 in Castagno in Mugello, near
Florence, was the son of a peasant, and an orphan when very young. He was first
induced to study painting by an itinerant artist. Attracting the attention of Benedetto
de' Medici, he was sent to Florence, where he practised his art under very straitened
circumstances. Castagno has long been accused of the murder of his friend and
fellow-artist, Domenico Veneziano, from whom it is said he learned the secret of oil-
painting, that he might be the sole possessor of the knowledge of that art. This
accusation is simply refuted by the fact that Domenico survived Castagno by about
four years. Castagno's style of painting is anything but pleasing, it shows a coarse
\ igour in which form and colour are very unattractive, though his outlines are bold and
full of life. He executed a portrait of Niccolo di Tolentino — in imitation of an
equestrian statue — in the Cathedral of Florence. He also painted Pazzi, and other
conspirators concerned in the murder of Giuliano de' Medici, hanging by their feet, on
the fagade of the palace of the Podesta, by which he earned the name of Andrea degli
Impiccati (of the hanged). This was his best work, but it has long since perished.
Andrea del Castagno died in 1457, and was buried in Santa Maria dei Servi.
Domenico Veneziano was probably born in Venice or in one of the Venetian states.
The first record we have of him is in 1438, when he was working at Perugia ; in 1439
he was paintmg in the Chipel of Sant' Egidio in the Church of Santa Maria Nuova at
Florence, with Pietro delta Francesca and Bicci di Lorenzo as his assistants. After
this Domenico may have gone to Venice for a time, and acquired the secret of varnish
painting of Antonello da Messina who had lately imported the Van Eyck method
into Italy. Vasari says that Domenico returned to Florence and painted the Chapel of
Sant' Egidio in oil. As we have stated above (see Andrea del Castagno), the story
told by Vasari, of Castagno killing Domenico after having learned the secret of oil-
painting from him, is now entirely refuted.
Though Domenico was probably a Venetian, yet his style of painting is far removed
from that of the Venetian school. The only surviving specimens of Domenico's art are
an altar-piece in tempera in Santa Lucia de' Bardi at Florence, and a fresco, originally a
tabernacle on the wall of a house in the Canto de' Carnesecchi ; the principal part,
representing the Madonna enthroned, is in the possession of Prince Pio at Florence.
Two heads — part of the same — are in the National Gallery (Nos. 766, 767) ; they were
obtained by Sir Charles Eastlake, and bought from his collection. Thus of the
two surviving works of Domenico, one is executed i?i tempera, and the other is a
fresco, so we have little beyond Vasari's statement to prove that he ever painted in oil.
Domenico Veneziano died at Florence in 1461.
Paolo Doni, called Paolo Uccello, from his love of painting birds, was born at
Florence in 1396. He was apprenticed to Ghiberti the sculptor, and assisted him in
the construction of the first pair of his celebrated gates for the Baptistery of Florence.
T O ^1 M A S O G U I D I.
(Masaccio.)
Page SI.
A.D. I
400.]
FLORENTINE SCHOOL.
Uccello, as he is commonly called, was the first to reduce to rule the principles of
perspective, and has been called the founder of linear perspective, though Pietro dcUa
Francesca seems to have more justly deserved that title. Uccello studied geometry
with his friend Giovanni Manetti, with whom he used to read Euclid. Vasari says
that he wasted so much time over his favourite science of perspective, that he became
" more needy than fomous"; and his wife complained that he sat up the whole night to
study it, and the .only answer she got to her remonstrances was. Oh ! die dolce cosa e
qucsta prospettiva — what a deliLihtful thing this jwspective is ! He painted frescoes in
terra vcrdc of the Crcati -n of the World and History of Noah, in the cloisters of Santa
Maria Novella, at Florence ; they arc very much damaged by the weather and neglect,
but still show his excellence in perspective. In the Cathedral of Florence there is a
colossal figure of Sir John Hawkwood (called by the Italians, Giovanni Aguto), an
English adventurer, who died in the Florentine service in 1393 ; this, too, is in terra
verde, and is signeil Pauti Ueeelli Opus. It cannot have been a i)ortrait from life, for it
THE CALLING OF ST. PETER AND ST. ANDREW.— BY MASACCIO.
In the Church of the Carmelites, Florcuce.
will be seen that Hawkwood died before the artist was born. Uccello also painted
some Giants in the Casa de' Vitali in Padua, which, says Vasari, were greatly admired
by Andrea Mantegna. Each giant was painted in a single day for one ducat— a
large price, considering the value of money at that time. The same writer records
four pictures by Uccello, of battles painted for the Bartolini family in Gualfonda. Of
these, three are still extant, one in the Uftizi, one in the Campana (^.allcry in the Louvre,
and the third and finest in the National Gallery (No. 583). It represents the Batth-
of Satif Ef^idio (in 14 16), and is painted in tempera on wood. On a i)anel, now in
the Louvre, Uccello painted the heads, life-size, of Giotto to represent Painting, Dona-
tello for Sculpture, Brunelleschi for Architecture, Manatti for Mathematics, and
himself for Perspective. He died at Florence in 1479, and was burietl in SanUi Maria
Novella.
Tommaso Guidi, better known as Masaccio (the sloven), the son of a poor shoe-
maker, was born at Castel San Giovanni, according to recent researches, in 1402.
Masaccio differs entirely from the monk of Fiesole ; he drew in the style of Michel-
52 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1400.
angelo, and with much of his force. Unfortunately, dying young, he left but few
works. Munich possesses a Monk's Head in fresco ; a St. Antony of Padua, in dis-
temper and on wood ; and the portrait of the painter, wearing the red cap of the
Florentines, like Dante and Petrarch. In the National Gallery is His own portrait
(No. 626), ascribed to Masaccio, but now believed to be the work of Filippino Lippi.
At Florence, in the museum of the Uffizi, is an astonishing Head of an Old Man, said
to be painted by Masaccio, but this also is now considered doubtful. It is at the
church of the Carmine in that town that we can study and admire him best. It is there
that his great frescoes are to be seen ; the Expulsion from Paradise; the Tribute
MoJiey ; St. Peter baptizing; and the Infirm cured by the shadoiv of St. Peter. This
series of frescoes was begun by Masolino, and finished by Filippino Lippi fifty years
after the death of Masaccio. Masaccio died at Rome in 1429, in his twenty-seventh
year. Sir Joshua Reynolds said that he was the first who discovered the path that
leads to every excellence, and may therefore be justly considered one of the fathers
of modern art.
Fra Filippo Lippi was born in Florence, probably in 1412. This artist, according
to Vasari, was one who disgraced his profession in his private life ; but many doubts
have since been throAvn on the story, which may be briefly thus related. Left an orphan
at an early age, Lippi was placed by an aunt — Mona Lappaccia by name — in the
Carmelite Convent del Carmine when eight years old. He soon displayed great talent
and liking for painting, and the prior wisely allowed him to follow his favourite
amusement as a profession.
In 1432, at about the early age of twenty, on leaving the convent, Lippi gave up the
frock, — so says Vasari,— and during a pleasure excursion from Ancona, he and his
companions were taken prisoners by Moorish pirates, and carried slaves to Barbary.
After eighteen months' captivity Lippi drew a portrait of his owner with charcoal on
a white wall, which excited so much wonder and admiration among the Moors, that his
master, after getting him to execute several works in colour, sent him safely back to
Italy. He landed at Naples, where he stayed only a few months, and then returned to
Florence. In 1458, while employed in painting at the Convent of Santa Margherita,
he carried off Lucrezia Buti — a young Florentine lady, who was being educated by
the nuns — and who was afterwards the mother of Filippino Lippi.
No evidence has been found of his reputed stay at Ancona, his capture by pirates,
or his residence in Naples, at which town he is supposed to have landed on his return
from Barbary. When he left the Convent of the Carmelites in 1432, he does not
appear to have given up the frock, for later in life he signs himself " Frater Filippus,"
and in the register of his death in the Carmine Convent, he is called " Fr. Filippus."
As regards the tale of Lucrezia, it is not likely that a monk who had led a scandalous
life would have been appointed chaplain of a nunnery in Florence, and rector of San
Quirico at Legnaia, both of which facts are now certain ; therefore it is better to give
Lippi the benefit of the doubt, especially as everything which has since been discovered
tends to show the fallacy of Vasari's statements regarding him, and nothing has been
found to corroborate them. It is supposed by some that Filippino Lippi was an
adopted son of this artist.
In the Convent del Carmine, Filippo Lippi is said to have studied under
Masaccio, who was at that time employed in the chapel of the convent, but it is more
probable that he studied more from the pictures of that master than from the artist
himself. He painted frescoes both in the church and convent, and amongst others
A.D. 1450.] FLORENTINE SCHOOL. .3
the Confirmation of the Rules of the Carmelites, in the cloisters ; these are no longer
in existence; those in the church were destroyed by fire in 177 1. Lippi painted
frescoes in Prato from 1456 to 1464, with numerous interruptions. He died at
Spoleto — it is supposed of poison administered by Lucrezia's friends (Vasari)
Octol)er 8th, 1469, He was buried in the Cathedral of Spoleto, and a marble
monument was erected over his grave by Filippino Lippi, at the desire and the cost
of Lorenzo de' Meilici.
Lijipi was an excellent draughtsman, but he understood neither perspective nor
foreshortening. He was exceedingly fond of elaborate ornamentation, and excelled
especially in colouring, in which branch of his art he must be allowed to stand pre-
eminent among the painters of his time. He painted various pictures in Florence,
Fiesole, Arezzo, and Prato, in the choir in the Duomo, in which place are his most
important works — frescoes representing the History of St. Stephen. Vasari calls the
Martyrdom of St. Stephen his masterpiece. A Nativity, in the Louvre, in which
Lucrezia is represented as the Virgm, generally attributed to Lippi, is now said to be
by some other painter. He painted frescoes from the Life of the Viri^in in the
Cathedral of St. Catherine at Spoleto, but died before the completion of the work,
which was afterwards finished by his scholar Fra Diamante. Pictures ])y Lippi are in
most of the principal galleries of Europe— notably that of Berlin. In the National
Callery there are five (Nos. 248, 586, 589, 666, 667). representing respectively, the
Vision of St. Bernard, painted about 1447, for the Palazzo de' Signori ; the Madonna
and Child enthroned, supposed to have been painted about 1438, for Gherardo di
Bartolommeo Barbadori, for the church of Santo Spirito of Florence ; an A?igel pre-
senting the Infant Christ to the Virgin; the Annunciation; and St. fohn the Baptist
and six other Saints ; the two last were painted for Cosmo de' Medici, and bear his crest.
Benozzo di Lese di Sandro, known as Benozzo Gozzoli, was born at Florence in
1420, He was the scholar of Fra Angelico, whom he assisted in the Cathedral of
Orvieto. In 1450 he painted several pictures in the churches of San Fortunato and
San Francesco at Montefalco, near Fuligno. In these pictures the style of his
instructor may readily be traced.
In 1469 Gozzoli went to Pisa and commenced his celebrated frescoes in the
Campo Santo ; these are a continuation of those by Pietro di Puccio on the north wall,
and represent the History of the Old Testament from the time of Noah to Solomon.
They are twenty-four in number, and occupied him till 1485. He was, by agreement,
to pamt three every year, and to receive for each 66 lire or about ten ducats (equivalent
to about ^100 at the present time). In 1478 the authorities were so much pleased
with the work already done, that they presented Gozzoli with a somewhat solid
testimony of their approbation, in the shape of a sarcophagus bearing the following
inscription : Hie tumulus est Benotii Florcntini ,/ui proximc has pinxit historias. Hunc
sibi Pisanorum donavit humanitas mcccci.xxviii., the date of which led Vasari into the
pardonable error of supposing that tliat was the year of his death; subsequent
documents have proved that he died after 1496, probably in 149S.
In 1479 Gozzoli was at Florence for a time, and decorated the walls of the Palazzo
Medici (now Riccardi) with scenes from X\\c Journey of the three Kings to Bethlehem.
The walls next the altar are covered with choirs of angels (see woodcut), which are
painted with great feeling and tenderness.
In early life Gozzoli studied the works of Mas.iccio in the Brancacci cha] el.
54
ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1450.
especially as models for his figures, but in later life he adopted a style of his own.
He painted landscape backgrounds overflowing with towns, houses, rivers, and trees,
THE ANGELIC CHOIR. — BY BENOZZO GOZZOI.I.
In f/ie Riccardi Palace, Florence.
and whenever he had room he put into his pictures all kinds of animals, both domestic
and wild, and birds of all sizes. In painting interiors he displayed great richness of
v.n. I450.] FLORENTINE SCHOOL. 55
form in his architecture, and his colours were bright and cheerful. The easel pictures
of this artist are scarce. The Academy of Pisa possesses two ; the Louvre, one, .SV.
Thomas Aquinas. In the National Gallery there are two ; the Vir^n and Child
enthroned (No. 283). This picture was painted by contract, no other hand but
Gozzoli's was to touch it ; it was to be completed within a year after the signing of the
contract, and was to be similar in mode and ornamentation to the Vir^n enthroned,
by Fra Angelico, over the high altar of San Marco, Florence (now in the Florentine
Academy). The National Gallery picture was originally the altar-piece of the
Compagnia di San Marco, Florence. It became the property of the Rinuccini family,
and was purchased from their heirs in Florence. The Rape of Helen (No. 591),
this little picture was formerly in the possession of the Marchese Albergotti of
Arezzo; it was i)urchased in 1857 from the Lombardi-Baldi Collection.
Alessio Baldovinetti, who was born at Florence in 1422, is supposed to have been
the pupil of Paolo Uccello, and claims the lionour of having been the teacher of
Ghirlandajo. He was particularly renowned for the minuteness of his painting ; and
was much interested in mosaic-work. In 1481 he repaired the mosaic over the portal
of San Miniato al Monte. Very few works of this artist now remain. There is a
fresco by him in the church of the SS. Annunziata, and a Vir^nn and Child m the
Uffizi. Baldovinetti died in 1499. ^^^ was buried in San Lorenzo at Florence.
GiuUano d'Arrigo Giuochi, called Pesello, was born in 1367. There is great
confusion as regards this artist and his grandson Francesco Pesellino ; and very little
has been ascertained of him. He is known to have been a great animal-painter ; and
is said to have kept all kinds of creatures, wild as well as tame, in his house in order to
be able to paint from nature. No certain work remains by him, but Sir Charles
Eastlake considered that the Adoration of the Magi in the Uffizi— if by either— was by
the elder Pesello. Giuliano died in 1446 (?).
Francesco di Stefano called Pesellino, the grandson of the above-mentioned
Giuliano Pesello. was born at Florence in 1423. His father died before he was five
years old, and he was consequently brought up by his grandfather. He is said to have
been the scholar of Fra Filippo Lippi whose style he greatly copied. No signed work
by this artist has yet been discovered, and very few authenticated pictures by him now
remain. Two paintings, illustrating the Triumph of David, in the Palazzo Torrigiano
at Florence, are attributed to him ; and a Predella by him is in the Casa Buonarroti at
Florence, but his masterpiece is a Trinita in the National Gallery (No. 727), represent-
ing the Eternal Father, seated, surrounded by Cherubim and Seraphim, and encircled
by a Nimbus. It is painted in tempera on poplar wood, in the form of a cross, and
was formerly in the church of Santissima Trinith in Pistoja ; it was afterwards in Mr.
Ottley's collection, and was purchased for the trustees, at the Davenport-Bromley
sale. Pesellino was one of the best painters of the fifteenth century ; he died in
1457, at the early age of thirty-five.
Antonio PoUajuolo was born in Florence about 1430, the exact date is uncertain.
He was apprenticed to the goldsmith Bartoluccio, the step-fuher of Cihiberti ; and
subsequently assisted the latter in modelling his celebrated gates for the Baptistery of
San Giovanni, which were completed in 1452. Soon after this, Antonio PoUajuolo
started as a goldsmith on his own account, in which capacity he became very famous.
He was also celebrated as a sculptor. In 1484 he was invited by Pope Innocent VIII.
to Rome, where he executed the monument of Sixlus IV., in 1493- ^-^"^^ on the death of
56 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1450.
Innocent VIII. he also erected one to that pope. Both tombs still exist in St. Peter's.
We know that Pollajuolo made his will in 1496, died in 1498, and was buried in San
Pietro in Vinculis. It was not till late in life that Antonio took to painting,
when he executed several important works in conjunction with his younger brother
Pietro ; they excelled especially in knowledge of anatomy, and Vasari tells us that they
were the first who had recourse to dissection for the purpose of art ; their works are
mostly remarkable for muscular action, as may be seen in the Hcrades overcoming the
Hydra and tlit T)cat/i of Afitcms both in the Uffizi. It is difficult to determine the
work of one brother from that of the other ; a masterpiece, which is usually
attributed to Antonio alone, is the Martyrdom of St. Sebastian, in the National Gallery
(No. 292). This was finished in 1475 f'^r the altar of the Pucci chapel in the church
of San Sebastiano de' Servi at Florence, and was purchased of the Marchese Pucci in
1857. This is supposed to be one of the first Italian pictures painted in oil, but
though not tempera, the vehicle is not that which was used by the Van Eycks. Two
other pictures by Antonio Pollajuolo are in the National Gallery. The Virgin adoring
the Infant Christ (No. 296), formerly ascribed to Ghirlandajo, was originally in the
possession of the Contugi family of Volterra, and was purchased by the trustees in
1857. The Angel Raphael acco7npanies Tobias on his journey into Media (No,
781), was formerly in the collection of Count Galli Tassi at Florence. Other
pictures by this artist are in Florence and in various other public galleries on the
continent.
Pietro Pollajuolo, the younger brother of the above-mentioned Antonio Pollajuolo,
was born at Florence in 1443. He was a pupil of Andrea del Castagno, and worked
a great deal in conjunction with his brother Antonio. Pietro has only left one signed
work of his own, a Coronation of the Virgin., in a church of San Gimignano. He
shared with Antonio the fame of being the first to study dissection for art purposes,
and of being the first Italian to abandon tempera and work in oil. The date of Pietro's
death is uncertain, — it was before 1496.
Andrea Verrocchio, who was born at Florence in 1432, was a goldsmith, sculptor,
architect, carver, painter, and musician. He first made himself famous as a goldsmith,
both in Florence and Rome ; then he turned his attention to sculpture, and became,
according to Baldinucci, a pupil of Donatello ; in this branch of art he became most
famous, especially for his equestrian statue of Bartolomeo Colleone at Venice. There
is only one certain painting by Verrocchio, the Baptism of Christ, in the Accademia of
Florence. It is related that he asked his pupil, Leonardo da Vinci, to paint an angel in
this picture, and that Avhen it was completed he was so disgusted with his own work that
he gave up painting and confined himself to sculpture. Vasari mentions many designs
and cartoons by Verrocchio, but it is difficult to determine what is really his work or that
of Leonardo da Vinci, and it may be that many now attributed to the latter are by the
former. Paintings in various public galleries have been ascribed to Ghirlandajo,
Pesello, the PoUajuoli, Lorenzo di Credi, and Leonardo, thus showing that there
must have been great similarity in the styles of these artists. Andrea Verrocchio died
at Venice in 1488, of a cold he caught in casting his celebrated statue of Colleone.
His body was removed by Lorenzo di Credi to Florence, and was placed in the vault of
Michele di Clone in the church of Sant' Ambrogio ; over the vault is the following
inscription : " S. Michaelis de Cionis et Suorum et Andr^ Verrocchi, filii Dominici
Michaelis, qui obiit Venetiis mcccclxxxviii." Among Verrocchio's scholars may be
A.D. 1500.] FLORENTINE SCHOOL. 57
mentioned, besides Leonardo da Vinci, Pietro Perugino, and Lorenzo di Credi,
painters ; Nanni C.rosso and Francesco di Simone, sculptors.
Cosimo Rosselli, who was bom at Florence in 1439, was instructed in art by Nerodi
Bici, to whom he .was sent when fourteen years old. He remained with this master
till 1456, in which year he painted his celebrated picture representing the Removal of a
Minulc-u>orking Chalice from the Church to the episcopal Palace, in a chapel in the
Church of Sant' Ambrogio at Florence. In 1480, he, with numerous other celebrated
jjainters, was invited to decorate the chapel — now known as the Sistine — in the Vatican ;
the Pope offering a prize for the most successful designs. Conscious of his inability
to cope with his more renowned and more skilful competitors, among whom may be
mentioned Ghirlandajo, Signorelli, and Perugino, and ecjually conscious of the Pope's
ignorance of art, Rosselli loaded his pictures with high colours and ornamentations,
which would be likely to please the eye of one who merely desired decorations
for his chapel, and thus gained the prize. Rumohr observes that Rosselli at first
adhered to the style of Fra Angelico and Masaccio, but, after a few examples of
his brilliant ability, he forsook the study of those masters and of nature for a lifeless
and unpleasing mannerism. The frescoes in the Sistine chapel still exist; of these
the Sermon on the Mount is undoubtedly the best. Those from the Life of Moses and
tlie Last Supper are very inferior. Rosselli made his will in 1506 ; after that year,
nothing more has been recorded of him. There is a picture by Rosselli in the National
Gallery (No. 227), St. Jerome in the Desert, with various saints. It was formerly an altar-
piece in the Ruccellai chapel, in the church of the Fremiti di San Girolamo at Fiesole.
It was purchased of Conte Ricasoli, of Florence.
Luca d'Egidio di Ventura, called Luca Signorelli, and sometimes Luca da Cortona,
was born at Cortona in 1441 (?) — some writers say in 1439. He was a pupil of the
celebrated Pietro della Francesca, with whom he worked at Arezzo in 1472. Luca was
one of the competitors for the prize offered by Pope Sixtus IV. for paintings in the
Sistine Chapel in 1480, and his History of Moses is worthy of great praise. In 1484
he returned to Cortona, which he afterwards made his home. His native city still
possesses several of 'his works ; a Deposition from the Cross, and a Last Supper are
in the Cathedral. In 1484 Luca painted the altar-piece in the Cappella Sant' Onofrio in
the Cathedral of Perugia ; it represents a Madonna enthroned with saints. The design,
though hard, is full of power, and displays a beautiful conception of the subject ; this
picture may justly be considered one of Signorelli's masterpieces. In Siena he painted
frescoes in the Convent of Monte Uliveto and in the Petrucci Palace. In Volterra
altar-pieces by his hand still exist. The most famous of all Signorelli's paintings are
the frescoes of the Last Judgment in the chapel of San Brizio in the Cathedral of
Orvieto. This great work was commenced in 1447 by Fra Angelico, who executed the
figure of Christ and the attendant saints and angels. After waiting a considerable
time for Perugino, the authorities engaged Signorelli to finish it. By the contract, which
is dated April 5th, 1499, Signorelli undertook to complete the ceiling for 200 ducats
and the walls for Coo ducats, besides free lodgings and two measures of wine, and two
quarters of corn per month. The ceiHng was finisheil in 1500, but the date of the
completion of the walls is not known, though, judging from the time Signorelli took to
execute the ceiling, it was i)robabIy about 1503. Tlie frescoes comprise the History of
the Antichrist; the Resurrection of the Dead; ILll and Paradise. Great power and
vigour are ilisplaycd in these i\ainlings, especially in the naked figures and the
I
58
ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1500.
foreshortening. Vasari says that Michelangelo always admired Signorelli's works, and
that he adopted some of his inventions in regard to forms of angels and demons.
He also tells us that Signorelli was a man of high and noble character and was
'^'^f ^l i'
TllK MADONNA KNTllRUNED. AN AL'l'AR-PlECE— BY LUCA SIGNORELLI.
Ill the Academy of Fine Arts, Florence.
respected and beloved by all. Signorelli was still living in 1524; the exact date of his
death is not known.
Sandro Filipepi, called Botticelli, from the name of a goldsmith to whom he was at
fust ai)prcnticed, was bora at Florence in 1447. He was afterwards a scholar of Fra
^
SAXDRO F I LI PEP I.
(Botticelli.)
/•; -, SS.
A.D. i^oo.l FLORENTINE SCHOOL.
5<)
Filippo, whose style, to some extent, he copied. Between 1480 and 1484 Botticelli
painted in the chapel of the Vatican — afterwards known as the Sistine Chapel — for
Pope Sixtus IV., frescoes illustrating the Life of Moses anil the Temptation of Christ.
Twenty-eight figures of the Popes, between the windows, are also by this artist. The
Madonna and Child with angels in the UHizi is attributed to the early part of his
life ; the angels are supposed to represent members of the Medici family. Botticelli's
pictures are especially noticeable for the natural expression given to the faces.
Among his most imj)ortant works may be mentioned, the Venus and the Calumny
of Apelles in the Uffizi : an allegory of Spriu}:;, and a Coronation of the Virgin in
the Accademia ; and an Adoration of the Kint^s, painted for the church of Santa
Maria Novella, in wliich the kings were ])ortraits of Cosmo, Giuliano, and Giovanni
de' Medici. Botticelli illustrated Dante's ' Inferno,' and attempted to engrave his
designs : how many he did is not exactly known, but those which are attributed to him
are not worthy of so great a painter. Three pictures, in tempera, rejjresenting the
Afadonna and Child — of which subject he jjainted a great number — are in the National
Gallery (Nos. 226, 275, and 7S2). Botticelli died in great poverty at Florence in
1515 (Vasari says 1510), and was buried in the church of the Ognissanti.
Domenico Corradi, called Ghirlandajo, from the flxct that his flither, a goldsmith,
was famous for his garlands — made either of hair or silver for the adornment of
the Florentine women — was born at Florence in 1449. It was at first intended
that he should follow his father's business, but the ability he displayed in drawing the
portraits of passers-by, induced his fother to apprentice him to Alessio Baldovinetti.
In 1480 Domenico executed some frescoes in the Vespucci Chapel of the Ognissanti,
which were whitewashed over in 1616 ; a fresco of St. Jerome in the nave, and a
Last Supper in the refectory, executed in the same year, are still in existence. In the
Palazzo \'ecchio at Florence is a i)icture of St. Zenohio enthroned., and two other
saints. On the invitation of Pope Sixtus IV., Ghirlandajo left Florence and went
to Rome, to compete in the decoration of the Sistine Chapel. He painted there
the Calling of Peter and Andre^o, undoubtedly superior to the productions of
his fellow-workers in point ot c omposition ; and the Resurrection of Christ, which has
been greatly injured and very badly restored. In 14S5 he had finished the frescoes of
the Life of St. Francis in the Sassetti Chapel in the Trinity Florence. In 1490
Ghirlandajo was employed to replace the damaged frescoes of Orcagna in the choir of
Santa Maria Novella, and he there illustrated the Life of the Virgin :ind oi John the
Baptist. In the picture representing the Birth of the Virgin, he has introduced the
portrait of a celebrated Florentine beauty, Ginevra de' Benci, attired in a magnificent
dress. As portraiture was the first branch of art which Cihirlandajo attempted, so
was it the branch in which he excelled. He was especially fond of putting portraits
of his contemporaries — not as actors but as spectators — into his pictures ; Kugler
compares them to the chorus in the Greek tragedies. Ghirlandajo also excelled in
mosaics, though little that he did remains to this day. He will always be famous as
the master of the celebrated painter and sculptor Michelangelo. He died in 1498, or
probably a little earlier. Frescoes executed by Ghirlandajo are in the chajjcl of San
Fina at San Gimignano, between Florence and Rome ; and pictures by him are in
various ])ul)lic galleries; an Adoration of the Magi in the Uffizi, an Adoration of the
Shepherds — in which a sarcophagus does duty for a crib — and one other, in the
Florentine .Xcadeniy ; a Visitation in the Louvre, and others in the Dresden and
Munich galleries and in private collections.
6o ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1500.
Filippino Lippi was born at Florence in 1460, Some writers think this is too late
a date. He was the son, either by birth or by adoption, of Fra Filippo Lippi, from
whom he takes his name. On the death of the Frate in 1469, Filippino became the
scholar of Sandro Botticelli. In 1480, he painted the Vision of St. Bernard in the
Eadia at Florence. In 1485 he was employed to complete the frescoes — left
unfinished by Masolino and Masaccio — in the Brancacci Chapel in the Church del
Carmine in Florence, where he also painted St. Paul before Nero, the Crucifixion of
St. Peter., and St. Peter liberated f'om Prison. In 1492 Filippino visited Rome and
painted, for Cardinal Caraffa, frescoes illustrating the Glorification of the Madonna and
of St. Thomas Aquinas, in the Cappella Caraffa, in Santa Maria sopra Minerva.
Returning to Florence from Rome, he painted the Histories of the Apostles John and
Philip in the Strozzi Chapel of Santa Maria Novella. There are three pictures by
Filippino in the National Gallery. The Virgi7i and Child (No. 293) painted for
the Ruccellai Chapel in the church of San Pancrazio at Florence ; purchased of
Cavahere Giuseppe Ruccellai. The Adoration of the Magi (No. 592) formerly in the
possession of the Marchese Ippolito Orlandini, of Florence ; purchased from the
Lombardi-Baldi Collection; and a St. Francis in Glory (No. 598), formerly in the
collection of the Marchese Giovanni Costabili at Ferrara, from which it was pur-
chased. In the National Gallery, a reputed Portrait of Masaccio (No. 626), said
to be by Masaccio himself, is considered by Mr. Wornum and other writers to
be the work of Filippino ; as also is another so-called Portrait of Masaccio in the
Uffizi. Filippino, though not equal to Fra Filippo in the higher qualities of art,
surpassed him in general details ; he followed more closely the style of Botticelli than
that of the Frate. His pictures are especially to be noticed for the richness of their
architecture and drapery. Fihppino Lippi died at Florence, April 13th, 1505.
Raffaellino Capponi, called del Garbo (the graceful), was born at Florence in 1466.
He was at first a pupil of Filippino Lippi, but later in life studied the styles of Michel-
angelo and Raphael ; in these, however, he was not so fortunate, for his later works do
not possess the charm and beauty of his earlier productions. Among his best paintings
are, a Madowia and Child, attended by two angels, a very graceful and pleasing work,
in the Berlin Museum, where there are four other pictures by him ; a Resurrectiori
in the Florentine Academy ; and a Coronation of the Virgin in the Louvre. He also
executed paintings on the ceiling of the chapel of St. Thomas Aquinas, in Santa Maria
sopra Minerva at Rome, but these are in his latter style. Raffaellino died in 1524.
Francesco Granacci was born at Florence in 1469. He was a fellow-pupil with
Michelangelo in the studio of Ghirlandajo, and was much attached to the former,
whose style he at first greatly imitated. Granacci was one of those artists who went to
Rome to assist Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel, but when the master, finding he
could not manage to get on with his assistants, shut both the door of the chapel and of
his own house against them, Granacci was justly incensed. Not many pictures by this
artist remain ; there are some in the Pitti, the Uffizi, and the Accademia at Florence,
Berlin, Munich, and elsewhere. Granacci died in 1543.
4
^ *ife;s*^
CORONATION OK I'lIK VIKGI.V. By Sanpro Bjrricm.i;
/»* tit Uffiti Catttry, FUrtm,.
A.D. 1350.] BOLOGNESE SCHOOL. 61
CHAPTER V.
SCHOOLS OF NORTHERN ITALY.
WHILE tli£ painters and princes of Florence were, as we have seen, working
together for the advancement of art and the future glory of their country,
it must not be supposed that the other cities of Italy were standing by
in idle amazement. At Bologna, Modena, and Parma, close by, and at Mantua,
Verona, and Venice, further north, there were at the same time schools of art
all emulating the Florentine, and producing masters whose names will be remembered
with never-dying fame. To treat of the rise and progress of each school separately
would be an endless task : the truest and best information we can give is through
the lives of the more eminent men, and we will begin with those of the
BOLOGNESE SCHOOL.
Vitale, one of the earliest painters of the school of Bologna, was called '' iMa
Madonna" from the frequency with which he painted pictures of the \'irgin. He was
probably born at Bologna. There is a picture by him in the Bologna Gallery, and
another in the Museo Cristiano of the Vatican. Vitale was an artist of second-rate
ability. He painted between 1320 ami 1345-
Lippo di Dalmasio also earned the title of '' lic/hi Madonna" from the number
of pictures he painted of the \irgin and Child. He was a scholar of Vitale, and
painted with great tenderness and care. One of Dalmasio's best works is a fresco
in San Procolo of Bologna. A picture by him in the National Gallery (Xo. 752),
rejjresents a Madonna and Child in a circular glory with angels above ; signed
" Lippus Dalmasii pinxit." It was formerly in the Ercolani Palace at Bologna and
was purchased from Signer Michelangelo Gualandi, of Bologna. Malvasia tells us
that Dalmasio's Madonnas were in such request and popularity, that no family
was considered rich that did not possess one. Dalmasio painted, 1376-1410; in the
latter year he made his will, and no further trace is to be found of him.
Tommaso di Barisina da Modena has been claimed by some German writers for
Bohemia, without any further grounds than the possession of some of his works.
In 1357 he went to Prague, and was employed by Charles IV. to decorate his
62 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1400.
castle of Carlstein, where there are still two pictures on panel by his hand. An
altar-piece — which was formerly there, but which is now in the Belvedere Gallery of
Vienna — representing the Virgin and Child between SS. Wenceslas and Pa/jnafii/s,
patrons of Bohemia, was said to be an oil-painting, and in Van Mechel's catalogue
to have been painted in 1297 ; but, though signed, it bears no date, and a recent
chemical analysis has shown that it is in tempera. The picture bears the following
inscription : — ■
Quis opus hoc fin-xit ? Thomas de Mutina pinxit,
Quade vides lector Barisini fihus auctor.
There is only one picture — in six parts — by this artist in Modena, of which city,
from his signature, he is believed to have been a native ; this work has been how-
ever so much damaged and restored that no opinion can be formed of it. Nothing
is known regarding his birth or death.
Jacopo degli Avanzi is chiefly known by a Crucifixion in the Colonna Gallery
at Rome. There are three pictures in the Bologna Gallery also by this master.
He painted, in conjunction with artists of no great importance, frescoes in the church
of the Madonna di Mezzarata near Bologna, which Malvasia says were praised by
Michelangelo and the Caracci ; they have, however, been whitewashed and afterwards
restored, and only fragments of them remain. Vasari says they were completed
in 1404.
Marco Zoppo was born at Bologna in the earlier half of the fifteenth century.
He studied with Andrea Mantegna in the school of Squarcione. He painted in the
Eremitani Chapel in Padua, though what part of the frescoes attributed to Squarcione's
pupils he did, is not known. A small Madonna and Child in the Manfrini Collection,
Venice, is signed " Opera del Zoppo di Squarcione. Another picture representing
the Madonna enthroned, in the Berlin Museum, is signed and dated " Marco Zoppo
da Bologna pinsit mcccclxxi in Vinexia." A St. Dominic, in the National Gallery
(No. 597), is a better specimen of Zoppo than either of the above-mentioned pictures.
It was formerly in the collection of the Marchese Giovanni Costabili, at Ferrara, from
vvhom it was purchased for the National Gallery. The dates of Zoppo's known works
extend from 147 1 to 1498.
Francesco di Marco Raibolini, commonly called Francia — from the name of the
goldsmith to whom he was at first apprenticed — was born at Bologna about 1450. At
first a goldsmith, engraver of medals, and director of the mint, Francia, who studied
secretly under old Marco Zoppo, suddenly produced before the astonished eyes of his
contemporaries an excellent painting, which he had modestly signed " Franciscus
Francia aurifex." This was in 1490, when the new artist was about forty years of age.
The well-merited praises he received for this picture induced him to add the profession
of a painter to that of a goldsmith.
There is not yet a single certain work by liim in the Louvre, though a half-
length portrait of a young man clothed in black, which was till lately ascribed to
Raphael, is thought by some to be by Francia ; and hence this painter has not received
in France all the consideration to which he is entitled. In order to make him better
known and appreciated, we do not think we could do better than quote the opinion of
Raphael, who, in a letter written in 1508, compares Francia to Perugino and the
Venetian Giovanni Bellini. He is indeed their equal, both from the merit of his works
A.D. 1500.]
BOLOGNESE SCHOOL.
and also from havinjr founded a great school. Raphael had the highest opinion of
Francia ; he loved liini, consulted him, and often wrote to him, and wlien he sent his
St. Cici/iaio IJoloijni, modestly begged Francia to correct any defects he might find in
It. It is not known on what grounds Vasari founded his assertion that the old painter
rilli VIRGIN ENTIIRONKD, ATTKNDED FiV SAINTS.— BV KRANCIA.
Jn the Piuacothcca, Bologtia.
died of grief and jealousy on seeing the superiority of the younger man's work. Vasari
was mistaken. Francia lived for sc\eral years after the arrival of the St. Ccdlia in
his native town, as Malvasia, the author of the Fclsina pittiicc, has proved ; thus
vindicating his illustrious fellow-citi/en from the careless accusation of the Florentine.
'64 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a. d. 1400.
The Pinacotheca of Bologna contains six important works by Francia, We must
mention in particular a N'ativity in the manger at Bethlehem, where there are grouped
around the Virgin-mother not only several angels, and some saints who lived long after
the event, but also Antonio Galea Bentivoglio, the son of John 11. , who ordered the
picture, and the poet Pandolfi da Casio, crowned with laurels, who, perhaps, had sung
of him in his poems. We must also mention a Glorified Madonna, whose throne is
surrounded by St. Augustine, St. Francis of Assisi, St. John the Baptist, St. Proculus
the warrior, St. Sebastian, St. Monica, and a certain Bartolomeo Felicini, who had
ordered the picture. It is signed " Opus Francice auriticis." It speaks more in favour of
its author than the others, for it is easy to make the comparison suggested by
Raphael (see woodcut). Near this picture is one by Perugino, on the same subject,
a Madonna worshipped by St. Catherine, the Archangel Michael, John the Baptist,
and St. Apollonius. It is one of the finest works of the much-loved master of
Raphael, and was as such selected to be brought to the I.ouvre, when Italy was a
province of the French empire, and conquest gave the right or the power to take from
it the masterpieces of all ages. Let any one take the pains to compare attentively
these two analogous works, and it will be soon allowed that Francia deserves the high
renown which he has attained. According to Raphael, he formed an intermediate
school between those of Florence and Venice, between Perugino and Bellini, by
uniting form and colour.
• The National Gallery has not only one of those G/oriJied Madonnas (No. 179) which
were a favourite subject with the old master — and indeed with painters of every time —
it also possesses two other works. A Dead Christ (No. 180), whose body, extended the
whole length of the frame, rests on the knees of His mother, who is in the centre. Two
kneeling angels fill the corners. In this picture the style and expression are admirable.
And what gives it the greatest merit is, the powerful colouring, rare even in this master,
who was more of a colourist than his contemporaries. This, with the Madonna men-
tioned above, formed an altar-piece originally in the Buonvisi chapel of the church of
San Frediano at Lucca. Also a Virgin and Child with saints (No. 638), purchased
from M. Edmond Beaucousin.
At Munich also there are several fine ATadonnas by Francia,' and at Dresden,
among several other pictures, may be noticed a Baptism of Christ, dated 1508. Jesus
only places His feet on tlie water, as He did later when calling St. Peter to Him
in order to prove his faith. His figure is long and thin, as is also that of St. John,
like the figures of Perugino, Bellini, Cima, and all the masters of that time. But this
Baptism, a great and lofty composition, may be considered one of the best works of
Raphael's old friend. Francia died at Bologna on January 6th, 1517.
PADUAN SCHOOL.
Giusto di Giovanni de' Menabuoi, called Padovano, or Justus of Padua, was born
at Florence in the earlier half of the fourteenth century. He was a follower of
Giotto, and studied the works which that master had executed in Padua, of which
town Giusto was made a citizen in 1375. He is supposed to have executed several
frescoes in Padua, but those in the ba])tistery of the Cathedral and in the chapel
of St. Luke of the Church of Sant' Antonio, which were formerly ascribed to hiui,
FRANXESCO DI MARCO RAIBOLINI.
(FUANCIA.)
/'.. .(-,4.
A.n. 1400.] PADUAN SCHOOL. 65
are now declared to be the work of Giovanni and Antonio da Padova, two unimportant
painters who were probably his pupils. Giusto died on the 29th of September, 1400.
The only authentic picture by him is a triptych in the National (iallery (No. 701);
it represents, in the centre, the Coronation of the Virgin, with various saints. On the
interior sides of the wings, are the Birth and Crucifixion of our Lord and the
Annunciation. On the exterior wings are various scenes in the Life of the Virgin
until her marriage. The picture is signed at the back, "Justus pinxit in archa,"
and dated in the front mccclxvii. It was formerly in the Wallerstein Collection,
and was [)resented to the National Gallery by Her Majesty the Queen.
D'Avanzo da Verona has long been confused with Jacobo degli Avanzi of
Bologna ; but the remains of an inscription in the Cappella San Giorgio point
to Verona as the birthplace of d'Avanzo. He painted decorations, in conjunction
with Aklighiero da Zevio, in the Cappella San Felice and the Cappella San Giorgio
in the church of Sant' Antonio at Padua, in 1377. It appears that the principal
frescoes in the Cappella San P'elice w^ere the work of Aldighiero ; and of those
in the Cappella San Ciiorgio, which were recovered from oblivion in 1837 by Dr. E.
Forster, the portion to be assigned to Aldighiero has given rise to much dispute ; but
it is probable that d'Avanzo executed the principal portion. The frescoes represent
the earlier part of the History of our Lord, the Coronation of the Virgin, the Crucifixion,
and legends of various saints; they prove the painter to have been an artist of
no common genius, and Kugler, in his admirable description of them, speaks of
his art as being above that of his contemporaries. D'Avanzo also painted two
triumphal processions in a public hall of Verona, which have long since perished.
He died about the end of the fourteenth century.
Aldighiero da Zevio was born at Ze\io, in the neighbourhood of \'erona. As
is stated above, Aldighiero assisted d'Avanzo in the decoration of the chapels of
SS. Felice and Giorgio at Padira. While the principal part of the frescoes in the
chapel of San Giorgio is attributed to the latter, for the former are claimed the first
seven pictures in the chapel of San Felice — formerly San Jacopo — illustrating the
Life of St. James the Greater ; and from documents it appears that the payment
for the frescoes in San Felice was made to Aldighiero. Liibke says that he displayed
in his works a lively conception and a richly furnished colouring, and, indeed, with the
exception of Orcagna's, his paintings, together with those of d'Avanzo, are the best
productions since the time of Giotto. It is not known when this artist died. He
painted as late as 1370.
Francesco Squarcione, who was born at Padua in 1394, was brought up to the trade
of an cmbruidorer ; but, abandoning that calling, he travelled in Greece and luily,
.collecting on his route many specimens of ancient art. On his return to Padua he
established a school, which was so well stocked with models that he had many pupils
— it is said that he had the large number of 137 — among whom were the famous Andrea
Mantegna and Marco Zoppo. He appears to have been better adapteil for imparting
instruction to younger artists than for painting, and whenever he received a commission
he was in the habit of giving it to his scholars to execute. It is very difficult to tell
with any certainty what pictures are the work of Squarcione or of his pupils. An altar-
piece in die Paduan Gallery is attributed to him. His signature on a small picture of
the Madonna and Child in the Manfrini Collection, Venice, is now pronounced to be
a forgery (' Handbook of Painting.' Lady Eastlake, p. 292). Squarcione died in 1474.
K
66 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS [a.d. 1450.
Amono- other scholars of Squarcione we may mention Marco Pizzolo, the most
important of those who painted frescoes in the Eremitani Chapel at Padua. The First
Person of the Trinity, in the semi-dome of the chapel, and the Virgin supported by
Cheruhim, on the apsis, are attributed to him by Vasari : according to the same
authority he perished while yet young in a street brawl :— Bono Ferrarese, who has
signed his name to the St. Christopher hearing the Infant Christ in these frescoes.
A St. Jerome in the Desert, in the National Gallery (No. 771), signed " Bonus Ferariensis
Pisani Discipulus " — thus showing that he was a pupil of Vittore Pisano — was formerly
in the Costabili Gallery, Ferrara, and was purchased from the collection of Sir Charles
Eastlake in 1867. The only known date of Bono's painting is 1461, when he was
eno-ao-ed on work in the Cathedral of Siena. His style partakes ^■ery much of that of
his fellow-pupil Mantegna : — and Gregorio Scliiavone, a native of Dalmatia ; a signed
picture by him is in the Berlin Museum. Another is in the National Gallery (No. 630),
it represents the Madonna and Child enthroned with various saints ; and is signed
" Opus Sclavoni, Disipuli Squarcioni, S." It was formerly in the Dennistoun Collection,
and was purchased at Paris from M. Beaucousin. Schiavone painted about 1470.
Andrea Mantegna, whose work and fome render him almost equal to Giotto,
allowing for the century and a half between them, was born near Padua in 1431. He
was, like Giotto, a shepherd in his childhood ; afterwards, under the lessons of the old
Squarcione, almost as precocious as Raphael under Perugino. After his marriage with
the sister of the Bellini, he joined the primitive Venetian school, and by his works
exercised a happy influence over the schools of Milan, Ferrara, and Parma.
Ariosto was right in mentioning him among the three great names in painting, of
the period immediately preceding Raphael. Mantegna has left numerous works
in the principal towns of Italy. Three of the most important of these are in the
Tribune of Florence, an Adoration of the Kings, a Circumcision, and a Resurrection.
The museum of Naples possesses his St. Euphemia, which is considered his master-
piece. However, in order to dwell a little on the qualities and style of Mantegna, we
prefer to select those of his works whicli are to be found in the Louvre.
There are four of these : first, a Calvary, painted in distemper, perhaps before he
had adopted the processes of the Fleming Jan van Eyck, which were not generally
employed in Italy until the middle of the fifteenth century. This conjecture seems
probable, if we consider that Mantegna painted the high altar of Santa Sofia of Padua
when eighteen years of age — the same age at which Raphael produced his Sposalizio —
and as his biographers declare, was admitted into the corporation of painters of Padua
at the age of ten, as Lucas Dammesz was at Leyden. This Calvary shows great firm-
ness in the drawing, and a deep expression of sadness. The soldier who is seen in the
foreground is thought to be a portrait of Mantegna himself. Next comes the Vierge
a la Victoire, a beautiful Christian allegory in honour of the Marquis of Mantua,
Francesco Gonzaga, who could not, however, even with the help, of the Venetians,
stop the passage or the return of tlie French troops under Charles VIII. He was the
zealous protector of the painter, and was repaid in flattering praises during his life, and
eternal fame after his death. This picture, intended for the church of Santa Maria
deila Vittoria, which was built on plans furnished by Mantegna, who practised all the
arts, was painted in distemper, according to Vasari, by whom he is mentioned with
praise. Now, as this Vierge a la Victoire cannot be anterior to the retreat of the French
in 1495, it is evident that Mantegna returned by taste and voluntary choice to the old
;oo.] FERRAKESE SCHOOL.
67
Byzantine i)rocesses. This is curious, and shows us how it h:<f)pened that in Flanders
great artists, such as Memling of Bruges, adhered to the primitive processes a long
time after the discovery of the l)rothers Van P^yck. Lastly, there are the Parmissus
and ]Visiiom victorious over tlw /'Avjr, both allegories, this time pagan, and painted in
oil. Mantegna does not merely show in these his great artistic powers, elevation of
style, firmness of lines and contours, justice and solidity of colouring ; he also displays
that uncommon knowledge, we may say divination of the antic jue, in which he i)re-
ceded Poussin by two centuries.
But there is another of his works in which he has shown a far greater de^^ree of
this divination. In the old palace of Hampton Court is a series of nine cartoons in
distemper, which were tloubtless prepared for the long circular fresco which Mantegna
painted for the Manjuis Lodovico Gonzaga, in the castle of San Sebastiano, at Mantua ;
the first sketches for which are preserved in the Belvedere at Vienna. They are called
the Triumph of Julius Cicsar on his return from Gaul. There must be an error, at least
in the second part of the title. In the first place the figure of the concjueror is wanting,
which fact leaves the field open to suppositions. Again, in the procession are carried
statues, vases, and pictures, the tabuhe pietcc, the simulacra puonaru/u picta, of which
Livy and Pliny speak, all things rather resembling spoils taken from the Greeks
than from the Gauls or Britons. It must be rather the triumph of.Paulus yEmilius
after his victory over Perseus, or of Sulla after the taking of Athens, or of Caisar after
Pharsalia. It would be better to name these cartoons, as at Vienna, a Roman Triumph.
Whatever the title, the collection is no less interesting than curious, for these mural
paintings, noble and vigorous in their drawing, learned and ingenious in their com-
position, in a style worthy of the ancients, are certainly without equals in the works of
Mantegna for both material and moral grandeur.
In the National Gallery there are two pictures by Mantegna ; a Virgin and Child
enthroned (No. 274), formerly in the possession of Cardinal Monti, who was Archbishop
of Milan from 1632 till 1650 ; after various changes it passed into the hands of Signor
Roverselli, from whom it was purchased ; and the Triumph of Scipio (No. 902)
painted for Francesco Cornaro, a Venetian nobleman, afterwards Cardinal ; it was
finished only a icw months before the painter's death : after being long in the
possession of the Cornaro family, it was purchased by the late Mr. George Vivian,
whose son sold it to the National Gallery. Mantegna died at Mantua in 1506.
He left two sons, Lodovico and Francesco, both of whom assisted him while
living and completed his unfinished works-after his death. Nothing remains to us
of the elder, Lodovico ; but the A^oli mc tangere in the National Gallery (No. 639)
is attributed to Francesco; it was formerly in the Durovcray Collection, and was
purchased at Paris from M. Beaucousin. Francesco Mantegna was born at Mantua
about 1470 ; the date of his death is not known, but he was still living in 1^17.
FERRARESE SCHOOL.
Cosinio Tura, called II Cosme, was born at Ferrara about 1430. He was a pupil of
Galasso Galassi, a very secoml-rate artist. Cosimo was painter to the Duke of Ferrara,
and painted, in the palace of Schifanoja, twelve scenes from the achievements of the
duke's broliier, Borso. Tliey were nci^leclcil for a lung lime, but in 1840 Sig. AI.
68 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1500.
Campagnoni restored seven of them. Many pictures by Cosimo are still in Ferrara.
In the Costabili Collection are various pictures and two organ-doors which were once in
the cathedral ; the paintings on the doors represent St. George and the Dragon and the
Atinunciation ; in the Strozzi Palace there is a Portrait of Tito Strozzi, the poet ; and in
the Berlin Museum, a Madonna and Child. In the National Gallery there are three
pictures by this artist, Christ placed in the tomb by St. John the Baptist a?id Joseph of
Arimathea (No. 590), formerly in the possession of Professor Rosini, of Pisa ; pur-
chased at Florence from the Lombardi-Baldi Collection. The Mado?tna and Child
enthroned {^o. 772), formerly in the Frizzoni Collection, Bergamo; purchased from the
collection of Sir Charles Eastlake. And a St. Jerome in the wilderness (No. 773), from
the Costabili Gallery, Ferrara ; formerly in the Certosa at Ferrara ; purchased from
the collection of Sir Charles Eastlake. From the dryness of his manner, Cosimo
has been called the " Mantegna of Ferrara " ; he is especially to be admired for the care
with which he finished his painting. It is supposed that he died after 1494, He was
buried in San Giorgio, in Ferrara, at the entrance of the Campanile.
Francesco Cossa, of whom little has been discovered, was a painter of Ferrara.
His best known work is an altar-piece in the Gallery of Bologna, representing the
Madonna and Child, which was painted in 1474. There is also a wall painting by him
in the Barracano in Bologna representing the Virgin enthroned. Cossa worked much
after the style of Pietro della Francesca. It has been ascertained that he painted from
1456 to 1474, but the date of his death is not known.
Lorenzo Costa was born at Ferrara in 1460. It is said, by Vasari, that he studied
under Benozzo Gozzoli at Florence. He removed to Bologna, and became the friend and
probably the assistant of Francia^ for he painted much after the style of that artist. In
Bologna he executed in 1488 a Virgin and Child, attended by Giovanni Bentivoglio,
his wife and flimily, which is still in the Bentivoglio Chapel in San Giacomo Maggiore in
that town. He also painted at Bologna, frescoes representing the Triumphs of Life and
Death in the same church in 1490, and frescoes from the Life of St. Valerian in Santa
Cecilia. When the Bentivogli were obliged to leave Bologna, Costa removed to Mantua,
where he was patronised by Francesco Gonzaga, who gave him an estate and an annual
pension from 15 10 until his death in that town in 1535. Other works by Costa are, a
St. Sebastian in the Costabili Collection, Ferrara, and an Allegory in the Louvre ; a
St. Sebastian in the Marescotti Chapel in San Petronio, Bologna, is attributed to him.
There are two pictures by him m the National Gallery (No. 629), the Madonna
and Child enthro)icd, with angels and saints^ painted on fine linen {renso) which was
attached to wood (tavola) ; it was transferred from wood to canvas at Antwerp in 1848 :
it was formerly the principal altar-piece in the Oratorio delle Grazie, Faenza. In 1780
it was in the Ercolani Collection at Bologna, and, after passing through various hands,
was eventually purchased by the National Gallery in 1859. And a portrait of the
Florentine GervQr^\, Francesco FerriiccH^o. 895), bequeathed by Sir Antony C. Sterling.
Costa's painting is remarkable for the power of its colouring. His pictures are often
overladen with architectural and ornamental detail, and he was especially fond of
putting landscape backgrounds to his paintings. Costa left two sons, Ippolito and
Girolamo, who were both painters ; the latter had a son, Lorenzo Costa the younger,
who was also an artist.
Vittore Pisano, called Pisanello, was born about the close of the fourteenth century,
according to an inscription on a picture mentioned l)y Dal Posso, at San Vito, a small
A.i>. 1500.] VERONESE SCHOOL. 69
village in the territory of Verona. He was both a medallist and a painter, and was
especially celebrated as the former. He painted in the Council Hall in Ferrara ; and
in St. John Lateran at Rome he executed frescoes with Gentile da Fabri:ino, whose
uncompleted works he finished ; but these specimens of his art have all perished. A
{^\s works by Pisano are still preserved in Verona, but his best work e.xtant is in the
National Gallery (No. 776). It represents St. Antony and St. George, the former with
his pig — here represented as a boar — and the latter with his horse and the vamjuishcd
dragon at his feet ; above is a vision of the Virgin and Child in a glory. This picture
is believed to have been painted for Leonello d'Este, of Ferrara ; it was formerly in the
Costabili Collection, and was presented to the National Gallery by Lady Fiisilakc in
1867. Pisano is said to have been a pupil of Doinenico Veneziano, but little is known
of his life with certainty. He was a good animal painter, and his works were highly
prized in Ferrara even in his own time. He died about 145 1.
Bartolommeo Montagna was a native of l>rescia. He is first heard of as a painter
in Vicenza about 1470. An altar-piece in the Brera, representing the MaJonmi and
Child enthroned., with saints and angels, is one of liis best works. There are many
pictures by him still extant, chiefly in Italy. Among the galleries which possess his
works we may mention the Venice Academy, the Vicenza Gallery, and the Louvre.
Late in life he visited Padua, some of the churches of which town possess specimens
of his art. Montagna died in 1523. He left a son, Benedetto Montagna, who was,
however, far inferior to him as an artist. A signed j)icture by him is in the Brera;
dated 1528. Benedetto Montagna was also renowned as an engraver.
VERONESE SCHOOL.
Liberale was born at Verona in 145 1. He was at first a miniaturist, but afterwards
adopted oil-painting. He imitated Jacopo Bellini and Mantegna, and it is believed
.that he painted part, at least, of some pictures attributed to the latter. He attained
to no great merit as an oil-painter, though some of his miniatures were fiiirly executed.
Liberale died in 1536.
Francesco Bonsignori — erroneously called by Vasari Monsignori — was born
at Verona in 1455. He was a pujjil of Mantegna at Mantua. Specimens of his
painting are to be seen at Mantua, Verona, both in the Museum and in San Fermo,
and in the Br6ra at Milan. Bonsignori was a good portrait painter, and was
especially famous for the correctness of his architectural perspective. It is said
he painted animals with such truth to nature, that they occasionally deceived
other animals, whence he obtained the name of the " Modern Zeuxis." Bonsignori
died at Caldiero, near Verona, in 15 19. A portrait of a Venetian Senator (No. 736)
by this artist in the National Gallery, is signed and dated, " Franciscus Bonsignorius
Veronensis P. 1487." It was formerly in the Cappello Museum in Venice; and
was purchased at Verona, from Dr. Cesare Bernasconi.
Giovanni Francesco Carotto, who was born at Verona in 1470, was first apprenticed
to Liberale, but afterwards painted with Mantegna in Mantua. His style did not
partake much of tliai of his masters ; he is especially noted for the warmth of his
70 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1500.
colouring. Works by him are in the Modena Gallery ; in the Berlin Museum ; in tlie
churches and in the galleries of Verona; and in Mantua. Carotto died in 1546.
Francesco Morone was born at Verona in 1474. He was the son of Domenico
Morone, a painter of little note, who instructed him in the art of painting. Francesco
has left works of considerable importance in the Church of Santa Maria in Organis,
Verona. A Virgin and Child by him in the Brera is dated 1504. Another Madonna
and Child., signed " Franciscus Moronus Pinxit," is in the Berlin Museum. Morone
was chiefly famous for his portraits. He died at Verona in 1529.
In the National Gallery is a Madonna and Child (No. 285) by this artist; it was
purchased from Baron Galvagna at Venice : it has been attributed to Pellegrino
da San Daniele, and to Girolamo dai Libri, but it is undoubtedly the work of Francesco
Morone.
Girolamo dai Libri was born at Verona in 1472. His father was an illuminator
of manuscripts, whence he derives his only known surname dai Libri. He was
brought up as a miniaturist, and was one of the best painters in Verona at that
time. In San Giorgio Maggiore there is a Madonna enthroned., signed, and dated 1526.
Two altar-pieces by him are in the Verona Gallery. A Afadonna and Child is in the
Berlin Gallery ; and a Madonna., Infant Christ, and St. Anna, is in the National
Gallery (No. 748), signed " Hieronymus a Libris, F," it was formerly in Santa Maria
della Scala, in Verona; it was purchased from the Counts Monga of that town.
Girolamo died at Verona in 1555.
Paolo Moranda, called Cavazzuola, was born at Verona in i486. His best picture
is a series of five subjects from the Passion of our Lord in the Verona Gallery. His
last work, painted in the year of his death, is also in the same gallery — it represents
the Virgin and Saints. There are two pictures by him in the National Gallery,
St. Roch with the Angel {^o. 735), signed " Paulus Moradus, V.P." It is recorded
as having been dated mdxviii^ but the last five figures have been obliterated ; it was
formerly over the Cagnoli altar in the church of Santa Maria della Scala, afterwards in
the Caldana Gallery, Verona; it was purchased from Dr. Cesare Bernasconi. And
the. Madonna and Child (No. 777), with St. John the Baptist and an Angel^ signed
" Paulus, V. P." (V, P. = Veronensis Pinxit) : purchased at Verona from Count
Portalupi. Moranda died at Verona, in 1522, at the early age of thirty-six.
MILANESE SCHOOL (INCLUDING THE SCHOOL OF
CREMONA).
Altobello Melone was a native of Cremona^, who painted in the style of Bocaccino.
He executed frescoes in the Cathedral of Cremona representing the Massacre of
the Innocents and the Flight into Egypt, which have been greatly praised by Vasari
and other writers ; the latter is dated 15 17. A Christ and the Disciples going to Emmaus
(No. 753) is in the National Gallery, it was formerly in the Carmelite church of
San Bartolomeo at Cremona ; and was purchased, at Milan, from Count Carlo
Castelbarco, in whose collection there is a picture under the name of Raphael
attributed by some to Melone.
Vicenza Foppa was a native of Foppa, in the province of Pavia. The first we hear
A.D. 1500.] MILANESE SCHOOL. -,
of him is, that, in 1456, he executed some frescoes at Milan, which have now perished.
A St. Jerome and a Crucifixion in the Carrara Academy, Berfjamo, are by him, as are
also a St. Sebastian in the Brera — a portion of a much larger fresco — and a Virion ami
C/ii/it, dated 1485 ; there is also an altar-piece by him in the catliedral of Savona.
Foppa painted chietly at Milan. He died at Brescia in 1492, and was buried in the
church of San Barnaha of that town. Foppa left a son, Vicenza, who was also an
artist.
Bernardo Zenale was born at Treviglio (?) in 1436. He worked conjointly with
Bernardo Buttinone— an artist of no great merit — in the cloisters of Santa Maria delle
Grazie at Milan, and also in tlie catheilral of Treviglio. A Afai/onna, by Zenale alone,
is in the Brera. He died in 1526, and was buried in that church at Milan, which he
had helped to adorn.
Andrea da Solario, or Andrea da Milano, was born at Solario, near Milan, about
145S. He is believed to have been a pupil of Leonardo. In 1509 he was summoned,
to France by Cardinal d'Amboise, for whom he worked at (Jaillon for twenty sous a
ilay : the frescoes that he executed in the chapel of the Castle perished during the
Revolution of 1793. A portrait of Charles iV Avihoise, by Andrea, in the Louvre, long
passed under the misnomer of " Leonardo da Vinci," till the late Mr. Miindler corrected
the error. A picture, called Le Coussin W-rt, and a Crucifixion, by Andrea, are in the
same gallery. He returned to Italy, and, in 15 15, or a little later, he was commissioned
to jxiint an altar-piece rei)resenting the Assumption of the Virgin, for the Certosa at
Pavia ; he, however, only lived to complete part of this work. In the Casa Poldi at
Milan there are several works by his hand. A St. John the Baptist, dated 1499 ; and a
Madonna and Child, signed "Andreas Solario Mediolanensis, 15 15." In the National
Gallery (No. 734) there is a portrait of Giovanni Christophoro Longono, a Milanese
nobleman, signed '* Andreas D. Solario, F. 1505"; purchased from Signor Giuseppe
Baslini, of Milan ; and a Portrait of a Venetian Painter, recently acquired.
Bartolommeo Suardi, was called Bramantino : it is supposed, from the fact that he
studied under Bramante, the architect, whom he accompanied to Rome about 1495.
There he painted for Pope Julius II. a series of portraits in the Vatican, which the
Pope afterwards destroyed to make way for Raphael's J/Zn/rA' <y" -^('Avmr. In 15 13
Bramantino received a promise of eighty ducats from the monks of Clairvaux for a
PietJl to be executed, and for some figures of saints which he had painted in the
sacristy. Among his chief works may be mentioned a Maionna enthroned in the Brera,
a Dead Christ in the church of San Sepolcro, in Milan, and an Adoration of the
Kings in the National Gallery (No. 729), formerly in the Fesch Collection ; purchased in
London at the Davenport-Bromley sale. Bramantino was fixmous as an engineer
and architect ; as a painter his chief characteristic is foreshortening, which is
especially to be noticed in the Dead Christ mentioned above. Neither the date of
Bramantino's birth nor death is known ; but he painted from 1495 ^^ ^5-9-
Ambrogio Borgognone, ( alletl Ambrogio da Fossauo, from his birthplace, was born
about 1455. In 1475 'i<^ ^^''^s employed in the Certosa (Carthusian Convent) near
Pavia, where a Crucifixion is signed and dated '• Anduosius Fosanus, pinxit 1490," which
is the earliest date on his pictures, though he appears to have worked at Pavia from
1475 t'l^ 1493- Borgognone painted frescoes in many churches in Milan ; specimens
of these are still preserved in San Simjiliciano, Sant' .Vmbrosio, and Santa Maria della
Passione. He also i)ainted at Lodi, in the chapel of the Incori^iata, and at Bergamo.
72 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1500.
in the church of Santo Spirito. Among other works by this artist may be mentioned
an Assiwiption of the Virgin in the Brera, signed and dated " Ambrosio Bgogoj 1522 " ;
a Madonna and Child enthroned in the BerUn Gallery, which is signed but not dated ;
and a Marriage of St. Catherine of Alexandria in the National Gallery (No. 298),
originally in the chapel of Rebecchino, near Pavia. Borgognone was celebrated as
an architect. Lanzi and other writers have assumed that Ambrogio da Fossano,
the architect, and Ambrogio Borgognone, the painter, were different persons, but this
has been proved to be incorrect. The paintings of Borgognone are chiefly to be
admired for their delicacy and for the gentleness of the expression of the face. It is
not known when he died: the latest date on his paintings is 1522.
Francesco Tacconi, of whose life little is known, was one of the most important
artists of Cremona in the fifteenth century. He and his brother, -Filippo Tacconi,
executed several frescoes on a loggia in the Palazzo Pubblico of their native city of
Cremona. In 1464 their fellow-citizens exempted them from all taxes on account of
these frescoes, which have, however, been recently whitewashed over. In 1490
Francesco was employed in St. Mark's at Venice, where he painted the organ doors
which were then in use ; the outside picture represents the Adoration of the J^ings and
of the Shepherds, and the inside the Resurrection of Christ. These paintings, though
much damaged, are still preserved, and are said to have been signed and dated, but
these marks have perished. In the National Gallery there is a Virgin enthroned
(No. 286) by this artist, signed below "Op Francisi Tachoni, 1489, Octu " ; it was
formerly in the Casa Savorgnan, and was purchased for the National Gallery of Baron
Galvagna. The only dates we have for settling the period of Francesco Tacconi's
life are those above given, from 1464 till 1490.
Bocaccio Bocaccino was born at Cremona in 1460 (?) Little is known of his life;
in 1496 he painted a series of frescoes in Sant' Agostino at Cremona, in which town he
had a school, where Garofalo is said to have studied. He painted various frescoes in
the cathedral between the years 1506 and 1508, of which Christ disputing with the
Doctors is the best. There is also an altar-piece, a Virgin and Child by him in
San Giuliano, and a St. Catherine in the academy at Venice. Bocaccino is said to have
visited Rome in 1500. The year 15 18 is usually given as the date of his death, but his
will was made in January 1524 ('Notizie pittoriche Cremonese,' F. Sacchi).
In the National Gallery is a Procession to Calvary (No. 806) by him ; it was
formerly in San Domenico de' Frati Osservanti in Cremona^ and was purchased at
Milan from Signor Giuseppe Baslini. Bocaccino's chief characteristic is the grace of
his figures. Fie left one son, Camillo Bocaccino, born at Cremona 151 1, who was
a painter of some merit. He died in 1546.
^•'»- '450.1 UMBRJAN SCHOOL.
chapti:r \'r.
UMBRIAN SCHOOL.-FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
TN the country of the Up|)er Tiber, which inchules the towns of Assisi, Castiglione.
and Perugia, there sprang up about the middle of the fifteenth century' a school
of artists, whose works, transmitted to us in great numbers, give evidence of a
deeply religious, one may say, mystical spirit. Whether this may have been due to
the influence of the celebrated St. Francis of Assisi and the other religious devotees of
the previous centuries it is now difficult to determine; certain it is that sjjiritual
expression, rather than natural beauty, was the great aim of this celebrated sciiool,
which, without doubt, greatly assisted, by its power and earnestness, the ouwanl
progress of Art, so soon after to reach its highest limits. Anions the most remarkable
of these painters were the following : —
Pietro di Benedetto dei Franceschi, called Pietro della Francesca after his mother,
(or Pietro Borghese from liis birthplace), was born at Borgo San Sepolcro about 141 5.'
In early life he received a scientific education, which enabled him to make great
improvements in perspective and the eftects of light in painting. Pietro first studied
art at the age of fifteen under Uomenico Veneziano, and in 1439 assisted his master
in the church of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence; in 1450 he worked with him at
Loreto; and in 1451 he decorated tlie church of San Francesco at Rimini by order
of Sigismund Malatesta. A fresco by him, now partly destroyed, is still in the Capj)ella
dclle Reliquie of that place. In the year 1469 Pietro was the guest of Giovanni Santi
at Urbino (Passavant), when he probably executed the jjortraits of Federigo da Mon-
trefelto and Battista Sforza his wife— now in the Utfizi— and an allegorical jiicture
signed '• Opus Petri de Burgo Sci Sepulchri," now in the sacristy of the Duomo at
Urbino. Afterwards Pietro went to Ferrara and was employed by Duke Borso in the
Palace of Schifanoia ; he also went to Rome— when is not exactly known— and painted
two frescoes in the Vatican for Nicolas V. which were afterwards destroyed to make
room for Raphael's Deliverance of St. Peter ^nd the Mass of Bolsetta. It is supposed
that one of these destroyed frescoes, the Vision of St. Constantine, suggested to Raphael
the. remarkable eftect of light in his Deliverance of St. Peter. Pietro made great
miprovements in the art of oil-painting, which were afterwards perfected by Leonardo
da Vinci; and numbered among his pupils Pietro Perugmo and Luca Signorelli.
He became blmtl in his old age, acrorcHng to Vasari ; he was still living in 1509,
liul the date of his lieath is not known. The masterpiece of Pietro is the History
L
74 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1450
of the Cross in San Francesco at Arezzo. Four pictures by this artist are in the
National Gallery. A Portrait (No. 585), supposed to be of Isotta da Rimini, fourth
wife of Sigismondo Malatesta, painted probably in 145 1, formerly in the possession
of the Marchese Carlo Guicciardini, of Florence ; purchased from the Lombardi-Baldi
Collection. The Baptism of Christ (No. 665) — this picture is one of the best of this
master and proves how thorough was his knowledge of perspective ; it was formerly
an altar-piece of the Priory of St. John the Baptist at Borgo San Sepolcro. In
1807 it was removed to the sacristy of the Cathedral, whence it was bought by
Mr. J. C. Robinson for Mr. Uzielli, at whose sale it was purchased by the trustees.
A Portrait of a lady (No. 758), said to be a Contessa Pahna of Urbino — formerly in
the possession of the Counts Pancrazi in Ascoli, purchased from Signor Egidi in
Florence. The most recent acquisition is the Nativity, with Angels adorijig (No. 908),
which is considered to be one of Francesca's masterpieces.
Benedetto Bonfiglio was born at Perugia about 1420. His earliest known work is
a fresco in the Palazzo del Consiglio at Perugia— representing the Lives of St. Louis of
Toulouse and St. Ercolatio ; it was commenced in 1454, and was not finished in 1496,
in which year Bonfiglio's will is dated. An Adoration of the Kings, painted in 1460, in
San Domenico, is one of his best works. Among other pictures by Bonfiglio may be
mentioned: a Banner, painted in 1465 for the brotherhood of San Bernardino, which
represents the acts of their patron saint, and a Madonna with a dead Christ of the year
1469 in San Pietro de' Cassinensi. Bonfiglio is especially noticeable for the correctness
of his perspective, the beauty of his colouring, and his love of detail. According to
Lanzi, Perugino was the pupil of this artist, but there is nothing to corroborate this
statement. We have no record of Bonfiglio after 1496.
Melozzo da Forli was born at Forli in Romagna in June 1438. Little is known of
his career. He is supposed to have been a pupil of Pietro della Francesca, and one of
his works, the Ascension of Christ, has been attributed to that master. In 1472 he was
in Rome and painted for Cardinal Riario, nephew of Sixtus IV., frescoes of the
Ascension of Christ, in the church of the Santi Apostoli ; but on the rebuilding of the
church in 17 11, the figure of Christ was cut away, and is now preserved in the Quirinal
Palace. About 1475 ^^ painted a fresco — now transferred to canvas — representing
the Installation of Platina as prefect of the Vatican Library ; it also contains portraits
of four Cardinals, nephews of Sixtus IV. Melozzo is supposed to have painted part
of the series of portraits which were in the Palace of Urbino, some of which are now
in the Louvre. He was distinguished for his foreshortening, which was especially
remarkable in the cupola of the Santi Apostoli ; and was the first to attempt the
foreshortening of figures on ceilings. Giovanni Santi, in speaking of him as a
friend, praises his perspective :
". . . . Melozzo a me si caro,
Che in prospettiva ha stesso tanto il passo ;"
and Luca Paccioli numbers him among the then living painters who were " fomosi e
supremi " in perspective. When Pope Sixtus IV. formed the Roman Academy of St.
Luke. Melozzo was one of the first to join; he signed his name " Melotius Pi. Pa."
(Melotius Pictor Papalis). His native Forli possesses but one specimen of his art ; it is
called Pesta Pepe (Pound the pepper), and was painted originally for the sign of a
grocer's shop ; it is now in the Collegio of that town. He died November 8th, 1494.
There are two pictures in the National Gallery by Melozzo — some critics have
1450-1 UMBRJAN SCHOOL.
ascribed them to Justus Van Ghent, but this has been proved to be incorrect — RhftorU
(No. 755), a female figure enthroned, with a man kneehng before her. On a frieze
above is inscribed (D)ux urbini Montis fkritri ac — Duke of Urbino and Monte-
feltro; and Music (No. 756), also a female figure enthroned, with a kneeling supplicant
before her ; on a frieze above is the inscription Ieclesik Confalonkrius (Gonfaloniere
of the Church). These pictures are supposed to be two of seven which were originally
in the Palace of Urbino. They were afterwards in the possession of the Principe dei
Conti, who sold them to Mr. Spence, from whom they were purchased by the trustees.
A third picture of the same scries bearing another part of the inscription — that part
which was on the walls between R/nior'u and Miisic~\s in the Berlin Gallery. A
fourth picture of this series is in the possession of her Majesty the Queen.
Giovanni Santi was born about 1435 ^^ Castello di C'olbordolo. He was the son
of a dealer in general wares, and was himself brought up to his father's business,
(iiovanni was probably induced to study art through his acquaintance with Pietro della
Trancesca and Melozzo da Forli : the former, as we have already stated, was his guest
at Urbino in 1469. When Giovanni was quite a child his family removed to Urbino;
and in 1483 he was living in the Contrada del Monte in that town, in his own house —
I)urchased by his father in 1464 — and it was here on the 6th of Aj^ril in 1483 that his
son, the renowned Raphael, was born. Santi's wife, Magia Ciarla, died on the 7th of
October, 1491, leaving only one son, then but eight years old. In 1492 Santi married
Bcrnardina, the daughter of Piero di Parte, a jeweller of Urbino, and on the ist of August,
1494, Santi himself died, and was buried in the church of San Francesco at Urbino.
Giovanni Santi was one of the best Umbrian painters of his time, and the father of
the greatest artist the world has ever seen. His style is simple and unaffected, and he
finished his pictures with great care, but there- is an unpleasing coldness about his
colouring. His best work is considered to be the Madonna with saints in the church
of San Francesco at Urbino, painted for the Buffi family in 1489. Among other of his
works may be mentioned an altar-piece, representing the Madonna with saints, in the
convent of Montefiorentino, near Urbania ; a Visitation of the V'ir^::;in in Santa Maria
Nuova, and a Madonna with saints in the hospital church of Santa Croce, the two last
being both at Fano, and an Annunciation in the Brera. An altar-piece in the Berlin
Gallery, formerl)-, through a forged signature, ascribed to Santi, has been jiroved to be
by Timoteo della Vite ; the same gallery possesses two more altar-pieces attributed to
Santi. A Sebastian and Archers in tlie Oratory of San Sebastian at I'rbino. is one of
his best works. The fresco in Santi's own house, for a long time attributed to
Raphael, has now been proveel to be by the father. A picture (No. 751) in the
National Gallery, representing the Madonna and Child, is saiil to be by Santi ; it was
formerly in the collection of Count Mazza at Ferrara, and was purchased from
Signor Michelangelo Gualandi, of Bologna. Santi painted in a vehicle which, strictly
sjjcaking, was neither tempera nor oil, but a mixture of the two. He was a poet as
well as a painter, and left a chronicle in rh\ nie, entitled Gesta _i^/oriose del Diica Federigo
(F Urbino, which is still preserved in the library of the Vatiian.
Niccolb di Liberatore da Foliguo, called, in error, by Vasari, Niccol6 Alunno, was
a native of Foligno, where he was born about the year 1430. His earliest work still
extant, dated 1458, is in the Franciscan church of Deruta, near Penigia. He signed
his pictures " Nicolai Fulginalis Opus." A Madonna enthroned, painted in 1465, is in
the Brera, Milan. There is an altar-piece representmg the Annniieiafion. dated 1466,
76 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1500.
in Santa Maria Nuova at Perugia. There are also altar-pieces by him in the Castle of
San Severino and in San Francesco at Giialdo. A Pieta, of which fragments only
remain, in the Cathedral of Assisi, was one of his best works. Vasari says of two
angels represented as weeping in this Pieta, that their emotion .was so naturally
expressed that no painter in Italy at that time could have painted them better. In
1499 he painted the altar-piece of Sant' Angelo, in La Bastia, near Perugia. Over a
side-altar in the church of San Niccolb at Foligno is a picture of St. Nicholas ami
the Infant Christ, painted in 1492. It was one of the many paintings which were sent
to Paris, and when it went back it was without its predella, which is still in the Louvre.
An Ecce Homo in the National Gallery (No. 247) is by this artist ; it was purchased
at the sale of M. Joly de Bammeville's Collection. Niccolb died, a rich man, in 1502 ;
and was buried in Sant' Agostino, in his native town.
Niccolb executed his pictures'in tempera, and excelled especially in rendering the
expression of the flice ; he also painted standards, called Gonfatoni, which were used
in religious ceremonies ; there is still a Gonfalone by him in Santa Maria Nuova
at Perugia, which bears the following inscription : " Societas Annunciata fecit fieri
hoc opus 1466." He is supposed by Mariotti to have been the master of Pietro
Perugino, Pinturicchio, and Andrea di Luigi. A very interesting memoir concerning
this painter has been written by Professor Adamo Rossi, of Perugia. (See Cornhill
Magazine, No. 195.)
Pietro di Vanuccio, called Perugino, was born at Citta della Pieve, near Perugia,
in 1446. He went to Florence when very young, and, Vasari says, was so poor, that
he slept in a chest for lack of a bed. Fie studied under Verrocchio, and won such
fame, that he was soon in a position to open a school, where the uncles of Raphael,
Simone Ciarla and Bartolommeo Santi^ brought him the child who was, soon afterwards,
to become the glory of his age. Perugino counted also among his disciples Pinturicchio,
II Bacchiata, Lo Spagna, Gerino da Pistoia, and that Andrea Luigi of Assisi, surnamed
r Ingegno, who at eighteen was, according to Vasari, called the rival of Raphael,
but who became blind before he had attained the age for great works, or rather,
as documentary evidence seems to indicate, who left art for civic employment.
Perugino was one of the first painters sent for to Rome by Sixtus IV., who
intrusted him with apart of the paintings to decorate the chapel which bears the name
of that pontiff (the Sistine). He has left in it one of his largest and most beautiful
frescoes, St. Peter receiving the keys. In Florence there is, in the Pitti Palace,
a magnificent Entombvieiit ; at Rome, in the Museum of the Vatican, a Resurrection^
in which he has, it is said, introduced his much loved pupil, while still a youth, under
the form of the sleeping soldier, and himself under that of the soldier who is
running ofl' in fear ; and at Naples there is, in the Museum degli Studj, an Eternal
Father between four cherubim. For a long time the Louvre possessed only a simple
sketch by Perugino, the Combat of Chastity and Love, painted in distemper, — although
dated 1505, — because, (as Perugino himself says in the letter sent with it,) a picture by
Andrea Mantegna, to which his was to be a pendant, was painted by the same process ;
a remarkable proof of the persistent employment of distemper long after the generally-
spread knowledge of oil-painting. But the Louvi'e now boasts pictures more worthy
of Perugino, a Nativity, a Virgin in Glory worshipped by St. Rosa, St. Catherine, and
two Angels, and lastly, a Madonna and Child between St. Joseph and St. Catherine,
remarkable for the reverential style, charnnng grace, and exquisite colour. At Caen,
^
-^
s
THi \T\RRIAGE OF THE VIRGIN. By Perit.tno.
fn thf ytuseutn at Caen.
m
PIETRO DI VAXUCCIO.
(Perugino.)
Page
A.U. I500.] UMBRJAN SCHOOL. ;;
in Normandy, ilicre is a Marriage of the Virgin, with a temple in the background,
which, it is said, Raphael copied in his celehrateil Sposalizio.
If however we wish to know I'erugino well, out of Italy, we must see his pictures in
dennaiiy and in l-lngland. And first, there are at Berlin two Madonnas with landscape
backgrounds. Notwithstanding the care taken to assign them to Rajthael when still
in the school of I'erugino, there seems no doubt that they are both the work of
Perugino himself. At Vienna, at the Belvedere (Jallery, Perugino holds the first place
in the Roman hall ; his Madonna loit/i Sain/s, dateil 1493, is one of his largest and
most admirable compositions. It is to be regretted that it should have been cleaned
and touched up so often. Munich is still richer than either Vienna or Berlin. It
possesses a half-length Madonna standing out from a clear sky ; a Virgin adoring i/ic
Infant Saviour, and the Appearance of tne Virgin to St. Bernard ; two angels accompany
the mother of the Saviour, and two saints are with St. Bernard. These three remarkable
works, in perfect preservation, and of large size for easel-pictures by Perugino, attain
the utmost excellence of his style, so sweet, so tender, so certain to soften and to charm
the beholder. The Appearance of the Virgin to St. Bernard is a surpassingly beautiful
l)icture, and Raphael himself has, in the simple religious style, achieved nothing finer.
It is before the paintings of Perugino that we see clearly how much a pupil owes to his
master, and that tlie truth of the saying is verified, that a great genius is only a
complete summary of his forerunners and contemnoraries.
In London, the National Gallery can show with jjride the Virgin and Infant Christ
loith St. John (No. 181}, purchased of the late Mr. Beckford ; and a fine picture
which Vasari declares to be a chef-d'ceuvrc of the old master of Perugia ; it is a
triptych (No. 288), painted originally for the Carthusian Convent, near Pavia,
purchased from Duke Melzi of Milan : in the centre is the Virgin adoring the
Infant Christ; to the left, the Archangel Michael in full armour; to the right, the
Archangel Raphael holding the young Tobias by the hand. (A study, sup'posed to be by
Raphael, for this portion of the triptych, is now in the Randolph Gallery at Oxford.)
Vasari is right; it would be difficult to find in all the works of Perugino anything
superior to this. It is in perfect preservation, and unites in itself every kintl of beauty.
Several parts of this triple picture — for example, the young Tobias, or the group of the
Madonna and Child — resemble the earliest works of Raj)hael to such a ilegree that
many have supposed that the master must have been helped by the pupil, who would be
thus in part the painter of this masterpiece. It is however probable that this picture
belongs to a more advanced period of his life, when Perugino, who survived his pupil
four years, might have profited by example, and improved his primitive style under
the influence of Raphael. Vanuccio would thus have ceased to be the master of
Raphael, and have become his disciple. This mutual help, this mutual teaching,
producing a reaction in style, is often seen in the history of art ; and at the same time
the same phenomenon — if we may so call it — was taking placxi at Venice lietween
Bellini and Giorgione. In the South Kensington Museum, on the south-east staircase,
is a fresco by Perugino— which has been transferred to canvas— re|)resenting the
Adoration tf the Shepherds. It was originally painted for the church at Pontignano.
Perugino tlied. wcAllliy and much honoured, at Castello di Fontignano, in 1524.
Audrea tli Luigi or Aloisi, i ailed L'lugeguo, was bom at .\ssisi, but the ilaie of hi^
buili is iioL known, lie is supjjosed to have bcun a pupil of Perugino, and to have
stmlicd unilci Nici-olo .\Uuuio. Init uolliinL; is known of iiis life with any curlainty.
78 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1500.
Vasari says that at eighteen he was a rival of Raphael, and that he afterwards became
blind. A Madofina and Child (No. 702) in the National Gallery, attributed to him,
formerly in the Wallerstein Collection, was presented to the trustees by Her Majesty
the Queen.
Bernardino di Betto, the son of Benedetto Biagio — called Pinturicchio (the little
painter) from the smallness of his stature, also il Sordichio, from his deafness — was
born at Perugia in 1454. He was an assistant, and probably also the pupil, of Pietro
Perugino, under whom he worked in the Sistine Chapel. Amongst his earliest paintings
may be mentioned some frescoes in Santa Maria del Popolo, executed for Cardinal
della Rovere. He was employed by Innocent VHI. to paint frescoes in the Castle of
Sant' Angelo, and the walls in the Belvedere (now known as the Museo Clementino),
and by Alexander VI. to decorate the Appartamento Borgia in the Vatican. Pinturic-
chio also painted frescoes representing the Life of St. Bernard of Siena in the Cappella
Bufalini in Santa Maria Ara-celi. While at Rome he was called to Orvieto, in 1491,
to decorate the Cathedral of that town, but of the works which he then executed only
much-damaged fragments remain.
In 1496 Bernardino went from Rome to Perugia. The lirst work he executed
there was an altar-piece painted for Santa Anna, now in the Accademia : another
specimen of his art is the Madonna and Child in the Sacristy of the Duomo
Nuovo at San Severino. In 1 500-1 501 Pinturicchio painted frescoes, representing
the Annnnciation of the Virgin and Christ disputing with the Doctors, in the col-
legiate church at Spello. He next painted ten subjects from the Life of Enea Silvio
Piccolomini (afterwards Pius II.) — his best and most famous work— in the library of
the Cathedral of Siena. In these frescoes he is supposed to have received assistance
from Raphael in the general design and the outline ; this work occupied him, with
various interruptions, from 1502 till 1507. The last known work by this master is the
Christ bearing the Cross, in the Casa Borromeo at Milan, painted in 15 13; on
December the nth of which year Pinturicchio died of starvation and neglect, deserted
in his illness, it is said, by his infamous wife Grania. Among his panel-pictures may
be mentioned the Assumption of the Virgin, in the gallery of the Studj at Naples ; and
two pictures in the National Gallery : St. Catherine of Alexander (No. 693), bequeathed
by Lieut .-General Sir W. Moore ; and the Madonna and Child (No. 703) — formerly
in the Wallerstein Collection^ — presented by her Majesty the Queen.
Pinturicchio was a very prolific artist, and left many works, all executed in the
old-fashioned tempera, for he never mastered the aft of oil-painting. He was fond
of landscape backgrounds, but they are overcrowded, and his paintings are loaded
with too much gilding and architectural ornamentation to be in good taste ; with all
these faults, he was one of the best masters of the Umbrian School.
Marco Palmezzano was born at Forli in 1456 (?). He was a pupil of Melozzo da
Forli, and surpassed him, it is said, in perspective and foreshortening. He occasionally
signed his pictures Marcus de Melotius, from which foct many of his works have been
mistaken for those of his master. His paintings have a dry and architectural look,
chiefly owing to his study of geometry and architecture. Frescoes by him are in the
chapel of San Biagio in San Girolamo at Forli, and some in the Cappella del Tesoro in
the cathedral of Loreto are also attributed to him. His masterpiece is an altar-piece
finished in 1500, representing the Virgin and Child e/ithrojied, i\\ the chapel of the
Orfanotrofio delle Femmine at Faenza. Forli possesses many of his works both in its
A.D. 1525.] UMBRIAN SCHOOL. 79
churches and in the Pinacoteca, where his portrait by himself is still preserved. It is
signet! and dated 1536, and represents an old. though robust, man. It is supposed
that he dicil in 1537. Paintings l)y Palme/./.ano are in mmy Kuropean galleries.
Fiorenzo di Lorenzo is believed to have been a native of Perugu ; but little is known
of his life, and his works are rare. It is su])posed that he studied under Honfiglio. He
painted somewhat after the style of the Paduan school. Two pictures, St. Peter and
St. Paul, signed and dated 1487, are still in good preservation in the Sacristy of San
Francesco de' Conventuali at Perugia. A Madonna with Angels is in the Palazzo del
Consiglio. There is also a fresco in San Francesco at Deruta, dated 1475. ;iscribed
to this artist. No record of this painter has been found later than 1499.
Giovanni di Pietro, called Lo Spagna. because he was of Spanish birth, was, next to
Raphael, Pcrugino's greatest pupil. There is no record of his birth, but it is certain
th:U he had settled as a jiainter at Todi in 1507, in which year he painted a Coro-
nation of the Virgin for the church of the Rifonnati in that city ; he also painted a
Nativity for the convent of Todi, which is now in the \'atican. In 1516 he removed
to Spoleto, the citizenship of which town was conferred on him in the same year. In
15 1 6, too, he painted his masterpiece the Jl/adonna enthroned, now in the chapel of
Santo Stelano in the lower church of San Francesco at Assisi. He also painted at
Spoleto ^a Madonna with saints in the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli. In 15 17
he was elected head of the Society of Painters in that town — Capita no del/' Arte dei
Pittori. He painted frescoes illustrating the Z//i' </6'<7///<7i-^>' in the church to that
Saint between Spoleto and Foligno. Lo Spagna died in 1533.
In the National Gallery are two pictures by this artist : the Glorification of the Virgin
(No. 282), formerly in the Ercolani Collection at Bologna ; and an Ecce Homo (No.
691), bequeathed by Lieut.-Gen. Sir W. Moore. In the earlier i)art of his life Lo
Spagna adopted the style of his master Perugino, but afterwards imitated closely
the works of his fellow-pupil Raphael, so closely that various works by his hand
have been ascribed to the great artist : among these Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle
include the altar-piece called the Ancajani Raphael in the Berlin Museum.
Domenico di Paris Alfani, who was born at Perugia in 14S3, was a i)ui)il of
Perugino. His earliest known picture representing the Madonna and Child, with SS.
Gregory and Nicholas, is in the Collegio Gregoriano at Perugia, it is dated 1518.
In 152 1 he painted an altar-piece in the Cathedral of Citta della Pieve. In 1553
Domenico painted, in conjunction with his son Orazio, a Crucifixion for San Francesco
at Perugia. Father and son were so much in the habit of i)ainting in conjunction, that
it is difficult to ascertain, with any certainty, the authorship of works ascril)ed to both.
(.)ne of the best of the disputed ones is a Holy Family in the tribune of the Uffizi.
Domenico was a great admirer of Rai)hael. It is believed that he died in 1553.
Orazio di Paris Alfani, son of the above-mentioned Domenico, was born at Perugia
in 15 10. His renown was greater than that of his father, in conjunction with whom,
as we have before stated, he frequently worked. There are many paintings by this
artist in Perugia, both in the gallery and in the churches. A Marriage of St. Catherine
in the Louvre (No. 26), dated 1548, is attributed to him. Orazio is celebrated as
having been the first president of the Academy of Perugia, which was founded in 1573.
He died at Rome in 15S3.
So ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS [a.d. 1400.
CHAPTER VII.
VENETIAN SCHOOL.- FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
AFTER the general glance that we have taken in the preceding chapters, at
the origin of painting in Italy till the time of the Renaissance, and the
formation of the different schools, we shall not have to go back very far
in the history of the one of which we are now treating. We have already spoken
of the old mosaicists of the eleventh and twelfth centuries who succeeded in turning
Venice into an oriental and Byzantine town. It will be sufficient now to mention
a few of the more important artists who helped to form the school of Venice in the
fifteenth century.
Niccol6 Semitecolo may be called the first painter of the early Venetian School,
whose works are known to us. There is a large altar-piece in the Venetian Academy
by him, signed and dated 135 1. It represents scenes from the Life of the Virgin.
Another altar-piece representing the Life of St. Sebastian, dated 1367, is in the
Chapter House of the Padua Cathedral. Semitecolo was living in 1400. His style
of painting bore no trace of the after-glory of the Venetian School.
Gentile di Niccolo di Giovanni Massi, known as Gentile da Fabriano^ was born
at Fabriano in the Marc of Ancona about 1370 — probably a little earlier. His father
instructed him in physical and mathematical sciences, and then placed him under
Allegretto di Nuzio to study painting. Gentile executed many frescoes in Gubbio,
Orvieto, Florence and Siena. In 1423 he painted a Madonna for the Cathedral
of Orvieto, and in the register of that Cathedral he is called — " Egregius Magister
Magistrorum." In the same year he painted at Florence d.n Adoration of the Kings,
for the Sacristy of Santa Trinita, which is now in the Academy of that city. But
his master-piece, according to Vasari, with the exception of two fragments — repre-
senting four saints^s now lost; it was painted in 1425, and was an altar-piece of
the Virgi7i in the church of San Niccolo at the gate of San Miniato ; the fragments
are still in that church. Gentile was much renowned for his painting both at Venice
and Rome. The Senate of the former city presented him with the patrician toga,
and he received also a pension for life for his painting in the council-chamber,
the I'ictoiy of the Venetians over the feet of Barbarossa in 1177. This work perished
in the sixteenth century through neglect. At Rome he painted frescoes from the Life
of John the Baptist in San Giovanni in Eaterano, and a fresco of the Madonna and Child
in Santa Maria Nuova ; these works have also perished. It was the fresco in Santa
A.u. 1450] VENETIAN SCHOOL. 81
Maria Nuova whicli ciuised Michelangelo to say " aveva la niano simile al nome."
(ientile was one of the best artists of his time, and his painting was especially to
be admired for its colouring and execution. He was exceedingly fond of the use
of gold in his paintings, dentile's most famous scholar was Jacopo Bellini, to whose
son he stood godfather. He left wTitings on art matters, but it is believed that
they have perished, (lentile died about the year 1450 at Rome, and was buried in
Santa P>ancesca.
Jacopo Bellini was born at \'enice about 1405. He was a i)upil of Gentile da
l-abriano, whom he accompanied to Florence in 1422 ; and who, as we have already
stated, stood godfather to his first child. Though an excellent painter, Jacopo is
chiefly known as the father of the renowned Gentile and Giovanni Bellini, and as the
father-in-law of the celebrated Mantegna. Only two — much injured -- panel-pictures
by Jacopo remain to us. They both represent the Madotnia and C/iiU ; one is in the
collection of Count Tadini at Lovere, the other is in the .-\ccademia at Venice
(No. 443). There are frescoes by him still extant in Verona ; he also worked for
some time at I'adua. Jacopo excelled in jjortrait-jxiinting, and among those who
sat to him we may mention Lusignano, king of Cyprus, and the Doge Comaro.
Jacopo's fome as an artist rests chiefly on his sketth-l)ook, which is now in the British
Museum. It is signed and dated ''Venice 1480," and contains specimens of every-
thing that one could suggest as being useful to a painter, from the minutest object of
still life to the grand and majestic study of the human frame. In this sketch book are
many subjects from the Old and New Testament, intermingled with studies of mytho-
logy and scenes from country-life : they are executed with the pencil and tinted with
tifra vcrde, but unfortunately are very imperfect. Jacopo Bellini died about 1470.
Michael Giambono was born at Venice about the beginning of the fifteenth century.
An altar-piece representing Christ and four Saints is now in the Venetian Academy.
He also executed mosaics in the Cappella de' Mascoli in St. Mark's, Venice, repre-
senting the Life of tlie Virgin. Giambono's painting was remarkable for its depth and
softness of colouring. He died about 1450.
Antonello degli Antonj, called Antonello da Messina, who was born at Messina
about 141 4, is chiefly famous as having been the first to introduce the method of
oil-painting into Italy. His father Salvadore, who was also a painter, after instructing
him for some time in his art, sent him to Rome to complete his studies : thence he
went to Palermo, and then returned to Messina. After a short stay in his native town,
Antonello went to Naples, where he saw the Adoration of the Magi by Jan Van Eyck
(now lost), which had been sent to Alphonso V., King of Naples, about the vear 1442.
This picture produced such an impression on Antonello that, abandoning every other
thought, he set out for Flanders. Vasari relates that he there cultivated the friendship
of Giovanni da Bruggia, which has been usually taken as meaning Jan Van Eyck ; but
this is not possible, for Van Eyck died in 1441 — a year before Antonello saw the
Adoration of the Magi at Naples. Mr. AVeale, of Bruges, has suggested that as Hans
Memling — who did not die until 1499 — was also known as Giovanni da Bruggia,
Vasari might have referred to him. Anyhow, it is certain that Antonello did learn
the secret of oil-painting in Flanders. After a short stay in that country, where he
acquired the habit of excessive finish and minute attention to detail, he returned
to Messina. In the year 1473 1*^ removed to Venice, where he eventually died about
1496.
.M
ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1450-
That Antonello imparted to Domenico Veneziano the secret of oil-painting has
been doubted. Among the best-known pictures of Antonello we may mention : the
Salvator Mwidi (No. 673) in the National Gallery, signed and dated 1465— purchased
at Genoa of Cavahere Isola ; a Portrait in the possession of the Duke of Hamilton,
dated 1474; a Portrait in the Louvre, dated 1475; ^ Crucifixion, in the Ertborn
Gallery, Antwerp, also 1474; a Portrait in the Berlin Museum; a Triptych, \\\ San
Gregorio at IVIessina, dated 1473, probably the last picture which the artist painted
in that town ; and a Dead Christ, in the Belvedere, Vienna. Antonello's painting
was a curious blending of the styles of Italy and Flanders : generally speaking, his
portraits were far superior to his religious subjects.
Gentile Bellini, born at Venice in 142 1, was a solitary painter, a traveller, who,
strictly speaking, had no pupils, and who did not make art his profession. He even
limited himself to anecdotal painting, a kind for which his travels afforded him ample
material. It is known that he passed several years of his life at Constantinople,
whither, in spite of the curse of the Prophet against every image of a living person, he
had been called after the conquest by Mahomet II., who employed him in numerous
works. It was to him, it is said, that the alarming adventure occurred, to see a
slave decapitated at the order of the sultan, who wished to show the painter, from
nature, the movement of the muscles of the neck. There is, at the Louvre, a
most curious work by Gentile Bellini, the Reception of a Venetian Ambassador at
Constantinople, which represents, with scrupulous fidelity and remarkable talent, the
scenes, costumes, and manners, in the nev.- capital of the Ottomans. Two composi-
tions of the same kind have also been secured by the museum at Venice. These
are of two miracles, in which, by means of the relics of the Holy Cross, he had been
preserved during the course of his life ; the one on the Square of St. Mark, the
other on the Great Canal. Gentile was very old when he painted them, yet they are
as interesting for the manner in which they are executed as for their subject. They are
still true pages of history, and serve as records of his time. Gentile Bellini died in 1507.
Giovanni Bellini, the true founder of the Venetian School, was born at Venice in
1426. He had received his lessons from his father, Jacopo Bellini, a disciple of old
Gentile da Fabriano, surnanied Magister magistronim ; but, according to Borghini and
Ridolfi, by obtaining admittance, under the disguise of a patrician, to the studio of
Antonello of Messina, who had then returned from Flanders, and by seeing him prepare
his colour, he discovered the secret of oil-painting. Giovanni Bellini was in his youth
the master of Carpaccio and Cima, who both retained his earliest style ; afterwards in his
maturity, the great Venetians, Giorgione, Titian, and Tintoretto were his pupils. His
painting is correct and highly finished. His marvellous patience in the representation of
the smallest objects strikes one as much as the purity of his taste and his appreciation
of the beautiful. A great colourist also, though somewhat timid, Belhni is in this point
the leader of the school Avhich followed him ; and when in his old age he saw the
beautiful effects of chiaroscuro produced by Giorgione, he learnt himself to give more
warmth to his style and greater breadth to his pencil. He became the pupil of his
pupil in the same way that Perugino was of Raphael. At first natural and simple
like his predecessors. Belhni's style afterwards became more skilful and bold like
that of his successors.
There is nothing belonging to him at the Louvre, not even his portrait, because the
two young men placed opposite each other in the same frame, which are assumed to be
GIOVANNI AND f.KNTILH BELLINI.
A.D. 1450.] VENETIAN SCHOOL.
s-
the Portraits of t/ic Bellini., taken by the younger, are e\ ideiUly wrongly named. The
youthfuhiess of the portraits is in manifest contradiction to the style and touch which
would belong to the oUl age of the painter. \'enice, happily, has collected several of
the most beautiful works of Bellini. Besides a good many pictures which have
remained in the churches and are for the greater part much defoced, the Academy of
Fine Arts possesses five. AH are (Glorified Madonnas. One is called the Muilonna
with four Saints, another the Madonna icith six Saints, like that of Cima da
Conegliano. There, amidst five Christian saints, we see the old patriarch Job,— the
painting having been originally executed for the now supi)ressed church of San Giobbe.
It is a magnificent composition, worthy, from its noble style and beautiful execution, to
be placed in the first rank of Bellini's works. " It is remarkable," M. Charles Blanc
says, " that in spite of the rich, intense, and varied colouring of this picture, it yet
appeals to our heart rather than to our eye. Its soft murmur soothes us in the midst
of the uproar of the Venetian school."
Bellini has painted none but religious pictures ; indeed, almost exclusively
Madonnas, — from the one who holds the Child to her bosom, to that in which she bears
on her knee the body of her dead Son, and at last shares in heaven the glory of the
three persons in the Holy Trinity. One of these Madonnas is possessed by the
museum of Leipsic. The Studj of Naples, however, can boast of a Transfiguration,
which is an excellent as well as curious painting. This Transfiguration, in imitation of
Giotto, only represents the principal episode, Jesus between Moses and Elias, rising
above the group of apostles. But it gave to Raphael the idea of treating the same
subject in vaster proportions, adding the people at the foot of the mountain, the child
possessed with a devil, and all the details given in the gospel of Saint Matthew. In
the National Gallery there are five authentic pictures by Giovanni Bellini : a Portrait
of the Doge Leonardo Loredano (No. i8g) ; in it the physical decrepitude, the strong
mental intelligence and inexorable obstinacy, of the founder of the State-inquisition are
admirably depicted ; it was formerly in the Grimani Palace at Venice, eventually passed
into the possession of Mr. Beckford, from whom it was purchased by the tiustees ;
a Madonna and Child (No. 280), purchased from Baron Galvagna; Chrisfs Agony
in the Garden (No. 726), purchased at the Davenport- Bromley sale; St. Peter Martyr
(No. 808), purchased at Milan from Signor Giuseppe Baslini ; and the Death of St.
Peter Martyr (No. 8 1 2), presented by Lady Eastlake.
A ^V. Jerome in his study (No. 694), in the National Gallery, purchased from the
Manfrini Gallery, Venice, is also attributed to Giovanni Bellini.
The portrait of a young girl combing her hair before a mirror, by Bellini, bearing
the signature ''Johannes Bellinus faciebat, mdxv," in the Belvedere at Vienna, is
valuable for the rarity of its subject, Giovanni lived to an old age almost as
astonishing as that of Titian; he died in 1516.
Giovanni da Murano (one of the Venetian Isles), also called Alamaunus, is supposed,
from the latter name, to have been a German. He worked in conjunction with
Antonio da Murano of the Vivarini fiimily. They executed two pictures now in the
Academy at Venice; a Coronation of the Virgin, signed and dated "Johannes et
Antonius de Muriano, 1440 ;" and a Madonna and Child enthroned, signed and dated
*' Gio de Aleinagna e Antonio da Murano, 1446." Several i)ictures by them are still in
the ("hapel of San Zaccaria at \'cnice. Alamannus painted from 1440 till 1447, after
which )car nothing is recorded of hmi.
ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1450-
Antonio, of the family of the Vivarini, called Antonio da Murano, a pupil of Gentile
da Fabriano', worked afterwards in company with Cliovannida Murano, called Alamannus.
They executed jointly two works in the Venetian Academy and paintings in the Cap-
pella San Zaccaria, at Venice. Antonio executed alone a picture representing SS.
Peter and Jerome, now in the National Gallery (No. 768), formerly in the Zambeccari
Gallery, Bologna ; purchased from Sir Charles Eastlake's Collection. After the death
of Alamannus, Antonio was joined by his younger brother Bartolommeo Vivarini in
1450. Antonio was known to have been living in 1470.
Bartolommeo Vivarini, also called Bartolommeo da Murano, joined his elder brother
Antonio, as we have already stated, in 1450, in which year they executed the celebrated
altar-piece now in the Bologna Academy. Bartolommeo is said to have painted the
first oil-painting executed in Venice ; it represents St. Augiistifie enthrotied, and is now
HI the church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo ; it is dated 1473. in which year, it is said,
Antonello came to Venice and imparted the secret which he had acquired in Flanders
(see life of Antonello). A Virgin with the Child in her arms, by Bartolommeo, is in the
National Gallery (No. 284). It is signed "Opus Bartolomei Vivarini de Murano;" it
was originally in the Contarini Gallery, and was purchased at Venice from Conte
Bernardino Carniani degl' Algarotti. The dates on Bartolommeo's pictures extend
as late as 1499. There is an altar-piece by him in the Naples Gallery, and several
works in various churches of Venice. <
Luigi Vivarini was a younger member of the same family as Bartolommeo and
Antonio Vivarini. It was supposed formerly that there were two painters of the name
of Luigi ; this supposition arose from the large space of time over which the dates
appended to the signature extended. But the earliest date, 141 4, has been, by many
critics, declared to be a later addition and an error. Among the various pictures by
Luio-i, we may mention, a Madofina enthroned, in the Berlin Gallery, St. John the Baptist
and Virgin and Child enthroned, and other paintings in the Venetian Academy. He is
recorded to have painted in the Sala del Gran Consiglio, but the pictures which he
executed there perished by fire in 1577. Luigi Vivarini commenced an altar-piece,
representing the Enthronement of St. Ambrose, for tlie church of the Frati at Venice, but
died before its completion. It was afterwards finished by his pupil Marco Basaiti.
Carlo Crivelli was born at Venice in the beginning of the fifteenth century, and is
said to have studied under Jacobello del Fiore, an early Venetian painter of whom
little is known. The earliest date on any picture by Crivelli — 1468 — is on an altar-
piece in the church of San Silvestro at Massa, between Macerata and Fermo (Mr.
Wornum). In 1490, Crivelli received the honour of knighthood from Ferdinand II.
of Naples, after which date he appends " Miles " to his signature. Among other of his
pictures may be mentioned two altar-pieces, one in the Cathedral, and the other in San
Domenico at Ascoli where he chiefly resided ; various works in the Brera, and also in
Earl Dudley's collection, and a Pieta dated 1493, in the Oggione collection, Milan —
this is one of Crivelli's best works, and is also the best known painting by his hand.
In the National Gallery there are six works by this artist. The Dead Christ (No. 602),
formerly in the Church of the Frati Conventual! Riformati at Monte Fiore near
Fermo, purchased at Rome, from Cavaliere Vallati ; the Beato Ferretti (No. 668),
purchased from Mr. A. Barker ; the Madonna and Child enthroned, with SS. Jerome
and Sebastian (No. 724), formerly in the church of the Franciscans at Matelica,
purchased from Conte Luigi de Sanctis. The Annunciation (No. 739), originally
A.D. 1500.] VENETIAN SCHOOL. 85
in the convent of the Santissima Annunziata at AscoH, presented to the National
Gallery by Lord Taunton; the Madonna and Child enthroned with saints (No.
788), an altar-piece in thirteen compartments, purchased at Paris from Mr. G. H.
Phillips ; and the Madonna and Child enthroned, with SS. Francis and Sebastian
(No. 807), presented by the widow of the second Marquis of Westminster. In the
South Kensington Museum, on the south-east staircase, there is a Canonized Cardinal
and St. Catherine., by Crivelli, bought frcm the Soulages Collection. Crivelli's
painting, though somewhat hard, is especially remarkable for the beauty of its
colouring. He was very fond of introducing fruit and flowers, and even animals
into his pictures, which were always painted in tempera. A relation of his, Vittore
Crivelli, was a very second-rate artist. Carlo Crivelli died at Florence in 1537.
Marco Basaiti was born in Friuli — accortling to some writers, of Greek parentage —
in the middle of the fifteenth century. He appears to have been an assistant of Luigi
Vivarini, whose unfinished altar-piece in the church of the Frati at Venice he com-
pleted. Among Basaiti's best works we may mention : a Dead Christ with two
Saints, the Calling of SS. Peter and Andreu<, and the Agony in the Garden, which is
considered his masterpiece, all in tlie Venetian Academy ; a Calling of SS. James and
John, dated 1575, in the Belvedere, Vienna, and two pictures in the National Gallery,
St. Jerome reading (No. 281), purchased from M. Marcovich in Venice, and the
Infant Christ asleep on the lap of the Virgin (No. 599), purchased in Florence of
Signor Achille Farina. Marco Basaiti was a fine colourist, and succeeded better than
his contemporaries in blending his figures with the landscape backgrounds of his
pictures. The dates of his paintings range from 1470 till 1520.
Vittore Carpaccio was born at Venice (?) about 1450. He appears to have been
the disciple of Luigi Vivarini, and reminds us, by his simple grace, his delicate
touch, and his poetic feeling, both of Fra Angelico of the Italians, and of Memhng of
the Flemings. He is not well known except in his own country, to which he seems to
have bequeathed all his works. Amongst these are nine great pictures which depict
the legend of St Ursula a fid her Companions, from the arrival of the ambassadors of the
King of England to demand for his son the hand of the young and noble maiden of
Cologne, to the apotheosis of the eleven thousand virgins. There is plenty of
imagination in this painting, and also clearness and order. Another is on the legend
of the Execution of ten thousand Martyrs crucified on Mount Ararat : Carpaccio we
may see was not afraid to handle vast subjects or to introduce his personages by
thousands. Lastly, there is a Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, in which the old
Simeon is singing his canticle between two cardinals. This is a work full of both
grace and vigour : and, but for some stiffness of outline, would deserve to be compared
with the most beautiful works of the school. In the Belvedere at Vienna is a fine
work, Christ adored by Angels, signed, and dated 1496.
In the National Gallery there is a Madonna and Child ivith saints (No. 750), a
votive picture, painted for the Doge Giovanhi Mocenigo, on the occasion of the plague,
in 1478 ; purchased from one of the Doge's successors. Carpaccio died about 1525.
Giambattista Cima da Conegliano was born at Conegliano, near Treviso, in the latter
half of the fifteenth century. Referring to the name of his native town, he used to put
a rabbit [co/iiglio) in some corner of his paintings. It was his signature, as Garofalo's
was a gilliflower. A sense of youthful freshness in liis compositions, an almost childish
symmetry, a studied correctness of drawing, a natural nobility in his heads (too small,
86
ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1500.
however, generally for the length of the body), have given him the. name of tlie
Masaccio of Venetian art. A glorified Virgin called the Madonna with six Saints,
a representation of the legend of St. Thomas touching the Sick, are still at Venice, to
testify to his merits. But they may be recognized even at the Louvre in another picture
of the Virgin, to whom Mary Magdalen is offering a vase of perfume. The rocky
landscape which forms the background is a view of the country of Conegliano.
There are three pictures by Iiim in the National Gallery : a Virgin and Child
(No. 300) ; a Madonna (No. 634) \ and the Incredulity of St. Thomas (No. 816).
Marco Marziale was a native of Florence ; the year of his birth is unknown. It is
believed that he was a pupil of Giovanni Bellini, as he assisted that artist in the decora-
tion of the "-reat Council Hall at Venice in 1492, for which he received payment at the
rate of twenty-four ducats per annum. This artist was one of the painters of Venice
who Albrecht Diirer said copied his style. Among Marziale's pictures may be
mentioned : the Supper at Emmaus, signed and dated 1506, in the Venetian Academy ;
a painting representing the same subject, in the Berlin Gallery, signed and dated
''Marcus March. Venetus pinxit, mdvii. ; " and two in the National Gallery: the
Circumcision of the Lord (No. 803)— this picture is signed and dated 1500, and bears
the " Nunc dimittis " inscribed on the arches of the chapel — it was painted for Signer
Tommaso Raimondi, and placed in San Silvestro, Cremona, and was purchased for
the National Gallery from Signer Giuseppe Baslini, of Milan ; and the Madonna
and Child enthroned with Saints (No. 804), signed and dated " Marcus Marcialis,
Venetus P. mdvii. ; " this was formerly in San Gallo, Cremona, and was also
purchased of Signor Baslini. The dates on Marziale's known pictures extend
from 1499 to 1507, but, as we have mentioned above, it is certain that he painted
as early as 1492. The date of his death is not known.
Giorgio Earbarelli, called, from his handsome stature, Giorgione, was born near
Castelfranco m 1477. He was a fellow-pupil of Titian with Giovanni Bellini, and
quickly earned great reputation. By showing the secret of thick layers of colouring,
by throwing out bright lights by means of deep shadows, bright, in short, by all the
most skilful and wonderful effects of chiaroscuro, Giorgione led the whole Venetian
school into the worship of colour. He became, as we have before said, the master
of his master ; he was also the master of his fellow-students. Titian, among others,
only surpassed him because he outlived him by more than sixty years. It was of
Giorgione that the President de Brosses said with justice and truth, " I should place
him as a colourist in the same rank with Michelangelo as a designer." As he died
so young, and had employed himself principally in painting frescoes, either for the
palace of the Doges or for the facades of edifices since destroyed (amongst others the
Chamber of Commerce, called Fondaco de' Tedeschi), Giorgione has left but few works
of the easel that can be strictly termed pictures.
The churches and convents of Venice, so numerous and so rich in works of art, do
not possess a single painting, neither does the ducal palace. The Academy of Fine Arts
has only succeeded in obtaining one composition, St. Mark stilling the Tempest, and
only one portrait, that of an unknown nobleman. In his own city we can best become
acquainted with Giorgione at the Manfrini palace, which possesses the picture called
the three portraits, so justly celebrated by Lord Byron. Florence has fared better.
The Uffizi has inherited a Moses, a Judgment of Solomon, and a Mystical Allegory, as
well as the portraits of a Knight of Malta, and of Eras mo da Narni, better known as
A.D. 1500] VENETIAN SCHOOL. 87
Gattamelata, both of marvellous beauty and vigour. The Pitti Palace also proudly
displays a Moses saved from the water, a Nymph pursued by a Satyr, and a Musical
Concert, a favourite subject of tliis master, who was an excellent musician, and sought
after by the Venetian nobility both as a singer and lute-player.
But, in truth, perhaps Giorgione is seen to greater advantage out of Italy than even
at Venice or Florence itself In Spain, for instance, he can be much better understood
and admired. His picture of David hi/ling Goliath, which is now in the Museo
del Rey, exhibits that boldness and ease so entirely Venetian, of which he had
given the first example. But all the (jualities of this great master are .still more
brilliantly shown in a picture brought from the Kscurial, to which we can give no other
name than a Family Portrait. In front of a gentleman in complete armour, who
seems, like Hector, to be setting out for the war, a lady, a second Andromache, tears
herself from the caresses of a young Astyanax, to replace him in the arms of her
attendant. This is the whole subject of the picture, and the half-length figures are of
unknown persons. But, in its way, it delights and at the same time saddens us ; for
in this magnificent work, the last exi)ression of the artist's genius, we read what
Giorgione might have become, and to what height his glory might have reached, if he
had had the time to be as fertile as he was bold and powerful.
There are only two specimens of his best style in the Louvre : one is of a subject
in which he took interest, because he was not less celebrated for his musical talents
and amiable disposition than for his great genius as a painter — it is called A Rural
Concert; the other is a superb Holy Family, called a St. Sebastian, because the
centre group is placed between tins young martyr and a St. Catherine. These
two pictures came, after passing through the galleries of the dukes of Mantua and of
Charles I., by Jabach and Mazarin, to the cabinet of Louis XIV, Although they
cannot be placed in the first rank of Giorgione's works, they yet present fine examples
of those skilful contrasts, that happy blending of detail in the general effect, that deli-
cacy of tint, and that powerful colouring, of which Giorgione had the honour of first
exhibiting a perfect model.
In German galleries are to be found a few of those rare works in which
Giorgione has carried to its extreme limits the knowledge and power of chiaro-
scuro. One of the best is in the rich gallery at Dresden, the Meeting of Jacob and
Rachel, in the midst of their servants and flocks. Tl^e Belvedere at Vienna, with the
excellent portrait of a Knight in. armour, the Voung Man crowned with vine-leaves.
who is accosted by a bandit, and the David carrying the sword of Goliath, also
possesses the picture known by the name of the Three Surveyors, who are, rather,
three astrologers ; this is a noble and spirited composition, possessing the additional
merit of an excellent landscape, quite a rarity then, and, indeed, almost a novelty in
Italy. Munich possesses the splendid Portrait of the Painter by himself
In the National Gallery are two pictures by Giorgione : the Death of St. Peter
Martyr (No. 41), formerly in die possession of Christina, Queen of Sweden — it
subsequently passed into the possession of the Rev. W. H. Carr, who bequeathed it to
the National Gallery ; and a Knight in Armour (No. 269). formerly in the collection
of Benjamin West, P.R.A. ; bequeathed to the Gallery in 1855. Giorgione has a large
head;, full of strength and energy ; an open, noble, and intelligent flice, and looking at
this excellent likeness of a man so richly gifted, one can hardly forgive the fickle
beauty whose desertion, it is said, killed the great artist in the ])rime of life. Giorgione
died at Venice in 15 11.
ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. |a.d. 1450.
CHAPTER VIII.
LEONARDO DA VINCI AND HIS SCHOOL.
TOWARDS the latter end of the fifteenth century, there rose up, in various parts
of Europe, as if by magic,. a succession of painters who have been well called
the Divinities of Art. In truth, after two or three centuries of earnest
rivalry, Art had nearly reached its perfection, and men of the highest genius were
found among her ranks. In a succeeding chapter we shall say more of this, the
most important epoch in the History of Painting ; but the master of whom we must
first speak came into the world and made his fame a little sooner than the rest.
Leonardo da Vinci, the natural son of Piero, a notary of Florence, was born at
Vinci in the Val d'Arno, below Florence, in 1452. He was placed in his youth with
Andrea Verocchio, who, when he saw the immense superiority of his pupil's painting in
comparison with his own, abandoned the art in disgust, and directed his attention to
sculpture. The first original picture by Leonardo, mentioned by Vasari (no longer in
existence), was the Rot ell a del Fico, so called because it was painted on a round board
of fig-tree. The young artist collected every description of reptile that he could lay his
hand upon, and mingling these together, produced a creature so hideous and fierce, as
to defy description. The father, who had requested his son to paint this for one of
his tenants, was so struck with its power, that he took it to Florence and sold it to a
picture-dealer for a hundred ducats, purchasing in its place a cheap picture, which he
sent to his tenant. The Rotelia del Fico was afterwards sold to the Duke of Milan for
three hundred ducats. Besides being an excellent painter, Leonardo was equally well
educated in sculpture, architecture, engineering, mechanics, and mathematics ; he was
also a poet and a performer on the lyre. He was especially proud ofhis engineering and
mechanical knowledge, as may be seen by reading the letter — still preserved in the
Ambrosian Library, Milan — which he addressed to Lodovico il Moro, Duke of Milan,
when seeking employment in his service. We give a few extracts : " I can make bombs
most convenient and portable, which shall cause great confusion and loss to the enemy
.... indeed I can construct fit machines of offence for any emergency whatever ....
I can make vessels that shall be bomb-proof. In time of peace I think I can as well
as any other make designs of buildings for public or private purposes .... I will also
undertake any work in sculpture, in marble, in bronze, or in terra-cotta : likewise in
painting I can do what can be done as well as any man, be he who he may." He then
offers, if the Duke doubts the practicability of the execution of any of his proposi-
A.i). 1500.] LEONARDO DA VINCI AND HIS SCHOOL.
89
tions, to make experiments in proof of his statements. Leonardo entered the Duke's
service at Milan about 1483, where he founded, in 1485, under his patron's superinten-
dence, an academy of arts, and executed various works, inchiding portraits of Cecilia
Gallcrani and Luaczia CrivcHi, fovourites of the Duke, and the model for the bronze
equestrian statue of Francesco Sforza, which was afterwards destroyed. In 1494,
Leonardo accompanied Duke Lodovico when he went to meet Charles VIIL at Pavia,
where he made the acquaintance of Marc Antonio della Torre ; returning with the
I.A VIKRGF. AUX RDCHEUS. BY I,F.nNARnn PA VINCI.
/;/ ///(• LoHi've.
Duke to Milan lie executed many important works, among others, tlie celebrated Last
Supper. In 1499 he left Milan and returned to Florence, enraged at the barl)arous
conduct of the soldiers of Louis XII. of France, who destroyed many of his works,
including the model of his statue of Sforza, which they converted into a target for their
arrows. In Florence he was welcomed by the Gonfaloniere Soderini, who caused him
to be enrolled in the list of artists employed by the Government, and to receive a
yearly salary of 180 gold florins. The first important work which he executed in this
city was the cartoon of ^V. Anna and the Virgin for the church of tlie Annunziata —
go
ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1500.
that picture which Francis I. in vain requested him to colour, after he had had it
removed to France, and which is now in the Royal Academy, London, In 1502,
Cesare Borgia, the Captain-general of the Pope's army, made Leonardo his architect
and chief engineer, which appointment caused him to visit in that year several places in
the Roman State. He revisited Milan in 1507, and again in 15 12, when he painted
two portraits of Duke Maximilian, the son of his late patron. Quitting that town in
15 14, he went in the train of Duke Giuliano de' Medici to Rome, where, after a little
time. Pope Leo commissioned him to execute various paintings for him : on going to
visit the artist one day, and seeing much apparatus and preparations for varnishing,
but no signs of commencement, the Pontiff exclaimed, " This man will never do
anything ; he thinks of the end of his work before the beginning." This uncourteous
behaviour, combined with the invitation to Rome which Leo X. sent to Miclielangelo,
offended Leonardo's dignity to such an extent that he left the city and sought employ-
ment at Pavia under Francis L, who received him with joy, and gave him a yearly
salary of 700 crowns. After visiting Bologna with him, Leonardo accompanied the
KintT to France in 1516 ; but his health was then in such an enfeebled condition, that
he could scarcely be induced to execute any more painting—not even to colour the
cartoon oi St. Anna and the Virgin. He died on the 2nd of May, 15 19, at Cloux near
Amboise, where fragments of his tombstone have lately been discovered. Let us
now pass to the contemplation of his works.
In the Louvre there are but five paintings by his hand. In the half-length portrait
of St. John the Baptist, the saint is represented as resembling rather a young, delicate
woman, than the rough preacher of the desert, the ascetic feeding on locusts. But, as
this same fault of effeminacy is found in the St. John by Raphael, which is in the
Tribune of the Uffizi Gallery at Florence, it is evident that the conventional ideas of
the Baptist were not, at that period, in accordance with those we gather from the
Gospel narrative. The Madonna called the Viergeaux Rochers, already much decayed,
will soon be known only through engravings and copies. The authenticity of this
Madonna, as a work. of Leonardo, is denied by some connoisseurs, and it is generally
supposed that a portion only is by his hand. St. Anna, 7vith the Virgin and Child,
though an authentic work and really a fine one, is in some parts little more than
a sketch, and has suffered much injury : it is more precious from the delicacy of the
work than from the dignity and nobility of the style. We may even venture to find a
little fault with the strange affectation of the attitudes and arrangement. There remain
two portraits of women. One is called La Belle Ferronniere, because it is thought to
represent the last mistress of Francis I., the wife of that iron merchant {ferronJiier)\\\\o
avenged himself so cruelly for the wrong done him by the king. It is from the title
assigned to this portrait that ladies have given the wxca^ ferronniere to a jewel worn in
the centre of the forehead and fastened by a ribbon behind the head. Others suppose
this portrait to be tliat of a duchess of Mantua, or of the celebrated mistress of
Ludovico Sforza, Lucrezia Crivelli. It seems certain that this cannot be the portrait of
the Fernmniere, inasmuch as Leonardo Da Vinci, who came into France weak and ill,
did not paint a single picture in that country, while Francis I. died in 1547, that is to
say, twenty-eight years after Da Vinci. The fifth picture by Leonardo in the Louvre,
and the authenticity of which is beyond doubt, is known as La Belle Joconde (Mo.na
Lisa, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo). This portrait, at which it is said the
painter worked for four years without having finished it to his own satisfaction, is
rightly considered one of the chefs-d'ceuvre of this master and of his style. We may
A.D. 1500.]
LEONARDO DA VINCI.
9'
find in Vasari the loving description and the high praise he bestows on this picture ;
" rather divine than human, as hfehke as nature itself ... not painting, but the
despair of other painters." "This picture attracts me," adds M. Alichelet {la
Renaissance) ; " it fascinates and absorbs me ; I go to it in spite of myself, as the bird
is drawn to the serpent." " La Joconde " is worthy of representing to us this great
man, who, taken merely as a painter, unites anatomical knowledge to that of
chiaroscuro, and the study of reality to the genius of the ideal, who preceded Correggio
in grace, Michelangelo in force, and Raphael in beautv.
l.A iihl.LK JOCONDK. — BY LEONARDO IJA VINCI.
In the Louvre.
There is nothing very remarkable by Leonardo da Vinci in the German galleries,
if we except one of the two Madonnas in tlie gallery of Prince Esterhazy, now at Pesth.'
The Holy Mother is here placed between St. Barbara and St. Catherine, and is holding
the infant Jesus, who is taking a book from the table. At the bottom of his dress are
these words: Vin^inis Mater. Yet it is not St. Anna: the writer doubtless meant to
say Virgo Mater. A more serious fault may be found with it ; namely, that the three
female heads are singularly alike. And yet this half-length group, which reminds us by
its excellent arrangement of llie fine Holy Family we shall presently speak of in Madrid, is
92 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1500.
almost equal to that painting in importance and beauty. Tliis picture is much injured
but has not been restored \ and certainly the marks of age and the havoc which time
has produced are more respectable than unskilful restorations. Not more fortunate
than the galleries of Germany, the Hermitage of St. Petersburg, until lately, possessed
only weak and doubtful specimens of the works of Leonardo. It has, however, now
acquired, from the Litta Gallery at Milan, a work the historical authenticity of which,
joined to its own high qualities, gives it a great importance. This is a Madonna,
quite equal to La Joconde of the Louvre, and which Dr. Waagen includes among the
ten pictures which he analyses in his book on the Florentine master, while M. Rio,
in his " Christian Art," lavishes on it the most enthusiastic encomiums.
\\\ the National Gallery, there is no authentic work by Leonardo da Vinci, though
one has been attributed to him. It is Christ Disputing with the Docto?-s (No. 18), which
is said to have come from the Aldobrandini Palace, and to have been engraved for the
collection entitled " Schola Italica." It recalls in its details the style of the immortal
author of the Last Supper. But if it be indeed by Leonardo, it is neither one of his
best nor even one of his good works. As is usually the case in pictures where the
figures are half-length, the subject is badly arranged. Dr. Waagen says it is by Luini.
In the Museo del Rey at Madrid, there were until quite recently two replicas
only of works by this great master, repetitions with some slight variations of the
Joconde and of the St. Anna with the Virgin and Infant Saviour in the Louvre. But
the Escurial has recently ceded to this gallery, and thus restored to public view, another
Holy Family, which has not yet been engraved, but which is certainly one of the best
paintings of this master. Mary and Joseph are here represented nearly of the size of
life, standing behind a table on which the infant Saviour and his companion are seated,
both naked, embracing one another. Beautiful and smiling, full of love, solicitude, and
reverence, Mary has thrown her arms lovingly round the children, whilst Joseph,
standing a little behind, and with one hand supporting his head, looks with tenderness
at the scene before him. The Virgin's face is a little like that of La Belle Joconde, but
of a less worldly beauty. Her delicate hands, the fine transparent materials which
encircle her forehead and breast, with their soft tints artistically combined, the mild and
noble head of Joseph, standing out in relief although in shadow, are so many com-
plete perfections^ which mark the limits of human art. This picture, still scarcely
known in spite of its being nearly four hundred years old^ is a marvellous work, and
has hitherto almost entirely escaped the ravages of time.
At Naples they show with pride, in the Museum degli Studj, an admirable Madonna
by Leonardo; at Rome, in the small gallery of the Sciarra Palace, there is the cele-
brated allegory — two heads full of expression, which explain each other — called Vanity
and Modesty ; at Florence, less fortunate, the Pitti Gallery can only show a portrait of
an unknown man, and that of a woman, who is called the Ntm {la Monaca), because
her head is enveloped in a hood. Even these portraits, before they were placed in the
collection of the Grand Duke, were merely spoken of as belonging to the " school" of
Leonardo da Vinci.
It was at Milan that Leonardo, attracted by the bounty and retained by the friend-
ship of Ludovico Sforza, passed the greater part of his life as an artist, and it is
here that we should expect to find most of his works. However — and this proves how
rare they arc — the Ambrosian and Brera Galleries have only two sketches by him, both
Holy Families, one of which was finished by his worthy pupil and rival, Bernardino
Luini. His other remaining works are merely studies and sketches, including some
A.D. 1519.J LEONARDO DA VJNCI AND HIS SCHOOL.
93
portraits, amongst which are those of his protector, // Moro, and Beatrice d'Estc, his
wife ; also his own ])ortrait in profile in red chalks, a fine and noble face.
Let us now enter the refectory of the ancient convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie,
at Milan : there we may admire the remains, the relics, we might say, of the celebrated
Last Supper {il Cetiacolo) which Leonardo painted towards the close of the fifteenili
century, by order of the ])rince whose service he had chosen— that duke Ludovico
Sforza, who, having been made i^risoner by the French, died miserably at the castle
of Loches in Touraine, after ten years' captivity. Francis L wished to carry this
picture back with him to France, that it might form the finest trojjhy of his victory ai
AFarignan, which had given him possession of Lombardy. It could not, however, bo
detached from the wall. This enormous fresco, the masterpiece of its author, ami
perhaps even of all modern painting, has been for a long time in the most dej)lorable
state of decay. In the sixteenth century, the cardinal Federigo Korromeo reproached
the Dominicans with their culpable neglect of this precious work of art ; and yet it was
these same Dominicans who, in 1652, to enlarge the door of the refectory, cut oft' the
legs of the figure of Christ and of the nearest disciples.
When, at the end of the last century, during the wars of Italy, the convent of Santa
Maria was converted into cavalry barracks, and the refectory into a store for Jodder,
we can well imagine that the hussars were not more scrupulous than the monks.
General Bonaparte, in 1796, had indeed written, using his knee as a desk, an order
that this place, consecrated by the genius of Leonardo da Vinci, should be spared from
having soldiers quartered in it ; but the necessities of war were stronger than his respect
for the arts. It was long afterwards that Prince Eugene, viceroy of Italy, had the
refectory of the Dominicans cleaned, and raised a scaffolding before the picture, which
allowed it to be examined nearer, but which also allowed it to be injured by curious
and ignorant tourists, desirous of carrying away souvenirs.
It rs thought that Leonardo da Vinci did not paint this wonderful composition in
fresco, that is to say, in distemper, on and in the damp wall, but in oil ; or that, at all
events, he covered his fresco with an oil varnish. From this arose its rapid decaw
Everything has assisted in the destruction of this great work. It is not merely
time, the infiltration of water, the carelessness of the monks, and the insults of the
soldiers, that have caused ruin. ]\Iore than anything else it has been produced
by unskilful restorations, which changed what they touched, and rendered what
they respected more fragile. However, the outline of the composition, the attitudes
of the figures, and even the general efi'ect of colour, can still be vaguely seen.
This is sufficient to make the coldest and most superficial spectator, and even one
ignorant in the arts, bow with resi^ect, as did Francis I., before this sublime work, antl,
rendenng the homage of ardent admiration to I>eonardo da Vinci, repeat the just and
beautiful eulogy which Vasari has given of this wonderful man : '• Heaven, in its
goodness, sometimes grants to one mortal all its most precious gifts, and marks all the
works of this privileged man with such a stamp that they seem less to show the power
of human genius than the special favour of God."
The Last Supper is too well known for it to be necessary that we should give a
detailed account of it.' One remarkable thing is, the enormous number of copies made
of rt by the brush, the pencil, and the burin or engraver's tool, without counting the
innumerable stuilies of detached parts, which, since the time of Leonardo da Vinci,
artists and amateurs have continually been making before his fresco. At Milan is the
copy b\ \cspino (Andrea Bianchi), which the Ambrosian Gallery possesses, and thai of
94 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1500.
Bossi, at the Brera, both incorrect, and unworthy the original; then, in the same
museum, that of Marco da Oggione, in reduced proportions, the colour and effect
altered, but the correct drawing of which renders it certainly the best of the three. A
fine copy, by Marco da Oggione, is in the possession of the Royal Academy of Arts,
London. ' There was also at Milan, in the convent of Santa Maria della Pace, now a
manufoctory, a copy, made at twenty-two years of age by Lomazzo, that interesting
painter who, becoming blind while still young, and thus forced to give up working,
dictated his " Treatise on Painting." Copies are also known by De Rossi, Perdrici, and
that which Gagna made in 1827 for the palace at Turin. In France, there was a copy
brou"-ht back from Milan by Francis I., and which was at Saint-Germain I'Auxerrois ;
that "of the chateau d'Ecouen of the same period, and that which has long been
exhibited in the Apollo Gallery at the Louvre, and which was thought to have been
done in the studio of Leonardo and under his own eye. Two recent mosaics, one
made in 1809, which is at Vienna, the other made more recently by the Roman
Rafaelli, have reproduced the " Last Supper " in unchangeable enamel. Engraving has
been employed not less than painting or mosaic in perpetuating the remembrance of
this celebrated work. It has been engraved successively by Mantegna, Soutman,
Rainaldi, Bonate, Frey, Thouvenet, and many others, and lastly by Raphael Morghen,
who, making use of a fine drawing by Teodoro Matteini, and devoting six years to his
copy, as Leonardo to the original, has surpassed all his predecessors, and produced, m
his own art, another masterpiece.
FOLLOWERS OF LEONARDO. (FLORENTINE SCHOOL.)
Piero di Cosimo, so called from his master, Cosimo Rosselli, was born at Florence
about 1460. He was the son of a Florentine jeweller of the name of Lorenzo, and is
said to have rivalled Leonardo da Vinci in his early Florentine time. In 1480 he
accompanied his master to Rome, when the latter went there in order to decorate the
Sistine Chapel. Piero is described as a man of a strange character, and preferred
mythological to theological subjects, but with all that, he was an excellent painter and
is greatly admired for his landscapes. It is said that he painted the landscape background
to Rosselli's Sermon on the Mount in the Sistine Chapel. Piero di Cosimo died at
Florence in 152 1. There are pictures by this artist in Florence, in the Louvre, and
in the Berlin Museum. In the National Gallery is the Death of Frocris, with Procris
(No. 698) and her dog Lelaps and a Satyr.
Lorenzo Sciarpelloni, called Lorenzo di Credi, was born at Florence in 1459. He
was a fellow-pupil with Leonardo da Vinci and Perugino in the atelier of Verrocchio.
He was much devoted to Leonardo, but was especially fond of his master, whose
attachment for him was also great, for, when Verrocchio went to Venice to model
the Colleoni Statue, he left Lorenzo in charge of his affairs in Florence ; and
in his will, in 1488, he ex]3ressed a desire that Lorenzo should finish the statue,
which Verrocchio left unfinished ; he also made him his principal lieir. Lorenzo,
however, did not complete the statue, and it is said he only retained Verrocchio's
works of art, giving everything else to his master's relations. Lorenzo, when old,
retired to Santa Maria Nuova at Florence, and died there in 1537. His painting is
chielly remarkable for its careful execution and minute finish, which is seen better
m his small than in his large pictures. He painted in oil, and was very careful
LEONARDO DA VINXI.
/'jr^v 94.
A.a 1525.] LEONARDO DA VINCI AND HIS SCHOOL. 95
to keej) liis i)alette in order and his brushes clean. His favourite subject was
the Holy Family, of which he painted a great number. There is a fine picture by
this artist in the Duomo at Pistoia ; two Nativities are in the Uffizi. The Berlin
Museum possesses numerous specimens of his art ; but for Paris is reserved the honour
of having his masterpiece. In the Louvre (No. 958) is the Madonna and Child
enthroned ivith SS. JuUan and Nicholas, painted for the chajiel of the Convent of
Cestello, also rei)resenting the Madonna and Child. In the National Gallery there
are two pictures of the Virgin and Infont Christ (Nos. 593 and 648).
FOLLOWERS OF LEONARDO. (MILANESE SCHOOL.)
Bernardo Luini was born at Luini, on Lake Maggiore, in the middle of the fifteenth
century— the precise date of his birth is not known. Very little is recorded of his life,
though Vasari evidently refers to him when he speaks of the paintings of Bernardino da
Lupino in the church of the Madonna at Saronno. He was the most famous pupil of
Leonardo da Vinci, whose style he so closely imitated that many of his works have
been mistaken for those of the great painter ; amongst these may be mentioned the sole
representative of Leonardo in the National Gallery (No. 18), Christ disputing with the
Doctors, which, according to Dr. Waagen and other critics, is by Luini. Pictures by
this artist are spread diffusely over Europe, for he was a most prolific painter ; among
his best works may be mentioned, a .S7. John and the Lamb, in the Rothschild Hotel ;
the Marriage of St. Catherine and the Litta frescoes, in the Lou\re ; a laro-e altar^
piece, at Legnaio near Milan ; a Crucifixion, which is extremely fine, in the church of
Lugano, Lake Maggiore ; and the frescoes in the Brera Gallery at Milan. Luini, like
Lorenzo di Credi, is noticeable for the minuteness of his finish and the beauty of his
colouring ; he greatly excelled in painting women. He died, soon after 1530.
Cesare da Sesto, called also Cesare da Milano, was bom at Milan (?) about 1460.
He was pupil of the great Leonardo, though in later life he studied the style of Raphael,
whose friendship be made at Rome. A Baptism of Christ by him, with a landsca})e
background by Bernazzano, an unimportant landscape painter, is in the possession of
Duke Scotti at Milan. There is a St. Roch with the Virgin ajid Child in the Casa
Melzi at Milan. The Vierge aux Balances in the Louvre, formerly attributed to
Rnjihael, is considered by many writers to be by Cesare da Sesto.
Giovanni Antonio Beltraffio, born at Milan in 1467, studied art under Leonardo da
Vinci as an amateur, for he was a nobleman. There is a Madonna and Child with
SS. John the Baptist and Sebastian, painted in 1500 for a church in Bologna, now in
the Louvre ; another picture representing the same subject is in the Frizzoni (Gallery,
Bellaggio. A third Madonna and Child h in the National Gallery (No. 728). It was
formerly in the Northwick Collection, and was purchased at the Davenport-Bromley
sale. Beltraffio died at Milan on the 15th of June, 15 16.
Marco da Oggione, sometimes called Uggione, was born in the neighbourhood of
Milan about 1470. He was placed with Leonardo da Vinci as early as 1490. He
painted frescoes for the church of Santa Maria della Pace at Milan, which were
removed afterwards to the Brera. There is also an altar-piece by Oggione in the
Bonomi Collection, Milan ; and another in the Louvre. But Oggione is chiefly famous
for his co])ies of the well-known fresco of the Last Supper by Leonardo. One, painted
in oil in 15 10, for the refectory of the Certosa di Pavia. from the original when in a
96 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS [a.d. 1550.
perfect state, is now carefully preserved in the Royal Academy of London. Another,
executed in fresco for the refectory of the convent of Castellazzo, is still preserved in
that place ; and a third— a small one— from which it is said he copied his two larger
works already mentioned, is in the Hermitage. Marco da Oggione died in 1530.
Francesco Melzi, a Milanese noble, the date of whose birth is unknown, was a
friend and follower of Leonardo. He painted also as an amateur, and assisted
Leonardo in a Madonna and Child, on the wall of the castle of Vaprio. In the Berlin
gallery a Vertumnus and Pomona, which was formerly attributed to Leonardo, is now
said to be by Melzi. He accompanied his instructor to France, and on his death in
1519 Leonardo left his manuscripts and all things pertaining to his art to Melzi, who
was his executor. It is said that the latter supplied Vasari and Lomazzo v/ith records
of the principal events of Leonardo's life. It is not known when Melzi died.
Gaudenzio Ferrari, born at Valdugga in Piedmont in 1484, was a celebrated
painter of the Milanese school of Leonardo. It is believed that he studied under
Luini, and it is known that he went to Rome and worked with Raphael in the Farne-
sina Palace. Of his oil paintings the most celebrated are the Aladonna and Child with
saints, in San Cristoforo at Vercelli ; a Martyrdom of St. Catherine, in the Brera ; and
a Dead Chriit, int he Turin Gallery. Of his frescoes, may be mentioned the History
of SS. Joachim and Anna, transferred from Santa Maria della Pace to the Brera ; a
Procession of Spectators of the Crucifixion, in the chapel of the Sacro Monte at Varallo ;
the History of Christ, in the convent of the Minorites ; an Adoration, in Santa Maria
di Loreto, near Varallo ; a Glory of Angels, in the church of Saronno near Milan ;
various scenes from the Life of the Virgin, painted from 1532 to 1535, in San Cristoforo,
Vercelli; and his last work, the Flagellation, ^■mxX.^A in 1542 in Santa Maria delle
Grazie, Milan. Gaudenzio Ferrari died at Milan in 1549. He was mentioned with
absurd praise by Lomazzo as one of the seven greatest painters of modern time, but
though not deserving of so great honour, he was one of the best of the Milanese
painters who were influenced by Leonardo. He is correct in design and finished in
execution, but his colouring, though brilliant, is devoid of harmony and taste.
Giovanni Antonio Sogliani, born about 1491, was the scholar of Lorenzo di Credi,
whom he greatly imitated, as well as Andrea del Sarto and Perugino. His works are
often mistaken for those of his master. Pictures by him are in the Torrigiani and
Panciatici Galleries at Florence ; there is also a copy of Lorenzo's Adoration of the
Shepherds in the Berlin Museum. He died in 1544.
Bernardino Lanini, born at Vercelli about 1508, was a scholar and imitator of
Gaudenzio Ferrari ; he also studied the style of Leonardo. He painted chiefly in
fresco. One of his best works is an altar-piece at Borgo Sesia ; it is signed " Bernar-
dinus pausillum hoc quod cernis eftigiabat, 1539." He executed various frescoes in
the cathedral of Novara. A Holy Family, by him, is in the National Gallery (No.
700), signed and dated '' Bernardinus eftigiabat, 1543." Lanini died about 1578.
Among the scholars of Leonardo, who are not of sufficient merit to warrant an
individual notice, may be mentioned Andrea Salaino, or Salai — a favourite pupil —
he painted a Madonna and Child with SS. Peter and Paul, now in the Brera ; Giovanni
Pedrinia — a Magdalen by him is in the Brera, and a St. Catherine in the Berlin
(iallery ; Girolamo Aliprandi, who painted at Messina a Christ dispntifig with the
Doctors, mentioned by Lanzi, but which no longer exists ; Gaudenzio Vinci, of Novara,
who painted an altar-piece at Arona, near Milan ; and Bernardino Fassola, of Pavia.
-b
BARTOLOMMEO BACCIO BELLA PORTA.
(Fka Bartolommeo.)
F,w 97-
A.I). 1500.1 FLORENTINE SCHOOL, 97
CHAPTER IX.
FLORENTINE SCHOOL, SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
THE iuBuence of Leonardo da Vinci was felt fiir beyond the limits of his own
time or that of his scholars. His paintings were the wonder of the age ; and
the beginning of the sixteenth century saw a race of artists spring up in Florence
who emulated his works and who have heli)ed to glorify the renown of that flimous
city. Among the most celebrated of these masters were Fra Bartolommeo and Andrea
del Sarto.
Bartolommeo Baccio- usually known as Fra Bartolommeo — was called della Porta,
because he resided near the Gate of St. Peter's, at Florence. To avoid such a long
name, and to distinguish him from the old Fra Bartolommeo della Gatta, a painter,
illuminator, and architect, of the beginning of the fifteenth century, the Italians usually
call him II Frate (the Monk). He was born in the district of Savignano in 1469.
A romantic event in his youth induced him to adopt the monastic lite. Whilst still a
pupil of Cosimo Rosselli, whose studio he had entered in 1484, he listened eagerly to
the preaching of the fiery Dominican, Fra Geronimo Savonarola, and became one of
his most ardent disciples. He even burnt his studies in the kind of auto-da-fe made
by the people on the Shrove Tuesday of the year 1489, in the Square before the
convent of St. Mark. When, after a reign of three years over Florence, the Italian
Luther was obliged to shut himself up in the convent of which he was the prior, and
to undergo a siege, Bartolommeo was at his side, and, in the heat of the combat, made
a vow to adopt the monastic life if he escaped the danger. After the death of
Savonarola in 1498, he took the vows in thac same convent of the Dominicans of
San Marco. Hence his name of " II Frate." He remained four whole years without
touching a pencil, and wdien he yielded at length to the solicitations of his friends,
his fellow monks and his superiors, it was on condition that the convent should
receive all the produce of his labours.
In 1498 and 1499, Fra Bartolommeo painted tlie (elebrated fresco of the Last
Judgjuent in Santa Maria Novella, the lower ]iart of which was finished by his friend
Albertinelli ; and in 1509 he entered into a partnership with that painter. They
executed several works in conjunction, among which were the Marriage of St. Cathe-
rine, doled 15 1 2, now in the Pitti Palace ; and a picture representing the Patron Saints
of Florence, in the IHfizi. This partnership was ended by the death of Albertinelli in
15 15. About 1514 the Frate went to Rome, where he painted the figure ol St. Paul
ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.i;. 1500.
. and part of that of St. Peter, which he was obliged to leave to his friend Raphael to
finish, — it is supposed, on account of ill-health. These two figures are now in the
Quirinal.
We cannot judge of him by the specimens in the Louvre, which consist of an
Annunciation, once in the cabinet of Francis I. at Fontainebleau, and a Marriage of
St. Catherhie, dated 15 11, given to Louis XIL by a French ambassador, who had
received it from the seignory of Florence. We must seek his nobler works at Florence.
There, in the Uffizi, is another painting of the Virgin seated on a throne, surrounded
by her celestial court, one of the greatest compositions of this painter, and the last
which he executed. In the Pitti Palace we find an Entombment ; and with it the most
celebrated of all Fra Bartolommeo's works, the .5"/. Mark, which went to Paris during
the conquests of the first empire. This colossal St. Mark, a gigantic figure, was
painted by the Frate for the fagade of his convent, to disprove an accusation which
had been brought against him of want of grandeur in his style; and notwithstanding
some faults of exaggeration, it is perhaps the most complete expression of strength
and power that painting has produced, — as the Moses of Michelangelo is in sculpture.
If the Pitti Palace had been able also to obtain the St. Sebastian by the snme master
(a picture which was sent to Francis I. by the monks of St. Mark, and which is now
lost), it would have possessed both the masterpieces of the Frate, the one remarkable
for its grandeur, the other for its exquisite beauty. The Belvedere Gallery at Vienna
has a very fine work of this master, the Presentation in the Temple. At Panshanger,
in the collection of Earl Cowper, there is a very fine Holy Family, painted in 1509.
We find in all his works purity and nobility of style joined to a brilliancy of colouring,
though with a tendency towards employing too much red ; his draperies are charac-
terised by elegance and truth. As expressive as Leonardo da Vinci, as graceful as
Raphael, as imposing as Michelangelo, as a colourist almost equal to Titian, inspired
by the knowledge and the feeling of all, yet without servility, without effort, the
Frate was really, with Andrea del Sarto, the summary of Florentine art of his time.
We must not forget that Fra Bartolommeo by several years preceded Raphael, with
whom, Avhen the latter visited Florence in 1504, he exchanged lessons that were useful
to both ; we must not forget either that painters are said to owe to him the invention
of lay-figures. Fra Bartolommeo died at Florence, in 15 17.
Giuliano Bugiardini, born near Florence in 1471, was a pupil of Mariotto
Albertinelli, and studied in the garden of Lorenzo de' Medici, where he made the
acquaintance of Michelangelo, from whose designs he executed various paintings. His
works have been classed in several galleries under names of much greater artists than
himself. Among some of his best pictures we may mention a Madonna and Child in
the Ufiizi ; a Marriage of St. Catherine at Bologna, and above all a Martyrdom of
St. Catherine, in the Cappella Ruccellai in Santa Maria Novella at Florence. There
are many other works by him in Italy and elsewhere. Bugiardini died in 1554.
Mariotto Albertinelli was born at Florence in 1474. He was apprenticed, when
young, to Cosimo Rosselli, in whose studio he was a fellow-pupil with Fra Bartolommeo.
In the year 1509 they had entered into partnership, and they painted conjoindy many
works; some of which bear the monogram of a cross with two interlaced rings.
When Fra Bartolommeo retired into monastic seclusion, his friend and partner finished
some of his uncompleted works. It is related, by Vasari, that Albertinelli at one time,
bemg enraged at some criticisms which were made on his painting, abandoned the brusli
ENTHRONEMENT OF THE VIRGIN. By Fra Bartolommeo.
In the Callerv o^ the Uffizi, Florence.
A.D. 1525.] FLORENTINE SCHOOL. gg
and opened a public-house ; it is certain, however, that he returned to his art again,
but on his return from a journey to Rome he died at Florence in 15 15. In paintin"- he
resembled Fra Bartolommeo as closely as one artist ever resembled another. He is
especially to be admired for the design and the chiaroscuro of his pictures. Amono-
those works in which Albertinelli assisted the Frate, may be mentioned a Madonna
and Child, in Santa Caterina at Pisa ; the Marriage of the two SS. Catherine, dated
15 1 2, in the Pitti Palace; and an Assumption in the Berlin Museum, the lower part
being by Fra Bartolommeo, and the upper by Albertinelli (Dr. Waagen). Among the
pictures executed by the latter alone, we may mention the Visitation of the Virgin
his masterpiece— in the Uffizi ; a Madonna and Child, in the Louvre ; an Annuncia-
tion, in the Accademia, Florence ; and a Virgin and Child, in the National Gallery (No.
645), purchased from M. Beauconsin.
Marc Antonio Francia Bigio, sometimes called Franciabigio— a friend of Andrea
del Sarto, antl a pupil of Albertinelli — was born in 1482. He painted, in 15 13, in the
court of the SS. Annunziata the Marriage of the Virgin; the monks happened to
remove the screen before the picture was (luite finished, and thereby so enraged the
artist, that with a hammer he dealt several angry blows at the Virgin's head, causing
riiuch damage to the painting, which he could never be prevailed upon to restore.
The signs of his violence remain to this day. In 151S-19 he executed two pictures
from the Life of fohn the Baptist, in the Scalzo. Among other works by him we may
mention an Annunciation in the Turin Gallery, and a Madonna and Child in the Uffizi.
Francia Bigio was a good portrait-painter, and many pictures by him are classed under
various other names : a Portrait of a young vmn, in the Pitti Palace ; two portraits in
the Berlin Gallery ; another of a Factor of the Medici, in the state drawing-room at
Windsor Castle, attributed to Andrea del Sarto ; and a fifth in the possession of Lord
Yarborough, ascribed to Raphael, All these bear Francia Bigio's signature, " F. B."
He died in 1525.
Ridolfo Ghirlandajo, who was born at Florence in 14S3, was the only son of
Domenico Ghirlandajo v.-ho followed the profession of artist. It is said that he
studied under Fra Bartolommeo, and it is known that he was a friend of Raphael,
and that that artist tried to induce him to go to Rome in 1508, but Ghirlandajo,
being ^•ery well contented with his success in Florence, preferred to remain where
he was. He painted many works for processions of all kinds, more especially on the
occasion of the marriage or the death of one of the Medici. He died, wealthy and
at an old age, at his native town, in 1560. Among his easel pictures we may mention
St. A'nobio raising a dead Child, and the Burial of the Saint, in the Uffizi; a Nativity,
in the Esterhazy Gallery, Vienna; and a Coronation of the Virgin, in the Louvre.
Andrea Vannucchi, or d'Agnolo, surnamed del Sarto, because he was the son of
a tailor, was born at Florence in 1487. At first he was apprenticed to a goldsmith,
but became afterwards the pupil of Piero di Cosimo, that strange man, as great a cynic
as Diogenes, whose works prove him to have been a tolerable colourist but an
incorrect draughtsman. Andrea del Sarto never visited either Rome or Venice ;
he studied the frescoes of Masaccio and Ghirlandajo, paintings by Leonardo da Vinci,
and drawings by Michelangelo. He never left his native country except for one short
visit to France, whither he was invited by Francis I. in 15 18, and he died at Florence
in 1531, when only forty-three years old, struck down by a contagious malady, and
ILLUSTRATED HLSTORY OF PAINTERS.
[a.d. 1530.
abandoned by his wife and friends. Thus sadly ended a hfe which we cannot but
regard as obscure and miserable for one possessing such great talents and honoured
with so much posthumous renown. His principal works are to be found in Florence,
Berlin, and Madrid.
The Pitti Palace contains sixteen pictures by Andrea del Sarto, the greater number of
them very important. First, his Dispute on the Holy Trinity, an analogous subject to
the Dispute on the Sacrament, painted by Raphael, in one of the Stanze of the Vatican,
\\'ithout wishing to establish any comparison between these two works, which resemble
each other in name only, we may say that this picture of Andrea's appears to constitute
his highest title to fame ; there, as elsewhere, we know nothing which can give
a higher and more complete idea of his original and learned composition, of his
THE ENTOMBMENT OF CHRIST. — BY ANDREA DEI. SARTO.
Ill the Museum of t lie Louvre, Paris.
elevated and grand style, of his vigorous expression, and, in short, of all the qualities
of execution which make him the first colourist of the Florentine school. We may
also mention, before leaving the Pitti Palace, an Entombment, taken to Paris with
the other Italian masterpieces ; two Holy Families, of about equal merit ; two
Assumptions, bearing much resemblance to each other; and two Annunciations.
Of the latter, the larger of the two is very different from the ordinary and traditional
forms : the scene does not take place in the Oratory of the Virgin, but in the open
air, and before a palace of fantastic architecture. Gabriel does not come alone
to perform his mysterious mission ; two other angels accompany him. The Virgin,
as represented, is too masculine for a young girl. This last fliult is more or less
common to all the figures of Madonnas or women painted by Andrea del Sario ;
A.i). 1530] FLORENTINE SCHOOL. ,01
and arises no doubt from his taking for his model his own wife, Lucrezia della Fede,
a beautiful widow, whom he married while still young. She persuaded him to commit
a great fault, that of wasting in foolish expenses the money entrusted to him by
Francis I. for the purchase of pictures and statues. She became the torment of his
life, and finally left him to die alone. We must also mention the Portrait of himself , a
fuie, mild foce, rather sad and suftering ; and also the last of his works, the Vircrm and
four Saints, which his sudden death prevented him finishing. His pupils, among whom
were Vasari, Pontormo, and Razzi, completed it.
Of a timid, modest, simi)le nature, without ardour or pride, but possessing a
" genius full at once of kindness and forethought, of pliancy and boldness, of reserve
and enthusiasm," the very excellent Andrea del Sarto, as Vasari calls him, received
the noble surname of '' Senza errori," from the purity of his design, the correctness
and power of his colouring, the grace of his attitudes, and the harmony and unity of
his compositions, which can be understood at a glance.
The admirers of Del Sarto should not leave Florence without visiting the old
church of the SS. Annunziata, the cloister of which contains a precious series of
frescoes by Poccetti, Rosselli, and others ; but these are all eclipsed by the admirable
and celebrated Madonna del Sacco, which Andrea painted over the entrance-door, to
accomplish the vow of a good woman at confession. In the Pinakothek of Munich
there are two Holy Families, in the larger of which St. Elizabeth and two angels
complete the composition. They are equal to' the best works in the Pitti Palace.
At Berlin there is another great composition, no less finished and complete in
execution than in conception, and in which Del Sarto displays all his power. This
is also a Virgin in Glory, that sul)ject which has been treated by painters of every
school and period, and which seems to have aroused the emulation of them all.
On a throne, supported by the clouds and surrounded by cherubim, the Holy Mother
is seated, holding the infant Saviour in her arms. Two groups of saints form her
celestial court : to the right are St. Peter, St. Benedict, and St. Onophrius ; to the left,
St. Mark, with the lion, St. Antony of Padua, and St. Catherine of Alexandria ; the two
first of each group are standing, the third kneeling ; in the foreground are half-length
portraits of St. Celsus and St. Julia. We know of what importance is a picture by
Del Sarto containing twelve personages ; but this is still more striking for its merits
than for its size. It is painted on panel, and though rubbed in some parts, this
magnificent picture yet joins the most brilliant colour to the greatest elevation of
style. We do not hesitate to declare that this is the most precious work of art from
Italy in Berlin. The date it bears is 1528. Andrea, then, must have painted it on
his return from France, and two years before the plague terminated his short life.
Among the six pictures by Andrea which are in the Museum of Madrid, there
is one — the Sacrifice of Isaac — which is thought to have been one of the two paintings
which on his return to Italy he had intended to have sent to Francis I., to implore his
forgiveness for his fault. If the other were as admirable as this, the two might have
equalled the value of the money which that prince had confided to him for the
purchase of works of art, and which, notwithstanding an oath he had taken on the
Gospels, Andrea allowed to be frittered away.
But that which we consider the most astonishing work in Spain by this painter
is a portrait of his wife, Lucrezia della Fede. This portrait has been placed as a
pendant to the Mona Lisa of Leonardo da Vinci in tlie Madrid Gallery. It deserves
and justifies such an honour. It is equal in painting, and, thanks no doubt to
ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.u. 1550.
the beauty of the original, is still more charming and lovely. It is one of the most
delightful portraits of a woman ever painted. The beauty of the model— idealised
perhaps by love— the grace of the position, the exquisite taste in the dress, and
the wonderful execudon of the whole, combine to render this picture interesting
in the history of painting. It has a double title to be so, as it is the type of all
the women painted by Andrea, even of his Madonnas, and also it is a masterpiece
in his style, as the Madonna della Sedia is in that of Raphael. And really these two
pictures, so different in subject, bear a singular resemblance to one another. There
is the same modest beauty which attracts homage ; there is the same powerful
and victorious charms in both pictures. In the National Gallery there are but two
pictures by Del Sarto, a Holy Family (No. 17), and a Portrait of himself i^o. 690),
signed A. A. (Andrea d'Agnolo).
Jacopo Carrucci, commonly known as Jacopo da Pontormo from his birthplace, was
born in 1494. He was a scholar of Andrea del Sarto, and later in life the teacher
of Angelo Bronzino. He painted somewhat after the style of Michelangelo. His
chief works, which occupied him eleven years, were frescoes in San Lorenzo at
Florence, representing the Deluge and the Last Jiidi^nicjif. They have been long
since covered with whitewash. Among works attributed to him we may mention the
predella of Andrea del Sarto's Annunciation in the Pitti, and two pictures from the
Life of Joseph in the same gallery. Pontormo, as a portrait-painter, possessed no
common merit. A portrait of one of the IMedici by him is in the Uffizi ; there are two
by him in the Berlin Museum ; and a Portrait of a Boy is in the National Gallery
(No. 649) —formerly in the collection of the Duke of Brunswick. Pontormo died at
Florence in 1556.
Kosso de' Rossi, called by his countrymen II Rosso and by the French Maitre
Roux, probably because he had red hair, was born at Florence in 1496. He was an
imitator of Andrea del Sarto and Michelangelo. He painted together with other
assistants of Andrea in the court of the SS. Annunziata. About the year 1538 Rossi
went to Paris and superintended, for Francis I., the decoration of the Palace at
Fontainebleau ; while he was engaged on this work he lost a considerable sum of
money, and accused his friend and assistant Francesco Pelligrino of the theft; he
was accordingly put to torture, but was declared to be not guilty. That he should
have accused an innocent man, it is said, caused Rossi such remorse that shortly
afterwards, in 1541, he put an end to his life. Among his works may be mentioned
a Madonna and Saints in the Pitti Palace, and a SalutatioJi of the Virgin in the Louvre.
SIENESE SCHOOL, SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
Jacopo Paccliiarotto was born at Siena in 1474, where he resided until 1535, when,
joining a conspiracy of the people against the government, he was obliged to leave the
country ; he took refuge in France, where he became acquainted with II Rosso ; and
it is said that he executed paintings for Francis I. at Fontainebleau. He appears to
have returned to Siena in 1536 : three years afterwards he was again in trouble with
the government, when he was outlawed ; but by the intercession of his wife Girolama
he was pardoned, and in 1540 restored to his family; no record has been found
of him after this date. Owing to the fact that Pacchiarotto is not mentioned by
A.iJ. 1550-] SIENESE SCHOOL. jo^
Vasari, great confusion has arisen regarding him. Many of his works have been
attributed to Perugino, but on the other hand, many paintings by Girolamo del Pacchia
have been ascribed to Pacchiarotto. The fresco in Sta. Caterina at Siena, representing
the Visit of St. Catherine to the body of St. Agnes at Montepiilciano, long attributed
to Pacchiarotto, has now been proved to be by Del Pacchia. Among other pictures
by the latter wliich liave been attributed to the former, may be mentioned a Madomia
and Child (No. 246) in the National Galler\-. Two pictures in the Pinakothek at
Munich -a St. Francis of Assisi, -mmX 'x Madonna and ChiM—hoih. formerly in San
Bernardino at Siena; jjurchased by Ludwig I. of Bavaria, when Crown-prince, in 1818
—are attributed to Pacchiarotto, as are also several works in the Academy of Siena.
Speth, in speaking of this artist, terms him " the second hero of the Sienese school" —
Razzi being the first— and says that to designate him as of the school of Perugino, is
only to magnify the injustice he has already undergone in having many of his best
works attributed to that master ; and adding, '• what Perugino supphed was only the
spark which in Pacchiarotto grew into a flame." But Speth himself evidentlv attributed
to the latter, works by Del Pacchia, for he praises as Pacchiarotto's work'tlie above-
mentioned / 'isit of St. Catherine.
Girolamo del Pacchia was born at Siena in 147 7- He painted in Rome from 1 50S till
15 1 1, but the pictures which he executed there are only known to us by record. In 1 5 18
he painted frescoes with Beccafumi and Razzi in San Bernardino at Siena ; he disap-
peared from that town in 1535, and no further record has been found of him. As we
have before mentioned, many of his works have been attributed to Pacchiarotto, among
others the frescoes in Santa Caterina, representing the Fisit of St. Catherine to the
body of St. Agnes, which are greatly praised by Speth and Lanzi— and the Madonna
and Child (No. 246), in the National Gallery. A Coronation of the Virgin, in Santo
Spirito, and a jWadonna and Child, in the Academy at Siena, are by this artist. Del
Pacchia is only incidentally mentioned by Vasari in his life of II Sodoma.
Giovanni Antonio Razzi, or Bazzi, also called II Sodoma; was born at Vercelli in
1479. The first works on which we find him engaged are the twenty.six frescoes
-representmg the History of St. Benedict-in the convent of Sant' Uliveto Ma-iore
near Siena; these were painted about 1502. Some time after this. Pope Tuhus II'
employed him at Rome, but nearly all his paintings were destroyed to make way for
the great Raphael. In the Farnesina are the Marriage of Alexander and J^oxaua, and
Alexander in the tent of Darius, painted for Agostino Chigi. On his return to Siena
Bazzi executed in the chapel of Santa Caterina da Siena, in San Domenico a work
which IS considered by some critics to be his masterpiece ; it represents scenes from the
Life of St. Catherine. He also executed, in conjunction with Del Pacchia and Becca-
fumi, the History of the Virgin, m tlie oratory of San Bernardino. Other works bv this
artist are : in Siena, frescoes in the Sala Consiglio of the Palazzo Pubblico, and also in
Santo Spirito, and an Adoration of the Kings, in Sant' Agostino ; a St. Sbastian in the
Ufiizi, Florence; an Aseension, in the Naples Gallery; a Fla^r.llation, in the \cademv
of Siena. A Sacrifee of Abraham, painted for the Cathedral of Pisa— exhibited in
the Louvre in 1814, but returned to Pisa in 1815-is now in the choir of the cathedral •
and lastly a portrait of Lueretia, in the Public Gallery of Hanover. Annibale Carracri
says of Bazzi, that he "appears to be a master of the very highest eminence and of the
greatest taste" He died in 1549.
104 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1550.
Baldassare Peruzzi was born at Accajano near Siena, in 1481. He was l)oth
painter and architect. It is not known under whom he studied art, but his first works of
any importance were executed at Volterra. Thence he removed to Rome, where he
painted scenes from t\\e Life of the Virgin, in Sant' Onofrio, and various works in Santa
Maria della Pace. About this time he built for Agostino Chigi the famous Villa
Farnesina, on the western bank of the Tiber. In 1520 he was appointed successor to
Raphael as architect to St. Peter's. In the following year he visited Bologna, where
he made designs for the facade of San Petronio, but returning to Rome, on the sack of
that city in 1527, he was robbed of all his possessions and escaped with great difficulty
to Siena. Before the Imperial soldiers would let him go, theymade him paint a picture
of their general, Constable Bourbon, who had been killed in an attack on the city. In
Siena he was well received, and was made city architect, but he returned to Rome
in 1535, and commenced the Palazzo Massimi, the completion of which he was not
destined to see. He died at the end of 1536 and was buried near Raphael in the
Pantheon. Other works by Peruzzi, who was more celebrated as an architect than as
a painter, are a figure of Charity with three Children, in the Berlin Museum ; an
Adoration of the Kings, in the Bridgewater Gallery; and another Adoration of the
Kings, in the National Gallery (No. 167) — a drawing in chiaroscuro made for Count
Bentivogli at Bologna in 152 1. This drawing, together with a print from the plate
engraved by Agostino Carracci, was presented to the National Gallery by Lord Vernon.
The Adoration of the Magi (No. 218), in the same gallery, is a copy of the above,
probably by Girolamo da Trevigi, unless, as has been reported, Girolamo's picture
perished at sea. Several other copies were made of Peruzzi's drawing.
Domenico Meccherino, known as Beccafumi, from the name of his patron, was born
of poor parents, at Siena, in 1484. He was first placed with an unimportant artist
named Capanna, under whom he chiefly copied the works of other masters, especially
those of Perugino, whose style he acquired. He visited Rome during the Pontificate
of Julius J I., where he studied the paintings of Raphael and of Michelangelo. In
later life he imitated the latter, but not to the improvement of his own style. He died
in his native town in 1549.
Besides working in conjunction with Bazzi in the Oratory of San Bernardino, Becca-
fumi executed many paintings in Siena, Florence, Pisa, and elsewhere, among which
we may mention a St. Catherine receiving the Stigmata, in the Sienese Academy. In
the cathedral of that town he executed on the pavement some mosaics of marble in
the style of niello, which have been engraved by Andreani and Cosati. After Bazzi,
Beccafumi was considered the best Sienese painter of his time. He was famous
for his perspective, his foreshortening, and for the reflections which he used to put
into his pictures. He executed also works in sculpture and in engraving.
MICHELANGELO BUONARROTL
Pas^ 105.
A.D. 1475.] ROMAN SCHOOL. 105
CHArTl'.R X.
MICHELANGELO BUONARROTL
IF any one were to ask who, at the commencement of the sixteenth century, were
the two great rivals whose contest was watched with the greatest eagerness by
the whole of Europe, politicians might reply, Francis L and Charles V. ; but
artists, Raphael and Michelangelo. These illustrious men, both of whom received
their early education in Florence, went to Rome to execute their most famous works,
and founded the first school of art in that city. " They have been the only conquerors
in art," say the annotators of Vasari, "and nothing can be compared to the enthusiastic
acclamations of the people who saw them produce the Cartoon of the Pisan War, the
paintings in the Stanze of the Vatican, the frescoes m the Sistine Chapel, and the
Transfiguration. Not a single voice arose to contest their victory ; more than a century
passed before emboldened criticism dared to stammer out its first objections. . -. After
vain attempts to attack Raphael and Michelangelo, it at last had recourse to the
expedient of the lapidary, who attacks the diamond with the diamond. It opposed
Michelangelo to Raphael and Raphael to Michelangelo ; but though continually
brought into opposition for more than three centuries, Raphael and Michelangelo only
appear the more radiant."'
Michelangelo Buonarroti, the great sculptor, painter, and architect, was born at
Castel Caprese, in the diocese of Arezzo in Tuscany, on the 6th of March, 1475 (owing
to the Florentine year beginning on Annunciation day, the 25th of March, his birth
is usually said to have taken place in 1474). His father was Lodovico Buonarroti,
governor of the Castle of Caprese, his mother, Maria Bonda, of the family of the
Ruccellai. His foster-mother was the wife of a stonemason. When quite young he
displayed great talent for drawing and expressed a desire to be a painter, to which
his father most strenuously objected, but the youth was very decided and at last
gained his point. On the ist of April, 1488, when but thirteen years of age,
Michelangelo was apprenticed for three years to Domenico dhirlandajo, who was, at
that time, engaged on work in Santa Maria Novella at Florence ; and it was agreed
that he should receive, for his assistance, eight florins yearly — a most unusual cir-
cumstance. It is said that Ghirlandajo, on seeing a sketch which his pupil had made
in his leisure time, exclaimed, "This boy knows more than I myself do." It was
about this time that he studied in the Garden of the Medici, where Lorenzo took him
into his favour, ww^X, on seeing a mask of a Fami which he had executed in marble.
io6 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF P AINTE RS. [ a-D- iS^o-
employed him to make various works in sculpture. On the death of his patron in 1492,
he removed to his fother's house for a short time, v^here he executed the Hercules—
now perished. Returning to Florence, he was employed by Pietro de' Medici— the
son of Lorenzo -who, caring little for real art, is said to have induced the young
ardst to mould a colossal figure in snow.
In the next year, Michelangelo, dissatisfied with the state of things in Florence, left
that city and repaired to Bologna, where he carved figures on the shrine of St. Dominic
in the church of San Petronio. In 1494 he returned to Florence and worked for
another Lorenzo de' Medici ; among other things he executed a Sleeping Cupid, which
was sold in Rome, for 200 ducats, as an antique. This induced him to go to the
Papal capital, and during the first visit he sculptured his famous /'/>/'(?, now in St. Peter's.
He leturned to Florence about 1501, in which year he undertook to execute his
David from that block of marble which Simone da Fiesole had abandoned in despair,
on finding that he had commenced a work entirely beyond his jjower and knowledge,
and which had been ofi"ered to Donatello, who had refused to undertake to make any-
thing of it. Three years after, Michelangelo had completed this wonderful monument,
for which he received six gold florins per month, while engaged on it.
About 1503, Michelangelo received a commission from CJonfaloniere Soderini to
decorate one end of the Council Hall of the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence ; the o])posite
end being oftered to Leonardo da Vinci, who commenced but never completed his
Batfle of the Standard. Michelangelo apparently never advanced further than his
celebrated Cartoon of Pisa, representing Pisan soldiers surprised by Florentines, while
bathing in the Arno. He comjjleted this cartoon about 1506. This wonder in the art
of drawing became the common topic of praise among all the artists of Italy. Taking
advantage of the troul)les with which Florence was agitated at the time of the flill of the
republic under Gonfoloniere Soderini and the recall of the Medici, in 15 12, the sculptor
Baccio Bandinelli, an arrogant, envious, and cowardly rival, obtained admittance to the
hall where this masterpiece was kept, and cut it to shreds. The engraving, which
has preserved a part of it, was made from a copy taken before this wanton crime was
committed.
In the beginning of 1505, Michelangelo went to Rome, at the invitation of Pope
Julius II., for whom he commenced a design of the mausoleum which the Pope intended
to erect to himself in the church of St. Peter's. On being refused admittance to
Julius II., on one occasion Avhen he visited him, the sculptor felt himself so much
slighted that he went home and wrote thus to the Pope : " Most Holy Father ; I was
this morning driven from the palace by the order of your Holiness. If you require me
in future, you can seek me elsewhere than in Rome." He then sold all his possessions
in the city and returned to Florence. The Pope sent for him as soon as possible
demanding his return, but Michelangelo, conscious of his right of protection as a
Florentine citizen, refused ; l)ut on the Pope's writing to the Seignory, the Gonfaloniere
sent for Michelangelo, reprimanded him strongly for his behaviour to his Floliness, and
said that he could not risk the anger of the Vatican on his account. Michelangelo
eventually made peace with the Pope, at the end of 1506, at Bologna ; where he designed
the celebrated statue of Julius II., three times the size of life — afterwards destroyed.
In March 1508 he was called to Rome by the Pope to paint the ceiling of the Sistine
Chai)el, which, after some hesitation, he undertook, saying that the work was not suitaljle
to him, nor he to the work, and suggesting that it should be entrusted to Raphael.
Vasari tells us that. he completed these frescoes in twenty months; but these months
MICHELANGELO BUONARROTL
107
were not consecutive, for the ceiling was commenced in 1508, and was not finished
until All Saints' Day, 15 12.
The Sistine Chapel of the Vatican is for Michelangelo, as a painter, what the Stanze
are for Rai)hael — his domain, his kingdom, his triumph. Twelve immense frescoes,
the works of eminent artists, Luca Signorelli, Sandro Botticelli, Cosinio Rosselli,
("ihirlandajo, and Perugino, entirely cover the two side walls, and show at once by
their preservation and beauty what may be expected from frescoes. But all these
are crushcti l)y the superiority of the works by Michelangelo^ — the decorations of
the ceiling ami the Last JiiJi:^/ncnf ; though the impatience of Julius II., who felt that
he was growing old, did not allow the painter to finish his frescoes as he would have
desired. The Pope wished that he should enliven his pictures with ornaments. " Holy
Father," he rei^lied. " the men whom I have jxainted were not wealthy, but ]>ious
THE CREATION OF MAN. — BY MICHEI.ANC.EI.O.
/;/ l/ic Sistiiic' Chapel.
persons, who despised riches." As he made his own sculptor's tools, so he made for
himself, in order to work during the night, a cardboard helmet, at the top of which he
fastened a candle, thus leaving both hands free, yet carrying his own light. He shut
himself up during whole days in the chapel, the keys of which had been given him, and
allowed no one to enter — not even to prepare his colours. It is however believed that
Bramante obtained leave of entrance for his nephew Raphael, who thus studied the
style of Michelangelo before commencing the frescoes in the Stanze and the Loggie,
and who certainly imitated him in the figure of the Prophet Isaiah in the church of
Sant' Agostino.
The ceiling of the Sistine contains, in its numerous compartments of all shapes,
several subjects taken from the Old Testament, and, in its twelve pendentives, different
isolated personages, such as patriarchs, prophets, and sibyls. All these compositions
are known from engravings, and it is seen with what wonderful skill Michelangelo
adjusted them in the frames so ill-contrived for large painting. When he had to
depict, for example, the Creation of the IVor/J, there was so little room, that he was
io8 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS [a.d. 1530.
only able to show the head and hands of the Eternal Father. But that head and those
hands which fill the whole frame give a clear idea of the Great Creator— all intelli-
gence and power. In the midst of these strong, terrible, and sometimes grotesque
figures, with which the capricious compartments of the vault are filled, the Creation of
Eve is a picture of such charming grace, that it arrests the spectator. As for the
Creation of Man, " it is, in my eyes," says M. Constantine, " the most sublime point to
which modern art has risen." . . . Amongst the prophets w^ see Isaiah buried in
such profound meditation that he seems to turn himself slowly even at the voice of
the ano-el who calls him. The sibyls have a middle character, between the inspiration
of a saint and the fury of a sorceress, which well accords with the strangely equivocal
part assigned to them by the church. It is vex'atious not to be able to admire
at leisure the infinite details of this magnificent ceiling, in which Michelangelo seems to
have understood the beautiful, like the ancients, by seeking it in greatness, and the true,
which excludes neither simplicity nor grace. But besides that it is not easy to penetrate
into certain parts of the chapel, the paintings are too flir from the eye to be seen
clearly, and it is jiainful to look up at them. This is the inconvenience of all ceilings.
In 15 13 Julius II. died, but Michelangelo, in compliance with the wishes of the
Pope's heirs, continued to work for three years on the mausoleum, which however he
was never able to finish. It was during this time that he executed his grand figure of
Moses, now in the church of San Pietro in Vincoli, and the two unfinished statues of
Captured Slaves in the Louvre. He next accepted a commission from Leo X. — the
successor of Julius II. — to erect a facade to the church of San Lorenzo in Florence,
for which purpose he was obliged to be much, at Carrara, in order to select the marble,
but in the spring of 15 19 the work was abandoned, and Michelangelo settled in
Florence. In 1529 he was appointed superintendent of the Florentine fortifications,
but he fied from that city in the September of the same year and went to Venice ; in
November he returned to Florence and remained there during the siege. In 1530 he
executed the celebrated tombs of Giuliano and Lorenzo de' Medici in the Medicean
Chapel at Florence, including those four colossal figures representing Dawn and
Twilight, Day and Night, which are so well known. In 1534 he left Florence and
went, to Rome, and commenced, in the Sistine Chapel, his Last Judgment.
Always fond of solitude, and having passed a life without pleasures or amuse-
ments, and without any other passion but that of art, — his imagination still full of
the horrors of which he had been the witness and almost the victim at the taking of
Florence by the Medici, and the sack of Rome by the troops of Charles V., — his mind
filled with the poems of Dante, — a faithful disciple of the Reformer-Martyr, Savonarola,
— all the wild melancholy with which the soul of Michelangelo was filled burst forth in
this composition. We need not go into all the details of this vast poem, in which
appear three hundred personages. It is sufficient to mention that Michelangelo has
depicted the scene described in this verse of St. Matthew : " They shall see the Son ot
Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory ;" that in the centre
of the higher part or celestial seat of Christ is the inexorable and terrible judge, who
weighs in just balances the actions of men, without being softened even by the tears
of His mother ; that around Him, and the prophets or saints attendant on Him. a
group of criminals await anxiously the sentence of His mouth ; that the angels who
execute His decrees take up the saints to heaven or deliver the condemned to the
hands of devils ; that in the lower or terrestrial part, where on one side the dead
awake at the blast of the everlasting trumpets, on the other a group of the condemned,
A.D. 1540.
MICHELANGELO BUONARROTL
109
personifying sins and vices, are piletl on the fatal boat which is about to be engulfed ni
the mouth of hell.
As for the qualities of the work, the majesty of the arrangement, the grandeur of
the whole, the variety of the details, the beauty of the groups, the unrivalled perfection
in the drawing, the boklness of the attitudes and foreshortening, the knowledge
displayed of muscular anatomy, it would be childish to dwell on these difierent
points, and to add our ])raises to the long acclamations of all artists, who for more
than three centuries have proclaimed the wonderful merit of this gigantic masterpiece.
"We may esteem oursehes happy," exclaims Vasari, '"when we have seen such a
prodigy of art and genius."
The Last Jiiiigiiu-nt, much injured by time, damp, the smoke of incense and
THE 1R(M'UET JOKL. THE DELI'UIC SIBYL.
On the ceitiiig of tlic Sistinc Chapel.
tapers, and much neglected by the guardians of the \'atican. has been ignominiouslv
spoiled by an alteration in the architecture which has cut off all the higher central part
of the fresco, that in which the Eternal Father and the Holy Spirit were represented,
and which thus completed the meaning of the comjiosition. This part is now only
known by old copies made before the end of the sixteenth century.
About 1540 Michelangelo commenced the Crucifixion and the Conversion of St.
Paul, in the Cappella Paolina in the Vatican ; these frescoes were his last jxaintings
of imi)ortance. In 1547 Michelangelo, " for the honour of C.od," agreed to become
director of the building of St. Peter's, as successor to Antonio da San Gallo, but he
ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1564.
would receive no salary ; and from his plans the great dome of St. Peter's was built.
He did little work of importance after this, and on the 17th of February, 1564, in the
eighty-ninth year of his age, this great man died at Rome. He was buried, according
to his express desire, in the church of Santa Croce in Florence.
It is known that Michelangelo professed to esteem fresco painting alone, and that
he despised easel pictures. " It is the occupation of a woman," said he, meaning possibly
Raphael. Hence the easel pictures he has left us are extremely rare. Besides his
l^ortrait in the Museum of the Capitol, which is perhaps by him, there are only two
known in the whole of Italy. That in the gallery of the Uffizi is supposed to represent
the Virgin kneeling, who presents the child Jesus to Joseph over her shoulder, and in
the background are naked figures as if leaving the bath. It is called a Holy Family,
but it is merely a human family and the personification of the three ages. It was
painted for a Florentine gentleman named Agnolo Doni, who having at first thought
the terms fixed by Michelangelo (seventy crowns) too high, hastened afterwards to give
double what the artist proudly demanded, for fear he should raise the price. Although
Vasari quotes this picture in the gallery of the Ufifizi as one of the most beautiful of
those by Michelangelo, we must not seek in it either simplicity of composition or
graceful or powerful expression. It is a confused mixture of heads and limbs, of the
boldest drawing certainly, and even of great finish, but in which the hard outlines and
dry colouring take away all charm. The second picture by Michelangelo is in the
gallery of the Pitti Palace. It is of the Parcce. or Fates. All the good qualities and
defects of the before-mentioned painting are to be found in it ; the same boldness of
design and finish in execution ; but also tlie same hardness of outline and dryness of
colouring. The ancients, who everywhere sought and required the beautiful, made the
Fates three beautiful young girls like the Graces. Michelangelo has made them old,
and belonging rather to the family of witches. Perhaps it is owing to him that this
transformation has passed into a tradition. But it is possible that besides the Three
Ages and the Three Fates, there may yet exist another easel-picture by Michelangelo.
At the exhibition of art in Manchester in 1857, connoisseurs agreed to restore to
the great painter of the Sistine, an unfinished ]ncture that had been ascribed until
then to his master, Ghirlandajo. It is a Aladoiiiia loith the infant Saviour a>id
St. John, surrounded by a group of four angels, now in the National Ciallery (No.
809). It is said to be superior to the other two works of the same nature, known
to be authentic.
A very remarkable, though unfinished, painting of the Entombment (No. 790),
attributed to Michelangelo, was acquired by the National Gallery in 1868; and there
is also in the same gallery a Dream of Human Life (No. 8), supposed to ha\e been
painted, from a design of Michelangelo, by one of his pupils.
" Michelangelo terminated the cycle of Florentine art vvhich had been begun by
Giotto. He is himself the representative of the whole of the sixteenth century,
with its melancholy regrets, its bold hopes, its long agony of trial, its gigantic
resuU. Michelangelo is the true statue of that age, its most faithful and complete
image. For a long period he reigned alone, acknowledged by all as the legitimate, all-
powerful monarch. When Michelangelo died Galileo was born, and Science advanced
to take the place of Art."
"This great man," says Sir Joshua Reynolds, "possessed in the highest degree
the mechanism and poetry of drawing. The noble character, the air, the attitude,
which he has imparted to his figures, were all found in his sublime imagination, and
A.D. 1564.]
MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI.
even antiquity had not furnished him with models. The Homer of painting, his sibyls
and i)rophets awake the same sensations as the reading of the (ireek poets." In
I IlK IJKSCK.M KRO.M THE CROSS. — BY HANIELE DA VOLTEKRA.
/// ///,■ Church of Santa Trinita de" Monti, Rovic.
conclusion : Michelangelo, who was a painter and architect like Bramante, a painter
and sculptor like Alonzo Cano, a painter and poet like Orcagna, Bronzino. and Salvator,
112 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS [a.d. 1565.
a painter and statesman like Rubens, and greater than tliem all in every way, —
Michelangelo, when already old, executed, almost at the same time, the three master-
pieces which have immortalized him. He carved the Moses, he painted the Last
Judgment, and he raised the dome of St. Peter's.
SCHOLARS OF MICHELANGELO.
D^niele Ricciarelli, called Daniele da Volterra, from his birthplace, was born in 1509.
He studied at first under Bazzi and afterwards under Peruzzi at Siena. He thence
went to Rome, where he worked as assistant to Perino del Vaga. Subseciuent.ly he
became a pupil of the great Michelangelo, who supplied him with designs for the works
he executed in the Farnesina Palace. His be.st known^and indeed world-famed -
work is the Descent from the Cross (see engraving), one of the series of the History of
the Cross, which he executed in the Trinita de' Monti at Rome. It is said that Pope
Paul IV., thinking that some of the figures in Michelangelo's Last Judgment were too
nude to be compatible with the sanctity of the Sistine Chapel, meditated destroying
it, and that Daniele undertook to clothe the naked bodies, which he did — it is said
with the sanction of the great painter — and thereby acquired the nickname of " il
Rracchettone." Daniele da Volterra died at Rome in 1566. Among other works by
him, may be mentioned a Baptism oj -Christ, in San Pietro in Montorio at Rome; a
double picture in the Louvre representing David and Goliath from two different points
of view, for a long time attributed to Michelangelo; and a Massacre oJ the Lnnocents,
in the Ufhzi.
Marcello Venusti was born at Mantua in the early half of the sixteenth century. He
was at first a pupil of Perino del Vaga at Rome ; afterwards he worked under
Michelangelo, whose Last Judgment he copied for Cardinal Farnese ; this picture is
now in the Naples Callery. A painting of Christ appearing to the Souls in Hades, by
him, is in the Colonna Gallery, Rome. Venusti executed many pictures from designs
by Michelangelo. He died at Florence about 1580.
Pellegrino Tibaldi, born at Bologna in 1527, was both architect and painter. He is
supposed to have been a pupil of Bagnacavallo, but studied the works of Michelangelo,
and adopted the style of that master to such an extent that the Carracci called him "II
Michelagnolo riformato." After executing many good works in Italy he Avas invited to
Spain by Philip II. , for whom he decorated the Escurial. He was much honoured in
Spain, where he remained nine years, but most of his works have perished. Of his
Italian pictures, we may mention a Marriage of St. Catherine, in the Bologna Gallery :
and a .SV. Cecilia, in the Belvedere Gallery, Vienna. It is supposed that Tibaldi died
in 1 600.
IHE STSTINE CHAPEL, IN THE VATICAN, ROME.
S/it>7ving the position oj Xickel<vi^clo's Frescoes.
RAPHAKL SANZIO DURBIXO.
J\i:;c 1 1 •
A.I). 14S3.] ROMAN SCHOOL.
CHAPTER XI.
RAPHAEL SANZIO D'URBINO AND HIS FOLLOWERS.
WE must now go back to the end of the fifteenth century in order to commence
our account of the life and works of that "divine youth," who was the
author of the most wonderful pictures which the world has ever seen ; and
who, for nearly four centuries, has been universally acknowledged to be the Prixck of
Painters.
Raphael Sanzio. Raffaello, the son of Giovanni de' Santi, was born in tlie
Contrada del Monte at Urbino, on the 6th of April, 1483. His mother, whose
maiden name was Magia Ciarla, died on the 7th of October, 1491, when her son
was but eight years old. His father— who had latinized his name, which his son
again italianized — gave him his first instruction in painting, and when he died, in
1494, the young Raphael was taken to Perugia, by his uncles Bartolommeo de' Santi
and Simone Ciarla, and placed there with the celebrated Umbrian painter, Perugino,
under whom he studied until he was about twenty years of age. In 1499 Raphael
visited his native town, when he made copies, in a "Sketch-book " — now in the Belle
Arti, Venice— of ten of the portraits attributed to Melozzo da Forli, in the Palace of
Urbino. In 1504, leaving Perugino, he executed several works in Citth. di Ca.stello ;
he then paid a short visit to Urbino, and in the October of the same year went
to Florence, where he resided until 1508 : with the exception of a visit to Perugia in
1505, and to Bologna and Urbino in 1506. At Bologna Raphael made the ac-
quaintance of Francia, to whom he afterwards sent his St, Cecilia, with the request
that his friend would make any alteration which he might deem necessary. In 1508
Raphael was invited to Rome by Julius II., from which time until his death he lived
in that city, and executed his most important works. More like a prince than a
painter, Raphael walked abroad in Rome with a retinue of attendants — his scholars
and assistants, — and all men did him honour. He had commissions for more
pictures than he could execute, and much of his time was taken up in giving directions
to his followers. Raphael never married, but it is said that he was engaged to Maria
Bibiena, the niece of Cardinal Bibiena, who however died before him. It is recorded
tliat he was slight of form, about 5 feet 8 inches in height, of most engaging manners
and was loved by all who knew him. At his funeral, which was attended by all Rome,
"no eye was tearless." He died of a fever — some say of an unnecessary bleeding after
a chill — on his birthday. A]iril 6tli, 1520, when exactly thirty-seven years of age, and
114 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1500.
was buried, after having lain in state with the Trmtsfiguration over his head, in the
church of Santa Maria ad Martyres,— the old Pantheon. (In 1833 his coffin was
opened, when the skeleton was found quite entire, even to the teeth, and a mould was
taken from the skull.) By his will Raphael left his painting-materials and works of
art to his scholars, Gian Francesco Penni and Giulio Romano, on condition that they
should finish his works in the Vatican. Let us now turn to his pictures.
The first works which Raphael executed in Florence are only imitations of his
illustrious master, Perugino ; amongst these are the St. Nicholas of Tolentino, and
the Holy Family of Fermo, each of them signed " Raphael Sanctius Urbinas setatis
XVIII. pinxit." It is the Brera Gallery at Milan that can best boast of possessing
his first important picture, the Sposalizio, which he painted when twenty-one years
old, for the little town of Citta di Castello, near Urbino. In this Marriage of the
Virgin Raphael still betrays something of the pupil. The almost too symmetrical
arrangement of the two equal groups which meet just in the middle of the fagade of
the temple, which itself occupies the exact middle in the background of the picture,
the figures usually long and thin — in short, all the details recall the style of Perugino
rather than that of Raphael. There is in it at least a remembrance of the great
and fine fresco of Perugino in the Sistine Chapel, which represents the Mission of
St. Peter., and it is certain that the design is adapted from the old master's painting ot
the Marriage of the Virgin, now to be seen in the museum at Caen. But what a style
there is even in the imitation ! What grace, unknown until then, is given to the
attitudes, the faces, and drapery ! What variety in the expression of modesty, joy, and
jealousy ! What perfection in the outlines I what exquisite finish !
In the museum of the Uftizi there are six pictures. It is a happy circumstance that
these illustrate three distinct periods of progress, and thus show tlie beginning, the
growth, and the completion of that incomparable genius, whom death alone prevented
from attaining to a still greater degree of perfection. Belonging to his first style is the
Portrait of a Florentijie Lady., whose name is unknown, seen in half-length and seated ;
she is painted in the style of Leonardo da Vinci, but with more timidity. There are
two Holy Families in his second manner, both composed only of the Virgin and the
two children, and both with landscape backgrounds. One, known by the name of the
Virgin with the Goldfinch (Madonna del Cardellino). was painted for his friend Lorenzo
Nasi, in 1504. This picture was nearly being destroyed by a landslip on Monte
Giorgio, which overwhelmed the house of the Nasi. But the fragments were found and
carefully put together. It is unnecessary to give a long description of this charming
composition, as the engravings of it are well known.
The three other pictures in the Tribune, St. John in the Desert, and the portraits of
Julius II. and La Fornarina, are in Raphael's third manner. The portrait of Julius II. —
of which several replicas exist : in the Pitti Palace, in the Museum at Naples, and in
the National Gallery of London — has a vivacity of colouring which appears incredible
after three centuries and a half The portrait known as La Fornarina is repre-
sented in a rather strange costume ; she wears on her shoulders a panther's skin,
the same which Raphael painted in the St. John and in the Mado7i?ia dell' Im-
pannata. At the period when Vasari Avrote his book, the portrait of La Fornarina
belonged to Matteo '^oVix, guarda-roba of the grand duke Cosmo I., to whom he left it by
will. Notwithstanding this tradition, many connoisseurs doubt if this portrait be really
that of the baker's daughter of Trastevere, and even whether it be the work of Raphael.
A.D. 15 lo.] RAPHAEL D'URBINO. u-
At the Pitti Palace there are eleven pictures bearing the name of Raphael. In this
number are five portraits, besides the repetition of that of fulius II. These are the
portraits oi Ani!;clo and Maddalena Doni ; of the learned Latin scholar Totnmaso Fedra
I>ig/iira>ni, who is called the Florentine Cicero; of the Cardinal Bernardo Davizi de
Bibiena, who wished Raphael to marry his niece ; lastly a full-length portrait of the
Pope Leo X.,\\\\\\ the two cardinals Julius de' Medici and de' Bossi. \Ve know what the
portraits of Raphael are, especially when they belong, like this last, to his greatest style ;
and all praise on our part would be superfluous.
One of his most famous pictures is the Vision of Ezekiel. Taking as his subject
the sacred narrative as given in the first chapter of the Prophet Ezekiel, a subject at
once vast, grand and complicated, Raphael has found means to represent it, without
diminishing its grandeur, within the compass of a frame of a foot square. In this
little gem, so wonderfully finished, Raphael has proved that the greatness of a picture
depends not on the dimensions of the frame, but on the style of the jjaintino-.
The other comi)ositions of Raphael at the Pitti Palace comprise the three different
forms oi Madonnas which he has so often and so variously repeated. The first is one
of those glorified and triumphant Virgins, who from their throne receive the worship of
the angels and saints. The second is a complete Holy Family^ where no person is
wanting from the traditional number. The others are simple Madonnas, that is to say,
the Virgin Mother bearing her Child in her arms, and sometimes accompanied by his
young precursor, St. John the Baptist. The name given to the first is the Madotina del
Baldacchino, because the throne on which Mary sits is covered with a canopy. This
picture has several points of resemblance to the Madonna di Foligno in the Museum at
Rome, and the famous Madonna del Pesce, at Madrid. Another Holy Fajnily has been
called deir Impannata, or of the paper window, because the house of the carpenter
Joseph is represented with this humble substitute for glass used in dwellino-s of the
poor. One of the two remaining Madonnas is called del Gran Duca, or del Via<r<rio.
The Duke Ferdinand III., it is said, liked it so much, that he carried it about every-
where with him, and said his devotions before it morning and evening. It is one of
the simplest Madonnas that the pencil of Raphael has produced. The Virgin Mother
is shown in half-length only, holding the Holy Child, still in early infancy, in her arms.
With eyes cast down, and humble posture, she is so modest, so pure, so angelic, that
Ferdinand might well carry the picture about with him, as the ancients did \.\\e\x pe nates,
and place it on the domestic altar amongst the relics of his patron saints.
More celebrated and valuable as a work of art, and often called by connoisseurs
the chef-d'ceuvre of Raphael, is the Madonna della Sedia. St. John, thrown back a
little in the shade, worships timidly and humbly Him whom it will be his glory to
announce to the world. The child Jesus, in whom intelligence and goodness shine
forth, but who appears rather pale and suftering, smiles sadly. He is represented as
already the victim resigned to sacrifice and to the ingratitude of those for whom He is
to suffer. As for the Virgin, leaning over the body of her son, whom she clasps in her
arms, but turning her eyes on the spectator, she is very different from the usual type of
Raphael's Virgins, and from all the school which preceded him. This is the only one
of his simple Madonnas vvlio has not her eyes cast down. Belonging more to the
world than the Madonna del Gran Duca and the Madonna del Ctirdellino, but still
more beautiful, and adorned with rich ornaments and brilliant garments, she is the
model of ideal beauty, but in accordance with Grecian rather than Christian thought.
The Madonna della Scdia has been popularised by every method which is available
ii6 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 15 io.
to make the painter's work familiar to the world, by thousands of copies, of drawings,
and engravings. Garavaglia, Raphael Morghen, and a hundred others in every
country, have striven to best imitate it in engraving ; and photography now attempts
one of its miracles in the effort to reproduce it. But those who have not seen it in
the original can never know it. {See woodciif.)
Amongst the great works of Raphael we must not omit to mention what is, and
always will be, the pearl of the museum at Bologna, the St. Cecilia, surrounded by the
apostle St. Paul, the evangelist St. John, St. Augustine, and Mary Magdalene. He has
represented her in an ecstasy, listening to celestial music, and letting fall from her liands
a little portable organ, on which she had begun the concert, finished by the angels.
The St. Cecilia was ordered of Raphael, in 1515, by a lady of Bologna named Elena
dairOlio Duglioli, of the house of Bentivoglio, who was subsequently canonised. Thus
the St. Cecilia came to Bologna, where it has since remained. It is too well known by
all kinds of copies for a description to be necessary ; and it has no need of praise.
It is however at Rome, ratlier even than at Florence or Bologna, that Raphael is to
be seen to the greatest advantage. Let us enter the Vatican.
Having become an architect when about thirty years of age, and at the same time
superintendent of the excavations and antiquities, Raphael divided the seven last years
of his life between the two arts, which he cultivated simultaneously. This is what
Cardinal Bembo wished to express in the inscription on his tomb under the Chapel of
the Virgin at the Pantheon : " Julii II. et Leonis X., picturce et architecture operibus,
gloriam auxit." This double character appears in the court known by the name of St.
Damasus in the Vatican, where, as an architect, he raised a kind of fligade, having three
stories or galleries, which he decorated as a painter with fresco ornaments. The then
recent discovery of the baths of Titus and Livia had brought into fashion that species
of arabesques, called grotteschi, because they were in imitation of the pictures found in
the excavations {grotte), and Giovanni da Udine, who before joining Raphael had been
a pupil of Giorgione, had made this work easy by the discovery of an artificial stucco
composed of pounded marble mixed with lime and white turpentine. Raphael himself
adopted this sort of decoration. But, as mythological ornaments were scarcely possible
in the palace of the Popes, he invented Christian arabesques. In painting the thick-
ness of the pillars, the space between the windows, and on the wall, he found means to
place in each of the recesses of his galleries four pictures, about six feet long by four
wide, and the figures in which, about two feet in height, look smaller from the distance
at which they are placed. Thus a series of fifty-two pictures represent the principal
events of Bible history from the beginning of the world to the Last Supper of our Lord
with His apostles. This is what is called the Loggie, or sometimes Raphaels Bible.
Raphael did not do all this work with his own hand. Like a Roman patrician
surrounded by his clients, he always left his studio at the head of a little army of
painters, who called him master. He had sufficient tact to induce them to live in
harmony together, and to work contentedly under his direction. In the Loggie there is
no doubt that the choice of the subjects belonged to him, as well as the supervision and
correction of the wliole. Sometimes also he designed the pictures which his pupils
painted. But there are only two or three which can be said to be entirely his in
composition, drawing, and colouring : the Almighty dividing the Light from the
Darkness ; the Creation of the Firmament., and, perhaps, also, the Creation of Man.
These are the best and most celebrated of the series.
Leaving the Loggie, which are painted under tlic external galleries, and have received
MADONN'A DILLA SKDIA. By RAt-iiAKt.
In the T'itii Fautcf, Fiorettci
A.D. I5IO.] RAPHAEL D'URBINO. 117
many injuries, both from time and the soldiers of Charles V., and also from unskilful
restorers, we enter the palace, and there find the galleries known as the Stanzc of the
Vatican. In these rooms the austere Michelangelo himself could find no fiiult. for
they contain frescoes and no easel-pictures. These halls are the triumph of art, which
never appears more varied, or more complete It is in the Stanze that we must judge
of the painting of Raphael.
Let us first say a few words on the history of this immense work, llie Stanze had
been already painted in part by Bramantino, Pietro del Borgo, Pietro della Francesca,
Luca Signorelli and Perugino, when juhus II., in 1508, at the suggestion of Bramante,
sent to Florence for the young Raphael, then twenty-five years old, and entrusted to
him one of the great panels in tlie large hall. Raphael painted on it the Dispute on
the Holy Sacrament, and the Pope, filled with admiration at the work of the painter,
who was henceforth to be called the "divine youth," ordered all the other frescoes
—whether begun or finished— to be effaced, in order that he might complete the
whole work. Raphael only succeeded in saving one from destruction, that in the
entrance hall by his master Perugino. He painted in the Stanze during the remainder
of his life ; but being constantly interrupted in his work, by orders from popes or
kings, he had not quite finished it at the time of his death.
The first of these rooms is called the "Stanza dell' Incendio del Borgo Vecchio,"
because the subject of the large fresco is the burning of the suburb called the Borgo,
during the pontificate of St. Leo in 847. This suburb is that which contains St. Peter's
and the Vatican, situated beyond the Tiber (Trastevere). In this ^•ast work Raphael
seems to have described, not so much the scene itself— of which probably few traditions
remain— as the burning of Troy as Virgil has described it. The fine group in which
we can recognize .^neas carrying his father Anchises and followed by his wife, is by
Ciiulio Romano. In this picture, the best figures in which are those of the women
bringing water, there are more nude figures than in any other work of Raphael, who
appears^ to have avoided them with as much care as Michelangelo took to introduce
diem everywhere. Opposite the " Incendio del Borgo " is the Coronation of Charle-
magne by Leo LLL., a noble composition, but it is said that Raphael only drew the
cartoon for this, and that it was coloured by another hand after his death.
The second hall is named the " Stanza della Segnatura." It is here that Raphael
shows, by his most perfect works, the great height to which he had attained. On one
side is the Dispute on the Holy Sacrament, also called Theology; on the other, the
School of Athens, which might be called Philosophy. These are the most sublime
conceptions of the artist in historical painting. The subject of the former is not
indicated by the title ; it is a i.oetical image of the Council of Placentia, which ter-
minated, by an authoritative decree, the controversies which had arisen about the
Eucharist. This fresco of Raphael's, " the largest Christian epic that painting has
ever traced," is in two parts, heaven and earth, united by the eucharistic mystery :
above, the Blessed Trinity is represented, encircled by angels, and having on either side
a long range of glorified saints; on the earth, around the Host in a monstrance
surrounded^by golden rays, there is a council assembled. In it we see doctors, old
and young men, popes, bishops, [)riests, monks, and laymen. No one has ever suc-
ceeded in making a subject so clearly understood at the first glance, or in conveying
so fully the sense of unity in a vast whole, of the picturesque in symmetry and in all
the details, in giving grace, elegance, elevation of style, and incomparable beauty to
every i)arl.
ii8 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS [a.d. 1510.
To find another work equal, if not superior to this, but which cannot be compared
with it on account of the difference in style, the spectator must turn round, and
contemplate leisurely and lovingly the other immense picture, the School of Athens.
This is like a speaking history of Greek philosophy, between the time of Pythagoras
and Epicurus. Here also the general effect is imposing, the groups excellent,
the details really wonderful, and throughout the picture there is an inexpressible
strength, elevation, and firmness, which prove the maturity of his genius. Fifty-two
figures are assembled in this immense scene, the back-ground of which is an
early design by Bramante for St. Peter's. One common thought unites this
large assembly the worship of philosophy, of wisdom, and of science. These are
represented by the two great philosophical writers of Greece — Plato and Aristotle, —
that is to say, idealistic intuition and experimental knowledge. Near them is the group
of poetry, in which Homer is seen between Virgil and Dante, personifying the three
great epics of Greece, ■Rome, and Christian Italy. On one side is the group of the
Sciences, on the other, that of the Arts.
The third fresco in this hall is the Parnassus, another large composition, made in
imitation of the ancient style and taste, that is to say, with great wisdom, but also with
coldness. Groups of poets of different periods are mixed with groups of the Muses, in
the midst of whom " stat divus Apollo." Among these poets we find Homer — still
between Virgil and Dante — Pindar, Sappho, Horace, Ovid, Boccaccio, Petrarch and his
Laura, dressed as Corinna, and Sannazaro, the now almost forgotten author of the
great Latin poem, " De Partu Virgineo."
Opposite the Parnassus, and above the high window, is the picture oi Jurisprudence,
which represents allegorically the three companion virtues of Justice, nobly grouped in
a grand and beautiful composition ; and in order that nothing may be wanting to this
hall, the scene of his first efforts at Rome, and of which he wished to be the sole
decorator, he has even painted the compartments of the ceiling. The four figures —
Theology, Philosophy, Poetry, and Jurisprudence— recalling all the nobility of the
ancient style, remain inimitable models of serious allegory.
The third room is named the " Stanza di Eliodoro," the principal picture in which is
the History of HeViodorus. We learn from the book of Maccabees that this prefect or
general of Seleucus Philopator, king of Syria, commissioned by his master to sack the
temple of Jerusalem, was stopped at the threshold by angels who beat him with rods.
Raphael, in the choice of this subject, made an allusion to his protector, the warlike
Julius, who had said that he was obliged to throw the keys of St. Peter into the Tiber,
and take the sword of St. Paul to drive out the barbarians ; and in fact, adding the
sword of the layman to the thunders of the Church, and himself fighting in armour, he
had succeeded in driving by turn the Venetians and the French from the patrimony of
St. Peter. The allusion here is evident, even in the temple of Jerusalem ; it is not the
high priest of the Hebrews who presides at the punishment of the sacrilegious soldier,
but the pope of the Christians, crowned with his tiara and carried on the sella gestatoria.
The group, containing the pope and his cortege and that of the prostrate Heliodorus,
whose armour could not protect him against a simple sign made by the divine
messenger, are the finest parts of this magnificent composition, which, in movement
and vivacity, is equalled by no other of Raphael's works. Raphael, however, who
drew the whole of it, only painted the principal group. That which contains several
women was done by Pietro di Cremona, and the remainder are by Giulio Romano.
The fresco of the Deliverance of St. Peter '\% diAided into three compartments. In
A.D. 15 1 5. J RAPHAEL D'URBINO. 119
that on the right, are the soldiers who guard the entrance to the prison ; in the centre
compartment, St. Peter awakened by the angel ; and in that on the left, the angel
leading the apostle down a winding staircase. The principal effect of the picture
arises from the contrast between the source of light in these divisions. The soldiers, in
deep shadow, sleep under the dim light of a lamp, whilst the angel, luminous as a star,
diffuses a brilliant light in the prison.
In spite of the anachronism, Julius II. is represented as presiding in pontifical
costume at the Miracle of Bolscna, one of the frescoes in the same room. This name
of " Miracle," or " Mass of Bolsena," refers to the tradition recording the supernatural
conversion of a priest, who having doubted the real presence of our Lord in the
Eucharist, suddenly saw, at the moment of consecration, drops of blood '^<i\\ from the
wafer. In this very animated and effective fresco, which is arranged with much skill
in a space above a window, the colouring is so strong and bright that it might be
attributed to the Venetians.
St. Leo stopping Attila at the Gates of Rome, is a subject wliich would certainly suit
better the history of Julius II. than that of Leo X., who was a learned but timid pope,
and loved peace as much as his terrible predecessor had loved war, and who placed the
now well-known papal umbrella in the hands of his peaceful halberdiers. However, it
was certainly in honour of Leo that Raphael painted this fresco, which was some-
what later in date than the three others in the same hall. The Pope is represented as
St. Leo, and behind him Raphael has placed himself bearing a cross, again accom-
panied by his old master Perugino.
The fourth room, the "Stanza di Costantino," had been merely sketched by
Raphael when death overtook him, in 1520. He had only finished the two allegorical
figures oi Justice and Mercy, both admirable for their beauty, their expression, and for
the colouring, which is wonderfully bright. But he had attempted an important
innovation, that of oil-painting on the wall. In fact, his sketch of the Victory of
Constantine over Maxe?itii/s at the Route Molle had been co\-ered by his order with a
coating of oil, on which he intended to paint this large composition. Giulio Romano,
commissioned by the Pope to finish it, did not dare to continue the experiment, and
returned to fresco. This battle, in which the drawing of the master has been religiously
respected by the disciple, is one of the largest historical paintings known. In the
arrangement, the genius of Raphael appears powerful enough to grasp all the details of
such a combat, and self-contained enough to reduce these confused details to order.
The execution, which does great honour to (uulio Romano, may perhaps be reproached
with being a little too crude and hard.
Raphael had also sketched the Baptism of Constantine, in the composition of which
his powerful hand may be easily recognised. The painting itself, feebly executed, is by
his pupil Gian Francesco Penni. As for the Appearance of the Cross— In hoc signo vinces
■ which makes a pendant to the Baptism of Constantine. it is believed that the whole
work, sketch, and painting, belongs to Giulio Romano. It is one of the works in
which he has shown the greatest vigour. In the background of this picture he has
introduced some of the buildings of the Rome of his time— an authorised anachronism.
Besides his frescoes, immortal rather by their merit than by the durability of their
materials, Raphael has left in the palace of the popes three pictures which have been
less injured by time. Thev are now in the museum of the Vatican. The first of the
three, in order, is the wonderful Madonna di Foligno (also called the Vierge an
Dojiataire). We have already mentioned it as among the most celcbrateil of the
ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS [a.d. 1520.
enthroned Madonnas surrounded by saints. This picture was ordered of Raphael by
Sigismondo Conti, an officer of the household of Julius II. The painter has introduced
him into the picture kneeling in the group on the left, opposite St. John the Baptist.
It is a fine portrait of an old man, the striking reality of whose figure forms a happy
contrast with the celestial character given to the Virgin and her Son.
This masterpiece, the only equal of which in its particular kind is the Mado)ma del
Pesce2X Madrid, was painted before the Coronation of the Virgin, a large picture whicli
Raphael several times began and then left for other work, and which at liis deatli was
still little more than a sketch. It was finished partly by Giulio Romano and i)artly by
Francesco Penni, and their work is too visible for it to be attributed to their master.
• To see Raphael in all his grandeur, his genius fully developed by labour and
experience, we must contemplate his last work, the Transfiguration, which was placed
over his head when he lay in state, and which was, as we have said, carried in the
procession at his magnificent funeral obsequies like a sacred relic.
This picture, ordered by Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, was intended for a small town
in the south of France, Narbonne, of whicli he was archbishop. Rome however
retained this greatest work of her painter. Vasari says of it : " In this work the master
has of a truth produced figures and heads of such extraordinary beauty, so new, so
varied, and at all points so admirable, that among the many works executed by his
hand, this, by common consent of all artists, is declared to be the most worthily
renowned, the most excellent, the most divine. But as if that sublime genius had
gathered all the force of his powers into one effort, as one who had finished the great
work which he had to accomplish, he touched the pencil no more."
Raphael had at first imitated Perugino. Afterwards he studied Leonardo da Vinci,
and formed his st}'le on that of the painter of the Last Supper .• then from the Frate
(Fra Bartolommeo) he learned perspective as well as some processes of drawing and
colouring : then he studied Michelangelo and anatomy, in order to paint the nude,
foreshortening, and the articulation of limbs ; he afterwards studied backgrounds, land-
scapes, animals, vestments, skies and effects of sunlight, shadow, night, and artificial
light, and adding to all these acquirements his own genius, his feeling and passion for
the beautiful, he attained the highest summit of perfection.
Before leaving Rome we must also glance at the four magnificent Sibyls of Santa
Maria della Pace, and the Isaiah in Sant' Agostino ; and, in the Borghese Palace, at
the portrait of Ccrsar Borgia, on whose calm handsome face we cannot yet read crime.
We must also notice in the Sciarra Palace the portrait of a young man who is unknown,
called the Suonatorc di Violino, because he holds in his hand, together with some
flowers, the bow of a violin. This is one of the most admirable portraits that can be
imagined ; it is, indeed, beyond a portrait. In this noble and touching face, in the
studied attitude, in the graceful arrangement of light and shade, we feel that the
painter wished to unite his own thought to the work of nature; we feel that he com-,
posed this picture. Painted in 15 18, in the charming style of the Madonna delta Scdia,
the Suonatore di Violino is also one of those incomparable works which can only be
understood by careful, respectful, and loving contemplation, and which leave an
indelible remembrance on the mind. {See woodcut on titkpage.)
The works of Raphael are by no means confined to Italy. We will now seek them
through the rest of Europe, and first in Spain, where we shall find the greatest number.
It is not surprising that the monarchy of the powerful Charles V., and of such an
ardent collector as Philip \\\, should possess more than any other. The Museo del
A.D. 1520.
RAPHAEL DURBINO.
Rev, at Madrid, contains three portraits and seven otlier pictures by this master.
Rome alone possesses a larger number.
At Madrid, the three portraits, all of them men's heads, are perfect, and worthy of
Raphael. The name of one original only of these portraits is known ; this is the
famous lawyer Bartoli ili Sassofcrrato. But Raphael in painting him had only to
refresh an older portrait, for Bartoli died at Perugia in 1359. One of the two others,
that of a gentleman with a black beard, and with a large flat cap, may be a portrait
of Baldassarc Casfiglione, the poet, nobleman, and friend of Raphael, who in that case
must have painted him when younger than the picture in the Louvre represents him.
In the third — a cardinal with a red cap and robe — may be recognized, by the long-
aquiline nose nnd thin fice. ;is (liullo de' Medici, arrhliisho]) of Narhonne.
THE FOUR SrBYLS.— BY RAPHAEI,.
/// t/ie Church of San la Maria di-lla Pace, Ronu:
Of the seven pictures of which we have still to speak, the first taken to Spain was
a Holy Family, which has received no particular designation, but which might be
called the Madonna among Ruins, for Raphael placed the group in the midst of ruins,
so many of which were to be seen in Rome. The Virgin who is in the centre of the
picture, with ineffable grace rests her left arm on an ancient altar, which also serves as
a support to St, Joseph, who is standing rather further back ; with her right hand she
holds the Holy Child, who, whilst bending down to embrace his young companion,
turns his head towards Mary, as if to call her attention and her caresses to his pre-
cursor. The infant Baptist himself, timid and reverent, is opening a scroll on which
are inscribed the words he afterwards used in welcoming the Messiah : *' Ecce Agnus
Dei, qui tollit peccata mundi." It is easy, by many indications, to recognize this
picture as one of the last works of Raphael. It is acknowledged to have been painted
R
122 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1520.
at the same time as the Holy Family in the Louvre, which bears the date 15 18. To
prove this date is to prove the excellence of the work.
Four other Holy Families — for the Museum of Madrid now possesses five — have
been sent there from the Escurial, together with the Visitation of St. Elizabeth. This
last subject was probably neither conceived nor chosen by Raphael ; it was painted by
order. Whilst his signature may be read on the left, " Raphael Urbinas," the following
inscription is conspicuous in gold letters in the centre of the picture : " Maritius
Branconius F.F." {fecit). This picture adds to the value it possesses as a good
work of Raphael's, by being in excellent preservation. Time has respected it, and
no accident has required the assistance of cleaners or restorers of pictures.
If the Madonna with the Rose were the only work of Raphael in a gallery or
cabinet, it would certainly receive all the attention and honours which the very name
of Raphael always commands. But at Madrid it is eclipsed by so many others of the
master's works, that there it cannot pretend to take the first rank. We can, indeed,
recognize in the arrangement of the groups, in the outlines, the expression,, the
drawing, and the forms, the inimitable hand of the master ; but a rosy tint like that
of the flower in the Virgin's hand pervades the whole painting, and it gives it a certain
insipidity usually unknown in the works of Perugino's pupil.
Between this Madonna with the Rose, injured by a little affectation, and the
Madonna del Fesce, the highest expression of nobility and majesty, is placed the
Madonna of the Pearl. This picture is preferred to all the other Madonnas of Raphael
by those who delight especially in grace and .attractive charms, and who consider the
works of Correggio the highest type of art. Some say that at the sight of this ])icture, —
which he had just bought for the sum of 3000/., of the widow of Charles I. of England,
who had it from the dukes of Mantua, — Philip IV. exclaimed, " That is my pearl ! "
Others have discovered on the ground, and among the playthings of the Holy Child,
a shell which might, by a stretch of imagination, be taken for a pearl oyster-shell.
Although the shadows of the picture are dark, a soft violet tint pervades the whole,
conveying an effect of sweetness without insipidity. The whole composition, even to
the slightest details of vestments and ground, is finished with that minute care which we
admire in the works of Leonardo da Vinci. In the midst of the usual group, to which
Raphael, though he often painted the same subject, always succeeded in imparting
novelty, the Virgin is distinguished for her exquisite, but somewhat worldly beauty.
In the Madonna del Pesce, never has Raphael drawn so much grandeur from so
much simplicity. Never did his pencil show more firmness, vigour, and brilliancy.
Holding in her arms the Holy Child who stands on His mother's knees, the Virgin
is seated on a throne on which she seems to hold an audience as a queen regent in the
name of her Child. On one side St. Jerome, kneeling by his symbolical lion, seems
to be reading a book which he holds in his hand. On the other, the Archangel
Raphael is presenting, at the foot of the celestial throne, the young Tobias, who bears
the miraculous fish whose heart and gall were at the same time to drive the demons
from the couch of his bride, and to restore his father's sight.
There remains the Spasimo. This is the name that has been given to a picture
of Christ bearing the cross, which was painted for the convent of Santa Maria della
Spasimo, in Palermo. The Spaniards call it "el extremo dolor." Vasari relates a
wonderful story about this picture, which was taken afterwards from Sicily to Spain.
" For the monks of Monte Oliveto, Raphael executed a picture, on panel, of Christ
bearing His cross, to be placed in their monastery at Palermo, called Santa Maria della
A.D. 1520.] RAPHAEL nURBINO. 123
Spasimo. The Saviour Himself, grievously oppressed by the torment of the death
towards which He is approaching, and borne down by the weight of the cross, has
fallen to the earth, faint with heat and covered with blood. He turns towards the
Marys, who are weeping bitterly. Santa Veronica is also among those who surround
him; and, full of compassion, she extends her arms towards the Sufferer, to whom she
presents a handkerchief, with an expression of the deepest sympathy. This picture
was entirely finished, when it was in great danger, and on the point of coming to an
unhappy end. The matter was in this wise : the painting was shipped to be taken to
Palermo, but a frightful tempest arose, which drove the vessel on a rock, where it was
beaten to j)ieces, men and merchandise being lost together ; this picture alone escaped,
secured in its packings, it was carried by the sea into the Gulf of Genoa. Here
it was picked up and borne to land, wlien, being seen to be so beautiful a thing, it was
placed in clue keeping, being unhurt and without spot or blemish of any kind — for even
the fury of the winds and waves of the sea had had respect for the beauty of so noble a
Avork. The fame of this event was bruited abroad, and the monks to whom the picture
belonged took measures to obtain its restoration. Being then embarked anew, the
l)icture was ultimately landed in Sicily : the monks deposited the work in the city
of Palermo, where it has more reputation than the Mount of Vulcan itself" Notwith-
standing its first miraculous preservation, the wooden panel on which the Spasimo was
l)ainted became so worm-eaten and dried up, that the whole work appeared ready to
fall into dust. But at Paris, when it was carried there among the trophies of the victories
of the Republic, M. Bonnemaison transferred the picture to canvas, and gave to this
chef-d'oeuvre a fresh life.
This picture— which the biographers of Raphael declare to have been painted
entirely by his hand, without any aid from his pupils, not even from Giulio
Romano, who often put on the first layer of colour— is assuredly one of the greatest
poems of painting. Among the works of Raphael, or rather among those of all
painters, it can only be compared to the Transfiguration, which in size and shape it
resembles. And if its destiny had placed it in St. Peter's at Rome, the great temple
of Christendom, whilst its rival had travelled from Rome to Palermo, and from Palermo
to Madrid, it would have been considered the masterpiece of Raphael.
Let us pass from the Museo del Rey to the museum of the Louvre. And, to
confine ourselves to the masterpieces, we must leave on one side two portraits of men
in one frame, which are called Raphael d son Maitre d'Artnes, the authenticity of
which is no longer sustained — the portrait of Jeanne cTArragon clothed in red velvet,
which is probably by Giulio Romano — a small St. Margaret, which is much injured,
and which Raphael only sketched — and even a St. George and a St. Michael, figures in
miniature, which Raphael must have done as an amusement, because, according to
Lomazzo, when he drew them at Urbino, in 1504 (he was then twenty-one years
old), for the Duke Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, he painted one of them on the
back of a draught-board, which he used as a panel. But we must stop one moment
before two half-length portraits ; that of an unknown Voting man, about sixteen years of
age, and also before that of tlie learned poet Baldassare Castiglione.
As for the portrait of the young man, some have thought they recognized in it
Raphael himself, notwithstanding the fair hair. This opinion would only have been
plausible if he could have painted himself at such a tender age with so ripe a talent.
But the features in this portrait, still ((uite young, peremptorily contradict such a
supposition ; the more so as this jiortrait is the production of the third phase of the
124 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1520.
genius of Raphael his third nianner, in which he painted the admirable Suonatorc di
Violino of the Sciarra Palace.
We now come to the favourite subject of the master, tlie Holy I'aiinly. Ut this,
his usual subject, the Louvre has collected three examples ; the first, of very small
proportions, probably, like the .SV. Margaret, was only sketched by Raphael, and
may have been merel}' copied from one of his drawings. But a second Holy Family,
THE HOLY FAMILY (" DE FRAN9OIS PREMIER"). — BY RAPHAEL.
/;/ the Museum of the Louvre, Paris.
half the size of life, known under the names of the Vierge au lingc, or the Vicrge an
voile, or the Silence dc la Vierge, and a third Holy Family, of a small life size,
usually called La Belle Jardiniere, are undoubtedly the work of Raphael, and seem
to have been painted entirely by his hands. Both in style and date they belong to
his second manner, when he was passing from the still timid endeavours of the pupil
of Perugino to the bold masterpieces of independent genius, urging its flight beyond
A.D. 1520.] RAPHAEL nURBINO. i>5
all the known limits of art. La Belle Jardiniere is extremely beautiful, and almost
as wonderful as the Madonna del Cardellino, the pride of Florence.
There now remains the Holy Family (called "de Francois Premier") and ^7.
Michael overthroioin;:^ the Dragon. These two pictures are intimately connected by
bearing the same date, both having been painted in 1518 ; and by the same history.
It has often been related, that having received an enormous and unheard-of price for
his ^V. Michael., from Francis I., Raphael, not wishing to remain his debtor, imme-
diately sent him the Holy Family, begging him to accept it as a mark of homage ; to
which Francis replied, that " men celebrated in the arts, sharing the immortality ot
kings, might treat with them," and it is said he added a price double that of the
St. Michael to this royal compliment. All these anecdotes are contradicted by the
writings of the time, amongst others by the letters of Goro Gheri da Pistoja, gonfa-
loniere of Florence, collected in the Carteggio of the Doctor Gaye. These letters prove
that the ^V. Michael and the Holy Family were ordered of Raphael by the duke of
Urbino, Lorenzo de' Medici, and that in the year 1518 they were sent through a
commercial house at L-yons to this prince, who was then living in France. They must
have passed from him either by gift or purchase to the palace of Fontainebleau, where
they were received with great pomp and solemnity.
Of the Holy Family, we would say that, painted by Raphael towards the close of
his life, at his best time and in his best style, it is at least equal to his most celebrated
compositions on the same subject, and that without any partiality we may put it in
the first rank among all the Holy Families which are scattered through Europe.
Turning from France to England, we may mention, first, those in the National
Gallery, which possesses five of Raphael's paintings : a Portrait of Julius LL. (Xo. 27)
— there are many repetitions of this work, the original of which is in the Fitti Palace ;
the St. Catherine of Alexa/ulria (No. 168), painted about 1507, formerly in the
Aldobrandini Collection in the Borghese Palace, Rome ; the Vision of a Knight (No.
213) in his very early style; the Madonna, Lnfant Christ, and St. John (No. 744),
now known as the '" Garvagh Raphael," formerly in the possession of Lord Garvagh,
who sold it to the National Gallery in 1865; this also is from the Aldobrandini
Collection (of this picture there are several copies) ; and lastly a replica of the
Madonna of the Bridgewater Gallery, bequeathed by Mr. Wynn Ellis in 1875. Earl
1 )udley possesses a Crucifixion ivith four Saints, and the Three Graces, Raphael's
earliest mythological painting. A Christ on the Mount of Olives, painted at Urbino in
1504, is in the possession of Mr. Fuller Maitland. At Blenheim, the seat of the Duke
of Marlborough, is the beautiful Madonna and Child enthroned with St. John the Baptist
and St. Nicholas of Bari. In the Bridgewater Gallery are : \\\^ Holy Family ivith the
Palm-tree : a Madonna and Child, painted in 151 2, in an imperfect state ; and the
Madonna del Passeggio. At Panshanger, in the possession of Earl Cowper, is a
Madonna and Child, dated 1508 ; another of a similar subject is in the same collection.
In the South Kensington Museum, we now find the celebrated cartoons which so
long adorned the galleries of Hampton Court. It will be well to explain how these
cartoons, painted in Rome for a poj)e, are in an English museum and belong to a Pro-
testant sovereign. It is a simple story, which may be related in very few words : " His
Holiness Leo X.," says \'asari, " desiring to have rich tapestry wo\en of gold and silk,
Raphael himself made ready the cartoons, which he coloured with his own hand. They
were sent into Flanders (to Arras) to be woven, and when the cloths were finished
ihev were sent to Rome. Xolhing can be more wondcrlul. This work, which would
126 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1520.
be taken for the work of a skilful pencil, seems rather the effect of a miracle than of
human art. The tapestries cost 70,000 crowns." These cartoons, which Raphael
hnished in 1520, the same year that he died, represent scenes from the Gospels and
the Acts of the Apostles ; the work of copying them in tapestry was over-looked by
Bernard van Orley and Michael Coxcie, Flemish painters who had been pupils of Raphael
in Italy. There were originally twelve cartoons ; but, either in the manufactories, where
they were cut into strips, or in the journey, or through accidents of which tradition has
preserved no remembrance, five of them have disappeared. The seven that have been
preserved, which are happily the finest in composition and style (as is easily discovered
from the twelve tapestries themselves), were bought for Charles I. by Rubens, after his
residence in England (1629) and the secret embassy with which Philij) IV. of Spain
had entrusted him. Charles I. left these venerable strips for a long time buried in their
cases. After his death they were taken care of by Oliver Cromwell ; Charles II., it is
said, would have sold them to Louis XIV. had he not been restrained by Lord Danby,
who would not allow such treasures to leave the country, and finally they were collected
and restored under William III., who devoted to them a large gallery built for them by
Sir Christopher Wren, in his favourite palace of Hampton Court, where they were
framed in the wood-work and arranged in suitable order. " They are well kept," wrote
the Comte de Caylus in 1722 ; "I did not think they were so well preserved." The
subjects represented by the seven cartoons are the Miraculous Draught of Fishes :
St. Peter and St. John curing the Lame Man at the Beautiful Gate of the Tempk ; Ely mas
the Sorcerer struck with Blindness ; St. Paul and St. Bar)mbas at Lystra ; St. Paul
preaching at Athens ; Jesus giving the keys to St. Peter ; and Ananias struck dead.
These cartoons of Raphael are not, like most cartoons, simple chalk drawings on
grey or white paper. To serve as copies for tapestry, they were obliged to be coloured.
Thus they are really pictures in distemper, and when fitted into the walls, have the
effect of fresco paintings. The name cartoon only gives a very imperfect idea of them.
It would doubtless be superfluous to attempt even a succinct description of these
wonderful compositions, which are well known through engravings, and by photo-
graphs. Among them, we should name, first, the Miraculous Draught of Fishes, and
the Preaching of St. Paul. These pictures, designed in the last year of Raphael's life,
when he had attained the summit of his genius, seem the highest expression of great
monumental painting. Perhaps we must not except even the Sistine chapel, where
the ceiling and fresco of Michelangelo are to be found.
Northern Europe does not possess many of the works of Raphael : in the Hermitage,
at St. Petersburg, is the Madonna of the Casa d' Alba ; and in the Berlin Gallery is
a sketch of an Adoration of the Shepherds.
But let us pass on to Dresden, where we shall find the most precious of all the spoils
carried out of Italy — the Madoufia di San Sisto. This picture was ordered for the high
altar of the convent of the Benedictines of St. Sixtus at Placentia, and was bought in 1753
by the Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, Augustus III., for the sum of 20,000
ducats (rather more than 8,000/.). Every one knows the Madonna di San Sisto, at
least by engravings, amongst others by that of poor Miiller, who from having so long
contemplated the picture lost both his reason and his life when he had completed his
magnificent work. (A new engraving, by Steinla, of the Madonna di San Sisto, which
was pubhshed in 1858, is perhaps the most faithful copy of Raphael's masterpiece.)
We shall only say a very few words of explanation about this picture. In order
to understand it well, we must not forget what the artist meant to express and what the
A.D. I520.] RAPHAEL U URBINO. 127
exact subject is. We should be mistaken if we were to seek in it a simple Madonna, a
representation of the mother of our Lord, such as the artist imagined her and offered
to the piety and a(hiiiration of men. There is more here ; it is like a revelation of
Heaven to Earth ; it is an Appearance of the Virgin. This word explains the whole
rendering of the picture ; the green curtains drawn aside in the uj)per part, the
balustrade at the bottom, on which the two little angels lean, who seem by their up-
turned glance to point to the celestial vision ; and St. Sixtus and St. Barbara, kneeling
on either side of the Virgin, like Moses and Elias on Mount Tabor at the Transfigu-
ration. We must also notice that the two angels at the bottom, whose presence few
people understand, give a third plane to the picture, or as the Italians say, three
orrizonii, — first these angels, then St. Sixtus and St. Barbara, and lastly the Madonna
and Child, who are thus placed at a greater distance.
When we understand this, we can appreciate all the merits of this composition.
What symmetry and variety are to be found in it ! What noble attitudes ! In what
Avonderfully graceful positions are the Virgin and the Child in her arms ! And what
ineffable beauty is there in everything that composes the group ! What could
be more thoughtful, pious, and holy than the venerable head of Sixtus I., crowned by
the glory of the saints, the thin golden circle of which shines brightly on the blue
background, composed of innumerable faces of cherubim ! What more noble, more
tender, and more graceful than the holy martyr of Nicomedia, who unites every kiml
of beauty, even that creamy complexion so celebrated by the old fathers of the primitive
church ! ^V'hat could we find more super-human than that Child with the meditative
forehead, the serious mouth, and fixed and penetrating eye, — that Child who will
become the wrathful Christ of Michelangelo ! And is not Mary a radiant and celestial
being? ^Vhat eye could gaze on her without falling? And what moves the inmost
depths of our hearts, is the irresistible power of moral beauty which beams in the face
of the Virgin mother, whose veil is lightly thrown aside as if by the breeze ; it is her
deep glance, her noble forehead, her face, at once grave, modest, and sweet ; it is that
indefinable look of something primitive and wild, which marks the woman brought up
far from the world, and havmg never known its pomps or deceitful gaieties.
Let us say a few words to conclude our praises of Raphael. In all the schools
of painting, and still more, in the whole history of modern art, there has been no one to
ecjual him. After three centuries and a half of animated discussions, of frequent re\olts,
after interminable debates which have taken place in every party and every sect,
Raphael, calm and trancpiil, has ever occupied the throne of painlmg, and no other
artist has ever disputed his legitimate empire.
FOLLOWERS OF RAPHAEL. (ROMAN SCHOOL.)
Timoteo della Vite, a cousin of Raphael d'Urbino, was born at I'rbino in 1470.
When about twenty years of age he removed to Bologna to learn the business of a
jeweller, but showing great talent for painting he, according to Mahasia, entered the
school of Francia, with whom he remained for about five years ; Vasari tells us that he
was his own instructor. When about twenty-six he returned to Urbino, and some time
afterwards was in\ited by Raphael to assist him at Rome. After a comparatively short
stay in this cilv he relurneil to Urbino, where he executed many works in the
128 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1520.
Cathedral, the churches and elsewhere. He died in 1523. Among his pictures may
be mentioned, in Urbino, a St. Apollonia in the church of the Santa Trinitk, and a
Magdalen in the Cathedral ; a Noli me tangere in Sant' Angelo at Cagli ; a Madonna
and an Immaculate Conception in the Brera ; a Madonna and saijits and a St. Jerome in
the Berlin Gallery. In painting, Timoteo shows many traces of Francia's style as well
as the grace and beauty of Raphael, which he acquired during his short stay in
Rome, though with all this his manner is sometimes hard and dry.
In the British Museum there is a fine Portrait of Timoteo by his friend Raphael —
one of the grandest chalk drawings in the world.
Giulio Pippi, rightly cle' Giannuzzi, commonly called Giulio Romano, was born at
Rome in 1492— a document discovered at Mantua says 1498. He was apprenticed to
Raphael when quite young, and assisted him in the A^atican. Among the works
designed by the great master, the execution of which is attributed to Giulio, may be
mentioned the Battle of Constautine in the "Stanza di Costantino ;" the Creation
and the Histories of Adam and Eve, of Noah, of Joseph, of Moses, and of the Neio
Testament, in the Loggie ; the Holy Family under the oak, in the Madrid Gallery ; the
Madonna della Gatta, and the Madonna col divino aviore, in the Museum at Naples.
Giulio also assisted Raphael in many other works. While in Rome he painted
frescoes in the "Villa Lanti" and the "Villa Madama." He also painted frescoes in
the church of Santa Trinita de' Monti.
By his will Raphael made Giulio joint-heir with Gianfrancesco Penni, on condition
that they should complete his unfinished frescoes in the Vatican. In 1524 Giulio went
to Mantua and entered the service of Federigo Goixzaga, duke of that city. He was
architect for the Palace del Tfe, and, assisted by numerous pupils, decorated the interior
with frescoes representing the Defeat of the Giants — his greatest work — and scenes
from the History of Cupid and Psyche. He also painted at Mantua, in the " Ufifizio
della Scaccheria," frescoes representing Diana at the Chase, and the History of the
Trojan War, and frescoes in numerous churches, especially the Cathedral, which,
however, he was not able to complete ; for, having accepted the post of architect to
St. Peter's at E.ome, as successor to Sansovino, he was about to set out for that city
when he died at Mantua on the ist of November, 1546.
Among his easel-pictures we may mention a Madonna in the sacristy of St. Peter's,
Rome ; in the Louvre, a Madonna, a Circumcision of Christ, and a Portrait of himself ;
in the Dresden Gallery, La Sainte Famillc an Bassin ; and four in the National Gallery
(Nos. 225, 624, 643, 644) — the best of these is the Infancy of Jupiter (No. 624), repre-
senting the infant sleeping in a cradle, with three women on a verdant island ; in the
background are the Curetes playing musical instruments in order to drown the cries of
the young Jupiter. This picture was formerly in the Orleans Gallery; thence it passed
into the possession of Lord Northwick, from whom it was purchased in 1859.
Giulio was as celebrated for his architecture as for his painting. He erected many
churches and other buildings in Mantua. His drawing is bold and powerful — he has
indeed been compared with Michelangelo — but there is an absence of the knowledge
of the true laws of colouring, for he combines the highest lights with the deepest
shadows. While at Mantua he had numerous scholars, among whom were Rinaldo
and Fermio-Guisoni.
Giovanni Francesco Penni, called II Fattore, because he was at first employed by
Raphael as his steward, was born at Florence in 1488. Next to Giulio Romano, he
GIULIO PIPPI DE' GIAXNUZZl
(GiULio Romano.)
I\ue 12S.
A.I). 1540.] SCHOLARS OF RAPHAEL. 129
was Raphael's favourite scholar, but he was not a first-rate artist. Of the easel-paintings
of Raphael, the Visitation in the Madrid Gallery, and the Madonna del Passeggio in the
Bridgewatcr C.allcry, are attributed to Penni, from the design of his master. He also
painted the lower-half of the Coronation of the Viri^in for the convent of Santa Maria
di Monte Luce at Perugia — now in the Vatican — but it is verj' inferior to the upper
portion, the work of Giulio Romano. He also finished, from Raphael's design, the
Histories of Abraham and Lot and Lsaac, in the Loggie of the Vatican ; and in the
" Stanza di Costantino " the Baptism of Constantinc, which is inferior to the work of
Giulio. in the same room. Penni is thought to have executed a greater part of the
painting of the celebrated Raphael Cartoons, seven of which are now in the South
Kensington Museum. He made copies of Raphael's Transfiguration and Entombment ;
that of the former is in the Sciarra Golonna Gallery, Rome. This artist was
Raphael's joint-heir and executor with Giulio Romano. After his master's death, he
left Rome and went to Naples, where he died in 152S.
Andrea Sabtatini, called Andrea da Salerno Irom his l)irthplace, was born in 1480.
He was placed in the school of the Donzelli— early Neapolitan painters — to study the
art ; seeing some of the works of Perugino he set out in order to join him, but his course
was arrested in Rome by the flxme of Raphael, whose pupil he became. The death of
his father caused him ro leave Rome in 1513 ; he then settled in Naples, out of which
city very few of his pictures are to be met with. Sabbatini died in 1545.
Among his works we may mention an Adoration of the Kiiif^s. in the Naples
Gallery. The churches of that city possess several of his works.
Bartolommeo Ramenghi, called Bagnacavallo from liis birthplace, was born in 1484.
He is said to have been a follower of Francia at Bologna for some time ; he then went
to Rome and entered the school of Raphael, whose works he studied devoutly ; after
the death of the great master he returned to Bologna, and introduced the style of
Raphael to the inhabitants of that city, where he painted in 1542 his Crucifixion for the
church of San Pietro. He died at Bologna in 1542. It is said that Carracci studied
BagnacavalIo"s works with interest. There is in the Gallery of Bologna a LJoly Family,
and many churches of that city possess pictures by Bagnacavallo. In Rome there are
a Prophet and a Saint in Santa Maria della Pace, and a Troop of Warriors in the
Colonna Palace. We may also mention a Madonna in glory in the Dresden Ciallery —
considered by .some to be his masterpiece. Bagnacavallo had a son. Giovanni Battista,
who assisted Vasari at Rome ami Trimaticcio at Fontainebleau.
Girolamo Marches! da Cotignola was born at Cotigiiola in 14S6. He was a pupil
of Francia, and painted for a long time in the style of his master, but ultimately
abandoned it for that of the great Raphael. Amongst his works we may mention : in
the Pinacoteca at Bologna, a Marriage of the Virgin and a Madonna and Child 7C'ith
saints ; in the Berlin Museum, a Coronation of the Virgin and a Madonna with saints :
in the Louvre, a Christ bearing the Cross; and in Lord Ashburton's collection, a
Nativity^ signed and dated 151,3. Girolamo is said to have died at Rome in 1549.
Francesco Primaticcio was born at Bologna in 1490. He studied fust under
Innocenzio da Imola and Bagnacavallo ; he then went to Mantua, and worked with
Giulio Romano in the Palace del Te and elsewhere. In 1531 he was recommended
by Frederick of Mantua to Francis I. of France, for whom he executed a great number
of works at Fontainebleau ; though the greater part of the frescoes, witli which Francis
s
13°
ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1545.
wished to decorate his Palace, were not finished until after that monarch's death.
Owing to jealousy, an ill-feeling arose between Primaticcio and II Rosso, who was then
painting for Francis, and the King therefore sent Primaticcio to Rome to collect
antique worlss of art. He was, however, recalled to finish some paintings which II
Rosso's death, in 1541, had left uncompleted. The most renowned of his works in
France were the scenes from the Odyssey in the Palace of Fontainebleau, which were
entirely destroyed in 1738 when the great gallery was pulled down to make room for
some new apartments. Primaticcio painted also under Henry II., Francis II., and
Charles IX. Francis I. made him abbot of St. Martin de Troyes, and gave him
a revenue of 8000 crowns. He died in 1570, eighty years of age. Works by this
artist are rarely seen out of France ; we may mention, as an exception, a Return of
Ulysses at Castle Howard, which is described by Dr. Waagen as the best of the
pictures by Primaticcio which he had then seen.
Giovanni Nanni, commonly known as Giovanni da Udine, from his birthplace, was
born in 1494. Early in life he displayed an ability for painting — especially animals
and fruit — and was placed under Giorgione at Venice. After some time he removed
to Rome and painted under Raphael in the Vatican, where he superintended the
execution of the stuccoes and decorations in the Loggie. He executed also a frieze in
the Villa Madama at Rome ; and was employed with Perino del Vaga, by Clement
VII., in the Vatican. In 1527, after the sacking of the city, he left Rome and went to
Florence — where he painted for the Medici — and other cities in Italy, but returning to
Rome he died there in 1564, and was buried in the old Pantheon near the body of
Raphael. As a specimen of Giovanni's art we may mention a Christ amo?ig the
Doctors, with the four Fathers of the Church in the foreground, now in the Venetian
Academy.
Polidoro Caldara, called Polidoro da Caravaggio, from his birthplace, was born in
1495. H^ ^^'^ employed as a mason in the Vatican, where he acquired a taste for
art, in which he induced a Florentine painter, Maturino by name, to instruct him.
They then executed conjointly many works in chiaroscuro, which nearly all perished,
though they are, to a certain extent, preserved to us by the engravings of Alberti,
Galestruzzi, and others.
The sack of Rome in 1527 caused a dissolution of partnership of these two artists,
when Polidoro went to Naples and remained there some lime in the house of Andrea
da Salerno, but, being discontented with the lack of appreciation, as he thought, of the
Neapolitans, he removed to Messina, where in 1536 he was entrusted with the
superintendence of the triumphal decorations on the occasion of the return of the
victor, Charles V., from Tunis. In 1543 Polidoro, having acquired great wealth in
Messina, resolved to return to Rome, but on the night previous to his departure he
was treacherously murdered for the sake of his money, at the instigation of an old
servant, who, confessing his crime, was hanged for the offence. Polidoro was buried in
the cathedral of Messina. Among his pictures are a Christ bearing the Cross — his
masterpiece — with various other works by him in the public gallery at Naples ; and a
Psyche in the Louvre.
Pierino Buonaccorsi, called Perino del Vaga, after one of his masters, was born at
Florence in 1500. His first instructor in art was one Andrea de' Ceri ; he then
studied under Ridolfo Ghirlandajo and Vaga; the latter took him to Rome, and
A.1). 1545] SCHOLARS OF RAPHAEL.
recommended him to Giulio Romano, who spoke well of him to Raphael, by whom
he was employed with Giulio and Penni, on the frescoes in the Vatican. The
frescoes in the Loggie, the execution of which is attributed to Perino. are the histories
o{ Joshua and of David; the histories of Moses and of the Nciv Testament ■^c[t, by
some, attributed to Perino, by others, to (liuHo. Perino also assisted Giovanni da
Udine in the stuccoes and the arabcsciues in the Loggie. He painted, too, the
Creation of Eve in San Marcello. After the sack of Rome in 1527, Perino left that
city, and went to Genoa, where he was employed by Prince Doria to decorate his
palace, which he did much in the same style that Giulio employed at ISIantua. Among
the pictures which he executed in this palace, were the Shipxvreck of .Eneas, on the
ceiling of the great hall, now whitewashed over, and Jupiter destroying the Giants, on
the ceiling of a neighbouring room. These fine paintings have now nearly all perished.
After a stay of some years at Genoa, Perino returned to Rome, where he was
employed by Pope Paul III. Towards the end of his life, his pictures were in such
request that he merely made the designs, leaving the execution of them to his pupils,
among whom we may mention, Pantaleo Calvi and Lazzaro, painters of no great merit.
Perino died at Rome in 1547 — it is said that he hastened his end by intemperance —
and was buried by the side of Raphael and other great painters in the old Pantheon.
Among his pictures we may mention The Muses and the Tierides on Mount Tar.iassus
in the Louvre, and a Portrait of Cardinal Pole in the possession of Lord Spencer at
Althorp. There are works by him in Rome, Tivoli, Florence, Lucca, and Pisa.
Innocenzio Francucci da Imola, was bom at Imola in 1494, or perhaps a few years
earlier, for in 1506 he is said to have entered the school of Francia at Bologna —
when he quitted Francia he studied under Albertinelli at Florence. He never resided
at Rome, but he was one of Raphael's most devoted followers ; he even carried his
admiration for the great master so far as to copy whole figures from his subjects in
his own. Among his pictures, we may mention an altar-piece, painted for San
Michele in Bosco, representing above the Madonna and Child loith Angels, and below
the Archangel Michael vanquishing Satan, with SS. Peter and Benedict at the sides ;
this picture, which has been called his masterpiece, is now in the Bologna Academy,
which also possesses a Holy Family, formerly in the church of the Corpus Domini.
Various public galleries in Europe contain works by Imola. He died in 1549.
Niccolb Abati, who was born at Modena in 15 12, was instructed in art by his
father Giovanni Abati, a second-rate painter of that town. He is said to have studied
under the sculptor Begarelli, and also under Correggio. In the castle of Scandiano he
painted frescoes, which have been engraved by Gajani, representing scenes from the
.Eneid of Virgil; these have been much admired. In Bologna, to which city he
removed in 1546, he painted an Adoration of the Shepherds in the Portico de' Leoni,
mentioned by Count Algarotti as combining " the symmetry of Raphael and the nature
of Titian with the grace of Parmigiano." In 1552 Abati went to France with Prima-
ticcio, whom he assisted in the frescoes at Fontainebleau ; he i)ainted the Adventures
of Ulxsses, and other works from the designs of Primaticcio, but they shared the
same fate as his master's, and perished in 1738, when the building was removed to
make room for some new apartments. Abati painted in France up to the time of his
death, which took place in Paris in 157 i.
.\mong his eascl-i)ictures, may be mentioned a Martyrdom of St. Paul in ihe
Dresden Gallery, and a Rape 0/ Proserpine in the Stafford Gallery.
132 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1550.
There are also some frescoes by him in the Institute of Bologna, which have been
compared to the works of Titian ; Malvasia praises them greatly. Vasari says that
Abati never retouched his paintings when dry, and attributes to this the evenness and
beauty of his colouring. Agostino Carracci praises him most highly in a sonnet,
saying that he possessed every requirement for making a great painter, and comparing
him to the celebrated artists of Italy. Abati's son Giulio and his grandson Ercole
were painters of some merit.
FOLLOWERS OF RAPHAEL. (SCHOOL OF FERRARA.)
Benvenuto Tisio, usually known as Garofalo, from his native town in the Ferrarese,
whence he often puts a gilliflower {garofalo) as a monogram in his pictures, was born
in 1 48 1. He studied first under an unimportant artist, Domenico Panetti at Ferrara,
then under Boccaccino at Cremona for a short time ; but, leaving him in 1500, he set
out for Rome, where he remained for fifteen months. Then, after a journey among
other towns, he stayed two years with Lorenzo Costa at Mantua ; removing to Ferrara,
he stayed there for four years, but ultimately apprenticed himself to Raphael in Rome
in 15 15, to assist him in the Vatican. After a stay of a few years, domestic arrangements
called Garofalo to Ferrara ; he set out intending to return as soon as possible to Rome,
but this, much to Raphael's disappointment, he found himself unable to do. He remained
at Ferrara, where, after suffering the affliction of total blindness for nine years, he died
in 1559. Garofalo seldom endeavoured to attain a grand style. We find only four
large pictures by him : the Sibyl before Augustus, in the Museum of the Vatican ; the
Descent from the Cross, in the Borghese Palace ; the Martyrdom of St. La7vrence, in the
Museum at Naples ; and the Apparition of the Virgiti to St. Bruno, in the Dresden Gallery.
This last, a very large picture, bearing the signature of the master and the date, 1530,
may be considered as his best work. In this painting he displays his graceful and
elegant, as well as firm style, which, even when confined within narrow limits, rises
to grandeur. Among other works of Garofalo, Ave may mention a Salutation of the
Virgin, in the Doria Gallery, Rome ; a Betrayal of Christ, in San Francesco at Ferrara ;
an allegory representing the Triumph of the Nezv Testament over the Old, in the Public
Gallery of the same town ; and four in the National Gallery — the Vision of St.
Augustine (No. 81); the Holy Family with Elizabeth and the young St. John (No. 170) ;
Christ" s agony in the Garden (No. 642) ; and the Madonna and Child enthroned (No.
671), a work of great merit, originally the altar-piece of San Guglielmo at Ferrara.
Dosso Dossi was born in Dosso, near Ferrara, in 1474. He, with his younger
brother Giambattista, was a pupil of Lorenzo Costa. On leaving him they studied at
Rome, after Raphael's death, and at Venice. They then returned to Ferrara, and
executed frescoes in the Ducal Palace, .some of which still remain, Dosso doing the
figures, in the painting of which he excelled, and Giambattista the background.
Dosso Dossi made illustrations for " Orlando Furioso," and painted the Portrait of
Ariosto — now in the Academy of Ferrara — by whom, he and his brother are mentioned
with praise (" Orlando Furioso," xx.xiii. 2). Dosso Dossi died about 1560. Among
his pictures may be mentioned a Madonna and Child ivith saints, now in the gal]er\-
of Ferrara ; the Four Doctors of the Church, SS. Gregory, Ambrose, Augustus and
A.D. 1530. J SCHOLARS OF RAPHAEL.
Jerome; and the Drcani, in the Dresden Gallery ; the Bacchanal, in the Pitti Palace ;
the Circe, in the Borghese Gallery ; and the Adoration of the Magi (No. 640) in the
National (iallery.
Giambattista Dossi was born at Dosso, near Ferrara, about 1480. He, as we have
already stated (see Dosso Dossi), studied under Lorenzo Costa, and also at Rome and
Venice, Giambattista worked mostly in conjunction with his elder brother Dosso, but
had to content himself, for the most part, with the minor portions of the pictures ;
such as putting in the backgrounds to Dosso's tigures, for wliich he was particularly
adapted as he excelled in landscape painting. Giambattista also assisted his brother
in the works in the Ducal Palace at Ferrara. He died about 1555. Two pictures by
Giambattista Dossi are in the Borghese Palace, Rome ; one representing Demons in
the wilderness, and tlie other an Encampment on the shore.
Lodovlco Mazzolini, called also Lodovico Ferrarese, was born at Ferrara about
1481. Owing to Vasari's silence regarding him, great confusion has arisen. He is only
slightly mentioned by that author as " Malini," whence he has been, so to speak,
divided into two— " Malini " and "Mazzolini." He has also been confused with
Mazzuoli (Parmigiano), owing to the diminutive " Mazzolino " having been given to
the latter by Lomazzo. Mazzolini, who next to Garofido may be considered the most
celebrated of the Ferrarese painters, was a fellow-pupil with that artist under Lorenzo
Costa, but little is known of his life ; he died in 1530, at Ferrara. His pictures, which
are very scarce, are noticeable for their architectural backgrounds and the excellence
of their colour. MazzoUni is represented at Rome, in the Capitol and in the Doria
Gallery ; in the Berlin Gallery, where amongst others is his celebrated picture of Christ
disputing with the Doctors, painted in 1524; in the Gallery of Bologna ; and also in the
Nadonal Gallery, where there are three pictures, two — (Nos. 82 and 169) representing
the Holy Family — and one (641) the Woman taken in adultery. Works by this artist
are sometimes assigned to other masters.
Giambattista Benvenuti, called L'Ortolano, because his father was a gardener, v/as
born at Ferrara about 1490. Little is known of him with certainty; he studied the
works of Raphael and Bagnacavallo at Bologna about 1512. It is said that he died in
1525, when quite young. Pictures by him are in various churches of his native town,
but his masterpiece is a St. Sebastian, St. Roch, and St. Demetrius (No. 669) in the
National Gallery, formerly the altar-piece of the' parochial church of Bondeno, near
Ferrara.
134 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1530.
w
CHAPTER XII.
TITIAN, AND THE VENETIAN SCHOOL OF THE
SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
E must now complete our brief history of the great school of Venice ; which
included, as we shall see, some of the most celebrated painters of Italy, all
of them remarkable for the greatness of their powers as Colourists.
Tiziano Vecellio, usually known as Titian, was born at Capo del Cadore, in the
Venetian territory, in 1477. He was first placed with Sebastiano Zuccati to study art;
afterwards he went to Gentile Bellini, whom he also soon quitted for the studio of his
more famous brother Giovanni Bellini, where he was a fellow-pupil with Giorgione.
Owing perhaps to the great age of Giovanni Bellini, Titian was engaged to complete
a work, which liis master was unable to finish — the Homage of Fcderigo Barbarossa to
Pope Alexander III in the Sala del Gran Consiglio — which he executed so much to the
satisfaction of the Senate that they conferred on him the office of " La Sanseria," with
which he received a yearly income of about 120 crowns; this office obliged him to
paint, for eight crowns apiece, the portrait of every Doge who might happen to be
appointed during his office. About 15 14 Titian went to Ferrara and painted at the
court of Duke Alfonso I., among other works, his Bacchus and Ariadne — now in the
National Gallery ; while at Ferrara, in 15 16, he painted the Portrait of Ariosto, who in
return mentions the artist with great praise in his " Orlando Furioso " (Canto xxxiii. 2).
In the same year (15 16) Titian returned to Venice, and executed there many important
works. In 1 530 he went to Bologna at the invitation of the Emperor Charles V. , whose
portrait he painted ; then, after a short visit to Mantua, he executed another portrait of
the Emperor, whom, some say, he accompanied to Spain. Certain it is that the
Emperor created him Count Palatinate of the Empire and Knight of the order of
St. lago. In 1545 Titian paid his only visit to Rome, where he painted the portrait of
Pope Paul III for a second time. At Rome, too, Vasari and Michelangelo visited the
great Venetian, while he was engaged on the Jupiter and Dande, and the historian tells
us that his companion praised the picture most highly while in Titian's presence, and
also commended the colouring and execution greatly afterwards, merely adding at
the same time it was a pity that the Venetian artists were not early initiated in sound
])rinciples of drawing. The same historian tells us that Pope Paul III. offered Titian
the office of keeper of the leaden seals — rendered vacant by the death of Sebastiano del
I'iombo in 1547 — but this offer the painter refused. Leaving Rome in 1546, Titian
a-clurncd to Venice, visiting Florence on his way. For the rest of his life he chiefly
TIZIANO VECELLIO.
/'"/'' 134-
A.D. 1530.J VENETIAN SCHOOL. 135
resided at Venice. He visited Charles V. twice at Augsburg— once in 1548 and
again in 1550. And after the Emperor's abdication, he executed many works for his
son Phihp II. At Venice he was visited a second time by Vasari, who found him,
though nigh upon ninety years of age, still wielding his brush.
Titian, the chosen friend of Emperors, the greatest painter of the Venetian school,
and the best colourist of all the schools, died at Venice, of the plague, at the advanced
age of ninety-nine, on the 27th of August, 1576 ; and was buried in the church of Santa
Maria Gloriosa de' Frari.
Little is recorded of his private life. He married about the year 151 2— but lost
his wife in 1530. He had two sons, Pomponio and Orazio — the latter of whom was a
good portrait-painter — and a daughter T.avinia, whose features are immortalized in the
celebrated picture in the Berlin Museum.
Venice is very fortunate with regard to her favourite painter. Many of his best
works are preserved in her museum and churches, and in the palaces of her doges and
patricians ; and amongst these are several of his most important and most justly famous
productions. In the Accademia delle Belle Arti, his whole history is written. There
are the first trials of a yet uncertain youth, the perfection of his middle age, and the
last occupations of an old age, voluntarily laborious.
A Visitation of St. Elizabeth is considered the earliest existing work of this great
man. He painted this picture when scarcely more than a child, hesitating between the
■imitation of his master, Giovanni BelUni, and the new style of his fellow-student
Giorgione. The forms are stiff and the colours tame, but one can ah-eady clearly see
the direction in which his natural inclinations were leading him.
His last work, on the other hand, is a Descent from the Cross, whicli death prevented
his finishing. On examining tliis picture closely, we can see the confused and heavy
work of a trembling hand and dim eye. Some parts of this venerable Deposition which
had been left incomplete were finished by Palma Vecchio, accorcHng to the ])ious
inscription traced at the bottom : " Quod Titianus inclioatum reliijuit, Palma reverenter
absolvit, Deoque dicavit 0])us."
The two large compositions at the Accademia representing the commencement
and the close of the History of the Virgin — her Presentation in the Temple, and her
Assumption to Heaven — indicate the maturity of the genius of Titian. The first is
a singular imagination, suggested doubtless by tradition. In it are seen the external
flight of stairs leading to the vesdbule of the temple, the neighbouring houses, the
streets in perspective, mountains in the background, and a crowd of people. Mary,
the young girl who ascends the steps alone, is the least part of tlie i)icturc, whicli is
none the less an admirable specimen of the Venetian style.
The two kinds of merit in painting, the real and the ideal, which ought to be
inseparable, are seen together in the Assumption, so widely celebrated, and now so
well known' from having been reproduced in every possible method. It is indeed
useless to extol its various beauties, to attempt to describe the mysterious majest\-
of the Eternal Father, the dazzling radiancy of the group of the \'irgin, borne b\
thirty little angels, or the vigorous reality of the witnesses of the miracle; it is
sufficient to say, that in this picture Titian fully merits the name given him by his
biographers and admirers, — the greatest colourist of Italy.
Another of the great masterpieces of Titian, the Murder of St. Peter Martyr,
was till recently in the church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo (usually called San Zanipolo).
136
ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS [a.d. 1530.
This great work was destroyed by fire in 1867. The subject of this vast com])osition
was the death of a Dominican monk named Pietro di Verona, who was assassinated m
a wood, while returning with another monk from some ecclesiastical council. He was
canonized, and his tragic death recorded amongst the best authenticated legends. No
kind of honour that could have been paid to this picture was wanting : first, the senate
of Venice having learnt that a rich man had offered to pay eighteen thousand crowns
DEATH OF ST. PETER MARTYR. — IIV TITIAN.
Fornicrlv in Ihc Chunh of SS. Gio7'aiini ,• Paolo, Venice.
for it to the Dominican possessors of the church of San Zanipolo, forbade the monks,
under pain of death, to allow it to go out of the territory of the republic ; then
Domenichino made a copy of it, which, in spite of its eminent beauties, did not attain
to the grandeur of the original ; lastly, it was brought to Paris after the conquest of
Venice, and there, like the Spasinw of Raphael, it was restored to all its beauty by
being taken off the worm-eaten wood and placed on new and durable canvas. All
A.I). 1540.] TITIAN. 137
these honours fully corroborate the saying of Vasari, that " Titian never in all his life
produced a more skilful and finished work."
Besides those in the museum and the churches, paintings by Titian may be found
in the houses of the ancient nobility of Venice ; for instance, in the Barbarigo Palace,
where he lived many years, and where he died in 1576. Although bands of robbers
despoiled it with impunity during his last moments, and his unworthy son, the priest
Pomponio Vecellio, dissipated his heritage, the Barbarigo Palace has yet preserved
three of his pictures : the Magdalen, with which Titian would never part, but used as a
model for all the others, and of ^\ hich we know at least six copies ; a Venus, which
has been wilfully spoilt in order to clothe it; and a St. Sebastian, which he was sketch-
ing when death overtook liini.
The paintings of Titian are to be found in every museum and gallery of importance
in the ancient states of Italy. Florence, especially, in spite of the richness of her own
school, has collected many treasures of the great Venetian. At the gallery of the
Uffizi, in the Venetian room, are \.\\o Holy Families, a St. Catherine of Alexandria,
in which he has painted the features of the beautiful queen of Cyprus, Catarina
Cornaro ; a half-clothed woman, called Flora, from flowers she holds in her hand ;
and a sketch of the Battle of Cadorc, between the troops of the Empire and those of
the Republic— which is all the more precious, as the picture destined for the palace of
the doges, for which this was prepared, has perished. In the Tribune are the two
celebrated pictures of Venus, placed opposite to each other. One, which is a little
larger than nature, and behind which a Cupid is standing, is called, perhaps incorrectly,
the wife of Titian. The other, supposed to represent the mistress of a duke of Urbino,
or of one of the Medici, is known in France as the Venus au petit Chien. Both are
perfectly nude, but neither bold nor immodest ; they preserve as much decency and
dignity as the " Aphrodite " of Greek statuary. Both are painted with a touch
vigorous, delicate, and tender, the secret of which only Titian, the great painter of
women, seems to have discovered. The latter, however — superior to the other in
delicacy of drawing, in the charm of the attitude, and the beauty of the foce, in whicli
a sweet voluptuousness breathes— justly enjoys the greater fome. Below it is an
excellent and magnificent portrait of the Cardinal Beecadell(i, which Titian painted at
Venice in 1552, when the prelate came there as papal legate. The artii^t was then in
his seventy-fifth year ; but as he painted for twenty years longer, this may almost be
considered a work of his youth.
Among the thirteen paintings liy Titian in the Pitti Palace, we prefer to mention
the portraits, for certainly no other collection contains so great a number, nor such
perfection. Several also are celebrated through the name of the person represented ;
there is the portrait of Andreas Vesalius, the great physician and anatomist, who, like
(ialileo, was persecuted by superstition, and who was driven to the Holy Land to die
of hunger; there is Pliilip II. of Spain, taken during his youth; I'ietro Aretino, the
dreaded satirical poet, for thirty years the friend and counsellor of the artist, who was
perhaps the only one of his contemporaries whose love for the poet was unmixed with
fear. Others, on the contrary, are valuable less for the name of the model than for the
artist's merits. Thus, to show the greatest height to which art can reach in the simple
representation of the human being, in the expression of life, it is sutficient to mention
the portrait of the okl man, Luigi Cornaro, or that of the young man opposite, whose
name is not known. For personal grace and brilliant costume we must mention the
portrait of a lady, called Titian s Mistress. Again, the i)ortrait in which the most
T
138
ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1540.
wonderful effects of light and shade are to be found, is the portrait of the Cardinal
IppoHto dc Medici, clothed as a Hungarian magnate. Nothing can be found superior
to these four portraits in the whole of Titian's works, and in this style Titian has never
been surpassed by any school or in any country.
Amono-st the works of Titian that have remained in Rome, is the Sacrifice of Isaac,
in the Doria Palace, and a St. Sebastian in the Vatican. These are magnificent
ST. SEBASTIAN — BY TITIAN.
In the Vatican, Rome.
works, and among the most perfect in every way that have been left by the great
painter of Cad ore.
Several of his works are to be found in the Studj Gallery at Naples : in the first
place, Pope Paul III. seated at a desk, and raising the young prince Ottaviano II. of
A.D. 1550.] 'JJTIAN. 1,^9
Parma, who is kneeling before him. The other portraits by Titian arc i>i hni^mus oj
Rotterdam, in his extreme okl age, and Philip II. of Spain, when young ; both are
excellent. The latter is signed, " Titianus Vecellius eques Cresaris." It was no doubt
painted a short while after the time that Charles V. had conferred the order of knight-
hood, with a pension of two hundred crowns, on the great painter whose pencil he had
condescended to pick up : on his accession Philip II. doubled this pension. It is in a
sort of private cabinet (in which however any one maj- enter) that the J)audi\ seduced
by the golden shower, and whom Love watches smiling, has long been hidden. This
Dande was painted for the duke Ottavio Farnese at Rome, when Titian, although
sixty-eight years of age, yielded to the pressing solicitations of Paul III., and appeared
at the pontifical court, to which Leo X. had not succeeded in attracting him. This
picture was much admired, but the austere Michelangelo, to whom it was shown,
added a reser\'ation. " It is a great i)ity," said he, " that at Venice they do not make
it a rule to draw well ; this man would have no eiiual if he had strengthened his natural
genius by the knowledge of drawing."
At Madrid a whole museum might be formed of the works of Titian alone. Sent
for three times to Augsburg, to paint Charles \'., and then Philip II., who all through
his life kept up a lamiliar correspondence with the great Venetian artist, Titian appears
to have bequeathed to Spain the greater part of the immense labours of his
prolon<^ed life. The biographers of the painter mentioned several compositions, and
some of his most important ones, which could neither be discovered at Venice nor
anywhere else, and which in consecjuence were considered lost. A great number of
these having been found in the catacomb-like galleries of the Escurial, have been
restored to the light of day in the museum of Madrid, and have increased the glory
of that o-reat gallery. Spain, however, has not preserved all she possessed by Titian.
The terrible fire of the Prado, in March, 1608, probably consumed the. great allegory
called Religion, which has entirely disappeared. Other precious pictures have
perished under the ravages of time and of men ; for instance, the large and magnificent
painting of the Last Sn/>J>er,the rival of that by Leonardo da \'inci, at which Titian
laboured seven years, and which he considered the best of his works, even after he
had painted the Assumption, revered at Venice as the most sacred relic of its painter.
Too dilapidated to bear a removal, the remains of this great composition were obliged
to be left fastened to the walls of the deserted Refectory in the Kscurial, where it has
been mutilated by impious hands. And yet, even after these cruel losses, Spain is the
most richly endowed of the nations who have inherited the works of Titian. The
Museo del Rey at Madrid contains as many as forty-two works by this illustrious
I)ainter. ^^'e will merely mention briefly the princi])al among ihcin, beginning with the
portraits, and following the order of the works from the simplest to the most important.
The best among the portraits would have been a C/inrlcs V. on fioisdmck, in full
armour and with his lance in rest, like a knight-errant, if this splendid picture were not
unfortunately nnuh injured. \\e must then give the first place to another C/iar/es J'.,
on foot, and clothed this time in civil costume, a black cap, doublet of cloth of gold,
and white mantle and hose ; he rests his hand on the head of a large dog — an
historical personage who was for several years the favourite of this emperor. This
picture is as remarkable for its ]jerfect preservation as for the wonderful execution of
every part, and the expression of majesty which pervades the whole. A third Charles
v., brought from the Escurial, was painted at the close cf his reign, with a whitened
beard, when the weariness and disgust of jjublic affairs led the concjueror of Pavia, the
I40 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS [a.u. 1550.
sacker of Rome, to the monastery of San Yuste. Philip II., with his pale, fair, and
effeminate face, is twice represented, on foot and in half-length portrait, and both times
admirably, although even when young he could only have been painted in the old age
of Titian. Several other portraits no less remarkable come afterwards j those of
Isabella of Portugal, the wife of Charles V., and of a Lady dressed in white, whose name
is unknown; those of different men, one playing with a line spaniel, another closing a
book of prayers, one wearing a large white cross on his breast, another, the Marquis
del Vasto, holding in his hand a general's baton : and lastly one of Titian himself, old
and venerable, with a long white beard, in which he has rendered, with admirable
simplicity, his calm, noble, and expressive face, still youthful even in extreme old age.
Amongst the paintings of single figures, there is a bold Eccc Homo, painted on slate ;
a Mater Dolorosa, which is nothing more than a lady in affliction, and like many other
pictures, both ancient and modern, would be much improved by the name being
changed ; two of St Margaret, one of them a half-length figure, on the point of being
devoured by the dragon, which, according to the legend, swallowed her alive, but
from which she emerged making the sign of the cross ; the other is a full-length
figure, having the dead dragon at her feet, — both are as remarkable for the beauty of
the features and the serenity of the expression as for the vigour and transparency of
the touch ; and lastly the Daughter of Herodias, who is taking the head of St. John the
Baptist to her mother on a silver charger. We have reserved this picture, which was
brought from the Escurial, as the last of the series, because it is the most wonderful.
Never has Titian, always so strong^ so true, so powerful, shown more strength, truth,
and power. It is before this beautiful and terrible daughter of Herodias, that we recal
and accept the saying of Tintoretto, " That man paints with pounded flesh." It was
indeed flesh, but animated, living flesh, which he found on his palette, and which he
placed on his immortal canvas.
The pictures containing several figures may be divided into sacred and profane.
Among the former, which are the least numerous, we may notice a CJwist hearing his
Cross, much smaller than the Spasimo of Raphael, and in the early style of Titian,
when he imitated Giorgione ; an Abraham restrained by the Angel, greater in its
proportions, but not in its style, than that by Andrea del Sarto on the same subject ;
and Eve presenting the apple to Adam: on this painting Titian lavished all his
knowledge of chiaroscuro and all his depth of colouring. Afterwards come two
Entombments, exactly alike except for a few differences in the colour of the vestments.
We must also mention an Assuiiption of the Magdalen, containing only the figure of
the beautiful sinner, become a rigid anchoret, and the group of angels bearing her
triumphantly towards the celestial dwellings.
Lastly we come to the great Allegory, half religious, half political, in which is seen
the imperial family, Charles V., Philip II., and their wives, presented in heaven to the
Trinity. This painting is called the Apotheosis of the Imperial Family. Heaven is
there represented open ; the Divine Trinity occupy the throne of glory, on which
Mary is also sitting, and like the white dove, which represents the Holy Spirit, seems
to melt away into the brilliant waves of light from above ; the Trinity appears to be
composed of the Father, the Son, and the Virgin, all alike clothed in long sky-blue
mantles. Above them are choirs of archangels, patriarchs, prophets, apostles, while
angels are introducing into the celestial court the four sovereigns from the earth, who
with clasped hands and bent heads are supplicants before the throne. Standing in
front of the group, Charles V. has already put on the monk's white frock, Philip and
A.I). 1560.] TITIAN. 141
the two (iiicens ])reservc their nnal ,i,Mrments. This (ircumsiince gives a ilaie 10 the
jncture ; it could only have l)een painted after the abdication of the emperor, in 1556,
when Titian was eighty years of age. And yet in this strange composition, which
was doubtless ordered by the filial love of the successor of Charles V., we may
recogni/e the hand of the great artist who had painted the Assumption half a century
before.
In the series of proHine compositions we may mention rapidly two pictures of Wnus
almost alike, and strongly resembling those in the Tribune at Florence ; then the
group of Venus and Adonis, of which there is a flic simile in the National (iallery in
London. It is certain that under the features of the hunter, tearing himself from the
embraces of his celestial lover, Titian has painted Philip II., who, when still very
young, fresh, and delicate, was considered, like Francis I., and every prince not actually
deformed, the handsomest man in the kingdom. This picture is said to be one of the
masterpieces of the painter. I'nder the title of Sacrifice to the Goddess of Fertility,
he has painted one of the most wontlerful scenes that the most adventurous
colourist could imagine. In a beautiful landscape at the foot of the statue of the
goddess, to whom two young giils are offering presents of fruit and flowers, an in-
numerable band of young children scattered in different groups over the whole picture,
are struggling and playing with the innocence and vivacity of their age. There is
another masterpiece, entitled the Arrival of Bacchus at the Isle of Naxos,\\\\\i^ is,
indeed, like its pendant, the Bacchus and Ariadne in the National Clallery, a true
Bacchanalian scene. The scene is, of course, on the sea-shore and on the blue waves :
in the distance is a white sail, which indicates either the departure of the ungrateful
Theseus, or the approach of Bacchus the consoler. The abamloned Ariadne, still
asleep, is lying naked in the foreground of the picture ; she is surrounded by different
groups of Bacchantes, dancing, singing, and drinking, whilst old Silenus is also sleeping
among the bushes on a hill. This Bacchus at Naxos, although only about half the
size of nature, is one of the greatest works of Titian. The colour and effect in it are
wonderful ; it attracts the spectator, and it is difficult for him to tear himself from the
profound admiration its contemplation e.vcites.
There is also a large historical painting which required the greatest j)owers of the
artist; i\\\s '\s \.\\Q Allegory of the Battle 0/ Lepanto. Through the open window, at the
end of a long gallery, are seen some incidents of a naval combat. Nothing in this
work speaks of the weakness of old age. The thought is still clear, the hand firm,
and the execution brilliant. Who would not be surprised on hearing that Titian
began this painting when he had comjiletetl his ninety-fourth year? After this wonder-
ful effort the only other work of his we can find is tlie Deposition from the Cross, in
the Museum of Venice, which he left unfinished, and which was completed by Palma
Vecchio, of which we have previously spoken.
Very few of Titian's works are found out of Italy or Spain. No museum or gallery
in the north of Furope can boast of possessing any of his large comjiositions of the
first rank : they have only portraits by him, although, if we may believe the names on
the picture-frames at Vienna, there are almost as many of Titian's portraits there as at
Madrid, and the two capitals must have divided the inheritance of Charles V. At
Berlin is the celebrated picture of the girl with fruit known as Titian's Daughter.
Dresden pos.s;esses, besides a Holy Family with Saints, the famous Cristo delta Moneta,
which represents our Lord's discourse respecting the tribute money. There are but
two figures in this painting, Christ and his interlocutor, merely seen in half-length, and
142 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS [a. a 1560.
yet the subject is perfectly clear. The magnificent colour and wonderful finish of the
execution make this picture a real masterpiece.
Paris is not much richer than Munich or Vienna. Of the four Holy Families
attributed to Titian in the Louvre, one alone, that called the Vierge an Lapin, is of any
importance, the authenticity even of the others is doubtful. But the Christ crowned
with thonis, the Eutoiuhmcnt, and the Disciples at Emmaus, are three fine paintings, in
a grand style of vigorous execution, and worthy the illustrious chief of the Venetian
school. As for the i^;^/w;//w7(?;//, remarkable for high qualities which Titian did not
always attain, or even aim at, depth of sentiment and power of expression, it is only
one of the numerous repetitions of a subject which he treated several times, almost
without variation, and of which the Manfrini Palace boasts of possessing the original.
But we may see at the Louvre how Titian excelled in portrait painting, in which,
indeed, no one has surpassed him, and in which he has given immortality to all his
models. It may be said of his portraits that we do not look at them but meet them.
The best is, perhaps, that of a young patrician called D Homme au Ga?it, his name is
unknown. We must also notice the portrait of the Marquis de Guast {Alonzo de
Avalos, Marquis del Vasto), placed in a sort of allegory, in the same frame with that of
his wife or mistress ; and especially the portrait of a young woman at her toilette,
combing out her long dark hair before a mirror, called La Maiiresse de Titian ; but
there is nothing to justify this name.
The National Gallery possesses, beside the Bacchus and Ariadne (No. 35) and the
Venus and Adonis (No. 34), already mentioned ; the Portrait of Ariosto (No. 636),
in a crimson and purple dress; a Concert (No. 3), once the property of Charles L ; a
Holy Family (No. 4), from the Borghese Palace; the Rape of Ganymede (No. 32), with
a background by Carlo Maratti ; the Tribute Money (No. 224), three figures, half-
length ; a Noli me tangere (No. 270), bequeathed by Mr. Samuel Rogers; and a
Madonna and Child, with SS. John the Baptist and Catherine (No. 635), signed
" Tician."
Among the pupils of Titian who are worthy of special mention, we may name his
son, Orazio Vecellio, who was born at Venice in 15 15. He was celebrated as a portrait
painter, and is said to have spent much of his time in the study of alchemy. He died
at the same time and of the same epidemic as his father in 1576. And his nephew,
Marco Vecellio, who was born at Venice in 1545 ; he was a great favourite of his uncle,
whom he used to accompany on his travels. He painted much after his style, but
with only second-rate success. He died in 161 1.
THE FOLLOWERS OF TITIAN.
Andrea Previtali, who was bom at Bergamo in the latter part of the fifteenth
century, was a follower of Giovanni Bellini. Among the works by Previtali are an
altar-piece in Borgo Sant' Antonio, a Crucifixion in Sant' Alessandro at Bergamo, and
many others in the churches of that town, where he died of the plague in 1528. The
Madonna ami Child (No. 695) in the National Gallery is attributed to Previtali.
Pier Francesco Bissolo was a native of Treviso ; the date of his birth is not known.
He studied in the school of Giovanni Bellini. Among his pictures may be mentioned
J A C O P O P A L M A.
(PAT^^rX iL YF.cauo.)
ra^r 14:
A.i). 15 25. J THE FOLLOWERS OF TITIAN. 143
a Christ exchanging the crown of thorns of St. Catherine of Siaia for a croton of gold.,
in the Venetian Academy, signed " Franciscus Bissolo," formerly in San Pietro
Martire at Murano : a Resurrection of Christ, in tlie Berlin (iallery ; and a Portrait of a
Lady (No. 631) in the National Gallery. Eissolo's pictures are chieHy remarkable for
the beauty of their colouring (a characteristic of the Venetian School) and for their
gentleness of execution. He painted from 1500 till 1528.
Jacopo Palma — called II Palma Vecchio, to distinguish him from his nephew J acopo
I'alma. surnametl Palma (liovane, of whom but scanty record has been handed down
to us — was born at Serinalta, near Bergamo, about the year 1480. Palma is supposed
to have studied under Giovanni Bellini, but his painting was much influenced by the
styles of Giorgione and Titian. He lived chiefly at Venice, where he died, when
forty-eight years of age, about 1528. In \'enice there are a St. Peter 7cith saints in
the Academy ; an altar-piece, in Santa Maria Formosa, representing St. Barbara and
other saints (one of his best works), and various other paintings. In the Colonna
Palace, at Rome, are a St. Peter, the Virgin, and donor, and SS. Lucia, ferome, Joseph
and an Angel — ascribed, with various other works by this artist, to Titian. In the
Belvedere, among other paintings of Palma, are two Sante Conversazioni, and a
portrait of his daughter Violante, and one o{ Lucretia. The Dresden (iallery possesses
the beautiful Three Graces (supposed to be portraits of his three daughters; and a
Venus. Palma especially excelled in female portrait painting, in which branch apart
he may be said to have rivalled Titian himself.
Lorenzo Lotto was born at Treviso about 1480. He removed when young to
\'enice, where he lived for some time, but he returned to his native town, and then in
1 5 13 settled in Bergamo, whence he is sometimes called " Bergamasco." He resided
also at Trevigi, at Recanati, and at Loreto, • where he died about 1558. Though
changeable in his places of residence, he was still more so in his manner of painting.
He copied the works of Bellini, of Giorgione, of Titian, and of Correggio ; and his
works have passed under the names of all these i)ainters. Among these misnomers we
may mention a Portrait of Andrea Odoni at Hamjjton Court, long attributed to
"Correggio (the signature, " Laurentius Lotus, 1527," had been painted over) ; a portrait
at Munich, under the name of Giorgione ; and one in the Belvedere, Vienna, ascribed to
Titian. Bergamo possesses several good specimens of Lotto's painting ; we may
mention, as examples, altar-pieces representing the Madonna in Santo Spirito and in
San Bernardino. Various towns in the March of Ancona possess works by him. In
the Berlin Gallery is a Portrait of himself; and in the National Gallery, a picture
representing Portraits of Agostino and Xiccolb ,de/la Torre (No. 699), purchased in
Bergamo from Signer Morelli.
That works by Lotto should have been mistaken for the protluction of such great
masters as Giorgione, Titian and others, proves him to have been a painter of no
common merit, and Lanzi e\ en goes so tar as to say that he could scarcely be surpassed
by Rai)hael or Correggio.
Giovanni Antonio — called by Vasari and others Licinio, whence he has been
confuscil with a supposed relative Bernardo Licinio, a painter of second-rate abilities ;
sometimes " de Corticellis," from his father's birthplace near Brescia ; sometimes
" Regillo " (which title he assumed in 1535 on being knighted by John, king of
Hungary) — is commonly known as Pordenone, from his birthi)la(e in the Friuli. He was
born in 1483, and studied under Pellegrino da San Daniele, but imilateil the styles of
144 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1540.
Giorgione and Titian ; lie was for some time the rival of the latter. He excelled
especially in fresco work. A story is related by Ridolfi, that Pordenone received his
first commission from a tradesman, and that while his employer was away at mass,
such was the quickness of his execution, he painted an entire figure of the Madonna.
About 1505 Pordenone quitted his native town and is supposed to have journeyed
about in tlie Friuli and in Lombardy. In 15 13 he returned to his native town, which
he visited at intervals until 1535 when he took up his residence in Venice, where he
executed important frescoes, which have unfortunately perished. The last work which
Pordenone undertook was a series of designs, the subjects of which were taken from the
Odyssey — for tapestry for Duke Ercole of Ferrara, in which town he died (it is said,
of poison) in the commencement of 1539, after a stay of but a few days. He was
buried in the church of San Paolo.
Among the most noteworthy of Pordenone's works are the Madonna of Mercy in
the Cathedral of Pordenone, painted in 1515 ; the Conversion of St Fa id and an
Assumption, in the Spilemberg Cathedral ; a St. Lorenzo enthroned, signed " Joannis
Antonii Portunaensis," in the Academy at Venice, a St. Roch with ^6'. Catherine and
Sebastian in San Giovanni Elemosinario, Venice ; an Entombment in the Monte di
Pieta at Treviso ; the Daughter of Herodias luith the head of the Baptist, in the Doria
Palace, Rome ; a St. George and the Dragon in the Quirinal ; scenes from the Fas si on of
our Lord, in the Cremona Cathedral. Besides these, many other works by this great
painter are in various towns in Italy ; in Udine, in Conegliano, and in several small
towns near Pordenone. An Apostle (No. 272) in the National Gallery is attributed to
this artist.
Sebastiano Luciani, who was surnamed del Piombo when the second Medicean
pope, Clement VII., nominated him keeper of the piombi, or seals of the Roman
chancery, was born at Venice in 1485. He was at first a musician, but afterwards
taking a fancy to study art, he worked under Giovanni Bellini and subsequently under
Giorgione. About 15 10 Sebastian was invited to Rome by Agostino Chigi, for whom
he executed works in the Farnesina Palace.
Having obtained (in 1531) a good income tlirough an ofiice whicli was really a
sinecure, by a favour which the popes usually granted rather to their own friends than
to artists, Sebastian only thought of enjoying himself, and ceased working. He had
however received lessons from Giorgione at Venice and from Michelangelo at Rome,
that is to say, from the greatest masters of colouring and drawing. He had also
succeeded in uniting the style of his two masters. But idleness, carelessness, and good
living, gained the day over love of glory and even love of gain. For this reason, the
works of Sebastian del Piombo are still rarer than those of Giorgione himself. Sebastian
died at Rome in 1547. At his native Venice there is an altar-piece in San Giovanni
Crisostomo, representing the Magdalen, SS. Chrysostom, John the Baptist with other
saints; painted in 15 10.
The Pitti Palace possesses a large and fine composition, the Martyrdom of St. Agatha,
in which may be seen, in equal degrees, a style at once noble and severe, and the
vigorous effects of chiaroscuro, those two qualities which so seldom are found together,
and whose union forms the distinctive merit of an artist who was half Venetian and
half Florentine in his style. The museum of Naples is more fortunate in possessing
excellent portraits of Fope Alexander VI. and An?ie Boleyn, wife of Henry VIII.,
and also a Holy Family, in which the young St. John completes the group of the
A.u. 1540.] THE FOLLOWERS OF TITIAN. , ,5
Madonna and Child. It has, it is true, been placed in the hall of ilic • dip: ,/ .av,? . "
l)Ut it should have been i)laced opposite the other Holy Family, signed by Raphael.
It fully deserves the honour of this competition, for more vigorous colouring could
not have been united to more correct drawing or a grander style. Mar)' is a ty])e
of severe beauty, which it would be difficult to equal. This jiicture must fill witli
admiration all those who are not led away by brilliant colours or a mannered grace.
In the Doria I'alace, Rome, is the celebrated portrait of Amlrea Doria.
In London, in the National Ciallery, also may be seen portraits and a large
composition by Sebastian del Piombo. One of the portraits (No. 24) was formerly
tliought to be that of the beautiful and holy Gii/lia Gonzai^a, but the forms are rather
thick, and the i)roi)ortions are probaljly larger than nature. In another frame(No. 20) are
the j)ortraits of the Canlinal Lppolito tic Mcilici, the patron of the artist, and of Sd>astian
himself holding in his hand i\\c piombo or .seal of his oftice. The last picture, the
Raisifii^ of Lazarus, enjoys a great celebrity ; it is signed, *' Sebastianus Venetus
Faciebat." Having come from the collection of the tlukes of Orleans, it was sold in
1792, by Philippe Kgalite to Mr. Angerstein, from whom it was bought in 1S24.
In the catalogue it is marked No. i, as it was in some degree the foundation stone
of the collection. Its history alone wouUl be sufficient to give it a high importance.
We know that the Traiisfii:,itratioii was ordered of Rai^hael by the cardinal CJiulio
de' Medici, afterwards Clement VII., for the high altar in the cathedral at Narbonne,
of which he was archbishoj). But, not wi.shing to deprive Rome of the oainter's
masterpiece, (jiulio de' Medici ordered of Sebastian del Piombo another picture of
e(iual dimensions to take its place at Narbonne : this was the Raisin^;; of Lazarus.
Vasari says that Michelangelo, charmed to see another rival to Raphael arise,
not only encouraged Sebastian in the contest, but traced the whole composition and
even painted the figure of Lazarus. "I thank Michelangelo," wrote Raphael, "for
the honour he has done me in considering me worthy to strive with him, and not with
Sebastian alone." These historical circumstances give much interest to the work of the
Venetian ; but on the other hand they provoke a formidable comparison, which he could
not sustain, and which perhaps lessens his real value. In the Raisiuq- 0/ Lazan/s we
see a rather confused scene, and we may wish that it possessed rather more clearness
and vivacity. The firm drawing of Michelangelo is abused in it, as well as the violent
chiaroscuro of Giorgione, which really seems to transform all the personages into
mulattoes ; we might almost believe that the scene took place in luhiopia. The details
are finer than the composition, and the attitudes are rather varied than combined with
a view to the whole subject ; in short, it is a collection of admirable parts rather than
an admirable whole. Some drawings for i)arts of this composition (ascribed to
Michelangelo) which were formerly in the ]iossessi()n of Sir Thomas Lawrence, are
now in the British Museum.
It was the Escurial which gave the Descent into Hades to the Museo del Rey. This
fine work contains fewer figures than the Raising of Lazarus ; but there are no faults of
coldness in the composition, of e.xaggeration in the shadows, or of narrowness of
l)erspective. The style is no less severe and imposing, but it has an advantage over the
Lazarus in the scene being better grouped, more animated, and of powerful colouring,
worthy in every respect of Giorgione, and i)erfectly in accordance with the subject.
This magnificent Christ in Llades seems to present, in its highest e.xpression, the severe
and vigorous style of Sebastian del Piombo. There is a Visitation bv him in the
Lou\re, and a Pieta — painted on stone— in the Berlin Gallery.
u
146 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS [a.d. 1550.
Girolamo Romanino was born about i486 at Romano, on the Serio, whence he has
derived his name. He Uved chiefly at Brescia, and signed himseh"" " de Brixia." He
was estabUshed as a painter in that city as early as 1502, which date is seen on an
altar-piece of the Madonna and Child enthroned with saints, in San Francesco. This
is one of his best works, and is especially to be admired for the beauty of its colour.
When Brescia was convulsed with war in 1511-12, and thus rendered uninhabitable to
a man of peaceful habits, Romanino removed to Padua, where he painted in the
church of Santa Giustina. About 1520 he is known to have been at Cremona, in the
cathedral of Avhich town he painted, among other things an Ecee Homo, signed " Hier.
Ruman. Brix." (Hieronymus Rumanus Brixianus), but he shortly after returned to
Brescia, where he probably remained until his death in 1566. Romanino imitated
the styles of Giorgione and Titian, with very good result.
Brescia possesses many of his works, both in its galleries and its churches. Of these
we may mention a Nativity, in San Giuseppe; and a Communion of St. Apollonius, in
Santa Maria Calchera. The Berlin Museum possesses a Pieta, painted for the church
of Santa Faustina in Brescia. The National Gallery has one of his best works, a
Nativity (No. 297) ; painted in 1525 for the high altar of Sant' Alessandro at Brescia.
Alessandro Bonvicino, commonly known as II Moretto da Brescia, from his birth-
place, was born about the year 1490. He first studied under a painter of Brescia,
Fidravante Ferramola by name, but subsequently at Venice under Titian, whose style
he for some time imitated, but afterwards abandoned in favour of that of the great
Raphael. Litde is known of his life, and the date of his death also is unrecorded. It
was probably about 1 560. Moretto was the master of the portrait- painter Moroni. Among
the works which he executed in Brescia, we may mention, the Coronation of the Virgin
and the Transfiguration, in SS. Nazaro e Celso ; the Madonna and Child 7vith saints
and the Marriage of St. Catherine, in San Clemente ; the Enthronement of St. Antony of
Padua, in Santa Maria delle Grazie ; St. Nicholas of Pari, in Santa Maria de' Miracoli ;
and St. Margaret with SS. Jerome and Francis, in San Francesco. In Santa Maria
della Pieta at Venice is one of his best works, the Feast of the Pharisee, signed and
dated "Alex. Morettus Brix. F. m.d.xliiii." The Belvedere Gallery at Vienna
possesses a St. Justina, formerly ascribed to Pordenone, and the National Gallery owns
two pictures by Moretto, a Portrait of an Italian Nobleman (No. 299), Count Sciarra
Martinengo Cesaresco, of Brescia; and a St. Pernard of Siena with other saints
(No. 625).
Bonifazio Veneziano, who was born at Verona about 1491, was a follower of
Giorgione and Titian, under whose names several of his best works have passed.
Among his pictures, most worthy of mention, are an Adoration of the Kings and the
Dives and Lazarus in the Accademia, Venice ; a Return of the Prodigal Son in tlie
Borghese Palace ; and a Madonna and saints in the Colonna Palace.
There were two other painters of the name of Bonifazio, relatives of the above-
mentioned artist, and consequently much confusion has arisen concerning them.
Bonifazio Veneziano was a good colourist, but his drawing and the expression of his
faces are not much to be admired. He died in 1540-
Vincenzo di Biagio, called Catena, was born at Treviso about 1495. He was an
imitator of Giovanni Bellini. There are pictures by him in the Venetian Academy in
the Manfrini Gallery, and in many public galleries of Europe. A painting representing
a Warrior adoring the Infant Christ in the National Gallery (No. 234), was former!)- in
A.D. 1575.1 THE FOLLOWERS OF TITIAN. 147
the possession of Mr. Samuel Woodburn, by whom it was attributed to Giorgione. It
is now pronounced to be of the school of Bellini, and by some critics to be by Catena.
This artist made his will in 1531, and is believed to have dieil in that year.
Martino da Udine, commonly known as Pellegrino da San Daniele, the son ol
Battista da Udinc, was i)robably born in Friuli, thoui;li the dale of his birth is noi
known. He was called Pellegrino by Giovanni Bellini, whose pupil he was, and he
derived the name of San Daniele from his residence in that litde Friulian town,
where in the church of Sant' Antonio he executed frescoes representing the Life of
Christ and the LiXfnJs of St. Antony; these frescoes were commenced in 1498, in
which year he signs his name " Pelegrinus." Owing to the wars which then convulsed
the Friulian territory, Pellegrino left San Daniele and went to Venice. In 1 5 1 2 he
returned and painted in Sant' Antonio until 1522, in which year the frescoes were
completed. A large altar-piece, representing the Madonna and Child enthroned is in
Santa Maria de' Battisti, at Cividale ; there is also a Madonna and Child enthroned
with saints, by him in the National Gallery (No. 778) — formerly in the possession of
Count Ugo Valentinis, of San Daniele. Pellegrino died in 1547.
Paris Bordone, who was born at Treviso in 1500, studied under Titian at Venice.
He copied the style of Giorgione, and several of his works have been ascribed to that
master, noticeably a Female Portrait in the possession of Lord Enfield at Wrotham.
x-Vbout 1559, Bordone was invited to France by Francis II., who conferred on him the
honour of knighthood. He afterAvards returned to Italy, where he executed many
works, mostly portraits, and died at Venice in 1 5 7 1 ; he was buried in the church of
San Marziale. Among his best works may be mentioned, a Fisherman presenting
the ring of St. Mark to the Doge — his masterpiece — and the Emperor Augustus
and the SiinI, in the Venetian Academy ; an Annuneiation, in the Siena Gallery ;
and a Daphnis and Chloe (No. 637), and a Portrait of a Lady (^o. 674), both in
the National Gallery. Bordone was chiefly fiimous for his portraits of women.
Giovanni Battista Moroni, one of the best of Italian portrait-painters, ami the i)upil
of Muretto, was born at Albino, near Bergamo, about the year 15 10. It is said that
Titian was wont, whenever any of the Bergamaschi came to him to ]ia\ e their portraits
executed, to recommend tliem to go to their countryman Moroni. Among the most
celebrated pictures by tliis master we may mention the Portrait of himself, in the
Berlin Gallery ; the portrait of the Jesuit, in the Duke of Sutherland's collection ; the
Portrait of a Tailor (No. 697), and the Portrait of a Laayer (No. 742), both in the
National Gallery. Moroni, besides portraits, executed works of ecclesiastical subjects,
but these were of second-rate merit. He died at Bergamo in 1578.
Jacopo da Ponte, the founder of a small school, who obtained the honour of being
the first genre-painter in Italy, and who is called II Bassano from his birthplace — was
born in 15 10. His father — an unimportant painter of the school of die Bellini — was
his first teacher in art. He studied afterwards under Bonifazio at Venice, where he
consulted the works of Parmigiano and Titian. He had acquired considerable fiime in
Venice when the death of his father called him, about the year 1530, to Bassano,
where he chiefly resided until he died in 1592.
His native town possesses two of his masterpieces ; a iVativify, in San Giuseppe,
and the Baptism of St. L.ueilla, in the c hurch of San Valentino. At Venice he
painted a fresco representing Samson destroying the Philistines— a work of great power.
1 48 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1580.
But Jacopo da Ponte can be appreciated better in Madrid than elsewhere — even in
Italy. There are several pictures by him in the Museo del Rey, most of them of the
large size he principally adopted, and on subjects which suit wonderfully the habit he
had of introducing animals everywhere, so as to turn a drawing-room or a temple into
a farmyard. With him animals constitute the principal part of the composition. One
of these subjects chosen by him is the Entrance into the Ark., in which all kinds of
living creatures on the earth, in the air, and in the water advance in couples towards
the floating dwelling of Noah, like an army marching in double file, in a thousand
uniforms. Another is the Leaving the Ark., which is only a pendant of the other,
though its subject is of smaller dimensions and of less importance. We might also
mention a View of Eden., in which the Almighty reproaches our first parents witli their
disobedience, the subject being a mere pretext for assembling around them all the
animal races ; an Orpheus attracting even wild beasts by the sounds of his lyre ; a
[ourney of Jacob, a picture of beasts of burden, horses, camels, mules and asses, etc.
The style of Bassano is more elevated in his Moses and the Hebrews, which rej^resents
the people resuming their march after the miracle of the water gushing from the rock ;
but he attained the highest grandeur in the painting of Christ driving the Money
Changers out of the Temple. This picture, taken from the Escurial, and in which his
much-loved animals come in quite naturally, is perhaps the finest of all the works of
. Bassano. Never has he shown himself more ingenious and animated in the com-
position, more natural and brilliant in the colouring ; and never has he displayed more
fully the various qualities of the painter who first introduced into Italy the worship of
simple nature and painted scenes of real life. He was the forerunner of the Dutch school.
A replica of this Christ driving the Money Changers out of the Temple is in the
National Gallery (No. 228), which possesses two other works by this artist : a Portrait
of a Ge7itleman (No. 173), and the Good Samaritan (No. 277), formerly in the Pisani
Palace, Venice, and afterwards in the possession of Sir Joshua Reynolds.
Jacopo da Ponte had four sons, Francesco, Giovanni Battista, Leandro and
Girolamo, all of whom were artists. Of these, Francesco da Ponte (called "the
younger," to distinguish him from his grandfather) is the only one worthy of mention.
He was born at Bassano in 1548. (?) After studying with his flither at Bassano, he
painted chiefly at Venice. One of his best works is an Ascension in San Luigi de'
P'rancesi at Rome. His ceiling-paintings in the Palace of the Doge at Venice are also
worthy of mention. He died at Venice in 1591.
Jacopo Robusti, who is called II Tintoretto because he was the son of a dyer
(/////■(P/r), was born at Venice in 15 12. His artistic qualities were so early developed,
that Titian, urged by a feeling of jealousy for which he afterwards nobly compensated,
sent from his studio this scholar, whose rivalry he feared even when almost a child.
This was of service to Tintoretto : instead of imitating his master servilely, as all his
fellow-disciples had done, he formed a more original style for himself, by endeavouring
to follow the rule he had adopted — to unite the drawing of Michelangelo with the
colouring of Titian. He wrote on the wall of his atelier, " // disegno di Michelangelo
c ' I colorito di Tiziano." But after varied and laborious studies, the numerous orders
he received, as soon as he began to be known, and the feverish eagerness of his work,
which acquired for him the name of "il Furioso," hindered Tintoretto from giving the
same care to his painting ; there are even some evidently done in great haste, or rather
with that desire to do much quickly, which may be called negligence in work. Hence
A.i). 1580.] THE FOLLOWERS OF T/TJAN. MQ
Annibale Carracci said justly, if playfully, that Tintoretto, if sometimes equal to Titian,
was often inferior to Tintoretto.
He has filled the temples and palaces of Venice with his works ; for, endowed with a
wonderful fiicility of conception and execution, he laboured diligently during a life of
eighty-two years. Tintoretto died at his native town in 1594.
If space did not fiiil us, we should describe the large Criiiijixion,\n the church of
San Zanipolo ; a Lust Su//>cr, m San Trovaso, a work wholly unworthy of the sub-
ject ; the ^/. A^^ns rfs/on»i: to life the son of the Prefect Senipronius, in Santa Maria
deirOrto, a magnificent painting, which was taken to Paris with the pictures by Titian ;
Awd the ceiling in the hall of council (now the lil)rary in the ducal palace), called the
Ch>ry of L\xradise. This is certainly one of the largest paintings an artist ever under-
took, for it is thirty feet in width and sixty-four in length. Although a production of
his old age, confused in some parts and very unskilfully restored, this picture still
produces a powerful eflect. In tlie Louvre there is one of the sketches used in its
preparation ; but unfortunately nothing else by Tintoretto, unless it be ILis aicn
/>ortniif, taken when he hatl white hair and beard, after the sad death of his much-lovetl
daughter. In Madrid there is another sketch for the same ceiling, better and more
valuable than the other, as it is the one he preferred and re-copied. This sketch,
brought by Velasquez to Philip IV., presents, in reduced proportions, an infinite
number of cherubim, angels, patriarchs, i)rophets, apostles, martyrs, virgins, and saints
of every sort, grouped around the Trinity, and in this sketch, as in the picture, we can
trace his fiery and often unreflecting impetuosity, that feverishness which procured him
his surname. As for the galleries in the north of Europe, those of London, St. Peters-
burg, Holland, and of the whole of Germany, they have scarcely anything of
Tintoretto's but portraits, among which we may distinguish his own and that of his son,
which he presented to the Doge. The National Gallery possesses but one picture— a
St. Gcon^e desfroyiiii^ the liragon (No. 16).
We must now study his important works in the Accademia in Venice. There we
shall find the fine portrait of the Doge Mocenigo, the Ascension of Christ in the presence
of three senators; a Madonna 7Vorshippcd by three senators: and an Enthroned
Madonna betiocen SS. Cosmo and Daniian—o. perfect and unsurpassable marvel in
colouring. Oi)posite tlie Assumption of Titian, which occupies one of the principal
panels in the large hall, has been placed the Miracle of St. Mark, which was
paintetl for the Scuola di San Marco, with three others ; the Exhumation of the body oj
St. Mark at Alexandria; the Transportation of the body to the ship ; and the Miraculous
f>rescn'ation of a Saracen sailer by St. Mark; these three are still in the Scuola di San
Marco. Tintoretto painted the Miracle of St. Mark (the first mentioned) at thirty-six
years of age. It represents the deliverance of a slave, condemned to death, by the
miraculous intervention of the patron of Venice. It is an immense scene in the open
air and contains a number of figures, grouped without confusion, and all contributing
to the completeness of the subject without interfering with its unity. In the midst of
these people, assembled in order to witness the execution, and who become spectators
of the miracle, the slave lying on the ground, whose bands are breaking of them-
selves, and the Evangelist (extended in the air, as if supj)orted by wings) present
foreshortenings of great boUlness and success. Besides the commanding power of the
touch, the disposition of the light, the harmony anil delicacy of the colours, the vigour
of the chiaroscuro, all the magic power of colouring carried to its greatest extent, form
a dazzling and wonderful work, which might be called the Miracle of Tintoretto instead
I50 ILLUSTRATED LIISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1588.
of the Miracle of St. Mark. The Scuola di San Rocco possesses no less than fifty-seven
pictures by this artist. The most noteworthy of these is a large Crucifixion, painted in
1565, and engraved by Agostino Carracci in 1589.
We must here mention Tintoretto's son Domenico Robusti, who was born in 1562,
and died in 1637, and who followed in the steps of his father, but as Lanzi says, " like the
young Ascanius, ' non passibus ^equis ' f also Marietta Robusti, his daughter, who was
born in 1560 and died at the early age of thirty, and who was so much celebrated as
a portrait painter, that she was invited to Spain by Philip II.
Andrea Scliiavone, who was born in 1522, settled in Venice, where he became a
follower of Titian, from whom he acquired a fine taste for colour ; his drawing is of
second-rate ability. Among his best pictures we may mention, a Christ before Pilate,
in the Naples Gallery; an Adoratioji of the Shepherds, in the Belvedere Gallery,
Vienna; and four landscapes at Hampton Court. To Schiavone, Messrs. Crowe and
Cavalcaselle ascribe a Christ with his disciples at Eminmis, in the Uftizi, which is there
attributed to Palma Vecchio. Schiavone died at Venice in 1582.
Paolo Cagliari (or Caliari), whom we call Paul Veronese, was born at Verona in
1528. He was instructed in design by his father Gabriele Cagliari, who was a sculj^tor,
and in painting by his uncle Antonio Badile, an artist of second-rate abilities. After
painting in Verona and Mantua, Veronese visited Venice, where he executed many
works, especially in the church of San Sebastiano. Of these the best are three scenes
from the History of St. Sebastia?i, painted between the years 1560 and 1565 at
intervals, for in 1563 he paid a visit to Rome in the suite of the Venetian ambassador
Girolamo Grimani. A few years after his return, Veronese was invited to Spain by
Philip II., but being satisfied with the number of his commissions for paintings and
with the honour done him in Venice, he refused the invitation. During his life, he
visited many of the towns in his native country, executing works as he travelled ;
he died eventually at Venice on the 20th of April, 1588, and was buried in San
Sebastiano, where a tomb was erected to his memory by his sons Carlo and Gabriele.
We shall find the collection of the works of Veronese at Paris is greater and more
complete than at Venice. We may then pass by the magnificent ceiling in the hall of
the Council of Ten, in the ducal palace, which is considered, after the Sistine, the most
beautiful ceiling in Italy. This represents the Apotheosis of Venice. " In it may be
seen," says M. Charles Blanc, "the Republic borne on the clouds, crowned by Glory;
celebrated by Fame ; accompanied by Honour, Liberty, and Peace — the whole
executed in a style, less impetuous certainly than that of Tintoretto, but full of mind,
warmth, and movement." We may also pass by the celebrated Rape of Eiiropa, which
was considered the first of Paul Veronese's works in Venice. In it, as in the Last
Supper, and other works intended to be religious, he clothed the figures in Venetian
costume. Europa is magnificently dressed. The visit of this painting to Paris was
not as profitable to it as to the St. Peter Martyr of Titian. The process of the painter
not being understood ; it was first cleaned, then varnished ; and the operation unhappily
took off the delicacy and transparency of the most delicate tints.
In the course of his life, shorter, but not less laborious and fruitful than those of
his illustrious predecessors, Paul Veronese painted four works, which, resembling one
another, are yet distinguished from all others by the nature of the subject and the
unusual size of the composition. These are the four Feasts, or Ccnacoli, painted for
the refectories of four monasteries : the Marria,i;r at Cana, for the convent of San
rai-i-y'
f
\
' ^..^,11 'Jf£l M ^
'^ '.'///
^)
•V
I'AOLO CAT. LIAR I.
(I'ALL \'ERONESE.)
A.IJ. 1588.]
THE FOLLOWERS OF TITIAX.
Oiorgio Maggiorc ; the L'\ast in t/w house of Simon tin- J*/tarisit\ for the convent of the
Servite brethren : the Frnsf ^qijrn />y Lein, for the convent of Santi diovanni e Paolo :
antl the Sufptr in t/ir house of Simon the Leper, for the convent of San Sebastiano ; all
at Venice. The senate of the Republic presented one of these, the Feast in the house
of Simon the Pharisee, to Louis XIV. Under the Empire, the three others were taken
to Paris ; but two of them (the Feast i^^iven by Levi, and the Supper in the house of Simon
the Leper) were afterwards restored to Venice, where they were placed, not in the
refectories of convents, but in the Academy, between the Assumption of 'I'itian and tiie
St. Mark of Tintoretto. As for the fourth and principal " Feast," the Marriai^e at
Cana, it remnins at Paris, — M. Denon having succeeded in persuading the Austrian
1:11. MAKTVkliiiM OK SI'. lUSTlNA.- I!V lAl'I. \ KRON I;>1..
/;/ ///,• Church of Santa Giiislitia, I\utua.
commissioners to take, in exchange for it. a jiirture bv Charles I,cl)ruii. on a similar
subject, the I-lepas ehez le Pharisien.
There are then at Paris two of the four great " Feasts " by \"eronese, and these are
the more valuable two ; for while the Marriage at Cana is considered sujierior to the
others, the Feast in the house of Simon the Pharisee is the liest iircserved of the four.
The celebrated .]farria!::^e at Cana is about thirty-two feet in length by twentv-two in
height. If we except a few grand mural paintings, such as the Last /uL<:^ment by the
elder Orcagna in the Campo Santo of Pisa, that of Michelangelo in the Sistine, or the
great ceiling by Tintoretto in the palace of the doges; if we speak merely of easel
pictures, which are movable, this Marriage at Cana, by Veronese, is we believe tlie
largest picture ever painted. It is knov/n that under pretence of these festive scenes
Paul Veronese painted simply the feasts of his own times, giving the architecture and
the costumes of \'oiiire in the sixteenth century, with concerts, dances, ]iages. children
152 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1588.
fools, dogs and cats, fruits and flowers. It is also known that the persons collected in
these vast compositions were usually portraits. Thus, among the guests in the
Marriage at Ca?ia, around Jesus and Mary and the servants, who with joyful surprise
find the water in their jars turned into wine, some have recognized, or thought they
recognized, many eminent personages. In the group of musicians placed in the centre
of the long table, in the shape of a horse-shoe, may be recognized with more certainty
Paul Veronese himself, dressed in white silk, seated, and playing the violoncello.
Then his brother Benedetto Cagliari, standing with a goblet in his hand ; then
Tintoretto playing the violin, the aged Titian the double bass, and Jacopo da Ponte
the flute. All these circumstances certainly increase the historical interest of the
picture. We must notice that the enormous size of the picture, and the unusual
number of the figures in it, constitute — in the disposition of the groups and the
variety in the attitudes, in the arrangement of the light, and avoidance of confusion or
monotony — such difticulties as appal the imagination. Thus, while making a reserva-
tion for the style of conceiving and rendering subjects contrary to religious sentiment
and historic truth, or even taking away the Gospel names, and calling them simply
Venetian feasts, we cannot praise too highly, in these great works of Veronese, the
sumptuous and magnificent elements of which they are composed, the beauty of the
architectural framework, the truth and variety of the portraits, the elegance of the
ornaments, the correctness of the drawing, the charm and vivacity of his silver colour-
ing contrasted with the gold of Titian and the purjile of Tintoretto, and in short
the deep and practical knowledge of all the qualities which form the art of painting.
" Paul Veronese," says M. Charles Blanc, " is not either a philosopher, an historian,
or a moralist; he is merely a painter, but he is a great painter."
Among the recent acquisitions of the National Gallery, that which is most praised
is the Family of Darius at the feet (f Alexander (No. 294). This work, which contains
portraits of members of the Pisani family, is certainly fine ; but it has lost much by
being brought near pictures of higher style and deeper character. Certainly Veronese is
a great painter, and especially a skilful and brilliant colourist. But knowing nothing of
ideal creations, all his merits are superficial. The merits of his Family of Dariits are
all on the surface. If, after having contemplated and even admired this painting in the
place of honour which has been given it in one of the principal rooms of the National
Gallery, the visitor turn, and allow his eye to rest on the portraits by Rembrandt,
Veronese is overwhelmed. The National Gallery also possesses the Consecration
of St. Nicholas (No. 26), Bishop of Myra in the fourth century; the Rape of Europa
(No. 97), a finished study for the picture in the Imperial Gallery, Vienna ; and the
Adoration of the Magi (No. 268), dated 1573, formerly in San Silvestro, Venire,
where it was much admired.
The Dresden Gallery has, among others, the Adoration of the Icings, and a Snfpcr
at Einmaus ; and the Hermitage Gallery at St. Petersburg has an Entombment, a
work of o-reat merit.
A.i). 1534.1 CORKEGGIO.
CllAPTl-.R XIII.
CORREGGIO AND THE SCHOOL OF PARMA.
WK must now speak of an artist of the early part of the sixteenth centur)-. who
belongs to none of the schools we have mentioned, and who may he said to
stand alone among the painters of that time. " If," says Hermann Cirimm, " we
were to imagine streams issuing from the minds of Leonardo, Michelangelo. Rajjhael
and Titian meeting together to form a new mind, ("orreggio would he produced."
Antonio AUegri, usually known as Correggio from his birthplace, was born at a
small town of that name in the duchy of Modena at the beginning of 1494. Little is
known with any certainty of his early life. Some writers, especially Vasari, state that
he was of humble origin, and very poor ; others, among whom is Mengs, say that he
was of .a noble fomily. It is now established that his father was a merchant in a very
good position. He prol)ably received instruction in art from his uncle Lorenzo
Allegri, and from one Antonio Bartolotti, a Corregese painter of no great importance.
In 1511 Correggio, driven away from his native town by the plague, went to
Mantua, where he stuilied the works of Mantegna, which produced a lasting eflect on
his style of painting. In 15 18, by the invitation of the abbess of the convent of San
i'aolo, he visited Parma, where he afterwards chiefly resitled. He married, in 1520,
Ciirolamo Merlini, a lady of ALantua, who is suj)posed to have been the original of the
Madonna in La Zingarclla, and with whom he is said to have received a fair dowr)'.
Correggio died at his birthplace on the 5th of March, 1534, without having .seen
cither Florence, \'enice, or Rome, and without having known any of the great works
of his time, except that picture of Raphael (probably the St. Cecilia of liologna),
before which he uttered his well-known e.vclamation, AnclC io son pittorc ('* I too am
I painter"). The story that he died from the effects of pleurisy, caused by over-
heating himself in carrying away on his back a large ([uantity of co])iier money, which
he had received from some monks in payment for a picture, is now looketl upon as
'|uite fabulous.
("orreggio lived chiefly at Tarma, and at Tamia are tiie greater i)ari of his works.
A I twenty-six years of age he jiainted the cupola of the church of San Ciovanni. It
has been thought, on seeing the gigantic figures and imposing effect of these frescoes, •
that they had been suggested by the Last Jini}:^iitcnl of Michelangelo ; but, besides the
fact that Correggio had never seen the Sistine Chapel, the dates forbid any accusation of
]>lagiarism. The cujiola of San Ciovanni was painted between 1520 and 1524, whilst
X
154 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1534.
the fresco in the Sistine was only terminated in 1541. He could have known the
colossal figures on the ceiling only through drawings. This Ascension was only a sort
of essay or prelude, to enable him to undertake the magnificent Assumption which fills
the whole cupola of the Gothic cathedral of Parma. This composition, which he
finished in 1530, is stilll arger than the other. The apostles, a number of saints, and
all the heavenly hosts, from the archangels with unfolded wings to the faces of the
cherubim without bodies, who welcome the Virgin at her entrance into heaven, in the
midst of songs of joy, are the actors in this immense scene. The churchwardens
of the time, perplexed by such a number of figures and preponderance of legs, said
to the painter, " You have served us with a hash of frogs ! " But it was in speaking of
this Assumption that Ludovico Carracci said to his cousins, " Study Correggio ; in
him everything is grand and graceful." Annibale Carracci did not know how to express
his admiration of it. " In this painting," says Vasari, " the foreshorten ings and the
perspective from the bottom to the top are really wonderful."
At the close of the last century there was found, in a convent of the Benedictines,
after having been forgotten two huhdred years, another admirable fresco by Correggio,
divided into several parts, and containing a number of small subjects, all of them
pagan — Diana, Minerva, Adonis, Endymion, Fortuna, the Graces, and the Fates.
This fresco had been ordered by his patroness, the abbess Giovanna di Piacenza. It
was she also who procured him the order for the Ascension and the Assumption.
These are the works which Correggio has left in the buildings of Parma. The little
museum of the town also boasts the possession of some, amongst them two of his
greatest masterpieces, the San Girolamo and the Aladonna dclla ScotieUa.
It is not well known why the first of these pictures, sometimes called // Giorno
(the day), in opposition to La Nottc (the night), of Dresden, has received the name of
St. Jerofue. It represents Mary holding on her knees the Holy Child, whilst Mary
Magdalene humbly kisses his feet ; two angels and St. Jerome, with his lion, complete
the scene. The great doctor of the Latin church is only a secondary personage,
placed in profile in a corner of the picture, like St. Paul in the St. Cecilia of Raphael.
Annibale Carracci said that he preferred this St. Jerome even to the St. Cecilia of
Raphael. It is in this picture that is to be seen the greatest degree of that delicate
charm which first appears in the works of Correggio ; elegance could not be carried
further without affectation ; grace is here united to grandeur and the magic effect of
colouring. But it seems that the Madonna dclla Scodella, which Vasari called divine,
yields to the St. Jerome nQ\i\\e\' m the general effect nor in the details, in expression nor
in execution ; it has also the advantage of being better preserved. It is rare, indeed,
for a picture to retain after three centuries its firmness and freshness.
In the Tribune of the Uffizi at Florence is the Virgin adoring the hf ant Jesus :
presented by a duke of Mantua to Cosmo II. de' Medici. This picture, in every
respect worthy of Correggio, is remarkable for its arrangement; the same drapery
which envelopes the, body of the Virgin is also drawn over her head, and on the end of
the drapery the Holy Child is sleeping, so that he would be awakened by the slightest
movement of his mother. This arrangement seems to explain the immobility of the
personages, and gives the spectator a sort of anxiety which is not without a charm.
The paintings of Correggio are everywhere as eagerly sought for as they are
rare ; there are only four compositions by him in the gallery of the Studj at Naples.
Ihese are, a simple sketch of a Madonna, and three masterpieces of delicacy and
fine execution ; the Madonna, called by some del Coniglio, by others, della Zingarclla :
T. JKRr)Mr •■II c.lORN'O.") Hy CoKRKOoro
»'/« Cailify.
A.D. 1534.J CORREGGW. 155
Hagar in the desert; and the Marriage of St. Catherine. The Hagar is a perfect jewel,
of the most exquisite feeUng and wonderful execution. As for the Marriage of
St. Catherine, which has been so often imitated, copied, and engraved, it is quite
unnecessary to praise that. Although its purchase by the kings of Nai)les was made
a long time ago, it is said to have cost 20,000 ducats.
In the Museo del Rey is the picture so well known as the Noli me tangere,
rejjresenting the appearance of Jesus after his resurrection to Mary Magdalene. On her
knees, her hands joined, her head cast down, the Magdalene drags her rich garments in
the dust. The attitude of the Saviour, in whose hands the painter has placed a spade,
is truly admirable, as also is the expression of his countenance. Nothing can surpass
the execution of that fine figure, the soft tints and harmonious colours which stand out
against the deej) blue of the sky and the dark green of a thick foliage. This is a true
and comi)lete Correggio, a chamiing picture, which without possessing through its
proportions and subject the importance of his great compositions in I'arnia or Dresden,
yet yields in charm and value to none of the rare works of its immortal author.
The National Gallery possesses four pictures by Correggio and two Groups of Heads
(Nos. 7 and 37), which are copies. First a Holy Family (No. 23) — sometimes called
La Vierge ait Panier — which is not a foot square, but which is equal to the Hagar of
Naples or the Magdalen of Dresden, that is to say, rises to the first rank in Correggio's
miniatures ; for it is a charming work in which nature, grace and expression are
rendered with the utmost delicacy of the pencil. Then Mercury instructing Cupid in
the presence of Venus (No. 10), which, with the Ecce Homo (No. 15), cost eleven
thousand guineas. They were both formerly in the Murat Collection, and were
purchased of the Marquis of Londonderry. In the Mercury instructing Cupid we
find all the niost charming qualities of the master. In the Ecce Hojno, the head of the
Virgin who falls back fainting, is of great beauty, in the expression of deep grief, in the
boldness of the attitude, and in the delicacy of execution. Christ's Agony in the garden
(No. 76) is a repetition of the original, now in the possession of the Duke of
Wellington, which is said to have been painted in order to cancel a debt of four scudi
to an apothecary. It was presented to the late Duke by Ferdinand Yll. of Spain.
There are two pictures by Correggio at Paris. One of these is called the Marriage
of St. Catherine, and as it is placed in the square room, near a jiainting by Fra
Bartolommeo of an enthroned Madonna, who under the dais of her throne is also
presiding at the union of the young ascetic of Siena with the Divine Child, we may
make a useful and interesting comparison. To be Christian, the Frate is austere ; to _
be graceful, Correggio becomes almost pagan. In one i)ainting all is grave and
solenm ; it is, indeed, the mystical union. In the other, everything is smiling and
charming ; it is really love.
The other picture of Correggio in the Louvre, the Sonimeil d'Antiope, is more im-
portant in its dimensions and more appropriate in its subject to the taste and incli-
nation of the master, who was the most pagan of all the painters of the Renaissance.
This wonderful Sommeil d'Antiope can only be compared in its style to the Education
of Cupid, and, indeed, if we were obliged to choose between them, we should give the
preference to Antiope. There we see all the beauties of Correggio, that supreme
elegance of which he was so fond, that it sometimes led him to the brink of affectation,
in which, indeed, his imitators plunged ; that charming grace which so often accom-
jianies power; that (lee|) knowledge of chiaroscuro, and that exquisite harmony which
llic chariaor ((Hin and tlic magic of colour combine to produce.
156
ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1534.
Dresden, as we have already said, possesses the finest of Raphael's works to be
found in the north of Europe. In Dresden also we shall find no less than six original
paintings by Correggio, and no other city can show a grander selection. These six
paintings were placed in the Saxon museum, when the Elector- King Augustus III., in
1746, bought the collection of the Dukes of Modena for the moderate sum of 120,000
thalers (18,000/.). From Venice he had already acquired, for the sum of 28,000
Venetian lire, the Madonna of Holbein, ^om the Delfino family ; then in 1755 he paid
40,000 Roman scudi to the convent of San Sisto at Placentia for the Madonna of
Raphael. With these pictures he formed the first museum in Europe, a museum
which is and will ever be the pride of his beautiful capital.
Among the paintings by Correggio there is the portrait of a man dressed in black,
who is believed to have been the Physician of the artist, some village friend who did
THE MYSTICAL MARRIAGE OF ST. CATHERINE.
By Correggio. — In the l.ouvre.
not preserve his illustrious patient from an early death. A portrait by Correggio is
very precious, and this one is excellently painted.
We must next notice the Redding Magdalen. This is painted on copper and is not
more than a foot square, and yet it is everywhere known by copies and engravings.
The penitent, lying on the thick grass with her bosom half veiled by her hair, is
supporting her head with her right hand, in order to read in a book she holds in her left.
The charm of this graceful attitude, the profound attention of this converted sinner, her
grace, her beauty, the boldness and happy eftect of her blue drapery contrasted with
the dark green of the landscajje, the wonderful delicacy of the execution and of the
colours, all place this Magdalen in the first rank of what are called the " Small Cor-
rcggios,"- -before the Holy Family of London, the Madonna with the rvv/at Florence,
ANTONIO AI.IJCORI DA CORRKGGIO.
A.D. 1534.] CORREGGIO. 157
and even before the Hagar of Naples. It was stolen in 1788, but the thief restored it
in order to get the reward of a thousantl ducats.
The four other works are " C'.reat Correggios," and indeed the greatest that are to be
found after the frescoes of San Giovanni and of the Duomo of Parma. Three of them
2iXQ Madonnas, which only differ in the arrangement and surrounding figures ; the other is
a Nativity. In order to distinguish between these Madonnas, each has been named
after the most consjncuous saint in its little court. One is called St. George, another
St. Sebastian, and another St. Francis. As for the Nativity, which was originally
destined for the town of Reggio, it is usually called La Notte di Correggio.
If we dared to place these four celebrated and magnificent compositions in order of
merit, we should mention first the St. George, that is to say, the Madonna enthroned,
worshipped by St. John the Baptist, St. Peter of Verona, St. Geminianus, near to
whom an angel is holding a model of the church he had built at Modena and dedicated
to the Virgin, and lastly the martyr-prince of Cappadocia, the slayer of the dragon,
whose arms are borne by four angels. l""rom his having destined this painting to be
viewed at a considerable elevation, Correggio evidently intended to make it a mural
picture. It would indeed be much better placed over the high allar of a cathedral than
in the panel of a gallery.
In the St. Sebastian, the Virgin is in the midst of what is termed i\ i,'/ory, surroundetl
by a choir of celestial spirits. Three saints worship her on the earth ; in the centre, the
bishop St. Geminianus, once more with the model of his church ; to the right, St. Roch.
dying of the plague, like the poor wretches he had tended at Placentia ; and to the
left, the warrior saint of Narbonne, fastened to the trunk of a tree and pierced with
arrows. Although we must regret a little confusion in certain parts, the whole picture
is wonderfully grouped, and the colouring, which is very delicate, is no less distinguished
for its vigorous effects of chiaroscuro.
The largest of the four pictures is that which is named after .SV. Francis. At tlie
foot of the throne on which Mary is seated, holding the Holy ChiUl on her knees, the
devotee of Assisi has prostrated himself in atloration, whilst the Virgin appears in the
act of blessing him. Behind him is his disciple St. Antony of Padua, holding a lily in
his hand ; opposite is St. Catherine, bearing a sword and a palm branch ; while John
the Baptist, still naked and wild as in the desert, jjoints with his finger to Him whom
he had announced to the world as the Saviour come to redeem mankind from the sin
of our first parents, whose history and fall are traced on the pedestal of the throne. It
would be (juite superfluous to say that this powerful composition, as well known through
engravings as the Magda/en, is in the noblest style. It is the only picture under
\\hich he inscribed the name -'Antonius de Allegris" (Antonio Allegri), which fiime
has since rei)laced by the name of the town which boasts the honour of his birth.
And yet La Notte of Correggio surpasses even the St. Francis in public opinion.
Many place this composition above all those to be found in Europe, and proclaim it
the artist's masterpiece. We may say, at all events, that it yields to no other in style.
Yet perhaps Correggio might be reproached, in the conception of this picture, with a
sort of over-carefulness. We see here the manger in which the Holy Infant was laid :
it is night, and the scene is only rendered visible by a supernatural light, which spreads
from the body of the Child lying on the straw. This light illumines the tace of the
Virgin Mother, as she bends over her first-born, and dazzles a shepherdess who has
liastened in on hearing of the " glad tidings." It extends lo Jose])h, who is seen Icatling
the ass lo the Ixuk of the stable ; it also lights up the ani;els hovering m the air. wlio
158 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1534.
" seem rather," as Vasari says, " to have descended from heaven than to have been
created by the hand of man."
Francesco Mazzuoli, called II Parmigiano, or sometimes II Parmigianino, was the
son of one Filippo Mazzuoli, an old Parmese painter. He was born at Parma in
1504. Losing his father when quite young, he was brought up by his uncles Michele
and Pietro Flavio, who also instructed him in art. Parmigiano imitated the works of
Correggio, who visited Parma in 15 19, and in 1522 he painted the Madonna and CJiild
with SS. Jerome and Bernard for the convent Delia Nunziata. In the following year
he removed to Rome, where he remained until the sacking of the city in 1527, when
he went to Bologna. He quitted the city, however, in 1 531, after executing several
works of merit, among which werp, the St. Roc/i, painted for the church of San
Petronio ; the Madomia delta Rosa, now in the Dresden Gallery ; and lasdy the St.
Margaret, painted in 1527, now in the Academy of Bologna, wliich was preferred by
Guido to the St. Cecilia of Raphael. When he left Bologna, Parmigiano returned to
his native Parma, where he entered into a contract to paint, for four hundred gold
scudi (half of which he received in advance), frescoes in the church of Santa Maria
della Steccata, which were to be completed by the loth of November, 1532. Owing
to illness, and other causes, he had executed but little of his work by about 1537,
when the authorities threw him into prison. They, however, released him on his
promising to complete the frescoes. Instead of fulfilling his word, he fled to
Casal Maggiore, in the territory of Cremona, where he" died shortly afterwards, on
August 24th, 1540.
Of the paintings by this brilliant and precocious artist — who, according to Vasari,
" had rather the face of an angel than that of a man," and who, on his return to
Parma after having studied at Rome, ended by gliding into mannerism, then
abandoned painting for alchemy, and died half mad — London has obtained the Vision.
of St. Jerome {^o. t,t,). This picture was painted in 1527 for the chapel of the
Buffalina family, at Citta di Castello, a chapel which was destroyed by an earthquake in
1790; it was rescued from under the ruins, and has since passed from hand to hand
until it has come to the National Gallery. It is said (for pictures have legends
attached to them) that in the taking and pillage of Rome, the soldiers of Charles V,,
struck with admiration at the sight of this painting, respected both the artist and his
dwelling. This picture is badly hung ; it should be seen from below, and from a
distance. By placing it on a level with the eye, and almost within reach of the hand,
the whole effect is destroyed.
, There are seven or eight of his works in the Studj at Naples, amongst others, one
of Lticretia stabbing herself, which no other of his pictures surpasses, or perhaps even
equals. Amongst his portraits there is one of the Florentine, Amerigo Vespucci, who
has given his name to the new world, and another is that of a man who is still
young, of a fine and resolute countenance, who is said to be the Genoese sailor who
discovered it, Christopher Columbus. This is at least the opinion of the Neapolitans,
but it seems a manifest error. It is certain that Parmigiano, who was born in 1504,
could not have known Christopher Columbus, who, about the year 1480, left his
native country for ever, to offer his services first to Portugal and Spain. We must also
mention a Cupid making his knc (painted about 1536), now in the Vienna Gallery, and
the Madonna (known as " Tlic Madonna with the long neck") in the Pitti Palace.
A.D. 1550.] MANNERISTS OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 159
CHAPTER XIV.
THE MANNERISTS OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
IN tlie works of Leonardo ila Vinci, Michelangelo, Raplvtcl, Titi m, and the other
renowned masters, Art in Italy nearly reached perfection. Putting aside the
idea of surpassing the conceptions of these masters, to have maintained an equal
merit would have been a great success ; but this was not to be, and we have now to
record the names of those artists, who assisted in the decline of art in the land in which
it had so long been pre-eminent. So great was the demand for paintings in the middle of
the sixteenth century, that art was practised merely as a trade, and the man who
executed works in the least possible time, with a surflice-show of merit in them, was
sure of attaining success. The school of the Carracci — known as the Eclectic — of
whom we shall speak hereafter, made a stand against this shallow style, and revi\C(l
art for a time, but it soon afterwards declined and, as fiir as Italy is concerned, nearly
died out.
It must not be su])i)ose(l tliat all the Mannerists were without merit : on the contrary,
many were men of great attainments, and it was only by the ])ernicious example of the
style of the time, that their paintings have so little tlepth of feeling, and please but for
a moment.
We have room only to mention the most prominent of the artists of this school.
Angelo Bronzino, the poet and painter, was born at Monticelli near Florence in
1502. He studied first under an obscure painter, then under Raftaelino del darbo,
and subsec|uentl\' under Jacopo da Pontormo, some of whose unfinished works he
completed ; he died at Florence in 1572. Like his friend Vasari, Bronzino was a great
admirer of Michelangelo, and like him too he succeeded better in portraiture than in
historical subjects. His largest work is a Descent of Christ into Hades, in tiie (ialleiy
of the Uffizi at Florence, which town still possesses many of his portraits of members of
the Medici family. The National Gallery possesses four works by Pronzino ; a Portrait
of a Laity (No. 650); Venits, Cupid, Folly and Time {;xx\ allegory. No. 651, originally
painted for Francis I. of France) ; a Knight of St. Stephen (No. (i']o),7i.\\(\'\ Portrait of
Cosmo I. Duke of Tuscany (No. 704), presented by her Majesty the Queen in 1S63.
Pronzino painted both in fresco and in oil.
Of his pupils we will mention but one, his nephew, Alessandro AUori, who was
born at Florence in 1535 ; he was sometimes called by the name of his uncle Pronzino,
and occasionally signed himself so in his pictures. He painted a Crucifixion at the
i6o ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1570.
early age of seventeen, but his works never rose above mediocrity. Allori died in
1607. He wrote a book on Anatomy for the use of artists.
Girolamo Siciolante da Sermoneta, a pupil of Pierino del Vaga, was born in 1504.
He painted chiefly at Rome, and died in 1580. Among his best works we may mention
an Adoration of the Shepherds in Santa Maria della Pace at Rome, and a Pietci in
the Gallery of Count Raczynski at Berlin. Sermoneta painted much in the style of
the followers of Raphael.
Giorgio Vasari, the great historian and painter, was born at Arezzo in 15 12. As an
artist, he is not deserving of any great praise. He was instructed in design by his
father Antonio Vasari, and worked under several painters, including Michelangelo,
Andrea del Sarto, and Francesco Salviati. He subsequently had many scholars, but
none of merit. In 1544, his pupils painted, from his design, an immense ceiling for
Cardinal Farnese, in a hundred days, but the execution was so little to Vasari's taste,
that he determined, from that time, never to intrust to them the completion of any of
his works. Vasari was greatly patronised by the Medici at Florence, where he died
in 1574. He was buried at Arezzo. As a painter his execution was rapid. He says
himself, " We paint six pictures in one year, whereas the earlier master took six years
for one picture," and his pictures lacked that depth of feeling which is only to be
acquired by long study of the subject. His works are too numerous to be mentioned
here; many of them were painted from his designs, by his pupils. His historical
pieces are much surpassed by his portraits, of which we may mention that o{ Lorenzo
de' Medici, in the Uffizi, and several of Cosmo I. (a good specimen is in the Berlin
Museum). He was a great admirer and imitator of Michelangelo. It is for his great
historical work that Vasari is so justly famed. His ' Vite. de' piu eccellenti Pittori,
Scultori, ed Architetti,' was first published at Florence in 1550. A second edition,
revised by himself, appeared in 1568. Many later editions of this work have been
published at various cities in Italy ; of these the Le Monnier edition, published at
Florence in 1846, contains many valuable corrections, and is in every way the most
trustworthy. In Germany it has been translated by Schorn ; and in England by
Mrs. J. Foster, and published in the Bohn Series.
This ' Vite de' Pittori,' &c., has been most severely (and no doubt justly) criticised,
as being of doubtful authority, and nearly every writer on art has endeavoured to
find fiiult with Vasari's statements ; but, when we consider that it was written, in a great
measure, from verbal evidence only, we must allow that excuses are to be made for
those inaccuracies — and they are by no means few — which have crept in. Vasari has
not made his book instructive only, it is amusing. Intermingled with the drier details
of biography, are many interesting anecdotes and jokes. And above all, though
inclined a little towards the Florentines, he contemplates the merits and demerits of
each artist most fairly. Vasari was also famous as an architect.
Francesco Rossi, commonly called del Salviati from his patron Cardinal Sal-
viati, was born at Florence in 15 10. He studied under Andrea del Sarto, with
whom Vasari was also at the same time working. The latter and Salviati became
firm friends, and executed several works in conjunction, but Salviati soon surpassed
his partner, who paid him the honour of saying that he was the best artist in Rome
at that time. Salviati painted in the church Delia Pace at Florence, the Anminciation
and Christ appearing;; to Peter, both of which were much praised. After executing
other works of importance, he left Rome and went to Venice in 1540; among the
A.i). 1575.1 MAA'NEJ<ISTS OF THE SIX TEE NTH CENTURY. 161
works which he painted there, we must mention the History of Psyche m the Palazzo
Grimaldi, and a Fortrait of Arctiuo. After leaving Venice, Salviati journeyed through
Lombardy and paid a visit to his native Florence, where he painted the Triumph of
Camilhis in the Palazzo Vecchio. He then, in 1554, at the invitation of Cardinal de
• LoiTaine, went to Paris, where he was kindly received by Primaticcio, but his own
quarrelsome disposition made the place disagreeable to him, so he left France and
returned to Rome, where he made just as many enemies, and hastened his ONvn death
by his continual quarrelling. He died at Rome in 1563. Salviati was a better designer
than colourist, though he never offended the eye with discordant shades. The National
Gallery possesses one s])ecimen of his art — a figure of Charity (No. 652).
Prospero Fontano, who was born at Bologna in 15 12, studied under Ua Imohi, but
copied the style of Giorgio Vasari. He painted chiefly at Bologna and at Rome, where
he died in 1597 at the great age of eighty-five. Fontnno deserves the same blame as
the other Mannerists for his hasty and careless method of painting. Malvasia tells us
that he painted a whole saloon in the Palazzo Vitelli at Cittk di Castello, in a few
weeks. Besides historical subjects he executed many portraits, in which branch of
his art he was more famous. Bologna possesses the principal part of his paintings.
Federigo Barocci (or Baroccio)— the son of a sculptor, Ambrogio Barocci,— was
born at Urbino in 1528. He was first instructed in design by his father, and was
then placed under Battista Franco. In 1548 Barocci went to Rome, where he
remained four years, studying the works of Raphael and other great masters. On his
return to Urbino, he painted a picture of St. Margaret for the Confraternity of the
Holy Sacrament, and other works, which gained him so much credit that in 1560 he
was invited to Rome by Pius IV., where he painted in company with Federigo Zuccaro,
in the Vatican. While engaged on this work, he was poisoned by some rival ; though
the attempt did not succeed in causing death, yet it so injured Barocci that it compelled
him to refrain from painting more than two hours daily. From this time he resided
chiefly at his native Urbino, where he died, much honoured and beloved, on the 30th
of September 161 2. He was buried in the church of San Francesco. Among the
best pictures of Barocci are a Descent from the Cross, painted for the Cathedral of
Perugia ; a Madonna, in the Uffizi ; a Presentation, and a Visitation of the Virgin to St.
Elizabeth, in the Chiesa Nuova ; and a Holy Family (No. 29) — known as La Madonna
del Gatto, from the presence of a cat — in the National Gallery. Barocci studied the
works of Correggio, and partly founded his style on that of the great painter. He was
a better draughtsman than many of his contemporaries, but his colouring was not good.
Mengs remarks that his pictures lacked yellow tints ; and Bellori says- that he used too
much vermilion and ultramarine. Barocci made a somewhat unsuccessful attempt to
oppose the style of the day, but he himself in his old age relapsed into the same error
and must be classed among the Mannerists. He was also an engraver, and etched
several of his own works. Of these we may mention the Pardon of St. Francis of
Assisi, and an Annunciation.
Taddeo Zuccaro, or according to Vasari, Zucchero, was born at Sant" Angelo in
Vado, in tiie Duchy of Urbino, in 1529. After suffering great poverty at Rome, he
became suddenly a popular painter, for the reason, Lanzi tells us, that there is nothing
in his works which the populace cannot understand or fiincy it understands, and there
is indeed an unpleasing tameness about his style. Taddeo Zuccaro died at Rome on
the 20(1 of September 1566, and was buried lieside Ra])hael in the I'antlicon. His best
1 62 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS [a.d. 1600.
works at Rome are some frescoes, representing scenes from the Passion of Christ in the
church of the Consolazione ; but he is best known by the paintings which he executed
for Cardinal Alessandro Farnese at the castle of Caprarola. They represent the
Glories of the Farnese fami/y {(orty-h\Q plates, engraved by J, J. Prenner, were published
at Rome in 1748); in them Taddeo was assisted by his younger brother Federigo
Zuccaro.
Lorenzo Sabbatini, called da Bologna from his birthplace, was born about 1530.
When he had gained a little fame in his native city, he removed to Rome, where he
painted in the Cappella Paolina scenes from the Life of St. Paul. These and other
works, which he executed in Rome, pleased Pope Gregory XIII. so much, that he
appointed him superintendent of the decorations, then being made in the Vatican. He
died at Rome in 1577. Bologna possesses most of his paintings. The Berlin Museum
can boast of a very pleasing Madonna by him. Sabbatini is said to have taken
Raphael, Michelangelo, and Parmigiano as his models.
Santo di Titi, whowas born at Citta San Sepolcro in the Florentine State in 1538, is
one of the less mannered of the Mannerists. He was a pupil of Agnolo Bronzino, but
subsequently studied the work of the great masters in Rome, much to the improvement
of his own style. He lived chiefly at Florence, where he died in 1603, His drawing
was good and his perspective perfect, but his colouring lacked force and brilliancy.
Santo di Titi left a son, who was a portrait painter of no great merit.
We may here mention a pupil of Santo di Titi ; Agostino Ciampelli, who was born
at Florence in 1578. Besides being a painter he was an architect, and was employed
on St. Peter's at Rome. He died in 1640. Among his best works were a Group of
Angels, in Santa Maria in Trastevere ; and the Visitation of the Virgin to St. Elizabeth,
in Santo Stefano di Pescia. For a Florentine, Ciampelli was a very good colourist.
His compositions, though wanting in power, are full of grace and beauty.
Federigo Zuccaro, who was born at Sant' Angelo in Vado in 1543 (?) was by some
years the junior of his brother Taddeo, and worked in his atelier more as a pupil than
a partner; they subsequently executed several works in conjunction. Federigo
was invited to Florence by the Grand Duke Francesco I., to paint the cupola of the
Cathedral. He executed there numerous colossal figures, with a Lucifer so large that
— in the words of the artist himself — the other persons appeared to be but babies.
This work gained him much renown, but at the same time the following satire :
" Poor Florence, alas ! will ne'er cease to complain
Till she sees her fine cupola whitewashed again."
But " poor Florence " has still to bear the sight of Zuccaro's painting, though it was
only old age which prevented Pietro da Cortona from undertaking to replace it with a
work by his hand.
After the completion of the cupola, Zuccaro went to Rome and commenced several
paintings in the Cappella Paolina for Pope Gregory XIII., but he was obliged to leave
Rome on account of a quarrel with some courtiers. He then visited France,
Flanders, and England, where he executed the portraits of Qnee?i Elizabeth, Mary
Queen of Scots, and other important personages. [In the National Portrait Exhibition
of 1866, there were no less than twenty-one portraits of the English nobility by
Zuccaro.] He, however, soon made peace with the pope, returned to Rome,
and completed his paintings. Zuccaro also painted in Spain for Philip II., but the
A.D. i6oo.] MANNERISTS OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. xd
pictures which lie uKule in tlic Escurial were replaced by others of Pellegrino Tibaldi.
Zuccaro died at Ancona in i6og. He left all his property to the Academy of St. Luke
in Rome, of which he had been the first president. He published at Turin in 1607 a
treatise on the principles of jiainting, sculpture, and architecture, " L' idea di Pittori,
Scultori, e Architetti." He also wrote two other books, l)ut they are of no importance,
and there is the same unpleasing emptiness about his writing as there is in many of
his pictures. Besides the works already mentioned, he painted for the Orsini family
a picture of Calumny, from Lucian's description of the Calumny of Apelles, a Dead
Christ in the IJorghese Palace, and many others which we cannot here mention.
Lavinia Fontano, the daughter and pupil of Prospero Fontano, was born at
Bologna in 1552. She executed many pictures in her native town, of which we may
mention, an Atmunciation in the Cappuccini, and the Crucifixioi in the church of
La Madonna del Soccor.so. Following in the footsteps of her father, Lavinia Fontano
excelled in painting portraits, a large mmiber of which she executed at Rome, where
she died in 16 14.
Denys Calvart, who was born at Antwerp in 1555, (?) was called by the Italians, on
account of his nationality, Fiaramingo. Though Flemish by birth, lie must be classed
under the ^Lannerists of Bologna, for it was in that city that he spent the greater part
of his life. He studied first under Prospero Fontano, and subsequently under
Sabbatini. After a stay at Rome, where he studied the works of Raphael, Calvart
establishetl a school at Bologna, where he numbered among his pupils Albano.
Domenichino, and Guido. Though somewhat mannered himself he was an e.xcellent
teacher, as may be seen from the works of the artists which his atelier produced. He
(.lied at Bologna in 1619. Among his best works are a Holy Family in San Giuseppe,
and a St. Michael \\\^\x\. Petronio at Bologna. Fiammingo is likewise celebrated as a
sculjjtor, and many charming statuettes and bas-reliefs are attributed to his hand.
Cavaliere Giuseppe Cesari, called sometimes Giuseppino, also d' Arpino from the
l)irlhi)lace of his father, a painter of votive tablets, was born at Rome in 1568 (?) He
was at first employed in the V'atican to arrange the palettes, and perform other
menial duties for the artists who were there engaged. Everybody, however, w^s
struck with the talent displayed in sketches which he made on the wall, and Fra
Ignazio Danti, the superintendent of the works, recommentled the young artist to the
notice of Pope Gregory XHL, who immediately took him under his protection. C)n
the death of that pontiff, his successor Clement VHL continued to patronize Cesari, and
conferred on him the honour of knighthood of St. John of Lateran, or as others say,
of the order del Abilo di Cristo. Cesari soon became one of the most fiimous painters
in Rome, but was at bitter enmity with Caravaggio and also with Annibale Carracci, who
were boUi oi)posed to his style of painting, though their own styles differed essejitially.
Cesari is re])orted to ha\e received the order of St. Michel tVom Henri I\'. of France.
lleilicilat Rome in 1640. Among his works, we may menlion the frescoes in the
choir of San Silvestro a Monte Cavallo at Rome ; the Assumption of the Virt^in, in San
Ciiovanni Grisognono; and scenes from the History of Rome, in the Cami)idogIio. The
great fault in all the works of Cesari is a want of dejjth of feeling ; some of his
compositions are light and graceful, and display great power of imagination ; but there
IS an utter disrcgartl for all rules of nature in many of his paintings, and any merits
which may exist in ihem are all on the surface. He left a numerous school of
followers, but none of ib.cni are worth) of special mention.
1 64 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1600.
CHAPTER XV.
THE ECLECTIC SCHOOL OF BOLOGNA.
^r^HE second school of Bologna, which commenced with the Carracci, forms a very
\ important incident in the History of Art. The theorists and art-critics of the
latter half of the sixteenth century had asserted that, in order to make a perfect
l)icture it was necessary to unite the colour of Paul Veronese to the expression of
Raphael ; the energy of Michelangelo to the grace of Correggio. The Carracci
sought to realize this dream. Their system, founded upon reason alone, left but little
room for inspiration. It was the reaction of common sense from the extravagances
of the imitators of the style of Michelangelo. Art was falling into a state of utter
degradation when the Carracci founded their celebrated academy, and. by their
intelligence and extraordinary vigour delayed for many years the final extinction of
the great schools of Italy.
Lodovico Carracci, the real founder of the Eclectic school, was born at Bjlogna on
the 21st of April, 1555. It is a striking proof how, even in the arts, assiduous labou r
and a strong and persevering will may serve in place of natural gifts and instinctive
facility. The two masters, whom Lodovico had chosen, Fontano of Bologna and
Tintoretto of Venice, counselled him to abandon the career of an artist, considering
him incapable of ever succeeding in it ; and his fellow-students called him " the ox," not
because he was the son of a butcher, but on account of the slowness and heaviness of
his mind, and also because of his continual-, determined, and indefatigable application.
He painted afterwards under Passignano at Florence ; at Parma he studied the works
of Correggio and Parmigiano, and at Venice those of Titian. On his return to Bologna,
Lodovico Carracci opened in 1589, in conjunction with his two cousins Agostino and
Annibale, an Academy " degli Desiderosi " (" Those who regret the past, despise the
present, and aspire to a better future "), which was kept by the three together until
1600, from which time till 16 19— the year of his death— it was maintained by Lodovico
alone. Soon after its opening, this academy acquired such great fame that all
establishments of a like nature in Bologna were closed.
There are thirteen paintings by Lodovico Carracci in the Academy of his native
town; a Glorified Madonna surrounded by the Bargellini family, a Birth of John the
Baptist, &:c. In general they are of larger proportions than life, according to his
constant custom for church pictures, and do not show to advantage when taken from the
height for which they were destined. In tlie place of real genius we find in them great
LODOVICO CARRACCI.
/•■/^v 164.
A.D. 1600.] ECLECTIC SCHOOL OF BOLOGNA. 165
and solid qualities, and, if not a complete return to the simple and severe style of the
great period, at leist the happy abandonment of the excesses, the abuses, and the
egregious f lults in taste which, in the intermediate period, had marked a precocious
decay. The most famous work by Lodovico has long since perished ; it represented
scenes from the Lift- of St. Bincdict and of St. Ctxi/ia, and was executed in fresco in
the convent of San Michele in Hosco. In the Doria (iallery at Rome there is a
l)eautiful Ear Homo. The Louvre i)ossesses. among other pictures by Lodovico,
a Miii/onnti and an Atloratiou. In Kngland. the National Ciallery has only one
picture 1)\ this artist, a Susannah and the two Elders (No. 28), formerlv in the
t )rlc.iMs Collection.
Ivodovico Carracci practised, besides the art of j)ainting. that of engra\in".
Agostino Carracci, the i)ainter, engraver, poet, and musician, was born at iJoIogiia
in 1558. His father Antonio Carracci, who was a tailor, was induced by Lodovico
Carracci to intrust him with the education of his cousin, who was his junior by but
three years. Lodovico removed the youth from the goldsmith to whom he had beei
ajjprenticed, and placed him with Prosper© Fontano, and afterwards with Domenico
Tibaldi, and Cornelius Cort, with whom he studied engraving, a branch of art in which
he greatly excelled, more so, in fact, than in i)ainting. Agostino studied also at Parma
and Venice. On his return to Bologna, he entered the school of Lodovico, where he
became a most indefatigable teacher. He instructed the scholars in the theoretical
branches of jxiinting, and also wrote for their edification, a sonnet, wherein he tells
them what characteristic cjuality to choose from each of the great masters. He says
" Let him, who washes to be a good painter, accjuire drawing from Rome, Venetian
action and Venetian management of shade, the dignified colour of Lombardy, the
terrible manner of Michelangelo, Titian's truth and nature, the sovereign purity of
Correggio's style, and the great symmetry of Raphael ; the decorum and well-grounded
study of Tibaldi, the invention of the learned Primaticcio, and a litde of the grace of
Parmigiano; but without so much trouble and toil, let him only apply himself to
imitate the works whicli our Niccolino (Niccolb Abbati) has left us here." This sonnet
])ropuuntls the i)rin(iplcs of the Eclectic school.
Agostino assisted his younger brother Annibale in the Carracci Gallery in the
I'arnese Palace at Rome, where he executetl the Triumph of Galatea and Cephalus and
Aurora (the cartoons for these are in the National Gallery, Nos. 148 and 147).
After the brothers had been engaged for some time on these works, a coldness arising
between them— it is said, on account of jealousy on the part of Annibale, because some
preferred his brother's paintings to his own — Agostino left Rome and engaged himself
to Duke Ranuccio at Parma, where he died, after executing a few works of no great im-
portance, on the nth of March, 1601. He was buried in the Parma Cathedral, where
a tablet, erected to his memory, testifies to his age and to the date of his death. " on.
V. ID. M.\RT. M.oci. ^T. SU/E AN. XLiii." The finest work by this learned and con-
scientious artist is a Communion of St. Jerome, painted for the Certosa of Bologna. It
was taken to Paris, but was restored to its native city, and now hangs in the Academy.
It was from this Communion of St. Jerome, that Domenichino took the idea and even
the details for his well-known work, the pendant to the Transfiguration in the \atican,
and iii mosaic, in St. Peter's at Rome. The Infant Hereules strangling the Serfents in
the Louvre, there attributed to Annibale Carracci, is said to be by Agostino.
Annibale Carracci, the boldest of the three Carracci. and the most ori-inal in a
1 66
ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS.
A.D. lOOO.
style which imitated every one, was born at Bologna in 1560. His father, at first,
brought him up to his own trade, that of a tailor, but his natural abilities and the advice
of Lodovico induced old Antonio Carracci to let his son Annibale study in the atelier
of his cousin. Thus Lodovico was his first, and also his only instructor in art. In
1580 Annibale left Bologna and went to Parma, where he studied the works of
Correggio and Parmigiano. After an absence of about seven years, a part of which
was spent in Venice, he returned to Bologna, where, in 1589, the Carracci opened their
Academy. About 1600 Annibale was invited to Rome by Cardinal Odoardo Farnese,
to decorate the Farnese Palace. He was assisted by his brother Agostino, as we have
I'HK ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS. — KY ANNIIIALE CARRACCI.
before had occasion to state, by Domenichino, and by Lanfmnco. These works,
which represent many subjects from mythology, were by Poussin preferred, after those
of Raphael, to all the paintings in Rome. Annibale Carracci died at Rome on the
15th of July, 1609, and was buried near Raphael in the Pantheon. Among other great
works by this painter in Italy, we may mention an Assniiiption, in the church of the
Madonna del Popolo at Rome ; a Madonna with saints, in the Bologna Academy ;
a St. Roch distributing alms, a fine painting, is in the Dresden Gallery,
There are no less than twenty-six of his works in the Louvre ; we cannot even
name them all. y\mong the sacred sulijects we recommend a large Appearance of the
A.D. 1600.1 ECLECTIC SCHOOL OF BOLOGXA 167
\"ir;^iti to SS. J. like am/ Ca//tcrini\\w ihc form, manner, ami colossal proportions of
tile pictures by Lodovico Carracci, though perhaps in a graniler style and more vigor-
ous execution; then a charming Madonna, called the Madonna with cherries: an-
other Madonna still more charming, called the Silence because Mar\- watches over
her sleeping child ; then a Resurrection, half the size of life ; and a Martyrdom of
St. Stephen in small figures, so that every j)OSsible jiroyjortion is represented, antl each
with the execution required. We may also mention two animated landscapes, and
two pendants, called Hunting and Ani^ling. They are valuable works although \ery
»lark, because in their style, their form, and their treatment, they recall the six cele
l)rated Lunettes in the Doria Palace at Rome, and because they also prove that it
was inileeil Annibale Carracci, who imparted first to Domenichino and through him to
Toussin, the idea and example of historical landscape. The National (Gallery possesses
eight pictures by Annibale Carracci, a " Domine quo vadis't" (No. 9) ; a St. John in the
Wilderness (No. 25) ; two Landscapes -ioith fii::ures (Nos. 56 and 63) ; Erminia takina:
nfuge 7i'ith the Shepherds {yio. 88), the subject is taken from Ta.sso's 'Jerusalem De-
livered;' Silen us }^atherins^ grapes (No. 93); Pan teaching Apollo to play on the pipes
(No. 94), much praised by Lanzi ; and lastly a Temptation of St. Antony (No. 198),
formerly in the Borghese Gallery, Rome. At Castle Howard, the seat of the E;irl
of Carlisle, are, among other works by Annibale, a Portrait of himself, and the famous
Three Marys, well known from engravings.
Guido Reni, commonly known as Guido, was born at Calvenzano, near Bologna, on
tlie 4th of November 1575. His father, who was a musician, intended his son for that
profession, but young Guido showed such a strong taste for art, tliat the father appren-
ticed him to Denys Calvart, with whom he remained until 1594, when he entered the
school of the Carracci ; of whom he was, with the exception of Domenichino, the best
pupil. About tliis time the i)aintings of Caravaggio were making a great stir in Italy.
This was not at all agreeable to the Carracci, and Annibale delivered a lecture to his
pupils, in which he inculcated principles diametrically opposed to those of Caravaggio,
Guido, in obedience to this advice produced a work, wherein he had endeavoured to
follow out Annibale's idea, but, instead of the praise which he expected, he received
reproaches for attempting to form a style peculiar to himself ; and the Carracci dismisseil
him from their academy. About the beginning of the seventeenth century, Guido, ac-
com])anied by his friend and former fellow-pupil Albani, repaired to Rome, where,
though he had to contend against the jealousy and dislike of Caravaggio and even of
Annibale Carracci, he became honoured and renowned. It is said that Cardinal
Borghese, on commissioning him to paint the Crucifixion of St. Peter — now in the
Vatican — stipulated that it should be done after the manner of Caravaggio, such was
the intluence produced by that master's style. Guido then decorated a chapel in the
Palace of Monte Cavallo for Pope Paul V. ; this work gained him much praise, and
also the jealousy of his enemies ; but his most important work in Rome is the fresco of
Phivbus aitd Aurora in the pavilion of the Rospigliosi Palace {see 'woodcut). After an
absence of about twenty years, which (with the exception of a short visit to Naples)
were spent at Rome, Guido returned to Bologna, when ho painted his third or more
ideal style. He founded a school which was celebrated and numerous, and he enjoyed
great reputation, but his end was hastened by extravagance ami gambling. In order to
gain money to waste at play, he was wont to paint pictures by time and in a hurried
manner ; Malvasia lolls us that ho occasionally finished a picture in the short space of
ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a. a 1600.
three hours. Though wealthy and popular, and even to the last receiving sums
of money for works executed, Guido died in poverty and want at Bologna in 1642.
He was buried in the church of San Domenico.
Guido, like Raphael, painted in three styles : the first was influenced' by Caravaggio ;
the second was more independent, and is distinguished for grace and beauty ; the third
was an ideal style, in which he frequently repeated himself, especially in the heads of
women, which he painted after the Niobe of antiquity. Guido, notwithstanding his
pride and boastfulness, did not attain the same greatness as his fellow-disciple, the
modest Domenichino. But in a longer, more peaceful and more honoured life, he was
more fertile. Perhaps also his works were more uniform, at all events during the first
part of his career as an artist, before he adopted the pale, chalky style he used after-
wards, believing doubdess that he thus approached nearer to Paul Veronese, whom he
passionately admired. The most important of all his works is the Madonna della Pieta
in the museum of Bologna. This singular and immense composition was ordered of
PHOEBUS AND AURORA. — BY GUIDO RENI.
/;; the Rospigliosi Paiacc, Rome.
ilim as an ex-Toto, by the senate of his native town, who rewarded him by adding to
the price agreed upon, a gold chain and medal. The pictufe is divided into two
distinct parts, which might easily be separated. In the upper compartment the body
of Christ is represented, lying over the sepulchre, between two weeping angels ; Mary
is opposite, looking down on the scene : from this arises the name of the picture. In
the lower comixartment five saints are kneeling in a sort of ecstasy ; these are St.
Petronius, patron of Bologna, St. Proculus, St. Dominic, and the saint then most
recently canonised, St. Charles Borromeo. This great work contains in the highest
degree the distinctive qualities of Guido — nobility and elegance of composition,
delicacy of colouring, harmonious distribution of lights ; in short, every merit of an
eminently graceful style, which was the opposite to that adopted by the dark and
passionate Caravaggio. Guido, besides, here shows a rare vigour, which, by bringing
his style nearer to that of his rival, makes his superiority more apparent. This
picture is dated 161 6. Fourteen years later, when the plague was raging at Bologna,
A.D. 1600.] GUIDO RENI. 169
Cjuido repeated almost the same composition by painting a Glorified Madonna, below
whom a CJroup of Saints, the protectors of his native town, are kneeling in prayer.
This second picture, which was painted on silk and called " II Pallione," was carried
in i)rocession during the plague. It is an excellent specimen of the pale colouring
which Guido had adopted. But the most celebrated of his works, after the Madonna
della PU-fa, is the Massacn- of the Innocents in the Bologna Clallery, well known through
engravings. The only fault to be found in the latter is a grace in the figures so
unsuited to the subject as to incur the charge of affectation. The children who are
being murdered, the women trampled underfoot or dragged along by the hair, are
theatrical and studied in their attitudes. But the details are admirable, and setting
aside this defect, which arises from the style of the artist being ill adajjted for such a
subject, the work is of rare beauty.
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In the Barberini Palace, Rome.
In the Berlin Museum is a picture of ^5. Paul and Antony — powerfully executed
in Guido's early style ; as is also a Crucifixion in the Modena Gallery. In the Louvre
there are many works by Guido, amongst others four immense compositions on the
History of Hercules, the proportions larger than nature ; one of these, the Rape of
Dejanira by the Centaur Xessiis, has been matle popular by the fine engraving of
Bervic. The National Gallery possesses seven pictures attributed to Guido; a
St. Jerome (No. 11); the Ma:^dalcn (No. 177); the yoiin;^ Christ and St. John (No.
191); an Ecce Homo (No. 271) and three others.
Guido left a large school of followers and admirers, but they merely copied his
style and were of no groat inii)ortance.
z
lyo ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS [a.d. 1650.
Francesco Albani, who was born at Bologna in 1578, studied at first under Denys
Calvart, where he made the acquaintance of Guido, with whom he was ever after a
great friend ; on leaving that master, he and Guido entered the celebrated academy of
the Carracci. After he had attained some fame in Bologna, Albani removed to Rome,
where Annibale Carracci, who had been rendered mcapable of working by illness,
recommended him to finish his uncompleted frescoes in the chapel of San Diego in
the national church of the Spaniards. This work gained great praise for Albani. He
afterwards visited Mantua, and painted mythological pictures for the Duke of that city.
Albani died in 1660. In his Four Seaso7iSyS.\\ the Borghese Gallery, he is said to
have been assisted by his scholars. The Torloiaia (then the Verospi) Palace possesses
specimens of his work. It is well known how much this master, whose style was so
soft and harmonious, and who was called the " Anacreon of painting," loved to design
in small proportions mythological subjects, in which he might introduce as many groups
as he pleased, of loves, genii, nymphs, and goddesses ; these he painted extremely
well, alvyays placing them in charming Arcadian landscapes, under a Grecian sky, in
the shade of great trees, which stand out against a misty background ornamented with
architectural structures. But what is not generally known is that Albani painted works
on sacred history, with the figures of life size. There are four of them in the
Pinacoteca of Bologna, one of which is a Baptism of Christy and another a Glorified
Madonna, dated 1599. Albani, who was then twenty-one years of age, had not long
begun to paint. These four pictures at Bologna reveal a nobler and more truly
religious style than he would be given credit for. They are also a positive refutation
of the studio saying, that Albani, having a very beautiful wife, and twelve children
equally beautiful, took his models entirely from his own family. Here, instead of
nymphs and Cupids, are men, both young and old, saints, and even the Eternal Father.
At the Louvre there are merely specimens of the usual works of Albani. In the
Toilet, the Repose of Venus, the Cupids disarmed, and in the Adonis conducted to
Venus by Cupids, Albani may be seen with all the graceful qualities which his name
promises. But why should there be three Actceons metamorphosed into stags .? Of what
use can they be except to prove the sterile fertility of an artist, who, labouring on to
extreme old age, ever repeating himself, had the misfortune to survive his talent and
fame ? We may here mention a pupil of Albani, who is of no great importance —
Giovanni Battista Mola, a native of France, who was born about 1620. He painted
first in Paris, then accompanied Albani to Bologna and subsequently to Rome. He
died in 1661. (?)
Domenico Zampieri, commonly known as Domenichino, was born at Bologna in
1 58 1. His father a boot-maker^ apprenticed him first to Denys Calvart, but on his
receiving ill-treatment at the hands of that master, removed him and placed him with
the Carracci, with Avhom the painter Albani also studied. On leaving this academy,
Domenichino and Albani visited Parma and Modena, in order to acquaint themselves
with the styles of Correggio and Parmigiano ; soon after their return to Bologna,
Albani removed to Rome, whither, however, he was soon followed by his friend, who
resided with him for two years in that city. Here Domenichino succeeded in obtain-
ing the friendship and patronage of Cardinal Agucchi, for whom he executed many
works of importance, among others the celebrated Madonna of tJie Rosary. Domeni-
chino's fame as an artist, though already great, was much increased by his picture of
the Flagellation of St. Andrew, painted in the clv.q)el of that saint on Monte Celio at
A.D. 1650.]
DOMENICHINO.
>7i
Rome; bui it was about the year 1614 that he painted his masterpiece the Com-
munion of St. Jerome for the church of San C'.irolamo della Carith, which is now in the
Vatican. Domenichino, disgusted with the petty jealousy of the artists of Rome, and
the bad usage he received from them, left the city and repaired to Nai>les. He was
however indued to return to Rome by Gregory X\'.. who made him chief pamter
Till-. lASI COMMUNION OF ST. JEROMK.-RV I>OMKNHlll No.
/// ///,• I'lifinui, /\\<nii:
and architect to the Tontit^cal palace. Soon afterwards lie went again to Naples,
where he was most shamefully treated by those three notoriously dishonourable men.
Spagnoletto, Coren/.io, and Carracciolo, who formed the " Cabal of Naples." His
principal works here were frescoes reiMCsenting scenes from the Life of St. Januanus,
in the Cappella Tesoro, which he did not live to fmisli. He died at Naples (it has
been said, of poison) on the 15th of .Vi'iil \(^.\\.
172 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS [a.d. 1650.
It would seem that Domenichino's humble origin left him an unconquerable
timidity, which betrays itself in the general character of his works as well as in his own
character and the actions of his life. It is loftiness of style as well as of character
that is wanting in Domenichmo. This loftiness of style is scarcely found in any of
his works, except in those which do not entirely belong to him, but which he copied
from his predecessors, such as the Murder of St. Peter of Verona, taken from Titian,
and merely altered ; and the Communion of St. Jerome, after Agostino Carracci. We
need not speak of the former painting which is at Bologna, and is placed
near two other large works, the Martyrdom of St. Agnes and the Madonna of the
Rosary, both taken to Paris under the Empire. It is well known to what comparative
perfection this master, patient, laborious, thoughtful, yet often unequal and always
dissatisfied with himself, carried the art of composition, correctness of drawing,
strength of colouring, grace of attitude, and even nobility of expression. The
Martyrdom of St. Agnes contains in the highest degree all the qualities for which
Domenichino is noted. One of these is not common even among masters. It fre-
quently happens that the principal personage in a composition is not sufficiently
superior to the others, but is almost eflaced by accessory figures ; in short, the painter
becomes weakest exacdy where he should have been strongest. Here St. Agnes is in
every way the principal figure in the picture.
The Madonna of the Rosary is also superior in the finished beauty of the details ;
for example, the old man in chains in the foreground is a masterpiece of true, pathetic
and deep feeling. In Rome we shall find the beautiful fresco paintings by Domeni-
chino, on the Life of St. Cecilia, in a chapel belonging to the church of San Luigi
de' Francesi.
When Raphael's Transfiguration still hung in the nave of St. Peter's, it had as a
pendant Domenichino's Last Commutiion of St. Jerome. The mosaics which replaced
them are still on either side of the high altar, and the two pictures which were together
at Paris, are now placed in the same room in the Vatican. They may be said to share
the throne of art. This would appear too great an honour for the work of Domeni-
chino, produced in a time when the decay in art, already manifest, was on the eve of
becoming complete ; and yet in some respect the honour is not unmerited, for Do-
menichino, who preserved a purer taste than his contemporaries, knew also " how to
avail himself skilfully of those material aids recently introduced by his school.
We have already mentioned that the subject of the Last Communion of St. Jerome
was takei\ from Agostino Carracci, perhaps by the advice of Annibale. Domenichino
has done little more than reproduce the scene, giving it, however, more of amplitude,
and above all a greater charm. The just reproach of plagiarism would alone be
sufficient to place his work much below that of Raphael. We might also criticise the
rather singular nudity of the old saint, crouching under a portico in the open air,
whilst all those around him are fully clothed ; and also the resigned, angelic mildness,
which the painter has given to the fiery doctor of the Latin Church, one of the most
militant of all the fathers ; but these criticisms would be rather those of an historian
than of an artist. But with these restrictions, we must allow that there are few pictures
to be found in the world in which maybe seen an equal amount of wisdom in the
composition, grandeur in the arrangement, complete unity of action, and, but for a
little heaviness always to be found in Domenichino's works, great perfection in the
execution. It was some time before justice was rendered to this magnificent work.
Raphael received for the Transfiguration a sum equivalent to aliout 320/. of our
DOMENICO ZAMPIERI.
(DOMENICHINO.)
Page 173.
A.D. I
650.] DOMENICHINO. i73
money, and it was not too nnuli. More than a century later, when a king of Portugal
offered forty thousand se^iuins for the St. Jerome of Correggio, the poor shoemaker's
son of B.jlogna, always unfortunate and oppressed, only received fifty Roman scudi
(about ten guineas) for his .SV. Jerome, and a little later he had the mortification of
seeing double this sum paid for a very inferior copy of his painting. It was Poussin
who first understood this picture, drew it from the convent of San Girolamo della
Caritc\, and assigned it the eminent position it now occupies.
Among other works by Domenichino in Italy, we may mention the four Evangelists,
in Sant' Andrea della Valle ; the Martyrdom of St. Sebastian, in Santa Maria degli
Angeli ; and a Diana and Nymphs in the Borghese Palace, all at Rome ; and lastly,
scenes from the Life of the Virgin, in the Duomo at Fano.
The National Gallery possesses four pictures by Domenichino ; first, two Landscapes
with figures (Nos. 48 and 75) ; then the Stoning of St. Stephen (No. 77), and lastly a
St. Jerome and the Angel (No. 85), formerly in the Aldobrandini Gallery at Rome.
Giovanni Francesco Barbieri di Cento— surnamed Guercino or Guercio (the
Squinter) because, while still in the cradle, a great fright caused a nervous convulsion
which deranged the ball of one eye— was born at Cento, near Bologna, in 1592. As
an artist, he was, in a great measure, self-taught. He was a disciple of the Carracci, not
exactly from having received lessons from them, but from having learnt art, and made
for himself a style by imitating their works. After studying at Venice and Bologna,
Guercino went during the pontificate of Paul V. to Rome, where he stayed until
1623, when he returned to his native Cento, in which town he executed several works
of importance. In 1642 he removed to Bologna, where he remained till his death in
1666. In the works of Guercino we can admire neither the sublimity of the thought,
nor the nobility of the forms : these qualities are not to be looked for in the son of a
poor ox-driver ; but we cannot but admire the exact and skilful imitation of nature
which he attained at once by correctness in drawing, harmony in colour, and the
wonderful use he made of chiaroscuro. It is to the latter quality that he owes his too
ambitious surname of the " magician of painting." He has been charged with giving
his shadows a degree of exaggerated force, as did Caravaggio and Ribera ; but in those
dark shades no one could have put more transparency and lightness than Guercino.
One of the greatest works of Guercino is in the gallery at Stafford House. This is
the Apotheosis or canonisation of a beatified pope, either St. Leo or St. Sixtus.
Another, which is no less vast in composition and grand in its style, is the St. Petronilla
in the Capitol at Rome ; it does honour alike to the museum and to the artist. This
work, which-is of singular beauty, is divided, like so many other pictures, into two parts,
heaven and earth. Quite at the bottom, grave-diggers are opening a sepulchre in order
to take out the body of the daughter of the apostle Peter, who was thrown into it ali\e
as a forsworn vestal. This exhumatioft takes place in the presence of several i)ersons,
amongst others, of the betrothed of Petronilla, a young man, dressed in the fishion of
the sixteenth century, who does not seem very deeply atiecteil at seeing the corpse of
his beloved appear above the edge of the grave. As for the saint herself, free for
ever from the passions of the lower world, radiant with glory, and with her head
encircled by a crown, she ascends on the clouds towards heaven, where the Eternal
Father awaits her with outstretched arms. The copy of this St. Petronilla is
considered the finest of the mosaics in St. Peter's — a double honour for one work.
Among other works by Guercino, we may mention a .S7. Philip of Neri, in the
174
ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1650.
Chiesa Nuova ; an Aurora, in the Villa Ludovisi ; the Incredulity of St. Thomas,
\\\ the Gallery of the Vatican— all at Rome ; also, in the Bologna Gallery, the
Appearance of the Virgin to St. Bruno: also, in tlie palace at Turin, the Prodigal Son ;
ST. FETRONILLA — BY GUERCINO.
In the Capitol, Rome.
and in the National Gallery, Angels weeping over the dead body of Christ (No. 22),
powerfully executed in his best style. Most of the principal galleries in Europe contain
specimens of Guercino's art.
A.D. i6oo.] ECLECTIC SCHOOL OF CREMONA. 175
THE ECLECTIC SCHOOL OF CREMONA.
\\"e must iu)\v mention school of artists wliich sprang up in Cremona, mucli
in the same way as that of the Carracci at Bologna. They were not, however, such
talented painters as their Bolognese contemporaries, neither did they attain to anything
like the same fame.
Giulio Campi, the true founder of this school— the Lodovico Carracci of Cremona
— was the son of one Galeazzo Campi, a painter of little note. GiuHo was born at
Cremona in 1500, and was sent while still young to Mantua to study under Giulio
Romano, with whom he worked most assiduously. Having acquired, at Mantua, a bold
style of execution and a true knowledge of architecture, C.iulio Campi repaired to
Rome, where he occupied his time in studying the works of Raphael and other great
masters. He died in 1572. The churches of Cremona. Milan, and Mantua contain
the greater part of his ])ictures.
Antonio Campi, the younger brotlicr and pupil of Giulio, was born at Cremona.
He is known to have painted as early as 1532. He was more famous as an architect
than as a painter, and in the latter capacity was far inferior to his brother. His
masterpiece, St. Paul irsusciiatuig Eiityc/ius, was engraved by Agostino Carracci.
The church of San Paolo at Milan possesses a Nativity by him. Antonio Campi
was still living in 1591 : the exact date of his death is not known. He imitated,
to a certain extent, the style of Correggio.
Vincenzio Campi, the youngest of the three brothers, was born at Cremona about
1532, and was educated in art by Giulio. He painted religious subjects, but with
no great success, although he excelled in portraits and still life. He died in 1591.
Bernardino Campi, a cousin of the , three brothers, was born at Cremona in
1522. He was originally apprenticed to a goldsmith, but was induced to turn his
attention towards painting by the sight of the copies, made by his cousin Giulio.
of two of the tapestries designed by Raphael. He worked first at Cremona under
Giulio Campi, but removing to Mantua, he studied the works of Giulio Romano.
One of his patrons then took him to Modena and Parma, where lie was able to
examine the productions of .Correggio. On his return to Cremona, he executed,
in the short space of seven months, his greatest work, on the cupola of San Sigis-
mondo. It represents the Blessed of the Old and the New Testament, and is
admirably executed with much grace and harmony. The same church possesses
other specimens of the art of Bernardino. In the Louvre there is a pleasing Field
by this artist. Bernardino Campi died about the year 1592. His style w^as formed
chiefly by the study of the works of Raphael and of Correggio.
176 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1600.
THE ECLECTIC SCHOOL OF MILAN.
The school of the Procaccini now claims our attention. Though more famous
than that of the Campi, it is much inferior, both in merit and in fame, to the celebrated
school of the Carracci.
Ercole Procaccini, the founder of this school, was born in 1520 at Bologna, where
he spent the early part of his life. The churches of Bologna possess the greater
part of his works. Leaving his native town, he removed to Milan and founded
a school, which has always been known by his name. Ercole was better adapted
for imparting instruction than for painting, though some of his pictures, which are
all executed very carefully, display fair merit. They are mostly in imitation of the
style of Correggio. Ercole was still living in 1 591.
Camillo Procaccini, the son of Ercole, was born at Bologna in 1546. He received
his first instruction in art from his father, but afterwards went to Rome to study
the works of Raphael and Michelangelo, though he formed his style chiefly on those
of Correggio and Parmigiano. Whatever merit there was in his art was frequently
spoiled by his great haste in execution, though some pictures, to which a fair
time was allowed, are very pleasing specimens of the school of the Procaccini.
Foremost among these we must mention the St. Roch ad ministering to the sick, now
at Dresden; and an Adoration of the Kings, in the Brera. Camillo died in 1626
at Milan, where many of his works may still be found. As an artist, Camillo's
colouHng was good ; some of his pictures display much grace, and a calm quietude
which is very pleasing.
Giulio Cesare Procaccini, the second son of Ercole, was born at Bologna in 1548.
After having made considerable advancement in sculpture, he was induced, by the
success of his brother Camillo, to abandon that art for painting. By some critics,
Giulio Cesare is considered the best painter of the family of the Procaccini, and indeed
his care and attention to details, and to the general design of his pictures, place them
in a much higher rank than they would otherwise enjoy. He copied the style of
Correggio with such- success, that several of his works have been mistaken for those
of the great master. The churches and public buildings of Milan possess many of
his pictures. We may mention of these a Transfiguration in the church of San Celso,
and an Annunciation in Sant' Antonio. Giulio Cesare died at Milan in 1626.
There was a third brother, Carlo Antonio Procaccini, who was, however, an artist
of very second-rate abilities. He chiefly painted subjects in still life. He was at
the height of his fame about the year 1605 at Milan. We may also mention his son,
Ercole Procaccini (the younger), who was educated by his uncle Giulio Cesare. He
was born in 1596 at Milan, in which city are most of his works. He painted
historical subjects as well as still life, but excelled in the latter. He died in 1676.
Giovanni Battista Crespi, the sculptor, architect, and painter — called II Cerano,
from his birthplace in the Milanese — was born in 1457. He was one of the best of
the pupils cf the Procaccini, and was a powerful though somewhat mannered painter.
Milan possesses most of Iiis works. He is said to have excelled in representing birds
A.D. 1600.] ECLECTIC SCHOOL OF FLORENCE. 177
and other animals. II Cerano died in 1633. He had a son Danielle, who, though
not so famous as his father, was a painter of merit.
Besides the above mentioned, there were many other artists, who studied in the
.school of the Procaccini ; several very praiseworthy, hut none of sufficient importance
to warrant special mention.
THE ECLECTIC SCHOOL OF FLORENCE.
^\'e must now turn our attention to tiie later painters of Florence, who, thougli
not equal to their renowned fcUow-citizens of the previous century, are yet themselves
worthy of j)raise, and their works of notice and consideration.
Lodovico Cardi — called, from his birthplace, da Cigoli— was born in 1559. He
was a pupil of Alessandro Allori, and also of Santo di Titi, but he formed his style
rhieriy from the study of the works of Correggio and other great masters, and his
manner was much allied to that of the school of the Carracci. After a journey through
Lombardy for the pur[)ose of study, Cigoli settled in Florence for a time, and executed
many works of importance, especially for the Grand Duke, who sent him to
Rome, where he was employed to paint a picture for St. Peter's, His subject was
the Lame Man healed by Peter, and the work \vas considered by Andrea Sacchi to be,
after Raphael's TrausJii!;uration and Domenichino's Communion of St. Jerome., the best
picture in Rome, an opinion which was shared by many. Cigoli's work has, however,
unfortunately perished. Shortly after the completion of some frescoes in the church of
Santa Maria Maggiore, Cigoli died at Rome in 16 13. His pictures are chiefly notice-
able for the beauty of their colour. His flivourite subjects were monks and saints,
more especially St. Francis. The Uffizi possesses, among other works by him, the
Martyrdom of St. Stephen, but the Pitti Palace contains his masterpiece, the Ecee
Homo. Cigoli left many scholars.
Gregorio Pagarii, the son of an unimportant artist, Francesco Pagani, was born at
Florence in 1558. He first studied under Santo di 'i'iti and then with Cigoli, whose
style he so closely imitated that he was called the " second Cigoli." His finest work,
x\\t Finding; of the Cross, painted for the church of the Carmelites, was unfortunately
lost when the church was destroyed by fire. Pagani's works are very scarce. He died
at Florence in 1605.
Cristofano Allori — the son of Alessandro Allori, who was the nephew of Bronzino —
was born at Florence in 1577. He studied first under his flither. a painter of no great
merit, then under Santo di Titi, but finally abandoning his great-uncle's style, he followed
that of the master of his choice, Correggio. He painted works for the churches and
public buildings of Florence, but, owing chiefly to his irregular habits, they were few
in number and are now very scarce. He died in 1621 at his native town. He was
one of the best artists in Florence at his time, and excelled in portrait-painting.
Allori's most celebrated works are in the Pitti Palace — the Hos/ita/ity of St. Julian,
and Judith with the head of Holofernes. The former is a magnificent composition,
finished with that minute and zealous care which Allori gave to all his works. He was
never contented with himself, and often spoiled fine works by putting too many finishino'
strokes. The Judith is still finer than the St. Julian. It enjoys a fame which
2 A
1 78 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS [a.d. 1600.
makes praise unnecessary. But we cannot pass over in silence the anecdote which, it
is said, points to the hidden meaning of the picture. The magnificent Judith, so proud
and imperious, is the portrait of a mistress of Allori, named Mazzafirra. The attendant
holding the bag is the woman's mother ; in the severed head of Holofernes he painted
his own features. He intended to indicate in this allegory the torture he constantly
experienced, from the capricious pride of the daughter and the greedy rapacity of the
mother. There are several repetitions of this picture. While in France, it was engraved
by Gandolfi for the " Musee Napole'on."
The National Gallery possesses a Portrait of a Lady (No. 21) by this artist.
Allori made several copies, with slight alterations in the background, of Correggio's
Magdalen, which were such good imitations that they have passed as replicas by
Correggio's own hand.
Matteo Rosselliwas born at Florence in 1578. He studied under Gregorio Pagani,
hut, leaving him, went to Rome and improved his style by contemplating the great
works in that city. He then returned to Florence, where he reinained until his death
in 1650. Rosselli was much employed by the Grand Duke Cosimo H., for whom he
executed works of importance. His best picture is the TrhimpJi of David va. the Pitti
Palace. Rosselli's pictures sometimes remind one of Cigoli. They are especially to
be admired for their grace and quietness. He left many pupils and followers — of
PC great importance.
Domenico Feti, who was born at Rome in 1589, studied first under Cigoli at
Florence, but leaving him, went to Rome and afterwards to Mantua, and studied
the works of Giulio Romano. Here he was employed by Duke Ferdinando Gonzaga,
who appointed him court-painter, hence he is often called " il Mantuafio." He died
at Venice in 1624, aged only thirty-five. Feti painted chiefly Biblical subjects, of which
there are several in the Dresden Gallery. Lanzi mentions with great praise a
Feeding of the five thousand, in the Mantua Gallery. His works may be noticed for
good colour and truthfulness of expression.
Carlo Dolci, sometimes called Carlino, was born at Florence in 161 6. He lost
his father when but four years of age, and five years later was placed by his mother
with one Jacopo Vignali, a pupil of Matteo Rosselli. He passed nearly all his life in
his native town, where he was much patronized, and where he soon became famoiis. In
1670, he went to Innspruck to paint the portrait of Claudia, daughter of Ferdinand of
Austria ; but returning to Florence he died there in 1686. Dolci left one son and seven
daughters, one of whom, Agnese, painted in the same style as her father, though
not with equal success. Though Dolci's pictures are not uncommon in the European
galleries, neither the Louvre nor the National Gallery possesses one. There are several,
however, in private collections in England. A Ch?-ist breaking bread is in the possession
of the Marquis of Exeter at Burleigh. The Earl of Ashburnham has a fine St. Andreic.
Among Dolci's best pictures we may mention, z. Madonna and Child 2i.wA a. St. Andreio
praying before the Cross, both in the Pitti Palace ; and a St. Cecilia in the Dresden
Gallery. Dolci was a most prolific and at the same time a careful painter, but his
renown has surpassed his merit. One might almost suppose that Vasari was thinking of
him when he said of an earlier painter (Lorenzo da Credi), " His productions are so
finished, that beside them those of other painters appear coarse sketches. . . . This
excessive care is no more worthy of praise than is excessive negligence ; in everything
we should keep from extremes, which are equally vicious." This reflection serves to
A.D. 1600.] FOLLOWERS OF THE CAKRACCL 179
judge the works of Carlo Dolci on the material side. \{ we examine them from a
moral point of view, we find their principal characteristic to be a feeble, insipid affecta-
tion of religious feeling. He does not attain to the mystic devotion of the art of Fra
Angelico and Morales, but stops short at narrow devoteeism. The last of the
Florentines in age, he was so also in style and taste. With him expired the great
school which had been rendered celebrated by Giotto, Masaccio, Leonardo da Vinci,
Michelangelo, Fra Bartolommeo, and Andrea del Sarto. If the painters of the periods
of decay shoukl never, any more than the poets, be chosen as models for study, they
are yet of real use when placed near the works of classic masters, because they serve
as examples of the most dangerous of all faults, those which are agreeable or flishion-
able, in contrast with severe, solid, and eternal beauties. The taste becomes formed
by discriminating between these, and talent learns to shun the defects of the one
whilst imitating the beauties of the other. Hence the works of Carlo iJolci have a
use, even by the side of those of Michelangelo and Raphael.
FOLLOWERS OF THE CARRACCL (ROMAN SCHOOL.)
Bartolommeo Schedone, who was born at Modena about 1580, is said to have
worked under the Carracci, but his works show a careful study of the productions of
Correggio, whose style he successfully imitated. Having displayed a talent for art in
works which he executed when quite young, he was patronized by Duke Ranuccio, of
Modena, for whom he painted several important works, which are now in the Naples
Gallery. Schedone was a good portrait-painter, but he is most flimous for his LLoly
Families. His pictures are not often met with, for he was not a prolific artist and
moreover he died when still young, in 16 15. It is said that his time was wasted and
his end hastened by the habit of gambling in which he indulged.
Giovanni Lanfranco was born at Parma in 1581. He was at first apprenticed to
Agostino Carracci, who was then working at Ferrara. Under this master, Lanfranco
studied the works of Correggio, more especially the dome of San Giovanni at Parma.
On the death of Agostino in 1601, Lanfranco went to Rome and engaged himself
to Annibale Carracci, from whose designs he painted several frescoes in the church
of Sant' lago. The first work of importance of his own composition was an Assutnp-
tion of the Virgin in the chapel of Buon Giovanni in the church of Sant' Agostino.
Soon after this he executed for Paul V., Moses striking the rock ; Abraham sacrific-
ing Isaac, and the Flight into Egypt, in the palace on Monte Cavallo. About this
time, too, he painted his celebrated Virgin seated in- the clouds with Saints in ado-
ration, on the Cupola of Sant' Andrea della Valle. In 1646, he removed by
invitation to Naples and painted works, which have since been destroyed by an
earthquake, in the church del Gesii, After the death of Domenichino, Lanfranco
was employed to finish the Cupola of the Treasury, which that artist had left uncom-
pleted, but the disturbances which occurred at Naples forced Lanfranco to leave that
city and return to Rome, where he painted St. Peter walking on the sea and scenes
from the Passion of our L^ord, which gained him great renown. He executed
nothing of importance after this, and died in 1648 at Rome.
Lanfranco, though much praised and honoured, was not a great artist. His
ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1650.
colouring is fair, but he had no taste for harmony ; his countenances are lacking in
expression, his foreshortening is exaggerated, but with all that, some of his pictures are
pleasing. They display a presence of genius, even though there be a want of care.
Giovanni Battista Salvi, commonly known as Sassoferrato from his birthplace
near Urbino, was born in 1605. His father, Tarquinio Salvi, an unimportant artist,
gave him his first instruction in painting and design ; he is then supposed to have .
studied under Domenichino at Naples, which city he is known to have visited.
Sassoferrato belongs to the followers of the Carracci, but he both studied and copied
the works of several great masters — Raphael, Titian, Perugino, Guido, Albani. and
Domenichino. His favourite subject for original pictures was the Madonna, of which
nearly every gallery in Europe possesses a specimen : the National Gallery has two ;
a Madonna in prayer (No. 200) ; and the Madonna with the Infant Christ (No. 740),
His masterpiece is in the church of Santa Sabina at Rome ; it is called the
Madonna del Rosario. Sassoferrato died at Rome in 1685. His works are highly
finished, and display great grace and care in execution.
Pietro Berrettini, commonly called Pietro da Cortona from his birthplace, was
born on the ist of November 1596. He was sent to Rome, where he was apprenticed
to Baccio Ciarpi, but improved his style by the study of the works of Raphael,
Michelangelo and especially of Polidoro da Caravaggio. His talent was first noticed
by the Marquis of Sacchetti, who took him under his protection and procured for him
many commissions — notably, to paint the ceihng of the grand saloon of the Palazzo
Barberini, a work which has been much admired. Soon after this, Cortona started
from Rome, on a journey through the towns of Italy. At Florence he was employed
by Ferdinand H. to paint in the Pitti Palace. He executed various historical subjects,
but did not quite complete the series, for, annoyed at the remarks of some rival artists,
he left Florence, never to return. He went again to Rome, where he was much
honoured and fully employed, until his death in 1669 ; he was buried in the church of
San Martino, of which he had been the architect. Cortona's principal works are, in
Florence, those in the Pitti already mentioned; in Rome, in the Barberini and
Sacchetti Palaces. Cortona was a painter who had great natural talent, but it is spoiled
by his superficial manner of execution. His pictures are powerful in conception and
design, but are wanting in depth and harmony.
Andrea Sacchi, the son of Benedetto Sacchi, a painter of little note, was born near
Rome in 1599 (?) His father, after giving him instruction in the rudiments of art,
apprenticed him to Albani, under whom he studied for some time. On the accession
of Urban VHI. to the papal chair in 1623, Sacchi was commissioned to paint a large
altar-piece in St. Peter's. He was much patronized by Cardinal Antonio Barberini, the
nephew of Urban VHI. For this patron, Sacchi painted a fresco, representing Divine
Wisdofn, in the Barberini Palace ; this picture gained him great praise, but his master-
piece was »S/. Romualdo relating his vision to Jive 7?ionks, which, after a journey to Paris,
now hangs in the Gallery of the Vatican. Sacchi died at Rome in 1661. He was
considered the greatest painter in Rome at that time, and he was decidedly the best
colourist ; for his shades, though subdued, were harmonious, and his pictures, if lacking
in power, are very pleasing. He studied most carefully the works of all the great
masters in Italy, and the result was certainly satisfactory.
Pietro Francesco Mola was born at Coldra in the Milanese in 1612 (other dates
are given as the time of his birth, and also other towns as his birthplace). His father,
A.,, ,650.] FOLLOWERS OF J'H^CARRACCI. 181
C.iovanni Batti^ Mola, an architect, took him when quite young to Rome, where he
studied art under D'Arpino for a time. After visiting various towns he hnally settled at
Bolocrna where he studied the works of the great Bolognese artists of that tmie-more
especially of \lbani. He returned, however, to Rome in the pontihcate ot Innocent
X by whom he was much patronised. Pope Alexander VII. also employed hmi on
scvcril works Mola died at Rome in . 668 (Pascoli says, 1 666), when he was about to
depart for Paris at the invitation of Louis XIV. Among the best works which this
artist painted we may mention a St. Peter delivered from prison and the Unverston oj
St Paul in the church del Gesu at Rome; :, Joseph making himself hmvn to his brethren,
in the palace of Monte Cavallo; and two in the National Gallery-5/. John preaclung
in the wilderness (No. 69), and the Repose (No. 160), representing the Holy Family
resting on their way into Egypt. Mola was celebrated both as an histoncal and as
a landscape painter; he excelled in execution, and more especially in colouring. He
painted somewhat after the style of Guercino.
Carlo Maratti, who was born at Camurano in the March of Ancona, in 1625, was the
best as well as tlie favourite pupil of Andrea Sacchi, whom he joined when (luite young.
He studied the works of Raphael, the Carracci, and Guido, but his best works are
painted after the style of his master, Sacchi. From the fact that he at hrst contined
himself almost entirely to painting Holy Families, he obtained the name of "Carluccio
delle Madonne." His first great work was painted on commission, procured for him
by Sacchi in the church of San Giovanni in Laterano. It represented Constantine
destroying the idols, and was highly praised. From this time, Maratti continued to rise
in public favour, and soon became one of the most popular and honoured painters in
Rome He was much patronised by Alexander VII. and his six immediate successors.
Innocent XL made him inspector of the "Stanze." Innocent XII. appointed him
superintendent of all the paintings of the Vatican, and Clement XL commissioned him
to restore the frescoes of Raphael. To these appointments Maratti owes much of his
fame. This artist, who has been called the " Last of the Romans," died at Rome in
17 13, at the advanced age of eighty-eight. Maratti has left us several engravings ;
the celebrated James Frey was his scholar.
The National Gallery can boast of but one picture by Maratti, a Portrait of
Cardinal Cerri (No. 174). In speaking of this i)ainter Mr. Wornum says, " His pictures
are distinguished for their academic precision of design, but are more conspicuous for
the general absence of defects, than for any particular excellence."'
ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. Ia.d. 1600.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE NATURALISTI.
THE principles of the well-known school of the Naturalisti, who were so directly
opposed to the Eclectic painters, were based solely on the direct imitation of
nature — but it was not nature in her most pleasing form. They chose subjects
which were exaggerated in the extreme, and rejoiced in the representation of scenes of
a debased and vulgar character, but notwithstanding these drawbacks, their pictures
display good colouring and extraordinary force and power of execution. Many of the
chiefs of the Naturalisti resided at Naples, and did not hesitate to avail themselves of
any means — however treacherous — whereby they were enabled to rid the city of any
opponents to their style and fame.
The founder of this school was not a Neapolitan by birth, neither can he be classed
among the artists of Naples, for he resided but a short time in that city, but as he was
most important in his influence, we must mention him first.
THE NATURALISTI. (ROMAN SCHOOL.)
Michelangelo Amerighi or Merighi— commonly known as Michelangelo da
Caravaggio, from his birthplace in the Milanese — was born in 1569. The son of a
mason, he was employed, when quite a boy, in grinding the colours of several painters of
Milan, and thus acquired an early taste for art. With no other teacher but nature,
he laboured attentively at his new work, confining himself at first to painting portraits
and flower-pieces. After five years of steady appHcation in Milan, Caravaggio
removed to Venice, where he studied the works of Giorgione. Thence he went to
Rome, in which city, finding himself, through poverty, unable to gain a livelihood as an
independent painter, he engaged himself to Cesare d'Arpino, who employed him to
execute the floral and ornamental parts of his pictures. Caravaggio, however, was
soon enabled to paint for himself, but after executing many, important works, he was
obliged to leave the city on account of the death of a friend, whom he had killed in a
fit of anger ; he repaired to Naples, whence he went to Malta, where he was patronised
by the grand-master Vignacourt, whose portrait he twice painted. Once more, through
his hot and fiery temper, Caravaggio was driven from the town of his choice. He
quarrelled with a knight, who threw him into prison. Caravaggio, however, escaped
A.U. I Coo.]
CAKAl'AGG/0.
i8.>
from captivity and Heel to Syracuse, wlience he went to Naples by way of Messina and
Palermo. Having obtained, through the influence of his friends, the Pope's pardon for
the manslaughter of his companion— Caravaggio set sail from Naples for Rome, but he
was taken prisoner on the way by some Spaniards, in mistake for another man. On
being set at lil)erty, he had the misfortune to find that the boatmen had gone off with
the felucca and liis i)roperty. He continued his way as far as Porto Ercole, where
partly from his loss and partly from the heat of the weather, he was taken ill shortly
afterwards, and died in 1609.
In the Vatican at Rome is the Descent from the Cross, by Caravaggio, which is
usually considered his niaster]iiece. and in which there is seen, if not the absence of his
rill I n iK-n.AYKR. itv cvr waccid.
usual defects, at least a union of his most eminent (jualities. The heads are all ignoble
ne\er did he carry further the worship of the real and the repulsive. As to the men
who are taking the body of our Lonl down from the cross, their vulgar coarseness
might have formed a contrast to the noble l)eauty of Jesus and Mary. But the Saviour
himself and His Virgin Mother are no better treated; it might almost be said that
Caravaggio was of the school of those Christian painters of the fourth century who
followed the tradition of St. Cyril and some others among the early fathers, that our
blessed Lord was the least beautiful among the .sons of men.
1 84 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1650.
The same may be said of one of his choicest works, now in the Louvre, the Death
of the Virgin, which he painted for a church in Rome, that called Delia Scala in
Trastevere. We notice in it, at the first glance, the absence of all religious feeling, and
even of worldly nobility ; and still more the absence of traditional characters common
to all sacred subjects. Who is it lying on that couch, breathing her last sigh? Is it
the mother of Christ in the midst of His Apostles, or is it not rather an old gipsy
among a number of the men of her tribe, dressed in ridiculous finery ? It is the same
with the Judith at Naples, which may yet be considered one of his most vigorous and
energetic works. How can we recognize the timid and virtuous widow, who to save
her people resolves to commit a double crime, in that infuriated woman who is cutting
the throat of Holofernes as a butcher slaughters a sheep ?
Caravaggio, indeed, when he is on his own ground is an eminent artist. He appears
thus at the Louvre, in his Fortune-teller, and in the excellent Portrait of Vignacourt,
Grand-master of Malta, in his armour ; he is also seen to be a great artist at Rome in
the picture of the Ga7?iesters, in which a young genrieman is seen robbed by two
swindlers ; and at Vienna in the Lichtenstein Gallery, in the Portrait of a young girl
playing on the lute. This is an extraordinary work, for, laying aside his habitual
exaggeration, his inclination to the ugly and strange, the master here shines in truth,
grace, nobility, and beauty. {See woodcut.) The National Gallery has but one work
by Caravaggio, a Christ itnth the t7O0 disciples at Enwiaus (No. 172), formerly in
the Borghese Gallery at Rome ; it was painted for Cardinal Scipione Borghese.
Caravaggio was a mason, who became a painter by seeing frescoes executed on the
moist plaster he had laid on the walls ; he was a painter who remained a mason, rough,
unlettered, professing to despise antiquity, and scoffing at Raphael and Correggio ;
wishing for no other model than nature, he studied commonplace and low nature ; yet
m his fiery execution he attained a degree of energy, power, and truth, the only
defects of which are probably their own excesses.
Of Caravaggio's followers in Rome, we may mention the following : — Carlo Saracino,
a native of Venice, was born in 1585. He painted at his native town and in Rome.
One of his best pictures is 2, Judith with the head of Holofernes, in the Manfrini Gallery
at Venice. Saracino painted, in conjunction with Lanfranco in the palace of Monte
Cavallo, several frescoes, which have been much admired. He died in 1625.
We must now notice two Frenchmen. Moses Valentin, though claimed by his country-
men for their school, must be classed among the painters of Rome. He was born at
Colomiers en Brie in 1600. He worked for some time under Simon Vouet, but leaving
that master he went to Rome and studied the works of Caravaggio, whose style he
closely imitated. He died in 1632. Rome possesses many of Valentin's best works;
he is also represented in the Louvre. The other Franco-Roman painter, Simon Vouet,
will be found mentioned under the artists of France.
Michelangelo Cerquozzi, called, from the subject of his compositions, delle Battaglie,
was born at Rome in 1602. He painted in the style of the Flemish Peter van Laar,
whose manner was much admired in Rome at that time, and excelled especially in
battle-scenes and subjects chosen from low life. Cerquozzi died in 1660.
Jacques Courtois, called by the Italians' Jacopo Cortese and II Borgognone, was
bom in Franche Comte in 162 1. He was a follower of Cerquozzi and, like him, was
famous for his battle-scenes, which, as he had been a soldier in eariy life, he was able to
produce with great accuracy. On the death of his wife, with whom he had not lived
A.D. 1600.] THE NATURALIST! OF NAPLES. 1S5
(juite amicably, Cortesc was accused of having poisoned her. 'I'his charge so disgusted
him with society, that he entered a monastery of tlie Jesuits. He died at Rome in
1676. Cortese's fame has suffered much, because many pictures by liis followers have
been attributed to himself
THE NATURAHSTl. (NEAPOLITAN SCHOOL.)
Most of the great painters who settled or sojourned at Naples, from the Florentine
(iiotto to the Spaniard Ribera, were foreigners.
It is however fair to recognize a Neapolitan school as ancient as that of Florence,
whose first masters, going back as far as the first appearance of the Renaissance,
approach the unknown painters of the primitive Greco-Italian school. They are called
the Treccntisti. Such is, first of all, Tommaso de' Stefani, who, born in the kingdom of
Naples in 1324, was surnamed Giottino, as one of the most hajjpy imitators of the
great Giotto. Such are again at the beginning of the following century the Neapolitans
Colantonio del Flore and his son-in-law, Antonio Solario. In the museum of
the Studj there is a celebrated picture attributed to Colantonio, St. Jerome extracting::;
a thorn from the lion's paw, quite in the style of the Flemings of this period,
Lucas van Leynen, or the blacksmith of Antwerp. He died about 1444.
Antonio Solario, surnamed II Zingaro, was born in the kingdom of Nai)les in
1382. (?) His Glorified Virgin has justly been placed in the hall of the Capi d'Opera.
This important work is of particular interest, because it gives the whole life of the
painter. Antonio Solario, who belonged probably to that nomad tribe called, accord-
ing to the country they inhabit, zingari, gitanos, zigeuner, tzigani, gipsies, was at
first a tinker. At tw^enty-seven years of age he fell in love with the daughter of
Colantonio del Fiore, who absolutely refused to give her to him, wishing her to marry
none but an artist of his own profession. Love made Zingaro a painter; he studied,
travelled, and ten years after married the object of his affection. It is she, they say,
whom he has represented as the Madonna ; he has placed himself behind the young
bishop, St, Aspremus, and it is believed that an ugly little old man, cowering in a
corner, is the portrait of his father-in-law. Zingaro died about 1455.
We will pass rapidly over the two Donzelli (Pietro and Ippolito). pupils of Zingaro ;
over Andrea da Salerno (already mentioned), although he took from Rome to Naples
the lessons and the style of his master Raphael ; until we come to. some of the
more important names of the school of Naples.
Belisario Corenzio, a native of Greece, was born in 155S. He studied at first in
Greece, and afterwards at Venice for five years, under Tintoretto ; he then removed, in
1590, to Naples, where he entered into that shameful and dishonourable triumvirate
with Spagnoletto and Caracciolo, known as the '' Cabal of Naples." As an artist,
Corenzio was better in fresco-paintings than in oil, and the former was his favourite
vehicle. He died in Naples, at an advanced age, in 1643.
Giambattista Caracciolo was bom at Naples about 15S0. He worked at first
under a ])ainter named F'rancesco Imparato, then under Caravaggio, but subse-
quently went to Rome to study the works of Annibale Carracci. On his return to
Naples, he is said to have painted much in the style of that great master, but his
manner was also influenced by that of Caravaggio and other Naturalisti. Caracciolo
x86 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS [a.d. 1650.
was one of the members of the " Cabal of Naples." He died in that city in 1641.
The churches of Naples possess most of his works.
Massimo Stanzioni was born at Naples in 1585. He worked mider Caracciolo,
but copied the style of Caravaggio. For the purpose of studying the works of
Annibale Carracci, he made a journey to Rome ; he there met and became acquainted
with Guido Reni, whose style he so successfully imitated that he was called " II Guido
Reni di Napoli." When he returned to Naples he was much persecuted by the Cabal,
more especially by Spagnoletto, who, as Lanzi tells us, performed a most shameful
i)iece of treacherous deceit. He and Stanzioni had painted in competition at the
Certosa. The former executed the Deposition from the Cross, the latter a Dead Christ
and the Marys. Spagnoletto, on the plea that Stanzioni's picture had become a little
dark, obtained permission from the monks to wash it — which he did, but with a liquid
so corrosive, that the beauty of the picture was entirely spoiled. The monks entreated
Stanzioni to restore it ; this, however, he would not do, preferring to let it remain, a
memorial of Spagnoletto's baseness. Naples possesses the greater part of Stanzioni's
pictures. He died in 1656.
Giuseppe de Ribera— called by the Italians Lo Spagnoletto, from his native country,
Spain — was born at Xativa near Valencia in 1589, and died at Naples "full of
wealth and honour" in 1656. He was the chief of the celebrated " Cabal of Naples."
Further notice of him will be found under the Artists of Spain.
Aniello Falcone, who was born at Naples in i6oo, studied under Spagnoletto, and
in later life had the honour of imparting instruction to Salvator Rosa. Falcone is
chietly famous for his battle-scenes, which he executed with great skill and power.
Easel and larger pictures were alike to him ; he painted them all with great judgment.
He was captain of La Compagnia delta Morte, which fought for Masaniello against
the Spaniards. Falcone died in 1665.
Domenico Gargiuoli — called Micco Spadara — was born at Naples in 16 12. He
was a pupil of Salvator Rosa, and excelled in landscapes, into which he introduced
many small figures. Three pictures by him are worthy of praise. One represents the
Plague of Naples in 1656, another The Friars of the Carthusian Monastery imploring
their patron St. Martin to deliver them from the Scourge — rather a selfish prayer, for it
would not have cost the pious monks anything to have extended their entreaty, and
taken in the whole city; the third, the Revolution of 16 4^ under Masaniello. This
last work is very curious, because in one moderate-size frame, filled with a crowd of
small figures, one sees all the particulars of this strange episode in the history of
Naples, related, as it were, by an impartial eye-witness. Gargiuoli died in 1679.
Salvator Rosa was born at Arenella near Naples in 1615. He chose the profession
of an artist in opposition to the wishes of his father, who in vain tried to cure him of his
desire. Rosa's first master was his brother-in-law, Francesco Francanzano. In 1633,
he went for a journey through the neighbouring country in order to perfect himself in
(Iravvmg from nature. He is there said to have associated with the banditti, which
companionship may have given rise to those pictures of romantic scenery which he
delighted to paint. On his return to Arenella, Rosa found the whole of his family
rendered dependent on him by the death of his father; and was therefore obliged to
work at painting incessantly in order to gain the necessaries of life. Rosa was
fortunate enough to gain the friendship of Lanfranco, and subsequently of Falcone,
under whom he studied and by whom he was induced to go to Rome, wliere he was
A.D. 1650.] THE NATURALIST! OF NAPLES. 187
patronized by Cardinal Brancacci, for wliom he painted several works at Viterbo,
among which was the Incredulity of St. Thomas. Rosa after a short visit to Naj^les
returned to Rome in 1639, where he remained — greatly honoured and employed —
until 1647, when on the rising of Masaniello, he repaired to Naples and joined La
Cornpai:^riia ticUa Morte ; on the disbandment of this company, he went to Florence and
thence to Rome, where he produced shortly afterwards his masterpiece, the Conspiracy
of Catiline. In 1668 he painted his Saul and the Witch of Endor ; executing- little
of importance from this time, Rosa died at Rome in 1673, and was buried in the
church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, which had been erected by Michelangelo.
We are disappointed to find in his native country only incomplete specimens of the
talents of this original and fertile artist, who was not merely a painter, but also a poet,
musician, and actor. But Salvator never resided long at Naples ; he was three
times driven from it ; the first time by want : then by the disilain and hatred of his
fellow-artists, whom he did not conciliate ; and lastly by the fall of the popular and
patriotic party of Masaniello, which he had embraced ardently under his master,
Aniello Falcone, the chief of Zr? Conipagnia delta Morte, in which the greater number of
artists had enrolled themselves. We shall find most of his works at Florence, Madrid,
Paris, Munich, and London.
The most celebrated of Salvator Rosa's pictures is doubtless the Conspiracy of
Catiline, in the Pitti Palace. This is the name given to a picture which contains
several half-length figures of Romans. Salvator Rosa is not a great historical
painter ; he excels in battles, and still more in landscai)es and sea-pieces. This is
proved by two fine marine views in the Pitti Palace, the largest and perhaps the finest
that he ever painted, and one in the Berlin Museum, also by the large landscape in
Madrid, in which St. Jerome is introduced at study and prayer. Such a subject as this
— an uncultivated, desert country, where brambles grow by the side of sheets of water,
and where the only ornaments are a barren rock, and a trunk blasted by lightning,
suits well with the wild, dark imaginings, and the bold and capricious pencil of Salvator
Rosa. At Paris we must form the same opinion. Before the Apparition of the Spirit
of Samuel to Saul, it must be confessed that Salvator has wholly failed, and once more
through this fault of confusion in high historical subjects ; at the same time we must
acknowledge that he fully makes up for it in a simple Landscape, animated by a few
figures. Salvator feels himself at his ease, and displays his real qualities in depicting
a den of robbers, wild nature, precipitous rocks, foamy torrents, and trees bent
beneath the tempest.
In Fngland, his works are found in many private collections. The National Gallery
has a fine specimen of this artist ; it represents JAr^-z/rv a)id the dishonest Woodman (No.
84), and was formerly in the Colonna Palace at Rome. A picture — attributed to Salvator
Rosa — was bequeathed to the National (iailery b\- the late Mr. ^^ynn-Fllis in 1875.
Luca Giordano was born at Nai)lcs in 1632. lie enjoyed both in Italy and Spain
the fatal honour of marking the extreme limit between the art, of which he was the last
representative, and the decatlence which his example hastened. His fiither, one of the
numerous painters who rendered the masters the same services as marble cutters render
to sculptors, lived at Naples next door to Ribera. Showing from his earliest age a
decided inclination for painting, the little Luca passed his days in the studio of Lo
Spagnoletto. At seven years of age he painted small works, which excited the admira-
tion of the wh( le city. At sixteen he fled to Rome, where he was joined by his
ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS [a. a 1650.
father ; he afterwards travelled through Italy, visiting Florence, Bologna, Parma, and
Venice, studying under nearly every master, and in every style, becoming a universal
imitator ; thus, whilst fortifying his natural talent by such various studies, he enriched
his father, who sold for a good price the copies from the old masters, which the young
man made with wonderful perfection. Excited by this advantage, the father con-
stantly urged his son to work, repeating from morning to evening, " Luca, fa presto."
This "saying, which became well-known among artists, has since been employed to
designate Giordano, and with too much justice, — as, while it recalls the manner in
which he studied, it also expresses his highest quality and his greatest defect.
When, after having passed nine years in Spain, whither he had been sent for by the
imbecile Charles II., who had been persuaded that the greatest of painters should
serve the greatest of kings, Giordano returned to Italy. He was received with much
distinction by the Grand-duke of Tuscany, and by Pope Clement XL, who allowed him
to enter the Vatican "with his sword, cloak, and spectacles." At Naples a similar
reception awaited him, besides so many orders, that Giordano, rich and old, had no
time to enjoy before his death- that otinm cum dignitafe, the last happiness of an
illustrious man during his life. It was at this period that, one of his friends persuading
him to paint with reflection and leisure some great work for the glory of his name, he
replied, " I desire glory only in Paradise," " where," says Cean-P)ermudez, " we hope
that he entered on the 4th of January, 1705, the day on which he died, 73 years of age."
Giordano has left two large compositions in Italy, which show clearly that, with
more taste and conscientious work, he might have equalled the greatest masters,
'j'liese are the Consecration of Monte Casino, at Naples, and the Descent from the
Cross, at Venice. In all his other works there are found traces of wit, originality, and
sometimes of genius, a fresh and transparent colouring, and much fertility ; but with
all these merits, his style is commonplace, and wanting in nobility and simplicity.
Luca Giordano, so to say, flooded both Italy and Spain with his works. We could
scarcely count, much less describe, the enormous ornamental works which he painted
in the Escurial, at Ruen Retiro, in the Cathedral of Toledo, and in the chapel of the
palace at Madrid. To give an idea of the prodigious rapidity of his execution, it
suftices to say that the queen having come one day to visit Giordano in his studio, she
asked after his family. The painter replied by immediately tracing with his pencil his
wife and children on the canvas before him. The delighted queen threw round his
neck her pearl neck. ace. Besides the great works ordered for the king, the book of
Cean-Fjcrmudez gives a list of one hundred and ninety-six of his pictures in the
churches and palaces of Madrid, la (i.ranja, the Pardo, Seville, Cordova, Granada, &c.
To this must be added the pictures, impossible to enumerate, bought by amateurs.
Luca Giordano was the last of that magnificent generation of painters who had
succeeded each other in Italy since the days of Giotto. He had a number of pupils
dazzled by his easy success ; none were able to follow him in the perilous path he had
chosen ; they all lost their way. And the most celebrated among them, Matteis,
Simonelli, Rossi, Pacelli, and even Solimena, were only imitators of an imitator. Luca
Giordano destroyed, as if for his own pleasure, for the sake of a fatal agility of mind
and hand, all the last remaining protecting rules of good taste, the last entrenchments
of art. He left behind him merely a void, and his name will remain as the most
solemn demonstration of the Iruth that, besides natural gifts, an artist requires two
qualities, the one of head and the other of the heart — reflection and dignity.
C, I O R D A X O
(LucA, Fa Presto).
Pan 1 88.
A.D. 1650.] THE NATURAL/ST/ OF VENICE. 1S9
THE NATURALISTI. (VENETIAN SCHOOL.)
\\"ith the \'enetian i)ainters wlio lived during the latter part of the sixteenth and far
into the seventeenth centuries, the great schools of Italy, which had been gradually
declining, came to an end. In the eighteenth century, Canaletto and his nephew
Bellotto and his pupil (Uuudi all reached high merit as landscape painters ; and their
art vvas a foreshadowing of the more modern style which was to follow them, and
was, in many respects, deserving of much praise.
Jacopo Palma — called II Giovane to distinguish him tVom his great uncle Palma
Vecchio — was born at Venice in 1544. At the age of fifteen the Duke of Urbino
took him under his protection, and sent him to Rome, where he studied the works
of Raphael, Michelangelo and Polidoro. On his return to N'enice, Palma was much
praised by Vittoria, an architect and sculptor, who was at that time looked upon as
a fiimous critic. For some yeirs. Palma had to content himself with the third
place as an artist, for the fame of Tintoretto and Veronese was greater than his
own. \\'!ien these artists died, Palma found himself unrivalled, and thenceforth
his ])icture were mere sketches, but they still produced large sums of money. He died
at X'enice in 1628. I'hc works of Palma (riovane, of which the churches of his native
city possess the gienter part, are noticeable for the beauty of their colouring, though
Palma himself may be considered the first painter of the decadence of art in Venice.
i*lessanclro Varotari, commonly known as Padovanino from his birthi)lace,
Padua, vvas. l)orn in 1590. His father, Dario Varotari, who was a painter of little
note, died when Alessandro was (juite young. Young Varotari went to Venice, and
applied himself steadily to the study of the works of Titian ; and soon became one of
the most famous ])ainters of that time. Pie resided chiefly at Padua and Venice,
where most of his works may now be found. He died in 1650. His masterpiece
is tiie y]/(7/77V?i,'"<' af Caiia in the Academy at Venice. The National Gallery pos-
sesses a Cornelia and her children (No. 70). This painter was much praised by Lanzi,
who says of him, " he was always equal to the task of handling any subject that had
before been treated by Titian."
Sebastiano Eicci or Rizzi was born at Cividale di Eelluno in i65'9. He vvas taught
by an artist named Cer\ elli, but it is evident that he studied the works of Paul Veronese.
He was celebrated as aii artist in Venice at his time. Ricci came to Kngland during
the reign of Queen Anne, and Ins left several works in this country; some of whic li
are at Hampton Court. He painleel the hall of Burlington House and an altar-|)ieie
for the chapel of Chelsea College. He relumed to \'enice, wliere he died in 1734.
The National Gallery has one specimen of his art— a Venus sleeping (Xo. S51).
Sebastiano Ricci had a nephew, Marco Ricci, who was also celebrated as an artist.
Antonio Canal, com.nonly known as Canaletto, was born at Venice in 1697. His
father, Pernardo Canal, though of an illustrious fimily, was a scene painter, and young
Antonio followed, for some time, the same profession. He abandoned it, however,
when quite a young man, went to Rome and studied architecture and picturesque
ruins. His ne|)hew, Bellotto, accompanied him to the Papal capital^ and painted very
much in imitition of his stvle — so much so, indeed, that it is sonietimes hard to
igo
ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS [a.o. 1700.
ascertain which of the two is the painter of a work. Canaletto afterwards returned to
Venice, where he painted views of his native city till 1746, in which year he went to
England, where he executed several works which are still in this country ; eventually
in 1748 he returned to Venice, where he died in 1768.
Canaletto constituted himself portrait-painter — not of the Venetians, but of the city
of Venice. He painted its squares, churches, palaces, bridges, and the canals which
form its streets. He never leads the spectator into the interior of the buildings or into
\"ii':\v OK \m:\u:f.. — ^^\ amdnmo r\NAi.ic'r'i'i).
the life of the inhabitants. But he has left difterent views of his native city under
every aspect, with so much truth, talent, and love, that if ever the discrowned queen of
the Adriatic were to be engulfed in the marshes, she might yet be known by his pictures.
It is strange that the native country of Canaletto has not preserved any of his
works, not even the two Vim's^ which were seen there in 1739 by the president
de Brosses, and whose author he calls Carnavaletto. There is no doubt that, having the
city itself before them, the Venetians thought it useless to have views of it. We must
A.D,
1750.] THE NATURALISTI OF VENICE. 191
go^feraT^s to find a valuable ^.I^^^Z^^^^^^^^ Venice, all of the same
size, and treated with that fulness and delicacy for which their author is known. His
works are dispersed all over Europe, and are often to be found in the cabinets of
amateurs, for which they are especially adapted by the smallness of the canv;as the
beauty of the subjects, and the perfection of the execution In 1S18 the Louv
acquired one of Canaletto's masterpieces, a VicK> of the Church of the Madonna dUla
Salute, built from the designs of the architect Longheno, on the cessation of the plague m
1630. There are few pictures by this master as large as this, and still fewer as
beautiful ; perhaps no other can equal this admirable view of La Salute. It is alone
sufficient to secure a right estimation of this master.
The National Gallery possesses eight pictures by this artist-a View of Umce
(No 1-7) a Viexv onthe Grand Canal, Venice (No. 163), and six others bequeathed to
the nation by the late Mr. Wynn Ellis in 1875. one of which is the I lero of the Scuola
di San Rocco with the Maundy Thursday procession to St. Marks.
Bernardo Bellotto, who was born at N'enice about the year 1724, was the nephew
and puDil of Antonio Canaletto. He studied under his uncle in Venice and then in
Rome ' Afterwards he went to Dresden, where he was, in 1746, made a member of
the Academy, and where he was known as Count Bellotto. Dresden still possesses
twenty-five of his pictures, kept in a separate collection under the name of Canaletto.
Bellotto died at Warsaw in 1780. Owing to the similarity of their styles and to the
fact that Bellotto took the name of Canaletto, the works of the uncle and nephew have
been much confounded.
Francesco Guardi, who was another pupil of Canaletto, was born at Venice in
1712 He painted mostly in his native city, where he eventually died in 1793. The
National Gallery contains one work by this artist, a Vicii> of the Church, Campanile, and
Eiazsa,of San Marco, Venice i^o. 210). , ,, j
Francesco Guardi, even while imitating his master, is yet original and celebrated.
He surpassed Canaletto in variety and movement; he was, perhaps, the greater
painter if Canaletto was the better architect. With Guardi, in his limited but charm-
in- specialitv, terminated the great Venetian school inaugurated by Bellmi, and
rendered celebrated by Giorgione, Titian, Paul Veronese, and Sebastiano del Piombo.
Francesco Zuccherelli was born at Pitigliano, near Florence, in 1702. He studied
first under Paolo Anesi in his native town, then with Morandi, and subsequently with
Pietro Nelli at Rome. After the completion of his studies, Zuccherelli established
himself as an artist in Venice, where he soon became a renowned landscape-painter.
The engravings of his works made by WooUett gained Zuccherelli such fame in England
that in 1752 he was induced to visit this country. He soon became one of the
most popular artists of the day, and in 1768 was elected one of the original members
of the Royal Academy. In 1773 Zuccherelli, abandoning his art, left England and
returned to Florence, to spend the rest of his days in peace and seclusion ; but
on the suppression of a monastery-on the security of which he had invested his
money-by the Emperor Joseph II. of Austria, he lost all his hard-earned wealth and
was oblicred through poverty to take up again the brush which he had thrown aside in
his prosperity. Zuccherelli was much patronized by English visitors in Florence up
till the time of his death, which occurred in 1788.
192 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1450.
BOOK II.
CHAPTER I.
THE SPANISH SCHOOLS.
TN following historically the progress of the different schools of painting, it is
to the eternal glory of Italy that she appears as the instructress of all the others.
It was in Italy that Art grew to maturity without borrowing from any other
country, except, in its very early days, from the Byzantines. Other nations, inheriting
throuo-h the lessons of the great Italian masters a knowledge already mature, attained,
as it were at a bound, whatever perfection they were destined to reach. We can
hardly ever find in them either discovery, experiment, or progress ; we see no
distinction separating one age from another, but merely the difference between
individual men. There has been neither in Spain nor in France, a Cimabue, a Giotto,
a Fra Angelico, or an Antonello da Messina ; and the history of Spanish art, which
was the work almost of a single generation, without ancestors and without descendants,
may be entirely comprised within the short period of a century and a half.
In Spain, as in Italy and ancient Greece, the art of architecture preceded the
others. Before the close of the middle ages the cathedrals of Leon, St. Jago,
Tarrao-ona, Burgos, and Toledo had arisen ; besides the mosques of Cordova and
Seville converted into Christian churches after the conquest of Granada. Sculpture,
which, as it furnishes the necessary ornaments to architecture, is nearly always its
accompaniment, was signalized from the fourteenth century by interesting attempts
of native artists. A century later, Diego de Siloe, Alonzo Berruguete, Caspar Becerra,
and several others, went to Italy and brought back to their own country a knowledge
of that art which the Italians had learned from ancient statues. But the school of
painting was formed later, and from its very commencement was initiated from others.
It was about the year 1418, three years after the arrival of the Florentine, Gherardo
Stamina, in Castile, that we find the first traces of what may be termed the art of
painting. Juan Alfon, a native of Toledo, then painted the altar-screens of the old
chapel "del Sagrario," also those in the chapel of "los Reyes nuevos" in the cathedral
of Toledo. A few years later, during the reign of Juan II., there came from Florence
Dello Belli who was born about the year 1404, and from Flanders the maestro Rogel
(Roger, no doubt), who continued in Spain that artistic intercourse with other
countries which is especially useful, l)ecause art, unlike literature, is l)uund by no
A.D. 1500
,1 SPANISH SCHOOLS. 193
shackles of difference of idiom, and therefore forms a more intimate and fraternal
bond of union between nations than literature can ever do, and unites into a single
family all those who cultivate it.
Juan Sanchez de Castro, about the year 1450, founded the earliest school of
Seville, from which were to emerge the greatest names of Spanish painting ; and five
years later, admiration was excited in Castile by the purer forms and the higher
style shown in the large altar-screen of the hospital of Buitrago by the maestro
Jorge Ingles, who, from the flict that his christian name was then uncommon in Spain,
and also from his surname, is supposed to have been an Englishman. At the close
of tiic century, when Christopher Columbus was starting to discover another world,
Antonio del Rincou, the painter of the Catholic kings— who was born at Guadalaxara
about the year 1446, lived chiefly at Toledo, and died in 1500, and who is supposed
to have studied at Florence under Andrea del Castagno and Ghirlandajo— Pedro
Berruguete, a native of Paredes de Nava, who was father of the great sculptor, architect
and painter, Alonso, and who died in Madrid in 1 500, Inigo de Comontes, a pupd of
Rincon, and several others, stimulated by the example of the foreigner, John 01
Burgund)-, began to adorn the walls of the cathedral of Toledo with their works, whilst
Fernando Gallegos, who was born at Salamanca about 1475, imitated Albrecht Durer
without having either studied or known him. Gallegos died in 1550. (?)
But these attempts only became an art when commerce and w;ir had opened
constant communications between Italy and Spain. When Charles V. united the two
peninsulas under the same government, and founded the vast empire which extended
from Naples to Antwerp, Italy had just attained the zenith of her glory and splendour.
Leonardo da Vinci, Txlichelangelo, Raphael, Titian, and Correggio had produced
their incomparable masterpieces. On the other hand, the capture of Granada, the
discovery of America, and the enterprises of Charles V. had just aroused in Spain
that intellectual movement which follows great commotions and impels a nation into
a career of conquests of every kind. At the first news of the treasures to be found
in Italy— in the churches, in the studios of the artists, and in the palaces of the
nobles— all the Spaniards interested in art, either as their profession or from love of it
for its own sake, flocked to the country of so many mar\els, richer in their eyes
than Peru or Mexico where numbers of adventurers were then hastening, eager to
acciuire more material riches.
Only choosing the most illustrious, and those merely who distinguished themselves
in painting, we find among those who left Castile for Italy, Alonso Berruguete,
Caspar Becerra, Navarrete el Mudo ; from Valencia, Juan Joanes and Francisco
Ribalta ; from Seville, Luis de Vargas ; from Cordova, the learned Pablo de Cespedes.
All these eminent men brought back to their own country the taste for art and the
knowledge which they had studied under Italian masters. At the same time, foreign
artists, attracted to Spain by th*e bounty of its kings, prelates, and nobles, came to
complete the work begun by the Spaniards who had studied abroad. Whilst at Burgos,
Philip Vagarni, and at Granada, Torregiano— the illustrious and unfortunate rival
of Michelangelo— as well as other sculptors, decorated the basilicas and royal
sepulchres with their works, i)ainters in great numbers settled in the principal cities.
At Seville, the Fleming, Peter of Champagne, who was called Peilro Campana ;
at Toledo', Isaac de Helle and Kl Greco (Domenico Theotocopuli) ; at Madrid,
Antonio More of Utrecht, Patricio Cajesi, Castello el Bergamasco. Antonio Rizi,
Bartolommeo Carducci, and his young brother Vincenzo.
194 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1500.
This intercourse with "foreign countries had, if we may use such an expression,
imported art into Spain. Schools were formed. At first timid and humble imitators
of their Italian masters, by degrees they became bolder and freer ; they emancipated
themselves from their servitude, asserted their nationality, and showing both the good
and bad qualities of their country, attained at length to independence and originality
of style, and then to boldness and fire, perhaps even beyond reasonable limits. This
was almost the same course that Art had followed in Italy, passing from the Florentine-
Roman school, form, to the Venetian, colour, then to the Bolognese, effect, imitation
of nature, and a mixture of the others.
Four principal schools were formed in Spain, not successively, as those in Italy,
but almost simultaneously. These were the schools of Valencia, Toledo, Seville, and
Madrid. But the two first were soon merged into the others. The school of Valencia,
which had been founded by Juan Joanes, and rendered famous by Ribera and the
Ribaltas, was united like the smaller schools of Cordova, Granada, and Murcia, to the
parent school of Seville ; whilst that of Toledo, as well as the local schools of Badajoz,
Saragossa, and Valladolid were merged in the school of Madrid, when that country-
town had become the capital of the monarchy through the will of Philip II., and had
carried off all supremacy from the ancient capital of the Goth.
There remained, then, Seville and Madrid, Andalusia and Castile. With Luis de
Vargas, Villegas de Marmolejo, and Pedro Campana, all pupils of Italy, begins the
brilliancy of the school of Seville, which was afterwards carried to greater perfection
through the example of the Valencian, Juan Joanes. It increased, rose, and became
Spanish with Juan de las Roelas, the Castillos, Herrera el Viejo, Pacheco and Pedro
de Moya, who brought to it from London the lessons of Vandyck ; at last it attained
its maturity and produced the masterpieces of Spanish art under Velasquez, who left
Seville for Madrid, as Ribera had left Valencia for Naples, Alonso Cano, Zurbaran,
and, lastly, Murillo, who carried it to its greatest beauty, but who left behind him only
feeble copyists, without pupils or followers. At Madrid the school passed through the
same phases. Berruguete and Becerra, rather sculptors than painters ; the Navarrete
el Mudo, a true painter, all three disciples of Italy, and assisted by the Fleming,
Antonio More ; then the families of Castello, Rizi, and Carducci, all of Italian parentage,
who taught Sanchez Coello, Pantoja de la Cruz, Bereda, CoUantes, all assisted to
found and render illustrious the school of Castile to which the great Velasquez had
just united the school of Andalusia. From the union of these schools were formed
Pareja and Carreno, who, while living at Madrid, appear still to belong to Seville.
Claudio Coello, the last of these generations of artists, died at the time when Luca
Giordano arrived in Spain, and with him perished the whole race. Afterwards, at the
latter end of the eighteenth century, we only find one other striking painter ; and he,
though powerful, is singular and fantastic, without master and without pupils, Francisco
Goya.
A.D. 1 5 SO.] SCHOOL OF VALENCIA. 195
I
CHAPTER II.
SCHOOL OF VALENCIA.
T is only right tliat this school should be mentioned before those of Andalusia and
Castile, for it was esi)ecially through it that the lessons of Italy came to Spain.
Vicente Juan Macip, called Juan Joanes, was born at Fuente de Higuera, in
1523. It is supposed that when studying at Rome he took a fancy, then rather
common, to latinise one of his names, and to make it his painter's surname. Of this
generation of Spanish artists, formed by contact with the Italians, the first is Joanes,
and the last Murillo. We see from this, how important are the works of Joanes, which
are everywhere rare, except in Madrid. In the Museo del Rey, we may distinguish
a Christ bearing the Cross, whicli is an evident, though not servile, imitation of
Raphael's Spasimo; a Martyrdofn of St. Agnes, which not even that by Domenichino
must make us forget ; an enormous Last Supper, which would have been called an
admirable work but for Leonardo da Vinci having chosen the same subject ; and
lastly, a series of six pictures relating, like the cantos of a poem, the Life of St. Stephen ;
an excellent work.
At the first glance, we may recognise in Joanes a direct pupil of the Roman school.
Nevertheless, he did not study under Raphael, as he was born in 1523, and Raphael
died in 1520; but he studied his works and under his immediate disciples, such as
Giulio Romano, il Fattore, or Perino del Vaga. Notwithstanding his importance as
the leader of this school, and his merit as an artist, Juan Joanes is still almost unknown
out of Spain, and is not very popular even there. The reason of this is, that being of
an almost ascetic piety, and preparing himself for the execution of every picture by
taking the sacrament, Joanes lived as a hermit, far from the crowd and from the
Court. He did not paint royal features, and poets did not make sonnets in his praise ;
during his lifetime his works never crossed the seas addressed to foreign princes ; and,
since his death, they have not loaded the waggons of conquering generals. He died
at Bocairente in 1579. Joanes left a son who was an artist — -but of no great merit.
After Joanes, there appeared at Valencia two painters, father and son, so alike in
style and manner that it was said indifferently of their works : " It is by the Ribaltas "
{es de los Ribaltas).
Francisco de Ribalta has left the greater number of works, because he lived seventy-
seven years, and his son only thirty-one. Francisco was born at Castellon de la
Plana in 155 1. He learned his art first at Valencia. Init subsequently perfected
196 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1C25.
his style by studying the great masterpieces in Italy, especially Raphael and the Carracci.
On his return to Spain, Ribalta was much honoured and patronized, and his works
have since been highly praised. His pictures are chiefly to be seen in Valencia, and
rarely to be met with out of Spain. Sir W. Stirling says, " His best pictures are
remarkable for grandeur and freedom of drawing, and for the good taste in composition,
and the knowledge of anatomy which they display." A picture of Christ bearing the
Cross in Magdalene College, Oxford, formerly attributed to Morales, is said to be by
one of the Ribaltas. This ardst died at Valencia in 1628.
Juan de Ribalta, the son of the preceding artist, was born at Valencia in 1597.
He painted, at the early age of eighteen, a most praiseworthy composition representing
the Crucifixion, which is now in the Museum of Valencia. There is no doubt but that
if Juan de Ribalta had lived to maturity he would have been an excellent artist. He
died soon after his father in 1628, only thirty-one years old. In the Museum at
Madrid may be found the Fonr Evajigelists, a Dead Christ, sustained by angels, and
a St. Francis of Assisi, whom an -angel is consoling and filling with holy ecstasy by
playing on his celestial lute ; but it is not specified to which of the two Ribaltas
these compositions belong.
Josef de Ribera was born at Xafiva in 1589. When quite young, he was the pupil
of Francisco Ribalta and a fellow-student with Juan.
It is said that in the beginning of the seventeenth century a cardinal, passing
through the streets of Rome in his carriage, perceived a young man, scarcely beyond
childhood, who though clothed in rags, and having by his side a few crusts of bread
given him out of charity, was yet with profound attention drawing the frescoes on the
fagade of a palace. Struck with pity at the sight, the cardinal called the boy, took
him to his own house, clothed him decently, and admitted him as a sort of dependent
of the family. He learnt that his young protege was named Giuseppe de Ribera ; that
he was born at Xativa (now San Felipe), near Valencia; that his parents had early
sent him to that provincial capital to study at the university, but that his irresistible
inclination had led him to prefer the studio of Francisco Ribalta to his classes ; that
he had made such rapid progress that he had soon been chosen to assist his master ;
but that then a passion had arisen in him to study art at its fountain head ; and, no
longer thinking of anything but Rome and its marvels, he had abandoned family,
friends, and country, and had at last arrived in that capital of the artistic as well as
of the religious world. There, without any means of support, making the street his
studio, and a milestone his easel, copying the statues, the frescoes, and the passers-by,
he lived on the charity of his comrades, who called him, for want of another name,
" Lo Spagnoletto." But Ribera could not be condemned to the idleness of the
antechamber of a prince of the church. One day throwing off his livery and resuming
his rags, he fled from the cardinal's house to recommence joyously his life of poverty
and independence.
Of all the great works that surrounded him, those that. Ribera admired with the
greatest enthusiasm, because they best answered the instincts of his own genius, were
the paintings of the proud and fiery Caravaggio. There, in the violent effects of chiaro-
scuro, the young Spaniard beheld the greatest prodigies of art ; he obtained admission
to the studio of this master, but he could not have received his lessons long, as
Caravaggio died in 1609, when Ribera was only twenty. He then left Rome, and
went to Parma, where he was attracted by the great renown of Correggio. Before his
THE DEPOSITION FROM THE CRO^t; i< d ,t ^
IW.U IML LKUbb. Ly RiBEKA. (Il SpAGNOI-ETTO).
/« (Ite Carthusian Convent. Naples.
A.D. 1 625.] SCHOOL OF VALENCIA. 197
works a fresh enthusiasm seized Ribera. He began to study them with a sort of
frenzy, and, laying aside his former touch, which was strong and violent, he threw
himself into the opposite extreme, endeavouring to make his style as soft, tender, and
delicate as that of his new master.
Soon afterwards Ribera settled at Naples, and married the daughter of a rich
picture-dealer : there he had only to work hard, finding in the profession of his father-
in-law an easy means of making his name and his paintings known. A singular
circumstance helped to found his reputation suddenly. The house he occupied with
his wife's fomil)' was situated in the same square as the palace of the Viceroy. One
day, according to tlie Italian custom, his father-in-law had placed on the balcony,
for public exhibition, a Martyrdom of St. Bartholomew, which Ribera had just
completed. A crowd, attracted by the sight of this magnificent work, soon covered
the square, making the air resound with cries of enthusiasm. The noise became such,
that it was believed there was a popular outbreak, and that a Masaniello was
haranguing the people. The Viceroy, Don Pedro Giron, Duke of Ossuna, came out
armed, saw the cause of the disorder, admired the picture, and ordered the artist to
appear before him. His joy was so great to find in him a fellow-countryman, that he
made him painter to the Court, with a monthly salary of fifty doubloons, and gave
him apartments in his own palace.
The ragged student of the streets of Rome had thenceforth attained the summit
of fortune ; he possessed both riches and authority. He became soon the most
opulent and luxurious of artists, the equal of nobles and princes, and at Naples he
continued to live until he died "full of wealth and honour" in 1656.
Although he painted all his pictures in Italy,. Ribera is thoroughly Spanish ; he
never forgot his birth, and, indeed, showed himself so proud of it, that in signing
his best pictures he never failed to add to the words " Giuseppe de Ribera" Espailol.
The paintings of Ribera, like those of the Italian artists, are scattered throughout
the whole of Europe : but Naples has retained some of his principal works. It was
for the Carthusian Convent, called San jNIartino, that Ribera painted his great work,
the Communion of the Apostles ; twelve Prophets on the windows of the different
chapels ; and, lastly, the Descent from the Cross, which is almost unanimously said
to be his masterpiece. Here we may find, beside the qualities enumerated above,
much pathos and expression, and a power of feeling which is not usually to be met
with in his works ; so that this picture seems to unite to the fiery energy of Caravaggio
not only the grace of Correggio, but the religious fervour of Fra Angelico.
In the museum " degli Studj " two of Ribera's works have been placed in the room
of the " Capi d'Opera :" St. Jerome in the desert, listening to the trumpet of the
angel, and the large picture of Sileniis, in which the foster-fother of Bacchus is l}-ing
on the ground, receiving drink from the satyrs who surround him. At the bottom
of this picture may be read the following inscription : " Josephus a Ribera, Hispanus
Valentinus et coacademicus Romanus, faciebat Parthenope, 1626." This long
inscription is traced on a scroll, which a serpent seems to bite and tear. How
could Ribera complain of envy, or represent himself as its \ictim, when he was
rich, honoured and powerful, and when he himself carried his jealousy even to
ferocity? It was, indeed, in his own house that the "fazzioni de' pittori," those
coteries of painters, were formed, which deserve the name of factions, because they
made war on rival schools, even with the dagger. The faction of Naples, which had
Ril^era at its head, numbered am.ong its members " bravi," such as Correnzio and
198 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [ad. 1650.
Caracciolo, who maintained the superiority of their master at the sword's point, and
permitted the entry of the city to no painter who did not belong to his school.
Annibale Carracci and Guido were obliged to fly, in order to escape the blows of this
brotherhood of a new order ; and when Domenichino died before he was able to reach
Rome, rumours of poisoning prevailed. Such outrages cannot be too severely condemned.
In the Louvre there is only one of Ribera's works— an Adoration of the ShepJm-ds —
and, although it is very beautiful, it is insufficient to make him known, because it is not
in his usual style, and he shows himself in it less as the continuer of Caravaggio than
as the imitator of Correggio.
The Museo del Rey, at Madrid, is more fortunate in having a great number of his
works, and in all his styles. If we wish to see him employing the calm, soft style
of Correo-gio, we have only to look at Jacob's Ladder^ an excellent specimen of the
second phase of his life. Of his latter style, when he returned to the natural bent
of his genius, we find the Tioelve Apostles — a valuable series of expressive heads,
in which may be seen every age, from the youthful St. John, the beloved disciple,
to the old St. James the Great; a striking Mary the Egyptian; a St. James and
St. Roch, magnificent pendants brought from the Escurial ; and lastly, a Martyrdom
of St. Bartholomeiu, the most celebrated of his paintings of this terrible subject. Here
he has shown as much talent in composition and power of expression, in the union
of grief and beatitude, as incomparable force in the execution.
The Academy of Fine Arts at Madrid has several other works by Ribera, among
which are two very singular full-length portraits in one frame which deserve great
attention. The National Gallery possesses two — a Pieta and a Shepherd with a lamb.
Jacinto Jeronimo de Espinosa was born at Cocentayna near Valencia in 1600.
He worked under Francisco Ribalta, whose style he successfully acquired. He is
reported also to have gone to Italy to study the works of the great masters. In 1622
Espinosa painted a Christ of the Rescue for the convent of Santa Tecla, in Valencia,
in which city he married and settled shortly afterwards; and in 1680 he died there.
The museum and galleries of Valencia contain the greater part of his pictures. We
may mention a series in San Estevan, the chapel of San Luis Belthran, painted in
gratitude for the preservation which that saint had vouchsafed to Espinosa and his
family during the plague in 1647.
Pedro Orrente, who was born at Montealegre in Murcia, is said by some writers to
have visited Italy and studied under Giacomo Bassano. It is doubtful whether he was
the pupil of that artist, but he certainly imitated his style. Orrente was much patro-
nized by the Duke of Olivarez, for whom he executed some works in the Palace of the
Buen Retiro. He painted landscape and mythical as well as biblical subjects.
Works by him are in most of the large cities of Spain. Orrente died at Toledo in 1644.
Esteban March, who was born at Valencia at the end of the sixteenth century, was
a pupil of Orrente. As an artist March distinguished himself principally in painting
battle-scenes, and it is said that he used to fence against the wall, with cut and thrust,
like a second Don Quixote, in order to heat his imagination. He died in 1660.
Madrid and Valencia possess most of his pictures. This artist left a son, Miguel
March, who was a fair painter. He lived from 1633 to 1670.
lOSKF DK Rir.KRA.
Page 1 98.
A.D. I550.] SCHOOL OF ANDALUSIA. 199
T
CHAPTER III.
SCHOOL OF ANDALUSIA.
WO local schools, as we have already said, arose about the same time as that of
Seville, one at Cordova, the other at Granada. Let us choose the most
illustrious masters from each.
Luis de Vargas was born at Seville in 1502. He was a pupil of Diego de la
Barrera, and afterwards of Perino del Vaga, and had the distinguished honour of being
the first to introduce and teach in his own country the true method of oil and fresco
painting. It was he who substituted the Renaissance art for the Gothic. Vargas passed
twenty-eight years in Italy, but eventually died at his native city in 1568. When settled
in Seville he completed several large works — chiefly in fresco, the greater part of which
have, however, unfortunately perished. Amongst other celebrated pictures by Vargas,
there was La Calk de la Amargura {Way of Bitterness), which has since disappeared,
owing to the injuries it received from time and unskilful restorations. Vargas painted
it in 1563 on the steps of the church of San Pablo. It was there that people con-
demned by the Inquisition were permitted to stop on their way to punishment : on
this account it was called the Christ of the Criminals {El Cristo de los Azotados).
Another painting, the Temporal Generation of Christ, which is in the chapel of the
Conception in the Cathedral of Seville, has been much praised, especially one of
Adam's legs, on which account the picture goes by the name of La Gamba.
Pablo de Cespedes was born at Cordova in 1538. He was not merely a painter;
his was one of those gifted minds which are cai)able of grasping everything — science,
literature, and the fine arts — and which only foil in attaining to the first rank by
dividing their labour and intellect amongst several pursuits of equally difficult attain-
ment, instead of bringing their whole powers to bear on one class of subjects. On
leaving the university, Cespedes set out for Rome, was charmed with the works of
Michelangelo, felt a fresh impulse, and resolved to cultivate the arts, although without
abandoning the culture of letters. Provided on his return from Italy, with a canonry
in the chapter of Cordova, he did not again leave his native town, and gave up his
time peacefully to the different studies to which his taste and knowledge led him.
This eminent man possessed a thorough knowledge of Italian, Latin, and Greek, and
was able to converse in Hebrew and Arabic. Such a knowledge of languages, then
rare, gave him great assistance in his labours of pure erudition. Amongst his works of
this kind may be mentioned a dissertation on the cathedral of Cordova, tending to
200 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS, [a.d. 1600.
prove that this beautiful mosque was built in the latter half of the eighth century, by
Abderrahman I., the founder of the Ommeyade dynasty in Spain, and of the Caliphate
of Cordova. This mosque, which is the most precious religious monument left us of
the Arabs, occupied precisely the place of the temple of Janus, built by the Romans
after the conquest and pacification of Iberia. The best literary work of Cesped'es is
the one he wrote in 1604, the title of which is, 'Parallel between Ancient and Modern
Painting and Sculpture.' Without any acquaintance with Vasari's book, which was
written about the same time, he gives interesting details about the Florentine painters
from Cimabue to Michelangelo ; he also gives descriptions, taken from Pliny, of
some works of the Greeks, and then ingeniously compares these with the works of
Raphael, Michelangelo, Titian, Correggio, and the masters of his own time.
Cespedes, not content with being a learned painter, became also a poet. He
celebrated in beautiful verses the praises of the art whose history he had written, and in
which he had himself acquired great celebrity. We must all regret that he was unable
to complete his ' Poem on Painting,' some precious fragments of which have been
preserved by Pacheco. It would probably have been the best poem that has been
written on the fine arts, and superior in grandeur of conception, elevation of ideas, and
beauty of language, both to the Latin poem of Dufresnoy, and to those in French by
Lemierre and Watelet.
Pacheco says of Cespedes : " He was a great imitator of the beautiful style of
Correggio, and one of the finest colourists in Spain." "If Cespedes," adds Antonio
Ponz, " instead of being the friend of Federigo Zuccaro, could have been the friend of
Raphael, he would have become one of the greatest painters in the world, as he was
one of the most learned." Cean-Bermudez admired " the elegance of his drawing, the
force of his figures, his knowledge of anatomy, his skill in foreshortening, the brilliancy
of his colouring, ajid especially that power of invention which he never needed to
borrow from others." The most famous picture by Cespedes is an enormous Last
Supper placed over the altar in one of the chapels with which the Christians have
disfigured the old Arab mosques, where the great Mussulman dogma of the Unity of
God had formerly prevailed. Almost all the other works of Cespedes, the names of
which are preserved, have entirely disappeared, without our even knowing where to
look for them. They were nearly all in the church attached to the Jesuit College at
Cordova, and it would appear that at the time of the suppression of this order by
Charles III. these pictures were carried away, never to return. They were, doubtless,
not destroyed ; but as Cespedes was not known beyond his own country, it is probable
that commerce would pass them under other names than his. This artist died in the
year 1608 at his birthplace, and was buried in the cathedral of that town.
Alonso Vazquez, who was born at Ronda in the middle of the sixteenth century,
studied in the school of Arfian, at Seville, and was chiefly famous for his historical
subjects. He was one of the artists who in 1598 painted the catafalque for the burial
of Philip II. A part of the series of paintings from the Life of St. Raymo?id is
in the Museum of Seville, which city contains many of his works. It is not known
when Viizquez's death took place — probably about 1630.
Juan de las Roelas was born at Seville about the year 1560. He lost his father
■ — who Bermudez tells us was an admiral — when he was but six years old. Young Juan
was brought up for the profession of a doctor, and graduated at the College of Seville,
whence lie is often called " el licenciado Juan." He is su]:)posed to have studied art
A.n. 1600.] SCHOOL OF ANDALUSIA. 201
at Venice. He lived, latterly, chiefly at Madrid and Seville. In 161 6 he competed
—though unsuccessfully— for the appointment of cabinet-painter to Philip III. His
more fortunate opponent was Bartolome Gonzalez. In 1624 Roclas removed t<i
Olivares, where he was made a canon of the College ; and where he died in the follow
ing year. Roelas, one of the best painters of the Andalusian school, brought, to his
fellow-countrymen from Italy, the gift of Venetian colouring, which he had studied
under the i)upils of Titian and Tintoretto. We might, indeed, almost believe that
it was Bonifazio, or one of the Palmas, who painted, in the Cathedral, Santiago
Mata-Moros ass/st///g the Spaniards at the Battle rf Clavijo ; at the church of the
Cardinal's hos[)ice, the Death of St. Ihrmeneoild : in the church Santa Lucia, the
Martyrdom of the patron saint ; and, lasdy, over the high altar of Sant' Isidor,
the Death of the arebbishop of Seville, now in a very imperfect state. This is the
largest of all his works, for it covers the whole screen. It is divided into two
l)arts, heaven and earth, and this was the first example of that style of composi-
tion so often imitated by all the school. Roelas was the instructor of the flimous
Zurbaran.
Francisco Pacheco was born at Seville in 157 1. His instructor in painting was
Luis Fernandez, and his experience of art was confined entirely to Spain. In 1594
appeared his first great works ; they were two standards for the Spanish fleets of New
Spain and Terrafirma, and were painted in oil on damask and represented the Arms
of Castile, and St. lago. In 1598, Pacheco was employed with other artists to paint
decorations in the cathedral of Seville, in connection with the funeral of Philip II.
In 1600, he painted in the Convent of Mercy, scenes from the Life of St. Raymond, in
competition with Alonso Vazquez. In 161 1, he visited Toledo and Madrid, and the
Escurial, where he saw the works of the famous Spanish and Italian artists. On his
return to Seville, Pacheco oi)ened an academy for imparting instruction to young
artists, and in which, if report be true, he improved his own style. In 16 13-4, he
jjainted for the nuns of the convent of St. Isabel an immense altar-piece, representing
the Last Judgment, which has since perished. Among his pupils in this school,
were his son-in-law, Velasquez and Alonso Cano. In 1618 the Inquisition appointed
Pacheco one of the guardians of the public morals, in which capacity he was respon-
sible for the sale of any i)icture in whicli the human figure was represented naked.
On account of the absurdly extreme measures adoi)ted by the Inquisition to preserve
morality, all nude figures (either by Spanish or foreign artists) were banished to the
" Galeria Reservada," admission to which was obtained with great difticulty. In 1623
Pacheco paid a second visit to Madrid, where he remained but two years. He re-
turned to Seville in 1625, at which place he chiefly resided until his death in 1654. As
an artist, Pacheco excelled in portrait painting ; a Portrait of St. Inez is in the Gallery
of the Queen of Spain. Pacheco, Cean-Bermudez tells us, was the first man in Seville
who i^roperly gilded and painted statues. He was also the first to paint the back-
grounds and figures of bassi relievi. Pacheco was rather a man of letters than a
painter ; he wrote a treatise on the " Arte de la Pintura," and his house soon became,
as one of its visitors said, " the usual academy of the most cultivated minds of Seville
and the provinces." Pacheco had a curious picture gallery; he had collected more
tlian three hundred i)ortraits, of a small size, either in oil or drawn in reil and black
chalks, of all the men of any distinction who had ever visited at his house. Among
this number were Cervantes, Qucvedo, Herrera the poet. etc. But, notwithstanding
2 D
ILLUSTRATED HLSTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1630.
his continual study, notwithstanding the care with which he prepared his pictures by
a number of cartoons, Pacheco could ne\er rise above a cold correctness, without
life or passion.
Francisco de Herrera— commonly called "El Viejo " (the Elder) to distinguish
him from his son, who bore the same christian name— was bom at Seville in 1576.
He studied painting under Luis Fernandez, and, disdaining to be a servile imitator
of his master, he soon became one of the most original artists of his time in Spain.
Herrera lived most of his life in Seville, but in 1650 he removed to Madrid, in which
city he died in 1656. Francisco de Herrera was so gloomy and violent that he passed
nearly his whole life in solitude, and was abandoned by all his pupils— amongst whom
was the celebrated Velasquez,— and even by his own children. He painted his pictures,
as he did everything else, in a sort of frenzy. He used reeds to draw with, and large
brushes to paint with. Armed in this manner, he executed important Avorks with
incredible dexterity and promptitude. The tradition which Cean-Bermudez heard
at Seville states that, when he had many works on hand, and no pupil to assist him,
he charged an old servant, the only human being he could keep in his house, to put
the first layer of colour on his pictures. This woman took the colours with a tow-
brush, and smeared them on the canvas almost at random ; then Herrera continued
the work, and drew from this chaos draperies, limbs, and faces. This harshness of
temper and native coarseness threw Herrera entirely out of the timid style which
the imitation of the Roman school had given to his predecessors. He adopted the
more fiery style of the Bolognese, or, rather, he formed a new style for himself,
quite personal and better adapted to the undisciplined genius of his nation. The
enormous Last Judgment wliich he painted for the church of San Bernardo, at Seville,
where it still hangs, proves that Herrera was not merely a painter from habit, with
his hand better endowed than his head ; we see that he also possessed the true science
of the art, besides correctness of drawing, profound and varied expression, and grandeur
in strength. His frescoes, too, on the cupola of San Buena Ventura at Seville
are worthy of great praise : of these pictures Herrera made various etchings.
Juan del Castillo — the younger brother of Augustin del Castillo, a painter of no
great note — was born at Seville in 1584. He studied art under Luis Fernandez,
and soon became famous as a historical painter. He is more renowned as a teacher
of painters than as an artist. He can boast of having imparted instruction to Pedro
de Moya, to Alonso Cano, and even to the great Murillo. He died at Cadiz in
1640.
Francisco Zurbaran was born of parents who were simple labourers in the town
of Fuente de Cantos in Estremadura in 1598. He belongs to the Andalusian school,
because he studied under Roelas at Seville, and passed his whole life there. He only
once, when very old, went to Madrid, and then returned to his native province to
paint eight large pictures, representing the History of St. Jerome, for the church in
the little town of Guadalupe, between Toledo and Caceres. In 1625 he painted for
the Marquis of Malazon some scenes from the Life of St. Peter., for the chapel dedi-
cated to that saint in the Seville Cathedral. About the same time, too, he painted his
famous St. Thomas Aquinas.
In 1630 Zurbaran was invited to Madrid, and was soon afterwards appointed painter
to Philip IV. ; he signs himself thus as early as 1633. In 1650, the monarch employed
him to paint the Lai ours of Hercules in the ]:)alace of Buen Retiro. It is said that the
FRANCISCO DE ZURBARAN.
Page 203,
1650.] SCHOOL OF ANDALUSIA.
king one day, on visiting the artist at work, was so much pleased with the picture on
which he was engaged, that he addressed him as " painter of the king, and king of
painters." Zurbaran continued to paint for PhiHp IV. until his death in 1662.
It is universally acknowledged that the best of Zurbaran's compositions, that in which
all his good points are united and where there is greatest display of talent, is the .S7.
Thomas Aquinas, which he painted for the church of the College of that saint at Seville,
placed under the patronage of the celebrated author of the ' Summa Theologize.'
This picture is now in the Museum of Seville, which gallery possesses the best collection
of his works. Christ and the Virgin are above in glory with St. Paul and St. Dominic ;
in the centre is St. Thomas standing, surrounded by the four doctors of the Latin
Church seated on the clouds ; lower down in an attitude of devotion and admiration,
on one side Charles V., clothed in the imperial mantle, with a cortege of knights ; on
the other, the Archbishop Deza, the founder of the college, with a suite of monks and
attendants. Several of his works have been recently scattered throughout Europe :
some were at Paris in the little Spanish museum formed by Louis Philippe, and were
dispersed after his death. (There were as many as ninety-two attributed to him in the
catalogues.) In the collection of the Pardo at Madrid there are fourteen pictures
attributed to Zurbaran. In England, the National Gallery, in which the ajtists of
Spain are so poorly represented, has but one picture by this artist. It is a portrait of a
Franciscan Monk (No. 230), and was formerly in the Spanish collection of Louis
Philippe, where it was much admired by Kolloff and other writers. In the Duke of
Sutherland's collection at Stafford House, there is a fine specimen of Zurbaran, a
Madonna and Child with the Infant St. John.
Zurbaran has been called the " Spanish Caravaggio," but if he deserved this name,
it was not by the fire of his pencil, or by an exaggerated seeking after eftect ; for
he is colder and more reserved, though, at the same time, noisier and more correct,
than Caravaggio. If Zurbaran resemble Caravaggio, it is through his frequent use of
bluish tints, which sometimes predominate so much in his pictures as to make them
appear as if seen througli a veil slightly tinged with blue ; and also from his deep
knowledge of his art, and happy use of light and shade. This is the real point of
resemblance between the two masters. As for the nature of the subjects — except a
small number of large compositions which were ordered of him — Zurbaran preferred
simple ones, easy of comprehension, and requiring only a small number of
personages, whom he always placed in perfectly natural attitudes. Yet he never
l)ainted comic or popular scenes, as Velasquez and Murillo sometimes did ; nor
strange and grotesque ones, like Ribera. He painted some female saints, and has
given them attractions and grace ; but severe reUgious feeling always predominates
with him. No one, indeed, has expressed better than Zurbaran the rigours of an
ascetic life, and the austerity of the cloister ; no one has shown better than he,
under the girdle of rope and the thick hood, the attenuated forms and pale heads
of the cenobites, devoted to mortification and prayer, who in the words of Buffon,
when their last hour arrives, " do not cease to live, but succeed in dying."
Among his scholars were Bernahe de Ayala and the two brothers Polanco.
Alonso Cano, who was born at Granada in 1601, has been termed the "Spanish
Michelangelo." This is merely because he practised the three arts which are especially
called " fine." He was a painter, sculptor, and architect. Like Michelangelo, he was
a better sculptor than painter, but his only works in architecture were those heavy
204 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. . [a.d. 1650.
church decorations called " retablos " (church screens), which he not only designed,
but for which he himself made all the ornaments, either statues or pictures. Alonso
Cano li\ed for some time at Seville, afterwards at Madrid, and towards the close
of his life at Granada, his birthplace, and, provided with a rich benefice, tranquilly
passed the last years of a life which had been agitated by travels, passions, and
adventures. He died in 1667 "in a manner highly exemplary and edifying to
those about him." Cano left seven of his works to the Museum of Madrid.
Amongst these are a St. John writing the Apocalypse ; the Dead Christ nioiirued
by an Angel, and a fine Portrait. As a painter, he has been — not unjustly —
called the " Spanish Albani," for, contrary to what might have been expected from his
passionate temper, the principal characteristics of his works are softness and suavity.
By a skilful arrangement of draperies he makes the outline of the form they cover
sufficiently marked. He also took so much care in the execution of hands and feet —
always a great difficulty — that on this account alone his works might be distinguished
from any other painter of his country. Less fiery and powerful than Ribera, less
profound and less brilliant than Murillo, he takes a middle place between these two
masters, being correct, elegant, and full of grace. The works of Cano are to be found
in most Spanish towns.
Antonio del Castillo, the son of Augustin del Castillo — and the nephew of Juan
del Castillo — was born at Cordova in 1603, He studied first under his father, and,
after his father's decease, with Francisco Zurbaran. Castillo painted chiefly at Cordova,
which city possesses many of his works. He was an intensely proud and conceited
man, and thought no one's work was as good as his own ; but in 1666 he Avent to
Seville, where, on seeing the works of Murillo he is said to have exclaimed. Yd
niuritb Castillo I (" Castillo is dead ! ") and to have, from that time, given himself
up to despair. This hastened his death, which took place at Cordova in 1667. As
an artist, Castillo is good in design and composition, but his colouring is faulty.
Francisco Varela, who was born at Seville about the beginning of the seventeenth
century, was one of the best of Roe'las' pupils. He is known to have painted as early
as 16 18. Varela executed chiefly historical subjects. Bermudez praises the correct-
ness of his drawing and his Venetian-like colouring. The churches and convents
in and near Seville possess most of his works, of which we may mention a Last Supper
in the church of San Bernardo, without the walls of the city. Varela died, according
to Palomino, at his native Seville in 1656.
Pedro de Moya was born at Granada in 1610. He was at first a pupil of Juan
de Castillo, but he enlisted in the Flemish army, though he still continued to practise art.
Having seen and admired the works of Vandyck in the Low Countries, Moya, in
1 641, went to London in order to study under the great artist, who unfortunately
died a few months after his arrival, Moya then returned to Granada, where he
executed several works of merit. He died at his birthplace in 1666. The Louvre
possesses an Adoration of the Shepherds by this artist.
Bartolom^ Esteban Murillo, the most renowned painter of the Spanish school, was
born at SeviUe, and baptized on the ist of January, 16 18. He passed a melancholy
youth in ignorance and neglect. A certain Juan del Castillo, a distant relation, gave
him, out of charity, his first lessons in an art, in which he was to find fortune and
renown. But Murillo soon lost this teacher, who went to live in Cadiz, and for a long
time he had no master but himself Deprived of an intelligent guide and of all regular
A.u. 1650.J MURILLO.
study, obliged to live by his pencil before he had learned to use it, never having had
an opportunity of learning his own powers, and only knowing art as a trade, Murillo
was at first merely a sort of wholesale painter. He daubed on small squares of canvas
or wood those Madonnas crushing the serpent's head, which were called the Madonnas
of Guadalupe ; he sold them by the dozen for one or two piastres each, according to
their size, to the captains of American shijjs, who carried this merchandise, alono- with
indulgences, to the recently-converted populations of Mexico and Peru. This sort of
work, however, by teaching him how to handle his brush, toned down his colouring,
which became soft and artificial, instead of being hard.
Murillo was already twenty-four years old when the painter Pedro de Moya passed
through Seville on his return from London to Granada, bringing copies of Vandyck,
of whom he had received a few lessons. At the sight of the works of Moya,
Murillo was in ecstasies, and felt his true vocation. It was the spark required to light
the fire of genius. But what was he to do? Moya was leaving for Granada, and was
but a pupil himself; it was useless to go to London, Vandyck had just died ; it was
impossible to go to Italy without money or a protector. Murillo, at last, made up his
mind in despair ; he bought, perhaps on credit, a roll of canvas, cut it in pieces, which
he prej)arecl himself, tlien, taking neither rest nor sleej), he covered all these squares
with Virgins, Infant Christs, and boucjuets of llowers. His goods disposed of, and
some reals in his pocket, without asking advice or taking leave of any one, he set out
on foot for Madrid. On his arrival at the capital, he went at once to present himself to
his fellow-countryman Velasquez, who was twenty }ears older than himself, and then
in the height of his glory. The king's painter received the young traxeller with
kindness ; he encouraged him, brought him forward, procured him useful work, an
entrance to the royal palaces and the ICscurial, besides admitting him to his own studio,
and giving him advice and lessons.
Murillo spent two years in diligently studying the pictures of the great colourists,
Titian, Rubens, Vandyck, Ribera, and Velasquez ; then, less tormented with dreams of
ambition than with the necessity of attaining an independence, he left Madrid and
returned to Seville. His absence had not been noticed, so the general surprise was
great when, in the following year, there appeared in the little cloister of the convent of
San Francisco three pictures which he had just painted; a Monk in Ecstasy, the Alms
0/ San Diego, and that Death of St. Clara which has been seen in Paris, in the Aguado
and Salamanca collections. Every one asked where Murillo had learned this new style,
so attractive and forcible, which united the manners of Ribera and of Vandyck, and in
the union seemed almost to surpass both. Notwithstanding the envy always inspired
by success, notwithstanding the bitter hatred of the painters whom he had dethroned
from the first rank, Murillo soon emerged from indigence and obscurity. In 1660
he established the Academy of Seville, but he held the presidentship for one year
only. He hatl returned to Seville in 1645, '^i''^') "^''til his death, which occurred at that
city on the 3rd of April in 1682, — in consequence of a fall from a scaffold while
engaged on painting an altar-piece of St. Catherine for the church of the Capuchins at
Cadiz — he scarcely left his native town, and it was during these thirty-seven years that
his numerous paintings were executetl. Chapters, convents, and great nobles over-
whelmed him, to his heart's content, with orders. There are few high altars of
cathedrals, or sacristies, or emlowed monasteries, which do not i)ossess some picture
of their patron saint by his hand; {qw noble houses which have not some flmiily
liortrait by him to be handed down as an heirloom. h\ fertility, Murillo can only
2o6 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1650.
be compared to his fellow-countryman, Lope de Vega. As a painter he equalled in
the number of his works the poet whom Cervantes called a " monster of nature." This
wonderful facility of production, joined to the independence which he preserved all
his life, explains the reason why Murillo, different to Velasquez, whose works were all
engaged for the king his master, was able to make his name and works known through
the whole of Europe.
Murillo, loving the real less than the ideal, and addressing himself principally to the
imagination and the mind, varied his style with his subject. He had not, like most
painters, a succession of styles or phases in his career as an artist ; but he had at the
same time three manners, which he employed alternately and according to the subject.
These three styles are termed by the Spaniards, /r/^, cdlido y vaporoso (cold, warm, and
aerial). These words describe them, and it may be easily conceived how they are
employed. Thus, the peasant boys and beggars would be painted in the cold style ;
the ecstasies of saints in the warm ; the annunciations and assumptions in the aerial.
Seville at first was filled to overflowing with Murillo's works ; and it has retained
a large number of the best. In one of the chapels of its cathedral may be seen
the largest painting by Murillo, the ecstasy of St. Antojiy of Padua.. It is said that
the Duke of Wellington, after the retreat of the French in 181 3, offered to buy this
picture by covering it with gold pieces. This would have made an enormous sum,
to judge from the size of the picture, but the chapter was too rich and too proud to
accept such an exchange, and Seville retained the chef-a' oiuvre of her painter. The
fellow-citizens of Murillo, collecting all the pictures of his they could obtain from
the churches and monasteries, have succeeded in forming a whole museum of his
works which had remained in Andalusia. It is in an old convent in the ABC street
at Seville. Here we may find collected the Mirac/e of the Loaves and Fishes, Avhich
picture received the popular name of Pan y peces (bread and fishes) ; Moses stnki?ig
the Rock, recently engraved ; St. Felix Cantalieio, which the Italians say is painted
with milk and blood (rwz leche y sangre) ; the Afado/ma de la Servilleta ; St. Thomas
of Villanueva distributing alms to the poor — the painting which Murillo himself
preferred of all his works — lastly, the one of his too numerous Conceptions which
is called the Perla de las Concepcioncs. This is a symbolical representation of the
favourite doctrine of the Spaniards, which has become the dogma of the Immaculate
Conception. It is, in reality, an apotheosis of the Virgin.
Forty-five pictures by Murillo are collected in the Museo del Rey at Madrid.
From this number we must choose a iew for special mention. Of the cold style
we prefer a Holy Family, usually termed with the little dog. But this deserves a serious
reproach; the want of a suitable style for the subject. In it we see neither the
Child God, nor the Virgin Mother, nor the foster-father ; they are simply a carpenter
laying down his plane, his wife, who has stopped her wheel to watch their son at
play, a little boy making a spaniel bark at a bird which he conceals in his hands.
But it is a well-conceived, familiar scene, adapted to excite interest, and full of grace
in the attitudes, candour in the expression, and energy in the touch ; the name of the
picture merely requires to be changed. Perhaps we ought to place higher the Adoration
of the Shepherds, which is in the same style. In the representation of these rustics
the skins in which they are clothed, and the dogs which accompany them, the artist
displays unequalled vigour and truth, and it is by a real tojir deforce that he has thrown
on the centre of the scene the brilliant reflection of the light from above, which gradu-
ally fades into the night, shadowing the extremities of the picture.
A.ai65o,l MURILLO. ^°7
^'^ Martyrdom T^sT^^^i^^^^nted in small proportions, is one of the best
of the aerialstvle. A silver tint, which seems showered down trom heaven by the
angels, who hold out the palm of immortality to the old man who is bemg crucified,
pervades every object, softens the outlines, harmonizes the tu.ts, and gives the whole
scene a cloudy and fantastic appearance which is full of charn. Ihe same pheno^
menon is also to be found in the smallest of Munllo's AnnunaaUons. It is m the
nmlst of this celestial atmosphere that the beautiful archangel Gabriel appears to the
youthful Mary. She is on her knees praying ; the messenger from above kneels in lis
turn before her who is to be the mother of the Saviour. A brilliant band of angels,
from among which these two figures seem to stand out in relief, fill the whole space ;
and above this bright background there appears as a still more luminous object,
the Holy Spirit, who is descending in the form of a white dove.
The warm style was that which Murillo himself seems to have preferred. All h,s
Ecstasies of 5^/«/., and the number of these is great, were treated in this manner.
The museum at Madrid alone possesses four, St. Bernard, St. Augustine, St. Francs
ofAssisi, and St. lldefonso. Although in these four paintings the subject is the same
Murillo has succeeded very skilfully in varying them, either in the character of the
vision, or by the details given in the legend. The Virgin appears to St. lldefonso
and presents him with a chasuble for his new dignity of archbishop; before St.
Augustine the heavens open and reveal to him Jesus crucified and his immaculate
mother- St. Francis of Assisi, visited by the Madonna and Child, is offering them
the miraculous roses, which in the spring had grown on the thorn rods with which
he had rtacrellated himself all the winter; lastly, St. Bernard, exalted by meditation and
tasting, sees in his humble cell the child Jesus appear, borne by his mother on a throne
of clo^uds in the midst of the heavenly hosts.
It is in these scenes of supernatural poetry that the pencil of :Murillo, like the wand
of an enchanter, produces marvels. If in scenes taken from human life he equals the
greatest colourists, he is alone in the imaginary scenes of eternal life. It might be
said of the two great Spanish masters that Velasquez is the painter of the earth and
Murillo of heaven.
Although the Academy of San Fernando at Madrid can only show three pictures by
Murillo At these are real masterpieces. We cannot place in this high rank a
Resurrection which, notwithstanding the resplendent beauty of Our Lord, ascending as
God from the tomb where He had been laid as man, is only an ordinary picture for
Murillo ;■ but both the St. Elizabeth of Hungary -somet\m^s called E/ Tinoso-^nd
the two vast pendents usually called /os Medws puntos (the half-circles) must be
considered as masterpieces. •, , r .
The subject of the first of these works is this : in a vestibule of sumptuous
architecture the good queen is engaged in labours of true charity. The kings of
France cured scrofula; it appears, however, that the sovereigns of Hungary had
another speciality in medicine. St. Elizabeth is tending those suff-ering from diseased
heads Thus the two most opposite extremes of Murillo are united ; the sordid misery
of his little beggars, and the noble grandeur of his demi-gods. From this arises the
perpetual contrast and high moral tone of the picture. The palace turned into a
hospital- on one hand, the ladies of the court, beautiful, full of health, and richly
adorned ' on the other, suffering and diseased children, a paralytic leaning on his
crutches an old man who is uncovering the sores on his legs, an old woman crouching
on the fioor, whose haggard profile stands out clearly against the black veh'et behind ;
208
ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1675.
on one side, all the graces of luxury and health ; on the other, the hideous train of
misery and sickness ; then, in the centre, the divine charity which brings these extremes
of humanity together. A young and beautiful woman, wearing over the nun's veil the
crown of the queen, is delicately sponging the impure head which a child covered with
leprosy is holding over a golden ewer. Her white hands seem to refuse the work
which her heart commands ; her mouth trembles with horror and her eyes fill with
tears, but pity conquers even disgust, and Religion triumphs — that religion which
ST. ELIZABETH OF HUNGARY.— BY MURILLO.
In the Academy of San Fernando, at Madrid.
commands us to love our neighbour. The unanimous voice of the admirers of Murillo
proclaims St. Elizaheth to be the greatest and most perfect of his works.
In the same Academy, by the side of St. Elizabeth, are two other pictures, already
mentioned, where, as a colourist, Murillo has displayed all his powers. These,
according to Cean-Bermudez, were ordered of him by a canon named Don Justino
Neve, for the church of Santa Maria la Blanca, at Seville ; this accounts for their
semicircular form ; they were probably fo be placed in an arch. The subject of the
two celebrated pendents is the Foundation of the CJiiirch of Santa Maria Maggiore, at
A.D. 1675.] MURILLO. 209
Rome, or ralher the miraculous event to which its foundation is ascribed. The first
picture represents the dream of the Roman patrician and his wife, whom Murillo,
notwithstanding the tlate of the inscription (a.d. 852), dresses in the costume of his
.own time. 0\ercome by shmiber, they have gone to sleep seated and dressed in their
apartment. A little lajj-dog is also sleeping on the bottom of the lady's dress. While
clouds become visible in the darkness, and the vision suddenly appears to the closed
eyes of the patrician and his wife, who both behold the same dream — the Virgin
standing with the Child in her arms, pointing with her finger to the place where the
church dedicated to her was to be built. The second pendent contains a double
subject. On the left the patrician and his wife, of the size of life, are relating their
common dream to the pope Liberius, seated on the ancient sdla gestatoria ; and on the
right a long procession in the distance is on its way to recognize and mark the place
designated by Mary for the erection of the new church. These two marvellous
l)ictures, or, at all events, the whole of the first, and the distant procession in the
second — that is to say, the parts treated in the warm and aerial style —are in Murillo's
finest style, and show to what a height he could rise as a colourist. They are usually
called either los Medios pimtos of Murillo, or the Miracle of the Roman Gentleman. As
in the masterpieces of Tintoretto at Venice, we propose that these two appellations
should be made into one by calling it the Miracle of Murillo.
Murillo, having been flir more fertile than Velasquez, is much better known out ot
Spain. The Hermitage of St. Petersburg has eighteen pictures by Murillo in its
catalogue. AA'ithout accepting all of these, we may, at least, mention a Conception.^
beautiful even among so many others ; a Nativity which, in its arrangement, reminds
us of Correggio's Notte ; and a Martyrdom of St. Fete r of Verona, worthy, in point of
beauty, to have been compared with the great work of Titian at Venice. At Berlin
there is an Ecstasy of St. Antony of Fadua, which, without etiualling the brilliant
masterpiece that Murillo left as a last gift to the cathedral of his native city, yet, at all
events, recalls the highest qualities of the painter of Seville. It is in his tender
passionate style. Munich is still richer in possessing excellent .works in difterent
styles. In the first place, St. Fraticis curing a Faralytic at the door of a church.
Murillo, although the most poetical, the most idealistic, of the Spanish masters, has
seldom risen to such a height of expression ; his magic pencil has rarely produced such
wonders. Four other pictures, in two series of pendents, belong to beggar life, to the
vida picarcsca, also poetical in Spain, as is proved sufficiently by the Lazarille de
Torml's, the Guzman d'Alfarache, the Marcos de Obregon, and all the romances of the
same family, which are merged into one in Gil Bias. These picturesque paintings
present a mixture of his warm and cold styles, and it might be said that they belong to
the cold style treated warmly. But, under whatever class they may be ranged, they
will alwa)'s be masterpieces of simple, lively truth. Before these wonderful scenes of
comedy in real life we might both laugh and weep.
A large picture, formerly an heirloom of the marquises of Pedroso, at Cadiz, was
in 1837 bought by the National Gallery in London for about four thousand guineas.
It is a Holy Family (No. 13). In this picture, between his mother and Joseph, who
are Avorshipping on their knees, the Child Jesus stands on the broken shaft of a
column, gazing towards heaven as if wishing to leave earth, and united in thought to
the two other [icrsDns of the Trinity- the Holy Spirit, who in the form of a dove, is
hovering over his head, and the Father, who is above, amidst a choir of seraphim.
The National Gallery also possesses two other pictures by Murillo, a Spanish peasant
2 V.
ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1675.
Boy (No. 74) — the authorship of this work is doubted by some critics — and a St. John
and the lamb (No. 176) purchased for two thousand guineas. In the Duke of
Sutherland's gallery the places of honour are justly occupied by two large pictures
by Murillo, brought from Seville to London through the collection of Marshal Soult-^
THE BEGGAR-KOY. — BY MURILI.O.
In the Louvre.
Abraham ?-cccivin<i the three Angels, and the Return of the Prodigal son. They have
been provided with magnificent frames, in which are the verses of Scripture which
explain the subject, and surmounted by gilded busts of the painter whose life was so
simple and devoid of pomp. The Prodigal son is, however, far superior to the
Abraham. The grou}) of the wretched and repentant son kneeling at the feet of his
bartoloml: estkbax murillo.
Page 2IO.
A.D. i67S.] MURILLO. 2"
noble and affectionate fother; the group of the servants hastening to bring food and
clothes ; even to the little dog of the family, who has come to recognize and caress the
fugitive, and the fat calf which is to be killed for the rejoicmgs.;-all is great and
wonderful in composition, expression, and incomparable colouring. This Prodigal son
deserves, perhaps, to be called the greatest work of MuriUo out of Spam.
Without having anything e<iual to this in importance, the Museum of the Louvre
would yet be pretty well off if the authorities had not in reality dimmished the riches
already acquired whilst they pretended to have increased them. The PeMs Pomlleux
and a Holy Family have long been in the Louvre. It was wished to add fresh works
of Murillo's to these ; but if the intention was good, it is that alone which deserves
praise. \Ve will not speak of those enormous pictures filled with ignoble restorations
which are called the Naissance dc Marie and the Cuisine dcs Anges. They are no
less unworthy of the master than of the Louvre. But what need was there of a second
Conception I There was already one picture of that subject; and although the last
comer is certainly superior to it in some points, it is yet far from deserving the title ot
the one at Seville, the Perla de las Conccpcioncs.
There is, however, one of the most perfect specimens of Murillo's cold style m the
Louvre that can be found anywhere. This is W^^ Beggar ^^j', who is crouching on
the stone floor of a prison or of a garret, with a pitcher by his side. {See 7c>oodcuf.) In
Murillo's warm manner and higher style there is the large picture which should rather
be called a Trinity than a Ho/y Family. Similar in subject, in general disposition, and
even in the details and accessories to the great picture of the National Gallery, that
of the Louvre also equals it in the breadth of imagination, which unites the scenes
of mortal and eternal life in the majesty of the symbol announcing the redeeming
mission of the Saviour, and also in the extreme beauty of all its parts. But what has
become of this marvellous Trinity ? It has disappeared from the Louvre, and it is m
vain to regret it. •
Murillo left some pupils, who followed him from afar off with servile imitation.
Not long before his death, remembering the ol)scurity of his youth and the first
occupations of his pencil, he wished to smooth for his successors the dift^cultifis at the
outset of their career which he had fountl so difficult to overcome. He established at
Seville a free academy for drawing and painting, of which he was the first director and
professor ; but this academy came to an end twenty years later for want of masters
and pupils.
Ignacio de Iriarte, who was born at Azcoitia in 1620, removed quite early in life
to Seville, where he studied under Herrera (el Viejo), and besides that, became a great
friend of Murillo. Iriarte soon discovered that his talents lay in landscape-painting,
which branch of the art he adopted, abandoning his master Herrera in favour of
Nature. Murillo frequently painted figures in Iriarte's landscapes, but this partnership,
which was beneficial to both— was unfortunately dissolved by a quarrel as to who
should paint first and who last on the Life of David which had been ordered by the
Marquis of Villamanrique. Murillo finally changed the subject to the Life of Jacoh
and executed the whole work himself. Iriarte died in 1685. Madrid possesses several
of his best pictures. The Louvre has a Jacob's dream.
Francisco de Herrera, called " El Mozo" (the younger) to distinguish him from his
father " El Viejo," was born at Seville in 1622. After studying for some time with his
fother, he left him on account of his violence, and went to Rome and improved his
212 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1675.
style by close attention to the works of the great Italian painters. On his return to
Seville, he was made director of the academy of which Murillo was president, but this
inferior position was not pleasing to Herrera; who left Seville and went in 1661 to
Madrid, where he was made painter to Philip IV. and superintendent of the Royal
works. He died in 1685. Herrera was a jealous and ill-tempered man ; he soon
took offence, and was slow to forgive. Besides historical pictures, he excelled in
painting flowers and still life, and especially fish, whence he was called by the Italians
" il Spagnuolo degli Pesci." Among his works, we may mention the Assumption of
the Virgifi on the cupola of Nuestra Senora de Atocha, and a St. Anne teaching the
Virgin in the convent of Corpus Christi, both at Madrid.
Sebastian Gomez, commonly called the " Mulatto of Murillo," — was born in the
early half of the seventeenth century. He was in a great measure self-taught. As
Pareja learned his art by secretly studying the works of Velasquez, so did Gomez,
by attention to the productions of Murillo. After years of careful study, Gomez
ventured to complete an unfinished sketch of the Virgin's head by his master. Murillo
was pleased with the attempt, and encouraged Gomez to go on with his adopted
profession. Soon after the death of Murillo in 1682, Gomez followed his master to the
grave. Gomez's paintings are defective in drawing and composition, but in colour
they imitate successfully the great Murillo.
Juan de Valdes Leal, the sculptor, architect, and painter, was born at Cordova
in 1630. He studied in the school of Antonio del Castillo, and was subsequently one
of the most famous painters in Seville — indeed after the death of Murillo in 1682, he
was second to none. He was one of the founders of the Academy of Seville, where he
died in 1691. His works are to be seen in churches of Seville and Cordova. Valdes
Leal left a son Lucas, who. though chiefly known as an engraver, also practised the
art of painting.
Nunez de Villavicencio was born of a noble family at Seville in 1635. As Beltrafifio
studied art under Leonardo da Vinci, more as an amusement than a profession, so did
Villavicencio under Murillo. He subsequently painted at Malta under Matteo Preti,
whose style he adopted for a short time. He abandoned it, however, in favour of that
of his former master. Bermudez tells us that he painted children, especially
of the poorer class, in a manner little inferior to that of Murillo. Villavicencio
died at Seville in 1700.
Don Acisclo Antonio Palomino de Castro y Velasco, the Vasari of Spain, was born
at Bujalance in 1653. When he was quite young, his parents removed to Cordova in
order that, as he was destined for the Church, he might have a good education.
Palomino soon gave proofs of his love of art, and when Valdes Leal came to Cordova
in 1672, he not only praised the productions of the young artist, but also gave him
instruction in the rudiments of painting. Palomino subsequently painted at Madrid,
where he became quite a famous artist in the Alcazar, the Escurial, at Salamanca and
at Granada. He eventually died at Madrid in 1726; he was buried with great
honour in the church of San Francisco by the side of his wife, who had died in the
previous year, and upon whose death he had entered into full orders. Palomino,
though a very fair artist, is much more famous as the historian of the artists of Spain.
Though scarcely resembling Vasari in his pleasing style of narrative, Palomino is un-
fortunately like him in being, as regards dates, open to criticism — not to say untrust-
worthy. He published the first volume of his work — which contains, beside biographies
A.D. 1700.] FOLLOWERS OF MURILLO. 21.3
of painters, a dissertation on the art of painting — " El Museo Pictorico " at Madrid
in 1715, and the second in 1725, An abridgement, which was called "Las Vidas de
los Pintores y Estatuarios Eminentes Espanoles," and which has been translated into
English, appeared in London in 1744.
Alonso Miguel de Tobar was born at Higuera in 1678. Though scarcely worthy
of much praise as an artist, he is noticeable for the exactitude with which he succeeded
in imitating the works of the great Murillo. At first he laboured at Seville, but, in
1729, being appointed painter to Philip V., he removed to Madrid, where he executed
portraits of many persons of note. Of his original works, we may notice an Eni/irofied
Madonna in the cathedral of Seville. Of his copies of Murillo's works, we may
mention a Holy Family, painted for the church of Santa Maria la Blanca de Seville,
which was at the time thought to be the original ; and a St. John and the lamb after
the picture now in the National Gallery. It is probable that many pictures, commonly
called replicas by Murillo, are copies by Tobar, This artist died at Madrid in 1758.
Francisco Meneses Osorio was born at Seville in the latter half of the seventeenth
century. He is chiefly famous for his exact copies of Murillo's works ; he excelled
especially in representing beggar boys and similar subjects. He is said to have partly
finished the St. Catherine which Murillo's death caused him to leave uncompleted.
Seville possesses the greater part of Osorio's works. Neither the date of his birth nor
of his death is known with certainty. He flourished about 1725.
214 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1525.
CHAPTER IV.
SCHOOL OF CASTILE.
THIS cannot be called the School of Madrid, for, during the lifetime of the
painters who founded it, Madrid did not as yet exist, at least, not as the capital
of the Spanish monarchy. But after the caprice of Philip II. had raised
Madrid to the rank of a metropolis, all the dispersed elements of the Castilian school
soon assembled in that city. It was at Valladolid that Alonso Berruguete lived;
at Badajoz, Luis de Morales ; at Logrono, in the Rioja, Juan Fernandez Navarrete,
"el Mudo;" at Toledo, Domenico Theotocopuli, "il Greco." But we must not
pass by these earlier masters without a short mention,
Alonso Berruguete, the painter, sculptor and architect, was bom at Paredes de Nava
in Old Castile, in 1480. He took lessons at first from his father Pedro, and in the year
1503 went to Florence and studied under Michelangelo, Avhose famous cartoon of the
Fisan war he copied. He then went to Rome, where he assisted his master in the
great works at the Vatican, ordered by Julius II. On his return to Spain in 1520
— though he found himself famous and was appointed sculptor and painter to
Charles V., as he had been to Philip I., before he quitted his native country — he
scarcely painted anything but altar-screens for churches, which required a union of the
tliree arts which he cultivated, painting, sculpture, and architecture. Had he displayed
in the first of these arts the eminent qualities which he manifested in the second,
if he had been as great a painter as he was in general a great artist, he would have had
the honour of being the first to spread through his country the high notions of art he
had acc^uired in Italy. His painting, though determined and expressive, is cold and dry.
His architecture has the defects and good qualities of that of Spain at this period —
smallness and confusion in the whole, grace and delicacy in the details. In sculpture
alone does he show himself a worthy disciple of his illustrious master, whose lessons
he transmitted to Caspar Becerra, who, although painter to Philip II. and author
of a great number of works, was only great in statuary, and whose Madonna of Solitude
was probably the masterpiece of Spanish sculpture. Alonso Berruguete died at Toledo
in 1 561, and was buried with much pomp and honour at the expense of the Emperor.
Luis de Morales — called El Divino — was born at Badajoz in 1509. Of his life very
litde is kriown. About 1564 he was summoned to Madrid by Philip II., who, it is said,
was displeased with him for appearing in too rich a dress ; the poor artist explained
A.D. 1525.] SCHOOL OF CASTILE. 215
that he liad spent all his spare money in order to buy a costume befitting — as he
thought— the occasion, and on hearing this the king was pacified. Morales, however,
soon returned to Badajoz. When Philip II. visited that city in 1581, and found the
artist in poverty, he gave him a yearly pension of three hundred ducats. Morales lived
at his native Badajoz until his death, which took place in 1586.
There is one painter whom universal admiration has saluted by the title " divine."
This is Raphael. In Spain, one. painter also has received this magnificent surname.
But with him, it was not a universal cry of admiration wliich thus proclaimed his
merit and superiority; it was, simply, his too great fastidiousness in the choice
of his subjects, which always bore the imprint of an ardent i)iety. This name has,
in some respects, been a misfortune to him ; all the pictures of his time which have
the slightest analogy with his style are attributed to him. When anyone meets with
an Eccc Homc\ dry, lean, and livid ; a Mater dolorosa with hollow cheeks, pale lii)s,
red eyelids ; even though it be a horrible caricature, he exclaims at once, " There
is a divine Morales!" Those who have examined his fine works attentively are not
so prodigal of their author's name. His pictures, fre^iuently jiainted on copper or
wooil, are as a rule very small and simple ; the most complicated are those repre-
senting the Madonna supportin^:^ a Dead Christ. There are some works, however, of
Morales in which there are whole-length figures, such as the six large paintings of the
Passion, which decorate the church of a small town in Estremadura, Higuera de
iM-egenal. Madrid has only succeeded in collecting five works by his hand, which
proves that they are rare, when authentic. The Circumcision is the largest, and seems
to be the best of the five. If Morales has the defects common to his period ; if
he is minute in the execution of the beard and hair ; if he may be accused of too
much hardness in the oudines and too little relief in the model ; we must, at all events,
acknowledge that he drew with care and correctness, that he understood the anatomy
of the nude, and rendered faithfully the fine gradations of demi-tints. He excelled
also in the expression of religious grief, and no one has succeeded better than he
in i)ainting the agonies of Our Lord when crowned with thorns, or of a Virgin pierced
with the seven swords of grief Genuine works by Morales are rarely to be seen out
of Spain.
Alonso Sanchez Coello, a Portuguese by birth, was born about the year 15 15. He
removed when young to Spain, where he afterwards chiefly resided.
Alonso Sanchez Coello was not only the pinfor de camera to the son of Charles V.,
but also one of his intimate courtiers {el privado del rey). Pacheco says, that " the
king gave him for his lodging an immense house near the palace, and as he had a key
to it . . . he often entered at inojjportune moments into the painter's apartments ;
sometimes the monarch came in when he was at dinner with his family . . . ; at others,
he surprised him when i)ainting, and approaching him from behind laid his hand upon
his shoulder. . . . Sanchez Coello several times painted the /V;-//w/ <////<- A7//^^, armed,
on foot, on horseback, in travelling garments, in a cloak and with a cap. He also painted
seventeen royal persons, ([ueens, princes, and infantas, who honoured him so much as
to enter his house familiarly to hold intercourse with his wife and children. . . . His
house was frecjuented by the greatest i)ersons of the time. Cardinal Granvelle, the
archbishop of Toledo, the arclibishop of Seville, and, what was a still greater honour,
Don John of Austria, Don Carlos, and such numbers of nobles and ambassadors that
many times, horses, litters, roaches, and chairs, filled the two large courts of his house."
2i6 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1525.
Sanchez Coello painted several pictures on sacred history for different altars in the
Escurial ; and also the portrait of the celebrated founder of the order of the Jesuits,
Ignatius Loyola. This portrait, which is said to have been much like him, was painted
after his death from a cast of the face taken in wax. Coello died, honoured and
regretted, in 1590. He excelled especially in portrait painting.
Juan Fernandez Navarrete — called on account of his being deaf and dumb.
El Mudo — was born at Logrono in 1526. He is one of the most striking proofs
of the power of natural taste, and of its constant superiority to what can be produced
by education. If the Roman rhetorician was right in asserting that a poet must
be born a poet, El Mudo has shown that a painter must be one from his birth.
Deprived of the usual means of communicating with other men, and kept back by the
circumstances surrounding him, he yet succeeded in accomplishing his destiny, merely
by following the natural bent of his nature. When about three years old, a severe
illness deprived him of his hearing, and, like those who are deaf from their birth, he
was unable to learn to speak.
At this time, the Spanish monk. Fray Pedro de Ponce, who preceded by so
long a time the Abbe de I'Epee, had not yet essayed the education of deaf-mutes. (It
was about the year 1570 that Fray Pedro de Ponce, a Benedictine monk of the convent
of Ona, found means to instruct the two brothers and the sister of the Constable of
Castile, all three born deaf) Nothing was taught to Juan during his infancy; but
he soon revealed his true vocation, for he was constantly occupied in drawing on the
walls with charcoal every object that he saw around him. His natural talent was
shown so clearly in these rough sketches, that his father took him to the convent of
La Estrella, at a short distance from Logrono, where one of the monks- Fray Vicente
de Santo Domingo, understood painting. This monk became much attached to the
young mute ; he taught him the first elements of art, and, soon finding his pupil make
such progress that he could no longer instruct him, he persuaded his parents to send
the youth to Italy.
El Mudo, whose family was very well ofi^, soon started for the land of the arts.
He visited Rome, Naples, Florence, and Venice, and settled down near Titian, whose
disciple he became. His residence in Italy was long — twenty years at the least.
When in 1568 his reputation, already great, and doubtless increased by the fact of his
infirmity, reached Spain, Philip II., who was beginning the decorations of the Escuriab
sent for him to return to Spain. It was at the Escurial that El Mudo completed his
l^rincipal work, — a series of eight large pictures, some of which have since perished
in a fire. Amongst those which were preserved may be mentioned, a Nativity, in
which El Mudo undertook to vanquish a formidable difficulty : he introduced three
different lights into his picture ; one which proceeds from the Holy Child, another
which descends from the Glory and extends over the whole picture, and a third from
a torch held by St. Joseph. The group of shepherds is the best part of the com-
position. It is said that the Florentine painter, Pelligrino Tibaldi, never wearied of
admiring them, and was continually calling out in his enthusiasm: Oh I gli belli pasfori!
This exclamation has become the title of the picture, which is called the Beautiful
Shepherds. El Mudo died at Toledo in 1579. The works of this artist are scarcely
known at all, for those which still exist are buried in the royal solitude of the
Escurial, and are now almost inaccessible. We must, then, be satisfied with hearing
Ihat lie was unanimously called the " Spanish Titian," not only because he was one
A.D. 1575.] SCHOOL OF CASTILE. 217
of the favourite pupils of that master, but also because his works were worthy of being
compared with those of the greatest Venetian master.
Domenico Theotocopuli, the painter, sculptor and architect, and the founder of the
school of Toledo, was born either in (Ireece, or in the Venetian State, of Greek parents,
about the year 1548. He studied under Titian at Venice, where he was surnamed
" II Greco " (the Spaniards would have called him " El Griego "), and, through singular
circumstances, came to settle at Toledo, about 1577. He became known there by a
large picture of the Parting of Chris fs raiment, quite Venetian in its character. Soon
after, changing his style, he adopted a pale greyish colouring, which makes all the
figures appear like so many ghosts and shadows ; in short, he adopted an un-
wholesome singularity of style, which extended even to the shape of his pictures,
which were made far too long. However, instead of good paintings, he left pupils
better than himself Theotocopuli died at Toledo in 1625. His own portrait and that
of His daughter are in the Spanish collection of the Louvre.
Pantoja de la Cruz, the pupil of Sanchez Coello, was born at Madrid in 1551, and
held the same position under Philip HI. that his master had done under Philip II. He
has left a gallery of portraits, even in his historical pictures. Thus the Birth of the
Virgin and iho. Birth of Christ, which are in the Museo del Rey, contain the portraits of
Philip III., his wife Margaret of Austria, their nearest relations, and some gentlemen
and ladies of the court. Pantoja died at Madrid in 1610. .\n amusing tale is related
of this artist's power of reproduction. An eagle having been captured near the Pardo,
the King expressed a desire to have its portrait painted. Pantoja complied with the
demand, but with so much truth to nature that the " monarch of the air," mistaking its
likeness for a living rival, attacked it, and notwithstanding the efforts made to protect
the picture succeeded in tearing it to pieces.
Pedro de las Cuevas was born at Madrid in 1558. He is scarcely worthy of mention
as an ardst, but we cannot pass him by without notice, because, like the old Italian
Scjuarcione, he sent forth from his academy some of the best artists of that time.
Among these were Juan Carreno and Antonio Fernandez de Arias. Cuevas died at his
native city in 1635. His son, Eugenio, was also a painter, but of no great merit.
Bartolome Gonzales was born at Valladolid in 1564. He went to Madrid when
(juite young, and studied under Patricio Caxes, On the death of Castello in 161 7 he
was appointed painter to the king, for whom he executed many works, the chief of
which are to be seen in the royal collection, Gonzales died at Madrid in 1627.
Juan Bautista Mayno, a Dominican monk, was born at Toledo in 1569. He
studied painting under the Greek Theotocopuli, and in his turn imparted instruction to
Philip IV. when he was a prince. He was also a patron of Alonso Cano and other
artists. He painted his masterpiece for Philip IV. in the Bueno Retiro. It repre-
sented the Duke (fOlivarez encouraging his troops by showing them a portrait of King
Philip. Mayno died in 1649, at Toledo, where most of his works may be found.
Phelipe Liano was born at Madrid in 1575. He studied art under Alonso Sanchez
Coello. Liano is supposed to have gone to Italy, but there are various accounts of
him which do not tally, and litde is known of him with certainty. He died in 1625 (?).
Lope de Vega wrote an epitaph on this artist, which mentions him with great— not to
say absurd— praise. It commences, " I am the new Apelles, in colour, art, and skill."
Liaiio excelled in portraiture — especially in his small pictures, which are noticeable
for tlie beauty of their colour, whence he has been called " El Titiano Pequino."
2 K
2i8 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1575.
Luis Tristan was born near Toledo in 1586 (according to Bermudez— other writers
give 1594). He studied art under Theotocopuli, whom he surpassed in design if not
in execution, but who nevertheless was always ready to recognize his pupil's merit.
Tristan has 'been rendered doubly famous from the fact that the great Velasquez
abandoned the instruction of Pacheco in order to study his works. Tristan's master-
work was a series of pictures in the church of Yepes, a small town near Toledo,
which city with Madrid can boast of possessing the greater part of his works. This
artist died at Toledo in 1640.
It was at this period that three families of artists, all natives of Tuscany, came to
settle at Madrid. These were the Carducci, the Cajesi, and the Ricci, which names
were, by the Spaniards, turned into Carducho, Caxes, and Rizi. We must grant a
separate mention to the most famous of each family.
Bartolommeo Carducci, who was born at Florence in 1560, studied art under
Federigo Zuccaro, whom he accompanied to Spain towards the end of the sixteenth
century. Carducci painted, in conjunction with Pellegrino Tibaldi, the ceiling of the
library in the Escurial, where he also executed various frescoes. The Descent from
the Cross which he painted in the church of S. Felipe el Real at Madrid increased
his fame — already considerable. After the death of Philip II., Carducci was engaged
by his successor to paint the Life of Charles V. in a gallery of the Pardo, but he
did not live to complete — in fact he scarcely began — the work, which Avas finished
by his brother Vincencio, who changed the subject to the History of Achilles.
Bartolommeo Carducci died in i6o8(?).
Vincencio Carducci — called by the Spaniards Carducho — was born at Florence in
11568. Vincencio was a pupil of his elder brother Bartolommeo, and was by him taken
to Spain, where he afterwards resided — in fact he was wont to consider himself a
Spaniard rather than an Italian. He died at AlcaM de Henares in 1638, while painting
a St. Jerome, which bears the inscription, " Vincensius Carducho hie vitam non opus
finiit 1638." He has left 'Dialogues on Painting' (' Dialogos de las Excelencias de
la Pintura'), published at Madrid in 1633, which has been much esteemed by com-
petent judges, including Bermudez who says, that it is the best work on the subject in
the Castilian language. Vincencio Carducho has also left numerous works of his
pencil which prove that his imagination was as fertile as his hand was industrious.
In the Museo Nacional, opened at Madrid in 1842 (to complete the Museo del Rey
with the spoils of the suppressed convents), are the greater number of the works which
Carducho executed for one of the largest orders recorded in the history of art. The
Carthusian convent of the Paular intrusted him with the entire decoration of its
lart^e cloister. He was to represent the Life of St. Bruno, the founder of the order,
and the Martyr do}ns and Miracles of the Carthusians. By a contract of August 26th,
1626, between the prior and the painter, it was agreed that the latter should deliver fifty-
five pictures in the space of four years, all of them to be painted entirely by himself,
and the price to be fixed by competent judges. This singular contract was punctually
executed. Four years later, the convent of the Paular possessed the fifty-five paintings
ordered of, Carducho. On one side, twenty-seven pictures describing the difterent
events in the Life of St. Bruno, from his conversion to his funeral, and on the opposite
side twenty-seven other pictures of the Martyrdoms and Miracles of the monks belong-
ing to the order ; in the centre is a sort of trophy uniting the arms of the king
A.D. 1600.]
SCHOOL OF CASTILE. 219
and that of the Carthusians. Cean-Bermudez says that he passed a fortnight at
Paular in order to examine at his leisure these works of Carducho, and he afhrms
that in this long series of paintings of uniform size, where monotony would appear to
be inevitable, we have, on the contrary, to admire a great fertility of invention, and a
skilful arrangement of the various groups and scenes.
Patricio Cajesi, called by the Spaniards Caxes, was born at Arezzo in the early half
of the sixteenth century. He was invited to Madrid by Philip IL, who e-P oyed 1 m
in the palaces of that city. He was also commissioned to decorate .t- Queens
Gallery in the Pardo. The paintings which he executed there 1--^-^ ^/^^
great fire m that palace. After the death of Phihp H., Caxes was e-ploy 1 by
his son, in whose service he died, "at an advanced age, and in extreme poverty,
in 1612.
Eugenio Caxes, the son and scholar of Patricio Cajesi, was born at Madrid in
X.77 He assisted his father in the works which he executed for Philip HI., who
appointed him his painter, on the death of old Patricio in x6i.. Eugenio P:.n ted
many works in the churches and convents of Madrid, but many of them have
perished by fire, as have also the frescoes which he executed m ^^-y-^^^^^^^
Vincenzio Carducci in the Pardo. Eugenio Caxes died in 1642 In the Royal
Gallery at Madrid there is a Repulse of the English under Leicester at Cadiz in 162,, by
this artist.
Fray Juan Rizi-the son of Antonio Rizi, a native of Bologna, who had accompanied
Federigo Zuccaro to Spain-was born at Madrid in 1595. He studied art under Juan
Bautista Mayno, and m 1626 he followed the example of his master and took the cowl
though of a different order,-that of St. Benedict,-at Montereale, where he wa
some time after made Abbot of Medina del Campo. He executed many works for
religious houses, including a St. Scolastica reading for the monastery of Burgos, in
later life he went to Rome and entered the convent of Monte Casino. Pope
Clement made him a bishop, but he died before entering on his duties, m lOyS-
Francisco Rizi, the brother of Fray Juan Rizi, was born at Madrid in 1608. He
received instruction in art from Vincenzio Carducci. In the year 1653 he was
appointed painter to the Cathedral of Toledo-a very lucrative post ; and in 1O5O
was made painter to Philip IV., by whom he was much patronized ; after that monarch s
death he was made pamter to Charles II. Francisco Rizi died in 1685, whie engaged
on a work of considerable importance ; it was a sketch of a picture for the altar, which
had been previously executed from his designs, of the Retablo de la Santa Forma in
the sacristy of the Escurial. The work was afterwards painted from his drawings by
his scholar Claudio Coello. ,r , j ^ . .1^ p^,r.,i
Many of Rizi's works are in the churches and convents ot Madrid, but the Royal
Gallery can boast of only one work, a rortrait of an unknown knight. Stanley says o
this artist, " He conceived and produced, but always incorrectly," and he adds, that
the decline of painting in that country (Spain) may be attributed, m a great degree, to
the attraction of his style, and its superficiality."
We now return to real Spanish artists :
Felix Castello was born at Madrid in 1602. He studied art first under his father
Fabricio, an unimportant artist, and then under Carducho. Castello painted historical
subjects-more especially battle-pieces. He died in 1656, at his native city.
220 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1600.
Diego Velasquez de Silva should, according to the custom of his country, have
been named Don Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velasquez, for his father's name was Juan
Rodriguez de Silva, and his mother Gerdnima Velasquez. It is his mother's name
which he has retained. He was born at Seville, and was baptized there June 6, 1599.
We have already seen that, when his classical studies were completed, he had two
masters so opposite in style as were Herrera el Viejo and Francisco PachecO. We
too know that he soon chose a third master, and also studied incessantly from nature.
The course and character of his studies are no less curious to notice than good to
follow. He set himself to copy with scrupulous fidelity all the objects that could be
offered by nature for the imitation of art, from inanimate objects to man, taking in his
course plants, fishes, birds, and animals. It was thus that he obtained that wonderful
truthfulness which is the principal characteristic of his style. Having through these
natural stages at last come to painting men, Velasquez also studied separately the
different parts of the human body, and the passions which actuate it. Pacheco, in his
Afie de la Fintura, says, " He kept in his pay a peasant boy as an apprentice, who
served him for a model in all sorts of action, and in various attitudes — sometimes
laughing, sometimes crying." From him he executed many heads in charcoal, heigh-
tened with white on blue paper, and many others completely coloured, by which means
he acquired his certainty in portraits.
Velasquez must have seen, even at Seville, several paintings from Italy and
Flanders ; he also saw there the Avorks of Luis Tristan, of Toledo, whose taste he
admired. It was then that he felt the necessity of going to Madrid to study the works
of the masters of his art. Pacheco had then just given him the hand of his daughter
Dona Juana, " moved," as Pacheco himself says, " by his virtue, his purity, and his
good parts, as well as by the hopes derived from, his great genius." Velasquez started
for Madrid in the spring of 1622, when twenty-three years of age, and there studied
hard in the rich collections of the palaces of Madrid and the Escurial. The next year
he returned to that city, being summoned this time by the Count-duke of Olivarez.
Pacheco accompanied his son-in-law in this second journey, feeling sure that glory and
fortune awaited him at court. And, indeed, his first pictures showed what he could do.
Philip IV, ordered a portrait of himself, with which he was so delighted, that he
immediately collected and caused to be destroyed all the portraits that had yet been
taken of him, and he named Velasquez his private painter {phitor de cdniara). To this
title was added later those of usher of the chamber {ugier de cdmara) and of
aposcntador mayor. His salary, fixed at first at twenty ducats a month, was raised by
degrees to a thousand ducats a year, without counting the price of his works. Besides
this, Velasquez was admitted to intimacy with the king, and was counted all the
remainder of his life among those courtiers who were called privados del rey. It was
amongst these friends, and in the cultivation of arts and letters, that Philip IV.
consoled himself for his political disgrace after having lost Roussillon, Flanders, Portugal,
and Catalonia. When he first ascended the throne he had allowed himself to be sur-
named " the Great," but soon it was said that his emblem was a ditch with this motto,
"The more is taken from it the greater it becomes." In the same year (1623)
Velasquez painted the portrait of Charies I. of England, then Prince of Wales.
The royal favour changed neither the benevolent character of Velasquez, his austere
morality, nor his ardent love of work. When Rubens came to Madrid in 1628, he
visited the young portrait-painter, and, recognizing the whole power of a genius Avhich
had not yet learned to know itself, he encouraged him to treat larger subjects, though
THE WATER-CARRIER OF SEVILLE. Uy Velasquez.
In the possessioK of the Duke of Wellington
A.D. 1650.] VELASQUEZ. 221
he, at the same time, advised him to go to Italy first, in order to study the great
masters. This advice of the learned foreigner quite decided Velasquez. The following
year he set out for Venice, where he studied Titian, Tintoretto, and Paul Veronese ;
then he went to Rome, where he co})ied a large part of the Last Judgjncnt by Michel-
angelo, the School of Athens by Raphael, and other works of these two great rivals in
fame.- After more than a year occupied with these labours done in retirement, and
after having visited Naples and his fellow-countryman Ribera, Velasquez returned to
Madrid in 163 1, with his talent ripened and matured. Of this he brought with him a
striking proof in the pictures named Jacob with the garment of Joseph, and Apollo at
the forge of Vulcan. The artist's works received a splendid welcome at the court, and
Velasquez from that time occupied without dispute the first rank among the painters
of his country ; he remained seventeen years in his studio, where Philip IV. used to
visit him familiarly nearly every day. A commission given him by this prince for the
purchase of some works of art caused Velasquez to return to Italy in 1648. He could
then visit Florence, Bologna, and Parma, whither he was attracted by the works of
Correggio. On his return to Madrid, Velasquez continued his labours peacefully until
1660. But in the mondi of March of that year, he had to go to Irun in his office of
aposentador fnayor, when Philip IV. conducted his daughter Maria Theresa to Louis
XIV., who came to the frontier to receive his future royal bride. It was Velasquez
who prepared the pavilion in the Isle of Pheasants, where the two kings were to meet.
The fatigues of this journey injured his already declining health. He returned ill
to Madrid, and died there on the 7th of August, i66o, when sixty-one years of age.
He was buried with much pomp and honour in the church of St, Juan. His widow
survived him only seven days.
After this rapid sketch of his life, we pass to the works of Velasquez. Sixty-four
paintings by him are now collected in the Museo del Rey, and in this number are
included all his principal works ; that is to say, except a very few carried out of Spain
either as royal gifts or as the spoils of war, the whole works of Velasquez are in this
museum. This kind of condensation is easy to understand. We have only to
remember the way in which Philip IV., his friend, who had only just ascended the throne
when Velasquez came to Madrid, and who survived him by several years, acquired
successively all the pictures that came from a studio forming a part of the i)alace, and
painted by an artist employed by the royal family. The whole of the works of
Velasquez, then, ha\e remained the property of tlie Spanish crown. This circum-
stance, by showing why so few of this master's works have left Spain, also explains how
it was that he remained so long completely unknown beyond his own country.
Velasquez tried every style, and succeeded in all. . He painted with equal success
history (profane, at least), portraits, both on foot and on horseback, men and women,
children and old men, historical landscapes, animals, interiors, flowers and fruits. We
will neither notice his small dining-room pictures {bodegones) nor his little domestic
scenes in the Flemish style. Whatever may be the merit of these works, they can only
be looked on either as the studies of a conscientious student, who does not wish to
neglect any of the objects that art borrows from nature, or as the productions of
various design of a universal genius who feels his strength and wishes to prove it. The
most celebrated landscapes of Velasquez, at all events at Madrid, are a View of
Aranfucz and a Vic7v of the Pardo. But inanimate nature is not sufficient for him. He
animates it in such a manner that it is no longer merely a theatre for the scenes placed
in it. In painting the wild woods of the Pardo, he introduces a boar-hunt, where dogs,
ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1660.
horses, and men are all in motion. When painting the gravelled gardens of Aranjuez
he chooses the Queen's JValk, which from that time down to our own has retained the
distinction of being the fashionable promenade, and the picture thus becomes a kind of
memoir, which records the habits of society at that time in the thousand occurrences
of a court promenade.
Amongst his historical landscapes we must especially mention the Visit of St.
Antony to St. Paid the Hermit. In a dreary solitude of the Thebaide these scenes are
represented : on the right the stranger is represented knocking at the door of the cell
which the hermit has hollowed out of the rock ; in the centre, the two old men,
engaged in holy conference, are receiving the double allowance of bread brought by the
raven ; on the left St. Antony is seen praying over the corpse of Paul, whilst two lions
are digging with their claws the grave of the deceased hermit. Excepting for the fact
of there being several scenes in the same picture, which is no longer allowed, this
painting might be considered a real masterpiece. Nothing could be finer than the
bemitiful horror of the desert, unless, indeed, it is the expression of those two venerable
faces, and the actions of the miraculous servants. For the rest, this landscape, like all
those of Velasquez, is painted on a system totally opposite to that of other great
painters from nature, Claude or Ruysdael for example, whose works must be looked
at closely. Velasquez, more like Rubens or Rembrandt in works of a similar character,
threw on the colouring with bold strokes of his brush ; the canvas is scarcely covered ;
the outlines of objects are undefined ; earth, trees, and sky, all are in generalities, and
without details. If we approach too curiously, the eye only sees something like the
decorations of a theatre — uncertainty, confusion, and chaos. But if we draw back a
few steps, the darkness is dissipated, the beings take life, the world is created anew, and
we behold nature in her true colours.
In portrait-painting Velasquez shares the glory of Titian, Vandyck, and Rembrandt.
He has surpassed all his fellow-countrymen, and is scarcely equalled by his great rivals
in other schools. Nothing can surpass his skill in depicting the human form, or his
boldness in seizing it under its most difficult aspects : for example, the equestrian
portrait of his royal friend Philip IV. He has placed him in the midst of an open
country, standing out against a boundless horizon, lighted by a Spanish sun, without a
single shadow, half-light, or contrast of any description. Yet, notwithstanding this bold
neglect of all the artificial assistance of art, he has attained the greatest possible degree
of illusion. He has imprinted on his canvas all the characteristics of life. The position
and harmony of the limbs, as well as the whole attitude of the body, is perfect. The
hair seems almost to be moved by the wind, the blood to circulate under the trans-
parent skin, the eyes to look out from the picture, and the mouth to be about to speak.
Indeed, the illusion, when we have studied the picture for some time, seems to be
almost alarming. It is before such pictures that the imagination can call up the men
of another time, and renew the miracle of Pygmalion,
What we have said of the portrait of Phihp IV. might be repeated of all those by
Velasquez. The same admiration is excited by the other portraits of Philip IV., either
in full-length or merely heads ; and also by the portraits of the queens Elizabeth of France
and Marianne of Austria, the young Infafita Margaret and the Infante Don Paltazar,
sometimes proudly handling an arquebus of his own height, or else galloping on a
spirited Andalusian pony. The Count-duke of Olivarez, another protector of the artist, is
represented on horseback and clothed in armour ; but in this picture, besides an equal
amount of resemblance and life, there is also an energy and commanding grandeur
DIEGO VELASOUKZ DE SILVA.
J\ji;f 222.
A.D. i66o.'i VELASQUEZ. 223
which the painter could not give to the indolent monarch. Almost all the portraits by-
Velasquez that have been preserved in the museum at Madrid are of historical person-
ages. Amongst them are the Marquis of Pescara, the Alcalde Ro/iquillo, and the
pirate Barbarossa. These are called portraits, but they are in reality simple studies.
Pescara and Ronquillo died before the time of Velasquez, and certainly Barbarossa
could never have sat to him. At last he reached caricature when he painted some
dwarfs — the male very thin and the female enormously stout — a sort of domestic
animal, which gave great delight to the royal children.
Unlike the Italians and all his fellow-countrymen, Velas(iuez did not like to treat
sacred subjects. They require less an exact imitation of nature — in which he excelled
— than a depth of thought, a warmth of sentiment, and an ideality of ex[)ression.
Velasquez did not feel at his ease amongst angels or saints ; he required men. He has
consequently left scarcely any picture on sacred history. There are two in the
museum at Madrid, the Martyrdom of St. Stephen and a Crucifixion. The fonner of
these pictures, inferior in its style to that by Joanes, is only redeemed by its details.
In it we feel, however, the true vocation of Velasquez ; for, among the numerous
personages in the terrible drama, it is not the hero who concentrates our attention, but
a child — "that age has no pity" — who comes after the executioners to throw his stone
at the prostrate martyr. The Crucifixion is far superior. Christ is the only figure in
the whole picture. No other object distracts the attention ; the falling night conceals
the rest of nature from sight. The pale form of the dead Christ stands out from the
dark background. We should admire the form, which is extremely beautiful, if our
mind could preserve a terrestrial thought before such a sight, but we are filled by
higher emotions. The blood is flowing from the hands and feet of Jesus, who is
fastened by nails to the cross of shame. His head is leaning forward, and from the
crown of thorns which still encircles it the hair falls in bloody locks, which veil the
closed eyes, and cover the whole countenance with a mournful shadow. No painter,
perhaps, has ever imparted a more profound melancholy, or a more solemn majesty, to
the death of the Saviour.
As for the profane pictures, genre paintings in their subjects, but historical ones by
their dimensions and style, they are sufficiently numerous to satisfy the eager curiosity
of the admirers of Velasquez. There are five principal ones in the museum at Madrid.
We shall endeavour to analyse these in a few words. That which is called Las Hilan-
deras (the Spinners) shows the interior of a manufactory. In an immense room, only
dimly lighted in the hottest time of the day, workwomen, half-naked, are occupied with
the different employments of tlieir trade, whilst some ladies are being shown some of
the completed work. Velasquez, who usually placed his model in the open air and
sunshine, has here braved the contrary difficulty. His whole picture is in a half-light,
and, ])laying with such a difficulty, he has succeeded in producing the most wonderful
effects of light and perspective. The exclusive lovers of colour place Las Ililanderas
the first of his works.
V/hen we come to La Fraga de Vulcaiio (the Forge of \'ulcan), we are surprised at
the title it bears. Were it not for the glory which surrounds the head of Apollo, we
should scarcely imagine that we were looking at a mythological subject or at super-
human beings. Apollo, who has come to inform the husband of Venus that Mars is
occupying his place in the nuptial bed, is no less ignoble, we must confess, than the part
he is acting — that of domestic spy. Besides, the scene is not in the burning caverns of
Etna, nor is it tlie black trooj) of the Cyclo])s forging the tlumders of Jupiter or the
2 24 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1660..
arms of Achilles. We here see merely a blacksmith's workshop, with the blacksmith
and his apprentices. But if we take away the mythology, and, removing the unsuitable
glory from the head of Apollo, make of him merely one of those good neighbours who.
according to the Spanish i)roverb, see who goes in but not who goes out, then what a
complete metamorphosis do we behold ! We may now admire the space, the truth,
and effect in the conflict between the light from the forge where the iron is becoming
red-hot, and the sunlight which streams in at the half-opened door ; the gestures of the
outraged husband, who is thunderstruck with surprise and anger, and the workmen,
who have suddenly ceased their labours and the harmonious cadence of their hammers.
The Surrender of Breda, which is usually called in Spain El Cuadro de las Lanzas
(the Picture of the Lances), is a still better work. The subject of it is very simple.
The Dutch governor is presenting Spinola, the general of the Spanish forces, with the
keys of the surrendered town. But Velasquez has made of this a great composition.
On the left there is a part of the escort of the governor ; his soldiers still retain their
arms, arquebuses, and halberts. On the right, before a troop, whose raised lances
have given the picture the name it bears, is the staff of the Spanish general. Spinola's
horse, which is in the foreground and seen from behind, breaks the uniformity of this
group, where all the heads are portraits. Velasquez has concealed his own noble and
earnest face under the plumed hat of the officer who occupies the farthest corner of
the picture. Between these two groups the space is empty ; the painter has been so
bold as to separate them by a broad space of air and light, which shows a wide land-
scape. But the two parts of the general composition are united where Spinola and the
Dutch general are meeting. Every point in this immense picture is worthy of praise.
As a whole it is grand, and the details are thoroughly artistic and full of truth. The
sky, although painted in Spain, is pale and misty, and the earth is moist and cold. The
people of the Low Countries, with their broad shoulders, fair hair, and fresh complex-
ions, form a good contrast to the pale and serious countenances of the Spaniards, with
their carefullj^-trimmed beards, spare forms, and rich clothing. There is an immense
amount of nature and variety in the attitudes of all, and yet the hero of the day attracts
one's whole interest to himself. Although clothed in comple armour, he has dismounted
in order to receive his vanquished enemy, whom he greets with a smile, and compli-
ments on the courageous defence. The painter must have understood true greatness,
or he could not have so well expressed the benevolence and nobility which make even
a defeat endurable.
To pass from the Surrender of Breda to the Drinkers {Los Bebedores, or Borraehos)
is to pass from an epic poem to a drinking song, and yet, instead of being inferior to
the other, it is perhaps even greater. The king of a Bacchanalian society, crowned
with ivy leaves, but almost naked, is seated on a barrel which serves him for a throne.
Five or six jolly companions dressed in rags form his court, and at his feet there kneels
a soldier of some kind, who is receiving with respect and gravity the accolade of knight-
hood. The monarch wreathes a vine branch around the head of the new knight, whilst
the rest prepare libations to complete the ceremony and proclaim his welcome. It is
merely a comic scene, and yet it is one of those pictures of the beauty of which no
description can give an idea. It is almost in vain to call attention to its special merits
— the puffy face of the king, his fat body, which speaks so ■ strongly of the careless
gluttony of those called tons vivants in all countries ; the shaggy beards, red eyes, and
ragged cloaks of the brotherhood ; the old man at the back who is uncovering his grey
head to salute a cup of wine, and the other who is laughing in your face with that con-
A.D. 1
660.]
VELASQUEZ.
tagious laughter which one cannot see without joining. All this cannot be described
in words ; such a picture must be thoroughly known and studied, to be understood.
It is said that Sir David Willcie went to Madrid expressly to study Velasquez, and
that, still further simplifying the object of his journey, he only studied this one picture.
Every day, whatever the weather might be, he would go to the museum, sit down
before his fovourite picture, and after three hours of silent rapture, exhausted by
fatigue and admiration, would utter a sigh of relief, take his hat and depart.
We know only one other picture which, as an imitation of nature, equals, or perhaps
even surpasses, that of the Dritikcrs ; and this other is also by Velasquez. While
engaged in painting the portrait of the Infanta Margaret, he conceived the idea of
taking the whole scene as a picture with himself for an actor. The scene takes place
in a long gallery in the palace. Velasquez is on the left, standing at his easel with a
rilK DKINKKRS. — BY \K1,AS(M'K/..
palette in his hand ; opposite him is the little Infanta, whom attendants are endeavouring
to amuse during her wearisome sitting. One of her ladies, on her knees, is present-
ing her with drink in an Indian vase ; and the two dwarfs, Nicholas Pertusano and
Maria Barbola, are teasing a large dog, who submits patiently to their impertinence.
Two faces reflected in a mirror show that Philip IV. and his wife are present on a sofa
at the side. At the extreme end of the gallery a gentleman has half opened a door
leading into the gardens. This picture is one of the few which contain secrets for no
one, which strike the most ignorant as well as the learned. If we could separate our-
selves from the other objects which surround us, and perceive nothing beyond the
limits of the picture, it would be impossible not to believe in the reality of the things.
All the objects are ])alpable, and the beings alive; the air seems to move amongst them
and to surround anil penetrate them. The perspective, showing the space and depth
2 G
226 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1660
of the gallery, is admirable, as well as the light and its phenomena. We might almost
count the paces in the gallery ; and we cannot help being dazzled at the resplendent
light coming in at the half-opened door. We may almost see these personages and
hear them speak. Charles II. having taken Luca Giordano, then recently arrived from
Italy, to see the picture, the enthusiastic artist exclaimed, "Your majesty, it is the
theology of painting." "The moderns," adds M. Beule, "might say more simply, it is
the photography of painting."
To this picture, which is usually called Las Meninas (the menmas were the maids
of honour), belongs an interesting circumstance in the painter's life. When he had
put the last touches to it, he presented it, like all his works, to Philip IV., whom he
asked whether he thought it still wanted anything. "One thing only," replied the
prince. And taking the palette from the hand of Velasquez, he himself painted on the
breast of the artist, represented in the picture, the cross of the order of Santiago. This
cross is still there as it was traced by the royal hand. Certainly there is more grace-
fulness and nobiUty in this method of ennobling than in the sending of a piece of
parchment.
The Belvedere Gallery of Vienna is the only other museum in Europe which
possesses a family picture by the hand of Velasquez. This, which is almost equal
to Las Meninas, represents, not the family of the king, but that of the painter,
his wife, his children, his servants, and himself, whom he has placed in the back-
ground before his easel, near the portrait of Philip IV. Some time ago this picture
was placed near the ceiling of a room, and almost out of sight ; since then it has been
brought down and rests on the edge of the woodwork. This is the contrary extreme ;
the painting of Velasquez is not intended to be looked at like that of Gerard Dow ; and
Rembrandt might say of the works of Velasquez as he did of his own, " Painting is not
to' be smelt." This picture should rather be placed in the centre of the panel ; then it
might be seen to perfection and appreciated as it deserves.
Another fine work of Velasquez is in the National Gallery of London ; this is
2l Boar-hunt at Aranjuez i^o. 197). At the foot of wooded hills a circus is formed
by net-work hung around. Instead of bulls, wild boars have been let loose, which
are pursued by dogs and attacked with the lance by nobles mounted on Andalusian
horses. Ladies are watching the warlike game from their large cumbersome coaches,
which look like movable caravans, and are even painted the same light blue colour
as the caravans at a fair. But the upper and lower parts of the picture are far
superior, even in interest. The depth of the background, the sandy hills, the trees
standing out against a burning sky, and varying with their dark shadows the bright
ground illuminated by a Spanish sun, show the special merit of this master, his truth
and correctness. The foreground, no less true and just, shows also an infinite variety
of combinations and effects. This is simply a hne of spectators watching over the
fence how the king and courtiers are amusing themselves. There is great diversity
in the groups and attitudes, in the expression of the different countenances ; a happy
contrast of colours between the brilliant slashed coats of the gentlemen and the
picturesque rags of the beggars ; a no less happy mixture of horses, mules, and dogs
amongst men of all ages and conditions ; nothing, m short, is wanting in this portrait
of a crowd, not even the sentiment of equality, so deeply-rooted in Spain, where
everyone says proudly, " We are all the children of God." Besides this picture, the
National Gallery possesses a Nativity (No. 232) and a Portrait of Philip IV. of
Spain (No. 745) ; also a Dead Warrior — known as El Orlando Muerto — (No. 741),
A.D. 1660.] SCIiOOL OF CASTILE.
formerly in the possession of the Count de Pourtal^s, and a Landscape — signed D. 1). V.
— bequeathed by the late Mr. Wynh Ellis, said to be of Spanish production and by
some attributed to Velasquez. Before leaving England we must not omit to mention
the Water-carrier {Aguador) at Apsley House. This celebrated picture, so well known
from engravings {see woodait), was presented to the first Duke of Wellington by
Marshal Soult.
Everywhere else, at St. Petersburg, Munich, and Dresden, we merely find simple
portraits as specimens of Velasquez, and some of these are rather by his copyists than
by himself In all Italy there is only the portrait of Innocent X., which was
taken in Rome in 1648, and which received, like the great works of Raphael and
Titian, the honours of a procession and coronation. In the Louvre the only really
authentic and beautiful work of Velasquez is the halflength portrait of the young
Injanta Margaret., who was married to the Emperor Leopold six years after her elder
sister Maria Theresa had been married to Louis XIV.
To describe Velasquez in one word, we should borrow the expression Rousseau
employed for himself, " the man of nature and truth." In subjects which require
neither grandeur of thought, elevation of style, nor sublimity of expression, where
the true is sufficient, Velasquez is unrivalled. Although he painted without hesitation
or re-touching, although he delighted in difficulties, such as those of light, his drawing
is always irreproachably pure. His colouring is firm, sure, and perfectly natural ;
there is nothing affected in it, nothing brilliant, nor any search for effect ; but there
is also nothing sad, pale, or dark, and no dominant tint to injure the effect. He
coloured as he drew ; he was everywhere and in everything true. In the distribution
of light and shade, in the diffusion of ambient air — in other words, in linear and aerial
perspective — Velasquez especially excels. It was in this that he discovered the
secret of perfect illusion. " He knew how to paint the air," says Moratin. Certainly,
if the art of painting were merely the art of imitating nature, Velasquez would be the
first painter in the world.
Antonio Fernandez de Arias was born at Madrid in the early years of the seven-
teenth century. He studied art under Pedro de las Cuevas. At the early age of
twenty-four, Fernandez was considered one of the best painters in Spain. He died at
Madrid in 1 684. Of his works we may mention the Tribute Money in the Queen of
Spain's Gallery, and eleven scenes from the Passion of our Z^W (noticed by Palomino),
in the convent of San Felipe.
Juan Pareja, who was a slave and valet of Velasquez, was born in 16 10 in the
West Indies, of a Spanish father by an Indian woman. His business was to pound
the colours, clean the brushes, and put the colours on the palette. Pareja, who had
been a long time in the studio, every day learning some secret of the art which was
carried on before him. had, at last, felt his true vocation. But what could the poor
mulatto hope to do ? His master, like the ancient Greeks, considered the fine arts
too noble for the hands of a slave, and he had forbidden Pareja any work which
would make him more than a servant of painting. But the laws of nature are stronger
than those of society. Carried away by his passion, which was only strengthened by
the obstacles it encountered, Pareja began to study with as much ardour as he was
forced to use mystery. During the day he watched his master paint, and listened
to the lessons he gave to his pupils ; then, during the night, he practised the lesson
with pencil and brush. Studies such as these could not lead to rapid progress ; it
2 28 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1660.
required much time and the most obstinate perseverance on the part of Pareja before
he could attain to a knowledge of his art. At last, when he was forty-five years old,
he thought himself sufficiently skilful to reveal the secret so long kept. To do this
and obtain his pardon at the same time, he employed the following artifice : —
Philip IV., who visited familiarly his painter de camera, used to amuse himself with
looking over the sketches which were scattered about the room. Having completed
a picture of small dimensions, Pareja slipped it amongst other paintings with their
faces turned to the wall. At his first visit the king did not fail to ask for all the
sketches in the studio. When Pareja presented him with his own picture, Philip, much
surprised, asked who had painted that fine work which he had not seen commenced.
The mulatto then, throwing himself at his feet, confessed that he was the author,
and entreated the king to intercede for him with his master. Still more astonished
at this strange revelation, Philip turned to Velasquez, saying, " You have nothing
to reply; only remember that the man who possesses such talent cannot remain a
slave." Velasquez hastened to raise Pareja, and promising him his liberty, which
he afterwards gave him in an authentic deed, he admitted him from that day into his
school and society. Certainly this is a singular and touching history of a slave
earning his liberty by the power of labour and talent, and obtaining it through the
intercession of a king. Pareja, however, showed himself worthy of it, less by his
merit than by his humble and grateful conduct. He continued to wait on Velasquez
freely, and even after the death of the great painter he served his daughter, who
was married to Mazo Martinez, until his own death, which took place in 1670. He
is usually called " Pareja, the Slave of Velasquez," as Sebastian Gomez is called
the " Mulatto of Murillo."
Juan Carreno da Miranda — commonly known as Carreno — was born of noble
parents at Avile's in 1614. He studied design in the school of Pedro de las Cuevas, a
painter more celebrated for his scholars than his works, and colour under Bartolome
Roman, a pupil of Velasquez. At Madrid, Carreno painted for the convents and
churches many pictures which gained him great fame. He executed in conjunction
with Francisco Rizi the well-known cupola of Sant' Antonio de los Portugeses. Philip
IV. made Carreiio one of his court-painters, and after the death of that monarch
Charles II. appointed him painter-in-ordinary and deputy-aposentador, and further
honoured him by conferring on him the cross of Santiago. Honoured and regretted
by all who knew him, Carreno died at Madrid in 1685. His pictures are noticeable
for correctness of design, and especially for harmony of colouring. Besides his works at
Madrid, this artist painted at Toledo, Alcala de Henares, Segovia, and at Pampeluna.
Juan Bautista del Mazo Martinez, who was born at Madrid in 1620 (?), was not
only the son-in-law of Velasquez, but also one of his most skilful pupils. He was
especially celebrated for his power of imitation : Palomino relates that copies of Titian,
Tintoretto, and Paul Veronese, which Martinez made in his youth, were sent into
Italy, where they were, doubtless, admitted for originals. Mazo Martinez succeeded
especially in copying the works of his master. The most expert were deceived by
them, and even to this day mistakes of the same kind are no less common. Mazo
Martinez died at Madrid in 1687.
Ciaudio Coello, who was born at Madrid of Portuguese parents about the year 1635,
was in the Castilian school what Carlo Maratti had been in the Roman, " the last of
A.u. ,670.] SCHOOL OF CASTILE. 229
th'e old masters." His father, who was a sculptor in bronze, intended his son for the
same profession, and accordingly apprenticed him to Francisco Rizi to study drawing,
for which branch of art he exhibited such a decided talent, that his flxther was induced
by Rizi to let him become a painter. Claudio Coello soon won the friendship of
Carreno, who obtained for him admission into the royal galleries, where he improved
his style by studying the works of Titian, Rubens, and other great masters. In 1683,
Coello went to Saragossa, by the invitation of the Archbishop, to paint in the church of
the Augustinians, and in the following year he was appointed painter to Charles II.,
who afterwards made him deputy-aposentador ?aii\ pititor de camara. On the death of
Rizi in 1685, Coello commenced his masterpiece, which occupied him more than two
years. It is still in the Escurial and represents the Collocation of the ILost (El Cuadro
de la Forma), and contains the portraits of Charles LI. and many of his courtiers. In
1690 Luca Giordano was summoned from Italy to paint the walls of the Escurial; he
arrived in 1692. Coello— who was, besides p'mtor de camara, painter to the Cathedral
of Toledo and Keeper of the Royal Galleries — considered this an injustice and an
insult, and grief and jealousy caused his death a year later.
Juan de Alfaro y Zamon, who was born at Cordova in 1C40, studied art first under
Antonio del Castillo, but subsequently with Velasquez, in whose school he gready
improved his colouring, because that master employed him to copy the works of Titian,
Rubens, and other great colourists. Alfaro is said to have been absurdly vain. It is
related of him by Palomino, that being employed to paint scenes from the Life of St.
Lmiicis for the cloister of the convent to that saint, he copied his subjects from prints
and then signed each picture, " Alfaro pinxit ; " the historian further tells us that
Alfaro's old master Castillo, in order to rebuke him, obtained leave to execute one, and
then signed it " Non pinxit Alfaro," which henceforth became a proverb. The memory
of Alfaro is not only stained by vanity, but by ingratitude. On the banishment of the
Admiral of Castile, who had been his patron, Alfaro deserted his cause, and on his being
recalled, did not hesitate to solicit a repetition of his former favours. It is said that the
rebuff he received from the Admiral caused his death, which took place at Madrid in
1680. The masterpiece of Alfaro is his Guardian Angel, in the church of the Imperial
College at Madrid.
After the death of Coello the kings of Spain had, for many years, none but foreign
painters. Charles II. sent for Fa presto ; Philip V. to France for Ranc and Houasse ;
and Charles III. to Italy for the German, Raphael Mengs. To come down nearer to
the present time, we have but to mention a few names.
Francisco Goya y Lucientes was born at Fuente de Todos in 1746. He was
his own master, and took lessons only of the old masters. From this singular educa-
tion his talent took a peculiar bent — inaccurate, wild, and witliout method or style, but
full of nerve, boldness, and originality. Goya is the last heir, in a very distant degree, of
the great Velasc^uez. His is the same manner, but looser and more fiery. Being under
no delusion as to the extent of his own talent, Goya did not lose himself in too high-flown
ideas ; he confined himself to village processions, choristers, and scenes of bull-races —
in short, to all sorts of painted caricatures. In this genre he is full of wit, and his
execution is always superior to the subjects. But, like Velasquez, Goya founds his
best title to celebrity on his portraits. His equestrian portraits of Charles LV. and
Maria Louisa have been placed in the vestibule of the Museo del Rey. These works
230 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1850.
are, doubtless, very imperfect, being full of glaring faults, especially in the forms of the
horses. But the heads and busts have singular beauty ; and on the whole, though very
defective when analysed, there is so much effect, such truth in the colouring, and
boldness in the touch, that one cannot fail to admire these high qualities, although
regretting the essential defects which they cannot entirely redeem. Goya is best
known for his etchings, which are very good. Eighty of these have been collected into
a volume, which is called the ' Works of Goya.' These are witty allegories on the
persons and things of his own time, and remind us of Rembrandt in their vigour
and pointedness, of Callot in their invention, and of Hogarth in their humour. Goya
died in 1825.
After Goya there was a complete gap in Spanish art, and it was with surprise, and still
more with pleasure, that at the time of the Universal Exhibition at Paris in 1867
we found it to be reviving. Spain maintained her position honourably amongst the
assembled nations. Since that time further progress has been made, and now that
peace has once more visited this unfortunate country, let us hope that the close of
the present century will see a revival of the magnificent art for which Spain was once
so famous. Within the last few years several painters have risen up, and become
celebrated ; and of two of these we must give a brief record.
Mariano Fortuny, who was born at Barcelona about the year 1839, received his first
instruction in art from a pupil of the great German master, Owerbeck. He afterwards
went to Madrid to study the works of Velasquez and Goya ; but although he carefully
examined the paintings of these masters, Fortuny never servilely copied them. In
fact, his chief claim to renown as a painter is based on his originality. While in
Madrid, he was commissioned by the Spanish Government to paint a representation
of the Battle of Tdiian; the price, 6000 francs, was to be paid on condition that the
picture should equal the Smala of Horace Vernet. Soon after the completion of this
picture, Fortuny visited Rome, and then went to Paris, where he soon became cele-
brated. Returning to the Papal capital, he died there in 1874, and was buried with
much honour. In his own country, at Rome, and at Paris, Fortuny was very popular,
and his works were much sought for ; but in London, although several of his best
pictures were exhibited, he scarcely met with the same success.
Eduardo Zamacois, who was born at Bilbao, in the early half of the nineteenth
century, studied painting under M. Meissonier. Many of his best pictures have been
exhibited in the Paris Salon; two are especially worthy of mention, Buff on. an \(f Siecle,
exhibited in 1867, in which year he gained the medal of the society, and ^education
d'/ni Prince in 1870. Zamacois died at Madrid on the 14th of January, 187 1.
A.D. I350.] SCHOOL OF BOHEMIA. 231
BOOK III
CHAPTER I.
GERMAN SCHOOLS.
GERMAN Art of the fourteenth century descended, like the Italian, from the
Byzantines. In its first stages all the (juaint peculiarities of the early Christian
painters are seen in full vigour. Conventionality, without any thought of the
beauty of Nature, sat like an incubus upon these makers of pictures, but happily it was
not for many years : German Art quickly emancipated itself from all servile imitation,
and in another century produced masterpieces, which to this day are full of interest
to the scholar.
Following the method of classification to which we have adhered in our notice of
Italian and Spanish Art, we shall mention the principal German painters under their
own particular Schools — maintaining, as far as possible, a chronological order ; and
carrying out this plan, the first group of artists to which our attention is directed
will be the
SCHOOL OF BOHEMIA,
which owes its existence to the patronage of the Emperor Charles IV., the author of
the Golden Bull, who employed several artists in his castle of Karlstein near Prague.
Of these artists, the names of four have been handed down to us. The first is
Theodorich of Prague, to whom is attributed 125 half-length figures of Saints and
Euicsiastics in the church of the Holy Cross— otherwise known as the Royal Chapel,
at the castle of Karlstein. The second is Nicholas Wurmser, to whose hand critics
ascribe Scenes from the Apocalypse in the church of Our Lady, and in the church of
the Holy Cross ; also a Crucifixion in the Imperial Gallery at Vienna. The third
Bohemian master is Kunz, A\ho probably executed the scenes from the Life of Charles
IV. in the church of Our Lady. The fourth and last-mentioned artist, who laboured
chiefly in the chapel of St. Catherine, is Tommaso da Modena, who virtually belongs to
the Italian school, where will be found a further mention of him. It must be borne
in mind that the above-mentioned pictures are gready damaged, many of them being
mere remnants, and that the names ascribed to each, though made by eminent critics,
are very little more than surmises and cannot be entirely depended on.
232 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF FALNTERS. [a.d. 1450.
There is nothing, beyond the fact that they laboured for Charles IV., to fix tlie
dates of these artists' lives ; we must therefore content ourselves with saying that they
flourished from 1348 until 1378 — the years of that monarch's reign.
Before quitting the early painters of Bohemia, we may mention a few other works
ascribed to them : a mosaic-triptych on the exterior of the Prague Cathedral, represent-
ing Christ adored by the Saints, the Virgin enthroned, St. John the Baptist, and at the
bottom on either side the Resurrection and the Condemned ; also some mural paintings
in the chapel of St. Wenceslas within the cathedral. Besides these and many other
pictures by these masters, there are numerous manuscripts illuminated with miniatures,
wliich are better specimens of Bohemian art than half-effaced wall-paintings. •
SCHOOL OF COLOGNE.
The primitive Bohemian school, of which we have just spoken, had only an
ephemeral existence ; it was crushed almost in the bud. But on the banks of the
Rhine, at Cologne, between Germany and Flanders, a school was afterwards formed,
which, from one stem, sent forth the two great branches of Northern art — the German
schools to the east, and the Flemish-Dutch to the west Foremost among these early
painters of Cologne is
Meister Wilhelm— also called from his birthplace, Wilhelm von Herle — who, the
Limburg Chronicle tells us, "was a famous painter in Cologne, whose equal was not
to be found in Christendom ; and who painted a man as though he lived."
Meister Wilhelm was born at a little village named Herle, near Cologne, in which
town he settled in 1358, and where he continued to paint until 1372; he appears to
have died in 1378. (Merlo, ' Die Meister der Altkolnischen Malerschule.')
Of the works which are attributed to Meister Wilhelm, the most important are
scenes from the Life of Christ, formerly in the church of St. Clara, now in the
Johannis Capelle in Cologne Cathedral ; scenes from the Life of Christ a7id the Virgiiii
and an altar-piece representing the Madonna and Child adored by Saints, both in the
Berlin Museum. In and near Cologne, there are various works attributed to Meister
Wilhelm. The National Gallery possesses a Sancta Veronica (No. 687), formerly
in the Lorenz-Kirche at Cologne, by this artist, to whom is also ascribed a picture
of the same subject in the gallery of Munich.
Stephan Lochner, commonly known as Meister Stephan, was born at Constance,
but the date of his birth is not known. He settled at Cologne, where he purchased a
house in 1442. He represented the Guild of St. Luke in the Senate in 1448 and again
in 1 45 1, in which year he died in poverty and obscurity. Meister Stephan is said to
have been a pupil of Meister Wilhelm, but the assumption is founded on very slight
grounds, and indeed, Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle say, "No styles were more
divergent than those of Wilhelm and Stephan, and it is impossible to tell whether the
latter followed the discipline of the former ;" but true it is that a picture, long
attributed to Meister Wilhelm, has now been almost incontestably shown to be by
Stephan. This picture is the celebrated " Dom-bild " of Cologne (engraved in ' Early
Flemish Painters'). Meister Stephan's name was first brought into notice by an entry
A.D. 1500.] SCHOOL OF COLOGNE. 233
in the journal of Albrecht Diirer, who says, " Item, I have paid two silver pennies
to have opened the picture which Meister Stephan painted at Cologne ;" and in addi-
tion to this evidence Herr Merlo discovered the name "Stephan Lochner," or
" Loethener," in some old city registers, whence was derived the scanty notice ot
Lochner's life above given. This Dom-bild, which is a triptych, and is supposed to have
been dated 1410, represents on the outside, an Annunciation^ and within, an Adora-
tion of the Magi ; on one wing St. Gereon and his Knights, and on the other, St.
Ursula and her Virgins. Among other works attributed to Meister Stephan are the
Madonna in der Rosenhiubc in the Cologne Museum, and a SS. Alatthav, Catherine of
Alexandria, and John the Evangelist in the National Gallery. Cologne, Munich,
Berlin, and other German towns possess works executed by followers of the style of
Meister Stephan.
The Master of the Cologne Crucifixion, called also the Master of the Bartholomaus
Altar and Meister Christophorus, flourished in Cologne from about 1500 until 15 10.
He has also been called, but erroneously, '* Lucas van Leyden." His earliest known work
was painted in 1501, and represents, the Incredulity of St. Thomas. A more famous
picture, formerly in the Rathhaus of Cologne, is the Crucifixion, with the Lisciplcs
and St. Jerome ; on the interior of the wings of the triptych is the Annunciation with
Saints, and on the exterior St. Peter and St. Paul. Of an altar-piece composed
of single saints, by this artist, the Munich Gallery possesses five specimens and the
National Gallery two, St. Peter and St. Dorothy.
The Master of the Death of the Virgin flourished at Cologne in the early part of
the sixteenth century. He derives his name from his earliest known work, the Death ^
of the Virgin, dated 15 15, in the Museum at Cologne. A repetition of this subject is
in the Munich Gallery. Among other pictures by him, we may mention an Adoration
of the Kifigs in the Dresden Gallery; and a Crucifixion in the gallery at Naples.
This artist, who spent a few years, in later life, in Italy, is a very fair colourist, though
frequently unpleasiug in his flesh tints. He excelled in representing the female head.
Bartholomaus Bruyn was born at Cologne in the beginning of the sixteenth century.
His early works resemble those of the " Master of the Death of the Virgin," whose
pupil he is said to have been ; but the paintings executed towards the close of his life
show a tendency towards copying the Italians. His masterpiece is the Wings of a
Shrine in the church of Xanten, which were completed in 1536, They represent on
the inside, the Lives of SS. Victor, Sylvester, and Helena; and on the outside, the
Virgin and Child with Saints. Portraits and historical pictures by this artist are in the
galleries of Berlin, Cologne, and Munich. Bruyn died in 1556.
SCHOOL OF WESTPHALIA.
From the parent stem of the Cologne School sprang up the two great branches
which, extending to the east and west from the banks of the Rhine, formed the schools
of Germany and of Flanders. The Flemish School, which was rendered fanious by the
brothers Van Eyck, was in the same century the teacher of the German, both in style
and execution. Nothing has been discovered about the first painters of the Westphalian
2 H
234 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS [a.d. 1450.
School beyond their works, and they are known only by the name of the places in
which their pictures were found.
The Master of Liesborn painted in the abbey of that name, in the south of West-
phalia, about the year 1465. The principal work by this master was a Crucifixion,
executed for the high-altar of the second convent church of Liesborn. When the convent
was abolished in 1807, the picture was cut into pieces. Several portions were lost, but
collectors, among others Herr Kriiger, of Minden, succeeded in obtaining various
fragments. This altar-piece represented, in the middle, the Crucifixion^ witnessed by
various saints, and on either side the Annunciation and scenes from the Life of our Lord.
The National Gallery possesses two portions of this altar-piece, St. John the Evangelist.,
St. Scholastica atid St. Benedict, and St. Cosnias, St. Damianus and the Virgin Mary,
all witnesses of the Crucifixion. These portions were formerly in the possession of
Herr Kriiger.
The Master of the Lyversberg Passion — called also Der Meister von Werden —
lived in Westphalia from about the year 1463 till 1490. A Deposition from the Cross
is in the Museum of Cologne, and the Lyversberg L^assion — so called from the name of
the former owner, Herr Lyversberg — is now in the Cologne Museum. It represents the
Passion of our Lord in eight compartments. The National Gallery has a Presentation
in the Temple; a companion-picture is in the Pinacothek at Munich, where there
are several other works attributed to this artist, under the erroneous title of " Israel
von Meckenem."
SCHOOL OF SWABIA.
Martin Schongauer— who, on account of the excellence of his art, is called " II bel
Martino " by the Italians, and " Le beau Martin " by the French — is usually known to
us as Martin Schon. He was born at Colmar about the year 1420. Both Augsburg
and Ulm claim, with Colmar, the honour of being the birthplace of this, the greatest
German painter of the fifteenth century ; and Augsburg can, at least, boast of being
the town of his ancestors. Schongauer, like the Florentine Maso Finiguerra, was an
engraver as well as a goldsmith, and, like the Bolognese goldsmith Francia, became
also a painter. He studied painting under Rogier van der Weyden, but though his
execution is Flemish, yet he is, to a great extent, German in feeling. About the year
1465 Schongauer removed from Ulm, where he had resided for some time, and settled
in Colmar, in which town he established a school and spent the rest of his life. He
died there in 1488.
In the paintings of Schongauer, which are unfortunately scarce, and for the most
part unauthenticated, the brilliant colouring of the Van Eycks is united to the fine and
hard delicacy of the engraver. The principal works attributed to him are, a Virgin atid
Child in a bower of roses, in the church of St. Martin at Colmar; two wings of an
altar-piece, representing the Madonna and Child, St. Anthony the Hermit and Donor,
and the Annunciation, in the Civic Library at Colmar ; and, lastly, the Death of the
Virgin, from the King of Holland's Collection, now in the National Gallery.
Though Schongauer was one of the best painters of his time, he was a better
m..,m-
Wf'
Martin schoncal lk
(Martin Schox.)
/Vj^r 234.
A.D. 1475.] SCHOOL OF SWABIA.
engraver than painter. His most celebrated works executed with the point are, a Flight
into Egypt, considered by many critics to be his masterpiece ; a Death of the Virgin ;
and St. Anthony tormented by Demons, of wliich, Vasari says, Michelangelo made a
pen-and-ink copy.
In the British Museum there is a fine collection of engravings by this artist.
Friedrich Herlen, who, from the similarity of their works, is supposed to have been
a pupil of Rogier van der Weyden, carried the style of the Van Eycks into Upper
Germanv. He was, however, but a servile imitator of their manner, ami far inferior
to Schongauer, both in originality and in execution. He lived at Ulm from 1449
until 1454 (Hassler's 'Ulm's Kunstgeschichte '), about which time he was made a
citizen Oi Nordlingen : in the church of this town there are still specimens of his
work ; two wings of an altar-piece, representing the Annunciation and Visitation of the
Virgin, and scenes from the Life of Christ ; an Ecce Homo and a Madontia and Child
adored by the painter, his wife and his family. Herlen died in 1491.
Bartholomaus Zeitblom, who was born between the years 1440 and 1450, studied
engraving under Schongauer, and painting under an artist of whom little is known, one
Schiihlein, whose daughter he married. Zeitblom lived chiefly at Ulm. His name was
on the rolls of that city as a taxpayer in 15 17. He is supposed to have died there,
but in what year no one knows. The gallery of Stuttgardt possesses the best collection
of his works. Most worthy of note are two wings of an altar-piece, painted for the
parish church of Eschach, which represent on the inside, the Annunciation and the
Salutation, and on the outside, St. John the Baptist and St. John the Divine. A
predella representing a Sancta Veronica, of the same altar-piece, is in the Bedin
Museum. Several churches of Swabia contain pictures by Zeitblom. Of this painter
Mrs. Heaton says, " He did not attain to the same free artistic development as Martin
Schon, but bis paintings have great spiritual beauty and tenderness of sentiment. His
colour also is pure and soft, more like fresco than oil-painting."
Thomas Burgkmair, who was born about the middle of the fifteenth century, though
inferior to the elder Holbein, was still one of the best artists of Augsburg at that time.
Both the Gallery and the Cathedral of Augsburg possess specimens of Burgkmair's art.
He died at Augsburg in 1523.
Hans Holbein, known as "the Elder" to distinguisli him from his more famous son,
was born in the latter half of the fifteenth century. His name is first mentioned in
1494 in the rolls of the city of Augsburg, where he resided, at intervals, during the
greater part of his life. Hans Holbein was made a citizen of Ulm in 1499 ; two years
later he visited Erankfort ; but after 1516 his name does not occur on the city rolls;
and from that time he lived in poverty. He died at Isenheim in 1524.
Many works by Hans Holbein the Elder have been attributed to his son; amongst
others a Martyrdom of St. Catherine in the Augsburg Gallery, which was ascribed to
the great i)ortrait-painter on the evidence of an inscription discovered on it in 1S54,
which said that he had ])ainted it when only seventeen years of age. This inscription
has since been proved to be a forgery. Another ])icture, whicli has passed under the
same misnomer, is the Martyrdom of St. Sebastian at Munich (Woltmann's ' Holbein
und seine Zeit'). A J'irgin and Child, formerly in the Landauer Bruderhaus at
Nuremberg, signed '' s. Holbaini," attributed by some to Sigmund Holbein, is ascribed
to the elder Hans by Mr. J. Crowe and other critics, who take the '' s " as the final
letter of Hans.
236 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1500
Works by the elder Holbein are in the galleries of Augsburg, Munich, Frank-
fort, Bale, and Donaueschingen : the Cathedral of Augsburg possesses four pictures,
representing Joachims Sacrifice; the Birth and Presentation of Mary and the Pre-
sentation 0/ Christ, which were painted in 1493 for the Abbey of Weingarten in
Wiirtemberg.
The Holbein sketches at Berlin— long attributed to the son— are now generally
said to be by the father.
Sigmund Holbein, the brother of the elder and uncle of the younger Hans
Holbein, was born at Augsburg about 1465. He left his native town and became a
citizen of Berne, where he resided until his death, which took place in 1540. He
bequeathed all his property in Berne to his renowned nephew. Sigmund Holbein was
a very fair painter, but there is no work which can be ascribed to him with certainty.
A Portrait of a Lady, formerly in the Wallerstein Collection, now in the National
Gallery, is said to be by him, though many competent critics doubt its authenticity.
Hans Burgkmair, the son of Thomas Burgkmair, was born at Augsburg in 1473.
He first studied art with Martin Schongauer, and afterwards, it is supposed, with his
father. Burgkmair painted in two styles. Of the first, in which he worked up till
about the year 1508, good specimens are a Christ on the Mount of Olives, and a
Crucifixion with the Martyrdom of St. Ursula at the sides, in the Augsburg Gallery.
This first style, which is entirely German, is noticeable for a hardness in the folds of the
draperies, which in the second style are much freer and more harmonious. Of his
works in the second manner, which is more Italian than the former, we may mention
an Adoration of the Kings, which Kugler considers his masterpiece, in the Augsburg
Gallery. This museum has a large share of his works. The galleries of Dresden,
Munich, and Vienna, and various other collections, also possess specimens of his
art. Burgkmair died in 1581. He shared with Altdorfer the honour of being the
■first German artist who painted landscape-backgrounds in detail. The best example
of this is his St. John in the Isle of Patmos, in the Munich Gallery.
Besides being a painter of historical, portrait, and landscape subjects, Burgkmair is
also celebrated as an engraver on wood. His Triumphal Entry of Maximiliati is
one of the finest productions of that age.
Martin Schaffer, who is supposed to have been a pupil of an old master named
Schiihlein, was born at Ulm towards the close of the fifteenth century. His works
executed in early life are entirely German, but those of later years show a strong
tendency towards an imitation of Italian art.
The best works of Schaffer are four in the Munich Gallery ; they represent three
scenes from the Life of the Virgin and the Descent of the Holy Ghost. As a specimen
of his portrait-painting we may mention a likeness of Count Oettingeti in the Munich
Gallery. There are two wings of an altar-piece by him in Ulm Cathedral, where in
the sacristy are a few portraits by the same painter. It is not known when Schaffer
died; the dates on his works extend from 1499 until 1535.
Hans Baldung — called Grien — was born at Gmund in 1470. Though he properly
belongs to the Swabian School, he exhibits in his works a close imitation of the style of
Albrecht Diirer, and it is supposed that he studied for some time under the great
Nuremberg painter. His chef-d\ruvrc is an altar-piece, dated 15 14, in the Cathedral
A.D. 1500.] HANS HOLBEIN. 237
of Freiburg ; it represents the Coronation of the Virgin, on tlie inside wings the
Twelve Apostles, and on the outside the Visitation, the Flight into Egypt, the
Nativity, and an Annuticiation which Kugler attributes to another painter.
A portrait of a Young Man by this artist, in the (lallery of Vienna, is l)eautiful]y
executed. Baldung died at Strasburg in 1552. Besides being a painter, he was also
an engraver. Two engravings on copper by him are known, and Bartsch mentions
fifty-nine woodcuts.
Hans Holbein — sometimes called " the Younger," to distinguish him from his father —
was born in 1494 or '95 at Augsburg, " into an art atmosphere in which the hereditary
talent that he soon showed for painting was carefully developed." (Mrs. C. Heaton.)
When about twenty years of age Holbein left the place of his birth, accompanied
probably by his brother Ambrose, and removed to Bale, where he is known to have
settled in 1515. Soon after his arrival he painted his earliest known works, which are
still in that city. They are the Last Supper; :\. Flagellation ; the Portraits of Jacob
Meyer and his Wife, and several other subjects. In 15 17 Holbein was in Lucerne,
where he decorated the house of Jacob van Hartenstein. Two years later he joined the
guild of painters at Bale, and in 152 1 he received a commission to execute frescoes in the
Rathhaus of that town ; in the following year he had completed two sides (His' " Basler
Archive" in Von Jahn's ' J^ihrbiicher '). Of these frescoes there remain but fragments
of one subject — Curins Dentatiis with the Sabine Envoys ; they are in the INIuseum of
Bale, which also contains the eight scenes from the Passion, executed about the same
time. In 1522 Holbein painted the Virgin and Child between SS. Martin and Ursus
which Mr. Zetter of Soleure discovered in 1865, and which Mr. Crowe says in size and
importance is only to be compared with the celebrated Madonna which he painted a
few years later for Jacob Meyer of Bale : this was the last work of importance which
Holbein executed at Bale previous to his departure for England ; it is in the posses-
sion of Princess Hesse at Darmstadt, and is now generally considered to be the
original from which the celebrated Meyer Madojina at Dresden was copied. The
difference between the two is very slight ; they are both engraved in Kugler's ' Hand-
book.' An excellent chromo-lithograph of the Darmstadt picture was published a
short time since, by the Arundel Society.
At Dresden the Meyer Madonna is the rival of the Madonna di San Sisto. In a
large picture containing eight personages, we see the family of Meyer, a burgomaster
of ]]ale, kneeling before a glorified Madonna. And yet it seems that it is not the
Child-God whom Mary holds in her arms, but rather the youngest child of the muni-
cipal magistrate ; while the Infant Jesus, who is easily recognized, has taken amongst
the Swiss family the place of the child whom Mary is holding. Doubtless from a
doctrinal point of view there is something very bold in this exchange ; but certainly,
looking at it entirely in an artistic light, it is a happy and touching idea, which depicts
simply the frankness and cordiality of the Germans. But we must not expect to find
in Holbein's Madonna the Catholic sentiment ; this is not to be found any more than
the Italian type. In this young mother, with golden hair encircled with a crown
instead of with a glory, there is nothing to remind us of Fra Angelico or of Raphael •
this is the Virgin of the North, the Protestant Virgin ; and the great merit of Holbein
is precisely this, to liave succeeded in creating a new type — that of his country and of
his belief Add to this high quality, the beauty of the portraits, the truth, strength,
and great finish, even in the smallest details, and remembering all his other important
238 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS [a.d. 1530.
works, we do not hesitate to place the Darmstadt and the Dresden Madonnas as the
masterpieces of the Augsburg painter.
In 1526 Holbein left Bale to visit England, either by the advice of an English
nobleman who had noticed him on his travels — supposed to have been the Earl of
Arundel or the Earl of Surrey — or because his works did not produce so much money
as he wished. He stayed a short time at Antwerp ; he had a letter of introduction
from Erasmus — whom he had known some time in Bale, and who had recommended
him to Sir Thomas More in England — to Egidius, who was asked in the letter to show
Holbein the house of Quintin Matsys ; for the Augsburg painter had a great desire to
see the renowned blacksmith of Antwerp.
When he arrived in England, Holbein was received most cordially by Sir Thomas
More, who gave him rooms in his own house at Chelsea, and employed him for some
time in painting the portraits of himself, his family and his friends. One of the best of
the portraits which Holbein executed at this time was that of Sir Bryan Tukc, treasurer
of the king's chamber, now in the collection of the Duke of Westminster. In 1527
Holbein painted the Portrait of Archbishop Warhani in Lambeth Palace ; a replica
of which {see zvoodcut) is in the Louvre.
In 1528 Holbein left England and returned to Bale. Two years later he was
employed to finish his works in the Rathhaus, which he had left uncompleted. " He
might,'' says Mr. Crowe, " have been induced to remain in this, the place of his
habitual residence, had it not been that the Reformation and the troubles which
accompanied it made earning precarious." In 1532, Holbein left Bale and returned to
England, soon after which time he was first brought to the notice of Henry VIII.
It is said that " blufif King Hal " being in More's house one day admired some pictures
which he saw there, and asked who was the author of them ; the Chancellor requested
the King to take any of the \\-orks which he particularly admired, and at the same time
presented Holbein to his Majesty. Henry replied that, as he had the painter, he did
not now require the pictures. Holbein was then made court-painter with a salary of
,■^34 a year, with rooms in the palace. The first record of payment made to him
occurs in 1538 in a book of the Chamberlain's office, wherein is written " Payd to Hans
Holbein, paynter, a quarter due at Lady-day last, ^8 \os. 9^/." This book is— or
was when Walpole wrote — in the Library of the Royal Society.
On the celebration of the Marriage and Coronation of Anne Boleyn, Holbein was
employed by a company of German merchants in London to paint two pictures in
tempera in the Banqueting Hall of the Easterlings in the Steelyard. They represented
the Triumph of Riches and the Triumph of Poverty. They were probably burned in
the Great Fire ; and are now only known by engravings.
in 1538 Holbein was sent to Brussels to paint the portrait of a candidate for
Henry's hand, Christina, widow of the Duke Francesco Sforza of Milan. On the
completion of his commission, which, Lord Herbert tells us, occupied him but three
hours, Holbein paid a visit to Bale, the governors of which town endeavoured, but in
vain, to induce him to remain amongst them. Soon after his return to England,
Holbein was despatched to paint the portrait of another — and this time a successful —
marriage lad)^ This was Anne of Cleves, of whom, says Walpole, " he drew so
fiivourable a likeness, that Henry was content to wed her ; but when he found her so
inferior to the miniature, the storm which really should have been directed at the
painter, burst on the minister, and Cromwell lost his head because Anne was ' a
Flanders mare,' and not a Venus as Holbein had represented her."
A.D. 1543.]
HANS HOLBEIN.
239
This portrait, which was in the National Portrait Exhibition (No. 132), is now in
the possession of Mr. Charles Morrison.
From this time Holbein dwelt in England, executing portraits of eminent personages
at the Court of Henry VIII. — noblemen and noble ladies, statesmen, country gentle-
men, and even jesters. Between the 7th of October— the date of his will and the
29th of November, in the year 1543, this great master, the best painter of Germany,
AKCHKISHOP WARHAM.— BY HANS HOLBEIN.
In the Lou-'i-i'.
died of the plague in London. The exact place of his death as well as the place of his
burial remains unknown to this day. All the information we can obtain is that he
resided in the City parish of St. Andrew Undershaft.
Hans Holbein painted in oil, fresco, and in water-colour ; the last method, in which
he excelled, he acquired in England. For good examples of his paintings we may go
240 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1543.
to the Dresden Gallery, where, near the Meyer Madoji?ia, there are eight excellent
portraits ; amongst others, that of a Knight of the Golden Fleece, who is believed to be
the Emperor Maximilian I., but who, from a kind of thick mane, might be taken for
one of the long-haired kings of the Franks. Another picture which had long been
disputed has recently been restored to Holbein, and this is the most beautiful of his
portraits at Dresden, and perhaps in the world. It was thought to have been the
likeness, by Leonardo da Vinci, of the Duke of Milan, Lodovico Sforza, who died a
prisoner at Loches. It appears to be that of a goldsmith or treasurer of Henry VIIL,
named Thomas Aiorrctt. Thomas Morrett was changed in the first place to Thomas
Morus or More, the name of the celebrated Chancellor : then in Italy, Morus became,
Moro; and as this name could only belong to the Duke Lodovico Sforza, the work was
naturally attributed to Leonardo, who was both his painter and his friend.
The great perfection of the work would also justify this confusion, and there is no
need to dwell on the glory due to Holbein for having been mistaken for the author of
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La /oconle, at the same time that he was challenging comparison with, and rivalling,
the author of the Madonna di San Sisto.
We must not pass over Holbein without mentioning his designs for the Dance of
Death, which were engraved on wood, it is said, by Hans Liitzelburger, though Rurnohr
and several eminent critics maintain that Holbein cut the designs himself Be this as
it may, the Dance of Death, which was published at Lyons first in 1538, and subse-
quently with twelve additional plates in 1547, is a most wonderful production, weirdly
and fantastically conceived and executed. Holbein is also reported to have executed
a Dance of Death in fresco either at Bale or in the Palace of Whitehall. Of his
drawings the best are the portraits in the Windsor Collection : there are eighty-nine in
all ; they represent eminent personages of the Court of Henry VIIL, and are executed
in black and red chalk on tinted paper. Especially noteworthy for power of drawing
and life-like reproduction are those oi John Foynes, Sir John Godsalve, and a Gentleman
in aflat cap (name unknown). The set of eighty-nine was published by Chamberlaine
HANS HOLBEIN.
Page 240.
A.D. 1550.] FOLLOWERS OF HOLBEIN. 241
in two volumes; this work is now scarce. These portraits have been also photo-
graphed by the authorities at the South Kensington Museum.
As a painter, Holbein is always exact and correct, always the willing slave of
nature ; but in his early works he is cold, hard, and accurate, sacrificing everything to
the line. When painting on wood or canvas, he would seem to be engraving on copper ;
his style in this stage was like that of his father. By degrees his manner became softer
and more elegant ; the colouring also, which had been dry and sad, assumed consistency,
transparency, heat, and brilliancy. He showed himself at once a great colourist and a
great drawer ; in fact he became himself. But we must not forget that, as Holbein's
death has been proved to have taken place in 1543 and not in 1554, as was formerly
stated, all pictures bearing dates between these two years, previously attributed to the
Augsburg painter, cannot be by him ; and in fact there is scarcely another case in the
whole annals of painting, where so many pictures have been attributed wrongly to one
man, as to Holbein.
FOLLOWERS OF HOLBEIN.
Unlike Raphael, Michelangelo, Titian, and other great masters, Holbein esta-
blished no famous school; but there were several artists who copied his style, and
who, if they may not be called his pupils, may yet be accounted his followers.
Christopher Amberger, who was born at Nuremberg about the year 1490, studied
under Hans Holbein the Elder, but formed his style from that of his master's son, whom
he successfully imitated, especially in portraiture. Amberger is known to have been for
some years in Italy, where he improved his manner by examination of the works of the
great masters. When the Emperor Charles V. was at Augsburg in 1532, Amberger was
employed to paint his portrait, which he did so much to the taste of the monarch
that Charles presented him with twenty-four rix-dollars in addition to the price of
the picture, twelve dollars. The Emperor also gave him a gold chain with a medal
attached, and told him, Sandrart adds, that the portrait was as well executed as one by
Titian for which he had paid one hundred rix-dollars. Amberger painted historical as
well as portrait subjects, but he was less successful in that branch of art. He died
in 1563, at Augsburg, where he had chiefly resided.
Nicolas Manuel, the painter, i)oet, soldier, statesman, and reformer, commonly
known as Deutsch, was born at Berne in 1484. When about twenty-five years of age,
he went to Venice, where he remained a few years, studying with Titian and improving
his style from that of the great colourist. One of Manuel's best works is unfortunately
no longer in existence — we know it now only by copies ; this was the Todtcntanz, or
Dance of Death, executed in fresco on the churchyard-wall of the Dominican convent
at Berne. A lithographic reproduction of it was published by R. Haag, at Berne.
Unwittingly one wishes to examine this with the same subject by Holbein, but they
are not to be compared : the former is humorous and almost jovial ; the latter strangely
weird and fantastic ; but each is remarkably clever in its own particular way.
The Museum at Bale possesses many of Manuel's best works— the Beheading of John
the Baptist ; a picture in tempera, representing the Virgin and Child adored by Saints,
with a Venetian-like background. A Portrait of Manuel by himself is in the Civic
Library at Berne. He died in 1531. Manuel executed several woodcut engravings.
242 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1450.
SCHOOL OF FRANCONIA.
Michael Wohlgemuth, who was born at Augsburg in 1434, was a capricious painter.
Some of tlie works attributed to him betray but second-rate ability ; and, on the other
hand, pictures known to have been executed by him exhibit great merit. The cause
of this irregularity in style is, in a great measure, due to the fact that Wohlgemuth was
more a director of a huge factory of artistic goods than a painter. From this factory
altar-chests, painted crosses, altar-pieces, and other ecclesiastic ornaments were turned
out by the score ; and it is believed that he also employed his apprentices in wood-
engraving. It is strange that this man, who sent forth from his Academy the greatest
of all German painters, should not have produced any other pupil worthy the name oi
an artist. It is none the less true. Of this early Augsburg painter Albrecht Durer
is the only pupil whose fame has reached to our days.
Of the works by Michael Wohlgemuth, we may mention : in the Pinacothek, at
Munich, scenes from the Passion of Our Lord ; and in the Frauenkirche, Chrisfs
Mission to his Apostles ; the Life a?id Sufferings of Christ in the Marien Kirche at
Zwickau ; and an altar-piece in the church of Heilsbronn near Nuremberg. Wohlgemuth
died in 15 19, "on St. Andrew's day, before the sun had risen."
Matthaus Grunewald, one of the best German painters of his time, was born about
the year 1460, at Frankfort (?). Little is known of his life. He lived chiefly at
Aschaffenburg, and was patronized by Archbishop Albrecht of Mayence. Grunewald
died about the year 1530. His masterpiece — in fact, the only authentic work by him
— is in the Gallery of Munich. It was originally executed for his ecclesiastic patron,
who intended it for the church of SS. Maurice and Magdalen at the town of Halle on
the Saale. Thence it was removed to the church of SS. Peter and Alexander at
Aschaffenburg, where one portion, St. Vakntinimi, still remains; it was then taken to
the gallery of that town, whence it went to its present resting-place. It is an altar-
jjiece of six panels. The centre represents the Conversion of St. Mmirice by St.
Erasmus : on the side pieces are St. Lazarus, the Magdalen, St. Martha, St.
Chrysostom. The sixth portion, St. Valejitinian, we have already seen, is in a church
at Aschaffenburg.
Other works attributed to Griinewald are : an altar-piece representing the Virgi?/
adored by Saints, in the church of Our Lady at Halle ; and another altar-piece repre-
senting the same subjects, formerly in the possession of the late Prince Consort, at
Kensington Palace. In both the above pictures the supplementary portions, so to
speak, are the work of a pupil.
Of Grunewald, Kugler says, " He takes a happy half-way position between the
Franconian and the Swabian schools, and must have owed his artistic education to
each." His style is less conventional than that of many of his contemporaries, and his
colouring is especially to be admired.
Albrecht Diirer, the "Artium lumen, sol artificum " of Germany, was born at
Nuremberg, on the 21st of May, 147 1. His father, a Hungarian goldsmith, Avho had
married and settled in that city, instructed him first in his own profession ; but as the
young Albrecht showed a decided talent for art, he was sent, in i486, to Schongauer
A.I). 1475.1 ALBRECHT DURER. 243
at Colmar. With this painter Diirer remained but a short time (some writers maintain
that he never went to him at all), and was then apjirenticed to Michael Wohlgemuth,
of Augsburg, for three years.
In 1490 Diirer commenced his Wandcrjahrc or travels, which lasted until 1494. n^
which year he returned to Nuremberg and married Agnes Frey, tlie daughter of a
singer of that city. He received witli his wife a dower of two liundred Horins ; and
Arend, iiuotingan old writer, tells us that in compensation he had at least two thousand
unhappy days ; for his wife is said to have been a very shrew. Many writers have
endeavoured to vindicate her character, and indeed the assertion made by Arend that
Diirer went to the Netherlands to escape from his wife's tongue, has been proved to
be folse, from the conclusive evidence in the painter's own journal that his wife accom-
panied him. In 1506, Diirer went to Italy ; he stayed chiefly in Venice, where his works
were much criticised. The Italians praised his colour, but censured the absence oi
study of the antique in his pictures. He says, in a letter to his friend Pirkheimer,
" Noch schelten sy es und sagen es sey nit antigisch art, dozu sey es nit gut " — Yet they
blame it (his style), and say it is not antique art, therefore it is not good. Nevertheless
Diirer was well received by the Venetians, especially by old Giovanni Bellini, whom
he deemed the best painter in Venice. Diirer remained but one year in Italy, though
he was offered an annual allowance of two hundred ducats from the Seignory of
Venice, if he would settle in their city, and though he had received next to nothing
iVom his own countrymen.
On his return to Nuremberg, Diirer settled in that city, and between the years
1507 and 1520 executed many of his most important Avorks. In 1509 he purchased
a house in the Zisselgasse, In 1515, when each was at the height of his fame, the
representatives of German and Italian art — Diirer and Raphael — exchanged specimens
of their work ; a sketch in red chalk, sent by the latter to the former, is in the collection
of the Archduke Charles at Vienna ; it bears an inscription written by the German
painter: "15 15, Raphael of Urbino, who has been so highly esteemed by the pope,
drew these naked figures, and sent them to Albrecht Diirer in Nuremberg, to show him
his hand." In 1520 Diirer was appointed court-painter to Charles V., as he had been
l)reviously to the Emperor Maximilian ; with this office, Diirer '■-ceived no more than
one hundred florins a year, a scanty salary to come from so grand a monarch. In
Whitsun week of the same year (1520), he and his wife, accompanied by her maid,
started for a visit to the Netherlands, where they remained for upwards of a year. His
time was chiefly occupied in selling prints from his engravings, and in taking portraits,
for which he received as a rule a florin (about twenty English pence), a price
which seems to us now ridiculously small, but we must rememljer that at that time a
skilled labourer rarely earned more than three pence a day. Diirer's own journal
of his travels is still carefully preserved, and is of a very interesting nature (' Reise-
journal Albrecht Diirer's, von seiner Niederlandischen Reise, 1520 und 1521 '). At
Antwerj), where he was well received, he was oftered a yearly salary of three hundred
florins and free lodgings if he would stay there ; but love for his native land, in this
case as when he was at Venice, prevailed, and he returned to his beloved Nuremberg.
In 1525, when writing to the town-council, he does not, however, refrain from
reproaching them with the fiict that, during thirty years of labour in his native city, he
had not received five hundred florins of their money ; whereas in Venice and in
Antwerp he had been offered liberal salaries to settle there. In spite of these draw-
backs, however, Diirer continued to live at Nuremberg until his death, on the 6th of
244 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1500.
April, 1528. Whether it be true or not that his wife, as Pirkheimer tells us, worried
him to death, he left her a fortune of six thousand florins ; which proves that, if the
good people of Nuremberg were not too liberal, some other patrons of art must
have appreciated his talents. Pirkheimer, in pronouncing Diirer's funeral oration,
said tliat " he united every virtue in his soul ; genius, uprightness, purity, energy and
prudence, gentleness and piety," ami Melan'cthon said that painting was the least
of his accomplishments.
The works of Albrecht Diirer, like those of his rival, Lucas Cranach, must not be
sought out of Germany. Very few have left its boundaries — so few, indeed, that in the
Louvre there are only three or four drawings. It is once again the Museum of Madrid
which forms an exception, and, thanks to the double crown of Charles V,, owns several
paintings by the great Nuremberg ' master : a Crucifixion, dated 15 1.3, in which he
displays all the strength and maturity of his talent ; two Allegories, philosophical and
Christian, which, as Death is the principal figure, must have related to the famous
Dance of Death, then such a favourite subject, and which furnished Holbein with a long
series of wood engravings; lastly, his Portrait of himself , with the date 1496. He was
then tvventy-five years old. In this portrait Uurer has a fresh-looking countenance,
though thin and long, large blue eyes, a very fair beard, and long curls flowing down
over his shoulders from a kind of pointed cap. His black and white striped costume
is very peculiar, and in every sense of the word this may be called a valuable
curiosity.
At Munich Diirer's whole history may be read in seventeen pictures, which contain
examples of his earliest attempts^ his successive changes, and his latest style. The
earliest of his works here must be the Portrait of his Father, dated 1497. The fol-
lowing inscription may be read on it : " Das malt ich nach meines Vatters gestalt, da er
war sibenzich Jar alt " — This I painted from my Father when he was seventy years old.
This excellent picture, painted con amore, bears the monogram, now so well known — a
little D in a great A. A replica of this picture, bearing the same date but without the
inscription, is in the possession of the Duke of Northumberland at Sion House. His
own portrait comes next, dated 1500, four years after the one at Madrid ; it is the same
countenance, with the large blue eyes, light beard, and curled hair, but the face is
fuller and the expression more manly. His robe, trimmed with fur, is more serious
than the striped coat and pointed cap he wore in 1496. This portrait at Munich, on
which he traced the following inscription, " Albertus Durerus, Noricus, ipsum me
propriis sic effingebam coloribus «tatis xxviii.," is one of his most astonishing works,
and of those which placed him, before thirty years of age, at the head of all the
artists of his native land. Another historical portrait, no less precious, is that of his
venerable master, which has a greenish background, and to which he added, a few
years later, the following inscription : " This portrait Albrecht Diirer has painted after
his master, Michael Wohlgemuth, in the year 15 16, when he was eighty-two years old ;
and he lived until the year 15 19, when he died on St. Andrew's day early, before the
sun had risen."
Two vast historical pictures show us of what Albrecht Diirer was capable. One is
a Descent from the Cross, in which Joseph of Arimathea appears to be the finest
figure in the grouj) ; the Christ, much older than tradition represents him, has no other
merit than the exact and hideous reproduction of death. The other is a Nativity in
the manger, where the Infant God is worshipped by a group of cherubim, whilst other
angels llymg away are going to announce the good news to the shepherds. This fine
;5oo.]
ALB RE CUT DURER.
245
Nativity formed the central panel of a large triptych, the wings of which have been
taken off. These contain the portraits of the brothers Baumgartner, knights who are in
armour. In presenting these portraits to the Emperor Maximilian I., the town of
Nuremberg added a gift no less rare and more precious — two large pictures as
pendents, in one of which are St. Pder and St. John, and in the other St. Paul and
St. Mark. These four apostles, known under the name of the Four TcmperamcJits
{sec ivoodcuf), are of life-size ; and, certainly, Albrecht Diirer has never imparted
THK FOUR TEMPERAMENTS. — BY ALBK.ECHT DrRER.
/;/ the riiiacothek at JMiinich.
eitlier greater material or more moral grandeur to his figures. Although these two magni-
ficent pictures bear no date, it may easily be seen that they belong to the latter part
of the artist's life, when, after his travels in Flanders and Italy, he had acquired the
full degree of execution and vigorous colouring which he was to attain.
Albrecht Diirer survived Raphael eight, and the Frate (Hartolommeo della Porta)
eleven years. His travels in Italy were not confined to Venice, and he did not neglect
to visit the city of the Medici, then the centre of the fine arts. At all events, the
\o\\x Apostles o\ Munich, in nolnlily and imposing grandeur, seem inspired by the
246 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1520.
St. Mark of Fra Bartolommeo, which is perhaps, in painting, the highest expression of
strength and power, as the Moses of Michelangelo is in statuary.
It is Vienna, however, and not Munich, which possesses the finest productions of
the Nuremberg master. Passing by three portraits, amongst which are those of the
Emperor MaximUian /, dated 1519, the year of his death, and that of a CQ.x\.dxs\ JoJudui
Kleeberger, which Albrecht Diirer painted two years before his own death {i.e. 1526) ;
passing over also two Madonnas, one of 1503, quite German in type and execution,
the other of 15 12, which is purely Italian in sentiment, especially in the naked figure of
the child, we will come at once to two pictures of the greatest imi:)ortance among his
works. If he has painted pictures of greater size, he has never painted any of greater
merit. These are indeed real masterpieces, an honour at once to the master, who is
seen to perfection in them,- and also to the Belvedere Gallery, which fears no rivalry on
this point.
The first in date contains in the narrow space of one panel, about one square yard
in size, the legend of the Ten TJumsand Martyrs, Christians massacred by the Persian
King Sapor, or rather Shahpour II. Without bringing in the whole number of martyrs,
a number of incidents seem to have exhausted eveiy mode of death related in the
legends. In the midst of these melancholy sights, Albrecht Diirer has painted himself
and his friend Willibald Pirkheimer. Both are in mourning, and the painter holds in
his hand a small flag, on which is inscribed, " Iste faciebat anno Domini 1508,
Albertus Diirer Alemanus." The principal defect in such a composition is its want of
unity. The incidents placed in juxtaposition, which touch each other but without
seeming to have any connection, appear like the effect of a bad dream unfolding scenes
of blood. But this defective arrangement is soon forgotten in the superior qualities of
the execution, the exquisite finish, the brilliant though sombre colouring, suited to the
subject of the picture, and the powerful expression, as well in the moral beauty of some
of the martyred saints as in the physical repulsiveness of the executioners. It is
before such a picture that we can say, with M. Charles Blanc : " The real unity of a
[licture consists in the sentiment. The actions are diverse, but the emotion is one."
The second picture, which is still more important, is known under the name of the
Adoration of the Trinity ; but it would explain the subject better if it were called by a
vaster name, the Christian Religion. In the upper part of the picture the Holy Spirit
is seen hovering, like a luminous star, in the midst of a band of little cherubim ; then,
rather lower, the Father, between two choirs of archangels with outspread wings,
holding before His breast His crucified Son. But this is a small part of the composition.
Below the Divine Trinity and the celestial train there extend two- large groups of
saints ; to the left the holy women, where someAvho sacrificed their lives to their faith
may be recognized by their attributes ; to the right the saints, patriarchs, prophets,
apostles, and martyrs. Still lower are two other groups no less considerable : under the
female saints, the Pope and the Church — that is to say, a procession of bishops, priests,
monks, and nuns ; under the male saints, the Emperor and the State — that is to say, a
noble train of armed knights and ladies in court costume. We see thus how, only a
few years before Martin Luther shook both the tiara and the crown by his doctrines,
Albrecht Diirer, remembering the double natiire of the God-Man, on which the
institutions of the Middle Ages were modelled, made peace between the Guelphs and
Ghibellines. All these symbolical circles, all these long groups, one over another, float
in space, and stand out from the azure of the sky like an apocalyptic vision. But
below them, to tlie horizon, extends a real earthly scene, — a peaceful bay, terminated
THE NATIVITY. By Albkecht Dikkk
From his En^ravin^.
1520.
// BRECHT DURRR.
M7
in the distance by the open .sea, on the right by rocks, on tlie left by a large town, and
in the foreground by verdant plains. Jn one corner of the picture maybe seen the
St. John of this Patmos, Diirer himself, whose long curling hair falls from a red cap on
to the collar of a fur robe. He is standing, and places his hand proudly on a tablet,
on which the following inscription may be read : " Albcrtvs . Dvrcr . noricvs .
facicbat . anno . a . Virginis . partv . 15 11."
This great work is, as may be seen, a complete poem. Albert Diirer displays in
it all his high qualities. All that may be found in his other works of imagination—
MOTHER AND CHILD,
From an etchmg by Albrecht Diirer.
force, truth, and intimate union between realism in form and idealism in thought — are
united here. The only regret we can possibly feel is, that he was not able to preserve
himself by severity of taste from the usual defects of his time and school. The
grotesque appears too often in a subject which should be wholly sublime ; for instance,
he places amongst the ranks of the glorified popes and emperors an old peasant still
holding his flail in his hand. This is a noble idea ; labour is glorified. But to this
peasant, the eciual of princes and saints, is given a low, ignoble countenance. This is
undoubtedly a fault. The artist, it is true, endeavours to redeem it by the perfection
248 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1525.
of the work, and it is scarcely visible, besides, in the grandeur of the whole, which is
heightened by the most brilliant colouring required by the miraculous vision. Albrecht
Diirer usually places merely his well-known monogram to his ordinary works, which
his copyists have never forgotten, and which was no more difficult to imitate than the
letters of a name. But by signing these two works with his whole portrait he has
given them a special stamp of authenticity, an infallible ne varietur, and, still more, a
striking mark of his own preference. It is Albrecht Diirer himself, then, who calls
them his masterpieces. After the last-mentioned picture he painted little more;
he made engravings on copper, wood, or with aquafortis, either because his taste led
him naturally towards these other works, or because he was urged to it by the avarice
of his scolding wife.
There are i&\N genuine works by Diirer in England. Besides the Portrait of his
Father at Sion House, we may mention, in the National Gallery, a Portrait of a Senator
(No. 245), signed and dated 15 14; and a Portrait of a Matt w\i\\ a broad-brimmed
hat, in the possession of the Duke of Rutland, at Belvoir Castle.
Albrecht Diirer is better known in England from his engravings than from his
paintings. The most celebrated are his Me/ajicho/ia and the Knight of Death — both
ot them difficult to comprehend — St. Hubert, the Nativity {see woodeut), numerous small
Madonnas, and many portraits and landscapes. He also wrote a treatise on Human
Proportion, which has been translated into several languages. The greater part of the
manuscript and the drawings for this work are now preserved in tlie British Museum.
He also wrote works on Geometry, on Fortification, and other subjects.
PUPILS OF ALBRECHT DURER.
Of the pupils of Albrecht Diirer, we have already mentioned one — and a very
important one — Hans Burgkmair. Two others we must now notice, reserving till
the last the " Little Masters " — those seven artists who are even better known as
engravers than as painters.
Hans Wagner — called from his birthplace Hans von Kulmbach — was born at the
close of the fifteenth century. He first studied engraving under Jacob Walch, and then
entered the studio of Albrecht Diirer, with whom he worked as late as 15 18. Paintings
by Wagner are in the Munich Gallery and in the Stadel Institute at Frankfort. The
churches of Nuremberg also contain specimens of his art. That of St. Sebaldus has a
fine Madonna and Child adored by Saints. Wagner died in 1540. Though inferior to
his master in depth of thought, he was equal if not superior to him in execudon.
Hans Schauffelin was born at Nordlingen (some writers say at Nuremberg) about
the year 1490. He was Albrecht Diirer's favourite pupil, and succeeded so Avell in
imitating his master's style that his works are sometimes attributed to the great
Nuremberg painter. Like those of Wohlgemuth, his pictures are not of equal merit.
Lie resided and worked chiefly at Nordlingen and Nuremberg, and died at the
former town in 1539.
Of his Avorks we may mention, at Nuremberg, a St. Bridget in the Moritz Kapelle ;
and the Siege of Bethulia, ^zinte^ in 15 15 ; a repetition of the same subject is executed
in frescoes on the wall of the town-hall of Nordlingen. which town also possesses, in
ALBRECHT DURER.
Page. 248.
A.D. 1525.] THE LITTLE MASTERS. 249
the principal church, an altar-piece painted in 152 1, and four other works. Schauffelin
is celebrated for his designs — some of which he himself engraved on wood — for the
* Teuerdank,' an allegorical poem, written by Melchior Pfinzing, in honour of
Maximilian I., which was published at Nuremberg in 15 17.
THE LITTLE MASTERS.
The term " Little ISLvsthrs " — from the smallness of their pictures — is frequently
applied to all the followers of Diirer. It is more correctly given to the seven artists
enumerated below, who, though they were likewise painters, are better known as
engravers.
Albrecht Altdorfer, the best of the little masters and the creator of German land-
scape painting, was born at Altdorf in Bavaria in 1488, or a few years earlier. From
his style, he is supposed to have studied under Albrecht Diirer. Altdorfer settled at
Regensburg, and purchased the citizenship of that town in 1505. He was made city
architect, and in that capacity erected fortifications which did good service against the
Turks. Altdorfer died at Regensburg in 1538. Foremost among his works we must
mention his masterpiece, the Victory of Alexander over Darius, in the Munich Gallery.
This wonder of paintings, which was executed in 1529 for Uuke Wilhelm IV. of
Bavaria, is said to contain more figures than any other picture. The principal person-
ages are naturally the two kings — the conqueror and the conquered. Alexander on
Bucephalus, leading his men, gains rapidly on the now despairing Darius, who looks
back with woe depicted on his face. This whole picture is finely conceived, and still
more beautifully executed. There is no confusion, and it is, as Herr Schlegel says,
" a little world on a few square feet of canvas."
Other works by Altdorfer are, a Crucifixion, his earliest known work, and a Land-
scape, one of the best produced by the German artists of this period, both formerly
in the Landauer Briiderhaus ; an altar-piece, representing the Crucifixion and the
Annunciatio7i, in the Augsburg Gallery. Altdorfer is no less celebrated as an engraver,
both on wood and copper, than as a painter.
Barthel Beham was born at Nuremberg in 1496. His early works are much in the
style of Albrecht Diirer ; but when in later life he was sent, by Duke Wilhelm IV. of
Bavaria, to Italy, he endeavoured to acquire the Italian method of painting. . While in
that country, he studied engraving under Marc' Antonio, whose manner he successfully
accjuired. Barthel Beham died in Italy in 1540. \ Christ on the Mount of Olives m
the Berlin Gallery is in his Diirer style. A Woman raised from the dead by the True
Cross, with the following inscription, " Crux Christi ab Helena re[)eritur a Macario
mortua suscitata, adprobalur. Anno ccxliii.," and a Marcus Ci/rtius, both in the Munich
(rallery, are specimens of his later or Italian method. Beham was a better portrait
than historical painter — as his works in the gallery at Schleissheini show — anxl he was
a still better engraver.
Hans Sebald Beham — said by some to be the nephew, and by others the cousin, of
Barthel — was born at Nuremberg in 1500.. He studied first under his relative — though
his junior but by a few years — and tlien with the great Albrcdil Diirer. In 1540, from
2 K
2SO ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS [a.d. 1525.
the irregularity of liis life, he was forced to quit his native town. He removed to
Frankfort, where he remained until his death in 1550. Only one oil-painting by Hans
Beham remains to us ; it is in the Louvre, and represents the Life of David. It was
painted in 1534 for Albrecht, Archbishop of Mayence. Of Hans Beham, Kugler says,
" He possessed singular powers of invention, generally exercised on secular, and often
on coarsely humorous subjects. At the same time he was not deficient in feeling for
beauty and grace, and was an excellent draughtsman." Though but an unimportant
painter, Hans Beham is celebrated as an engraver.
Georg Pencz, who was born at Nuremberg in 1500, was one of Diirer's most
excellent pupils in the art of painting, and the best in engraving. He spent a few
years of his life in Italy, where he studied from the works of Raphael and other great
masters, and learned engraving under Marc' Antonio. Pencz died at Breslau in 1550.
His paintings are very scarce. Of those which are known, the most worthy are, a
St. Jerome in the Moritz Kapelle at Nuremberg, and a Ve7ius and Ctipid, in his Italian
style, in the Munich Gallery. Of his portraits, in which he excelled, we may
mention a Young Man, in the Berlin Museum ; and an Erasmus, after Holbein, at
Windsor Castle.
Heinricli Aldegrever was born at Paderborn (some writers say at Soest) in West-
phalia, in 1502. Struck with the power of Diirer's pictures, he left his native place
and repaired to Nuremberg in order to study under that master, whose style he so
successfully acquired, that he has been called, though his Christian name is Heinrich,
"Albrecht von Westphalen." It is not known when he died, probably about 1560.
Of his paintings, we may mention a Last Judgment, in the Berlin Museum ; a
Resurrection, painted in 1529, in the Museum at Prague ; and a fine Portrait of a
Young Man, in the Lichtenstein Gallery. Of Aldegrever's engravings many are of
great merit; he executed, besides his own portraits, those of Luther, Melancthon,
John of Leyden, and the fanatic Bernhard Knipperdolling.
Jacob Bink, more celebrated as an engraver than a painter, was born at Cologne
about the year 1504. He is known to have studied painting and engraving in Italy,
and Sandrart tells us that he was a pupil of Marc' Antonio. Previous to the year
1546, he was appointed painter to King Christian III. of Denmark, whose portrait
and that of his wife Queen Dorothea, by him, are said to be at Copenhagen. He was
also employed by Prince Albrecht of Hohenzollern, who sent him in 1549 to the
Netherlands, to erect a monument to the late Princess. Bink died in that monarch's
service at Konigsberg, about the year 1560. Of his paintings none but portraits are
known. In the Garderobe at Kdnigsberg are those oi Prince Albrecht ojid his first Wife.
Bink's pictures are remarkable for correctness of drawing and general artistic taste.
Hans Brosamer is said to have been born at Fulda about the year 1506. He
studied under Albrecht Diirer ; if not from the great man personally, certainly from
his works. He was a good engraver, both on wood and copper. Little is known of
him as a painter ; his style is similar, but inferior, to that of Aldegrever. It is not
known when Brosamer died; works by him are dated as late as 1547."
A few other artists are generally included under the title of the Little Masters. —
As they were engravers only and not painters, we merely give the names of the more
important : —
A.D. 1525.] LUCAS CRANACH. 251
Virgilius Solis, who was bom at Nuremberg in 1514 and died in the same town in
1562. His principal works are designs of ornament for goldsmiths.
Jost Amman was born at Zurich in 1539, and died at Nuremberg in 1591. He
executed numerous engravings and woodcuts, and likewise painted on glass.
Theodor de Bry was born at Lie'ge in 1528; and established himself at an early
age at Frankfort, where he died in 1598. He worked principally for the jewellers.
SCHOOL OF SAXONY.
Saxony can scarcely boast of a school of painting of her own. The best masters
of Dresden were foreigners, and flourished there only for a time, and of these we must
now speak.
Lucas Cranach— so called from his birthplace, Cranach in Franconia — was born
in 1472, (It has been stated that his surname was Sunder, but Schuchardt has proved
this to be incorrect.) When but twenty-one years of age, Cranach accompanied
Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony, on his pilgrimage to the Holy Land. On his
return in 1495, Frederick gave him apartments in his own palace at Wittenberg, of
which town he was elected Burgomaster, He subsequently held the same office
again, from 1540 until 1544, when he resigned it. After the death of Frederick the
Wise, Cranach was still kept as court-painter by John the Constant, upon whose
decease he entered into the service of John Frederick the Magnanimous. So great
was Cranach's attachment to John Frederick, that when that monarch was taken pri-
soner by the Emperor Charles V. at Miihlberg, in 1547, he preferred to share his friend's
captivity at Innspruck, rather than accompany Charles to the Netherlands. At the end
of this imprisonment, the prince and the painter returned to Weimar, where the latter
died on the i6th of October, 1553, at the advanced age of eighty years. Cranach was
a man who was honoured by all who knew him. Besides his fame as a painter, he is
celebrated as an engraver ; Heller mentions more than eight hundred prints by him.
Cranach was also a printer ; indeed it is said that he helped to set up the first printing-
press at Wittenberg. In addition to these employments, he was a chemist. His house
and shop, " Der Adler," were unfortunately burned in a fire which occurred in 187 1.
The rapidity of his painting gained him the title of " celerrimus pictor."
Cranach, who almost equalled his rival and contemporary, Albrecht Diirer, in
talent, fertility, and renown, created a style of his own, in which he substituted an
exact imitation of nature for the traditional forms of dogma. Cranach, who was
painter to the three electors of Saxony, Frederick the Wise, John the Constant, and
John Frederick the Magnanimous, the most zealous champions of the Reformation,
was also the friend of Luther, and one of the first converts to the reformed faith.
Consequently, his paintings felt the influence of the doctrines which, by condemning
the idolatries of the Catholic Church, cut off its chief nourishment and chief subjects
from religious art. Cranach's painting was essentially Protestant, as was Rembrandt's
aftenvards. His pictures are nowhere to be found out of Germany, except indeed at
Madrid, where he is honourably represented by two Hunting-pieces, well composed
and painted. In the Louvre there are only a few insignificant specimens of his work.
But in Germany he may be found e\crywhcrc, e\en in the little museum at Carlsrulie,
{
252 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.u. 1525.
and at Leipzig. Dresden itself, howevei, i'>es not possess the finest works of its
painter ; inasmuch as, among twenty or thirty fine paintings — a Herodias, a Bathsheba,
a Satnson on Dehlah's knees, a Hercules attacked by the Pigmies, and others — there is
not one of such superior merit that it can be at once pointed out as being the highest
expression of Cranach's talent. From this collection one would suppose that the
painter of Saxony had never known any of those bursts of genius in which artists can
sometimes even surpass themselves.
At Munich he seems greater. If this word is to be applied to the size of
the picture, we must mention one, the Woman taken in Adulto-y ; but this simi)ly
represents a pretty and lively German girl, who seems by no means overwhelmed with
shame and terror, like the woman in Poussin's picture of the same subject; and
amongst the surrounding faces many are extremely, grotesque. At Munich, as else-
where, Cranach ishaj^piest in his small pictures : Adam and Eve m. Paradise, Lot and his
Daughters in a grotto, and the Madonna, who is offering some grapes to the Bambino, are
fine and charming works. He rises again in a vast triptych, the central panel of which
represents a Crucifixion, surrounded by scenes from the Passion. Here the highest
expression of Cranach's talent may be found, unless, indeed, it be sought in the
excellent portraits of the two great Reformers, the learned and gentle Philip Melancthon ;
the other, the terrible Martin Luther, admirably represented with his bull head, which
attacked the Vatican in so formidable a manner. These twin portraits, which bear
the monogram of the painter, a small winged dragon, are dated 1532, two years after
Melancthon had drawn up the famous " Augsburg Confession," and when Luther was
beholding the triumph of his cause, assured by the Peace of Nuremberg.
Vienna also has in its Belvedere Gallery several good pictures by the Protestant
painter, among others a Stag-hunt, similar to the hunting-pieces in the Madrid
Collection, into which several historical persons are introduced, among others the
Emperor Charles V. and John Frederick the Magnanimous. But the best collection of
Cranach's works is to be found at Berlin. There is such a uniformity in point of merit
in his works, he so seldom either rises above or falls below his usual style, that one has to
choose out the most important and curious among them, rather than the best. Under
this title we may mention first a Hercules before Omphale. The son of Jupiter not
only holds the spindle, but wears a woman's cap, while the imperious Queen of Lydia
is a pretty little German woman, of the almost invariable type of Cranach's women,
— fair hair, very small blue eyes, retrousse nose, and a transparent veil falling over her
eyebrows. For the same reason we ought also to notice the Fo7mtain of Youth. It
represents a large fountain or basin, into which, at one end, a procession of old women —
horrible old hags — is entering, while another procession of young beauties, thus meta-
morphosed by the wonderful water, is leaving it at the other end. All these nudities,
ugly and beautiful, seem to have delighted the great Frederick, who has been lavish of
them in his palaces. We must lastly mention three Venuses and an Eve, all four as
thoroughly German as if there had been no other race but the Teutonic either in
Greece or in Paradise. The sole clothing of one of the Venuses is a cardinal's red
hat. Among the portraits may be noticed Luther and Mela?icthon, always inseparable,
then Luther with his wife Gather ifie von Bora, then Albert of Brandenbtirg as cardinal
and also as St. Jerome in the desert, surrounded by lions, stags and hares, a subject in
which the artist shows his love for hunting scenes, and his singular talent for represent-
ing animals.
A Portrait of a Young Lady by Cranach is in the National Gallery. It bears the
= :n
LUCAS CRANACH.
Page 252.
A.U. 1550.J LUCAS CRANACH. 253
usual mark of the painter, a crowned serpent, the crest granted to him by the Elector
Frederick the Wise in 1508.
Lucas Cranach — called " the younger," to distinguish him from his more celebrated
fiither— was born in 15 15. He formed his style from that of his father and Albrecht
Diirer, and carefully abstained from the " Italian fever" which affected so many of his
contemporaries. Several works attributed to the elder Cranach are doubtless by the
younger. A Virgin and Child in the Munich Gallery, there ascribed to the father, is
in Kugler's ' Handbook ' attributed to the son. Of the works known to have been
executed by the younger Cranach, the most important are a Crucifixion of Christ and
the Thieves ; and a Nativity in the church of Wittenberg. The younger Cranach, who,
like his flither before him, held the office of Burgomaster of Wittenberg, died in 1586.
He had a brother, Johann Lucas, who was also a painter, and who died >vhen still
young, at Bologna.
Cranach the elder had many followers, but they were, most of them, without
merit, and with this family the school of Saxony was both commenced and brought
» to a close.
254 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1550.
CHAPTER II.
GERMAN PAINTERS OF THE SIXTEENTH AND
SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES.
ALMOST immediately after the death of Albrecht Diirer, the school of Nurem-
berg became extinct ; and at the same time, at Augsburg, at Ulm, and at
Cologne, art fell into a state of decay which lasted for many years. It would
seem that all the German painters were seized with a desire not only to study, but to
imitate — even servilely — the works of the great Italian masters. German art was no
longer represented by any particular school ; and the various painters who lived at this
time were none of them of the highest class.
Michael Ostendorfer, who was born in Swabia at the end of the fifteenth century,
studied the works of Albrecht Altdorfer, and to a great extent adopted the style of
that master. In 15 19, Ostendorfer removed to Regensburg, where he resided until his
death in 1559. The Munich Gallery has a Virgin of the Apocalypse, hy this artist.
Hans Stephanas, called from his birthplace on the Lower Rhine, Hans von Calcar,
was born in 15 10. He is not known to have studied under any fellow-countryman.
In 1536 he was in the school of Titian at Venice, where he remained until the follow-
ing year ; he then went to Naples, where he made the acquaintance of Vasari, and
where, Van Mander tells us, he died in 1546, Hans von Calcar was a most successful
imitator of Titian and Raphael. His works have deceived many people competent
to judge. He excelled in portrait-painting; specimens of this branch of his art are in
the galleries of Vienna, Berlin, and the Louvre.
Christoph Schwartz, who was born at Ingolstadt in 1550, is said to have learned
the rudiments of his art in his native city. He then went to Venice, where he appears
to have taken Tintoretto as his model. On his return from Italy, Schwartz was invited
to Munich by Uuke Albrecht V. of Bavaria, who appointed him his court-painter.
Schwartz died at Munich in 1597. The best specimen of his style, which never rose
above mediocrity, is a Virgin and Child, in the Munich Gallery.
Hans van Achen was born at Cologne in 1552. He first studied for about six
years under Jerrigh, a painter of little note ; and afterwards directed his attention to
the works of Bartholomaus Spranger. About the year 1 584, Van Achen determined to go
to Italy. He stayed first at Venice, then at Rome, and lastly at Florence, where he is
said to have painted the portrait oi Laura. From Florence he went in 15 88, at the
A.D. 1575.] ADAM ELZHEIMER. 255
invitation of the Elector of Bavaria, to Munich, where he painted a Resurrection and
the Findhig of the True Cross. He also painted the portraits of the family of his
patron. From Munich he was invited by the Emperor Rudolph I. to Prague, where
he resided until his death, which occurred in 1615. Various dates are given both for
the birth and the death of this painter ; those here ascribed are taken from the tomb —
erected to his memory by his wife — which was discovered at Prague in 1790.
The Vienna (lallery possesses specimens of Van Achen's art; of these the best
is a Bathshcba bathing, which is much in the style of Tintoretto.
Joseph Heinz was born about the year 1565 at Perne (?). He studied art. Van
Mander tells us, under Van Achen. His works pleased the Phnperor Rudolph II.,
who invited him to Prague and then sent him to Italy to perfect his style. Heinz
studied chiefly the i)ictures of Correggio at Parma, and on his return executed several
leputable works in the style of that master. Of these we may mention a Venus and
Adonis, and a Diana and Acticon, both in the Vienna Gallery. Joseph Heinz died at
Prague in 1609.
Johann Rothenhammer, wlio was born at Munich in 1564, was the pupil of a
painter named Hans Donnauer. He went, wlien still young, to Rome, where his works
were fully appreciated, but a desire to improve liis colour caused him to leave the i)apal
capital and repair to Venice, where he studied the works of Tintoretto. After an
absence of many years, Rothenhammer returned to his native country, and established
himself as a painter at Augsburg, where he resided until his death in 1623. Though
he had been much patronized — especially by the Emperor Rudolph II. — Rothen-
hammer, owing to his extravagant habits, died in poverty. His small works are better
executed than his large, and of the greatest merit are those of which Paul Bril or Jan
Breughel painted the backgrounds. Rothenhammer frequently painted on copper.
Of his works, which are numerous, we may mention a Death of Adonis, in the Louvre ;
and a Fan and Syrinx, with a background by Jan Breughel, in the National Gallery.
Adam Elzheimer, called by the Italians '' II Tedesco," the best German painter of
this j)eriod, was born at Frankfort in 1574. He studied art under an obscure painter,
named Uffenbach. On the completion of his studies, Elzheimer went to Rome, where
his works were not sufficiently appreciated to enable him to gain a livelihood, for he
si)ent sucli a long time on each picture, that tlie price he received for it scarcely repaid
him for his labour. Like those of many another artist, his works v/ere valued at their
worth, when money was of no further use to him. Elzheimer's only patrons were
Rubens and Count Goudt, but those were not sufficient to keep him from jioverty, and
he died at Rome in 1620, penniless and in obscurity. Elzheimer excelled in landscape
painting, but he usually placed figures in his pictures to give them greater eftect. The
subjects frequently represented were, a Flight into Egypt, John the Baptist, :m(\ Tohit
and the Angeh Several of his best pictures are in private collections in England.
A Flight into Egypt, in the Lou\re, is accounted by many as his masterpiece. It
is related of Elzheimer that his memory was so excellent that to sec a landscape
once was sufficient. He could tlien reproduce it on canvas, with all the exactitude
with which any other artist could paint it with the subject before him. This story is
especially related in reference to a Viae of the Villa Madama, which, it is said,
Elzheimer executed most exactly — even going so far as to paint the shadows to repre-
sent the time of d;iy lie desiied.
256 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1625.
Paulus Juvenel, the son of Nicolas Juvenel, a Dutch painter of little note, was born
at Nuremberg in 1579. He studied first under his father, and then under Adam
Elzheimer, but his works are not worthy of his master's instruction. Juvenel painted
chiefly decorations for the interiors of buildings, at Nuremberg, Vienna, and at
Presburg, where he died in 1643. He often employed his time in copying the
works of the great Flemish and German painters. A replica of Albrecht Diirer's Coro-
nation of the Virgin, by him, is in the Saalhof at Frankfort.
Carl Screta was born of noble family at Prague, in 1604. He displayed, in his
youth, great talent for painting, and was therefore sent to a master to study art. The
wars in his own country at the time compelled him to go to Italy; after staying at
various cities in that country, Screta at length, accompanied by his friend Wilhelm
Bauer^ went in 1634 to Rome. Here he formed his style from the contemplation of
the works of the great masters. On his return to Prague he was much honoured and
patronized by Ferdinand HI. and his Court. In 1644 Screta became a member of the
Academy of Prague, and eight years later was appointed head of the society. He died
in his native city, honoured and beloved, in 1674. Though a fair portrait-painter,
Screta chiefly executed altar-pieces, of which Dlabacz mentions no less than one
hundred and three. Of these we may notice a St. Luke painting the Virgin — in which
he is said to have given his own portrait under the guise of the saint — in the Theins
church at Prague. The greater part of Screta's pictures are in the Gallery of Prague.
His works are remarkable for boldness of invention, and for beauty of chiaroscuro.
They are in fact " soft without weakness, without glaring gay."
Joachim von Sandrart, the painter and historian, was born at Frankfort in 1606.
He first, studied drawing under Theodor de Bry and Matthew Merian ; and then
engraving at Prague under P^gidius Sadeler, who advised him to abandon that art for
painting. Sandrart accordingly entered the school of Gerard Honthorst at Utrecht.
Decamps and other v/riters have afiirmed, but probably erroneously, that Sandrart
accompanied Honthorst to England, Be that as it may, Sandrart went in 1627 to
Venice, thence to Rome, where he dwelt for many years, the companion of great artists
and other celebrated men of the day. He numbered among his friends Cardinal
Barberini and Prince Giustiniani. After his return to his native land, Sandrart
executed many altar-pieces for the churches of Bavaria and the convents of Austria.
Towards the close of his life he turned his attention more to writing on art, for which he
is so justly famous. He also opened an academy at Nuremberg, where he eventually died
in 1688, Among Sandrart's pictures, which are numerous, the most noteworthy are
an Allegory., representing Pallas and Saturn defending the genii of the Fine Arts against
the furies of Envy, in the Belvedere at Vienna ; a Celebration of the Peaee of Westphalia,
formerly in the Landauer Briiderhaus, at Nuremberg; and, above all, the Company
of the Amsterdam Archers at the entry of Mary of Medici, in the town-hall of that town.
Besides historic and mythologic subjects Sandrart executed many portraits.
Of Sandrart's literary works the chief is the ' Teutsche Academic,' published at
Nuremberg, in 1675.
Heinrich Schoenfeldt, who was born at Biberach in 1609, first studied art under
Johann Sichelbein, a painter of no great note; but eventually went to Italy to perfect
his style. On his return to Germany he was much employed at Vienna, Munich, Salzburg,
Augsburg, and at other cities. He painted subjects historical, both sacred and profime,
A.D. 1650.] JOHANN ROOS. 257
mythological and allegorical. He also executed many portraits, and landscapes with
figures. In fact, there was no limit to the versatility of his invention, but his works
vary greatly in merit, and are frequently sui^erficial and wanting in depth. Schoen-
feldt's paintings are widely scattered in the churches and galleries of the cities of
Germany. We may mention a Jacob and Esau in the Vienna gallery. Schoenfeldt
died at Augsburg in 1675 (some writers say in 1680).
Johann Heinrich Roos, who was born at Ottendorf, in the Palatinate of the Rhine,
in 163 1, was instructed in art by Julien Dujardin and Adrian de Bye at Amsterdam.
He settled at Frankfort in 1671, though he had a])parently been there before, for his
son was born there in 1655. He eventually perished by fire, in the attempt to rescue
some of his goods, in that city in 1685. Roos confined himself almost entirely to
animal painting — a branch of art in which he greatly excelled, especially in the repre-
sentation of sheep. His works have been compared, and naturally to their detriment,
with those of Paul Potter and Adrian Van de Velde. Works by Roos are in the
galleries of Vienna, Berlin, Munich, and Dresden, and in the Stadel Institute at
Frankfort. There are several etchings by this master which, as colour was not his
forte, are almost better than his paintings. They are very scarce, and highly prized.
Johann Heinrich Roos had a younger brother Theodor, who was also an artist, but
of little note.
Matthias Simbrecht, sometimes called Zimbrecht, was born at Munich in the early
half of the seventeenth century. It has not been recorded under what master he
studied ; but from his works he apparently formed his style from that of the great
Raphael. A good specimen of this master is a Visitation^ in the gallery of the Estates
at Prague. Simbrecht's works, which are not numerous, are chiefly at Prague, where
he for some time resided, and where he died of the plague in 1680.
Johann Georg Heintsch was born in Silesia about the middle of the seventeenth
century. His style is very similar to that of Screta, and he is especially to be admired
for the beauty and grace of his women's heads. In 1678, Heintsch removed to Prague,
where he remained — executing works for churches and convents — until his death, in
1713. Prague possesses most of his works. A Christ disputing 7C'if/i tin: doctors, in the
gallery of the Estates, is worthy of much praise.
Philip Roos, the son of Johann Heinrich Roos, otherwise known as Rosa di Tivoli,
was born at Frankfort in 1655. He painted, at first, much in the same manner as his
father, though interior to him. He afterwards lived for some time at Tivoli, where he
adopted a style peculiar to himself. He painted more human figures in his pictures
than was his father's habit. A good specimen of his style is Noah surrounded by
animals, in the Dresden Gallery. Other works by him are in the Belvedere, and in
the gallery at Cassel. Philip Roos died at Rome in 1705.
Franz Joachim Beich, who was born at Munich in 1663, studied art under his
father, Wilhelm Bcich. When he went to Italy, however, he forgot the instruction of his
youth and formed his style from that of Gaspar Poussin. Beich died at Munich in
1748. His works are remarkable for careful execution and depth of tone, though some
of them display a fault of his time — darkness in colour. The Munich gallery has three
good Landscapes by Beich.
2 L
2 58 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1700.
George Philip Rugendas, the painter of battle-scenes, was born at Augsburg in 1666.
He studied under a historical painter named Fischer, but directed his attention to-
wards battle-scenes. He spent three years in Italy— from 1692 to 1695— studying the
Avorks of the old masters. Soon after his return to Augsburg, the breaking out of the
War of Succession afforded him ample opportunity for studying his favourite subject.
Rugendas died at Augsburg in 1742. His pictures, which are in most German
galleries, are remarkable for powerful drawing, but the colouring is often dark and
uupleasing. He executed several etchings, which are of great merit.
Johann Kupetzky, who was born at Possing in Upper Hungary in 1666, studied for
three years under a Swiss painter named Klaus, but subsequently visited Venice, Rome,
and Lombardy, where he copied the works of Correggio and the Carracci. On his
return to his native country after an absence of twenty-two years, Kupetzky settled at
the court of Joseph I. at Vienna, where his works — more especially his portraits — were
much admired. On the death of his patron, Kupetzky journeyed about from one
German palace to another, and in order to do this he is said to have refused the offers
made by two Emperors, that he should settle at their courts — Charles HI. of Spain
and Peter the Great. Kupetzky was also invited to England by George II., but, owing
chiefly to his ill-health, he refused to leave Germany. He died in 1740 at Nuremberg,
whither he had fled from Vienna to escape the Inquisition.
Of his pictures, his portraits are most worthy of mention — more especially those of
a Lady and Child and one of Himself, both in the Vienna gallery.
Fiissli says of Kupetzky's pictures, that "they combine the vigour of Rubens, the
truth and elegance of Vandyck, and the effect of Rembrandt," but then Fiissli was a
friend and admirer of the artist, and was not capable of giving an unbiassed opinion.
Nevertheless Kupetzky was a very fair portrait-painter.
Christoph Ludwig Agricola, who was born at Regensburg in 1667, studied, as so
many other landscape painters have done, chiefly from nature, though while travelling
in Italy he appears to have been influenced by Poussin. Agricola hved several years at
Naples, and many of the views which he made there have been brought to England, He
died at his birthplace in 1 7 1 9. Agricola was very fond of placing in his landscapes figures,
as well as antique buildings and ruins. He sometimes painted portraits.
Balthasar Banner, the best German portrait painter of this period, was born at
Hamburg in 1685. Little is known of this artist's life with any certainty. He learned
the art of water-colour painting from an obscure artist in Altona ; he then studied oil-
painting at Dantzic under a master as little known to fame, Denner passed many
years of his early life at the various courts of Germany. He went, in 1707, to Berlin ;
thirteen years later, to the court of the Duchess of Wolfenbiittel ; thence to Hanover,
where he was so well received that he was induced to try his fortune in England. But
unfortunately for Denner, his art does not appear to have been appreciated in this
country, for he returned to Germany in 1728. He then travelled about from city to
city in the north of Europe, and eventually died at Rostock, in Mecklenburg, in 1749.
Balthasar Denner, of Hamburg, is assuredly the greatest fijiishcr who ever laid
colour on canvas. It may almost be thought that he worked with a magnifying glass
like a gem engraver. At any rate, his works must be examined with a glass. Denner
copies with scrupulous fidelity every undulation, every tint, even the slightest down on
the skin ; he makes a hair seem round, and gives the perspective of the slightest
wrinkle. He attains by this means a frightful accuracy ; but being obliged to reduce
A.D. I750.] BALTHASAR DENNER. 259
such wonderful labour to the smallest possible limits, he did not paint even busts, but
confined himself to simple heads, cut off below the chin. If, then, he counted the
hairs of liis models, he took from them a far more important part of the likeness— their
general bearing, attitude, and grace.
Denner only painted faces wrinkled with age, with white hair, and with missmg
teeth ; the smoothness of a fresh and rosy complexion never tempted him, he did not
seek after the beautiful, nor even the pretty ; what he wanted was merely feats of skill.
The sight of these curious works of Denner is doubly useful, showing to what extreme
perfection patience may attain, and also the abuse of this precious quality, and, to a
de<i-ree, its vanity, when no other superior quality accompanies and directs it.
Denner had the honour of painting, besides numerous princes, three kings — Peter
III. of Russia, Augustus II. of Poland, and Frederick IV. of Denmark, who, Van Gool
tells us, sat to him about twenty times.
Of his pictures we may mention, a Head of an old nwman, for which the Emperor
Charles VI. gave him 4700 florins ; and a Portrait of Himself; both in the Vienna
gallery.
Joliann Alexander Thiele, who was born at Erfurt in 1685, is said to have
studied under Christoph Ludwig Agricola, but Nature was his chief teacher. Thiele
was a soldier in early life, and abandoned that profession, in favour of a more peaceful
one— that of a landscape painter. In 1747 he was appointed court-painter to King
Augustus of Poland. He died at Dresden in 1752. The gallery of that town has no
less than forty-six pictures by him. They chiefly represent views on the Elbe and the
Saal. Thiele can boast of having given instruction to Dietrich.
Wenzel Lorenz Reiner, who was born at Prague in 16S6, studied under an artist
named Schweiger in that city. He painted bodi in oil and fresco, and all subjects,
battle-pieces, then architectural views, and landscapes with cattle, history— both sacred
and prof^me. His works are noticeable for great vigour and power in design as well
as in execution. Though numerous, they are not very well known, for they are mostly
in out-of-the-way places in the vicinity of Prague. Reiner died at his birthplace in
1743. Dlabacz mentions no less than eighteen fresco-paintings by this artist.
August Querfurt was born at Wolfenbiittel in 1696. He studied under his father
Tobias Querfurt, a landscape painter, and with Rugendas, whose style he, to some
extent, copied. His model, however, Avas Wouvermans. He painted almost exclu-
sively batde-pieces and hunting scenes. His pictures are remarkable for careful
execution and cheerfulness of colour ; and are to be seen in the galleries of Vienna,
Dresden, and Berlin, Querfurt died at Vienna in 1761.
Christian Wilhelm Ernst Dietrich, who was born at Weimar in 1712, studied first
under his flither and then under Alexander Thiele at Dresden, where he was much
patronized by Count Briihl. Dietrich was, in 1730, made court-painter to Augustus II.,
King of Poland and Elector of Saxony, and in 1741 he received the same appointment
from Augustus III., who afterwards sent him to Italy to study the old masters. Dietrich
remained at Rome but one year. In 1746, he was made keeper of the Dresden
gallery, with a salary of four hundred rix-doUars. In 1763 he was made a professor
in the Academy of Arts in that town, with a salary of six hundred rix-doUars, and also
Director of the school of painting in the porcelain manufactory at Meissen. Dietrich
continued to live honoured and patronized by all until his death in 1774.
2 6o
ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1750.
Dietrich is the Ljica fa presto of Germany. A universal imitator and fruitful
ITINERANT MUSICIANS. — BY DIETRICH.
/;/ the Xational Gallery.
copyist, he has performed in the north precisely what Luca Giordano did in the south.
The best picture by Dietrich in England is in the National Gallery (No, 205). It
A.D. 1750.] DIETRICH. 261
represents Itinerant Musicians, and has been beautifully engraved by J. G. Wille.
We will examine his works in the Dresden gallery. It contains fifty-one works by his
hand, and not one of these can be called original : all are imitations, a Young Woman
and Jicr Children at a window appears to be copied from Gerard Dow, some Bathers
from Poelemberg, and two pendants representing the Golden Age in the style of Van
der Werfif; Cuirassiers on a March strongly recall Salvator Rosa, and there is even a
Holy Family, in an Italian landscape, which might be attributed to some pupil of
Raphael himself. We may also find copies of Elzheimer, Adrian van Ostade, Karel
Dujardin, Berghem, Jan Both, Van der Meulen, Jacques Courtois, and Watteau. But
yet it is Rembrandt whom Dietrich imitates most frequently and with the greatest
success. There is for example, a Sai?ii Sifneon, a Christ curing the Sick, and portraits
of old men in oriental costumes, which might be taken for works of Ferdinand Bol,
Victors, Fabritius, or any other direct pupil of the great Dutch painter. So much
diversity in the works of the same artist renders him curious as a study ; but what-
ever talent he may lavish on universal imitation, as he always remains a disciple
he cannot pretend to the name of master. What Michelangelo said to Baccio
Bandinelli might be said of him : " He who walks behind another, will never pass
by him."
Adam Friedrich CEser, who was born at Presburg in 17 17, studied first in the
Academy of Vienna. In 1739 he went to Dresden, where he made the acquaintance
of many celebrated men, among them Winkelmann, who calls him " the successor of the
Theban Aristides." From Dresden, QLser went to Leipsic, where he was made
Director of the Academy in 1764, and where he afterwards chiefly resided, and exe-
cuted his best works. CEser died at Dresden in 1799. His most praiseworthy pictures
are in the church of St. Nicholas at Leipsic. He also executed several etchings — both
from his own and from other artists' designs.
Christian Bernliard Rode was born at Berlin in 1725, Having received an ele-
mentary education in art in his native city, he went to Paris and worked under Charles
Vanloo. He then went to Italy, to perfect his style by study of the great masters. On
his return to Berlin, Rode was well received and patronized by Frederick the Great
and his court. He executed many portraits, but he chiefly employed his time in painting
historical scenes for the decoration of saloons. The best specimens of this branch
of his art are the paintings in the Palace of Sans Souci at Potsdam. Rode died nt
Berlin in 1797. He left a number of etchings, of no great merit.
Martin von Knoller, one of the best German painters of the time, was born at
Steinach, in the Tyrol, in 1725. His father, who was a mediocre painter, intended his
son to follow his profession, and accordingly gave him all necessary instructions. In
1745, the artist Paul Troger passing through Steinach on the way to Vienna, saw
some productions by young Knoller, greatly admired them, and induced his father to
let his son accompany him to Vienna. In 1755 Knoller went to Rome, where he studied
under Raphael Meags, and in 1758 he was invited to Naples by Count Firmian, the
Austrian ambassador, by whom he was much patronized, and for whom he executed
many important works. Knoller soon after went to Milan, in which city he henceforth
chiefly resided. He died in 1804. His fresco-paintings are better than his
productions in oil. Of the former we may mention works in the churches of Ettal
m the Bavarian Alps, of Neresheim in AVurtemberg, of Steinach, and of many small
villages in Tyrol and elsewhere. An Ascension of the Virgin, in the town hall of
262 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1750.
Munich, is worthy of praise. Of his easel-pictures a Portrait of Joseph Rosa, in the
Vienna gallery, is a good example. Knoller's pictures are noticeable for vigour of
design and execution, and for the representation of violent actions.
Daniel Nicolaus Chodowiecki, the miniature painter and etcher, was born at Dantzic,
in 1726. His father, a merchant, was an amateur painter, and gave his son instruction
in the art. The young Chodowiecki also studied design under an aunt at Dantzic. In
1743 he was sent to Berlin, where he was apprenticed to an uncle, a general dealer.
He here employed his leisure time in painting the tops of snuff-boxes, which he sold in
order to gain a little money for his mother, Avho had become a widow. In 1754
Chodowiecki came under the notice of the enamel-painter Haid, who advised him to
abandon trade and confine himself to art. He accordingly did so, turning his attention
more especially towards miniature-painting. He soon, however, gave up this branch
of art in favour of etching, in which he was most successful. His engravings, mostly
small, amount to no less than two thousand. They represent scenes from everyday
life, and some of them are of a satirical nature. Hence he has obtained the name of
the "Hogarth of Berlin." Chodowiecki died at Berlin in 1801. At the time of his
death he was Director of the Academy of Arts at Berlin. His oil paintings are good
in design but wanting in taste, in regard to colour. They are rarely seen in public
galleries. There are two in the Berlin Museum, representing scenes from Coimtry
Society.
Anton Raphael Mengs, the greatest German, and one of the greatest European,
painters of his time, was born at Aussig in Bohemia, in 1728. His father, Ishmael
Mengs, who was a miniature painter of little note, having dedicated him to art, chris-
tened him after two of the greatest painters of all ages — Correggio and Sanzio. Old
Ishmael, who had removed to Dresden while his son Raphael was still a child, sent
him, when he was old enough, to study the works of the masters in the gallery of that
tOAvn j and in order that he might receive a still better education, took him — when but
thirteen years of age — to Rome. Here he was shut up every day in the Vatican from
morning to evening, like a prisoner, with no other refreshment than a crust of bread
and a pitcher of water. His father was wont to come and fetch him at the close of
the day, but even then he would insist on his completing the sketches he had drawn
during his imprisonment. In this hard school was Raphael Mengs educated. In
1744, his father took him back to Saxony, where he was appointed court-painter to
Augustus HI., Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, with a yearly salary of six hundred
thalers. This monarch allowed him to return to Rome, where he resided for four
years. In this period he produced his Holy Family, which gained him great praise.
The original of the Virgin in his picture was a peasant girl, for whose sake he changed
his religion in order that he might be able to marry her. He returned in 1749 to
Dresden, where he remained, however, only three years. Soon after his return to
Rome he was employed by Lord Percy, afterwards Duke of Northumberland, to make
a copy of Raphael's School of Athens. In 1757 Mengs made his first attempt in fresco-
painting. This was a picture on the ceiling of Sant' Eusebio, which was not, however^
quite a success ; but his Apollo and the Muses, which appeared a little later, in the
Villa Albani, gained him well-merited praises. In 1 761, Mengs went to Madrid, at the
invitation of Charles III., whom he had met at Naples, in which city he had stayed a
short time. At Madrid Mengs executed many of his most important works, several of
them were done for the decoration of palaces ; of these we may mention the Apotheosis
A.D. 1750] RAPHAEL MENGS. 263
of Trajan, on the ceiling of the dining-room of the Palace at Madrid. With the
exception of three years, spent in Rome for the benefit of liis health— in which period
he executed the famous Allegory, on the ceiling of the Camera de' Papini — Mengs
resided in Spain until 1775, ^vhen he once more repaired to the Papal capital. Here
his wife unfortunately died in 1778, and the grief occasioned by her loss, combined
with unskilful medical treatment which he received, caused his death on the 29th of
June in the following year. He was buried in the church of San Michele Grande.
Mengs discovered in a period of decay and abandonment some vestiges of the art of
the greater periods ; he sought for severity of drawing, nobility of style, ideal beauty,
antl deserved from these Italian qualities to be called by Cean-Bermudez the greatest
painter of his age. The somewhat too great delicacy of his pencil, however, recalls the
first lessons he received for miniature painting.
The works of Mengs are very rare in France ; he has left some in Saxony, some
in Italy, and many more in Spain. The Museo del Rey possesses twelve ; amongst
others, is an Adoration of the Shepherds, which is considered his masterpiece. The last
figure in the left-hand group in this painting is a representation of the painter himself.
Of his portraits we may mention two oi Himself — one in the Munich Gallery, and another
in the Collection of Painters' Portraits in the Uftlzi ; also one of His Father, in the
BerUn gallery.
Mengs, who was also a learned man, has left ' Thoughts on Painting and Reflections
on Painters,' which would form, in the opinion of his biographer, Cean-Bermudez, the
best elementary treatise on the subject
Anton Graff, who was born at Winterthur in Switzerland in 1736, studied art under
one Schellenberg. Graff painted at Augsburg, Leipsic, Berlin, and at Dresden, where he
died in 1803. His pictures are noticeable for good colour and drawing, combined with
depth of feeling, but he is, nevertheless, only a second-rate artist. He painted almost
exclusively portraits. Good examples of this master are in the Dresden gallery.
Several eminent personages, for instance King Frederick Augustus, sat to him.
Maria Angelica Kauffmann, the celebrated portrait-painter, was born at Chur, in the
Grisons, in 1742. Her father Joseph Kauffmann, an unimportant artist, took her,
when she was but fifteen years of age, to Milan, in order that she might have opportuni-
ties of perfecting the talents she had already displayed for music and painting. Angelica
at first paid more attention to the former accomplishment, but soon abandoned it in
favour of art. In 1763, Kauffmann took his daughter to Naples, and in the following
year to Rome, where she employed her time chiefly in portrait-painting. Among those
who sat to her was the Abbe Winkelmann, who mentions her with great praise.
In 1764 Angelica Kauftmann went to Venice, and in the next year accompanied
Lady Wentworth, the wife of the British ambassador, to England, where, on account of
her wit, grace and amiability, added to her talent for art, she became one of the most
popular painters of the day. In 1768, she was elected one of the original members of
the Royal Academy — a high honour for a woman and a foreigner.
A'ery unfortunately she was inveigled into a marriage with an adventurer calling
himself Count Horn, who ill-treated and robbed her. Seven years after, Angelica
married Antonio Zucchi, her first love, but this marriage was not a happy one.
In the following year she left England and returned to Rome. She now gave herself
up more to historical than portrait-painting, and received so many commissions that
she frequently had more than she could execute. She died at Rome in 1808.
264 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1775.
Angelica Kauffmann owed more to her grace and general accomplishments than to
her real talent in art. Her pictures are pleasing, but at the same time superficial, and
frequently suggest a feeble mannerism. A Religion attended by the Virtues was formerly
exhibited in the National Gallery. There are fifteen pictures by her in the pos-
session of Lord Exeter at Burleigh House.
Angelica Kauffmann left several etchings. Of these we may mention one of
the Portrait of Winkelmann by herself. Nagler says that no less than six hundred
engravings from her works, by Bartolozzi and others, were published.
Asmus Jacob Carstens, one of the best modern German painters previous to
Owerbeck, was born at St. Giirgen -near Schleswig, on the loth of May 1754. His
father, who was a miller, died when young Jacob was about nine years old. His
widowed mother, however, gave every possible encouragement and assistance to his
early displayed talent for art. But Carstens lost this kind parent soon after
his father's death, and his guardians, deaf to all remonstrances, apprenticed him for
seven years to a wine merchant. Henceforth his was a struggling artist's life. He
served five years of his apprenticeship, during which time he read much on art, and at
the same time contrived to save sufficient money to purchase his exemption from Iiis
last two years. He then went to Copenhagen. At first he had to execute portraits in
red chalk, in order to gain a livelihood, but, having attracted much attention by his
Death of Balder and Ulysses and yEoliis, he was on the high road to fame, when he
unfortunately gave offence to his superiors in art, and thus lost all chance of success
at Copenhagen. Carstens then, accompanied by his youngest brother, who was also
an artist, attempted to go to Rome, but they were unable to get farther than Mantua,
where he spent one month in studying the works of Giulio Romano. Returning to
Germany, Carstens established himself at Liibeck and at first had to revert to his early
occupation — portrait-painting. He soon afterwards painted several pictures, chiefly taken
from the old Greek historians. After a residence of five years at Lubeck, Carstens was
supplied by one Rodde, an amateur painter, with means wherewith to go to Berlin.
Here his Fall of the Angels gained him admission to the Academy, and in 1792 he
received a travelling pension from the king. He set out for Rome, and this time
succeeded in reaching the object of his desire. He passed through Dresden and
Nuremberg, where he studied the works of Albrecht Durer.
On his arrival at Rome, Carstens turned his attention to the study of Raphael and
Michelangelo. His first great work, after the contemplation of these masters, was the
Visit of the Argonauts to the Centaur Chiron, which gained him much praise. In 1795
he exhibited eleven mythological subjects, and in the same year sent three to Berlin.
Carstens was now requested to return to the Academy in the Prussian capital, but he
refused and continued to reside in Rome until his death on the 25th of May, 1798. His
last great works, which he had intended to etch himself, are taken from Pindar,
Orpheus, and other writers, and all represent scenes from the Expedition of the
Argonauts. Carstens' works display a profound study of the works of Raphael and
Michelangelo, and are remarkable more for the depth of thought and careful execution,
which they exhibit, than for any particular artistic merit.
FRIEDRICH- OWERBECK.
P'ige 265.
A.D. iSio.j OWERBECK. 265
REVIVAL OF ART IN GERMANY.
The Germans— who joined in the European work of a fresh Revival of Art twenty
years later than the French under Louis David — undertook their mission in an entirely
difterent spirit. Instead of carrying Art forward, they turned back, and rather than
go on resolutely to the discovery of an unknown future, thought it more prudent to
return to the past, and to take refuge in archaism. At the death of Albrecht Diirer,
artistic Germany fell asleep as if in the cavern of Epimenides. Aroused at last by the
rumour of the revival of the arts in France, she resumed her task where it had been left
at the close of the fifteenth century. It was to Rome that she once more turned in
order to rekindle the extinguished flame. The history of the little German colony is well
known which, in 1810, crossed the mountains under the direction of Friedrich Ower-
beck, and established at Rome a convent of artists, where all the subsequent heads of
schools were formed, Peter von Cornelius, Wilhelm Schadow, Philipp Veit, Julius Schnorr,
Karl Vogel, Heinrich Hess, and others less worthy of mention. They followed to the
letter the paradoxical advice of Lanzi, that " modern artists should study the painters of
the time preceding Raphael ; for Raphael, springing from these painters, is superior to
them, whilst those who followed him have not equalled him." Their enthusiasm for
what they called the " Christian ideal," for Art anterior to the religious reformation, led
them even to renounce the religion of their fathers. The Protestants became Catholics,
and Owerbeck, who set the example of abjuration as Avell as exile, was not satisfied
with returning to the age of Leo X., but endeavoured to adapt, to the mystic style
of Fra Angelico, the types of Raphael, in which Grecian beauty is visible.
This influence imprinted on German painting an irremediable defect ; to avoid the
fault with which they reproached the Dutch — that of not knowing how to idealise the ?'eal
— the Germans fell into the opposite extreme, of being unable to realise the ideal.
Happily, they have not persisted in this blind alley, where progress was impossible.
The schools of Diisseldorf and Munich have produced noble painters who, by turning
to picturesque truth, ha\e returned to their own times and their own countr)-.
Friedrich Owerbeck, the chief of tlie Revivalists of German art, was born at Liibeck
in 1789. \\'hen about eighteen years of age he went to Vienna, to study painting
in the Academy of that city. The ideas on art which he had carried with him
were so entirely new and so little aL:reeable to the professors of the Academy, tliat
they met with but small apj)rova]. On the other hand, there were several among
his fellow-pupils who gladly followed his lead ; and iri 1810, Owerbeck, accompanied
by a small band of youthful artists, went to Rome, where he established the school
which was afterwards to become so famous.
Owerbeck, who was professor of painting in the Academy of St. Luke, a foreign
member of the French Institute, and a member of all th.e German Academies, died at
Rome in 1869, at the advanced age of eighty years. He painted both in fresco and
in oil. Of his productions in fresco, the most noteworthy are, ,a Visiou of St. Fra?icis
in Santa Maria degli Angioli at Assisi, and five scenes from T^^^sos Jerusalej/i Delivered
in the Villa of the Marchese Massini. Of his oil-paintings the best are the Triumph
of Religion in the Arts in the Stiidel Institute at Frankfort ; C/z/vV/ on the Mount of
2 M
266 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1825.
Olives at Hamburg; \\\t Entrance of Christ into Jcrnsakm, ^^inteil in 181 6 for the
Marien Kirche at Liibeck ; and a Descent from the Cross, at Liibeck. Owerbeck also
executed a number of small drawings. Of these we may mention forty designs of the
Life of Christ; and many other Biblical subjects. " His works bear the stamj) of the
most sincere piety and integrity of heart, and are endowed with a charm and grace
rarely seen but in the conception of Rafifaelle himself." (Art Journal.)
Peter von Cornelius, one of the greatest of modern German painters, was born at
Diisseldorf in 1784. At an early age, he displayed great talent for drawing, and was
accordingly sent to study in the Art Gallery of his native town, of which his father
was Inspector. Cornelius, however, when but fifteen years of age, unfortunately lost
his father, and his mother and her young children were thus left dependent on himself
and an elder brother. In 181 1 he went to Rome and joined the school which
Owerbeck had established there in the previous year. After several years of study in
the Papal capital, Cornelius was summoned to Diisseldorf to form anew the Academy,
of which he had been made Director. About the same time too, the then Crown Prince
of Bavaria commissioned him to paint various frescoes for the Glyptothek of Munich.
Finding it impossible to do justice to both the appointments, he resigned the
Directorship, and, accompanied by a few pupils, repaired to Munich where, in 1824 or
1825, he was made Director of the Academy. Cornelius died on the 7th of March
1867. His pictures mostly represent scenes from the Old and New Testament, the
Nibelungenlied, and the works of great writers — Homer, Dante, Gothe and others.
We may especially notice some frescoes, representing the History of Man from the
Creation to the Last Judgment, in the Ludwig Kirche at Munich. Cornelius is not
a great colourist, but he excels in grandeur of design. His figures, though they
sometimes have a statue-like appearance, are perfect, and his drawing is worthy of
the utmost praise.
Friedrich Wilhelm Schadow, the son of Godefroid Schadow the sculptor, was born
at Berlin in 1788. He first studied under a painter named Weitsch, but abandoned
that master in favour of Cornelius, whose pupil he must be considered. Schadow was
a member of the Academy of Berlin, and also for some time Director of the Diisseldorf
Academy. He died on the 19th of March, 1862. Speaking of this artist, Ottley says,
" His works evince great taste in the treatment, great facility of design, and purity of
style ; but are considered deficient in those higher attributes of art, grandeur of con-
ception, and living reality in the motive and expression."
Among his best pictures we may notice, Xkvt Four Evangelists ; ^Deposition ; and
also a Holy Family at Munich. Schadow was also a portrait painter.
Peter von Hess, the " Horace Vernet of Central Germany," was born at Diissel-
dorf in 1792-3. He was the son of Karl von Hess, the professor of engraving in the
Diisseldorf Academy, and the brother of two other artists— Heinrich von Hess, an
historical painter, and Karl von Hess, a painter of battle-pieces, of less note. Peter von
Hess was, at various times, much patronized by the Bavarian Government. He died
at Munich, on the 4th of April 187 1. Of his pictures we may mention, the Entrance
of King Otho into Nauplin ; the Battle of Arcis-sur-Aube ; and the Crossing of the
Beresi?ia — painted for the late Emperor of Russia. Hess executed genre subjects
with almost as much success as he did battle-pieces, but not to nearly the same extent.
About the year 1850, he published 'An Album of Greek Heroism, or the Deliverance
of Greece,' which contains forty illustrations, executed in chromolithography.
A.D. 1850.] JULIUS SCHNORR. 267
Philipp Veit was born at Berlin, on the 13th of February 1793. His mother, the
daughter of Mendelssohn, after the death of her first husband, married the painter
Friedrich Schlegel, who thus became Veit's instructor. The young artist studied for
some time in Dresden, and then went to Rome, where he joined the company of
German painters under ()werl)eck, and became one of the most severe in style of those
artists of the revival. Of the works which Veit executed in Rome, the most important
is \\\Q. Seven years of Plenty, ^AVCiX-Q^ in fresco in the Villa Bartholdy, as companion
picture to Owerbeck's Seven years of Dearth. The works which Veit executed in
Rome procured him so much fiime in Germany, that he was summoned to Frankfort
on the Main to take the Directorship of the Art Institute. Owing to differences in
religious opinions, he was obliged to resign this office in 1843. He then removed to
Sachsenhausen in Hesse-Cassel, where he afterwards chiefly resided. Of his later
works we may mention an Aseension of the Vin^in, painted for the Frankfort
Cathedral, and a Good Samaritan, painted for the King of Prussia.
Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld was born at Leipsic in 1794. He was the third
son of Johann Veit Schnorr, the Director of the Academy in that city, who had
intended the young Julius to follow scientific pursuits : but as he displayed so much
natural talent for art, he was sent in 18 10 to the Academy of Vienna, where his two
elder brothers were already studying. Schnorr did not, however, find the professors
of the Academy at all sympathetic with his desire for the improvement of art. He
accordingly left Vieniia and went to Rome in 1815, where he found the Roman-German
school already established under Owerbeck. Schnorr's cliief works in Rome were
the Marriage at Cana and scenes from Orlando Fiirioso in the Villa Massima. Just
as he had completed this last work he was called by King Ludwig, of Bavaria, to
Munich, where he executed his most celebrated works — Scenes from the Nibclu)igcnli:d
painted in fresco ; and the histories of Charlemagne, Frederic Barharossa and Rudolf of
Hapshurg, in encaustic. His well-known Bible Illustrations have made his name very
popular in England. Schnorr died honoured and beloved in 1S72.
Heinrich von Hess was born at Diisseldorf, on the 19th of April 1798. He first
studied under his father, Karl von Hess, who was professor of engraving in the Diissel-
dorf Academy. In 1806, young Hess went to Munich, and entered as a student in the
academy of that city. Seven years later appeared his first great works, the Sepulchre
of Christ and a Holy Family, which attracted the notice of Queen Caroline, who
henceforth became his liberal patroness. In 1821, he received a royal travellin"--
grant. He went to Italy, where he stayed until 1826, in which year he returned to
Munich and was soon afterwards made Professor of the Academy. In the following
year he commenced a series of cartoons for the Allerheiligenkirche, which he com-
pleted in 1837. In 1849, Hess was made Director of the Royal Collection, which
post he held until his death, which occurred on the 29th of March 1863. Among the
best known of his works we may mention a Christmas, painted for Queen Caroline •
and Faith, Hope, and Charity, painted for the Leuchtenberg Gallery, at St. Petersburg.
Wilhelm von Kaulbach, the great historical painter, v/as born at Arolsen, a small
town in AV'aldeck, in 1805. He studied art at Diisseldorf under Cornelius, and
acquired from that master a thorough knowledge of design and drawing, more espe-
cially of the human figure. He was Cornelius's best and most favourite pupil, and
when that master remo\ed to Munich, Kaulbach was among those who followed him.
Kaulbach painted chiefly large pictures of an historical character. I'hanks to photo-
2 68 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1850
graphy, these are well known to the world. ' Among his most popular works are, the
Battle of the Huns in the Berlin Museum ; Apollo and the Muses in the Odeon at
Munich ; and the wall painting at Berlin, representing Homer in Griechenland ; his
drawings for the illustration of Gothe's " Faust " and " Werner," and the designs for
" Reynard the Fox." Kaulbach died at Munich, on the 7th of April 1874.
Kaulbach is the greatest German, one may say the greatest European painter that the
world has lately seen, and in his own branch of art stands without a rival. A writer
in ' The Times ' says of him, " He was primarily and fundamentally a painter of
religious, classic, and historic allegory of the very grandest and noblest order, and
through the taste and culture of the German people he found scope for his genius
and verge enough for the profitable employment of his capacity He was a
powerful though not a brilliant colourist ; and hence he was not fitted to be a painter
oi genre. But he happened to have become, under the tuition of Cornelius, one of the
most powerful draughtsmen, both as regards power, symmetry, and accuracy, that Art
has seen since Raphael showed only the promise of what he might liave done had his
life been spared He drew the human shape with the academic exactitude
of David and of Ingres ; and the adjustment of his lights and shadows was as realistic
and as skilful as that of Delaroche. There is scarcely a figure, draped or undraped,
in all the innumerable compositions of Kaulbach that, photographed or lithographed,
might not be set up before an advanced art student as a model for copying."
Here seems the most fitting place to mention a modern Scandinavian painter, who,
though his art is widely removed from that of Diisseldorf, yet received his early
instruction in that city.
Adolf Tidemand was born on the 14th of August 181 6, at Mandal, in Norway,
He first studied at the Copenhagen Academy, but subsequently removed to Diisseldorf,
and entered the studio of Herr Hildebrandt, from whom he received valuable instruc-
tion in art. On leaving that master, Tidemand became famous as a painter of genre
subjects. The works, which he exhibited in the Paris Exhibition of 1855, gained him
a first-class medal, and caused him to be made a Knight of the Legion of Honour. In
1862, he exhibited no less than ten works in the London Exhibition. Of these the
most noteworthy are the ^' Haugians" — a sect of religious dissenters in Norway, the
Adviinistration of the Sacra??ienf, the Sunday Afternoon, and more especially the
Catechising, representing an old Norwegian schoolmaster questioning his pupils in
a country church. Works by Tidemand are in many of the private galleries in
England. This artist died at the age of sixty, on the 25th of August 1876.
" Tidemand's technical qualities are good, sober, solid colour — not remarkable,
indeed, for brilliancy or transparency, but very well understood— excellent draughts-
manship, and skilful composition. These are employed on subjects from humble life
in Norway, chiefly those which admit strongly-marked character — both pathetic and
humorous, but oftener the former — which are treated with profound feeling, a true
sense of beauty as well as character. His art is of a class that commends itself to
English tastes, and his serious, loving and devout spirit, with his deep sense of family
affections and duties, give precisely what English people most value in the spirit of
a picture." (Mr. Tom Taylor.)
A.D. I400.] FLEMISH SCHOOL. 269
BOOK IV
CHAPTER I.
EARLY FLEMISH SCHOOL.
THE Flemish and Dutch schools, on account of the similarity of their styles, are
by writers on art frequently treated together. But, in accordance with the
plan we have hitherto adopted, we have thought it advisable to keep the
artists of each country distinct.
There are no trustworthy records of any very early painters in Flanders. We
know that, in the thirteenth century, Art was in a degraded state ; the masters
of those times represented unpleasing crucifixions and martyrdoms ; but at the
end of the following century there were a few artists who displayed a talent — both in
jxiinting pictures and in the illumination of prayer-books, some of which are still in the
museums of Berlin, London, and elsewhere — which foreshadowed the glories of the
Van Eycks and their celebrated school. Of tiiese we must mention one — •
Melchior Broederlam, of Ypres, who was " painter and valet " to Philip the Hardy,
and who flourished about the year 1400. The work which brings this early master
into notice is the painting on the wings of an altar-chest carved by Jacques de
Baerse, the principal parts of which are in the Museum of Dijon : the subjects repre-
sented are the Aunundaiion : the Visitation ; the Presentation ; and the Flight into
Egypt (finely engraved in Kugler's ' Handbook'). Broederlam's painting is noticeable
for simplicity and purity of character, and beauty of colour.
SCHOOL OF BRUGES.
The town of Bruges may claim, in painting, priority even over Antwerp, which
at an after period usurped from her the supremacy in commerce, politics and art. It
was at llruges that the two brothers Hubrecht and Jan van Eyck chiefly lived.
Hubrecht van Eyck, the founder of the school of Bruges, was born at Maaseyck on
the Maas in 1366. according to Van Mandcr, and there is no evidence Ip contradict
270 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1420.
that historian. We unfortunately know httle of Hubrecht's hfe with any certainty. He
lived partly at Bruges and partly at Ghent, in which city he was made a member of the
Corporation of Painters in 1421 ; and there he died on the i8th of September 1426.
He was buried with much pomp and honour by his patron, Judocus Vydt, in the
vault of his chapel in St. Bavon at Ghent. (One of his arms was severed from his
body, and was preserved for many years as a relic in the church of St. Bavon, but it
disappeared in the sixteenth century.)
The honour of having brought to perfection the art of oil-painting was formerly
given to Jan Van Eyck alone; but it is probable that Hubrecht, who, Van Mander tells
us, instructed his brother in chemistry as well as drawing and painting, laid the
foundation of that glorious success which Jan afterwards achieved.
Several collections of pictures in Europe boast of possessing specimens of
Hubrecht van Eyck, but there is only one universally acknowledged work by his hand ;
this is part of the polyptych, which he commenced for Judocus Vydt and his wife, for
their mortuary chapel in the church of St. Bavon at Ghent.
Instead of a single picture, the Van Eycks, taking as their subject the " Ecce Agnus
Dei qui tollit peccata mundi," made a polyptych formed of twelve panels with their
shutters, forming altogether twenty-four pictures divided into two rows, having five
panels in the one, and seven in the other. There was a picture underneath Avhich
represented Hell, but it was lost soon after its completion.
On the old frames of the shutters, which are still preserved, may be read the follow-
ing inscription ; although some parts, having been effaced by time, have been supplied
from later copies : —
" Pictor Hubeitus e Eyck, major quo nemo lepeitus
Incepit : pondusque Johannes arte secundus
Frater perfecit, Judoci Vijd prece fretus.
VersV seXta Mai Vos CoLLoCat aCta tVerl."
This inscription signifies that the work of the painters of Bruges was terminated May
6th, 1432. It also signifies that Hubert van Eyck commenced the work, and that his
brother Jan finished it. The last line is called a chronogram; the capitals make, if
taken in their value as numerals, the date 1432.
The parts, which are now admitted to be by Hubrecht are the whole of the top
portion of the interior of the altar-piece — with the exception, perhaps, of the Choir of
Singifio A ?ige Is— t\\z.t is to say the Almighty, the Virgin ■^.Y\d/ohji the Baptist, the figures
oi Adam and Eve ; and St. Cecilia and the Angels. This great work is unfortunately
dispersed ; the Adoration of the Lamb is still in St. Bavon ; the figures of Adam and
Eve are in the Brussels Museum, and the rest are in the museum of Berlin, where the
polyptych is rendered complete by copies of the absent pieces made by Michael Coxcyen
in the sixteenth century. To return to Hubrecht. The author of the ' Life of Fuseli '
says, " The draperies of the three on a gold ground, especially that of the middle
figure, could not be improved in simplicity or elegance by the taste of Raphael him-
self. The three heads of God the Father, the Virgin, and St. John the Baptist are
■not inferior in roundness, force, or sweetness to the heads of da Vinci, and possess a
more positive principle of colour." This is not too high praise, for, while the almost
architectural symmetry of the whole work would cause it to be classed in an earlier
style of art, its exquisite perfection — more especially visible in the two centre-pieces —
opened a fresh career in the art of painting. This celebrated altar-piece has been
excellently reproduced as a chromolithograph by the Arundel Society.
HUBRECHT AND JAN VAN EYCK.
Pa^e 271.
A.D. 1-425.] JAN VAN EYCK. 271
Jan van Eyck — the second in age, though perhaps the first in art, of the brothers —
was born at Maaseyck, about the year 1390 — probably a httle earher. He first
entered the service of John of Bavaria, who, when dying, recommended him to
Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, who in 1425 made him his "varlet de chambre,"
with a yearly salary of one hundred livres. In 1428 his patron sent him to paint
the portrait of Isabel of Portugal, whom that monarch wished to marry. On his
way the ship was forced, through bad weather, to put in at Sandwich, Plymouth,
and Falmouth. England thus had the honour of a visit — though a flying one — from
Van Eyck. After he had made a successful journey to Portugal, painted the portrait,
which was approved, and spent a itw months in seeing Spain and Portugal, Van Eyck
returned to Bruges, where he received fifty livres for the portrait and his " confidential
services." He then bought a house in Bruges, where he lived until his death on tlie
9th of July, 1440. The only proof we have of his marriage is that his patron Duke
Philip stood godfather to his daughter, to whom he presented six silver cups.
We have already stated that the altar-piece, commenced by the two brothers, was
completed by Jan after Hubrecht's death. Let us examine Jan's share of the work.
The side-wings, with the exception oi Adam and Eve, are in the Berlin gallery. It
may be interesting to see how they got there. The whole altar-piece was taken to
Paris in the Napoleonic wars, but was returned at the Peace. It was then replaced in
St. Bavon, but the side-wings were unaccountably left in a cellar, where they were
discovered by a monk, who sold them to M. Nieuwenhuys, the art-connoisseur. He
sold tkem to Mr. Solly, who parted with them to the late King of Prussia for 4000/.
Hence they are in the Berlin Museum, Beginning at the bottom on the left hand, we
notice the Righteous Judges {Justi Judices) — ten figures on horseback in a Flemish
landscape ; the judge mounted on a grey horse in the foreground is Hubrecht van Eyck,
who looks at least twenty years older than the portrait of his brother, the third figure
on his left, thus giving a somewhat conclusive evidence to the difference which
historians make in the ages of the two men. We next come to the Holy Warriors
{Christi Milites) — nine figures also on horseback, with a landscape background, and
all in warlike costumes. In the foreground may be recognized St. George, Charlemagne,
Godfrey de Bouillon, Baldwin of Constantinople, and St. Louis, Still going from left
10 right, comes the Adoration of the Lamb, towards which the people in the side-wings
are directed, and which forms one grand centre-piece. We next come to the Hermits
{Hyrenctisti) — ten figures assembled in a wild place, in a sort of ravine. It is easy
to recognize, in the foreground, the hermits St. Paid and St. Anthony, and at the end
of the procession St. Mary IVIagdalen and St. Mary the Egyptian. At the extreme
right we see the Pilgrims {Feregrinisti). The giant Christoi)her is leading seventeen
pilgrims of different ages and countries. In the landscapes of the two latter panels,
Van Eyck has introduced the orange-tree, the stone-pine, the cypress, and the palm —
southern trees which he had seen in Portugal in 1428. Besides these Jan van Eyck
also probably executed the Choirs of Atige/s on the top part of the interior, and
undoubtedly the Annuneiation ; the figures of John the Baptist, John the Evangelist,
and the portraits oi Judocus Vydt and his Wife, and the prophets Micah and Zaehariah
— all on the exterior wings of the altar-piece.
The parts by Jan are very unequal in style and in proportions. In the groups of the
celestial musicians, where the painter seems to have desired to distinguish two sexes,
making men and women angels, the figures are almost of life size, whilst in the other
more complicated subjects tlie numerous figures are only about a foot high. There is
2 72 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1440.
as great a difiference in merit as in form between these two styles of composition. We
admire, however, the small figures more than the larger ones. In life-sized figures
Van Eyck seems to be singularly cramped. He is embarrassed in the drawmg, which
becomes stiff, and in the colouring, ^\■hich becomes dry and too minute, and, in order
to give expression to the faces, the eyes and mouth are almost made to grimace. But
in the smaller figures he shows his usual simplicity and skill. In these we find
truth, brilliancy, power and solidity.
Amongst the numerous works of the younger Van Eyck after the death of his
brother, there are none more curious than the two Heads of Christ which are at Bruges
and Berlin. They both represent the traditional Head brought from Byzantium, and
which is still seen on the banners of the Greek communion. They are sui rounded
by a golden glory in the form of a cross, and on the green background there may be
seen in the upper part, the A and fi o-f the Greeks, and in the lower part, the L and F
{initiu!)! d finis) of the Latins. But that of Bruges bears this inscription : "-Jo de
Eyck, inventor, anno 1420, t^o January " and that of Berlin: ''• Johes de Eyck, me fecit
et apph'viit, anno 147,8, ^1 jamiary." This means, if we are not mistaken, that the
Head of Ckrist at Bruges is one of the first trials, perhaps t/ie first, of the processes
with which the Van Eycks endowed the art of painting. This circumstance by putting
back a few years the invention of oil painting, which is by general consent placed
about 1410, would also explain the singular slowness of the spreading of this invention,
since no Italian made use of it before the year 1445, whilst the Head at Berlin, dated
eighteen years later, is a work done when its author had attained to the maturity of
his talent and the full use of his processes. The former, indeed, has hard outlines,
and a reddish and monotonous colouring, while the latter, on the contiary, shows the
manner of Van Eyck when it had reached the highest stage of perfection. For history
the Head at Bruges is the more valuable ; for art, that of Berlin.
At Bruges, also, we shall find one of the chefs-d'o'iivre of the painter who has
rendered the name of this town so frmous. This is a Glorified Madonti a, dated 1436,
and treated in the style of Francia, Perugino, and the masters of that period. At the
left of the Madonna, who is seated on a throne, is St. Donatian, in the dress of an
archbishop ; on the right St. George, clothed in rich and complete armour. A little
behind him is the kneeling donor of the picture, the Canon George de Pala, from whom
the popular name for the picture is taken. This work, in which the personages are
half the size of life^ is wonderful for its extreme vigour, and for the minute finish of all
its details, as well as by its singular preservation. Before seeing it, we had admired in
Van Eyck rather the inventor than the painter ; but before this wonderful Avork we
were obliged to confess that, even if Van Eyck had, like his successors, merely pro-
fited by the discoveries of others, he would still, by his works as an artist, deserve an
eminent place amongst the masters.
The Museum at Antwerp possesses a repetition of this Canon de Fata, as well as
three portraits by the hand of Van Eyck — a Magistrate, a Monk at prayer, and another
"A. Dignitary of the cJnirch; besides these, there is also a small drawing in chiaroscuro,
which is very precious, and carefully preserved under glass. It represents the Building
^« C^/Z/zV (r/«^r^/^ by a number of labourers, who are so small that they look almost
like the busy workers in an ant-hill. In the foreground is seated a female saint, the
patroness, doubtless, of the building in course of construction, who appears to be presid-
ing over the works as the architect of the monument. It would be impossible to carry
patient labour, fineness and precision of toucli, and powerful effects to a greater
i i
< ^
A.D. 1440.] JAN VAN EYCK.
'^11
degree. This picture is usually supposed to represent St. Barbara — the Gothic tower
being her attribute. This legend may be read on the old frame in red marble : "■ Johcs
dc Eyck /fie feci i, 1435."
The National Gallery possesses three specimens of Jan van Eyck. The first,
entitled, Portraits of Jean A niolfini. and Jeanne de Chenany, his Wife'' A lady, dressed
with the heavy elegance of the fashion of that day, is holding out her open hand to
a gentleman dressed in black. In the centre of the picture, and as if written on the
walls of the room, is the signature, Joannes de Eyck ftiit hie, 1434. Then comes
an admirable half-length Portrait of a middle-aged man, with a red handkerchief round
his head, which is believed to be the likeness of Van Eyck himself On seeing the
date, 1433, it may well be said that in the last four centuries no one can boast of
having represented human nature with more truth, strength, and nature. Last comes
a Portrait of a man in a dark red dress and a green hood; it bears the date 1432.
Munich, in its rich Pinakothek, has no less than six pictures by the great Van Eyck.
Of this number, three are of the Adoration of the Magi, a subject he seems to have
been particularly fond of, since it was an Adoration of the Magi that he sent to Alfonso
King of Naples, the sight of which picture made Antonello da Messina wish to discover
the secret of oil painting. The largest of the three is an important work, in which
there are eleven personages besides the traditional ox and ass. The second, although
of smaller proportions is more valuable from the perfection of the work, and from its
liistorical interest. One of the Eastern kings, who is on his knees, kissing the hand of
the Child-God, is the Duke of Burgundy, Philip the Good, and the negro king, with his
swarthy complexion, jn-esents a faithful portrait of Charles the Bold ; both wear the
rich costumes of the Burgundian Court.
At Paris it is useless to seek Van Eyck any more than Holbein, Cranach or Diirer.
It is true tliat attributed to him is a Vierge au Donatairc, thus named because Jesus,
carried by his mother, who is being crowned by an angel, is blessing an old man on
liis knees before him, who had doubtless ordered his portrait to be taken in this posture
of ex veto. Rather pale in its general tint, without much relief or depth, this picture
does not show anything of the brilliant colour whicli is called the "purple of Van
i:yck," just as we speak of the " gold of Titian," or the " silver of Veronese." In any
case it is not one of those which deserve his short and modest motto, ALS IXH XAN
(als ich kan— <7J ^vcll as I can—\\\Q beginning of an old l''lemish proverb "As I can,
but not as I will "). It is a misfortune to France that there is no great work in the
Eouvre by Van Eyck; and, indeed, there is no place where a sight of this great master
would be of more use.
Lambeii van Eyck was a third brother, but a very inferior master, indeed scarcely
any known work by him exists. An unfinished polyptych, formerly ascribed to Jan,
painted for Nicolas of Maelbecke, dean of the monastery of St. Martin at Yi)res, is
'thought by some writers to be by him. It is now in the possession of the families of
Van der Schriek and Schollaert at Louvain (Kugler's ' Handbook '). Eambert van
Eyck sur\ived his brother Jan by several years.
Margaret van Eyck, who, says Van Mander " devoted herself to art, preserving her
maidenhood through life,"— was born at Maeseyck. She was probably the second
child— that is to say, younger than Hubrecht, but older than Jan. Little is known of
her life. She died at Ghent, (the date is not recorded,) and was buried by the side of
her brother Hubrecht, in the Vydt Chapel in St. Bavon, where the following epitaph
2 N
274 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1450.
by De Heere was hung up : — hy rust begraven hiere, de suster hem omtrent
DIE MET HAER SCHILDERYE OOCK MENICH HEEFT VERWONDERT " He rCStS buried
here, by his side the sister who, by her painting, has also astonished many."
A Madonna and Child in the National Gallery is attributed to Margaret van Eyck,
but there is no really authentic work known by her.
Rogier van der Weyden — sometimes called Roger of Bruges, also called " The Elder,"
to distinguish him from his son — was born in Tournai towards the close of the
fourteenth century. Though it was formerly stated, it is now by some writers denied,
that Roo-ier studied under Jan van Eyck. It is known that in 1432 he took the freedom
of the Guild of St. Luke at Tournai; and in 1436 we find him appointed Stadscildcr
(town-painter) in Brussels. About the same time he painted for the town-hall, four
large works, which, like many others executed by him in early life, have entirely
perished. They represented instances of remarkable acts of justice. In 1443, Rogier
painted his master-piece, an altar-piece for the Hospital which Chancellor RoUin had
just founded at Beaune. It represents \hQ Last Judgment : in the centre is Christ;
and below, the Archangel Michael weighing the souls of men in a balance ; on the inside
wings are, nearer the centre, the Apostles and others in adoration, and at the ends, on
either side, the Blessed ascending to Heaven and the Condemned being precipitated
to Hell. On the exterior are, in monochrome, St. Sebastian and St. Anthony and the
portraits of Rollin and his wife Guignonne de Salin ; above is an Ati7iuneiation.
In 1449 Rogier went to Italy, where he remained but a short time. He was at
Rome for the celebration of the jubilee in 1450, but returned in the same year to
Germany, without having acquired anything of an Italian style. He executed many
important works between this time and his death, which occurred at Brussels on the
i6th of June, 1464. He was buried " under a blue stone, before St. Catherine's altar"
in the church of St. Gudule.
Of other works by Rogier, we may mention : in the Munich gallery, an Adoration
of the Kings, which contains a portrait of Charles the Bold of Burgundy, and a
St. Luke painting the Virgin, long attributed to Jan van Eyck ; an altar-piece
representing three scenes from the Life of John the Baptist, in the Berlin Museum ;
and lastly an Entombment of Christ in the National Gallery (No. 664) a not very good
specimen of this master. " Van der \\'eyden," says Van Mander, " greatly reformed
the Flemish style of design ; he was a great master of expression, and though his
outline is generally harder than Van Eyck's, his heads are often much softer in
their character." Rogier van der Weyden had the honour of numbering among his
pupils, the Fleming Hans Memling and the Germans, Martin Schongauer and
Friedrich Herlen.
Dieric Bouts — until lately called erroneously " Stuerbouts " — was born at Haarlem
in 1391 (?). Of Dieric's life next to nothing was known, until the researches
of Herren van Even and ^\^auters brought much to light concerning this painter.
In 1450 he had married and setded at Louvain, the birthplace of his father, who was
a landscape painter. Bouts resided there, where he was " town-painter," until
his death, whicli occurred in 1475. After he lost his first wife he married again, Ijut
his four children, two sons and two daughters, were the result of the first marriage.
Both sons, Dieric and All)ert, followed their father's profession, but, like many other
sons, '• hand passibus cCquis."
A.I). 1450.]
DTERIC BOUTS.
Bouts's masterpieces are two pictures executed in 1468 for the council-chamber of the
town-hall of Louvain, and now in the Berlin gallery. They represent two scenes from
the so-called GoUcn Lt'i^md, which relates how the I'Jupcror (Jtho III., on the testimony
of his perjured wife, put a guiltless courtier to death, and how the widow of the dead
man, jiroving satisfactorily, by the ordeal of fire, her husband's innocence, the Emperor
ST. I.UKK i'AINlINC, TUK NIKCIN. UN K<h;1KK \ AN Dl.Ii WKVDl-.N.
(Formerly ascrilwd to J,ut van Kyck.) In the Piuakothck at Munich.
r.ondenined his consort to death. For these two pictures Dieric received no less than
iwo hundred and thirty crowns ; and moreover the town-councilmcn were so pleased
with tiic work, that they commissioned the painter to execute two more for five
hundred crowns. Bouts unfortunately died before the completion o{ the second
picture, which was to have been in four compartments. Among other works by Dieric
we may notice: a Last Si/pp.r wwA the M<utyi;ioiii of St. J'.rnsinus — l)Olh in the
276 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF FALNTERS. [a.d. 1450.
church of St. Pierre at Louvain. Two of the wings of the first-mentioned altar-piece,
Abraham and Melchisedec, and the Gathering of the Manna, are in the Tvlunich
gallery, and the other two, Elijah in the Wilderness and the Fi?-st Fassover in the
Berlin gallery. They were formerly ascribed to Memling. There is one picture in
the National Gallery attributed to Bouts — the Exhumation of St. Hubert of Liege (No.
783) but various opinions exist regarding it. It was formerly ascribed to Jan van
Eyck, and now critics consider it to be by the hand of Van der Weyden. Dieric's
pictures are remarkable for richness of colour and minuteness of execution, but though
his faces are well done, his figures as a whole are badly drawn.
Dieric Bouts must not be confused with Hubert Stuerbouts, a painter of Louvain
of this time, who is of little note. ^
Petrus Cristus, who was born at Baerle, near Deyne, in Belgium, in the latter part
of the fourteenth century, is known to have studied under J-an van Eyck. He
purchased the freedom of the city of Bruges in 1444, and Avas still living there in 147 1.
Of his works we may mention a Virgin and Saints in the Stiidel Institute at Frankfort,
painted in 1447, a Last Judgement, and a Crucifixion in the Hermitage at St. Petersburg.
A portrait of Marco Barbarigo in the National Gallery, there attributed to Van der
Meire, is by Mr. J. A. Crowe ascribed to Cristus. This artist painted more after the
style of Hubrecht than of Jan van Eyck. His drawing of the human figure is not
good ; the bodies and legs are too short and the heads too round.
Hugo van der Goes— called by Vasari "Hugo d' An versa " — is a painter of whom little is
known. It is not ascertained with certainty when or where he was born. One account
says at Ghent, and Van A^aernewijk says he was a native of Leyden. Van Mander
tells us that he was a pupil of Jan van Eyck, but this statement is corroborated neither
by historians, nor by his works — or rather work, for, though several are attributed to him,
but one authentic picture, according to Mr. J. A. Crowe and other writers, remains
by this master. In 1465 Van der Goes was free of the guild of Ghent, and from
1472 till 1474 he presided as elder in that corporation. He resided chiefly at Ghent —
though he paid a short visit to Bruges in 1468 to paint divers subjects for the marriage
of Charles the Bold and Margaret of York— until 1476, in which year he entered, as
a novice, the convent of Rooden Cloestere, near Brussels. He painted for many years,
until the irregularity of his habits, which were by no means suited to a monasterial
life, caused him to be expelled from the convent. He died shortly afterwards, in 1482,
but little better than a maniac. The sole specimen of this master's art is in Italy ; in
the church of Santa Maria Nuova at Florence, for which place it was ordered by
Tommaso Portinari, agent for the house of Medici, in Bruges. It represents, in the
centre, the Adoration of the Shepherds, and, on the wings, the donor and donatrix and
their fiimily, and Saints. It was originally placed in the high altar, but has been
since removed. The National Gallery has two pictures ascribed to Van der Goes— -
a Fortrait of an Ecclesiastic, and a Madonna and Child enthroned.
Gerard van der Meire was born at Ghent (?) about the year 1410. He is said, but
on'very slight grounds, to have been a pupil of Jan van Eyck; according to some of
his works, he ai)pears to belong more to the school of Van der Weyden. He was free
of the Painters' Guild at Ghent in 1452, and we hear of him in conjunction with that
body as late as T474, but we have no record of his death. The best and most
authentic work by Van der Meire is an altar-piece in the church of St. Bavon of Ghent.
It represents in the centre, the Crucifixion, and on either side the Erection of the Brazen
HANS MEMLING.
Page 277.
A.D. 1470-]
MEMLING. -77
Serpcnt^ and Moses striking the Rock. There are nutny pictures in vanous piibhc
galferies, attrilmtcd to Van der Meire, but several of them are of doubtful ongin. 1 wo
in the National C'.allery, a Count of Hai.alt unth his Patron Sarnt An^i.vsr and a
Portrait of Marco Barbari^o are ascribed to hmi.
Justus van Ghent is a painter of whom very little is known. He flourished in Italy
.hicllv, in the latter half of the fifteenth century. He is a follower of the \ an Kycks.
An Annunciation m Santa Maria di Castello-signed'' Justus d^^llamagna pmxii 4.1
-was usually ascribed to him, but modern writers seem to dovd.t whether the two
painters are the same. In 1468-70, Justus van Ghent painted an altar-piece for
Sanf A..ata at Urbino. The subject is the Z../>/^..v./, and the picture contains
portrait^of Duke Federigo di Montefeltro of Urbino, and Caterino Zeno, an en-y
to the Duke from the Venetian republic. The work, which is now in the town
gallery of Urbino, displays a good knowledge of composition, but a total want of
finear perspective There are several pictures in continental collections, ascribed,
wUh more 'or less justice, to Justas van Ghent. He probably executed the series
of Poets, Philosoj^hcrs and Doctors in the library of Duke I'edengo of Urbino.
Hans Memling was formerly called Memlinc, also Memmlinghe ; his name too was
usually commenced with an H, a mistake for the gothic M. Of this master but scanty
record has been handed down to us. One account says that he was born at Constan c
n X439. He was a pupil of Rogier van der Weyden. In U77-78 he is known to
have been living at Bruges ; in 1480 he contributed to a loan raised for the Emperor
Maximilian, and about the same time luirchased a house in the Rue St. Georj^es,
at Bruires, where he died in 1495. , , , ^ ■
On' entering the Hospital of St. John at Bruges, the visitor wul be told that in 147/
a wounded soldier (probably from the batde of Nancy) was brought into the Hospita
of St John. He was a middle-aged man, thrown into a warlike career after a freltul
youth; before becoming a soldier, however, he had been a painter; the love o art
returned to him during the leisure hours of a long convalescence, and being grateful 01
the care bestowed on him, and satisfied with the peaceful quiet of the house-where he
was also retained by his love for a young sister-he passed several years, paying for his
board bv his work. This is how the foct of his finest works belonging to the Hospital
of St. John is accounted for. There they were painted, and there they have always
remained in spite of wars, conquests, and pillage, which explains ihcir wonderful sLate
of preservation after nearly four centuries; and they will doubUess remain there yet
for a.'es if the poor hospital continue siUl to defend its treasure proudly trom wealthy
amateur's and royal museums, whose brilliant offers would, however, have enabled its
custodians to convert its brick walls into a marble palace.
The le-end of Memling has now disappeared with so many other traditions.
Authentic documents have prove.l, as we have already stated, that he was simply a
citi/en of Bruges, where he died in i495- So we shall have to leave the romance
and come to his works. The most celebrated in the Hospital of St. John is the
Rclimtary of St. Ursula, a piece of gilt carving ornamented with engravings antl
paintin-s, and intended to contain relics. The reader must imagine a small oblong
Cothic diapel, only two feet in height from its base to the top of its pointed roof; the
two fa(;ades, if we may venture to use architectural words, the side walls, and the
roofin- form, by their golden borders, frames for Memling's paintings, which arc the
frescoes for this miniature temple. < )n one of the gable ends is painted the Madonna,
278 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1480.
scarcely a foot in height ; on the other, St. Ursula, holding in her hand the arrow,
which was to be the instrument of her death, and covering under her ample robes a
number of young girls, which makes her resemble somewhat the pictures of the " Old
Woman who lived in a Shoe," so famous in nursery rhymes." Ten young girls may be
counted under her mantle, and as the saint herself makes the eleventh, the painter has
doubtless intended them to represent symbolically the eleven thousand virgins. (It is
as well to remark that the legend of the eleven thousand virgins rests on the error of a
chronicler of the Middle Ages. The tomb of St. Ursula and her companions at
Cologne bore this inscription : " Sancta Ursula, xi. M.V." Instead of reading
" Sancta Ursula, xi Martyres Virgines," Siegbert read and reported " xi millia
virginum.") The two sloping parts of the roof each contain three medallions ; on the
two centres St. Ursula is painted, in one of them, among her companions, whom
she seems to be leading on to the glory of martyrdom ; in the other, kneeling between
the Father and the Son, who are crowning her, whilst the Holy Spirit hovers over her
head. The medallions on each side contain angels, who form a celestial concert. On
the two sides of the reliquary, which are divided into six compartments in the form of
Gothic arcades, the whole legend of the Virgins of Cologne is represented. On one
side, their departure from that city, their arrival at Bale in large round boats, then
their entrance into Rome, and reception by the Pope at the gates of a temple ; on the
other, their departure from Rome, taking the Pope with them, their return to Cologne,
and, lastly, their martyrdom by arrows, lances, and swords, at the hands of the Hun
soldiers. In the six painted chapters of this legend there are certainly — without
counting the microscopic personages in the background — two hundred figures
introduced, of which the largest, in the foreground, are not more than four inches in
length. It is needless to say that the painter has transported the history of St. Ursula
from the fourth to' the fifteenth century; the buildings, landscapes, costumes, and
armour all belong to his own time. We may easily recognise a number of portraits.
Ursula and her band are beautiful Flemish girls, fair, graceful, and elegantly dressed ;
and Memling certainly could not have had much difficulty in finding so many
charming models in a town at that time richly populated, and which counted
the beauty of its women amongst its chief titles to glory — "■ formosis Bruga pucUisr
In reading this short description, one might well believe that the painting of
Memling on this reliquary of St. Ursula is nothing but a chef-iTmivrc of patience and
minute perfection in the details ; but this is far from being the case. As a whole, it is
a great and noble work, full of grandeur, vigour, and religious sentiment. To form an
idea of this wonderful work, the reader should imagine pictures of sacred history
conceived in the highest style of Fra Angelico, and painted in the finest execution of
Gerard Dow. But Memling has not merely left miniature paintings, and this reliquary
(dated 1480) is not the only treasure of the Hospital of St. John.
In the preceding year, Memling completed a work which is no less celebrated,
and is in the largest proportions then used, half-life size. This is a triptych closed by
shutters. On the central panel is represented the Mystical Marriage of St. Catherine.
As in the glorified Virgins of Francia or Perugino, the Madonna is seated under a
magnificent dais, with her feet resting on a rich Flemish carpet, which produces a
wonderful effect through its colouring and perspective. Two angels are at her side, to
wait on her ; one holds a book, of which she is turning over the leaves, whilst the
other is playing on a small organ. The Virgin of Sienna, richly dressed, is receiving
on her knees the nuptial ring from the Bambino. The history of the two St. Johns
A.D. 1480.] MEM LING. 279
forms the subject of the paintings on the wings ; that on the left is the Beheading of
John the Baptist before Herodias ; and that on the right is St. John the Evangelist at
Patnios, beholding the visions of the Apocalypse. Lastly, on the outside of the wings,
there are excellent portraits of two Brothers of the Hospital, with the symbolical
portraits of their patron ^^\n\.s, James and Amlre^c, and of two Sisters of the order,
with their patron saints, Agnes and Clara.
This large composition is unanimously pronounced to be the masterpiece of its
author. Here, indeed, may be found all his greatest qualities, from a calm majesty in
the arrangement to a wonderful delicacy of touch. However, we must give it one
rival, if not in importance, at all events in perfection. In the same year, 1479,
Memling j-ainted the different compartments of a triptych, much smaller than the last,
as the figures are only from eight to nine inches in height : on the left is the Xativity ;
on the right, the Presentation in the Temple ; in the centre, the Adoration of the Magi ;
below is the following inscription written in Flemish : " This work was done for
brotlier Jan Floreins, alias Van der Rust, brother of St. John's Hospital, at Bruges.
Anno 1479." "Opus Johannis Memling." In the left part of the central panel, at a
window, is seen the kneeling figure of Jan Floreins, dressed in black. It is a
charming head of a man in the prime of life : the figures 36, written above him on the
wall, apparently indicate his age. Opposite, the fiice of a peasant, looking in at a
window, is supposed to be a portrait of Memling ; he has a short beard, thick hair, and
his face, though rather weary-looking, is full of gentleness and intellect
This is not all that the grateful patient left to the Hospital of St. John. We may
also find in it a Descent from the Cross, where the figures are quite small, a Sihyl
Ziimbeth, that is to say, the portrait of a Flemish lady in that costume, and also the
portrait of a young man worshipping a Madonna.
Memling is rei)resented in the small museum of Bruges by a Baptism oj Christ : in
the museum of Antwerp, by an Annunciation, a Nativity, a Glorified Virgin, etc. ; in
London, by several pictures in private galleries; and by four in the National Gallery,
the Virgin and Child Enthroned in a Garden ; the Madonna and Infant Christ ;
.S7. John the Baptist and St. Lawrence Deacon, and a Portrait of himself in the \\'ynn-
EUis collection.
The diptych in the Louvre, representing John the Baptist, the Virgin and Saints,
is probably by Van der Goes, decidedly not by Memling. The latest i)icture by
Memling, dated 1491, is in the Greveraden Chapel in the Cathedral of Lubeck. It is
a double triptych consisting of nine panels : on the centre-piece is the Crucifxion ; on
tlie interior sides, divers scenes iromXhQ History of Christ : on the wings when half-
folded are 5^. Blaise, Egidins, John the Baptist and Jerome; and on the extreme
exterior, the Annunciation. This picture was described by Ur. Waagen as Memling's
masterpiece. It has been published as a chromolithograph by the Arundel Society.
If we pass into Germany, we shall find at Berlin two pictures ascribed to Memling :
the Je7c>ish I'asso'oer and the Prophet Eli/ah, fed by an angel in the desert, now ascribed
to Dieric Bouts. In the church of Our Lady at Dantzic there is a finely executed Last
Judgment by Memling ; and at Munich there are nine pictures attributed to him, but
many of them are not genuine. Exception must be made, however, in favour of the
beautifully conceived and executed Sdrn Joys and Sci'cn Sorrows of the Viri^in.
Rogier van der Weydeu called " ihc younger " to distinguish him from his more
famous father -was born ai IJrussels (?) about the ) ear 1450. As is the case with so
28o ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1500.
many early Flemish painters, history is somewhat silent as regards the younger Van
der Weyden. He is known to have gained money by his art ; he was noted for his
benevolence, and he died in 1529 of the siiette at Antwerp, of the guild of which city
he had been made a master in 1528. Pictures, attrihuted to Rogier van der Weyden
the younger, are in the galleries of Madrid, Berlin, Naples, London, and elsewhere ;
but of all these, not one can with any solid foundation be said to be by that artist.
The National Gallery has four of these doubtful pictures ; the so-called Fort?'aits of
Himsdf and Wife, a Magdalen, a Mater Dolorosa, and an Ecce Homo — all of such
a pleasing nature,' that they make. one desire to know their real author.
SCHOOL OF ANTWERP.
After the gl-eat masters of the school of Bruges, and at the beginning of the
sixteenth century, Antwerp becomes the first of the Flemish towns in the history of
art ; and the series of illustrious painters which raised the school of Antwerp to such a
degree of superiority that all the other Flemish schools were merged into it, was
founded by a simple blacksmith.
Quintin Matsys was born at Louvain in 1466. He is usually called the " Black-
smith of Antwerp," because, from love as it is said, after having been a blacksmith,
he became an artist ; just as at Naples the same power converted II Zingaro from a
wandering tinker to a painter. Matsys turned his attention towards art because the
father of his lady-love said that she should marry no one who was not of his own
profession. Some iron summer-houses, made to represent vine branches, which
have been preserved at Antwerp and Louvain, are said to be examples of his earlier
works, though they are probably the work of his elder brother, who was a smith by
trade ; some iron carving on the tomb of Edward IV. in St. George's Chapel at
Windsor is also attributed to him. One line of the Latin inscription engraved on a
slab, erected to his memory in the cathedral of Antwerp, sums up in the following
manner the romantic history of his late vocation : " Coiumhialis amor de Mulcibre fecit
Aj>elle/n" and he wrote on his own portrait, " Rictorefn me fecit Amor'' Matsys first
studied under a painter in Louvain, probably Dieric Bouts. He went to Antwerp
in 1490, and in the following year was admitted as a franc-maitre in the painters'
guild. From this time Matsys' fame steadily increased. In 1508 he painted for the
chapel of the Joiners' Company his masterpiece, the Defosition from the Cross ; it now
hangs in the Antwerp Museum. Matsys died at Antwerp in 1529, it is said of the
suette, in the convent of the Carthusians, where he was buried ; but, a century later,
his remains were removed by Cornelius van der Geest and buried in front of the
Cathedral. The spot is marked by the simple inscription " m. q. m. obiit 1529." In
the Cathedral is a slab on which is a memorial setting forth his wonders as an artist, to
which we have already referred.
It was natural that the native town of the Antwerp smith should have preserved his
finest work. There is, indeed, nothing greater or more complete amongst his whole
works than the flimous triptych, which represents in the centre the Entombment ; on
tlie right wing, the Head of John the Baptist presented to Herodias ; on the left wing,
A.D. 1520.]
QUINTIN AfATSVS.
281
S/. John the Evangelist in boiling oil. These three vast compositions, united only by
the ordinary shape of the pictures of that time, and in which the figures are of Ufo-size,
were ordered of the painter in 1508 by the guild of joiners in Antwerp, wlio paid for
them 300 florins (about 25/.). In 1557, at the suggestion of Martin de Vos, and in
onler to keep them from Queen EHzabeth of England, who offered more than 5000
rose nobles (about 40,000 florins) for them, they were bought by the town magistrate for
the sum of 1500 florins. This triptych is rcrtainly the i-/ir/-,f(rin'fr of the master, and.
THE MONEY-CilANCKR AM) MIS Will;.
/// ///(' Loirrtw
r.V O'.INTIN M.\T-;vs.
we may adtl, o'le of the chcfs-tranvrc of painting. In it may be seen, in all its brilliancy,
patient labour united to great intelligence. Every hair, every thread in the clothing,
every blade of grass is rendered with scrupulous fidelity, and yet, notwithstaniling
this minute finish in the details, the whole is of the most powerful effect. This
picture may be examined either near or at a distance. Nature herself may be
seen in every point of view. Hut tlie work of the pencil is no less admirable ; the
thought is no less high and profound. To the vigorous colouring of Van Eyck,
Quintin Matsys united in this ])irture the noble simiijicily of Mcmling, and the
2
A.ij. I520.] JAN DE MABUSE. 283
Burgundy, son of Philip the Good, to Italy. He obtained, from the title of his patron,
who, besides being a bishop, was an admiral, the name of " peintre de I'amiral,"
Mabuse stayed in Italy, at Florence and Rome, about twelve years, during which time
he studied the works of the great masters — if not with improvement to his own style, at
least without that servile imitation which afterwards characterised so many of his country-
men. Mabuse had the honour of serving several crowned heads : he painted for Christian
II. of Denmark, for Margaret of Austria, and for Henry VII. of England — during a
residence of a short time in this country. We have, however, very scanty proof of
Mabuse's stay in Englanil. He died at Antwerp on the ist of October, 1532.
While in Italy, Mabuse, by correcting the stiftness of the school of Lcyden, where
he is said to have studied, by the Italian ease and taste, commenced the sort of
comjjromise between the styles of the South and North which characterises this
second epoch of Flemish art ; and on his return to his country, he devoted all the rest
ot his works to making this new intermediate style well known. We must therefore
accord to him, notwithstanding his very lax morals, a grave and very important position
in the traditional history of art.
Jan de Mabuse has left numerous works ; they may be found in Antwerp, Brussels,
Munich, Berlin, Hampton Court, St. Petersburg, and a few imperfect specimens at
Paris. Let us take those of Berlin to mark the changes in his style. The large
Calvary, in which the cross of the Saviour is not erected on the barren Golgotha but
in the midst of a green and smiling landscape, terminated in the distance by the view
of a Flemish city, is a work of his youth, although it is admirable from its power of
expression, its colouring, perspective, and good preservation. The Drunkenness of
Noah is the copy of a fresco in the ceiling of the Sistine, aud the figures in a Madonna
in the midst of an ornamental landscape are imitated from Leonardo da Vinci. But
after these thoroughly Italian works, the compromise between the two arts is seen
clearly in two diptychs, one of which contains Adam and Eve, and the other N^cptunc
and Amphitrite. These figures are tall, strong, and full, both in form and painting,
already very different from the primitive meagreness and dryness, and are far advanced
in the Italian style. The mythological group is the finer, especially Neptune, who is
crowned, and almost dressed in shells. The Italian qualities in this picture are so
striking that it might very innocently be doubted whether a Fleming was the author,
if he had not himself affixed his signature: "Joannes Malbodius pingebat, 1516.'' It
was after his return from Italy, when he was about forty-five years old.
England possesses one of the best works of Mabuse, executed before his
journey to Italy. It is the Adoration of the ■K'/nj^s, at Castle Howard, the seat of the
Earl of Carlisle. The National Gallery has a Portrait of a man dressed in black ;
and we must not forget to mention the C/iildren of Christian II. of Denmark, at
Hampton Court.
Bernhard van Orley, who was born at Brussels in 1471, went, when still young, to
Rome, to study under Raphael. On his return to Italy he shared with Michael Coxcie
the superintendence of the manufacture at Arras of the tapestries from Raphael's
cartoons. He was also painter to Margaret of Austria, Regent of the Low Countries,
and on her death, in 1530, to her successor, Mary of Hungary. He was^ also painter
to the Emperor Charles V., and is said to have visited England. Van Orley lived at
Antwerp, in good circumstances, one may suppose, for Diirer says that " Maister
Bernhart " gave him " so costly a meal that it could not be paid for with ten florins."
ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1520.
He died at Brussels on the 6th of January, 1541. Of his works we may mention, a
polyptych in the church of Our Lady at Llibeck, which represents, in the centre, the
Tr'mity adored by Saints, and on the wings the Annunciation, the Sibyl and Augustus ;
the four Latin Fathers and St. John the Evangelist; this is considered one of his best
pictures. The National Gallery has a Magdalen reading, and other specimens of his
art are in the galleries of Vienna, Brussels, and elsewhere.
Van Orley was the next Flemish painter after Mabuse, to set the example of
■ copying the works of the great Italian masters. But there was this difference between
the two men, Mabuse, though his followers imitated servilely the works of the Italians,
himself only took a portion of his art from the southern masters, and blending it with
his native manner, produced a style peculiar to himself. Van Orley, on the other
hand, when he arrived in Italy, forgot entirely the style of his forefathers, and imitated,
or tried to imitate, exactly the style of Raphael ; and though his drawing was good and
his forms correct and graceful, not only was his colouring unpleasing, but the inspira-
tion of the Prince of Painters was wanting, and he never produced a great picture.
Joachim de Patinir, who was born at Dinant towards the close of the fifteenth
century, studied at Bruges under Gheerardt David. In 15 15 he was admitted as a
master in the Guild of St. Luke, at Antwerp. His first wife died in 15 16, and in 1521
he married again. Albrecht Dlirer was present at the wedding, and drew the portrait
of the bridegroom. Patinir died at Antwerp in 1524. He was one of the first
painters to consider landscapes worthy of more than a secondary place in a picture.
But this was in his later life ; at the commencement of his career he was a very fair
historical painter ; a good specimen of this style is his Mater Dolorosa, in the Brussels
Museum. Of his landscape pictures, Madrid has six, and the National Gallery four :
a Crucifixion; a St. Chidstopher carrying the Infant Christ; St. John on the Island of
Pat7nos, and one bequeathed by Mr. Wynn-Ellis. A good picture is in the Antwerp
gallery, a Flight into Eg)'pt — signed " Opus Joachim D. Patinir."
Henrik met de Bles (with the forelock)— usually called Henri de Bles— is known
among the Italians as " Civetta," from his monogram — an owl. He was born at
Bouvignes, about 1480 (?). and is supposed to have studied under Patinir at Antwerp ;
in 1 52 1 he was living at Mechlin, and he died at Liege about 1550 (?). In the matter
of landscape-painting he is a conscientious follower of Patinir. An Adoration of the
Kings is in the Munich gallery ; and a Christ and the Cross and a Magdalen are in the
National Gallery. Henri de Bles is probably the same as Henri de Patenier.
Jan Matsys, the son of Quintin, was born at Antwerp about the close of the
fifteenth century. He imitated the style of his flither, but with little success.
Repetitions of genre pictures by Quintin are ascribed to Jan INIatsys, and among
these, is the Misers at Windsor Castle, but many good authorities still maintain
that this is the work of the father. Jan Matsys died about the year 1570.
Lancelot Blondeel, who was born at Bruges in 1495, was originally a mason,
on which account he took a trowel as his monogram. He did not turn his attention
towards art until he was twenty-five years of age. His pictures display a study of
the Italian style, and are noticeable for architectural backgrounds. Specimens are
in the churches of Bruges, in the Berlin Museum, and elsewhere. He designed the
chimney-piece in the Council-hall at Bruges, which contains statues of Clmrles V.
and other monarchs. A fine plaster-cast of this chimney-piece may be seen in the
South Kensington Museum. Blondeel died at Bruges, in 1561.
A.D. I520.] MIC HAEL COXCIE. 285
Martin van Veen-called, from his birthplace, near Haarlem, Martin Hemskerk-
wasborn in 1498. He studied art under Schoreel and followed that master m his
imitation of the Italian style. He afterwards still further copied the Italians in Rome
-more especially the works of Michelangelo. Pictures by Hemskerk are in Delft
and Haarlem, and in the galleries of Berlin and Vienna, but none of them are of
especial merit. He died in 1574-
Michael van Coxcyen— sometimes written Coxcien or Coxcie and frequently Coxis
-was born at Mechlin in 1499- • He studied first under his father, an unimportant
artist, and subsequently under Van Orley, whom he exceeded in the servility with
which he copied the works of Raphael. While studying at Rome under that great
master he executed several works for churches, but none of them of any great merit.
On his return to Flanders, he painted chiefly at Brussels and Antwerp. He died
at Mechlin in 1592. A Martyrdom of St. Sebastian by him is in the Antwerp Museum ;
he has repeated the same subject in a picture in the Cathedral at Mechlin. The
masterpiece of the "Raphael of Flanders" is his copy of the Van Eycks' Adoration
of the Lamb. This was executed for Philip H. of Spain; it took him two years to
complete, and he is said to have received for it about 300/. of our money, in addition
to his board and lodging while engaged on it. Part of this picture now hangs
in the Berlin Museum, and part is in the Munich Gallery. Van Coxcyen was joint-
superintendent, with Van Orley, of the manufacture of the tapestries from Raphael's
Cartoons. Van Coxcyen had a son, Raphael^ who was a painter, but of no great
merit.
Joas van Cleve, the portrait-painter, was born at Antwerp at the beginning of the
sixteenth century. Vasari tells us that he went to Spain, but of this visit there
is no further evidence. He came to England with the expectation of obtaining money
for his works from Philip of Spain, who was then making a collection. Unfortunately
for Van Cleve, some pictures by Titian arrived at tlie same time, and the Flemish
painter's works found no fa\our in the monarch's eyes. Of this painter Walpole says
"his colouring was warm, and his figures fleshy and round." Two good specimens
of his art are portraits of Himself and His Wife in Windsor Castle. Van Cleve's
portraits have freciuently been attributed to Hans Holbein. He died about the middle
of the sixteenth century.
Jan Cornells Vermeyen, who was born at Malines in 1500, is a master less
celebrated now tlian formerly ; for his works, which are not destroyed or damaged
beyond repair, are in inaccessible places. History does not record the name of his
instructor. In 1529, he was made painter to Margaret of Austria, and in 1534,
he went in the suite of Charles V. to Tunis, where he made sketches of many
incidents in the campaign. Ten cartoons, for tapestries, which he made from these
'sketches, are carefully preserved in the garde-robe of the Vienna Gallery. In later life
Vermeyen lived at Berlin, where he died in 1559. He was called by the Spaniards
" El Mayo," from his great height, and "Juan de Barbalonga," from his beard, which
is said to have been so long that it trailed on the ground as he walked ! He painted
all subjects — historical, i)ortrait, and landscape.
Lamprecht Sustermann— called, from his style of painting, Lambert Lomhardus—
was born at Liege in 1506. He studied in Flanders under Mabuse, and under Andrea
del Sarlo in Italy, whither he had accompanied Cardinal Pole. On the death of
286
ILL US TEA TED HI ST OR Y OF PAINTERS. [a. d. 1525.
his patron, Cardinal Erhard de la Marck, Bishop of Liege, in 1538, Lombardus
returned to his native city, where he established a school which was attended by
numerous scholars, among others by Frans Floris and Goltzius. Lombardus died
in poverty at Liege— it is said in the Hospital of Mont Cornillon— after 1566, (some
writers name the year 1560 as the date of his death). According to Van Mander,
Lombardus' style greatly advanced the school of his native place. His pictures are
remarkable for carefulness of execution, and his colouring is quiet and subdued ; but
this is the highest praise that can be bestowed upon them.
Lombardus' best works are the Pestilence and Shipwreck in the King of Holland's
oallery, which contains several other specimens of his art. A Deposition by him is
in the National Gallery. A life of Lombardus was published in 1565, by Dominicus
Lampsonius, one of his numerous pupils.
Pieter Pourbus, who was born at Gouda about the year 15 10, may perhaps be
regarded as a painter of Bruges, for he established himself in that town in 1540, and
executed there all his important works. He became a member of the guild in 1543,
and he was subsequently Dean of the company. Pourbus died in 1584 at Bruges,
the Academy of which city contains good specimens of his work. He was both
a portrait and a historical painter. He excelled in the former subject.
Frans van Vriendt— usually called Frans Floris, was born at Antwerp in 1520.
The son of a stonemason, he first turned his attention towards sculpture, but abandon-
ino- it in favour of painting, he was apprenticed to Lambert Lombardus. He followed
that master's example of going to Italy. He also, on his return to Antwerp, opened a
school, which is said to have been attended by no less than one hundred and twenty
scholars. Floris died at his birthplace in 1570. His death was hastened by his
taste for drink, in which he unfortunately too much indulged. The Antwerp Gallery
contains three of his best works— an Adoration of the Shepherds; the Fall of the Rebel
Angels; and a St. Luke painting the Virgin. Frans Floris, whom Vasari terms "The
Flemish Raphael," was a man of great ability, and we have only to regret that his
powers were so misapplied. He is one of the best of those Flemish painters who
copied the Italian style ; had he kept to the manner of his ancestors, he would have
been a greater artist.
Antonio Moro, commonly known as Sir Antony More, was born at Utrecht in
1525 (various other dates are given as the year of his birth). Though a Dutchman by
birth, Moro must be considered a Flemish painter, for he studied under a master of
that school, and, when not employed at foreign courts, resided at Brussels and
Antwerp — his name is found in the register of the guild of that town, at intervals from
1547 until 1572. He was a pupil of Jan Schoreel, but subsequently went to Rome,
where he studied the great Italian masters, but he apparently did not find their works
to his taste, for on his return to the Netherlands he applied himself to the study of
Hans Holbein. In 1549, Moro was recommended by Cardinal Granvelle to Charles V.,
and about 1550, that monarch sent him to Lisbon to execute portraits of Kitig
fohn III., his wife Cathcri7ie of Austria, and the Infanta Mary; for these pictures the
painter received six hundred ducats, a gold chain of one thousand florins, and other
presents (Walpole's ' Anecdotes of Painting'). In 1553, Moro was sent to England
to paint the portrait of Queen Mary, and that monarch was so much pleased with his
art that she kept him in her service with a salary of 100/. per annum. In England, as
elsewhere, Moro became very famous, and received large amounts for his works, which
A.D. I550.] ANTONIO MORO. 2S7
were much prized. On the death of Mary in 1558, he went to Madrid, where he
executed for PhiHp II. many considerable works; he painted besides portraits several
historic pieces ; of these we may mention a copy of Titian's Baniie, which is now in the
Madrid gallery. In 1560 Moro was obliged to leave Madrid, either, as some writers
say, because he offended the Inquisition by soliciting Philip's favour for bis countrymen,
or because he took an unwarrantable liberty with that monarch himself, by returning
with his maulstick a playful blow which Philip had given him. Whatever was the
cause of his disgrace, the king evidently forgave him, for he twice endeavoured, but in
vain, to induce Moro to return to Spain. Soon after his return to the Netherlands,
he was summoned from Utrecht to Brussels by the Duke of Alva, who, besides
patronizing his art, made him his receiver- general of the revenues for West Flanders.
Moro lived in noble style for some years at Brussels; he died at Antwerp in 1581.
The esteem in which this painter's- pictures were held may easily be imagined
from the fiict that he usually received for each portrait about one hundred ducats in
Portugal, and 100/. in England. Moro was the friend of monarchs and nobles, and
lived in a most magnificent manner; it is not known when or where he received the
honour of knighthood.
The Dresden gallery possesses several good portraits by him. In England a
Portrait of Qiiaii Mary is in the possession of Lord Yarborough, and another oi Jeanne
d'Arehel'x'i in the National Gallery. The Madrid museum contains portraits of various
royal personages — Queen Mary of England, Philip II., Anna the wife of Maximilian
of Bohemia, Eleanor of France, and Mary and Catherine of Portugal. As a portrait-
painter Moro excelled chiefly through the correctness of his drawing and the beauty
of his colouring. In regard to carefulness of finish, he was far inferior to Holbein,
whom he took as his model. Moro executed several historic pieces, but with much
less success than his portraits. Van Mander mentions with great praise, an unfinished
Crucifixion by him, in Antwerp Cathedral.
Pieter Breughel, " the elder," called from the nature of his subjects " Peasant
Breughel," was born at Breughel near Breda, about the year 1530. He studied under
Pieter Koeck ; leaving that master he went to Italy, but returned to his native land
and lived for some time at Antwerp; he died at Brussels in 1569. (?) His pictures,
which are for the most part scenes from rustic life, are painted from personal knowledge
of the subject ; for it is said, that he used to dress himself up as a peasant, and mingle
in the country festivities. His works display great sense of humour, but are unfortu-
nately of a coarse nature ; and yet it is said that he caused to be destroyed, by his
death-bed, all the pictures, then in his possession, which he considered too vulgar.
The Vienna gallery possesses characteristic pictures by Peasant Breughel. He
executed, besides genre pictures, a few historical pieces.
Martin de Vos was born at Antwerj) in 1531. He learned the rudiments of art
from his father, a painter of little note. Young Martin, on leaving his fiither, entered
the school of Frans Floris. He then went to Italy, where he studied under Tintoretto,
from whom he acquired his chief characteristic — Venetian colouring. After an absence
of eight years, De Vos returned to Antwerp, where he was made a member of the
Academy, in 1559, and about the same time he set up a school; and as he had brought
home from Italy numerous copies of antique art, they were serviceable as models for
young painters. De Vos died at Antwerj) in 1603. His best works were formerly in
the Cathedral of Antwerp, and are now in the museum of that town. They represent
288 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1550.
the Temptation of St. Anthony and the Incredulity of St. Thomas. Martin de Vos did
not adhere so firmly to the ItaUan method as many of his contemporaries, and on the
whole his works are more pleasing. He was celebrated as a portrait-painter. There
were numerous artists in Flanders of the name of De Vos.
Hans Bol was born at Mechlin in 1535. After he had learned the rudiments
of his art, he went on a tour through Germany,- staying some time at Heidelberg,
but ultimately settled at Amsterdam, where he became -famous as a landscape painter.
He had previously executed historical works ; a Dcedahts and Icarus., and a Crucifixion
by him, were greatly praised by Van Mander. Hans Bol died at Amsterdam in 1593.
Pictures by him are in the galleries of Berlin and Munich. He was also a miniature-
painter, and an engraver.
Frans Pourbus — called " the Elder," to distinguish him from his son — was born
at Bruges in 1540. He acquired the rudiments of art from his fiither, and completed
his education in painting under Frans Floris. In 1564 Pourbus went to Antwerp,
where he resided until h'is death, which occurred in 15 So. His name appears on the
records of the Painters' Guild at Antwerp, from 1564 to 1575. He was a good portrait-
painter, and his works are noticeable for purity of colour. He also painted historical
subjects, but not with equal success.
Jooris Hoefnagel, who was born at Antwerp in 1545, was a pupil of Hans Bol.
On the completion of his study, he travelled in France, Spain, Italy and Germany.
On his return to his native country he settled at Antwerp ; but, being obliged to
quit that city when it was sacked by the Spaniards, he removed to Munich, where
he was patronized by the Duke of Bavaria. He subsequently went to Vienna,
and painted for the Emperor Rudolph II. at Prague. Hoefnagel died at Vienna
in 1600. He executed numerous drawings of various subjects on his journeys, but
his chief fame rests on his miniature painting. A Roman missal, which he executed
for the Archduke Ferdinand, of the Tyrol, and which occupied him eight years, is in
the Imperial Library at Vienna. He designed a work on Natural History— containing
specimens of every animal on the face of the earth, in the water, and in the air —
which was engraved by his son. Hoefnagel is also said to have executed a map of
Bristol, from which it has been surmised that he came to England.
Bartholomaus Spranger, who was born at Antwerp in 1546, after having acquired
the rudiments of art in his native country, went through France to Italy. In Parma
he studied under a pupil of Correggio, but he formed his style chiefly from the works
of Parmigiano. In Rome, Spranger was much patronized by Cardinal Farnese and
Pope Pius v., for whom he executed several considerable works — among others
a Last Judgment. In 1575, Spranger was appointed court painter to the Emperor
Maximilian II., on whose decease he entered into the service of Rudolph II., who
employed him in Vienna and at Prague, in which city, according to Van Mechel
he died in 1625, (the year 1628 is also given as the date of his death). The gallery
of Vienna contains many of his works j of these one of the best is His own
Portrait. Spranger enjoyed, in his lifetime, much greater fame than now falls to his
lot. His pictures are mannered in their style, and display great want of taste as regards
colour.
Carel van Mander, the poet, painter and historian, was born of a noble family
at Meulebeke, near Courtray, in 1548. After having acquired the rudiments of his
.^^5750 lUETEl^ DE WITTE. ^9
art in Ghent and Courtray, he went to Italy and studied for three V^"^ ff™™ 'S"
till .^77) On his way home, Van Mander executed var.ous worl.. at Bale and
Vienna So,ne lime after his return to Flanders he was driven from the towna of h,s
IdoXn fi by wars and then by the plague. In .5S3, he went to Haarlem,
le Irin a 'esKlence of twenty years he established a school wrote many poems
rrsh ' vortl of the classics, and comp.led the greater part of the work wh.ch has
tianslacd several 01 I ' „„,,etcd it in 1604 at the Castle of Levenbergen,
;:::;t: rAr::ar"3^Ha"rLm°"'Tt'worU ,^t. SchUder BoeU., was pubhshed
a lenl in .604; and a second ed.tion-with some additions ™d the om,s«on
of tl,e notices of the Italian painters-appeared at Amsterdam tn .764. Card van
Mmde °^s like his contemporaries, a copyist of the Italian masters ; he w.as prob-
^'r , Jon in this feeble imitation by Sprangcr, whom he met at Rome. X-an
Murder died honoured and beloved, ,at Amsterdam m ,6o0. I. .s said that no less
th;;;;lee hundred friends and scholars followed h.s body to ,ts last resting-place.
This artist had a son, Card, who was a good portrait-pamtcr.
Pieterde Witte-calle.l by the Italians " Pietro Candida "-was bom at Bruges, ,n
r He went when still young, to Florence, aud was employed by Vasar, boll,
I'l^f an a Ron he siibs'eou^dy painted for the Grand Duke of Tuscany, in
%Z^. When budding his palace at Munich, Maximilian, Elector of Bavaria, sen
for De Witte to come and decorate the building. The artist remained at Munic
ZZ rest of his life, and died there in , 6.8 (?). Two good works an^"»" "-.,
ZTluut S„tfa; by De Witte, have been engraved, among others, by Sadeler. lie
,e coes prelt ng the Life of Otto of Wittcsiack and <^ D^arU.n of L„.h.n, /
fTZl which De Witte painted in the Hofgarten at Munich, have unfortunately been
whifershed over. But tapestries made from the frescoes, and engravings of these
tapestries are still preserved.
Pieter Breughel, "the younger "-called "Hell" Breughel-was born about the
„.dd o th si teeith century. As a painter he is much inferior to his father, and
here is nothing in the subjeds of bis pictures to recommend him .0 one s notice. A
C/"*; r.«..L Co., i„ the Antwerp Museum, is a good specimen of this ar.ist.
He died at .\ntwcrp in r638.
Matthew Brikwho was born at Antwerp in ,550 (?), -vent to Rome during the
poiltrof Gregory X.II.. who became a liberal patron to Inm He Pam ed
fresco in die Loggie of the Vatican, for that pope, several landscapes, vhidi were the
more am "d on account of the rarity of the subject in the papalcapital. He recen- d
a nenstm from Gregory XIII. Unfortunatdy Bril died at Rome, while still young, in
' ;; O ing to his early death, he has left but few works, but an evidence o h.s
,' rofic'ency, as I teacher at least, is left us in the person of his younger brother,
"Hendrik van Steenwyck, "the dder," was bom at Steenwyck, in .550 He studied
archtctural drawing under Jan Fredemann de Vries. Steenwyck's pictures usually
r p«sent he interiors of Gothic churches and cathedrals, and are remarkable for the
represent ; .^„^, „,e effects of torchlight on the domes and columns of
L^lmldinls sTenCkdied in ,604. He left a son, Hendrik van Steenwyck the
voun" r who was born at Antwerp in 1589, and who was, in the .atelier of Ins father,
a eUow-student with the elder Neefs. Recommended to Charles I. by Vandyck,
290
ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS.
[a.d. 1600.
Steenwyck came to England and executed various works for that monarch. He
died in London, about the middle of the seventeentli century. He painted the same
subjects as his father, treating them in a similar manner.
Paul Eril, the best of the Flemish landscape-painters, was born at Antwerp in
1556. He studied first under one Wortelman ; but, hearing of his brother's success in
Rome, he set out at once for the papal capital, where he studied under his brother,
and improved his style by close attention to the works of Titian. During the lifetime
of his brother, Paul assisted him in his works, and on his death received the same
DUCK-SIIOuriNG. — BY TAUL KRIL.
patronage from the Pope that his brother had enjoyed, and the same pension. For
Sixtus v., Paul Bril executed several considerable works in the Sistine Chapel, in
Santa Maria Maggiore, and in the Scala Santa in San (Viovanni in Laterano. For
Clement VHI. he painted works of great merit — more especially the Martyrdoin of
St. Clement, in the Sala Clementina. Paul Bril died at Rome in 1626.
His landscapes, as a rule, represent the quiet beauties of nature. " He was the first
to introduce a certain unity of light in his pictures, attaining thereby a far finer general
effect than those who had preceded him. His deficiencies lie in the over-force, and
A.D. 1600.] OTTO V.ENIUS. 291
also in the monotonous green, of his foregrounds, and in the exaggerated bUieness of
his distances." (Kugler's ' Handbook of Painting.') Good specimens of Paul Bril are
in the Louvre and in the Berlin Museum. A {<t\v of his pictures contain figures
by Annibale Carracci.
Heinrich Goltzius, who was born at Mulbrecht, in the Duchy of Juliers, in 1558, is
better known as an engraver than a painter ; indeed, he did not take up the brush until
he was forty-one years of age. His earliest known work is a Cnicijixion, which was
admired by Van Mander. Goltzius's only title to fome is gained by his engravings.
Upwards of five hundred are attributed to him. He imitated Lucas van Leyden and
Albrecht Diirer with some success, but whenever he attempted to copy the style of
Michelangelo he fell into egregious faults. Goltzius died in 1625.
Othon van Veen — called Otto Vsenius — was born at Leyden in 1560 (various other
dates are given as the year of his birth). After having learred the rudiments of art in
his native town and in Liege, he was sent to Italy by Cardinal Grosbeck, Prince Bishop
of Liege, who gave him a letter of introduction to Cardinal ]\Liduccio. At Rome, Van
Veen was well received l)y ^L^duccio, and soon afterwards commenced to work under
Federigo Zuccaro. After eight years of study of the Italian masters and of the antique,
Van Veen returned through Vienna, Munich, and Cologne to the Netherlands and settled
at Brussels, where he was appointed painter to Alexander Farnese, Prince of Parma
and Governor of the Netherlands. On the death of his patron. Van Veen established
himself at Antwerp, where he joined the Guild in 1594 ; soon afterwards the Archduke
Albrecht, becoming governor as successor to the Prince of Parma, made him, in 1620, his
painter and master of the mint at Brussels, in which city Van Veen died in 1629 (some
writers say in 1634). This illustrious man, who, besides studying painting, science, and
literature, was also a distinguished mathematician, historian, and poet, may be studied
at Paris in a collection of portraits, dated 1584, which is called Otto Vcenii/s and his
Family. It is a fine picture, of much interest and importance. Other paintings by
him are in the galleries of Antwerp, Munich, and elsewhere. But like Perugino and
Wohlgemuth, the chief title of Othon van Veen to glory is through his pupil; he was
the master of Rubens.
Josse de Momper — who was born at Antwerp (?) about 1560 — was admitted to the
Guild of St. Luke in 1581 (the Liggeren). He lived chiefly at his native Antwerp,
where he died in 1622. (Other dates, as late as 1635, are given as the year of his
death.) His pictures represent romantic scenery ; they are treated in a bold manner,
but lack the usual characteristic finish of his countrymen. Many of his landscapes
contain figures by other artists ; among whom are, Pieter Breughel, David Teniers the
elder, and Henrik van Balen. Momper was also an engraver.
Mark Gerard — sometimes called Garrard — was born at Bruges in 1561. Having
learned the rudiments of his art in his native city, he came, about 1580, to England ;
and as he received much patronage from Queen Elizabeth and her court, he remained
in this country until his death in 1635. Gerard painted historical and landscape sub-
jects, as well as portraits. His pictures are chiefly of interest from the persons whom
they represent. The Court, from "good Queen Bess" downwards, sat to him. A
portrait of Queen Elizabeth is in the possession of the Mar(iuis of Exeter at Burleigh
House. His Proeessioii of Queen Elizabeth to Elunsdon House has been engraved and
292 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1600.
described by Vertue. Gerard, Walpole tells us, also " drew a procession of the Queen
and knights of the Garter, in 1584, from whence Ashmore took his plate for the history
of that order."
Cornells Cornelissen — commonly known as Cornells van Haarlem, from his birth-
place — was born at 1562. Having acquired an elementary education in art in his
native town, Cornelissen set out with the intention of going through France to Italy.
Owing to the plague, lie was unable to land at Rouen, whither he had gone by ship.
He accordingly returned and settled at Antwerp, where he studied under Francis
Pourbus and one Giles Coignet. On his return to Haarlem in 1583, he painted for
the Guild of Marksmen in that town a picture, containing many portraits, which gained
him much praise. Cornelissen died at Haarlem in 1638. His masterpiece is in the
Berlin gallery. It represents Bathsheba bathing, and is dated 161 7. Pictures by him
are in the Dresden gallery, but they are of no great merit.
Jan Breughel — called "Velvet Breughel," it is said, from his partiality for dressing
\\\ that material — was born at Brussels in 1568 (?). In 1601 he bought the freedom of
the city of Antwerp, where he chiefly resided until his death in 1625 (?). (Various
dates are given for the births and deaths of all three Breughels.) Jan Breughel painted
in early life miniatures and flower-pieces ; but after his journey to Italy he turned his
attention towards landscapes. He frequently painted landscape backgrounds to other
artists' pictures. Among the painters with whom Velvet Breughel worked in
•conjunction, were Adrian van der Venne, Van Balen, and even Rubens.
In art, Jan Breughel was as superior to his fother as the latter was to his son Pieter-
He painted scenes from peasant-life and demoniacal subjects, with much success. His
works display a sound knowledge of chiaroscuro. Good specimens of his painting are
in the galleries of Dresden, Berlin, the Louvre, and Madrid. One of his best
landscapes is in the Hague gallery; it contains figures of Adam and Eve by Rubens.
Frans Pourbus, called " the younger," was born at Antwerp in 1570. He received
his first instruction in art from his father. On the completion of his studies, Frans
the younger went to Paris, intending to continue his journey as far as Rome, but
as he received so much encouragement at the French capital he entered the service
of Henri IV., for whom he executed numerous portraits. He died at Paris in
1622, He was an excellent portrait-painter, but inferior to his father. Good
specimens of his art are a Last Supper and a likeness of Queen Marie de Mcdicis in a
blue velvet robe covered with fleurs-de-lis, in the Louvre. Another portrait of the same
queen is in the Madrid Museum.
Paul van Somer, who was born at Antwerp in 1570, came to England soon after
the beginning of the seventeenth century, and continued to reside in this country until
his death in 1624 (?). Walpole gives a list of portraits, "that are indubitably his."
Of these it will be sufficient to notice, two oi James /., and one of his Qiiecn. Pictures
by him, of the Earl and Countess of Arimdel, are in the possession of the Duke of
Norfolk at Arundel Casde. Van Somer painted litde else than portraits, which he
executed in a masterly style.
Roelandt Savery, die son of one Jacques Savery, an unimportant painter — was born
at Courtray in 1576, and was first instructed in art by his father. He went during the
reign of Plenri IV. to France, and executed for that monarch's palaces various pictures
representing landscapes with animals. He returned from France to the Netherlands,
A.D. 1625.] P JETER NEEFS. 293
where he remained a very short time before he was summoned to Prague by Rudolph
II. Savery served this monarch until his death, when he removed to Utrecht, where
he thenceforth resided. His landscapes are often of a wild and romantic character,
and tlic beasts represented are by no means domestic pets. He died in 1639.
Adam Willaerts, who was born at Antwerp in 1577, removed in iCoo to Utrecht,
where he remained until his death in 1640. He generally iKiinled coast-scenes, and
occasionally country foirs and other genre subjects. The Touni of Brie/, a large work
by him, is in the Museum of Rotterdam; and a Fife i:ivcn at Tcrviicnn by the Arch-
duke Albert and Isabella of Austria, by some considered to be his masterpiece, is in
the Antwerp Museum.
David Vinckeboons, who was born at Mechlin in 1578, was a painter of peasant
scenes, and occasionally of historical pieces with landscape backgrounds. His genre
pictures display all the vulgarity and coarseness of Peasant Breughel, but lack his
talent. Four sketches, illustrating the History of the Prodigal So/i, by Vinckeboons, are
in the British Museum. This artist died at Amsterdam in 1629.
Frans Francken — called " the younger," to distinguish him from his Hither, an
unimportant painter — was born at Antwerp in 1581. He was, through his fixther, a
disciple of Frans Floris, but his pictures display much study of the works of Rubens.
After a visit of a few years in Italy — chiefly spent in Venice — Francken entered the
Academy of Antwerp in 1605 ; and resided in that city until his death in 1642.
Francken is essentially a genre-painter, and he is one of the best of that class of artists
at his time ; he was a good draughtsman, and his works are well conceived, but the
colour is not always perfect. He executed several historical works, of which the
Antwerp Museum has good specimens, but they are not equal to his genre pictures.
Francken frequently painted figures for the landscape-pictures of other artists.
Several relatives of this artist were painters, but none were of any importance.
Pieter Neefs, " the elder," who was born at Antwerp in 1570, studied his branch of
art, architectural painting, under Hendrik van Stcenwyck the elder. Neefs painted
interiors of churches with much success. He excelled in the representation of those
torchlight scenes which his master had, to a certain extent, originated. The painters
of architectural scenes, like those of landscapes^ were wont to have their pictures
supplied with figures by other artists. Neefs' works contain figures by Jan Breughel,
Frans Francken the younger, David Teniers the elder, and other painters. Pictures
by Neefs are in the Louvre, the Vienna gallery, and elsewhere. He died in 1561. We
may here mention his son, Pieter Neefs " the younger," who was born at Antwerp in
1600, He painted the same subjects as his father, but in an inferior manner. An
Interior of Atitwcrp Cathedral by him is in the Amsterdam Gallery; and other spe-
cimens are in the Vienna gallery. It is not known when Pieter Neefs the younger
died, probably about 1660.
Bonaventura Peters, a successful painter of marine subjects, was born at Antwcr|)
in 1 614. He represented the sea in all its phases : lashed to fury by the winds, with the
ship rushing to destruction amid the roar of the thunder and the lightning's glare ; also
boats riding quietly at anchor on a calm and placid sea ; but the former subject was
his favourite, and the one in which he specially excelled. Pictures by Peters are rarely
seen in public galleries. He died at Antwerp in 1652 (?). He had a younger brother,
who painted the same subjects, but in an inferior manner.
294 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS [a.u. 1600.
CHAPTER II.
REVIVAL OF ART IN FLANDERS.
DURING the latter half of the sixteenth century, the Flemish school gradually
sank into so low a state that there remained only a few indifterent artists, whose
names are scarcely worthy of record. Early in the next century, however, a new
master arose, whose fame has rivalled that of Leonardo, Raphael, and Titian, and who
must always be called the Prince of Flemish Painters. Peter Paul Rubens raised Art
in Flanders to its highest excellence, and his numerous pupils helped to maintain the
celebrity of the school of Antwerp for many years.
Peter Paul Rubens, the exponent of the highest triumph of Flemish art, renewed
and invigorated by its intercourse with Italy, was born at Siegen, in Westphalia, on the
29th of June — the day of St. Peter and St. Paul— in 1577. His father, a physician, and
his mother {iiata Pypeling) lived some time previous to young Rubens' birth at Antwerp ;
but, in 1568, owing to religious disturbances, they had been forced to quit that city.
When Rubens was but one year old, his parents removed to Cologne ; and in 1587,
on the death of his father, the family returned to Antwerp, where, though his mother
wished him to follow the profession of his father, Rubens received his earliest instruc-
tion in art. He first studied under one Tobias Verhaart and Adam van Noort ; he
then, in 1596, entered the atelier of Othon van Veen (Otto Vagnius), with whom he
remained four years. Luckily Rubens was not much struck with admiration of his
master's style, for, had it left any lasting impression on his mind, he might never have
attained that fame which he afterwards enjoyed.
In 1597 he entered the Guild of Painters of Antwerp ; and on leaving Van Veen, in
1 600, he paid a visit to Italy. He resided a short time at Venice, and studied the works
of the great colourists ; and then went to Mantua, where a letter of introduction from
the Archduke Albert of the Netherlands to the Duke Vincenzio Gonzaga, obtained him
employment in that nobleman's service. Shortly after his arrival at Mantua, where he
had studied the frescoes of Giulio Romano, Rubens was permitted to go to Rome, and
after a short stay at Mantua to revisit Venice^ where he paid careful attention to the
works of the old masters, more especially those of Titian and Paul Veronese. Soon
afterwards Rubens went again to Rome, where, besides studying the frescoes of
Michelangelo, he executed works for both his patrons — the Archduke Albert and
Gonzaga. In 1605, he was sent by the latter on a diplomatic visit to Philip IV. of
Spain. There he executed portraits of eminent personages of the Court. On his
PETER PAUL RUBExXS.
/\jo-c 294.
A.D. 1 600. J IvUJJENS. 295
return to Italy, Rubens went again to Rome, then through Milan to Genoa,
where he painted many pictures of the palaces of the Genoese nobles. In 1608,
on hearing that his mother was dangerously ill, Rubens quitted Genoa in haste, but
unfortunately arrived at Antwerp too late to see his parent alive. He had intended to
return to Mantua, but the Archduke Albert persuaded him, much against his inclination,
to remain in the Netherlands, ami in 1609 appointed him court-painter to himself and
his Duchess Isabella. Rubens consented, with the agreement that he might reside in
Antwerp, where he married his first wife, Isabella Brant. In the following year he
erected a magnificent mansion for himself, and became the heail of an illustrious school
of painters.
In 1620 Rubens was invited to France by Mario de Mcdicis, to execute impor-
tant works for her. After her interview with Louis XIII. at Brissac, in 1620, and their
momentary reconciliation, the widow of Henri IV. lived in the Luxembourg at Paris.
Endowed with the taste for the fine arts hereditary in her flimily, this daughter of the
Medici wished the long gallery of the palace, and another gallery which she intended
to have constructed, to be decorated by eminent artists. In the one her own history was
to be depicted ; in the other, that of the great and good Henri IV. The Baron de Vicij,
then ambassador from the iYrchduke Albert, proi)Obed Rubens to the Queen. Marie
accepted the artist, and the artist accepted the work. He came to Paris in 1621 ;
painted in chiaroscuro, under the eyes of the queen-mother, sketches for the pictures of
the first series ; and on his return to his studio at Antwerj), with the assistance of his
principal inqnls, he proceeded rapidly with the work, which he returned to Paris to
terminate in 1623 to 1625. Rubens had already commenced the sketches for the
Hiskvy of Henri IV., when the fresh and definitive exile of the queen-mother, pro-
nounced by Richelieu, put an end to the work.
Soon after his return to Antwerp, Rubens started in 1626 on a tour through Holland,
and during his journey visited many Dutch painters of importance. In this year his
wife Isabella died, leaving him two sons, whose well-known portraits are in the
Lichtenstein Gallery in Vienna. In 1627 he was employed in diplomatic service at the
Hague, and in the following year he was sent by the widow of the Archduke Albert,
the Infanta Isabella, as ambassador to Philip IV. of Spain. In the following year the
Infanta sent him, in the same capacity, to Charles I. of England. The object of his
journey was to induce that monarch to consent to a treaty of peace with Spain. Rubens
was kindly and graciously received by Charles I., who conferred on him the honour of
knighthood, at the same time presenting him with his own sword, and throwing round
his neck a costly chain, which the painter ever afterwards wore in remembrance
of the monarch. Rubens was in the same year knighted by Pliilip W . of Si)ain.
Among the works he executed for Charles I. is the allegory of J'laa- and War,
now in the National Gallery. In Geneva it was known as the " Family of Rubens."
It was during his residence in England, when he was coi)ying a Venus by
Titian, that a nobleman, finding him at his easel, asked him in surprise : " Does the
ambassador of His Catholic Majesty sometimes amuse himself with painting?" "I
amuse myself sometimes with being an ambassador," replied the artist. A good reply ;
but one which does not suffice to remove from him the reproach of having assisted to
unite the Courts of Spain and England, and of having served a foreign government
which kept his country under the yoke of a tyrannical oppression.
Rubens, while in England, made the designs for the great ceiling-piece for
\\'hilehall ; the work was completed afterwards on his return to Antwerp. He is
296 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1640.
said to have received as much as ^3000 for it. Rubens returned to Antwerp in
1630, and in the following year married his second wife, Helena Fourment, when
she was but sixteen years of age. By this marriage he had five children, all of
whom survived him.
On the 30th of May, 1640, this great painter, the protector of artists, and friend
of kings and nobles, died, possessed of great wealth, celebrated, and much honoured,
at Antwerp, where he was buried with great pomp in the church of St. Jacques. The
tomb, designed by the painter himself, fills a small chapel behind the choir of the
church. His body rests in the centre of this chapel under a stone, which has been
covered with a long Latin inscription, enumerating all the names, titles, and virtues of
the deceased. The only inscription necessary would have been Rubens.
Rubens' love of work was so constant, and his fertility so wonderful, that there are
nearly fifteen hundred of his pictures which have been engraved, and this enormous
number is scarcely half his works. At the same time it must be remembered that
many works attributed to him were executed from his designs by his pupils. In the
Louvre there are forty-two pictures ascribed to him ; Antwerp is almost as rich as
Paris ; Madrid is equally so. Li the Hermitage at St. Petersburg no less than fifty-
four pictures or sketches are ascribed to him, and the largest of the rooms and the
deepest of the cabinets of the Pinakothek at Munich — forming a separate museum in
the midst of the general one — -are entirely filled by ninety-five paintings by Rubens,
all authentic, and, what is still more important, all well chosen. And then come
Dresden, Vienna, Brussels, London — it would be impossible to enumerate all.
Speaking of this artist. Sir Joshua Reynolds says, " He was perhaps the greatest
master in the mechanical part of the art, the best workman with his tools, that ever
exercised a pencil :" and Walpole wrote, " The just boldness of his drawing, the
wonderful chiaroscuro diffused throughout his pictures, and not loaded like Rembrandt's
to force out one peculiar spot of light, the variety of his carnations, the fidelity to the
customs and manners of the times he was representing, and attention to every part of
his compositions, without enforcing trifles too much or too much neglecting them ; all
this union of happy excellences endear the works of Rubens to the best judges : he is
j^erliaps the single artist w^ho attracts the suffrages of every rank."
Let us now examine some of the works of Rubens scattered throughout the world,
beginning with those in his adopted country. The celebrated Descent from the Cross,
which is unanimously considered the finest of all the numerous works of Rubens, is in
the Cathedral of Antwerp. In looking at this masterpiece we must beware of expecting
too much, for imagination is apt to play us such tricks that we are seldom satisfied
with a first view, even of the Alps or the ocean. It cannot be seen very well ; it is
hung rather too high, and the way in which the light falls on it prevents us from seizing
the whole at a glance — a defective arrangement, which necessitates a long contempla-
tion of the work. It is needless to describe the subject. It is a large scene of high
character, in which we find a nobler conception and more finished execution than
usual, besides calmness in the midst of energetic movement, and also, in this instance,
no less grandeur than fire and energy. The merits of the work are much increased by
its perfect unity. All is in motion around the body of Jesus, which is, indeed,
wonderfully delineated, full of morbilezza, very heavy and dead — too dead, perhaps,
for there is nothing to announce the approaching resurrection — yet preserving, never-
theless, a dignity which may w^ell be termed "divine majesty." St. John, who wears a
red garment, and is supporting the inanimate remains of the Saviour; the Virgin,
A.D. 1625.]
RUBENS.
^97
absorbed in profound grief; and Mary Magdalene, whose tears only increase her
beauty — form an adniiraljle group at the foot of the Cross. We speak merely of the
general arrangement and style. What need is there to praise the colouring of Rubens'
masterpiece ?
It may be interesting to inquire the origin of this great picture. \\hcn Rubens
erected his magnificent house — palace, one might say — at Antwerp, he encroached
upon a small portion of land belonging to the Company of Archers. It was. agreed
that, as a compensation, he should paint a picture of St. Christopher, the patron
DKSCKNT JKO.M THE CROSS. — UY Rl'HKNS.
In the Cathedral ot Ant-'.-rf^.
saint of the society. The artist, with his usual liberality, determined to give the worthy
archers more than they had demanded, and painted all the Christophers; that is to say,
all those wlio had borne the Saviour in their arms, from the aged Simeon to the
disciples who received his body from the cross. The Descent from the Cross is the
central panel of a vast triptych, on the wings of which are the Visitation and the
Presentation of Jesus in the Temple. As the archers, it is said, did not quite understand
Rubens' rendering of the legend, the artist painted for them a picture of St. Christopher
on one of the wings which met with their entire approval.
2 Q
298 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1625.
Of the other pictures by Rubens at Antwerp we must mention a Crucifixion, the
pendent of tlie Dc^c:7it : a vast Assutnptioii of the Virgin, placed over the high altar in
the same cathedral, the colouring of which is magnificent ; besides the eighteen
pictures in the Museum, amongst which maybe found a Last Communion of St. Francis,
unsurpassed, perhaps, by any other work of Rubens. In the modest-looking church of
vSt. Jacques, the picture over the altar contains, under pretence of a Holy Fatnily, the
whole family of the painter. The warrior St. George is Rubens himself; St. Jerome is
his father ; Time, his grandfather ; an angel, his youngest son ; Martha and Mary
Magdalene, his first wife Isabella and Helena then living. The Virgin is supposed to
have been a Fraulein Lunden, who served him as a model several times, and whom
he immortalized under the name of Chapcau de Faille. This pretended Holy Family,
which contains far more than the orthodox number of personages for this subject,
is a magnificent picture in which there is everything to admire — composition, colour,
effect, and preservation. Of all the great works by Rubens we know none superior
to this simple collection of portraits. It is said that it took him only seventeen
days to paint. It was executed in 1625, fifteen years before his death.
We must now leave Flanders and pass on to Munich, where we shall find ninety-
five joaintings by Rubens, including specimens of all his styles, in subjects taken from
sacred, profane, and mytliological history^ in allegory, portrait and landscape painting.
The largest and most valuable of all those in the Pinakothek is certainly the Last
Judgment, which is the same size as the Descent from the Cross. Rubens had seen the
Last Jzidgment in the Sistine, and appears to have taken great care to avoid any
resemblance to the work of his illustrious predecessor. He has treated the same
subject, but in a different and very opposite manner. Michelangelo, always gloomy
in his disposition, shows in this work all the wild melancholy of his character. To him
the merciful Redeemer of mankind is a thundering Jupiter, who, as a terrible and
inexorable judge, pours his v.-rath on all the vices of humanity. Rubens, on the
contrary, more thoroughly a man, makes the Christ an equitable and merciful judge.
Although 'he condemns the wicked, he also recompenses the good ; and although he
reveals hell, he also opens the gates of heaven. Below the eternal throne and
the celestial court are two vast groups : on the right, the condemned, who are being
precipitated by a hideous group of demons into the abyss; on the left the redeemed,
who are carried to the celestial mansions by glorious angels. In this group one
recognizes with emotion, and almost with gratitude, a poor negro, who seems as much
sur])rised as delighted to find justice at last, and go to eternal happiness with his white
l)rothers. Certainly such a thought of philanthropy and humanity was very rare two
centuries and a half ago.
We ought properly to notice each one of the pictures in the Munich gallery, but
we have not room even for their names. We must, then, merely make a {(t\\ remarks
on sr;me of tliem in passing. The Battle of the Amazons, and Castor and Pollux
carrying off the Daughters of Leucippus, are among his best works. The painting of the
Fall of the Damned, usually called the Small Last Judgment, is far more like the
frescoes of Michelangelo than the other. Here, in the vortex of living beings, angels,
men, women, and devils, all mingled together, the work of the imagination equals the
manual labour. Another picture, of Susannah, which is lighted up by the rays of the
evening sun through the trees, evidently painted off at once without any last touches
and corrections, is a perfect miracle of colouring. Rubens, although he excelled in
the painting of children, has never surpassed the Seven Children carrying a festoon of
A.D. 1625.] RUBERS. 299
fruit and flowers. This little procession forms a charming picture: the children are
bending under the weight of their trophy, and one, more mischievous or more of a
i^oiirmaiid than the rest, is eiUing tlie grapes from a cluster hanging over his head.
The two J'oriniifs of the painter himself, in one with his first and in the other with
his second wife, and also that of this much-loved second wife alone, magnificently
attired, rank among the best of his works. Several landscapes — one of a Hen/ of
Cinc's, another of a Storm and Rainlunv — show the universality of the great painter,
who was able to treat every subject as a master.
We must now go on to Vienna. In the immense Liclitenstein Gallery we cannot
but admire the portraits of his Tn'o Sons, and the long series of pictures dlustrating the
History of Decitis. But we must pass on rapidly to the Behedere, where there are
forty-three of Rubens' pictures — a sufficient number, one would imagiiic, to enable
us to juilge of his various c|ualities, including that of fertility.
We must give a rapid glance at the magnificent portrait of the be.uitiful //<•/<//(/
J'oiinnint, who is ilraped merely in a magnificent fur mantle, anil also at a Festival of
Venus in the Js/e of Cyt/iera, which is wonderful in its colour, motion, and life. Here
we find not merely groups of loves, nymi)hs, ami fuins dancini; and sporting about,
but also Lulies of the time and country of the artist, bringing their gifts to the most
pagan of the divinities. We must then visit the central hall, where three pictures
entirely cover one of the sides. To the right and left of an Assumption, intended
for a high altar, tliere are two vast pendents, devoted to the two greatest of the Jesuits.
In one Ignatius Loyola is curing a demoniac ; in the other Francisco Xavier is preaching
the (lOsjiel to the Indians.
Whatever may be the merit of tliese large p:\intings, and also of others — such as the
Four Quarters of the Globe, j^ersonified by the Danube, the Nile, the Ganges, and the
Amazon, and the ^V. Ambrosias shutting the Temple Gates to Jheodosius — we should not
give to any of these the first i)lace amongst the works of Rubens in the Belvedere.
There is another, which we think to be not only his chefd\vuvre here, but also to be
one of the greatest of all his works. This is a vast triptych, uniting to the religious
subject in the centre the portraits of the donors painted on the wings, with their patror«
saints. The subject of the centre picture is the Appearance of the Virgin to St.
Ildefonso, and represents the Madonna presenting sacerdotal garments to the new
Archbishop of Toledo. The donors are the Archduke Albert of Austria, Governor of
the Low Countries for Spain, his wife Isabella, and Clara Faigeni.i, the daughter of
Philip II., who, when a widow, became an abbess. Both are kneeling, the former,
near St. Albert, in a cardinal's costume, and the latter, near St. Clara, in the costume
of an abbess, turning towards tlie vision of St. Ildefonso; and we may well say of the
picture, as well as of the portraits, that Rubens has nowhere shown a union of greater
nobleness, truth, and brilliancy. We might search in vain amongst his innumerable
works for anything superior to this trijjtycli.
\\e must now pass on to Paris. ihere are forty-two of Rul>ens" paintings in the
Louvre : the highest number by any single master to be found in the whole catalogue.
The greater part of this number, and certainly the most important, form a series, anil
may be considered as a single work. This is called the History of Marie de Medieis. it
was intended merely as the decoration of a palace ; it is now in tiie Louvre, and will
be henceforth the chief ornament of that museum, as it is one of the finest works of
the master. Certainly, if \\*e consider its subject, this long poem in twenty-one cantos
is not a histor\-, but rather a series of allegories, or even of allegorical flatteries, in
ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS [a.d. 1625.
which it is difficult to recognize the haughty, obstinate, and false Marie de Me'dicis, who
as a wife made herself hated by her husband, as a mother by her son, and as a regent
by her subjects. Under the magic pencil of Rubens, this elegant flattery deserves the
definition given of it by some deep thinker : " It shows us the shadows at sunset."
Doubtless, also, when looked on as simple works of art, these twenty-one pictures are
not equal to the Descent from the Cross, at Antwerp, or the St. Ildefonso, at Vienna.
Yet, from the unwonted greatness of the whole, from the inexhaustible invention
and variety of the subjects, as well as from the wonderful execution of some parts— such
as the Education of Marie, her Marriage, her Coronation, the Birth of Louis XIII. , and
the Apotheosis of Henri /K— this long series, taken as a whole, is inferior to none of
Rubens' works.
To these must be added the portrait of tliat same Marie de Mcdicis — another
allegory and decepti\'e flattery — for Rubens represents her as Bellona on horseback,
like the great Minerva of Phidias, holding in her hand the statue of Victory, whilst she
is being crowned with laurels. But in such a magnificent work, a perfect masterpiece
of the art of representing human nature, whilst at the same time ennobling it, every-
thing may be forgiven, even its hyperbole and want of truth.
Rubens is well represented in the Louvre. Besides his favourite allegories and several
]jortraits, there are two Landscapes, one of which is lighted up by a rainbow; whilst in
the other, near the drawbridge of a castle, several knights are breaking lances, as if in a
tournament. There is also a large Kermesse or Fair, which is no less gay and animated
than if it were by Jan Steen. There are also some pictures with small figures.
The Flight of Lot led out of Sodom by an angel with outstretched wings, and
followed by his family, is an excellent and carefully-painted picture, which France may
well be proud of possessing, since Rubens himself seems to have been proud of having
])ainted it, as it is one of the small number which he signed. His name, " Pe. Pa.
Rubens," traced by himself at the bottom of this little picture, is in some degree the
seal of preference and superiority. And, indeed, to find an equal to it in the same
style we should have to go to the Museo del Rey, at Madrid. There, amongst such a
number of other works that, as at Munich, a gallery might be formed of the works of
Rubens alone, we shall find a Glorified Virgin adored by a group of fifteen saints —
Peter and Paul (the patrons of the painter), Sebastian, Magdalen, and Theresa,
the most poetical of the saints. Although the figures are only about a foot in height,
this Madonna is a wonderful work. The arrangement of the groups, the strength and
tlelicacy of the touch, colour, and effect, are almost magical. The more fervent
admirers of Rubens — those who have admired him at x\ntwerp, Munich, Vienna, and
Paris — if they have not seen this picture, do not yet know him entirely.
We might cross the whole of Europe at a bound, and examine another rich
collection of pictures in the Hermitage of St. Petersburg, where we should find,
amongst many other works of the great painter of Antwerp, the Feast in the House of
Simon the Pharisee. But it will be better to pass at once to England. If we had to
name the one of Rubens' works which appeared to us superior in its execution to any
of the others, we shnuld choose one of those in the gallery of the Marquis of West-
minster — the History of Ixion and the Cloud. This is a real capo d'opcra in all the
extent of that much-abused term. But the picture which is most interesting, at once
from its beauty and its history, is the Diana and her Nymphs on their return from the
chase, surprised while asleep by Satyrs. This picture was taken to Hampton Court,
and i)resented to Charles 1. by Rubens, during his visit to the king in 1629.
A.D. 1625.] FRANS SNYDERS. 301
At IMenhcim, the seat of the Duke of Marlborough, are, among other of his works,
the Rape- of Proserpine : a portrait of his second wife, Helena Fournient ; and portraits of
Himself, his Wife, and a Child, in one picture. In the National Gallery there are
thirteen works by Rubens. Of these, besides the already-mentioned Peace and War,
we must notice tlie Abduction of the Sabine Women; the Horrors of War; the famous
Chapeau de Paille; the Triumph of Julius Qcsar, after that of Mantegna in the gallery
at Hampton Court ; and two fine Landscapes. Good examples of Rubens are also to be
found at Buckingham Palace, Leigh Court, Longford, and Warwick Castle.
Abraham Jansens van Nuyssen, who was born at Antwerp in 1567, studied under
an uniniporlant master named Snellinck. He visited Italy, but his pictures are more
after the style of Rubens than of the transalpine masters. Though sometimes a better
draughtsman than Rubens, Jansens is far inferior to him in colour. His favourite
subject was the eftect of torchlights, and he excelled in representing deepest shadows
in contrast with highest lights. The galleries of Antwerp and Vienna and the churches
of l-'landers contain many specimens of his art. Jansens died in 1632.
Martin Pepyn, who was born at Antwerp in 1575, is a painter who maintains
a half-way position between the first decline of Flemish art and its revival under
Rubens. He was admitted into the Guild of Painters at Antwerj) in 1600, but went
wiien young to Italy, where he resided for some time and executed several important
works. In the Antwerp Gallery there are a few of his pictures. A Portrait of a Lady
in the Aremberg Gallery at Brussels, is favourably mentioned in Kugler's ' Handbook.'
Pepyn died in 1643.
Nicholas de Liemakere— called Roose— who was born at Ghent in 1575, was
Presiilent of the Guild of Painters of that city from 1623 till 1636. (Sunaert, ' Catalogue
du Musce de Gand.') He died at Ghent in 1646. Liemakere's pictures abound in
his native city and throughout Flanders. It is related by Descamps that Rubens—
on being requested, by the confraternity of St. Michael at Ghent, to paint them an
altar-piece in their chapel— refused to do so, saying that, "possessing so fine a
Rose, they might well dispense with tlowers of foreign growth."
Frans Snyders— who, among the Flemish animal painters of the time, was second
only to Rubens— was born at Antwerp in 1579. He studied art under "Hell"
Breughel, and also, it is said, under Hendrik van Balen, from whom he acquired the
art of tlower and fruit painting. Snyders subsequently changed his subject to wikl
animals, in the representation of which, in their untamed and savage natures, he
especially excels. He is said to have studied for some time in Italy — chiefly at Rome.
Snyders was invited to Brussels by the Archduke Albert, Go\ernor of the Netherlands,
for whom he executed numerous works. A Stat^-hunt, which was sent by the Arcluluke
to Philip HI. of Spain, so much delighted that monarch, that he commissioned the artist
to paint various works, which were, until recently, in the Bueno Retiro. Snyders
died at Antwerp in 1657. He often w^orked in conjunction with Rubens and
lordaens. He painted animals and sometimes fruit, flowers, and vegetables, to suit
Rubens' pictures, and that artist in return painted figures to suit those of Snyders.
Pictures painted by all three artists— Rubens, Snyders, and Jordaens — are still in
existen<:e. Snyders was also the friend of Vandyck, who painted his portrait, which
was eiv^raved with those of the other celebrateil artists {see woodcut in notice of
Vandyck). Works by Snyilers arc common on the Continent, but are pnly seen in
302
ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS.
[a.d. 1625.
private collections in England. The National Gallery does not possess a specimen
of this master. A Bear-Jumt by him is in the possession of the Duke of West-
minster. The galleries of the Louvre, Dresden, Munich, Vienna, and Berlin, contain
the best of his pictures. A Kitchen with dead Game and Vegetables, by Rubens and
Snyders, is in the gallery at the Hague.
Gaspard de Craeyer— frequently s])elt Grayer -one ol the best Flemish painters
of his time, was born at Antwerp in 1582. He studied at Brussels under Raphael, the
son of Michael van Coxcyen. In 1607, Craeyer was elected a master of tha Brussels
Guild. Having been employed to p.iiut the portrait of Cardinal Ferdinand, Governor
,.D. 1625.] GERARD SEGHERS. 303
of the Netherlands, to be sent to the King of Spain, Craeyer executed the work with
such skill that he was appointed court-painter. He soon became rich and honoured,
but in later life, wishing for peace and quiet, which the profession of court-painter
did not allow, he resigned his appointment and went to Ghent, where he executed
many important works, includi.vg tlie Centurion before Christ, which he painted for
the Abbey of Afflcghem. It was on seeing this picture that Rubens exclaimed,
"Craeyer Craeyer, nobody will ever surpass you!" He died at Ghent m 1669.
Piintin.'s by Craeyer are in the galleries of the Louvre, Ghent, Brussels, Munich, and
Vienna" We may especially mention the Coronation of St. Rosalia, and the Martyrdom
of St. 75/.7/sY-his last work, painted in 1668— both in the Ghent Museum; a Madonna
and Child adored by Saints, in the Vienna Gallery; and the same subject in the
Pinakothek at Munich. Several works by Craeyer are in Spain ; it has been supposed
that he paid a visit to that country in the reign of Philip IV.
Jan Wildens was born at Antwerp in 1584. He was a puj.il of Peter Verhult, but
WIS indebted to nature for a greater part of the instruction which he received in art
Wildens was admitted to the guild of his native city when he was but twenty years of
a-e He frequently painted landscapes for Rubens and other artists ; and on the
odier hand, several painters executed figures for his woodland scenes. Works by
Tan Wildens alone are rare. A Landscape, with a stag-hunt, formerly in the
I/mdauer liriiderhaus, is said to be an excellent picture. He died at Antwerp in 1653.
Gerard Zegers— sometimes called Seghers— was bom in Antwerp in 1591. He
studied under Van Balen and Abraham Jansens. He then went to Italy, where he
admired the works of Caravaggio. Zegers afterwards went to Spain, and executed
numerous works for Philip III. On his return to Antwerp, he became honoured and
weilihy He died in 1651 at his native city, which possesses many ot his works.
The Marriage of the Virgin, o^c^ in the Church of the Carmelites and now in the
Museum, is his masterpiece. He painted historical subjects, both sacred and protane.
His drawing is good, and his colour is vigorous and powerful.
Lucas van Uden— the son of an unimportant painter, from whom he received his
education in art-was born at Antwerp in i595- He painted for Rubens' pictures
1 mdscape-Uickgrounds which have been much admired. Both David Teniers and
Rubens painte<l figures in Van Udens landscapes. There are seven of this artisis
works in the Dresden Gallery, where he can be studied in all his difterent subjects.
( )ccasionalIy he painted waterfalls, but his favourite subject was a landscape ivith hills
,nd luountains in the distance, which he rendered with great truth to nature. A fine
landscape by him is in the Dubus Gallery at Brussels. Lucas van Uden was also an
engraver : the British Museum contains specimens of his style in this branch of art.
He died at Antwerp in K>72 or 1C73.
Justus Sustermans, who was l)orn at Antwerp in 1597, studied under Willem de
Vos, a painter of little note. It is only by reason of his birth that Sustermans has
any right to be accounted a Flemish painter, for in early life he went to Italy and
settled in Florence, where he resided, honoured and patronized, until his death in 1681.
He was chiefly employed by the Gnuid Duke Cosmo II. of Tuscany, and by his
successors, Ferdinando II. ami Cosmo HI. Sustermans painted both historic
pictures and portraits ; in .the latter subject he was little inferior to his friend the great
Vandyck, who painted his likeness. Sustermans" l)est works are in Florence, and in
304 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS [a.d. 1625.
tlie galleries of Berlin and Vienna. We may especially mention The Florentine
Nohhity siuearing alh'oiance to Duke Ferdinando II., in the Uffizi at Florence ; and an
Entombment in tlie Berlin Gallery. A portrait of Alexander Farnese by this artist is
in the Royal Institution at Edinburgh. " He was of decided realistic tendency, an able
draughtsman, a powerful and clear colourist, and possessed much freedom of brush.
In his historical pictures the influences both of the schools of the Carracci and of
Caravaggio are strongly seen. From the former he imitated the style of composition,
drapery, and elevated forms; from the latter his powerful eff'ects." (Kugler's
Handbook.)
Theodor Rombouts, who was bom at Antwerp in 1597, studied under an obscure
painter nam>ed Lanckveldt. It is said that he also received instruction from Abraham
Jansens. In 16 17 he went to Italy, and painted in Rome and Florence several im-
portant works. On his return in 1625, he was admitted as a master to the Guild of
Painters at Antwerp, where he continued to reside until his death in 1637. His
masterpiece, a Deposition from the Cross, is in Ghent Cathedral. Rombouts is a good
draughtsman, but his colouring has but ordinary merit.
PUPILS OF RUBENS,
We have hitherto been noticing painters contemporary with Rubens, who were
all more or less affected by his style, but who cannot be called his pupils, for
several of them, as Snyders and Jordaens, were his collaborateurs. We have now
to notice his personal pupils. Of these there is but one who is in any way worthy of
comparison with the great master. We shall therefore place him first, though he
is by some years the junior of several of his fellow-pupils.
Antony Vandyck, the eminent portrait-painter, was born of good family at Antwerp,
on the 22nd of March, 1599. He was the seventh child of a family of twelve; his
mother was famous as an amateur flower-painter and embroiderer. Vandyck was
apprenticed to Van Balen when he was but ten years old, and in 16 15 entered tlie
academy of the great painter Rubens, with whom he remained as a pupil till 1620,
when he was engaged as his assistant. In 1618, Vandyck was admitted to the Guild of
St. Luke at Antwerp. In 162 1, he paid a short and unimportant visit to England, and
worked in the service of James I. ; and in 1623, by the advice of Rubens, set out for
Italy. After a short visit to Brussels, occasioned by his love for a peasant girl of
Savelthem — for the church of which town he painted a Holy Family zwA a. St. Martin —
Vandyck arrived in Italy, where he executed many important works. He stayed chiefly
at Genoa, but also visited Rome, Venice, and Palermo. On his return to Antwerp in
1628, Vandyck became justly famous as a painter both of historical subjects and of
portraits. His chief historical works which he then executed were the Crucifixion for
the church of St. Michael at Ghent, and a St. Augustin for the church of the Augustines
at Antwerp. He also executed in chiaroscuro a series of portraits of the eminent
painters of his time. Engravings of them have been published three times. Vandyck
etched several of the plates himself. {^See woodcut.)
In 1630 Vandyck went from the Hague — whither he had been invited by the Prince of
Orange — to London, but as he did not meet with the encouragement which he had been
.A.D. 1625] VANDYCK. 305
led to believe he should receive from the English monarch, he returned to Aniwer]).
Charles, on seeing a portrait of his chapel-master, Nicolas Laniere, which Vandyck had
executed on his visit to England, discovered what a treasure he had lost, and early in
1632 dispatched Sir Kenelm Digby to request the painter to return. Vandyck was
most graciously received by Charles, who gave him apaitments at lilackfriars, where
he was often honoured with a visit from the king, who frequently sat to him. On the
5th of July, 1632. Vandyck was knighted at St. James's, and on the 15th of the same
month he received 280/. for "diverse pictures by him made for his majestye." In the
w^'^/y ''^
PORTRAIT OF 1"R \N>^ SWIUKn iRi.vi \\ IK HIM. \\ \ WIi\(K;
following year he was appointed painter to the king, with an annual salary of 200/.
From this time, Vandyck became the flivouritc ])ainter in England. Not only the
monarch, and his wife and children, but all the Court sat to him. There were no
less than seventy-two portraits of the English nobility by Vandyck exhibited in the
National Portrait Collection of 1866.
He was wont to receive. Walpole tells us, 60/. for a full-length, and 40/. for a half-
length portrait. " He was indefatigable," adds that author, " and, keeping a great table,
often detained the persons who sat to him, for an opportunity of studying their
countenances, and of retoucliing their pictures again in the afternoon." He lived in a
2 R
3o6 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1630.
grand, and almost regal, manner, in the summer at Eltham, and in the winter at
Blackfriars. The civil war cut short Vandyck's career ps a painter, and it was soon
after terminated by his death, Avhich occurred in Blackfriars, on the 9th of December,
1 641. He was buried two days afterwards in the old church of St. Paul, near the
tomb of John of Gaunt. Vandyck bequeathed to his wife Mary, a grand-daughter of
Lord Gowrie, and his daughter, " all his goods, effects and moneys, due to him in
England from King Charles, the nobility, and all other persons whatever, to be equally
divided between them." He also left other legacies to his executors, his trustees,
to his sisters, his natural daughter Maria Teresa, to his servants, and to the poor of
St. Paul's and St. Anne's, Blackfriars.
In the Museum of Antwerp the. precious tables are still preserved in which the
names of the Deans of the Corporation of Painters were successively inscribed from its
foundation in 1454 until its extinction in 1778. Two names only in this long list are
inscribed in capital letters — that of Rubens, under the date 1631, and that of Vandyck
under 1634. Vandyck deserves more than to be called "the moon of Rubens' sun."
In the first place he equalled his master in fertility. His life indeed was shorter by one-
half — we mean his artist life, which scarcely begins under twenty. He died when forty-
two, and so could only work half as long as Rubens, who lived to be sixty-three. If we
endeavour to count his works, we shall find forty at St. Petersburg, forty-one at Munich,
twenty-four in the Belvedere, and twenty-four in the Lichtenstein Galleries at Vienna,
nineteen at Dresden, twenty-two at AVindsor, and seven in the National Gallery, and
many in the Museo del Key, and in the Louvre.
If we continue the parallel, we must make a distinction; Vandyck remained below
his master in composition. In the first place he is far from having his inexhaustible
in\-ention ; in sacred subjects he usually confined himself to a Dead Christ, frequently
repeated, and a Mater dolorosa, \y\\\\ her eyes raised to heaven and reddened with tears.
Nor does he possess the wonderful execution of Rubens. However, some very fine
works suffice to prove what he might have done in a longer and freer life. Such, for
example, is the Taking of Jesus in the Garden of Gethseviaue, which is in the Museum
of Madrid. At first sight, when the eye encounters the red glare of the torches borne
by the soldiers, the picture might be taken for the work of Jordaens ; but in the rather
studied elegance of the attitudes, the beauty of the features, the delicacy of the touch,
and the moderation in the effects, we recognise the more elevated and softer style of
Vandyck. Others of his finer composition may be found in various galleries. At
Munich there is a Christ on the Cross, of wonderful expression and effect ; at Vienna,
the Vision of the B/essed Hermann fosefh, a. (sLvoiued monk, who is receiving the ring
given him by the Virgin in sign of mystic marriage; at Dresden, a Z'^i'/wV receiving
the rain of golden pieces which a Love — unworthy of the name — is trjdng on a touch-
stone ; at Antwerp, another Christ on the Cross, between St. Dominic and St. Catherine
of Sienna, a simple work, though one of great nobility, which Vandyck painted in 1629,
to accomplish a vow of his dying father ; at Brussels, there is a Martyrdom of St. Peter,
which unites great energy to the dignity requisite for a sacred subject ; at St. Peters-
burg, the celebrated Madomia with the Partridges, which before it was acquired by
the Empress Catherine formed the glory of Sir Robert Walpole's gallery ; lastly, at
the Louvre, we find a third Dead Christ, wept over by his mother and adored by angels
and cherubim — all small figures.
But in portrait painting Vandyck fully makes up for any deficiency in composition ;
there he surpasses all the painters of his time, including evea Rubens ; there he rises
KING CHARI.KS THK FIRST. By Vani.yck
/« the l.oyz're.
A.D. 1640.] VANDYCK. 307
to the greatest lieight, and fears no rival but Titian, Holbein, Velasquez and Rem-
brandt. We have merely time to take a rapid survey of the most celebrated of his
portraits, which have been dispersed over Europe. Antwerp has retained that of its
fifth bishop, yi'//// ^^a/ih'rus, anil the more astonisliing one of the Italian Scag/iii, one of
the negotiators for Spain at the Congress of Miinster. Italy — where Vandyck
remained for five years in order to complete before the works of Titian the lessons of
Rubens — has retained several of his portraits. At Florence, Charles V. on horseback,
with an eagle bringing him the laurel wreath ; at Turin, the Prince Thomas dc
Savoie-Carignan, in an heroic posture, ralher too heroic for this general of medium
ability.
In England, the National Gallery shows with pride one of the greatest works of
Vandyck. This is the bust of an old man of a grave and noble countenance, who is
said to be the learned Gcvartlus (Gevaerts, historiographer of Antwerp), but who is
rather, according to tlie engraving by P. Pontius, Conulius ~,an drr Gccsf, artis pictor'ue
amator. The National Gallery also contains a Portrait of Rubens ; a Study of Horses ;
His oicn Portrait ; and copies of two of Rubens' pictures — The Emperor Theodosius
refused admission into the church by St. Ambrose, and the Miracu/ous Draught of Fishes.
At ^Vindsor, among many other of his works, there is the portrait of a A/rs. Margaret
Lemon, which is beautiful, both from nature and art. It would be useless to attempt
to mention the works by Vandyck in private collections in England. They abound in
all the great houses of the nobility.
In Germany, especially in Munich, the finest portraits are pendents, representing
a Burgomaster of Anttoerp and His Wife, both clothed in rich black robes. Vandyck
has never surpassed these two admirable works ; they reach the highest point art can
attain in the imitation of nature. These are equalled, however, by two other portraits,
the pride of the Lichtenstein Gallery at Vienna, which have been placed as pendents,
and have an advantage over the others in the interest attaching to beauty and fame.
The former, a model of grace and beauty, is a young Princess of Thi/rn-and-Taxis : the
second, still more astonishing as a work of art, is an adniiral)le Head of a Warrior, full
of energy and power; his bearing is haughty, his glance imperious, and his red
moustache, turned up at the ends, covers a mouth in which may be read disdainful
pride and the habit of command. This is said to be the famous Wallcnstein, Duke of
Friedland, the adversary of Gustavus Adolphus, and one of the most })rominent
chieftains in the Thirty Years' War.
The Hermitage also possesses a collection of portraits by Vandyck. In the first
place, one of Char/es I. of England, at twenty-five years of age, and Henrietta Maria
of France, at twenty-six ; the former in armour and the latter in court dress. Then
two other ladies, who have been supposed to be the Wife and Daughter of Cronnvell,
and a warrior, holding a baton of command, who is usually called Ovv//ar// himself ;
but there must be some error in these designations, for Vandyck died in 1641. But
these pseudo-historic portraits and many others, even that of the young Prince of
Orange, are all surpassed by that of a certain Van der Wouvcr, who was minister for
Spain in the Netherlands. This portrait, painted in 1632, may dispute the foremost
rank with the Walienstein and GiTartius.
The Louvre is not less rich. It possesses, in the first place, a jjortrait of the royal
patron of the painter, Char/es /., life-size, in the elegant costume of the cavahers {see
woodcut) ; an excellent work, for which Madame Dubarry tlisputed with the Empress of
Prussia, and purchased very dearly, wishing, as she said, "to preserve a family portrait."
3o8 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1650.
It is to be regretted that this picture has not its usual pendent, the heroic Henrietta
Maria of France, whose funeral oration was pronounced by Bossuet. Afterwards come
the three children of Ciiarles and Henrietta Maria, all celebrated, all crowned after
their ^^yi\\^— Charles II., James II., and Mary, wife of William of Orange, whose son
became William HI. of England. There are, besides, the portraits of two other
brothers; these are Ludzvig I, Duke of Bavaria, and his younger brother, known as
Prince Rupert, who was one of the unfortunate generals of Charles L, and who is said
to have invented engraving in mezzotint. Another portrait is of Don Francisco de
Mon^ada, on horseback and in armour. This is perhaps the finest of the rare equestrian
portraits by Vandyck, and the honour of having been engraved by Raphael Morghen
adds still more to its value and celebrity. Lastly, there are a Man standing, dressed
i?i black, and a Lady seated in a crimson chair, each holding a young girl by the
hand ; forming the usual pendents of husband and wife. These, although of unknown
persons, seem to have the highest expression of the marvellous talent of Vandyck — at
all events, of those in the Louvre.
In all these portraits, amongst other qualities, we find invariably that grace and
distinguished look which cannot fail to be a little conventional, and even sometimes
introduced at the expense of truth, since Vandyck has given it to all his portraits. The
explanation of this special trait may perhaps be found in the Portrait of Vandyck
himself, in his brilliant youth. The handsome foce of the pittore cavalicresco, as the
Italians called him, where it may be seen that the artist took from himself the nobility
with which he so liberally endowed his models, accounts for much of his success.
Vandyck had numerous pupils and followers, both in England and in his native
country. Few of them had any great merit ; but the influence of Vandyck's art in
portraiture has been very important.
Jacob Jordaens, "a vulgar Rubens," was born at Antwerp in 1594. He entered
the studio of Van Noort in 1607 and remained with that master until 1615, in which
year he was elected a member of the guild of painteirs in that city. In the following
year, he married his former master's daughter. Owing to his marriage, he was unable
to follow the example of the majority of his countrymen and go to Italy ; but the
renown which he obtained in his native city, fully compensated for the loss. Jordaens
was Rubens' most intimate friend and collaborateur, but, though he is not inferior to the
great master in colour, yet he frequently degenerates into coarseness and vulgarity.
His pictures abound in the churches and public buildings in Flanders and the
Netherlands. His Triumphal Entry of the Prince of Nassau, executed in fresco,
in the House in the Wood, near the Hague, is usually considered his masterpiece,
though Sir Joshua Reynolds describes it as " a confused business," and adds " that
the only part which deserves any commendation is the four horses of the chariot."
Another fine work by Jordaens is a Yoimg Satyr in the Trippenhuis at Amsterdam.
An Adoration of the Shepherds, and a Last Supper in the Antwerp Gallery, also a
Crucifixion in the church of St. Paul in the same city, only show how^ ill-adapted
Jordaens' style is for sacred subjects. A Holy Family by Jordaens was formerly
exhibited in the National Gallery. He painted in water-colour, fresco, and oil ; and
besides being celebrated as a historical painter, he also excelled in portraiture. A
good specimen is a Ladfs Portrait in the Antwerp Gallery. A favourite subject with
Jordaens was the proverb, " Wie die Alten sungen, so feifen die Jungen " ("As the
old ones sing, so the young ones pipe"). This artist died at Antwerp in 1678.
ANTONY VANDYCK.
P^^g^ 308.
A.D. 1650.]
JACOB JORDAENS.
309
In the Louvre Jordaens cannot be studied to advantage. His Christ driving the
Money Changers out of the Temple is only sacred in name and subject ; it is painted
with all the energy, and excessive fire which are usual with him, and which he
carried to a fiir greater extent than even Rubens in the commencement of his career.
In his Four Evangelists we are unable to see anything but caricatures, the product
of a misdirected talent.
To find any Jordaens worthy to be taken as a model, we must go to the Museum
at Brussels. Here we shall find two compositions equal, if not superior, to any by this
master. The more important, since it contains ten or twelve figures the size of life, is
Tllli MLslCAl. TAkrV. — bV JACOli JOKDA KNS.
a Miracle 0/ Sf. Martin, wlio is healing a demoniac before the pro-consul. It is painted
with tliat fiery colour which characterises Jordaens ; but with almost as much true
nobleness as force. 'J'he other subject, an allegory of the occupations and gifts of
the autumn, is of much more sober colouring, though it loses nothing of its brilhancy.
This picture of the Autumn may be called Jordaens' masterpiece ; at least we have
never heard any other works of this master mentioned with the praise that this one
deserves. The landscape, the fruits, the actors of the scene, especially a satyr carrying
a little faun on his shoulders, and a naked nymph, are of great vigour and wonderful
effect. It is Cayavaggio or Ribera, with the colouring of Rubens.
3IO ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a. a 1650.
Abraham van Diepenbeck was born at Hertogenbosch (Bois-le-Duc) in 1607.
He first studied art as a painter on glass, but afterwards gave himself up to acquiring,
as far as possible, the style of his great master, Rubens. Diepenbeck went to Italy,
where he remained some considerable time ; on his return he again entered Rubens'
studio, but this time more as an assistant than a pupil. Some time after, Diepenbeck
re-visited Italy, and soon after his return to Antwerp, went to England, where he
remained for several years during the reign of Charles I., and where he was much
patronized by the Duke of Newcastle. " Diepenbeck drew views of the duke's seats in
Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, and portraits of the duke, duchess, and his children, and
gave designs for several plates prefixed to the works of both their graces." (Walpole's
'Anecdotes of Painting.') In 1641,' he was elected Director of the Academy at
Antwerp, which post he held until his death, which occurred in that city, in 1675.
Diepenbeck's pictures are found in the churches of Antwerp and other cities of
Flanders. His so-called chef-d'oeuvre, an Altar-piece in the church of Deurne, near
Antwerp, was long ascribed to Rubens. A Neptune and Ainphitrite by Diepenbeck
is in the Dresden Gallery. Sandrart and Houbraken consider him the best painter
on glass of his time. He is also famous for his designs for book illustrations.
Theodor van Tulden or van Thulden, the painter and engraver, was born at
Bois-le-Duc in 1607. In 1621 he was apprenticed at Antwerp to an unimportant
unknown painter, named BIyenberch. Four years later Van Tulden was free of the
guild of painters in that city (the " Liggeren "), and in a short time afterwards, about
1635, went to Paris, where he painted numerous important works, particularly a series
of twenty-four pictures in the church of the Mathurins, illustrating the Life of John of
Matha, their patron. Van Tulden also etched a set of fifty-eight plates from the
pictures, which have since perished, painted at Fontainebleau, by Nicolo Abati from
the designs of Primaticcio. In 1535, Van Tulden returned to Antwerp, where he
married the daughter of Hendrik van Balen. Five years later he returned to his native
town, Bois-le-Duc, where he died in 1676.
Van Tulden was one of Rubens' favourite pupils ; he helped him in his design
for the triumphal arches erected on the occasion of the entry of Don Ferdinand into
Antwerp. He also assisted Rubens in his Apotheosis of Marie de Medicis. An
Appearance of Christ to the Virgin by Van Tulden in the Louvre, and a Triumph
of Galatea, in the Museum of Berlin, are specimens of his later style when his colour
was less brilliant than in his early pictures. Many of his works arc in the churches
of Flanders and the Netherlands. A Martyrdom of St. Andmv by him in St. Andrew's,
at Ghent, was long considered to be by Rubens. Besides allegorical and historical
subjects. Van Tulden painted genre pictures and portraits with much success.
Erasmus Quellinus, who Avas born at Antwerp in 1607, owed his success in art
to his polished manners and his educated mind. It is said that he was at first a
professor of philosophy ; under Rubens' able tuition, however, he became a tolerably
good painter. He aimed higher than his master's style, but did reach his mark. He
painted numerous historical pictures, and several in commemoration of great events.
The museum and churches of Antwerp possess good specimens of this master. A
Marriage of the Virgin, and a Madonna and Child by him in the Dresden Gallery, are
of no great merit. He died at Tongerloo in 1678 (some writers say at Antwerp).
Erasmus Quellinus was an intimate friend of the renowned scholar, Caspar Gevartius.
Jan Erasmus Quellinus, the son of Erasmus Quellinus, was born at Antwerp in
A.D. 1650.] PUPILS OF RUBENS. 311
1629. He visited iLily in 1640, and there studied the works of Paul Veronese. His
works are usually large and by no means good, ami in them, more especially as regards
colour, one sees signs of the decline of Flemish art. His chief claim to fixme is his
composition, which is generally very fiiir. The museum and churches of Antwerp
contain several of his works. He died in that city in 17 15.
We must now speak of a few of the minor pupils of Rubens. Foremost of these
in point of time is,
Deodat van der Mont, commonly c-illed Delraont, who was born at St. Tron, near
Antwerp, in 1581, antl died in 1644; his pictures are now scarce. Cornelius Schut,
who was born at Antwerp in 1597, and died there in 1655, painted allegoric subjects in
commemoration of great events ; he was also an engraver. Jan van der Hoecke, who
was born at Antwerp in 1598, and died there in 1651, is a better artist than most of
these with whom we have placed him ; he painted historical and portrait subjects, but
succeeded better in the latter. Good specimens of his style in this branch of art are two
portraits, in the Belvedere at Vienna, o{ Anluhikc Ltvpo/il M'ilhclm, Stallholder of the
Spanish Netherlands, his liberal patron. Pieter van Mol, who was bom at Antwerp in
1599, and died in Paris in 1650, was a somewhat unsuccessful imitator of Rubens.
Justus van Egmont, who was born at Leyden in 1602, assisted his master in his
pictures ; he also painted a few, mostly portraits, without assistance. He worked in
Paris for Louis XIII. and Louis XIV., but died at Antwerp in 1674. Gerard, or,
according to the Liggeren (records) of the Antwerp duild, Wilhelm van Herp, was born
at Antwerp in 1604 ; he painted chiefly genre subjects, and sometimes l)ii)lical pictures.
A work by him representing Monks distributing braid, was formerly exhibited in the
National Gallery. Frans Wouters, who was born at Liere in Brabant in 16 14, and
died at Antwerj) at the age of forty-five, imitated Vandyck in colour and Rubens in
design ; he painted mostly landscapes with figures. Rubens left several other pupils,
but none of them arc of sufficient importance to warrant a mention here.
We must now return to the painters of Flanders, who were not pupils of Rubens,
though a few of them were imitators. We ha\e placetl them under the school of
Antwerp, although some were not born in that cit\-. Lie'ge claims to be the birthplace
of several good painters. It would be hojieless, howe\ er, to attempt to class each set of
artists under a different heading ; therefore we must content ourselves with keeping
tlieni under the school of .Vntwerp, the parent school of Flanders of this period.
David Teniers, called " the elder" to distinguish him from his more illustrious son,
was born at Antwerj) in 1582. He learned first from his fatlier Julian Teniers, and is
also said to have studied under Rubens, but Dr. Waagen and other critics can see no
trace of the great master's style in his works. When still young, Teniers went to Rome,
where he made the ac(|uaintance of his fellow-countryman, Kl/dieimer, from whom he
obtained his most important instruction in art. After a lengthened residence in Rome,
Teniers returned to .Antwerp, where he painted until his death in 1649. The Dresden
Gallery contains seven works by him, all landscapes or genre pictures, his favourite
subjects. The National Gallery possesses three of these Landscapes with figures,
bequeatheil by the late Mr. Wynn Fllis. A picture of the Srccn Works of Mercy by
him is in the church of St. Paul, Antwerp. He executed numerous mythologic and
historic works, but scarcely with eijual success. He was also an engraver.
312 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1650.
Daniel Zegers, or Segers — called " Pater Segers," or " The Jesuit of Antwerp " — was
born at Antwerp, in 1590. He studied under Jan Breughel at the time when that
artist was a flower-painter. In 1614 Zegers entered the convent of the Jesuits, and,
during his novitiate, laid aside his brush. On the completion of his probation he was
permitted to visit Rome, where he made a study of every flower which fell in his way.
When he returned to Antwerp Zegers became very famous as a flower-painter. He died
there in the convent of the Jesuits in 1661. Of his pictures, the Dresden Gallery con-
tains six, and numerous specimens are in most of the public galleries of the Continent,
Zegers was, without exception, the best flower-painter of his time. His works fre-
quently represent a Virgin ami Child surrounded with flowers. The figures are some-
times executed by other artists Rubens, Diepenbeck, and Erasmus Quellinus.
Zegers was much patronized even by monarchs. " In painting red roses he employed
colours which have remained unchanged, while the roses of every other flower-painter
have either turned violet or have faded altogether " (Kugler's ' Handbook ').
Peter Snayers was born at Antwerp in 1593. He studied painting under Hendrik
van Balenand Sebastian Vrancx. In 15 12 Snayers entered the guild at Antwerp; but
in 1526, on being appointed court-painter to the Archduke Albert, he removed to
Brussels. His patron not only employed him to paint for himself, but also sent several
of his pictures to the Spanish Court, and thus gained him many commissions.
Snayers is chiefly famous for his battle-scenes and also for his landscapes. The Dresden
Gallery contains five of his works ; and he is well represented in the Belvedere Gallery
at Vienna. He died in 1670 (?).
Adriaan van Utrecht, who was born at Antwerp in 1599, is a master whose works
are seen in nearly every gallery on the Continent. He was a pupil of one Hermann de
Ryt ; he painted chiefly game and fowls, alive and dead, flowers, and kitchen scenes.
He worked for some time for Piiilip IV. in Spain. He died at Antwerp in 1652 or 1653.
Jacob van Oost "the elder" was born at Bruges in 1600. He first directed his
attention towards the works of Rubens, but when twenty-one years of age v.ent to
Rome, where he studied the great Italian painters, more especially Annibale Carracci,
a trace of whose style was henceforth always visible in Van Cost's works. About 1628
he returned to Bruges, where he became justly famous as a historical and portrait-
painter. He executed numerous pictures for the churches of his native place, and
other cities and towns of Flanders. In 1633 he was elected Dean of the Corporation
of Painters in Bruges; he had been made a master of the company in 162 1. He
died in his native city in 1671. His pictures sometimes remind us of the works
of Vandyck and Lely, and nearly always of those of Annibale Carracci. The churches
o f Flanders possess his best works.
Jan Fyt, the celebrated animal painter^, was born at Antwerp in 1609. Fle studied
art under an unimportant artist, Jan van der Berch. In 1629 he entered the guild at
Antwerp. He died in that city in 1661. Fyt is, without exception, next to Snyders,
the finest of the Flemish animal painters. He especially excelled in painting the
fur of animals and the plumage of birds. His knowledge of anatomy was perhaps
not so good as Snyders',- but in taste for colour and in execution he is quite that
master's equal. Fyt's stfll-life subjects are perhaps his best works. Of the continental
galleries those of Munich and Vienna possess excellent specimens. ^The Dresden Gallery
has five of these Dead-game pictures. We may also notice Two Dogs sleeping, in the
Antwerp Gallery, which has several good_ works by this artist. Though there is no
DA\MD TENTERS, THE YOTtnGER.
P^i^^ 31:
A.D. 1650.] DAVID TENIERS. 313
picture by him in the National Gallery, Fyt is not badly represented in England. His
works are freciuently seen in private collections. Jan Fyt sometimes painted in
animals and flowers in conjunction with other artists. He was also an engraver.
David Teniers, the younger, ** the Proteus of Painting," was born at Antwerp in
1610. History is somewhat silent in regard to this artist. He received his first
and ])rol)ably his only personal instruction from his father. Some writers say that he
studied under Adriaan Ikouwer, and also under Rubens. In 1632-33, he was admitted
into the guild of Antwerp. In 1637, Teniers married a daughter of Velvet Breughel,
whose style he to some extent imitated. In 1656, he married his second wife, Isabella
de Fren, daughter of the Secretary of State for Brabant. Teniers was first noticed by
the Archduke Leopold William, Governor of the Spanish Netherlands, who made him his
court painter, groom of the chamber {ajuda de la cdmard), and appointed him super-
intendent of his picture gallery. Teniers, on becoming rich and famous, was enabled
to entertain noble company in the ch teau of " Dry Toren " (three towers), which he
purchased at Perck, a small village between Vilvorde and MechUn. Here Don Juan,
the natural son of Philip IV. of Spain, spent some time with the great painter as a friend
and pupil. A portion of this fine old chateau, which Teniers loved to represent in his
pictures, still remains, but has degenerated into a Hirmhouse. Teniers had other
patrons besides the Governor of the Netherlands and Don Juan. In the North,
Christina of Sweden valued his works very highly, and paid for them magnificently.
In the South, Philip IV. of Si)ain, the most fervent lover of art, admired them so much,
and required so many that he was able to form a whole gallery of them. Teniers
enjoyed, though not to the extent of Rubens ami Vandyck, the friendshi]^ of kings and
nobles. From " Dry Torcn " he frequently paid visits to Mechlin antl Antwerp.
He died in the latter city in 1694, and was buried in the church of Perck, where no
stone marks his resting-place, and no epitaph records his virtues or his talents.
It is said that Louis XIV., at the sight of some pictures by Daviil Teniers, which
were i)resented to him at Versailles, cried out impatiently, in apparent disgust :
"■' E/nJ>ortcz vitc ces magots V General taste has not ratified this condemnation
absurdly i)ronounced by the great king. Princes now seek no less eagerly than
plebeians for these same pictures. Where is Teniers not to be found ? At Madrid,
there are sixty pictures by his hand ; at St. Petersburg, forty-seven ; at Dresden,
twenty-three ; at Vienna, twenty-three also ; at Munich, fourteen ; in the National
Gallery, fifteen ; and it would be almost impossible to count those he has left else-
where, after fruitful labour as an artist during more than fifty years. " To contain all
my pictures," said he, " two leagues of galleries would be required." His best works,
however, come neither at the beginning nor end of his long career ; they belong rather
to what is called his silver period. Thorc says correctly of Teniers, " the pictures
belonging to his middle life arc the best. In his youth he followed his father too
inii)liritly ; in his old age his imagination became somewhat stereotyped, and his hand
somewhat heavier. Teniers is like some of the fishes he i)ainted so well, excellent
between the head and tail."
In the Louvre he cannot be thoroughly ai)preciated. Several of the fifteen pictures
which represent him arc merely what are termed his aftir-dinncr works, because
Teniers began and completed them between his evening repast and sleep. Cer-
tainly his Tanptadon of St. Anthony is full of ingenious drolleries delicately finished.
Doubtless, also, the Feasts, I it/age Jhinees. and Tarerti Scenes which he so much loved
314 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1650.
to represent, his Peter denying Christ (the scene of which is, strangely enough, repre-
sented as taking place amidst a corps of Walloon Infantry), and especially his Prodigal
Son — all these show in their exquisite perfection his profound acquaintance with the
principles of art which effectually conceals the art employed, and his touch, always so
recognisable, that Greuse said : " Show me a pipe, and I will tell you if the smoker is
by Teniers."
At Munich is the great Italian Fair, measuring three yards by four. At Vienna, in
the Belvedere, the Sacrifice of Isaac. In the gallery of the Archduke Leopold the mag-
nificent Fete de Sablons ; and in the Esterhazy Gallery the Seven Works of Mercy.
At the two extremities of artistic Europe, Madrid and St. Petersburg, the only difficulty
is to choose among the numerous* masterpieces. In the Museo del Rey we may
mention, besides the three Temptations, the King drinking, a charming table scene ; or
several Festivals, amongst which there is one dated 1637, of extraordinary size and
wonderful colouring ; or the twelve pictures of the same size illustrating the story of
Rinaldo and Armida.
There is also a still more perfect work. This is called a Picture Gallery visited by
Gentlemen. In signing this painting Teniers wrote after his name Pintor de la Camera
(for cdmara) de S. A. S. The explanation of this subject and of this Spanish inscrip-
tion is as follows : — The Archduke Leopold William, Governor of the Netherlands for
Spain, with whom Teniers was very intimate, had commissioned our painter to compose
for him, not merely an amateur's cabinet, but the gallery of a prince. When he had
fulfilled this delicate commission, Teniers conceived the idea of perpetuating the
memory of it by a picture. In it we see the archduke, in company with several other
gentlemen, entering the gallery, where Teniers is presenting him with some drawings
spread out on the table. From top to bottom the walls are covered with the pictures
of his choice, faithfully copied, in microscopic proportions, but in which may be yet
recognised, not merely the subject, but even the touch of each master. As for the
figures, which are portraits, they have as much truth as, and far more nobleness of style
than, the usual personages of Teniers. There is no need to dwell any more, on the
value and importance of this singular work.
At the Hermitage of St. Petersburg there is the same difficulty in choosing, and the
same necessity for brevity. We must, then, merely mention a Kitchen, full of game,
fish, vegetables, and fruit, in which Teniers has painted his father as an old blind
fisherman, and himself as a falconer ; a beautiful arid curious View of the Chateau of
Trois-Tours {Dry Toren), where he studied at his ease his usual models, the Brabangon
peasants, where he could, as Fontenelle said, " take nature at home ; " and, lastly, the
great picture, four feet high by seven or eight wide, which was painted in 1643 for the
Guild of Archers, and which was called the Archers of Antwerp. In the large square of
the town, where, among a crowd of on-lookers, the various guilds of trade are defiling
in parade dress, this guild of archers is assembled. Forty-five personages, from eight to
ten inches in height, are collected in the foreground. All are finished with the most
minute care. The arrangement of the crowd in the distance is wonderful, as well as
the rendering of the details. The air appears really to circulate among the animated
groups, which seem to possess life and movement. Descamps was right to call this
work " the finest painting of Teniers," for the fruitful pencil of this master never pro-
duced anything more perfect. During the First Empire, Cassel, under compulsion,
yielded it up to Malmaison, and Malmaison sold it to the Hermitage.
The National Gallery has no less than fifteen pictures by Teniers, of his usual
THE TKMP-IATION (>| ST AM HoW r,v I .,<,,. T-siFt •
Ih thr Lptr.'tr
A.D. 1650.] DAVID TENIERS. 3 '5
subjects. We may mention his own chateau of Dry Tor en ; the Four Seasons; and
the Fete mix Chaudrons, beciueathed to tlie gallery by the late Mr. Wynn Ellis.
Teniers has left everywhere Village Feasts, Smoking Scenes, Country Inns, Labora-
tories, S/iops, and Kitchens. But whatever amount of drollery and gaiety he imi)arted
to these everyday scenes, he gave as much hcart-rentling sadness to another class of
subjects, which was also brought before him only too frequently, the Horrors of War,
where he depicts in the most lively way all the insolence and cruelty of the soldiery.
Lastly, among the infinite variety of his compositions we must not forget certam comic
scenes in which monkeys and cats are the actors, and in which more than one sly
satire is conveyed. In Teniers everything deserves attention and praise.
Teniers had numerous pupils, who, though they succeeded in imiuiting his work
to some extent, are far inferior to him in real art. Of these imitators we may mention
the following :
Abraham Teniers, his brother, who was born at Antwerp in 1629, received instruc-
tion from his father and his elder brother, whose manner he closely imitated ; he died
in 167 1. Joas van Craesbecke, who was born at Brussels in 1608, and who died in
1688 (?), studied under Adriaan Brouwer, whose style he combined with that of Teniers.
His pictures are very scarce. David Ryckaert, who was born at Antwerp in 16 12,
received instruction in art from his father, but directed his attention towards the style
of Teniers, which he imitated with very fair success. His pictures are usually of genre
subjects. The galleries of Dresden, Vienna and Berlin, contain specimens of his art
He died at Antwerp in 1661-62. Frans Duchatel, who was born at Brussels in 1625,
studied under Teniers in Flanders, and under Van der jSIculen in France ; he closely
imitated the former master. The Map of Valenciennes in the Antwerp Gallery, there
ascribed to Teniers, is attributed by some critics to Duchatel. He died in 1679.
Gonzales Coques — sometimes called Cocx — was born at Antwerp in 16 14. In
1626 he was apprenticed to Pieter Breughel, and in the following year entered the guild
of St. Luke in his native city. On leaving Breughel he studied under Ryckaert. In
1640, he was made a master of the guild; in 1648, he married Ryckaert's daughter.
He served as Dean of the Corporation twice — once in 1655 and again in 1680. He
died wealthy and honoured at Antwerp in 1684.
Coques has been called " the little Vandyck," because of his partiality for the style
of that artist, and the smallness of his works. Coiiues' pictures are not commonly
seen in the continent;U galleries. His best works are in England. The National
Gallery has a fine Family Portrait; a subject in which Cocjues excelled rather than
in single portraits. In the Bridgewater Gallery there are two full-length portraits of
C/iar/es I. and Henrietta Maria. The Dresden Gallery, the Gallery at the Hague, and
the Dubus Collection at Brussels contain specimens of Coques' painting. Like Vandyck,
he is famous for the representation of the human hand ; and the dogs which he intro-
duced into his portrait pictures are executed with skill.
Wallerant Vaillant was born at Lille in 1623; studied at Antwerp witli Erasmus
Quellinus ; and became one of the best portrait-painters of the time. In 1658, on the
coronation of the Emperor Leopold, Vaillant painted the monarch's portrait ; this
work was highly praised, and opened to the artist a brilliant course of success. A
collection of portraits— executed in chalk— of eminent personages who were present
at the coronation, is now divided between the galleries of Berlin and Dresden.
Vaillant painted also the portraits of several eminent persons at the French Court—
3i6 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1650.
whither he had gone at the invitation of Marshal Grammont — among others, those
of the Queen and the Queen Mother. On leaving Paris, Vaillant took up his residence
at Amsterdam, where he resided till his death in 1677. He executed besides
])ortraits numerous genre and historic pictures ; he was also an engraver in the newly
discovered process of mezzotint, the secret of which he was shown by Prince Rupert
himself. Vaillant's paintings are rarely seen in public galleries.
Pieter van der Faes — known to us as Sir Peter Lely — was born at Soest in
Westphalia in 1618. His father obtained the name of Lely, because he lived in
a perfumer's shop the sign of which was a lily. Young Lely studied for two years
under Pieter de Grebberat Haarlem, and, after the death of Vandyck in 1641, came
to England, where he became the best portrait-painter of the time. But we miss the
truth to nature which is such a charm in Vandyck's pictures. Neither is his colouring
so pure as that of the great master. He flatters his sitters as a rule, and not content
with their natural beauty, loads them with magnificent head-dresses and garments.
Like Vandyck, he is famous for the success with which he represei^ted the human hand.
Lely managed always to keep in favour with the ruling power ; he painted first
for Charles L, then for Cromwell, and then again for the monarchy under Charles H.,
by whom he was knighted. Of his best portraits we may notice his celebrated
Beauties of the Court of Charles II., at Hampton Court Palace. In the summer
months, Lely resided at Kew, and in the winter in Drury Lane. In 1680, while
painting a portrait of the Duchess of Somerset, he was seized with a fit of apoplexy,
which caused his death. He was buried in the old church of St. Paul's, Covent Garden,
where there was a monument with his bust by Gibbons and an epitaph by Flatman ;
but they were unfortunately burned with the church in 1795.
Pieter Boel was born at Antwerp in 1625. He studied first under Frans Snyders,
and then completed his education with his uncle Cornelius de Wael, in Genoa. He
must, however, be considered a disciple of the former, for it is to that painter's works
that Boel's pictures are most closely allied. His works are unfortunately scarce ; they
are rarely seen in public collections. The galleries of Munich and Antwerp contain
a few specimens. Boel was also an engraver. He died in 1680 (?).
Jacob van Oost, "the younger," who was born at Bruges in 1637, after studying
with his father, for some time, at Bruges, and a residence of two years in Paris, went
to Rome to perfect his style. On his return to Bruges, Van Oost assisted his fither
for a short periotl, but soon made up his mind to try his fortune in Paris. On his way
thither in 1673, happening to stay a short time at Lille, the portraits which he executed
gained him such praise, that he determined to take up his residence in that city, where
he remained till 17 13, when he returned to his native place ; but only to die a short
time after his arrival. Van Oost, the younger, painted much in the style of his father ;
he was especially successful in portraiture ; so much so, in fact, that his works in that
])ranch of art have been compared with those of Vandyck.
Jacob Huysman was born, in 1656, at Antwerp, where he studied under Backerell.
During the reign of Charles II., he came to England, and became renowned both in
portraiture and his!orical pieces. A Portrait of Izaak Walton, by him, was formeriy
exhibited in the National Gallery. Huysman frequently painted the Queen's portrait
both as a portrait, and also to represent a Venus or a Madonna. He died in 1696.
Pieter van Bloemen — called Standaart — was born at Antwerp in 1649 (?). He
A.D. 1650.] .S/A' I'RTER LELY. 317
went, when still youni,', to Rome ; where he remained some considerable time —
sufficient to become imbued with an entirely Italian style of painting. His pictures
frecjuently represent skirmishes of cavalry, whence his name of Standaart, and land-
scapes ornamented with tii^ures and architecture. Some time after his return to
.Antwcrii, he was made Director of the Academy. He died in his native city in 17 19.
FRANCO-FLEMISH PAINTERS.
We may here mention a few artists who all copied the French style of jjainting of
the jjeriod — -more especially in regard to landscape. It will be seen that several of
them became disciples of Caspar Poussin, at Rome. They stand in a half-way position
between the painters of the Flemish revival under Rubens and the new school which
has lately arisen in Belgium.
Philippe de Champagne, who was born at Bruges in 1602, went, when but nineteen
years of age, to Paris, where he studied under Duchesne. In 1627 he^jetumed to
Bruges, but shortly afterwards, on hearing of the death of his former master, returned
to Paris, where he married that painter's daughter, and completed his unfinished works
in the gallery of the Luxembourg Palace. Philippe de Champagne henceforth resided
in Paris. In 1648, when Louis XIV. founded the French Academy, he was made one
of the original members. After having spent the chief part of his artist's life in
Paris, he died there in 1674 ; and his greatest works have remained in France.
In the Louvre there are the Legend of St. Gen'osius and St. Frotasius^ a Last
Supper, a cold imitation of the celebrated one by Leonardo da Vinci, a Dead Christ,
lying on a winding-sheet, and also the Education of Achilles, shooting with a bow
and in chariot races. In the regular and symmetric arrangement, in the cliastened
drawing, in the calm and pale colouring, we feel the systematic avoidance of Rubens,
we foresee the Battles of Alexander.
Philippe de Champagne, as a portrait painter, is assuredly greater than as a histori-
cal painter. His faults are less sensible, his good qualities more prominent. His
portrait of Louis XIII., who, notwithstandmg the armour, and the laurels of victory
with which he is crowned, still looks timid and ill-tempered ; anil that of Richelieu,
r Eminence rouge, who, on the contrary, is strong, imperious, ami powerful under a
simple gown of silk — are happy anil complete historical figures. We may also i)raise
unreservedly the /Vr//-(7//<y<z nrj /(//(? Z<r/A', who is supposed to have been the wife
of the barrister Antoine .\rnauld ; that of the amiable Arnauld d'Andilly, their eldest
son, who was called I' A mi universel ; those of the architects Claude Perrault :^ni\ Jules
Hardoin Mansart, in one frame ; and His own at the age of sixty-six, painted after the
Jesuits had driven him, as well as his friends, from the monastery of the Jansenists,
where he had retired. Lastly, in the 'Iu<o Nuns of Port-Royal, one ill, the other at
prayer — in which Philippe de Champagne has celebrated the cure, supposed to be
miraculous, of his daughter, the sister Sainte-Suzanne, by tiie mother Catherine Agnes
Arnauld— he certamly siiows the perfection to which his talent could attain. " Never,
perhaps," says M. Ch. Blanc, " has the expression of what is inexpressible been
carried to a greater height. Phiii])pe de Champagne rose in this picture, on the wings
of faith and love, to the highest llights of art." In the National (iallerv are Three
3i8 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1675..
Portraits of Cardinal de Richelieu— d. full face and two profiles, in one frame— painted
for the Roman sculptor, Mocchi, to make a bust from.
Jacques d'Arthois, the landscape-painter, was born at Brussels in 161 3. It is
probable that he studied under Jean Mertens, Lodewyck de Vadder, and Wildens.
Arthois' pictures are seen in most of the public galleries on the Continent : the Brussels
Gallery has four, the Dresden three, and Vienna two. His landscapes frequently have
incidents in them — generally of a biblical nature. Human figures are occasionally
painted in Arthois' pictures by Teniers, Zegers, Craeyers, and other painters, and
animals by Snayers. Pictures by Arthois are in several private collections in England.
He died after 1684 (A. Pinchart in Meyer's 'Lexikon').
Bartholet Flemael was born of poor parents at Lie'ge in 16 14. He first turned his
attention towards music, which he soon abandoned in favour of painting; he was
accordingly apprenticed to Gerard DoufFet, an artist of second-rate ability. In 1638,
Flemael had, by his own exertions, gained sufficient money to enable him to visit
Italy. He first went to Rome, where he assiduously studied the works of the old
masters. He then visited Florence, where he was much patronized by the Grand
Duke of Tuscany. From Florence, Flemael went to Paris, where he was equally
successful. In 1647 he returned to Lie'ge, and thenceforth chiefly resided in that city.
He was induced to pay a second visit to the French capital, where he executed works
for the king, and was made a member, and afterwards a professor, of the Royal
Academy; but he returned to his native Lie'ge, where he died in 1675. Flemael's
pictures present a mixture of the Roman and the French classic school ; his historical
pieces are especially in the style of the latter. His native city possesses several of
his best works. An ^neas preparing to leave Troy, by him, is in the Dresden Gallery.
Anton Frans van der Meulen was born at Brussels in 1634. He was apprenticed
to Pieter Snayers, under whom he learned his art. Some works of Van der Meulen
happening to come under the notice of Lebrun, the artist was, at his suggestion,
invited by Colbert to Paris. Van der Meulen was presented to Louis XIV., who
appointed him his painter, with a salary and apartments at the Gobelins.
Van der Meulen became one of the greatest historiographers of Louis XIV.
Whilst Lebrun celebrated in ancient allegories the great deeds of the great king,
Van der Meulen traced the plan, the details, the incidents, and, in his way, took the
portrait of these achievements. And he does not merely depict the warlike exploits
at which the king only assisted in state, attended by the whole court, including the
three queens in the same coach ; he relates exactly, even the familiar incidents of the
court, the hunting, at Versailles and the promenades at Marly. His pictures are
veritable annals, as interesting as those of St. Simon. It will sufhce to mention among
the tvventy-thiee pictures in the Louvre, the Taking of Difia?i, on the Meuse, and the
magnificent Entrance of Louis XIV. and Marie Therhe into Arras, in August, 1667.
Other works by him are in the galleries of Dresden and Munich ; there are also several
in England. It is probable that Van der Meulen, having married the niece of Lebrun,
— a co(|uette wlio troubled and shortened his life — painted the horses in the large
pictures of the all-powerful painter of the king. Van der Meulen died at Paris in 1690.
Gerard de Lairesse, the " Poussin of Belgium," who was born at Liege in 1640,
studied with his father, Regnier de Lairesse, an unimportant painter. He is also
supposed to have worked under Flemael, and studied Poussin through him. Lairesse
painted for some time at Utrecht, and then removed to Amsterdam, where he became
A.D. lyoo.] HUYSMANS.
319
very famous. In 1690 he unfortunately lost his sight, which he never recovered. He
(lied at Amsterdam in 17 11. Lairesse's works are executed in a classic style, with
much ability. An Apollo and t/te Muses on Mount Parnassus, by him, is in the
Dresden (".allery. He is said to have painted a picture of this subject in a single day.
Other i)ictures by Lairesse are in the Louvre and the BerHn Gallery. T\\q £>tat/i 0/
Ger/nanUus, in the Cassel Gallery, is by some considered to be his masterpiece.
Besides being an artist, Lairesse was an etcher and a writer on art. The most
important of his works, the "Groot Schilder Boek," was published, after his death, at
Amsterdam.
Jean Francois Millet, or Mil^— called Francisque— was born at Antwerp in 16 14.
His father was a Lrenchnian. He studied under one Laurent Kranck, whose daughter
he married when he was but eighteen years of age. Millet soon afterwards visited Paris,
where the Poussins became the object of his admiration and study. Millet is said to
have travelled to England. He died at Paris in 1680. He was also an engraver.
Cornells Huysmans was born at .Antwerp in 1648. His father, who was an
architect, died while he was still young, and he was placed under the care of Gaspar
de Wit. He soon left that master, and went to Brussels to enter the studio of Arthois,
from whom, and from nature, he learned the art of landscape-painting. The forest of
Soignes, near Brussels, was his favourite resort for study. Some time after his early
life, Huysmans removed to Mechlin, where he resided until his death in 1727. There
are pictures by him in the galleries of Munich, Brussels, Dresden and the Louvre.
He occasionally introduced cattle in his works, which are noticeable for their powerful
drawing and good colour.
Peter Rysbraek w^as born at Antwerp in 1657. He studied under Millet, whom he
accompanied to Paris, where he was well received. He admired the works of Gaspar
Poussin, whose style he imitated with tolerable success. In 1692 Rysbraek returned
to Antwerp, where he became justly fomous as a landscape-painter. He was made
Director of the Academy in 17 13. He is known to have been living at Antwerp as
late as 1720, and is supposed to have removed to Brussels and have died there in 1729.
Rysbraek's pictures are not commonly seen in public galleries. A Lamlscn/x, in the
Dresden Gallery— there attributed to Gaspar Poussin -is, in Kugler's ' Handbook,'
ascribed to Rysbraek. Besides paintings, he also executed numerous eneravin^s
Jan Frans van Bloemen— brother of Pieter van Bloemen, and called, from the
beauty of the distances in his landscapes, Orizonte— was born at Antwerp in 1C5S.
After he had received an elementary education in art in his native city, \'an Bloemen
went to Rome, where, next to nature, he studied the works of Gaspar Poussin. Many
of his works are still in the papal capital: \ienna, Dresden and Paris contain
specimens of his art. Van Bloemen died at Rome about the middle of the eighteenth
century. His foregrounds are in no respect ecjual to his distances, for whidi, as we
have mentioned, lie is justly famed.
320 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1850.
MODERN FLEMISH ART.
After the close of the seventeenth century, Flemish art was for a time forgotten,
nor did it revive until the time of the French painter David, and his school ; who, to
some extent, reanimated it. For many years there were no artists of great original
power, until, in the present century, a new master arose, who returned to the traditions
of the early Flemish masters, and created a new school which seems destined to
be lasting and of much importance.
Jean Auguste Henri Leys, who was born at Antwerp on the i8th of February 1815,
was intended for the church, and received an education befitting that profession. But
his early-pronounced love of art prevailed, and in 1830 he entered the studio of his
brother-in-law, M. de Braakeleer. Three years later. Leys produced a picture of a
Combat between a Grenadier and a Cossack., which was exhibited at Antwerp ; and at
Brussels, La Furie Espagnole, a work which excited much criticism. Henceforth
a brilliant career was opened to him. Commission followed commission, and honour
followed upon honour. In 1840 he was made knight of the order of Leopold. Four
years later he became a member of the Belgium Academy, \x\ 1867 he was created
commander of the order of Leopold, and soon after was made a member of the Legion
of Honour, and a baron. To the Paris Exhibition of 1855, he sent Les trentaines de
Bertcl de Haze, La Promenade hors des murs, and Le noiivcl An en Flandre — for which
works he received a medal of honour. In the London Exhibition of 1862, appeared,
among others of his works, parts of the series of pictures executed for the town hall of
Antwerp, illustrating the History of the Freedom of Belgium — a work which is well
known in England, as the greater part has been exhibited in the French Gallery, Pall
Mall. To this work— his masterpiece— the best years of Leys' unhappily too-short
life were devoted. He died on the 25th of August 1869, in the Rue de la Station,
since called in his honour " Rue de Leys " at Antwerp ; and there his body lay in state-
like that of Raphael— with his favourite work, Margaret and the Magistrates of AtitiverJ),
above his head. His body was followed to its last resting-place, the churchyard of
the village of Berchem, near Antwerp, by an immense concourse of his friends and
admirers.
Speaking of Leys, a writer in the ' Athenreum ' says, " He was a man who sought
beauty in the human figure and face for its own sake. He was ever regardful of time,
place, and circumstances. He was rather an historical and domestic illustrator, a
humorous and pathetic designer, than a student in the high and narrow realm of
heroical physical beauty. ... A fine, powerful, and variously-endowed colourist —
really a colourist in the true sense of the term. Baron Leys, despite the too often
crude and exaggerated flesh tints of his pictures, possessed the rare faculty in modern
art of harmonizing flesh with the tints of costumes, buildings, skies, and other
accessories."
The \\o\)\c work — that of reforming art in Belgium — which Leys began, is still
successfully carried on by his pupils, in Belgium and elsewhere.
LUC JACOBSZ.
CT.rcAS VAN Leyden.)
Page 321.
A.D. 1400.] DUTCH SCHOOL. 321
BOOK V.
THE DUTCH school:.
TIIK great Chancellor Bacon has saiJ that art is man addcil to nature, "■ Ars rst
homo adJitus iiatiim." This good definition applies especially to the painters
of Holland. All the artists of this country appear to have confined themselves
to loving, understanding and representing nature, each one adding his own feelings and
tastes — in fact, adding himself. To be convinced of this we have only to visit several
parts of Holland, at different hours, and in different weather. When, on a dark cloudy
day, we come upon a barren landscape where nature displays all the harshness and gloom
of the north — where no flocks, no living creature is to be seen, but only a ravine, a
waterfall, a fallen tree, with, perhaps, an isolated cabin in the background — we re-
cognise at once the lover of melancholy, Jacob Ruysdael. If, again, soon after sunrise,
we find ourselves on the banks of a river, with a white sail gliding on its surface, a
church and the houses of a village rising beyond, and fat cows grazing in the rich
meadows, whilst, through the broken clouds, the morning sun floods every object
below with its glorious light, we exclaim at once, " Here is the lover of light, Albert
Cuyp." Later in the day, during the noontide calm, we perceive a peaceful verdant
orchard, where every tree throws its shadow over the turf, and an animal — either an
ox, a horse, an ass, a goat, or a sheep — rests in its most natural attitude in the shade
under every tree. Here there is no difiiculty in at once recognising Paul Potter. In
the evening, jierhaps, we come to a smiling landscape in which fat cattle are grazing,
whilst the shepherds sing to their rustic Amaryllis, accompanied by the sound of their
pipes. In short, we come upon an idyll such as might be written by a Dutch Virgil,
and we behold at once Adriaan van der Velde. Still later in the evening, when the
moon has risen on a throne of black clouds, with her disk reflected in the motionless
surface of a pond, surrounded by a few cottages concealed in the shadow of the alder
and poplar trees, we cannot mistake the favourite scene of the painter and poet of the
night. Van der Neer. We now come to the seashore, where a sheet of water, calm
and transparent, extends as far as eye can reach ; on it are vessels, possibly the dark
fleet of the North Sea, tormenting some ship in distress — this is Willem van der Velde.
A river flowing on towards the horizon, reflecting the monotonous colour of a dull,
grey, misty sky, recalls Van Goyen. A frozen canal becomes for the time the
highroad, and covered with passers-by on their skates, reminds us of Isaac van
Ostade.
2 T
ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1450.
We have only spoken of what a traveller must see at every step — sky, earth and
water and have only gone through landscape and marine painters. But truth is no
less striking or true, when the subject is the inhabitants of the country, and man is as
well rendered by the Dutch artist as animals and plants. Doubtless, owing to the
caprices of fashion — which reneivs almost every year our visible exteriors, leaving only
complete identity to animals and things — we shall not be able to find in the streets of
Antwerp the Night Watch of Rembrandt ; the Bafiquet of Van der Heist in the town-
hall : the long satin robes of Terburg; the plumed gendemen of Wouvermans ; or the
drunken peasants of Adriaan van Ostade. Yet, if in passing through a city we see
a youno- firl leaning with an air of curiosity over the old balustrades of a window
surrounded Avith ivy and geraniurns, we may still recognise Gerard Dou. In the
peaceful interior of a Gothic house, where an old woman is spinning, and which
is li"-hted up by the warm rays of the sun, we see Pieter de Hoogh. The canal
bordered with trees, in a clean town, ever wearing a holiday appearance, where every
stone in the streets may be counted, every tile on the roofs, and every brick in tlie
walls, reminds us of Van der Heyden ; and the vegetable market at Amsterdam still
testifies to the fidelity of Metzu,
It is very evident, then, that we have come into the kingdom of naturalism, after
having quitted the domains of spiritualism in Italy. We have come to Protestant art,
the art of the people, after having left that of the temples and palaces. " An artist,"
wrote Paul Delaroche, " must compel nature to pass through his intellect and his
heart." This is what the Dutch have done. Besides this, the perfection alone of the
work would be sufficient to move the soul, even if it were only by admiration. A dead
tree by Ruysdael may touch the heart ; a cow by Paul Potter may speak eloquently ;
a kitchen by Kalf may contain a poem. When Pascal said : " How vain is painting,
which excites our admiration for the likeness of things the original of which we do not
admire ! " he was, perhaps, a philosopher, and especially a Christian ; but he was not
an artist. In short, the Dutch painters have thrown themselves as entirely into their
small paintings as the Italian painters into their enormous sheets of canvas, and they
deserve no less the saying of Bacon — Ars est homo additiis naturm.
It was during the War of Independence, after the confederation of the " Beggars,"
after the Union of Utrecht, when the seven United Provinces had escaped from the
Spanish yoke and from Catholicism, that Dutch art sprang up, at the same time as
Holland itself The author of the Lettre sur la Curiositc says : " It was the period
of success in everything. After having at once rescued its soil from the sea, and its
faith from the Inquisition, it had, with no other force but perseverance, triumphed over
all its despots, given a liberator to England, and humiliated the most insensate pride
that ever swelled the breast of a king. Holland then opened an asylum to the boldest
thinkers, a study for all the investigations of science, and founded a national school of
painting ; a rare honour which belongs only to this little kingdom and to Italy of
glorious memory."
An astonishing sight was then seen, even more astonishing than Italy in its golden
age. This little country, stolen from the ocean, this country of herdsmen, gave to the
world an incredible number of great artists. Between the birth of Frans Plals in
1584 and that of Jan van Huysum in 1682, there is not even the interval of a century.
And yet it was during this time that all the celebrated painters of the Dutch school
were born and flourished. In less than fifty years, there appear — around and
immediately following the immortal son of the l.eyden miller, Rembrandt van Rijn —
A.D. isoo.] EARLY DUTCH PAINTERS. 3-\?
Gerard Honthorst, ]\\\ D.ivid de Heem, Keyser, Albert Cuyp, Adriaan Brouwer,
Gerard Terburg, Wynants, Philip Koningh, the two Ostades, the two Boths, Van der
Heist, Gerard Dou, Metzu, the two Ruysdaels, the two Van der Neers, the two
Wouvemians, the two Weenix, Fyt, Pynacker, Bcrghem, Paul Potter, Packhuyscn, Pol,
Maas, Moucheron, the two Van der Veldcs, the two Mieris, Pieter de Hoogh, Hobbema,
Karel Dujardin, Hondekoeter, Jan Steen, Netscher, Schalken, Van der Heyden, and
many others.
Before touching on these celebrated men, we must, however, give some slight
record of the earlier masters, some of whom lived in the fifteenth century, and whose
works we frequently meet with in the public galleries of Holland.
Albrecht van Ouwater must be mentioned, though no work by him is now remaining,
for he was the founder of a Dutch school of painting at Haarlem. Van Mander notices
several of his works — then existing — and mentions him as an artist who excelled in
representing hands and feet, drapery and landscapes. Ouwater flourished probably in
the early part of the fifteenth century.
Geertgen van St. Jans — called also Geraid of Haailem — received his name from
the monastery of the knights of St. John at Haarlem, where he chiefly resided. He
studied art under Albrecht van Ouwater, and is mentioned with great jjraise by Van
Mantler, who says that his works were greatly admired by Albrecht Diirer when he
visited Haarlem. Two pictures in the Vienna Gallery are attributed to Geertgen ; one
represents the LiXctU of the bones of St. John the Baptist, and the other is a /*/VA/.
Geertgen died when but twenty-eight years of age (according to Van Mander). He
flourished towards the end of the fifteenth century.
Hieronjnnus van Aeken or Agnen— commonly called Jerom Bosch, from his birth-
place, Hcrtogenbosch, was born in 1460. His works, often weird and fantastic, some-
times reach the demoniacal. A Last Jndgtnent by him is in the Berlin Gallery. The
Madrid Museum contains several of his works. It is said that Philip H. of
Spain so much admired Van Aeken's painting that he had an altar-piece by him
l)erpetually in his oratory. 'I'his artist died in 15 16.
Coraelis Engelbrechtsen or Engelbertsz, who was born at Leyden in 146S, has
only left us one authentic work. It is in the town-hall of his native city, and represents,
in the centre, the Crucifixion, and at the sides the Sacrifice of Abraham and the
Erection of the Brazen Serpent. He, however, deserves notice as the instructor of
Lucas van Leyden. Engelbrechtsen died at Leyden in 1533. He was probably the
first artist of Leyden who painted in oil. A Motlur and Child, in the National (iallery,
is said to be by him. Many of his pictures were destroyed by the iconoclasts in the
sixteenth century.
Jan Mostaert was born at Haarlem in 1474. He studied art under one Jacob
van Haarlem, a piinter of little note, in tliat city. Mostaert was for eighteen years
painter-in-ortiinary to Margaret of .\ustria. He died at his birth-place in 1555 or 1556.
A Mater Dolorosa, in the church of Notre Dame at Bruges, is a good specimen of his
art. He was also a successful portrait-painter. Two authentic portraits by him
are in the Antwerp Museum. A I'iri^in and Child, in the National Gallery, is
attributed to him. In style Mostaert is similar to the early painters of Bruges.
Luc Jacobsz— commonly known as Lucas van Leyden —was born at Leyden in
1494. He studied art under l-'.ngelbreclitsen. and later in life had the advantage of
324
ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS.
[A.D. 1525.
the friendship of several great artists. At Middelburg he was a companion of
Mabuse, whose style he sometimes copied, and at Antwerp he knew Quintin Matsys
and Albrecht Diirer. He was wont to travel about the country in grand style, and at
♦ whatever city he stopped he gave a dinner to his fellow painters. On one occasion at
Middelburg he came to table in " a gorgeous robe of yellow silk that shone like gold /'
but Mabuse, not to be outdone in magnificence by a foreigner, appeared in a coat
of real cloth of gold. It is said that the excesses in which Lucas indulged hastened
his death. He died at the early age of thirty-nine, in 1533.
As he spent more of his time as an engraver than a painter, Lucas van Leyden's oil-
pictures are very rare. A Last Judgment, in the town-hall of Leyden, a Crucifixion of
Christy in the Munich Gallery, and ^.' Card Forty at JVilton House, in the possession
" DER EULENSPIEGEL." — FROM AN ENGRAVING BY LUCAS VAN LEYDEN.
of the Earl of Pembroke, are specimens ot his style as a painter. Of his engravings
Bartsch mentions no less than one hundred and seventy-four. Some of them are of
great merit, and others are rare on account of the youth of the artist at the time ot
their execution, A Temptation of St. Anthony, in the British Museum, was engraved
when he was no more than fifteen years old. His '' EulenspiegeV is, prized more
from its scarcity than for any particular merit. There are not more than four or five
impressions in existence.
Ja,n Schoreel was born at Schoreel, near Alkmaar, in 1495. He studied first
under an unknown master in his birth-place, and then at Amsterdam. Attracted
by the fame of Mabuse, whose pupil he is usually considered, he went to Utrecht.
A.D. I550.] EARLY DUTCH PAINTERS. 325
Schoreel afterwards stayed a short time at Nuremberg, and on leaving that town
travelled tlirough Italy to the Holy Land. On his return to Italy in 1522, he found
that his fellow-countryman Adrian VI. had just obtained possession of the papal chair.
The pope sat to him for his portrait, and appointed him superintendent of the works of
art in the Vatican. On the death of his patron in the following year, Schoreel returned
to his native land, and established himself at Utrecht, where he was made prebend of
the church of St. Mary, and where he was much patronized — especially by the family
of Lochorst — until his death in 1562. His best works are a Virgin and Child, in the
town-hall of Utrecht ; a series of Biblical suhjtxts executed in tempera, in the church of
AN'armenhuizen, near Alkmaar ; and a Repose in Egypt, and a Portrait of a Lady, both
in the National Gallery, As a painter Schoreel cannot be said to be the pupil of any
particular master. He copied successively, Mabuse, Diirer, Raphael and Michelangelo ;
yet his style is to a certain extent original. He was the first to introduce the luilian
style into Holland, and can boast of having instructed Antonio Moro. Besides being
a j)ainter, Schoreel was a poet and a musician, and he is said to have spoken five
different languages — doubtless accjuired in his travels.
Pieter Aertszen — called Lange-Peer — was born at Amsterdam in 1507, according
to Zani and other writers ; some say in 15 17. He learned the rudiments of his art
from one Allaert Claessen. He first painted genre pictures with much success, but
subsequently turned his attention to historical subjects, which he treated in a somewhat
realistic manner. In 1 5 73 he joined the Cxuild of Painters at Antwerp ; where he executed
many works; he died at his birth-place in 1573. When Michael Coxie was asked to
paint an altar-piece for a church at Amsterdam, he gave the citizens of that city the
same answer that Titian made to the Bergamaschi — that while they had such a good
painter in their own town they had no reason to seek foreigners. Titian spoke of
Moroni — Coxie of Aertszen. Several works whicli this artist executed were destroyed
during his life by the iconoclasts. Of the remaining specimens of his art, we may
mention a Crucifixion, in the Antwerp Museum, and a Christ bearing ihc Cross, in
the Berlin Museum, Aertszen left three sons, all of whom were painters,
Pieter Lastmann was born at Haarlem, according to several good authorities, in
1562 ; butVosmaer, with apparent reason, places the date of his birth in 1582, Last-
mann is said to have studied under Cornelis Cornelissen. In 1604 he went to Rome,
where he improved his knowledge of chiaroscuro — his chief characteristic. Soon after
his return to his native country, he was summoned to Copenhagen to execute
paintings for a church. He died in 1649. He had the honour of imparting instruction
to Rembrandt, but though we occasionally find traces of Lastmann's style in the works
of that master, it is probable that he did not remain with him for any lengtheneil
period. A Holy Family in the Berlin Gallery, and a Massacre of the Innocents in the
Brunswick Museum are fiiir specimens of Lastmann's art.
Hendrik Cornelius Vroom, the earliest Dutch painter of marine subjects, was born
at Haarlem in 1566. Having learned the rudiments of his art from his fiither-in-law,
who was a painter, he went to Rotterdam, and thence to Seville, where he resided a
short time with a fellow-countryman. From Spain Vroom went to Italy, and travelling
through Florence, visited Rome, where he stayed for two years, and was patronized by
Cardinal de' Medici. From Rome he went to Venice, and thence through Milan
and Paris back to Haarlem. Soon afterwards he again started on his travels, making
Spain, as before, the object of his first visit, but was prevented from reaching that
326 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1600.
country by a great storm. A picture of the tempest, which he painted in Portugal,
estabUshed his reputation as a marine artist. In 1601 Vroom was employed by Francis
Spiering to make designs for the tapestry, which that master had engaged to execute for
the Earl of Nottingham, Lord High Admiral, in commemoration of the defeat of the
Spanish Armada. Vroom soon afterwards returned to Haarlem, where he died,
according to Van der Willigen, in 1640. His works, which are carefully executed, are
now rare ; they may be seen in Haarlem, Antwerp, and elsewhere.
Abraham Bloemart, who was born at Gorcum in 1567, acquired his style chiefly
from study of the works of Frans Floris. His best pictures are noteworthy for boldness
of design and purity of colour ; his drawing is often defective. A Raising of Lazarus,
in the Munich Gallery, is a favourable specimen of this artist. Other works by him
are in the galleries of Berlin and the Hague, and in several churches in Flanders.
Abraham Bloemart lived chiefly at Utrecht, where he died in 1647. Besides historical
pictures, he painted landscapes ; he also handled the burin with some success.
Bloemart had four sons two, of whom were painters and two engravers.
Michiel Janzen Mierevelt was born at Delft in 1567. His father, who was a
goldsmith, intended to make his son an engraver, but when about twelve years old, the
young Mierevelt was induced by Bloklandt to become a painter. He received an art
education from that master at Utrecht. He first painted altar-pieces for the churches
of Delft ; but, some portraits which he had executed being much admired, he turned
his attention towards that branch of art, and subsequently became most successful. It is
said that Charles I. in 1625 invited Mierevelt to London, but that the artist refused on
account of the plague which then raged in the English capital. He died at his native
Delft in 1641. Houbraken tells us that he painted no less than five thousand portraits,
and Descamps raises them to twice that number. That Mierevelt was a prolific painter
there is no doubt, but his works are much too carefully executed to allow of the
possibility of his having painted such a quantity. Good specimens of Mierevelt are in
the town-hall of Delft. He had two sons, Pieter and Jan, who were both good portrait-
painters, but neither arrived at a mature age, and their works are not numerous. One
of Mierevelt's pupils was Paul Moreelse, the portrait-painter, who was born at Utrecht
in 157 1, and who died there in 163S. Works by him are in the museums of
Rotterdam, the Hague, and Berlin.
Jacob Gerritz Cuyp, the father of Albert Cuyp, was born at Dordrecht in 1575. He
studied under Abraham Bloemart, and was in 1642 one of the original founders of
the academy of his native town. The date of " old " Cuyp's death is not recorded.
He painted both landscapes and portraits. Of the former subject a good specimen
is a View of toitni, with a river in the foreground, in the Munich Gallery.
The museums of Rotterdam, Amsterdam, and Berhn, contain several good portraits
by him. At Amsterdam is a Dutch Family, which, Immerzeel says, is that of the
painter, Cornells Troost.
Frans Hals, the celebrated portrait-painter, was born, probably at Antwerp, in 1584.
Some writers give Mechlin as his birth-place. He is supposed to have studied under Carel
van Mander, the painter and historian. In 1611, Hals was in Haarlem, for in that year
his son was christened there ; we next hear of him in 16 16, when his character was
not of the best. That he was a drunkard is undoubted, and that he ill-treated his wife
is more than probable, for in that year his wife applied for judicial protection from his
violence. She died in 1616, and in the following year he married again.
A.D. i6oo.] FRANS HALS. 327
Lysbeth Reyniers was the name of his second wife, and this match seems to have
been a happier one than the former. From 1644 until 1662 no record is given of
Hals' private hfe, yet it was during this time that many of his best works were executed.
The first notice we have of him after these years is that he appUed to the city for
pecuniary assi<;tance. Henceforth he seems to have hved in great poverty. He died in
1666 at Haarlem in the " Oude Mannen Huis " (an almshouse for aged men) and was
buried on the 2nd of September in the chancel of the " Grote Kerck."
A tale, characteristic of this painter, is related by Houbraken. Vandyck, when in
Haarlem, went to him to have his i)ortrait painted. Hals had to be fetched from a
neighbouring ale-house, but immediately on his arrival commenced to paint the
portrait, which was completed in an incredibly short space of time. Vandyck, not
wishing to be outdone, asked Hals to change places, remarking that he could do as
well as that. When the portrait was completed Hals on seeing it recognised the touch
of the master, and exclaimed, " You are either Vandyck or the devil."
Whatever Hals' private life may have been, few painters have equalled him in his
branch of art, though he must yield the palm to Vandyck. He stands pre-eminent
among the Dutch portrait-painters. Among the best of Hals' paintings we may
mention the Portrait of himself and his wife Lysbeth^ in the Amstenlam Museum; a
Youno^ man with a flat cap, and Two singing boys, both in the Cassel Gallery ; the
Assembli-e des officiers, and the Regents and Regentes of the hospital, in which he died,
painted when he was eighty years of age, all in the Haarlem Museum ; a Portrait of
Hille Bobbe, of Haarlem, recently in the Suermondt Collection at Aix-la-Chapelle — a
similar picture is in the Metropolitan Museum of New York ; and lastly, three Portraits
in the Dresden Gallery, Numerous good pictures by Hals are in private galleries in
England. Sir Richard Wallace has, among others, a fine Portrait of a Cavalier. The
Earl of Lonsdale, the Earl of Ellesmere, and Mr. Wilson, also possess good specimens
ofFransHals. Until lately this artist's merits were scarcely recognised ; his pictures
sold for absurdly small sums. In 1745 a J\'rtriut of himself (etched but 55 florins
(about 4/. 5^.), and as late as 1823, a picture of a Girl with a Kitten, sold for only
35 guineas. Hals' fixme is now fully established, and his pictures fetch prices pro-
portionate to their intrinsic value.
Frans Hals had five sons, all of whom were painters, but none of them rank above
mediocrity. We must, however, mention his brother Dirk Hals, who was born at
Haarlem in 1589 (?). He studied under Bloemart, and painted in early life animals
and hunting scenes ; subsequently he changed his style for genre subjects. He died
at Haarlem in 1656.
Comelis Poelemberg, who was born at Utrecht in 1586, received his first instruction
in art from .\braham Bloemart. He subsequently went to Rome, and studied in the
effeminate school of Carlo Dolci, and introiluced the taste and style of the Italians
into the simplicity of the l-'lemings. From Rome Poelemberg went to Florence,
where he met with much patronage — even from the Grand Duke. At every city
through which he ])assed on his way homewards, he was well received. Soon after
his return to Utrecht, Poelemberg was invited to England by Charles I. He came
here in 1637 ami remained some time; but it was in vain that Charles endeavoured
to persuade him to remain. The love of his native countrj' prevailed, and he returned
to Utrecht, whore he lived honoured and esteemed and greatly patronized until his
death in i66o. He was, in fact, one of those artists who received during their lives
328 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1600.
too high a patronage. For his works, however pleasing they may be, are wanting
in depth of feehng ; the best part of his pictures is always the colouring, the drawing
is frequently defective. His works are chiefly landscapes — ornamented, as a rule,
with nude figures. He also painted figures in the pictures of other artists — notably
of Steenwyck. Works by Poelemberg are in most continental galleries. Dresden has
eleven Landscapes with figures. The National Gallery has but one — entitled WomeJi
bathing; bequeathed by the late Mr. Wynn Ellis. Poelemberg had numerous followers,
but none of sufticient importance to be here mentioned.
Adriaan van der Venne, who was born at Delft in 1589, did not turn his attention
towards art until later in life than is usual with m.ost painters. He studied under
Jerome van Diest. He executed chiefly allegorical and historical pictures, into which
he frequently introduced portraits. He also painted genre and landscape subjects,
and in addition to that made many fine drawings for the illustration of books. Van
der Venne died at the Hague in 1662. He was a strict upholder of the Protestant
religion and a stout partisan of the House of Orange. His Pkhe aiix Ames, in the
Amsterdam Museum, displays his reverence for the Protestant religion, and his dislike
of the Catholic. It represents divines of both creeds — several of them portraits —
fishing for persons swimming in the water. On the one bank of the stream are
Roman Catholics, on the other Protestants. Jan Breughel frequently painted land-
scape backgrounds to Van der Venne's pictures.
Esaias van der Velde, the uncle of Adriaan van der Velde and the master of Van
Goyen, was born at Amsterdam about 1590. His master was one Pieter Denyn.
In 16 1 2 Van der Velde entered the Painters' Guild at Haarlem, and in 1630 he had
established himself at Leyden. He died in 1648, Esaias van der Velde's favourite
subjects were battle-scenes and cavalry skirmishes ; his horses are correctly and
powerfully drawn. Pictures by him are in the galleries of Amsterdam, Rotterdam,
Dresden and Vienna, and in several private collections. We may especially notice
the Reduction of Bois-le-Duc in 1629, in the Gallery of Amsterdam.
Cornells Jansen, the portrait-painter, was born about the close of the sixteenth
century, according to Sandrart, in London, of Flemish parents — Vertue and others state
that he was born at Amsterdam. Jansen's earliest works in England are dated about
16 1 8, at which time he was living in Blackfriars. From 1630 till 1640 he resided at
a small village called Bridge in Kent. Like many of his countrymen in England,
Jansen was cast entirely into the shade by the arrival of the great Vandyck, and his
declining popularity, combined with the civil v/ar which had just commenced, induced
Jansen to quit England in 1648. On his return to Holland, he first settled at Middel-
burg, but he removed to Amsterdam, where he continued to exercise his profession
with much success until his death in 1665. A Portrait of Charles /., by this artist, was,
when Walpole wrote, in the possession of Lord Pomfret at Easton. Another of
Charles I. attended by his Court in the Green Park, is in Buckingham Palace. His
oivn portrait vs, at Longford Castle. Speaking of Jansen, Walpole says, " His pictures
are easily distinguished by their clearness, neatness and smoothness. They are
generally painted on board, and except being a little stiff, are often strongly marked
witli a fair character -of nature, and remarkable for a lively tranquillity in the coun-
tenances. His draperies are seldom but black." Jansen had a son, who followed
in Holland the profession of his father, but with scarcely equal success.
Daniel Mytens, who was born at the Plague about the year 1590, came to England
.,.,, t625.] GERARD IIONT HORST. 329
durin.r the rei?a of James I. but he cH.l not achieve any great notoriety until 1625,
in whk year he was appointed " i)icture-drawer " to Charles I. with a salary of 20/.
per annum. My tens, from that time until about 1630, executed many portraits
of Charl.'s I his wife Henrietta Maria, and the personages of his court— mcluding
the dwarf Geoffrey Hudson. Soon after the arrival of Vandyck, Mytens, though
treated with consideration and kindness by Charles I., not liking perhaps to be second
to that master, retired to the Hague, where he continued to paint untd his death,
which occurred some time after 1656. Several fine Portraits by Mytens are at
Hampton Court, l^uckingham Palace, and in private collections in England.
Gerard Honthorst was born at Utrecht in 159-^- He received his first instruction in
art from Bloemart, and about 1624 went to Rome, where he studied the works of
Caravaggio. He was much patronized, especially by the Marchese Giustiniani. It
was whtle in Rome that he obtained, from his pictures of candle- and hre-light effects,
the name of " Cherardo della Notte." On his return to Utrecht, Honthorst set up an
academy which was well attended. The historian Sandrart, who was one of his pupils,
tells us that he had twenty-ei-ht fellow-scholars, each paying a hundred florins a year.
At this time too, Honthorst was much patronized by the Queen of Bohemia, and it is
said that he instructed that sovereign and her children in the art of painting. In 1628
Honthorst was invited to England by Charles I., by whom he was well received, and
for whom he executed numerous paintings of that monarch himself, his queen, and his
courtiers Even after Honthorst's return to Utrecht, six months later, he con-
tinued to paint for Charles I., though his chief patron in Holland was the Prince ot
Orange, for whom he painted in the " House in the Wood " near the Hague, and at
Ryswick Other patrons of Honthorst were the King of Denmark, Mane de Medicis,
and the Elector of Brandenburg. This artist died at Utrecht in 1660. Honthorst,
considering doubtless the brightness of the sun commonplace, scarcely ever lighted his
pictures by anything but lamps and candles, and thus made for himself a speciality in
art Rubens is said to have greatly admired these night-pieces. In the Dresden
Gallery are a Dentist draicin^ a tooth by camth'-light-s\gntd " G. V. HonL Horst, fe.
1622 "-and two other pictures of the same style by this artist. Several of his best
pictures are, however, in the galleries of his native country. .\ fine Chut uforc
Caiapluu is in the gallery at Stafford House. Tlie collections of the Louvre, Munich
and Berlin, also contain specimens of his art.
We may here mention a younger brotner, Wilhelm Houthorst, who was born at
Utrecht in 1604 (?). He received his early instruction from Bloemart. Erom 1650 to
1664 he painted at the court of Princess Louisa Henrietta of Orange at Berlin.
Wilhelm Honthorst died in 1C66. Like his brother, he painted both portraits and
historical pieces, but he was in every respect inferior to him. He is celebrated chiefly
for his portraits.
Theodor de Keyser, the son of a sculptor and architect, was born at .\msterdam (?)
about the year 1595. The name of his instructor is not known, but he probably
learned the art of design from his flither. The galleries of Amsterdam and the Hague
possess specimens of De Keyser's art. At the Hague is a picture rei.resenting the
Burgomasters of Amsterdam. The National Gallery has a Merehant with his Clerk,
si-ned " r D. K." in a monogram, with the date 1627. De Keyser's works are
generally small full-length portraits. He died at Amsterdam about 1660.
Leoiihard Bramer was born at Delft in 1596. The name of his instructor in an is
2 u
330 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1625.
not recorded. He travelled much in France and Italy, where, in Rome, he studied
under Elzheimer. On his return to Holland, Bramer settled at Delft, where he was
much patronized. Like Honthorst, he was fond of candle- and fire-light effects. His
pictures, which are usually of a sacred historical nature, are frequently ornamented
with gold and silver vases. This may be noticed in the Solomo?i praying in the
Temple, in the Dresden Gallery, which was purchased in 1738 as a Rembrandt. It is,
however, signed " L. Bramer." In later life this artist greatly imitated Rembrandt,
with so much success that he was formerly thought to have studied under him. It is
not known when Bramer died. The latest record of him is in 1667.
Pieter Frans de Grebber, who was born at Haarlem in 1600, is said to have studied
under his father — an unimportant artist — and under GoltzJus. In later life his works
are somewhat in the style of Rembrandt. De Grebber painted portraits and historical
pieces. Of the former subject the Dresden Gallery has three — two of Young Men , and
one of a Young Woman, and of the latter one only — the Finding of Moses. De
Grebber's native town of Haarlem has several of his best works. He died in 1656 (?).
REMBRANDT, HIS PUPILS AND HIS FOLLOWERS.
The great master, Rembrandt van Rijn, is entitled to open a fresh chapter in the
history of Dutch Art. He was the founder of a new school, which, during the
course of a century, produced some of the best-known painters of the Continent,
whose works are to be seen in every public gallery, and in most of the private
collections of paintings throughout Europe.
Rembrandt Hermanszoon van Rijn, the chief painter of the Dutch school, was born
in the house of his father, Hermann Gerritszoon van Rijn, on the Weddesteeg at Leyden,
on the 15th of July, 1607. He was the sixth of seven children, and was educated at a
school in Leyden, with a view to his studying the law. Young Rembrandt, however,
showed such decided taste and talent for art, that his father allowed him to follow the
bent of his inclination. He was accordingly sent to an unimportant artist, Jacob van
Swanenberg, with whom he remained three years, and made, it is said, much progress.
Rembrandt subsequently removed from Leyden, and studied under Lastmann at
Amsterdam, and under Jacob Pinas at Haarlem. Yet, like Claude Lorraine, Rem-
brandt may be said to have taught himself painting, almost without a master, for he
was dissatisfied with all those of whom he learned. In 1630, the year in which he
painted his earliest-known oil picture — the Portrait of an Old Man, now in the Cassel
Gallery, he was so far advanced in art that he left Leyden, where he had been living
since the completion of his education, and established himself as a painter at Amster-
dam, in which city he henceforth resided. Like Teniers, he gave himself up more
to the instruction of his pupils, rather than become a friend of princes and nobles,
like Rubens or Vandyck. Some of his biographers maintain that Rembrandt spent
much of his time at ale-houses in the companionship of boors and common folk ; but
he was certainly on intimate terms with his liberal patron the burgomaster Six, with
Tulp, the poet Jeremias de Decker, and with many others of the better classes. In
1632, he produced the celebrated Z^j-^^;; in Anatomy. Two years later we find him
established in the Sint Antonie Breerstraat ; and on the 22nd of June in the same year
KF.M I'.RAX I IT 1 1 KRMANSZOON
K\X.
/•■'i'.- 330.
A.D. 1625] REMBRANDT. 331
he married Saskia, the daughter of Rombcrt Uilenberg, burgomaster of Leeuwarden,
who was dcsceiulcd of a good Friesland family. Saskia was the wife whose portrait he
loved to paint, though not to the same extent as he did his old mother. The Dresden
Gallery has the beautiful and justly-famous jiicture of Ranbnvidt 7vitli his Wife on his
knee; and in the Cassel Gallery is one of Saskia alone. In 1639, Rembrandt, for a
short time, resided on the banks of the Binnen Amstel, the largest canal in the city ; but
he soon afterwards returned to his old jurt of the city — the Jews' quarter— for he took
a house in the Sint Antonie Breerstraat (now the Joden Breerstraat), where he afterwards
chieHy resided. In 1640, Rembrandt painted, in payment for his picture frames, the
likeness of his Frame-maker (known in France as Le Doreur), a perfect mar\el of
portraiture. This work was long preserved as an heirloom in the family of the frame-
maker ; but a few years since it was sold to a dealer, who disposed of it to the late
Due de Morny, whose successor still possesses it. In 1642, Rembrandt painted his
masterpiece, the Nighi Watch. In the June of the same year he had the misfortune to
lose his much-loved wife Saskia, who was buried in the old church {Oiide Kerk),
Amsterdam. Two sons and two daughters were the result of this marriage. The
elder son died when (^uite a child, and the younger, Titus Rembrandtzoon, did not
survive his fiUher, from whom he received instruction in art, antl whom he imitated
without success. The two daughters, both named Cornelia, died in childhood, Saskia
left, by will, her property to her husband in trust for her son Titus, who was to inherit
it on his father's death, or in the event of his marrying again. He was also to receive
a marriage portion, if he (Titus) married. Rembrandt's second wife was Hendricktie
Stoffelt, who had but one child, a daughter named Cornelia, who was christened in
1654. Rembrandt was married a third time, to Catherine van W'yck, who survived
him ; and who bore him two children, who also survived him. In si)ite of the large
prices which he received for his works, and in spite of the amounts received from his
pupils, by the instruction of whom he is said to have made a yearly income of 2,500
florins, Rembrandt grew less and less prosperous, and ultimately, in 1656, became
insolvent. He was imi)overished either by the amounts paid for the curiosities and
works of art which he was wont to collect, or else by the general dearth of trade in
Amsterdam, where, it is said, no less than three thousand houses were at that time
standing empty. We must also remember that Rembrandt, on his second marriage,
had to give up his wife's money to his son Titus. Whatever was the cause, Rem-
brandt's goods were disposed of by iiuMic auction. The sale, which included, in
addition to his curiosities, seventy of the artist's own pictures, realised le.ss than five
thousantl guilders. The smallness of the amount may probably be accounted for by
the general poverty of Amsterdam at that time. Rembrandt, though deprived of all
his goods, did not give way to despondency, but continued to work with his usual
vigour. His last known jjicture, \.\\e Jeicish Briife, supposed to have been dated 1669,
is in the Van der Hoop Gallery at Amsterdam. Rembrandt died in his house on the
Rozengracht on the 8lh of October, 1669, and was buried in the Wester Kerk.
To see Rembrandt at his greatest height, we must seek him in his own country.
It might almost be said that his works are divided equally between the Hague and
Amsterdam. Amsterdam seems to have inherited solely his pictures in his second
style, the widest, the most daring, the most scientific, that which may be termed his
parti pris. It is at the Hague, on the contrary, that we finil the best works of his first
style- the more timid but also the more studied and delicate.
332 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1650.
We will commence at the Hague. Passing by the portrait of a man called the Officer,
on account of his high military collar, and which might well be a portrait of Rembrandt
himself at the time when his moustache was growing ; it would be, in this case, the
first of the long series of portraits which Rembrandt painted of himself every year of
his life, from youth to old age. Passing over also a Susannah, dated 1633, the drawing
of which is wanting in grandeur, but of which the colouring is already wonderful, and
also a Presentation in the Temple, dated 1631, we come at once to the incomparable
masterpiece of this portion of his life, the Lesson in Anatomy. This is the dissection
of a corpse by a celebrated surgeon of the time, the professor Tulp, before seven
other doctors. This subject is too well known by copies, engravings, and number-
less descriptions, including that of Reynolds, to require another explanation. We
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THE NIGHT WATCH. — MY REMBRANDT.
In the Alusetim of Amsterdam.
will merely say, then, that this subject, requiring no invention but that of arrangement,
and there being nothing ideal in it, suited wonderfully the realistic genius of the
painter. Rembrandt rises in it to all the distinction of which he is capable, for around
this inanimate body all the living personages have the certain elevation of demeanour
and expression always imparted by careful and investigating science. As for the
execution, it is needless to praise it, or to say that the gift of life seems bestowed on
this marvellous picture. The Lesson in Anatomy is universally considered the most
excellent work of the master before the period when, to excuse the hasty fire of some
of his later works, he said that " painting should not be smelled." " This," says M.
Maxime du Camp, " is a European picture of world-wide renown, which will remain
in traditions even after it is destroyed, for it is one of those few things done by
men which is perfectly beautiful."
A.D. 1650.] REMBRANDT. 333
We now turn to the Museum of Amsterdam, the city in which Rembrandt died.
It is ri^ht that Amsterdam should possess the greatest work of the greatest of Dutch
painters who was a poet also, merely through his use of expression, movement and
liaht This famous picture, which contains twenty-three persons of hfe-size, represents
a^'platoon of the civic guard-officers, soldiers, standard-bearer and druramer-patrol-
lincr the streets of Amsterdam. It is called the Mght Watch, though this name is not
correct as the scene is in daylight. But the name and popular error arise from the
luminous and transparent tints, the great effects of light and shade, which seem
produced by an artificial light rather than by the sun. " To tell the truth, this is only
V dream and no one can decide what the light is that falls en the group of hgures.
It is neither the light of the sun nor of the moon; nor does it come from torches;
it is rather the light from the genius of Reml)randt." (Ch. Blanc.)
This civic guard, su( h as Rembrandt likes to show it to us, resembles no troop
of to-day, no order, no uniform, the most complete liberty of action and equipment ;
■X strange mixture of people, attitudes, costumes, arms, arquebuses and halberds,
lielmets°and hats, cuirasses and doublets. Notliing can be more picturesque, and " a
beautiful disorder is often an effect of art." Several defects, however, are visible to the
least clear-sighted. The lady who carries a fowl hung at her waist is certainly too
small. In height she is only a girl of twelve. The handsome officer in black velvet
xvitli t'ne red scarf, his companion in yellow satin balancing a halberd, the standard-
bearer, and, in short, all these frank, martial countenances, present the true type of
the popular heroes who saved Holland from Catholic Spain. This Night Watch
expresses the effervescence of patriotism, the happiness of independence that had long
been fought for. " It is," says M. Montegut, '' liberty in her golden age. It will preserve
the remembrance of Dutch liberty, perhaps even beyond the existence of Holland."
Another picture of Rembrandt, the Staalmdstcrs, or the trustees of tlie Staalhof
(the Clothweavers' Hall), although only a simple collection of portraits, shares the
renown of the Night Watch. This picture has not received, at any rate in foreign
countries, any short and consecrated name, and on this account it is less quoted than
the preceding one. But many artists and connoisseurs prefer it, and place it higher
than the others. They say that tlie same (lualities may be seen in it with fewer
defects ; there is a riper perfection— more sure of itself and more complete. All these
good cloth merchants are looking in the same direction, as if some one had just
rmerrupted the reading, they had commenced, of a register of the corporation. This
uniform and natural movement animates the composition, and seenhs to make it more
coiiq)letely one. It is not six portraits that we see, but six living men whom the
magician, bv his powerful wand, has fixed to the canvas. They give us an opimrtunily
of fully appreciating Rembrandt as a portrait painter. His usual combinations of light
and shade do not merely serve for picturesque effect, but still more do they so light up
the personages that we seem to see into their minds— moral resemblance is added
to the physical, arid under his pencil they seem to live again. It may be said of
Rembrandt's portraits what the Romans said of a fine Ionic statue: Tacct scd
hy'iuitiir.
In Italy there are only a few portraits disjjersed in Florence, Naples, and Turin.
In the rich museum of Spain there is only one Portrait of a Lady, the date of which
shows it to be one of his earliest works, and is in the fine and delicate treatment mo<t
suited to represent the fresh beauty of early life. Neither can Rembrandt be seen to
advantage in France. Of the eight paintings by his hand there arc only three (amongst
334 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1650.
others, one of the four where he has painted himself) which deserve a high place
among his works. The Angel Raphael leaving the family of Tobit is wonderful for the
way in which he is moving in the air in the midst of a luminous atmosphere which
descends from the half-opened sky ; the Disciples going to Eminaus, another miracle of
colouring, is remarkable for its grandeur and relative beauty ; the Good Sa7Jiaritati,
although less finished and more defective in treatment, shows the happy employment
of light and shade ; but can any one pretend that these second-rate compositions equal
any of his masterpieces to be found elsewhere !
In one respect, however, the richest collections may envy the Louvre. There are
some very small pictures, almost miniatures in oil, in which Rembrandt rises to the
greatest height. The small figures, of three or four inches high, called the Philosophers
in Meditation, and still more the House of an Old Carpenter (which Rembrandt
probably termed a Holy Family) are, in their humble proportions, the triumph of the
school he founded, which is not merely art, but the jioetry oi naturalism.
Two analogous pictures are in the National Gallery. Althougli also very small,
the Woman taken in Adultery, and the Adoration of the Shepherds, must take the name
and rank of historical pictures. Superb, both in arrangement and execution, they
may defy any comparison. The National Gallery has, amongst others, two Portraits of
the painter himself, one at the age of about thirty-two — signed " Rembrandt, f. 1640,"
and the other when quite an old man. Well worthy of notice is a Christ blessing little
childre?i, mentioned by M. Burger, among the four best pictures of Rembrandt. The
finest of Rembrandt's portraits in England are in private collections, especially at
Buckingham Palace and Grosvenor House.
Germany and Russia are almost as rich as Holland. Various other historical
pictures, also of small dimensions, but as great in arrangement and touch, are collected
at the Pinakothek at Munich ; a Crucifixion, in dark, stormy weather ; an Entombment,
in the obscurity of a deep vault ; a Nativity, illumined by the pale rays of a lamp ; a
Resurrection, illuminated by a single ray of light in the darkness of the night ; an
Ascension, where Christ lights up the whole scene with the brilliancy emanating from
himself; lastly, a Descent from the Cross, which is known everywhere by the celebrated
etching Rembrandt himself made of it. This picture, which does not occupy one square
yard, reminds us in its general arrangements of the works on the same subject by
Raphael, Titian, Volterra, Carracci, Ribera^ Lucas van Leyden, and Rubens. Here,
also, we see the body of Christ taken down from the Cross by the servants of Joseph of
Arimathea, the Virgin fainting in the arms of Mary Magdalen and St. John. But this is
only in name. Without the Cross to explain the subject, how could we have recognised
the Christ, his mother, his loved disciple, or any of the actors in the Gospel drama, in
these coarse and heavy personages dressed in' the Walloon costume, with grotesque
countenances, flat noses, small round eyes, and large mouths, where the painter seems
to have taken his own portrait as the type of human beauty ? At the first glance at
this picture we should be inclined to ascribe it to irony, if we were not too deeply
moved by the truth of the attitudes, gestures and expression, and so much enchanted
with the magnificence of the colouring and dazzled by the brilliancy of the light that
no sentiment can long remain but that of admiration. Looked at from the artist's own
l)oint of view, this Descefit frotn the Cross is a real prodigy.
There is another picture of precisely similar character in the gallery of Prince
Esterhazy, now removed from Vienna to Pesth. This is the Ecce Homo. The figures •
are of life-size. Jesus is in the centre, almost naked, with a girdle round his loins, as
A.D. 1650.] REMBRANDT. 335
he would 1)6 on the Cross, a reed in his hand, and the crown of thorns on his head.
On the right Pilate is washing his hands of the death of the innocent one ; a woman is
pouring water for him from a golden jug, whilst another is holding the ewer. Pilate is
dressed in a striped turban and fur cloak, like the rabbis of Amsterdam painted by
Rembrandt. As for the Christ, it is evident that the painter simply chose a model on
whom he placed the signs of the Passion. It might almost be thought that the artist
was one of those whom St. Cyril recommended to represent our Lord as " the most
repulsive in appearance of the children of men ;" or rather that Remlirandt, the
reformer, the enemy of tradition and catholic pomp, and who understood the Gospel
not in the Greek and pagan manner of the Renaissance, but in the simplicity of the
Middle Ages, wished to paint the Christ of the Bfg,i^ars. And yet, with all these
commonplace, almost ignoble beings, Rembrandt has succeeded by force of expression,
gesture and sentiment, and the great power of light and shadow, in making a work so
wonderfully beautiful that words are wanting to convey any idea of the brilliancy with
which it is radiant, or to express the emotion and admiration it excites in the soul.
Vienna has preserved in its Belvedere eight or ten ]>ortraits by Rembrandt,
amongst which are one of his Mother, very old and very much adorned, and two of
himself at difterent ages, first young and elegant, then old and careworn. At Cassel,
when the rich gallery was thrown open by the Prussians when they took possession of
the Electorate, a buried treasure was found — twenty-eight pictures by Rembrandt.
We might choose for notice the most important, called the BAssifis; 0/ /tnv/>, whkh
contains five or six figures ; we prefer, however, to mention the most interesting — -that
of his first wife, Saskia Uiienbcrg, whose portrait he painted with as much love as did
Rubens that of his beautiful Helena Fourment. In this portrait Saskia is still very
young and very pretty, and it may be seen, by the ornaments with which she is laden,
that Rembrandt wished to show every one how much he adored this " spoiled child."
Near her are different friends of the painter, the poet Croll, the burgomaster Six, the
writing master Koppcnol, and Rembrandt himself, now in a very simple costume —
black cap and brown cloak.
Dresden could not fiul to have a large share in the works of Rembrandt. But here,
also, the most interesting are not historical compositions. Doubtless the large picture
representing the Sacrifice of Manoah and his Wife, to whom the angel announces the
birth of Samson, is of strong colouring and grand effect ; but this angel has too little of
the angelic, and the whole work is too little in accordance witli the sacred text. \\'e
prefer the Rape of Ganymeih\ although this picture has no more of the sentiment of
mythology than the other has of the Bible ; but the grotesque is here more allowable.
Instead of the handsome youth loved by JujMter, we see a fat boy of six or seven
carried otV in his shirt by the eagle, struggling and screaming. The jiortraits at
Dresden are both more numerous anil more i)erfect. Near his old Mother weighing
golden pieces (all Rembrandt's old women are his mother) we may especially admire
Rembrandt himself, his glass in his hand, a laugh on his mouth, embracing his young
wife, who is seated on his knees ; and still more a Youn:- Girl (perhaps Saskia
herself) holding a pink in her hand ; and two old Grey-bearded Men, with black caps
on, clothed in rich dark stuffs. We shall find nothing higher than these portraits,
which are painted in his latest and most powerful manner. But over them is hung
another work of Rembrandt's. This is a landscape of medium size, without any
object that can particularly distinguish it. It would scarcely be sought out, even
as a curiosity, but that landscapes are rare in numerous works of Rembrandt, and that
336
ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1650.
the catalogue hazards the conjecture — wroni,ly, as it happens — that Rembrandt was
born in a httle mill introduced in one part.
Neither Amsterdam, the Hague, Munich, Dresden nor Cassel can boast of
possessing such a numerous collection of the works of Rembrandt as St. Petersburg.
The Hermitage contains forty-three, and in all the manners cultivated by an artist
no less universal than Rubens. In landscape we find a View of Judea, a barren
country, where Jesus is walking between the disciples going to Emmaus. In marine
pictures — still more rare — we find a Coast of Holland., of a warm, golden tint, in which
the sky and water seem to melt into each other in the distant horizon. In portraits
we find two of His Mother, once as a good old woman smiling {see fro?itispiece), the
other as a pious Lutheran in meditation over her Bible ; also two of his Saskia, as usual
adorned with embroidery, velvet and furs ; two or three of the rich Dutch Jews, dressed
in the Eastern costumes which are so favourable to painting. One of these bears
the great name of John Sobieski, doubtless because he had on a sort of Polish cap,
for how could the painter of Amsterdam, who never quitted his own country, have
A LANDSCAl'E. — FROM AN ETCHING BY REMBKANDT.
ever met the hero of Vienna, who, during his whole life, was occupied in the east of
Europe? Another excellent portrait is believed to be that of the theologian Arininiiis
(Jacob Hermann). But this famous opponent to the doctrines of Calvin died in 1609,
when Rembrandt was only just born. This could have only been, then, a study
or a repetition of a former portrait. The same may be said of the old man Thomas
Parr, who died in London in 1634 at the age of 152. Rembrandt was barely twenty-
five at that time, and how could he have met with the English centenarian ?
Of the biblical pictures we may notice, a powerfully-executed Sacrifice of Isaac;
a Return of the Prodigal Son, in which the figures are still more fantastically accoutred ;
an Education of the Virgin by St. Anne — an old woman, with her spectacles in her
hand, teaching a young girl to read ; and lastly, a Holy Family — that is to say,
a carpenter's family in his workroom, where angels are floating in the air — absurd as
a composition, but a magnificent picture in the truth and splendour of the colouring.
A.D. 1650.] PUPILS OF REMBRANDT. 337
M. Paul Delaroche was quite right in saying, " Notwithstanding his iinuicnse defects,
Rembrandt is perhaps the best painter in the world."
Rembrandt's etchings are as celebrated as his paintings — nearly four hundred of
them; scriptural subjects,, portraits and landscapes, dated from 1628 to i66r, are
to be found in various collections. The Print-room in the British Museum has a
magnificent series. An early proof-impression of Christ healing the sick — known as
the Hiindred Guilder Print~~\s\'t> sold by auction in 1867 for 1 180/.
PUPILS OF REMBRANDT.
The jiupils of Rembrandt — those, at least, who remained faithful to him — only
attained an excellence which makes them approach in some degree to their master
in portrait painting. Their inferiority is partly concealed, because their manner
changes, and the comparison is no longer direct. But when we pass to historical
composition, they all become simple satellites lost in tlie rays of the central luminary.
Their imitation, in many cases, is flagrant, and, whatever merit may attach to a good
UTiitation, the painters who do it must remain pupils all their lives, and can never
aspire to the title of masters. Foremost among these imitators is
Jacob Backer or Bakker, who was born at Harlingen in 1608, and was one of
Rembrandt's less important pupils. He is noteworthy for his portraits, in which
he excelled— especially in painting the hands. The Syndics, in the Van der Hoop
Collection at Amsterdam, is a good example of this master. He died in 165 1.
Ferdinand Bol was born at Dordrecht in 161 1. When (juite a youth, he entered
Rembrandt's studio at Amsterdam, and in 1652 he was made a burgess of that city.
He died there, rich and greatly esteemed, in 1681. Del painted several historical
works without much success, but excelled in portraiture ; he was also an engraver.
Of his works we may mention : his masterpiece, the Four Regents of the Hospital — ■
signed " F. Bol, 1649" — in the town-hall at Amsterdam; the Portrait of a Boy, in
the Rotterdam Museum: and \.\\q Portrait 0/ De Ruyier,\\\ the Amsterdam Gallery.
Another likeness of the admiral is in the National Gallery of the Hague. In England
we find, in the National Gallery, a Portrait of an Astronomer — signed and dated 1652.
Several good i)ictures by Bol are in private collections. A Portrait of a Boy is at
Castle Howard. .
Govaert Flinck, one of Rembrandt's best pu]>ils. was born at CIcves in 161 5.
He was intended for a mercantile life, but his talent for art prevaileil, and. after a short
period of instruction under an unimportant master, he was apprenticed to Rembrandt
at Amsterdam. All Flinck's early works were executed in his master's style, but later
in life he took the Italians as his models. He died at Amsterdam in 1660. Flinck
painted historic and genre subjects, and portraits. His best works are an Isaac blessing
Jacob, in the Six Gallery at Amsterdam ; one of the same subject in the Amsterdam
Gallery ; a Doelenstuk (a collection of portraits), also in the Amsterdam Gallery ; and
lastly, a fine Portrait in the Rotterdam Museum. The galleries of Dresden. Berlin and
Brunswick also contain examples of this master.
2 X
338 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS [a.d. 1650
Gerbrandt van der Eeckhout or Eckhout was born at Amsterdam in 162 1. He
studied under Rembrandt, and so Eir succeeded in imitating his style, that his works
have often been mistaken for those of his master. He painted portraits, and sacred
and crenre subjects, and succeeded " in bibUcal scenes better than any other of
Rembrandt's pupils. Van der Eeckhout died in 1674. His works are found in
most of the public galleries. The Rotterdam Museum has a Ruth and Boaz ; and the
Berlin Museum a Raising of /aims' Daughter, of some importance.
Jan Victors, one of Rembrandt's pupils, is a painter of whom little is known. He
painted sacred history and genre subjects. Most of the Dutch galleries contain
examples of his art. The Dresden Gallery has two — both of a biblical nature, and
sio-ned " Jan Victors, fc." Of this painter, Mr. Crowe says, " In his sacred subjects
Victors imitated Rembrandt more completely than in portraits and genre subjects. His
colours are somewhat uniform in tone, and his flesh, in yellow-red shades, is not
broken with the subtlety peculiar to Rembrandt."
Carel Fabritius, who was born at Delft in 1624, studied under Rembrandt, and
would doubtless have become more famous had he lived longer. He left very few
pictures, and his name is consequently but little known. He was killed by the
explosion of a powder magazine at Delft in 1654. K^w^Headofa Man, in the
Rotterdam ISIuseum — long ascribed to Rembrandt — is by Fabritius, who is further
entitled to fame on account of the instruction he gave to Jan van der Meer.
Samuel van Hoogstraten, who was born at Dordrecht in 1627, received an
elementary education in art from his f;ither. Dirk van Hoogstraten. The youth next
entered the studio of Rembrandt, under whose tuition he became a very fair artist.
Van Hoogstraten painted portraits, landscapes, and still life. From a picture —
containing among other things, an English almanac of the year 1663— noticed by
Vertue in a sale at Covent Garden in 1730, it has been conjectured that Van Hoog-
straten visited England, and the historian Houbraken, who studied under him, has
confirmed this statement, and has furthermore told us that Van Hoogstraten went to
Italy. This painter died at Dordrecht in 1678. Works by him are in the galleries
of Amsterdam, the Hague, Vienna, and elsewhere.
Nicholas Maes or Maas was born at Dordrecht in 1632. He was a pupil of
Rembrandt, whose style is usually to be traced in his early works. After leaving that
master, Maes went to Antwerp, where he studied the works of Rubens and Jordaens.
He first painted genre subjects, but on settling at Amsterdam in 1678 gave himself up
to portraiture, in which branch of art he was very successful. Maes continued to
paint at Amsterdam, where he died wealthy and honoured in 1693. The Amsterdam
Gallery has an Old Woman Spinning, and a Girl at a JVindo7C', noteworthy for the
beauty of their colouring. Of the private collections, the Six Gallery has two fine
pictures — a Portrait of a Child of the Burgomaster Six ; and the Eavesdropper. The
Van der Hoop Colk-ction has an Old Woman Spinning; and the Steengracht Gallery,
at the Hague, has a fiwa Interior of a Peasant' s Cottage. In England, the National
Gallery has three good examples — The Cradle; the Dutch Housewife, and the Idle
Servant, both signed and dated " N. Maes, 1655." The last named is one of Maes'
masterpieces. Many private galleries in England possess examples of this master.
ADRIAAN VAN OSTADE.
Page 339.
A.D. 1650.] LATER DUTCH PAINTERS.
339
LATER DUTCH PAINTERS.
From the iininedhite pupils of Rembrandt we may now turn to those artists who
were only his followers or imitators. We have thought it advisable to divide these
masters into four classes — those who painted (i) conversation-pieces, ilomestic life,
interiors, and portraits: (ii) landscapes and battle-scenes; (iii) marine subjects; and
(iv) still-life, game, and architecture.
I.— PAI\TER.S OF DOMESTIC LIFE.
Jan Lievens, wlio was born at Leydcn in 1607, studied at the same time as
Rembranilt, under Lastmann ; he also received instruction from Van Schooten, a
painter of little note. Lievens came to England in 1630, and painted the portraits
of Charles L, his family, and his court. On quitting England he settled at Antwerp,
and gave himself up to painting biblical subjects, which he executed in a very realistic
manner. He died at Antwerp in 1C63. His drawing is good and his colouring fair,
but his pictures are wanting in depth of feeling. Works by Lievens are rather scarce
in public galleries. A Study of a Head (called St. Peter) by him in the Rotterdam
Museum, and an Isaac blessing Jacob in the Berlin Museum, are two of his best works.
There is no work by Lievens in the National Gallery, but a Jiaisi/ig of Lazarus — lent
by the Baroness North — was in the "Old Masters' Exhibition " in 1871. Lievens
executed numerous engravings in a Rembrandtesque manner.
Adi'iaan Brouwer, the painter of common-life subjects, was born at Haarlem in 160S.
He was api)renticed to Frans Hals, who, it is said, ill-treated him and sold his works
as those by his own hand. Brouwer afterwards spent a dissolute and eccentric life
amidst low companions, whom he usually selected as the subjects of his paintings.
He died at Antwerp in 1641 (?). Adriaan Brouwer, as an artist, was nuuii admired
by Rubens, who, it is said, rescued him from a prison, into which his own
imprudence had caused him to be thrown. Of his works the most noteworthy are,
L'/ayers disputitii:^ mrr their cards and a Surgeon removing a plaster, both in the Munich
Callery. The latter, if unpleasing in subject, is a masterpiece of colouring. Brouwer's
works are rarely seen in England, and in tact, they are scarce everywhere — even in his
own country.
Gerard Terburg— the painter of white .satin, and the worthy rival of (Gerard Dou,
in the same school and manner— was born at Zwolle near Overyssel in 1608. He
learned the rudiments of his art from his fother, an otherwise unknown painter.
Some time after the completion of his studies, Terburg paid a visit to Italy, which
hail not however the slightest effect on his style. From Italy he went to France,
and thence returned to Holland, where he became much honoured and patronized.
In 1648, he went to Miinster, while the plenipotentiaries of Philip IV. of Spain and
the delegates of the Dutch United Provinces were assembled in the Rathhaus for
the purpose of ratifying the treaty between the two countries. The artist then painted
his celebrated I*eace of ^fiinster, which contains portraits of tlie personages present
340 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1650.
at that occasion. Leaving that city, Terburg went with the Spanish ambassador,
Count Pigoranda, to tlie court of Philip IV., where he was well received. He painted
the portraits of the King, of his family, and of the notable personages of his court.
Terburg then returned to Holland ; he married and was made burgomaster of
Deventer, in which town he lived until his death in 1681.
The remarkable historical picture, the Peace of Miinster, already mentioned,
might have been preserved at Paris, but having been sold with the collection of the
Duchesse de Berri, it passed into the hands of Prince A. Demidoff, from whose collection
it was sold to the late Marquis of Hertford for 7,280/. At the death of that nobleman
it was purchased by Sir Richard Wallace, who, in 1871, presented it to the National
Caller)', wliere it hangs — the chef-cfa'uvre of one of the chief representatives of the
Dutch school. The National Gallery also possesses one other work by this master,
the Guitar Lesson. Terburg, however, may be well studied and appreciated at
the Louvre ; his Concert, his Miisic Lesson, and, especially, his Officier Calant, are very
fine works, showing the ingenious arrangement, and soft, but firm touch, which
distinguish him amongst the crowd of lesser Dutch painters. But none of them rise
much above the average of the works to be met with in all the galleries and cabinets
of Europe. None of them even equal the Conversatio?is of St. Petersburg and the
Hague, the Young Lady with the Ewer of Dresden, Paternal Advice (Conseil
Paternel) of Amsterdam (changed to the Satin Dress in the engraving of Ceorge
Wille), the vast Interior of a Cottage, which is at Munich. Besides the Lady with the
E7oer, the Dresden Callery possesses, a Lady in a satin gow/i, and two others. Li the
Amsterdam Gallery there is, among other works by this artist, a copy of the Peace
if Miinster in the National Gallery. Terburg too is represented in tlie gnlleries
of the Hague, Antwerp, and Berlin, and in the private collections in Flanders and
Holland. Of the Paternal Advice at Amsterdam, already mentioned, there is a
replica in the Berlin Museum, which M. Burger thinks would realize 3,000/. if sold
in England, and another in the Bridgewater Gallery. Gerard Terburg had abandoned
the ale-house scenes for concerts, meals, and small domestic scenes, which cannot
well be classified by any particular title. They are usually called by a general name,
scenes of Interiors, and they might perhaps be more correctly termed Exteriors, fur
they are confined to simple outside truth, without any inner feeling or moral depth.
But, from a constant distinction, as well as from the extreme perfection of details,
Terburg relieves the perfect simplicity of such compositions.
Adriaan van Ostade was born at Haarlem in 16 10. He studied under Frans Hals,
and formed a friendship with Adriaan Brouwer. Like the latter, he chose his
subjects from low life, but he was more laborious and less dissipated, and has
accordingly left us more works. After a life of industry and success, Van Ostade
died in 1685 at Haarlem, where he was buried. Some accounts say that he died
at Amsterdam, and that his body was removed to Haarlem for interment.
Although Van Ostade's usual subjects are similar to those treated by Teniers,
he yet differs from Teniers as Rembrandt differs from Rubens, Teniers treats light
in the same manner as Rubens, lavishing it everywhere; Ostade concentrates it,
in the style of Rembrandt. Except in Laly, Ostade may be found in every country
where art is held in honour. At Madrid there is a Rural Concert, formed by some
choristers, accompanied by the bagpipe, the handle of a broom, and tjie mewing
of a cat, whose ears are being pulled to make him join. At St. Petersburg there are
PATK.RSAI. I>4STRUCriO\. I'.y Gkbakd Tekburg
In tlu Amstt'ijLxm CalUry.
A.I). 1650.]
ADRl^lAN VAN OSTADE,
341
about twenty of his pictures, amongst which is the vahiablc series of the Five Senses ■
at Dresden among others, two excellent works, a Smokin,^ Scene and a Painters Studio
in a garret (his own, perhaps) ; at Munich, another superior work, a Dutch Alt-
house, with peasants fighting, and their wives endeavouring to separate and pacify
IIIK IHMIIHACK KIDDt.KR.— nV OSTAOK.
them ; at R„tterdam. an OU Man in his Study; at Amsterdam, a IWa^e Assembly ■
and lastly, at the Hague, two wonderful pendents, which may well be called the
neplus ultra of this master and his branch of art, the Interior and Exterior of a rustic
house. The Louvre has also a good share of the works of Adriian van Ostade
342 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1650.
He has left there, in the ten small portraits composing His Family (which might
do for any Dutch family), and especially in his Schoolmaster, the most complete
and finished models of those small familiar scenes, comedies in private life, which the
wonderful skill of the artist compels us to place amongst the finest paintings. The
National Gallery in England has but one picture by him — an Alchymist — signed
"A. V. Ostade, 1661." The Dulwich Gallery possesses four of his works.
Bartholomew van der Heist was born at Amsterdam in 161 3. It is not known
under Avhom he studied, and but few details of his life are given. He lived chiefly at
Amsterdam, where he died in 1670. His chcfd'ccuvre is in the museum of Amsterdam.
It is tlie Banquet of the Civic Guard '{Schulfersmaaltij'd), and has been phced opposite
Rembrandt's Night Watch. Unknown in Italy, Spain, France, or even in Belgium ;
scarcely more known in Germany by a few scattered portraits in the galleries,
he is only to be found in the Museum of Amsterdam, which has his Chiefs of the
Archery Guild {Het Doclenstuk), of which there is a reduced copy at the Louvre,
which cannot give a sufficient idea of the marvellous original. Here also is the Banquet
of the Civic Guards of Amsterdam (dated 1648), held in celebration of the Peace of
Miinster. In this Banquet Van der Heist shows himself the master of genre painting,
which consists in perpetuating the memory of an action and its actors. He is even a
better model than Rembrandt and Veronese ; he is more like Velasquez ; he has
painted the men, the things, and the life of his times. " This painting," says M. Edmond
Texier, "is marvellously appropriate to the people it represents, being calm, dignified
and strong." And Sir Joshua Reynolds had said before, " This is, perhaps, the first
picture of portraits in the world, comprehending more of those qualities which make a
perfect portrait than any other I have ever .seen."
The Amsterdam Gallery has other fine works by Van der Heist ; we may especially
notice one of Princess Mary, daughter of Charles I. of England, remarkable for the
beauty of the white satin dress. In the " Stadhuis " of Amsterdam is a fine group of
portraits oi Members of the Archery Guild, dated 1639. The Rotterdam Museum has
among others a Cavalier and Lady. The National Gallery at the Hague has a Portrait
of Paul Potter by Van der Heist, said to have been painted only three days before the
death of that famous painter \ and the National Gallery in London possesses one of
a Lady standing, half length.
Gerard Dou, or as he is commonly called Dow, and occasionally Douw, was born at
Leyden in 1613. Though this painter ought really to be placed among the immediate
scholars of Rembrandt, it seems more natural to place him with other great genre -painters
of this time in Holland. His father, who was a glazier, educated his son with the
intention of making him a painter on glass. But his merits were found to be too great '
to be allowed to be used on that branch of art. He was accordingly in 1628
apprenticed at Amsterdam to Rembrandt, with whom he remained three years. Dou
was at first a portrait-painter, but afterwards, adopting the anecdotal style, began by
treating small subjects with great breadth before he ascended, or descended, according
to the taste of the critic, to extreme and minute delicacy.
This patient and laborious artist, who made his own brushes, pounded his own
colours, and prepared his own varnish, panels, or canvas, worked, in order to avoid
dust, in a studio openhig on to a wet ditch. Such was the popularity which Dou enjoyed
at Leyden, that he received from an amateur, Spieringby name, no less than a thousand
A.D. 1650.1 GERA RD DOU. 343
florins yearly for the refusal of his works. Though he twice went away from Leyden
— both'times for several years— Don died in that city in 1680. and was buried in the
church of St. Peter.
The best work of C.erard Dou is at I'aris. It is the Woman sick of tlu Dropsy.
This picture, whicli had been bought by the Elector Palatine for the Prince Eugene of
Savoy, for the sum of 30,000 florins, was presented to the museum by a soldier, the
Ccneral Clauzel. who had received it as a present from the King of Sardinia, Charles
Emmanuel I\'. To find any equal for this Woman sick of tlu Dropsy, in wonderful
finish and general harmony of the wliole, we should have to seek another work by
Gerard Dou himself— the Empiric, at St. Petersburg, for instance, or the Charlatan on
his Stajrc, at Munich, or an almost identical subject in the gallery at Buckingham
Palace • only in this, the doctor is young and handsome, the lady young and beautiful ;
and, by her languishing looks, we might imagine that the lady is only sick like the
lover of Stratonice, and that the physician alone can heal the wound he has inflicted.
Next to the Woman sick of the Dropsy the Evcnin;- School, in the Museum of Amsterdam,
is one of Dou's best works. In this School the figures are more numerous, without the
work being any the less perfect. It presents besides, the singularity of the scene being
lighted up by four lights, three candles and a lantern. The effect, doubtless, is rather
puerile and elaborate, and cannot be recommended to artists; but the difficulty
van(iuished is immense. Gerard Dou, like Rembrandt, frequently painted his own
l)ortrait. At Paris there is ■o. Portrait \\\\\\ his palette and pencils; at Dresden another,
playing on the violin (for he cultivated the art of sounds as well as that of colours)
and one writing in a book ; at Brussels, he is very young, drawing a statue of Love by
the light of a lamp -possibly intended as a lover's gift; in the National Gallery he
holds a pipe in his hand. In the Amsterdam Gallery there is yet another, but he has
paid as much attention to the i)ainting of the blue curtain behind him as to his face.
Many works by Dou are in the private galleries of Holland and England, and when
sold fetch enormous prices. The Foultcrcrs Shop, in the National Gallery, is well
worthy of mention, both for composition and execution. The NationaJ Gallery also
has a Portrait of Don s Wife, be(iueathed by the late Mr. Wyiin i-'.llis.
Gabriel Metsu, the son of an artist-father and an artist-molher, was born at I.eyden
in 16 1 5. Of his life little is known. The name of his instructor in art is not recorded,
but he early attained celebrity in .Amsterdam, where he had settled when still young,
and where he painted until his dcith, which took place after 1667. the latest ilate on
any work, by him.
Gabriel Metsu, although imitating both (ierard Dou \\\\<\ Terburg, yet succeeded in
marking out a new route for himself,. and male himself original by the frankness of his
touch, as well as the power, richness, and harmony of his colours. His prevailing tints
are either j)urple, like the ^'an Eycks, or sometimes silvery, like Paul Veronese, which
causes him to be easily recognised among the artists of that period cultivating the same
style and treating the same subjects. The Chemist, the Officer an,l the Yonni^ Laily,
and still more the Vegetable Market at Amsterdam, represent him worthily in the Louvre.
And yet the Intni.ler of the Baring Collection in London, the two Poulterers which,
with the celebrated Lace-Maker, the Museum of Dresden possesses, anil the other
Poulterer, which the Museum of Cassel unites to the young Musician, rise still higher
in the scale of perfection. The National Gallery has three works by Metsu, a Duet
and a Music Lesson, and one bequeathed by the late Mr. Wynn Ellis. At London,
344 ILLUSTRATED HLSTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1650.
Dresden, and Cassel, Metsu is superior to his rivals, even to Gerard Dou, Terburg,
and Van Ostade.
Cornells Bega, the son of a sculptor, was born at Haarlem in 1620. He studied
under Adriaan van Ostade, and like Dusart, acquired his style in a most successful
manner. The Dresden Gallery has a picture of Peasants datic'uio; in an ale-house.
Works by Bega are in most continental galleries. He died at Haarlem, of the plague,
in 1664.
Isaac van Ostade, the younger brother of the more celebrated Adriaan, was born at
Haarlem in 162 1. Little is known of his life. He died at Amsterdam in 1657, where
he had been residing several years previously. Writers disagree both as to the date
and the place of this painter's death.
Isaac van Ostade is equal to his brother in a different line ; and it is only in his
genre that he remains his inferior. Adriaan doubtless is superior in the painting of little
domestic or popular dramas, where the human being holds the first place ; but Isaac
makes up for this by the representation of the natural scenes of these dramas ; he is
more of a landscape painter. This may be seen in the Louvre, in his two Halts of
travelling parties before a hostelry, and in an open Dutch landscape. There may also
be found another subject which he frequently treated, and which may be seen every-
where, a Frozen Canal covered by travellers on skates. The winter is the beautiful
season of Holland and of all the north as far as Russia. Isaac van Ostade made for
himself a speciality of these winter landscapes, as Van der Neer did of moonlight.
He was, and still is, the first master in this peculiar walk of art. Two good Frost
scenes by Isaac van Ostade are in the National Gallery, the one was bought with the
Peel Collection, and the other was acquired with the Wynn-Ellis bequest. The
National Gallery also has a Village scene by Isaac van Ostade, whose works are seen
in various private galleries in this country, though they are rare on the Continent.
Hendrik Martenz Rokes, called Zorg or Sorg, was born at Rotterdam in 162 1. It
is said that his father obtained the name of " Zorg " from the care with which he
conveyed the passengers on the passage-boat between Rotterdam and Dordrecht.
Young Zorg is said to have studied under Teniers the younger at Antwerp, but his style
is more akin to that of Adriaan Brouwer. His pictures represent the usual Dutch
interiors and exteriors of this period. They are seen in most continental galleries,
the Louvre, Munich, Dresden, Amsterdam, and others. Zorg died in 1682.
Jan Steen, the son of a brewer, was born atLeyden about the year 1626. He first
studied under an unimportant painter at Utrecht, and subsequently under Van Goyen,
whose daughter he married. Though Steen obtained a reputation as a painter, his
works did not reaUse sufficiently high prices to enable him to live comfortably. He
accordingly, by the advice of his father, set up a brewery at Delft. Through this
however, Steen was ruined, and therefore compelled again to take to the palette. He
remained none the less a friend to the bottle. He afterwards, though continuing to
paint, opened an ale-house, from the frequenters of which, he doubtless obtained
numerous subject's for his pictures. He died in great poverty at Leyden in 1679.
Jan Steen, who might be surnamed like the elder Breughel, the jovial, has nothing
in the Louvre but a Flemish Festival m an ale-house, which is not finely finished, if we
compare it with the other pictures of the school, or even of the painter. But, besides
the fact that its great dimensions permit a bolder and freer execution, it is recom-
J AX STEEN.
P'lg^' 345-
A.D. 1650.] r./.V DER MEER. 345
mended by other merits, \vhi( h well make up for the want of a more mhmte finish ; it
is full of gaiety, wit, and sly humour, besides being entlowed with the superior tiuality
so rare in the works (jf most painters — life. However, to know Jan Steen well, we
must go elsewhere than to the Louvre. At the Helvedere, at Vienna, we shall find a
Village Wedding, and at Herlin a Garden of an Ale-house^ which are excellent scenes of
burlesque comedy ; at the Hermitage, the Game of Backgammon, where Steen has
painted himself in con\ersation with his wife, and an Ahasiterus touching Esther with
his golden sceptre ; a subject which he has endeavoured to treat seriously, but which is
only the more comic from the attempt. In England, in the National Gallery, the
Afusic Master, and at Buckingham Palace, Ale-houses quite worthy of being admitted to
a king's palace, and a large number in private collections ; at Rotterdam the Malade
Imaginaire, who Hxncies he has stones in his head, and Tobit curing his Father; at the
Hague, the celebrated Picture of Human Life, a large collection of about twenty
persons executed in the finest manner of this irregular master, and the Family of Jan
Steen, another collection of a dozen life-like figuies, lighted up as Pieter de Hooch
would have done ; in it we notice particularly the charming group of a very aged
grandfather and a little urchin— the two childhoods of life ; lastly, at Amsterdam, a
very celebrated scene of an Interior, called the Feast of St. Nicholas: the good children
receiving playthings, whilst the idle one finds a rod in his shoe, and every one laughs
at him. There is also the excellent portrait that Jan Steen has left oi Himself . This
gentle, serious, almost melanclioly, countenance — which has nothing of the drunkard
in it — shows well, like that of Moliere, the true character of wits by profession ; they
make others laugh, but do not laugh themselves.
Jan van der Meer who was born at Delft in 1632, is usually called "Van der Meer
of Delft," to distinguish him from Van der Meer of Haarlem, and Van der Meer of
Utrecht, both unimportant artists of whom Httle is known with certainty. Young
Jan first studied under Fabritius, and on the death of that master in 1654, is said
to have left Delft and to have entered the studio of Rembrandt at Amsterdam, but
as his sojourn with the great master is merely a matter of surmise, we have not
mentioned him among his actual pupils. Van der Meer died at Delft towards the
close of the seventeenth century. It is said that his house fell in and crushed him and
one Simon Decker whose portrait he was painting. Thore has restored a place
in the history of art for this distinguished painter, whose principal works have probably
received the name of De Hooch since that painter has been restored to honour.
Although the Vie^u of />///— purchased for 5,000 florins— in ihc Museum of the
Hague, is a landscape treated in the manner of Philip de Koningh, Van der Meer
adhered rather to Pieter de Hooch in the usual choice of his subjects and his use
of effects. Two good works by Van der Meer are in the Six Collection at Amsterdam ;
the one is a Vieio of a Street, probably in Delft, and the other a Milk-woman.
Pictures by this artist are now highly prized. Her Majesty the Queen possesses a fine
work, by him, entitled the Music Lesson.
Frans van Miens, the son of a goldsmith and diamond cutter, was bom at Delft,
on the 6th of April 1635. His first instructor in art was one A. Torenvliet, but he
subsequently entered the studio of (Gerard Dou at Leyden, who was so pleased with
his painting that he named him " the prince of his pupils.' Van Mieris practised
his art with much sifccess in Leyden until his death in 16S1. He left two sons,
both painters, one of whom we shall mention hereafter.
2 Y
346 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.u. 1670.
In the two Painter s Studios at Dresden — which \v\?> thirteen other works by that
master --he has introduced himself, and in one, the violoncello leaning against a wall
shows that he shared his master's taste for music, and could join him in a
concert. x\s one of his masterpieces we should mention the Shoptvoman at her
cojmter cajoled by a purchaser, which is in the Belvedere at Vienna. For Mieris,
this is a very large picture, as it is almost two feet in height ; but each figure and
object is finished with as much care as in his miniatures. Another of his best known
pictures is the celebrated one at Munich of a Lady faintiiig in presence of her doctor.
The only comparison we can suggest for this work of Frans Mieris is with the master-
piece of Gerard Dou himself, the Woman sick of the Dropsy, in the Louvre. The
National Gallery, where Dutch artists as a rule are poorly represented, has but one
work by Mieris — a Lady in a crimson jacket ; repetitions of it are in the Munich Gallery
and in the collection of Her Majesty the Queen. The Amsterdam Gallery has a Lady
playing on aflnte by Van Mieris, of great merit ; and we must not forget to mention his
works in the Ufilzi at Florence, among others, the portraits oi Mieris and his family.
We may here notice his son. Willem van Mieris, who was born at Leyden in 1662,
imitated his father, who was his instructor in art, with great success. He resided
chiefly at Leyden until his death, which took place in 1747 in his eighty-fifth year.
A Fish and Poultry Shop — signed " W. van Mieris. ft. Anno 17 13" — in the National
Gallery, is a sufficient example of this master. Of his son Frans van Mieris^called
the younger to distinguish him from his grandfather — we need say nothing, for he never
rose above mediocrity.
Gaspar Netscher, who was born at Heidelberg in 1639, though a German by birth,
belongs to the Dutch school of art. When he was still a child his widowed mother
removed to Arnheim, where he received his first instruction in art ; he subsequently
studied under Terburg at Deventer. Leaving that master in 1659, he started wilh
the intention of going to Italy, but falling in love on his way wilh a young lady at
Bordeaux, he married her, and in 1661 returned to Holland. He established himself
as a painter at the Hague, where he joined the Painters' Guild in 1663, and there
he remained until his death in 16S4. Though invited to I>ondon by Charles II., lie
api)arently never visited England.
Gaspar Netscher, whom Gerard de Lairesse called " the prince of artists," is
completely Dutch in his studies and works. In the Louvre, the Singing Lesson and
the Violoncello Lesson ; at Munich, Bathsheha — a picture which should not have had
a Biblical title ; at Carlsruhe, the Suicide of Cleopatra, a fair, plump Frisian woman,
in a white satin dress, and bearing very little resemblance to the dark mistress of
Ccesar and Antony ; at Dresden, a series of Ladies at their toilette, in bed, at the
harpsichord, all show us the rival of Terburg and Metzu displaying his rare merit
in the rendering of fabrics and inanimate objects, especially of goldsmith's work,
as well as in the grace, elegance, and distinction he always gives to his human models.
Dresden still possesses the ^x'(\'iX!'i> Portrait of Himself , a very intellectual head, which
we are charmed to find twice repeated. Netscher has painted himself at first in
meditation, near a table; then accompanying his wife's singing with a guitar: he was
a musician like Dou and Mieris. The National Gallery has three pictures by this
artist; Blowing Bubbles, Maternal Instruction, and a Iad\ seated at a spinning ulieet,
all purchased wilh the Peel Collection.
Pictcr van Slingelandt, who was bo'n at Leyden m 1640, l)ecanic a pupil of
A.D. 1675.] PfFTER DE HOOCH. 347
Gerard Don, but w.is 1 w imkihh 10 Van Mieris. Slingelandt jiainted chiefly at Leyden
where he dieil in 169 1, His works are not commonly seen in England, as those of
other Dutch artists; the N'ational (iallery has not a single jiicture by him. He
is the least of the lesser Dutch artists, the most patient ami minutely finished of even
that school. He took, it is said, three years to cover a piece of canvas one foot
square, and a whole month to paint a lace hand. It may easily be understood with
such a method of jjainting how it happened th.it he did not paint more than thirty
pictures in his whole life. One of the most important is in the Louvre, the Dutch
Foinily (the Meernvin family). An ornamentil Drati'ing-roont contains as many as
five personages — the father, mother, two children, a negro — as well as a dog anil a
parrot. For the microscopic painting of Slingelandt this is a whole world, and
during the time he took to engrave this little panel, with the help of a magnifying
glass, Rubens ])ainted on his ladtier the twenty-one large pictures which comj)ose the
History of Maria df Afiuiiii.
Godfried Schalken was born at Dordrecht in 1643. He first studied under Van
Hoogstraten, but abandoned that master in favour of Don. On leaving the studio
of that painter, Schalken adopted candle-light effects, which became immensely
j)opular. During the reign of William HI. he came to England, but did not meet
with the success he anticipated, and no wonder, for according to accounts given of
him, he was little better than a boor. He returned to Holland, where, as his ill
manners were not so noticeable, he enjoyed at the Hague the popularity, which had
formerly been given him at Dordrecht. Schalken died at the Hague in 1706. The
National Gallery in London has one picture by this painter — Ltsbia 7oa\s;hing Je^cc/s
against Jicr sparnna. Of his portraits, v/e may notice one of King IVil/iam III. by
candle-light, in the .Vmsterdam Gallery. (It is said that Schalken alloweil the King to
hold a candle until tlic wax covered his finders.) In the \'an Loon Collection at
.Amsterdam, is a Boy playing a guitar by Schalken. The Galleries of \'ienna. Dresden,
and Munich, contain examjilcs of his art.
Eglon Hendrik van der Neer, the son of .\\x\. van der Xeer, was born at
Amsterdam, in 1643. He received his first instruction from his father, but subse-
quently studied under Jacob van Loo. From 1653 to ,1657 he stayed in Paris, where
his pictures were much appreciated. On his return to Holland he established himself
as a painter of conversation pieces, tiking Terburgand Mieris as his models. \'an der
Neer was in later life employed by the Elector I'alatine in Dusseldorf, where he died
in 1703. His works are very scarce, both in England and on the Continent. Dr.
Waagen names as his most imi)ortant works, two conversation pieces — one in the
possession of Mr. A. T. Hop^-. and the other in the collection of Mr. F. Heusch.
Pieter de Hooch, Hoogh, or Hooge, is a piinier of whom next to nothing is known.
He was born about 1643, and is sujiposed to have studied under Nicholas Derchem.
The date of De Hooch's <leath is not recorded. This great colourist was so long and so
completely unknown, that his name has been freijuenily eftacetl from pictures m order
to substitute that of some other ])ainter better known to commerce. Reducing tlie
jtroportions of his Iniildings, and satisfied with merely a room in a house, provided that
it had a window and door open, he sought less for the elTects of perspective than for
those of light. In this science of light ami shadow, Rembrandt himself has not sur-
passed him, and no one else has produced equally well the effect of a ray of sunlight
crossing shadow in a room. He has succeeded, besides, and without borrowing the
348 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d! 1700.
pencil of another, in animating his little rooms by personages as full of life as their
dwellings are of air and day. He has succeeded in depicting household poetry, the
poetry of the hearth, as well as Terburg and Metzu. At the Louvre there are two fine
pictures by Pieter de Hooch, but they are both surpassed by the Return from the
Market, at the Hermitage, the Dutch Cabin, at Munich, and the Interior (without any
other name), in the Amsterdam Gallery. The last-mentioned especially is lighted by
one of those wonderful sunbeams, at once the seal and the honour of the master.
The Amsterdam Gallery has one other work by De Hooch — a Portrait of Himself ,
inscribed with his monogram and '■'yEtatis 19," but the artist has omitted to put the
date. De Hoogh is better represented in the Dutch private collections than in public
galleries. The Steengracht Collectio.n has -x Musical party ; the Van der Hoop Col-
lection, besides a Musical couple, has three Interiors. A Garden scene is in the
Van Loon Collection. In England, De Hooch is well represented in private collec-
tions. The National Gallery has two Courtyards of Dutch houses, and one Interior,
all good examples of the master. A Ca?'d party, in Buckingham Palace, has great
merit.
Michael van Muscher, who was born at Rotterdam, in 1645, studied under Abraham
van Tempel, and also with Metsu and Adriaan van Ostade. He painted small conver-
sation pictures after the manner of those masters. His best pictures are portraits.
One of Himself, his Wife, and his Son, is in the National Gallery of the Hague. Van
Muscher died in 1705, at Amsterdam, the scene of his principal labours.
Adriaan van der Werff, the son of a miller, of good family, was born at Kralinger
Ambacht, near Rotterdam, in 1659. His first instructor in art was an unimportant
portrait-painter, but he subsequently studied under Eglon van der Neer. In 1676,
Van der Werff established himself as a portrait-painter, but he soon abandoned that
branch in favour of historic and mythologic pictures. Henceforth a most brilliant
career was open to him. His pictures commanded his own prices, and he was
patronized by all, from the Elector PalaUne downwards. Van der Werff died at
Rotterdam, in 1722. In his very numerous works it would be difficult to find any
differences, any pictures better or worse than the others. When we remember the
high estimation in which this miller's son held himself (even to painting his own
portrait with the attributes of immortality) ; the flivour of the elector palatine, John
William, who enriched and ennobled hmi — considering him fir superior to Rembrandt,
the other miller's son ; taking into consideration, too, the celebrity he enjoyed during
his life, the high price attached to the works of his pencil, and also the pretentious
titles of his compositions — the greater part historical or even sacred — Moses saved from
the Waters, the Angels announcing the Glad Tidings, the Magdalen in the Desert, etc. ;
— we should be inclined to give him the rank of an historical painter. But afterwards,
when we come to notice, besides the small size of the personages crowded into his
little panels, his careful, and miniature manner of painting, mistaking minuteness for
grace, and prettiness for beauty, he scarcely deserves the name of genre painter. Van
der Werff, by wishing to rise above his masters, has sunk in his ambitious works to
a very inferior rank, because with him there is such a flagrant contradiction between
the subject and the execution — the execution being always below the subject. The
Munich Gallery contains all the best pictures which Van der Werff painted for the
Elector ; they were formerly in the Diisseldorf Collection. The artist is seen in almost
every contmental gallery, but his works are not popular in England.
A.I). 1650] LATER DUTCH PAINTERS. 349
Cornells Dusart, who was born at Haarlem, in 1660, studied under Adriaan van
Ostade, whose style he imitated witli much success. His works are in the best
galleries on the Continent. Though the National Gallery has no work by him, his
l)ictures are seen in many private collections in England. The Amsterdam Gallery
has the best ot* Dusart's works; a Kermesse, a Fish market, which as early as 1808,
was purchased for 1,665 florins, and especially the Vii/ai^e Jn/i, are all works of great
merit. Dusart died at Haarlem, in 1704.
Theodor Netscher, who was born at Bordeaux in 1661, was the elder son of
Caspar Netscher. After the completion of his studies under liis father at the Hague,
young Theodor went to Paris, where, during a residence of twenty years, he enjoyed
much popularity as a jjortrait painter. In 17 15, he is said to have left Holland, whither
he had returned, and to have come to England, as paymaster of the Dutch forces,
Netscher remained in this country, it is saitl, for six years, but eventually died at Hulst,
in 1732. Besides his success as a portrait painter, he also excelled in representing
friiii and flowers. It may be as well to mention here a younger brother of Theodor —
Constautine Netscher, who was born at the Hague in 1670. He lived all his life in
that city, where he was much esteemed as a painter of portraits and of interiors. He
ilietl there, in 1722.
II.— PAINTERS OF LANDSCAPE AND lUTTLE SCENES.
Jan van Goyen was bom of good family at Leyden in 1596. After a course of study
under two unimportant painters, he went to Esais van der \elde, under whose instruc-
tion he became a good landscape-jjainter. Van Goyen died at the Hague, in 1656.
Among other works by him, the Amsterdam Gallery contains a Viae on t/ic Miusr, and
the old Castle of Vo/kai/iof, at Nimeguen. Unfortunately the National Gallery has no
work by Van Goyen, who, but for a sameness in colouring, is one of the best Dutch
landscape painters of his period.
Anton Stevens or Stevers— generally called Palamedes— who was born at London
in 1^)04. removed with his fomily, ulien young, to Delft, where he became famous
as a painter of cavalry skirmishes and guard-room scenes. In 1636 he became
a member of the Painters' Guikl, and his name is found in connection with that
corporation as late as 1673. Palamedes died, according to Houbraken, in 1680.
He frequently painted figures to the pictures of other artists— more especially to those
of Dirk van Deelen. Anton Stevens had a younger brother, Paul Palamedes Stevens
—also called Palamedes— who was l)orn in London in 1607, and wlio painted in a
similar style, but in an inferior manner. A Cani/ry Cliai\^c, supposeil to be his work,
is in the Dresden Gallery. He died at Delft in 1638.
Jan Wyuauts was born at Haarlem quite at the beginning of the seventeenth
century, probably in 1601. But little is known of his life. His name occurs as late
as 1677 in the records of the Guild at Haarlem. Jan ^^■ynants commences the cycle
of real Dutch landsca])e painters, of those who were born, and lived, and died in
Holland. For them Nature is no longer the theatre for a subject, but is herself the
subject. They studied and copied her under all her aspects ; they made of her,
as of a loved mother, alma parens, a thousand difterent portraits, all striking in their
truthfulness. It is the glory of Wynants to have been one of the first to have accepted
and consecrated this new branch, which might have remained only secondary, and
to have raised it by his great talent. Whilst Both, Berchem, and Pynacker copied the
35°
ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS [a.d. 1650.
warm and mountainous scenes of Italy, Wynants fell in love with his own Holland.
The first country view he came upon — provided he could introduce a few figures and
animals, which were painted by complaisant and unambitious assistants, and could
also bring in the winding road coming from and going no one knows where— was
sufficient for this excellent master, who is rendered no less celebrated by his pupiis
than by his own works. The Dresden Gallery has two Landscapes with figures by
Wynants. The galleries of the Louvre, IVIunich, Amsterdam and the Hague, all
contain good examples of this artist. The last-mentioned has a Landscape, dated
1675, one of the last pictures he painted. Wynants is well represented in England,
THE ENCAMPMENT. — BY CUYP.
both in the National Gallery — whicli has five by him, two bought with the Peel
Collection, and three acquired with the Wynn-Ellis bequest — and in private collections.
Figures and animals were frequently painted in Wynants' landscapes by other artists.
Albert Cuyp was born at Dordrecht in 1605. He studied under his father, one
Jacob Gerritsz Cuyp, but was indebted to nature for the greater part of his instruction
in art. Little is known of his life, and the date of b.is deadi is uncertain. He is
supposed to have been living in 1683. Albert Cuyp, one of those masters who
cultivated various genres with an almost equal success, has painted a considerable
A.i». 1 650. 1 ALBERT CLVr.
»o
number of portraits, and of tolerably good ones, too, but at the s ime time we ni;iv
well believe that, if he had devoted hniiself entirely to this branch of art, he would
never have attained to more than secondary renown. He has painted fruit, flo-u>crs,
dead gami\ and inanimate objtxts, without diualling, however, the hij^diest painters in this
line. He has painted scenes of interiors in the manner of \'an Ost.ide and Teniers,
such as the Mussel Eater, in the Museum of Rotterdam. He has painted interiors
of buildings, in wb.ich he is surj)asscd by no one, not even by Emanuel de \\'itte.
He has j)ainted aninials of all kinds, and in such a manner as to ])oint him out, not
niercly as the jiredecessor, but as the model of Paul Potter. Lastly, he has jjainted
animated landseapes ■\x\Ci marine pieces, or rather the banks of rivers, amongst which
his real masterpieces are to be found. Albert Cuyp has, then, contende.l with all
the masters of his own tiinc and country, without any other secret than the fmding
variety in siniplicity, the untbreseen in the natural, grandeur in ingeniousness. But,
except Rembrandt, he surpassed them all in one i)oint. He is the greatest lover
of light of all the Dutch masters. It is very strange that Cuyp's i)ictiHes are not
merely luminous under the ardent rays of the sun at noon ; they are so also, and no
less, in the pale grey mist of the Dutch rivers ; and even during the night, as is
proved by a picture at (Irosvenor House, of the Banks of a Lake, where several cows
are grazing. We do not remember to have seen anywhere, even among the works
Oi Van der Neer, light carried to such perfection.
Cuyp cannot be seen to advantage in his own country, where his talent was not
recognised until a later time. Before the Dutch had learned to api)reciate him, all
his finest works hati been taken out of Holland. He is not well represented either
in the Louvre, by the Departure and Return, although they show something of his
warmth of colouring and love of light. It is in England, where Cuyp has been
reinstated under the title of the " Dutch Claude," that his best works are to be found.
One of a Landscape, with Cattle and Figures (Xo. 53), in the National Gallery,
may be placed in this class. Everything in it is admirable. A rider, dressed in red,
whose dappled grey horse is foreshortened ; a pretty little shepherdess replying timidly
to the (juesiions of the traveller, her dog and sheep, the water, the earth, the sky, the
light, form a charming kmdscape, evidently copied from nature, but renilered as this
artist alone knows how to see anil to show it to others. The National Gallery has
seven other works by Cuyp. One is a view of his native Dordrecht, and was acquired
with two others by tlie same artist in the Wynn-EUis bequest. Others of the master-
pieces of Cuyp are to be found in the cabinets of amateurs, especially in that of 1 ,ord
Ellesmere. In the Baring Collection, in particular, there is a splendid T/Wi' of the
Meuse, which is inferior to nothing in this branch of art.
Cornells Decker, or Decher, was born in the earlier half of the seventeenth centurv.
He is supposeil to have studied under Solomon Ruy.sdael. He died in poverty in 16-S
at Haarlem. .\ gooil example of his pictures is a Wooded Landscape in the
Rotterdam Museum. Cornelis Decker is another landscape painter of the .same
period and of the same .school as Ruysdael, to which artist his works were also for
a long time attrii)uted. It is a proof that he was held in high estimation, that
Adriaan van Osiade rendered him the same service that Adriaan van de Velde
rendered to W'ynants. that of painting the figures of men and animals in his pictures.
But since his work.s were long accejiled as lho>e of Ruysdael, what necessitv is there
for anv other eidogy on Decker?
352 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1650.
Solomon Koning, who was born at Amsterdam in 1609, studied under David Colyns
and Nicolas Moyaert — both unimportant masters. Koning in later life imitated the
style of Rembrandt, He died in 1668. A fine picture of a Diamo?td Merchant
is in the Rotterdam Museum ; and the Six Collection has an Old Alati in his Study.
Koning also engraved several plates, like his later pictures, after Rembrandt's style.
There are various ways of spelling this artist's name, but the one given above is that
now usually adopted.
Dirk Stoop, the engraver and painter, was born in 16 10. He painted for some
time in Holland, and then went to Portugal, where he remained until 1662. In that
year he accompanied Catherine of Braganza to England, when that princess came
for the purpose of marrying Charles H. Soon after his arrival in England, Stoop
published seven plates of the Journey of Catherine of Braganza to London. He
subsequently published other engravings in England. He returned to Holland in
1678, where he died ten years later. Dirk Stoop painted chiefly battle-scenes and
hunting-pictures.
Jan Both was born at Utrecht about 16 10. After he had received instruction in art
from his father and then from Abraham Bloemart, he went to France and Italy, accom-
panied by his younger brother. After the death of the latter, Jan returned to Utrecht,
where he died in 1656. The figures in this artist's pictures are frequently painted by his
younger brother Andreas. Their works being thus joint productions should in strict
justice be said to be by the " Brothers Both," but custom has decided that they should
bear the name of the elder. In these pictures we may admire the warm golden tints
of southern countries, which, united to the natural style of Jan Both, make him a sort
of Claude, though wilder and more rural. In looking at the large trees in the fore-
grounds, for instance, we recall the excellent description of Bernardin de St. Pierre,
contrasting, in his Harmonies, the firm and immoveable oak-tree of the north to the
flexible and pliant palm-tree of southern climes : " Witli his knotted branches the
oak resembles an athlete fighting with the tempest." The National Gallery at the
Hague has two good Italian Landscapes by Both. Two others (Nos. 8 and 42) in the
Amsterdam Gallery are worthy of note ; but a masterpiece of the Boths is the Artist
Studying from Nature in the Van der Hoop Collection at Amsterdam. In England
the National Gallery has six works by Jan Both. In a Landscape (No. 209) the figures
are said to be by Poelemberg.
Andreas Both was born at Utrecht ; the date is not recorded. He followed almost
the same career as his brother — studied under his father, then under Bloemart, and sub-
sequently accompanied his brother to France and Italy. He was drowned in a canal
at Venice in 1650. His loss is said to have caused his brother great affliction.
Andreas Both, who might have become an eminent artist both in painting and
engraving, resigned himself with touching self-denial to do nothing but place figures in
his brother's landscapes.
Pieter van Laer, called from his deformity Bamboccio {the big child), was born
at Laaren in 1613. This artist, who under his deformed body concealed a joyous
disposition and much humour, was sent to Italy for instruction in art. In
that country he became famous for his pictures representing what the Italians call
Bambocciate, whence Lanzi and other writers suppose he obtained his name of
" Bamboccio." In 1639 Van Laer left Rome and returned to Holland. He settled at
A.D. 1650.] DUTCH SCHOOL. 353
Haarlem, where he enjoyed much fame and patronage until liis death in 1673.
Pictures by this artist are in the galleries of Florence, Cassel, Dresden, Vienna and
elsewhere. He was also an engraver.
Solomon Ruysdael, who was born at Haarlem in 16 16 (?) or a little earlier, was a
pupil of Van Ooyen, and the instructor of his fiimous brother Jacob.
He jjainted views on the banks of the rivers and canals of his native country, and
delighted in verdure, sunshine, and elegance ; rather in contrast to the grey and reddish
tints — showing the ordinary gloom of the climate— in which Van (Joyen indulged.
Solomon Ruysdael died at Haarlem in 1670.
Philip de Koningh was born at Amsterdam in 1619. Little is known of his life; he
is said to have worked under Rembrandt, but he i)robal)ly only studied the great
master from his works. De Koningh died at Amsterdam in 1689. This artist made
for himself a distinct line in landscape painting, of which Rembrandt had indicated the
secret, but which none of that master's disciples inherited. The endless depths of
a smooth i)lain, intersected by alternate shadow and light, was his usual and favourite
subject. He ai)pears to have endeavoured to give an idea of infinite distance.
Although De Koningh is chiefly known by his landscapes, yet he occasionally painted
portraits and historical subjects. Very little known in France, De Koningh is much
valued in Holland and England.
In the Amsterdam Gallery, we may notice a Landscape (No. 45), and the Entrauce
to a Forest (No. 182). In England, the National Gallery has a Landscape, and among
the private collections, that of Grosvenor House has fine examples of this master.
Aart van der Neer, who was born at Amsterdam in 1619, or, as some writers say,
in 1 613, is a painter of whose life unfortunately but little is known. The name of his
instructor in art is not recorded. He lived chiefly at Amsterdam, where he died in
1683 (?). Some writers say that he was living at Rotterdam as late as 1691.
Aart van iler Neer, more even than the Gherardo delle A^otti of the Italians, was
the poet of the night. He has merely painted simple and true nature, and only the
scenes to be found in his own country; but he has made a domain for himself between
the twilight of the evening and of the morning. It might be supposed that his eyes,
like those of owls, could not support the brilliancy of the sun, and preferred the pale
rays of the moon. When he does ever venture into the daylight it is in the depth of
winter, during days of ice and snow, or when the sky is misty, and the light almost as
pale as in the twilight. Melancholy is the characteristic of Ruysdael's painting, and
mystery that of Van der Neer's. Yet he never chose anything for his subject but flat
Dutch landscapes, with their motionless waters, and meadows bordered with willows ;
he dispenses with the usual accessories of high towers, picturesque ruins, lantastic
rocks, or anything that may be called the architecture of landscapes.
Of Van der Neer's work we may especially notice, in the National Gallery, a
Landscape, with figures and cattle by Cuyp who has signed his name on a pail ; also a
River Scene and a Canal Scene ; and in the Berlin Museum one of his many pictures
representing a Moon/it^/it Scene. Aart van der Neer is well represented in the private
galleries of England and on the Continent.
Hermann van Swanevelt was born at Woerden in 1620 (?). The name of his first
instructor in art is unrecorded ; the assertion that he studied under Gerard Dou is
probably without foundation. Swanevelt went when still young to Rome, where, in
2 z
354 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1650.
1640, he entered the studio of Claude Lorraine, from whose instruction he derived
much benefit. From his love of solitude, Swanevelt was called by his com-
panions " the Hermit." He lived all the rest of his life in Rome. There is a
remarkable difference in the dates given as the year of his death — 1655, 1680,
and 1690. Swanevelt's pictures are not so frequently seen in public galleries as those
of his contemporary landscape-painters. He is noteworthy for excellent composition
and drawing, but his colouring is not always good.
Philip Wouvermans, Wouvverman or Wouwerman, who was born at Haarlem in
1620, studied art under his father, Paul Wouvermans — a painter of little note — and
under Jan Wynants. He lived all his life in Haarlem — according to Houbraken, in
wealth and ease ; but the majority of evidence is against him, and it is probable that,
though Wouvermans' works, even in his day, fetched good sums, the painter himself
hved in poverty. He died at Haarlem in 1668. Houbraken's assertion that he
gave his daughter 20,000 florins as a marriage portion is denied by D'Argentville.
Philip Wouvermans, a prodigy of fertility, it is said, produced, in a life one-half
shorter than that of Teniers, the "two leagues of gallery" on which he prided himself.
It is probable however, that he did not execute all the pictures attributed to him.
Wouvermans has left sixty-four in the Dresden Museum, forty-nine in the Hermitage,
twenty two at Cassel, seventeen at Munich, thirteen at the I-ouvre, ten in Buckingham
Palace, seven in the National Gallery, six in the Dulvvich Gallery; and there are,
besides, innumerable works dispersed through the galleries and cabinets of the whole
world. On seeing his pictures very often complicated with numerous details, and the
execution, always so carefully finished, we ask with astonishment how the short life of
a single man could have sufficed for such an achievement. Wouvermans is the
elegant painter of the life of gentlemen, of war, of hunting, of all the sports in
which man has his dog and horse for his companions. At Paris there are some good
specimens of his usual subjects, ennobled by the style of his delicate touch ; such are
the celebrated Bcviif-gras, the Hunting Party on horseback, the two Cavalry scenes,
and, especially, the Ridifig ScJiool. But his best works must be sought elsewhere : at
Dresden, amongst the enormous number there. Stag, Boar, and Heron Hunting; at St.
I'etersburg, the Burning Mill, where masses of verdure, mingled with whirling flames,
form the most harmonious contrast, and the Flemish Carousal in a spacious plain, in
the midst of a crowd of spectators — a scene full of movement and gaiety ; at Munich,
the great Stag Hunt, a good picture in every part, and a Battle, doubtless borrowed
from the Thirty Years' War, for the two armies in presence are German and Swedish ;
lastly, at the Hague, the superb and animated landscape known by the name of the
Chariot de Foin, and the other great Battle-piece, which is the largest known of the
innumerable pictures by Wouvermans. It is also, perhaps, the most complete and
valuable. It is conceived with exquisite taste and great happiness, so covered with
figures that it is impossible to count them, and of very energetic and powerful action,
and yet the touch is as fine and elegant as the most delicate miniature. We may here
notice two brothers, who both studied under him.
Pieter Wouvermans, who was born at Haarlem in 1623, painted in imitation
of the style of his brother, but in a far inferior manner. He died in 1683. Jan
Wouvermans, who was born at Haarlem in 1629, adopted a branch of art for himself—
that of painting landscapes, which he embellished with figures and animals. Works
by him are rarely seen in pul)lic galleries. He died in 1666.
A.D.
1650.] DUTCH SCHOOL. 355
Adam Pynacker was bom in 162 1 at the village of Pynacker, between Schiedam and
Delft, llic name of his instructor in art is not recorded. He paid a visit to Rome,
for three years. On his return to his native country he enjoyed much fame as a
landscape painter. Pynacker died in 1673- His pictures always represent pleasmg
landscapes, the opposite of Ruysdael's melancholy scenes-with a brilliant mornmg
light. He is celebrated for the power which he had of representing distances. His
landscai,es, which are scarce, are usually ornamented with figures and animals
painted by himself; they have occasionally a pervading green tone which is unpleasant.
Pynacker sometimes painted sea-pieces. Of his works on the Continent, the galleries
of the Louvre, Munich, Amsterdam, and elsewhere contain examples. Smith in his
catalogue numbers only sixty-nine pictures by this artist. Of these, Dr. Waagen tells
us, there are twenty-five in England. A Sea-piece at Althorp is worthy of mention.
Jan Baptist Weenix, called "the elder," was bom at Amsterdam in 1621. When
twenty-two years of age, he went to Italy, where he remained for four years. On his
return to Holland he was much patronized, as his fame as a painter had preceded him.
He died at Utrecht about 1665. He painted all subjects— historical, pastoral,
landscapes, and sea-pieces. The elder Weenix is well represented in most of the
Dutch and Flemish galleries at Munich and in the Louvre. A fine Landscape with
ruins and figures by him is in the gallery at Staftbrd House.
Aldert van Everdingen, who was bom at Alkmaar in 162 1, studied, it is said, under
Roelandt Savery and Pieter Molyn. On one occasion he made a voyage to the Baltic,
and was shipwrecked on the Norwegian shore, where the rugged beauty of the coast made
an everlasting impression on his mind. As if in contrast to the artist-travellers who
brought Italy back with them to Holland, Albert van Everdingen -bringing back from
his travels the mountainous scenes of Norway, shadowed with firs and intersected
with ravines and waterfalls— introduced into Dutch painting the nature of the extreme
north. He died at Amsterdam in 1675. A Nonoegian Landscape (No. 16), by him in
the Amsterdam Gallery, is worthy of notice. The Dresden Gallery has five Landscapes
by him. But Van Everdingen deserves greater praise as an engraver than as a
l)ainter. The British Museum contains good examples of him in this branch of art.
A version of "Reineke Fuchs," with fifty-seven engravings from the original plates by
Van Everdingen, was published in England in 1843.
Nicholas Claas, called Berchem or Berghem, was born at Haarlem in 1624. The
meaning of his nickname has been variously accounted for, but no rendering is of
undisputed authority. He studied umler numerous masters, his father, Pieter Claas, a
painter of no note, Jan van Goyen, Jan Wils, and Weenix, but none of these left
any lasting impression on Berchem. He completed in Italy the studies lie had
commenced in Holland, and introduced the new element of southern scenery into the
subjects treatetl by his fellow-countrymen. Berchem died at Haarlem in 1683. Although
a landscape and animal painter, he occasionally executed historical pictures — without
success. A Boaz and Ruth is in the Museum of Amsterdam, which has other works
by hini, including a good Ferry; a Cavalry Combat is in the gallery of the Hague.
The Louvre possesses a View 0/ Nice 7vx\<\ i\\Q Port of Genoa : and of his usual subjects,
a Ford and Cattle drinking. The works of Berchem are common in England, in the
National Gallery, the Dulwich Gallery, and in most private collections.
Paul Potter, the " Raphael of animals," was born at Enkhuizen in 1C25. The son
3S6
ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1650.
of a country gentleman, he was one whom the sight of nature, and the universal passion
for painting which liad then overspread the country, rather than the counsels of his
father, led to devote himself to art. He had no sooner made his name known, though
he was still very young, than he went to live first at Delft, then at the Hague, where he
married, and afterwards, in 1652, at Amsterdam, where he died from over-work at
the early age of twenty-eight.
The Hague has retained the one of Paul Potter's works which may be said to be
unique in its kind ; this is the landscape in which are assembled a young brown bull,
a cow, three sheep, and their shepherd, all of life-size. This picture is known by the
THE YOUNG BULL. — KY PAUL POTTER.
Ill the Gallery at the Hague.
name of the Yo7i7tg Bull of Paul Potter. He painted it at the age of twenty-two. It
was an incredible act of audacity. From its unusual size this bit/l required a thoroughly
different system of execution from that of the masters who had preceded him, and from
the earlier works of Paul Potter himself. He had to create a fresh system, and
succeeded in accomplishing it. He first painted this picture in the manner of the great
huntmg-scenes of Snyders, with a strong and deep impasto in the masses ; then over
this, almost in relief, he traced the details— as finely finished as a house by Van der
Heyden, or a face by Denner. This method of attaining perfection by the union of
two systems, is very interesting to artists, who are never weary of admiring the com-
A.D. 1650.]
PAUL POTTER. 357
bination and effect ; many even declare that this Young Bull, looked at as an exercise
of the i.encil, is the most astonishing work ever produced in the art of painting.
But in this we do not entirely agree. It is well that a portrait, or the figures in a
historical picture, should be of the size of life ; we are accustomed to see men near
us ; but usually we only see animals, flocks especially, in the distance. It is better
adapted, then, to the subject to paint them smaller, for it shows them to us as we
usually see them. In looking at the admirable background of this picture — the
large meadow bordered with trees, where other cattle are grazing, the light, air, and
life-like nature around— we can scarcely help regretting that these huge beasts in the
foreground conceal so large a part of the landscape ; we should prefer them to be
farther back, in order to see better. As a proof of this, let us look at the admirable
landscape that Paul Potter painted in the following year, 1648, and which is called,
on account of the sheet of water where the cattle drink. La Vaclu qui sc min:
But we will pass on to the Museum of Amsterdam : there we shall be fully justified.
What is this frightful picture, called a Bear Hunt? A kind of Hungarian hussar
approaches bare-headed, and armed with a most innocent-looking sword, to attack
these terrible animals ; it is perfectly ridiculous. The bears are out of drawing, the
dogs extravagant. There are, indeed, torn and bleeding limbs, and plenty to excite
horror and disgust, but no movement, no effect. The only reason for placing this
hideous scene in the place of honour is, that it bears the revered name ofPau/us Potter,
and the date 1649. He was surely right, in the five remaining years of his short life,
never again to employ these proportions. \\t may see this from a picture dated in the
following year, and entitled Orpheus sulxluht!^ Animals. At the foot of a wooded hill.
in a verdant glade, Orpheus is seated with a harp in his hand like King David, but
dressed as a Walloon. Around him are ranged a number of animals, not merely
those familiar to Paul Potter, such as the cow. the goat, the sheep, the ass, and the
dog, but also the wild animals of other countries, such as the lion, the elephant, the
camel, the buffalo, the bear, and even the unicorn. When this small picture is
compared with the larger one, it will not be difficult to decide on their merits.
Let us now examine some of his works in other parts of Europe. At Paris there
are only very feeble specimens of his style. In London there are at least two master-
pieces. One is in the gallery of the Duke of Westminster, the other at Buckingham
Palace. The former represents Con's ami Slurp under some willow-trees, in a meadow.
This wonderful little landscape, lighted up by the warm rays of the sun at noon, is
equal to any work of this master. It is dateil 1647. Paul Potter was therefore only
twenty-two when he painted it. Such a precocity of talent explains the reason why a
man who died in his twenty-ninth year should yet have left so many masterpieces. The
second, in Buckingham Palace, is a complete little country scene. A child has stolen
two pupi)ies from their mother, who is pursuing furiously and biting him ; the child is
flying in terror ; a cock is running off at the noise, flying as much as he can ; some
horses are looking out curiously from the stable door, whilst a cow that is being milked,
and the sheeji mixing in the scene, give it all the unity and variety of composition that
can be wished for in an historical picture. The National Galler)' has one Landscape
with Cattle, which was purchased with the Peel Collection.
But Paul Potter is greater at St. Petersburg than either in England or in his own
country. Of his very rare works, the imperial cabinet of Russia has collected nine. {\
tenth, bought in Holland for the Empress Catherine, was destroyed in a shipwreck,
with several other choice pictures.) We must stop a few moments o\er the three
358
ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1650.
principal works. One appears to have realised the wish of La Fontaine's lion : " Si nos
confreres savaiejit pemdre /" It is the trial of man by the animals. This singular com-
position forms fourteen compartments, the two largest of which are surrounded by the
twelve smaller. Paul Potter did not paint all these chapters himself. The history of
Acfceon is by Poelemberg, that of St Hubert, perhaps, by Teniers. The central panel
belongs to Paul Potter ; it represents the Condeinnation of Man by the Tribjmal of
Animals. A large Landscape, dated 1650, is a taore important picture, and is entirely
by Paul Potter. Through a thick wood, near a piece of water concealed in the shadow,
a road passes, lighted by a most brilliant moon. A traveller on horseback, two fishermen,
a herdsmen and his cows, supply the living portion of the landscape. This picture can
only be surpassed by another Lands-cape which Paul Potter painted in 1649, when
twenty-four years of age. It represents a flat pasture land_, in full sunshine, without any
CATTLK. — BY I'AUL POTTER.
masses of shadow, any chiaroscuro, or relief of any kind. Only large trees, dispersed
here and there, overshadow a farm and some cattle in repose. But in this simple
landscape, Paul Potter has united to his favourite cows nearly everythmg that can
animate a landscape— horses, asses, goats, sheep, hens, a dog and a cat, besides people.
It is the finest of his works, and the masterpiece of this genre. It is said that this
picture was estimated at 250,000 francs (^10,000) in the valuation of the cabinet
at Malmaison. This was in 1814 ; what would it be worth now ?
Karel du Jardin was born at Amsterdam about the year 1625. He is supposed to
have received instruction in art from Berchem. Like Berchem, he went to Italy for the
completion of his studies, and like him, he was imbued with something of the Italian
spirit. He lived in Plolland from 1656 till 1669, but eventually died at Venice in 1678.
The Amsterdam Museum has, among other works by this artist, a good Mounted
Trumpeter and a Farmyard. In the Louvre is a Calvary — too high a subject for the
JACOB RUYSDAEL.
J^'K^'' 359-
A.D. 1650.] RUYSDAEL. 359
painter, as the onlv religious expression to be found in it consists in the sombre hue of
the stormy sky — and tiie Italian Charlatans, a well-filled work of fresh and lively fimcy,
which I )escamps calls, not unjustly, the greatest work of this master. But to our mind,
he is i)referable in those subjects in which he is most at home, such as the Paturai:;e
and tlie Boca^e, both full of charming detail and exquisite poetry. From the warm
and brilliant tints of these works we may see at a glance that Du Jardin must have
been at this time residing in Italy. The National Gallery has three excellent works
by this artist, Fii^ures ami Animals reposing, a Fording the Stream, and a Landscape
with Cattle — all purchased with the Peel Collection.
Jacob Ruysdael, the prince of Dutch landscape painters, was born at Haarlem about
1625. He was originally intended for the study of medicine, and received an
education fitting the profession, which he is supposed to have practised for a short
time. But his love of art prevailed, and he abandoned the pharmacopoeia in favour of
the brush. His first instructor in art was his elder brother, Solomon Ruysdael.
Jacob is known to have lived in Amsterdam, and is supposed to have studied under
Berchem, with whom he was on intimate terms of friendship. Little further is known
of Ruysdael's life. He died in poverty at Haarlem in 1681.
Jacob Ruysdael is a striking proof of the saying of Bacon : Ars est homo additus
nattircc. To the talents of his predecessors or contemporaries he added the dreamy
and melancholy poetry of his own mind, which can only be well understood by
characters resembling his own. If we seek in Ruysdael merely the imitation, the
portrait of nature, he is equalled, and, perhaps, even surpassed, in some technical
points, by Hobbema, Decker, and a few others; but it is the inner sentiment, the
poetry of solitude, of silence, of mystery, which place him in the front rank alone.
Albrecht Diirer made a beautiful figure of Melancholy; without being personified, it is
visible in all the works of Ruysdael.
We will seek throughout Europe for the choicest of his works. In the Louvre
there are but a very small number — scarcely one-half of those which may be found at
Munich, Dresden, or St. Petersburg — and these are not by any means the best of
his works. There is, however, a charming landscape, of very fine execution, which is
called the Coup de Soleil : then another landscape, still more simple, whose name of The
Bush describes the whole subject. There is also a Storm on the coast and near the
dykes of Holland, dark and strong, atlmirable in the rendering of the tumultuous
waves and sinister aspect of the sky ; Michelet calls it the " prodigy of the Louvre."
In Holland itself we find little more than the Waterfall, at the entrance to a
wooded ravine, on the two steep banks of which stand old castles. This magnificent
work is in the Museum of Amsterdam, with a T/Vrf of Bentheim Castle, a small finely-
painted landscape, lighted by brilliant sunshine. It was painted on one of his happiest
days. Rotterdam also possesses another Vie^o of Bentheim Caztle,\\\\\c\i he painted so
many times and under such different aspects ; yet always with the greatest care and
finish. But alas, in the foreground of this picture, some miserable painter has
introduced, on the banks of the Moselle, the Gospel incident of the discijjles going to
Emmaus ! So that the three figures are intended for our Lord and the disciples !
In England, Ruysdael is especially to be found in private collections, for instance, at
Mr. Baring's, the Troubled River, which equals the Storm in the Louvre. The
Nfational Gallery has no less than twelve Landseapes by him — six of which were
acquired with the W'ynn- Ellis bequest — all worthy examples of the great master.
360
ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1650,
In Russia, fifteen pictures represent him in the Hermitage. In the figures we often
recognise the hand of Adriaan van Ostade and Adriaan van de Velde, which increase
their vahie. Some of these Landscapes are especially noteworthy. One is very small
and very simple : a sandy plain, a winding road, a peasant followed by his dog ;
nothing more : but over this is a veil of sadness which touches the heart as much as
the most pathetic scene. Another is equally simple, though of much larger size : a
pathway through a wood, and, on the banks of a sheet of stagnant water, a large
beech-tree, half despoiled of its branches by time. A third seems to include the two
preceding. This is also, in a deep forest, a fallen beech-tree, with a sheet of stagnant
water almost hidden by the water-lilies; two or three water birds, standmg on their
webbed feet, and one passing in the cfistance, are all that animates this solitude; but the
Jkuys CLQitt- fc-
?^;~_T- *^'^^§^
LANDSCAPE.— BY RUYSDAEL.
scene is full of silence, mystery, and soft melancholy, and Ruysdael has never spoken
more eloquently to thoughtful and dreamy souls.
It is in Germany however, that his greatest works are to be found. At Munich
there are nine Landscapes, all as beautiful as can be desired. In the largest there is a
Cascade foaming down over masses of rocks. This picture is valuable as well for its
great perfection as from its unusual size. At Dresden there are thirteen of his
paintings. Among these, several are justly celebrated. One of them is known by the
name of Ruysdael' s Chase. It is a forest of beech-trees, broken only by some sheets
of water reflecting the clouds in the sky. Under these great trees, Adriaan van de
Velde has painted a stag hunt, from which the name of the picture has been taken.
This is one of the largest as well as most magnificent to be found in his entire
works.
But the largest, the most important, and, perhaps, the most perfect of Ruysdael's
works is to be found in Vienna. It is about 6 feet wide by 5 feet high, and the
A.u. 1675.J HOBBEMA. 361
unusual size of the picture shows that RuyscLicl intciulcd ii for an extraordinary work.
Nothing could he more simple than the subject ; it is called the Forest. Under a
calm sky crossed hy floating clouds, a clump of high trees on a flat barren country,
through which a pathway winds, cut off in the foreground by a stream, and losing
itself in the distant horizon ; this is all. And yet it is the truest, most excellent
portrait of simple nature that < an be imagined.
Frederick Moucheron, who was born at Kimlen in 1633, studied under Jan Asselyn,
a gootl laiuls( ;ipe paiiuer of that period. When over twenty years of age he went to
Paris, with the intention of afterwards proceeding to Italy; but the reception with
which he met in the French capital caused him to remain there several years. On his
return to Holland, he eventually settletl at Amsterdam, where, in conjunction with
Adriaan van de VeKic and Liiigelbach, most of his best landscapes were produced.
Moucheron is commonly said to have died at Amsterdam in 1686, but there is a
picture in the Dresden gallery — A Garden scene — signed " F. Moucheron Fecit, 17 13."
His best pictures are jjleasing landscapes executed in the style of the painters of
those subjects in Holland at that time. The figures in them are usually by Adriaan
van de Velde or Lingelbach. In the Gallery at the Hague there are two Landseeipes
(Nos. 99 and 100), with figures by the latter. In the Van Loon Collection at
Amsterdam the figures in the Landscape are ascribed to Adriaan van de Velde, as are
also those in the Garden. Scene in the National Gallery. Frederick Moucheron had
a son Isaac, who imitated his style with little success.
Jan van der Hagen, who was born at the Hague in 1635, is a successful imitator of
the style of Ruysdael and Hobbema. Amsterdam, in its museum and its town-hall,
contains two of his best pictures. The canals and rivers of his native country are
frequently seen in Van der Hagen's works ; the beauty of which is frequently spoiled
by the use, it is said, of a bad pigment — called " Haarlem blue," from which the colour
is faded and gone. Van der Hagen died in 1679.
Jan Hackaert, the painter of sylvan scenes, was born at Amsterdam in 1636 (?).
After he had learned the rudiments of his art in his native town — under whom it is not
stated — he paid a visit to Switzerland, the scenery of which country only produced an
impression which was effaced by his love of the woods around the Hague. Adriaan
van de Velde, Nicholas Berchem, and other artists, painted figures in Hackaert's
landscapes. A Landscape with dogs and Hunters — a joint work of Van ile \'elde antl
Hackaert— in the Steengracht Collection at the Hague, is of great merit. In the
Amsterdam Gallery there is the Ash-tree Avenue — a sylvan view by Hackaert — with
figures by Van de Vekle— a subject oft repeated by these two artists. There is
one at Stafford House, formerly in the Orleans Collection, and Lord Overstone
possesses another. A Stag Hunt, with figures attributed to Nicolas Berchem, is in the
National Gallery. The date of Hackaert's death is not known. The year 1708 has
been given.
Meindert Hobbema was born at Amsterdam (?) in 1638. He is supposed to have
studied under Kuysdael, who was a witness of his marriage to Eeltie Vinck in 1668 at
Amsterdam. The dates on Hobbema's pictures extend from 1650 to 1669. But The
Avenue, Middelharuis (No. 830), in the National Gallery, is said by some to be dated
1689 — the third figure is not legible. He died in poverty in the Roosegraft at
Amsterdam in 1709, and was buried in the li'esterkerkhof.
3 A
362
ILLUSTRATED HLSTORY OF PALNTERS. [a.d. 1675,
Contrary to his master, Hobbema only painted smiling and serene nature. His name
was long forgotten ; his signature was effaced from his works in order to substitute the
name or monogram of Ruysdael, whose renown never suffered an eclipse. At the
present time, by one of those returns to favour produced even in art by the caprices of
fashion, the decried Hobbema has been so much extolled, that he may, perhaps, be
unable to retain his exalted position. His works, which are, indeed, rare, obtain prices
higher than those of Ruysdael. This is another injustice in the opposite direction. A
proof that this sudden and astonishing celebrity is not of ancient date is, that of the
LANDSCAPE. — BY HOBBEMA.
three museums ot Holland that of Rotterdam alone possesses any specimen of
Hobbema. He has more important works elsewhere, such as the Dutch Cabin at
Munich and the Oak Forest at Berlin. But as his masterpieces we do not hesitate to
y)oint to the two large pendents in Grosvenor House. They have no consecrated
name that we know of; .they are simply Landscapes — views of a wooded country,
lighted and rejoiced by the bright rays of the sun — but very bright, very profound, of
com[ilele and commanding beauty. Besides the ]>icture aheatly mentioned, the
ADRIAAN VAN DE VELDE.
P^rot' 363.
A.i>. 1675.] ''-^^V' DE VELDE. 363
Nation;il Clallery has six Landscapes by Hobbe:na — two of which, a Watrr-mill '* of
siiipjular ( Icarness " and a Landscape "of the most luminous chiaroscuro," were formerly
in the possession of the late Mr. \\'ynn Kllis.
Adriaan van de Velde was born at Amstenlam in 1639. He was apprenticed to
Wynaiits at H.uirlcm. Ihoui^h instructed in art by a landscape painter. Van de
\'clde painteil several historic works. His life was cut short at the early age of
thirty-two, at Amsterdam, early in the year 1672.
This illustrious disciple of Wynants may claim one important title to superiority.
In his calm, smiling, peaceful views of nature, he was able himself to paint the human
fissures almost as well as Wouvermins, and his animals almost as well as the great Paul
Potter. Only his animals and men are usually peaceful and devoid of action. Adriaan
van de Velde is, in painting, the jwet of the eclogue and the idyll. The Louvre
contnined good examples of his art, the Coast of Schcvcnin^cn, where the Prince of
( )range is driving in a carriage and six ; a Frozen Canal ; the Hen/snian's Family, a
charming miniature, etc. One of his animated landscapes, called the Risinf^ Sun,
gilded with warm and brilliant tints in the style of Claude, seems to show the highest
point of his wonderful talent.
The galleries of Dresden, Munich, Berlin, Rotterdam, the Hague, Amsterdam, and
of Antwerp, all contain good examples by Van de Velde, either by himself or in
conjunction with other masters. The private galleries in Holland and Belgium are rich
in his works ; we must specially mention one in the Van der Hoop Collection at
Amsterdam. It is a landscape with portraits oi Himself, his ]\'if\anii his hco ChiUren.
This beautiful picture is signed and dated 1667. The National Gallery has six of his
works. Tliis artist fretiuently ])ainted figures in the pictures of his brother painters.
Among those with whom he worked in conjunction are, A\'ynants, Van iler Heyden,
Hobbema, and Ruysdael.
Jan van Huchtenburg, or Hugtenburg, was born at Haarlem in 1646. After he had
learned the rudiments of liis art from one Jan Wyck, he went to Rome in 1667, at the
suggestion of his brother Jacob, who was already established as a landscape painter in
that city. Two years after his arrival, Jan had the misfortune to lose his brother; he
accordingly left Rome and went to Paris, where he studied under Van der Meulen. \\\
1670 Van Huchtenburg returned to Holland and settled, at the Hague, where he chiefly
lived. The Prince Eugene was a generous patron to him ; he employed him to paint
pictures of the victories, which he, aiiled by the Prince of Orange and the Duke of
Marlborough, had gained over the French. Van Huchtenburg died at Amsterdam in
^733- He painted battle-scenes much in the same style as NN'ouvermans. \N'orks by
him are in many of the Continental Collections. The National (iallery has one, a
Battle-scene. \'an Huchtenburg was also an engra\er.
Jan van der Meer de Jonge— calleil "the younger," to distinguish him from an
old painter of the s:mic name — was born at Haarlem in 1656. He studied under
Nicholas Berchem, in whose style he painted pastoral pictures with much success.
Sheep were his f:ivourite subjects. Works by tliis artist are somewhat scarce in public
galleries. He died at Haarlem in 1705.
HI. MARINE PAINTERS.
Simon de Vlieger, who was born at Rotterdam about the year 1604 (Kugler's
' Handbook '), sought to introduce the manner of Cuyp into the subjects of Van
364 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1675.
de Velde. He painted landscapes and sea-pieces, and sometimes blended the two.
his drawing is masterly, but his colouring is often unpleasing. Pictures by him
are in the galleries of Dresden, Munich, Amsterdam, and St. Petersburg. A few
are in England. Besides his paintings, he was fomous for his etchings. The date
of De Vlieger's death is not known ; he was living in 1656.
Ludolf Backhuysen, who was born at Emden in 1631, was originally intended for
a commercial career, for which purpose he was apprenticed to a merchant at Amsterdam.
He is said to have given lessons in marine drawing to Peter the Great, when he was
studying naval art at Saardam. His instructor in art was Van Everdingen. From
the time he commenced to paint on his own account, a most successful career was
opened to him. He was patronized by monarchs and nobles. So earnest was this
painter in his study of the sea that he used to prevail on boatmen to put out in the
roughest weather, when scarcely any one else would venture, in order that he might
study the foam and the billows. It is said that immediately on landing he would
hasten to his studio to commit to canvas what he had seen. Backhuysen died, wealthy
and honoured, at Amsterdam in 1709.
His most celebrated works are— at the Hague, the Return of William of Orange as
William IH. of England ; at Amsterdam, the Embarkation of Jan de Witt on the Dutch
fleet; at Vienna, a large and magnificent View of the Port of Amsterdam ; at Paris, the
Dutch Squadron, a present made to Louis XIV. by the burgomasters of Amsterdam
after the peace of Nimeguen,' in 1678; in the National Gallery, a Dutch Shipping
(No. 204), signed " 1683, L. Bakhuizen," and Off the Mouth of the Thames, from the
Peel Collection. The National Gallery contains, besides these, three other works of
the master, who is well represented in the private collections of England. Backhuysen's
style is rather hard and usually dark, and he was surpassed by the transparency and
serenity of his rival. M. Charles Blanc says correctly, " Backhuysen makes us fear
the sea, Van de Velde makes us love it."
Willem van de Velde "the younger/' was born at Amsterdam in 1633. He
received instruction from his father, a marine painter, Willem van de Velde " the elder,"
and also under Simon de Vlieger. On the completion of his studies young Willem
came to England, where his father was already engaged in the service of Charles H.
In 1676 they each received a salary of ;;^ioo per annum from the king — the elder
" for taking and making draughts of sea-fights," and the younger " for putting the said
draughts into colours." After the death of Charles II. in 1685, the pension was
continued by James II. The Van de Veldes while in England lived at Greenwich ;
the younger died in London in 1707.
Willem van de Velde, the worthy brother of Adriaan, is, indeed, the uncontested
master in this genj-e. The Louvre possesses only one of those charming miniatures,
called a Calm, of Van de Velde. It can give no idea of the greatest works of this
master, who, being all his life a lover of the sea, painted its every aspect, as a mistress
whose changing beauty takes, like the guardian of Neptune's flocks, a thousand
different forms, and whose caprices and fury are as much loved as her serenity. These
fine works have remained in Germany, in England (the country of his adoption, and
where he is still adored), and especially in his own country, where, amongst others, may
be found the great View of Atnsterdafn, taken at the Y, and the two celebrated
pendents in commemoration of the naval Battle of Four Days, the success of which
was at first doubtful, but in which the English finally gained an advantage over De
A.D. 1675.] DUTCH SCHOOL. 365
Ruyter in 1666. To enable him to render the combat with greater fidelity, the painter
was present on one of the vessels of the Dutch stiuadron, making his plans and
sketches in the midst of the firing. It is in these masterpieces of Willem van de
Velde that we may fnul the greatest perfection, not only of that artist, but of all that
branch of art of which the sea is the theatre and the object.
The National Gallery contains no less than fourteen pictures by this artist— all good
examples of his stvle. Seven were purchased from the Peel Collection, and five were
becpieathed by the late Mr. Wynn Kllis. Of the private collections in England, which
are ri< :h in Van de \'eldes works, Bridge water House contains the best- two Naval
Bafths, a Vuw on the Texcl, a Calm, the Entrance to the Bril, and, lastly, the well-
known Risini:; of the Gale.
Jan van de Capelle is a painter of whom next to nothing is known. He was born,
probably at Amsterdam, about the year 1635. In 1653 he is recorded to have
married there and at the same time to have received the freedom of the city. The
da,te of his death is unrecorded. In style Van de Capelle much resembles De Vlieger,
and like him he blended the manner of Cuyp with the subjects of Van de Velde. Van
de Capelle is well represented in England botli in private galleries and in the National
Gallery, which contains five works by him, a Coast Scene— ixom the Peel Collection—
and four more, from the Wynn-Ellis Collection.
IV.— PAINTERS OF STILL-LIFE, FLOWERS, ARCHITECTURE, etc.
Jan van de Heem, who was born at Utrecht in 1603, studied under his father, a
painter of fruit and flowers. He lived chiefly at Antwerp, where his works were highly
prized, and even in his own time fetched very high sums, so true to nature was his
representation of fruit and flowers. He also excelled in imitating the transparency of
glass. He frequently painted festoon decorations to encircle the jiicturcs of otl.er
artists. Good works by De Heem are in the galleries of Vienna, Ik-rlin, Amsterdam
and the Hague. He died at Amsterdam in 1674. Jan van de Heem had a son,
who imitated his style with little success.
Dirk van Deelen, who was born at Alkmaar early in the seventeenth century, was
a pujjil of Frans Hals. Seized with the desire for painting architecture, then so
prevalent in Holland, he turned his attention to that branch of art, in which he
afterwards became very successful. Van Deelen frequently painted in conjunction
with other artists, as in the Meeting 0/ the United Provinces at the Hague— in the gallery
of that city — in which the figures are by Palamedes.
The National Gallery did not, until recently, possess an example of Dirk van Deelen.
It now contains a Renaissance Palace in the Wynn-Ellis Room, noteworthy for correct
perspective and clearness of colour. This artist died at Armuyden — the date is not
recorded.
Emanuel de Witte, one of the best Dutch painters of architecture, was born at
Alkmaar in 1607. He studied under Evert van Aelst, a painter of still-life. On
leaving that master he attempted portraiture, but as he did not succeed in that branch
of art, he finally adopted architectural painting. His favourite subjects are the
interiors of churches, the windows of which admit floods of sunlight, which he finely
contrasts with the dark shadows. De Witte died in 1692 at Amsterdam, whi«h city,
in its Trii)penhuis, ami its private collections— especially those of Van Loon and Van
der Hoop — contains the best of his pictures.
366 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS [a.d. 1675.
Johann Lingelbach was born at Frankfort-on-the-Main in 1625.. Though a
German by birth, he must be considered a Dutch painter, for after a visit to Paris
and a lengthened stay in Italy, he settled at Amsterdam, and there executed most of his
important works. He is supposed to have died there in 1687. His subjects are called
Sea Ports; and yet he neither painted the sea nor the ports, but the scenes which usually
take place there, and the people of all kinds and nations brought there by commerce ;
and occasionally scenes in the hay-field, as in the Hay Harvest in the National Gallery.
He frequently also painted figures for the pictures of other artists. His works are seen
in most public galleries on the Continent.
Willem Kalf, who was born at Amsterdam in 1630, studied under one Hendrik
Pot, a painter of historical subjects, which Kalf adopted for a short time, but finally
abandoned in favour of kitchen utensils, fruit and vegetables, in the representation of
which he is inimitable. He died at Amsterdam in 1693. The Kitchens of Kalf are
not pictures of ^/m^/ /w/z/zr, for this supposes a nature which has been alive, such as
the animals killed in the chase painted by Fyt and Weenix. Kalfs are pictures of
inanim;ite nature, vegetables, pots and pans, which tlie painter places, arranges, and
lights up at his pleasure. And yet these small pictures of a little known and perhaps
despised master are real works of art — we were almost going to add, and of poetry,
A sense of the picturesque, a light and sure touch, warm colouring, firm drawing, and
even intelligent composition, are all to be found in them. Where can the art and the
poetry have sprung from? Pictures by Kalf are not commonly seen in public
galleries ; those of Dresden, the Louvre, Amsterdam, and Rotterdam are exceptions.
Job Berklieyde, who v/as born at Haarlem in 1630, was a painter of architectural
subjects in which he executed the figures, of landscapes, and even of portraits. Works
by him are in most continental galleries. A view of the Toiim-hall of Amsterdam,
signed "J. Berk Heyde," is in the Dresden gallery. He was accidentally drowned in a
canal at Amsterdam in 1698.
His younger brother, Gerrit Berkheyde, who was born at Haarlem in 1638, was,
after Emanuel de Witte and Van der Heyden, one of the best architectural painters of
Holland. He sometimes painted the figures in his own pictures, but he was frequently
indebted ■ for them to his brother Job, who excelled him in figure painting. A good
specimen of Gerrit Berkheyde, is a Vietv of Haarleui in the Amsterdam Gallery. He
died at Amsterdam in 1693.
Melcliior de Hondecoeter, one of the best of the painters of poultry-yards, was born
at Utrecht in 1636. He received his first instruction in art from his father, and
afterwards studied under Jan Baptist Weenix. Hondecoeter died at Utrecht in 1695.
At the Louvre there are Swaus and Peacocks by him ; but these birds are too grand
for him; common hens and ducks are the personages usually to be found in most of
the pictures which have justly rendered his name famous. To know Hondecoeter
well, we should see the Eig/it between a Cock and a Turkey, at the Hermitage, the
Menagerie of Birds, at the Hague, and the Floating Feather, at Amsterdam. This
feather has drifted on to a pool where ducks are swimming. A good picture of
Domestic Poultry by him is in the National Gallery.
Jan van der Heyden, " the Gerard Dou of architectural painters," who was born at
Gorkum in 1637, received his only instruction in art from a painter on glass. He is
supposed to have come to England at some period of his life. He died in 17 12 at
KI.'lWKR-riF.CE— BY IAN VAN III \mI'M.
368 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1700.
Amsterdam, where he had resided some time previously. The figures in his works
were painted by Lingelbach, Eglon van der Neer, and Adriaan van de Velde.
It is well known what wonderful patience Van der Heyden must have possessed in
painting to enable him to depict every stone in a wall, every tile of a roof, every
paving-stone in a street, every leaf on a tree, just as Denner, in the human countenance,
drew every hair of the beard, and the slightest wrinkle in the skin. What we must
especially admire in his works, however, are the fine general effects that he produced
from such minute details, by the harmonious contrast of light and shadow, and also the
manner in which he made picturesque scenes of the straight monotonous lines of
streets and houses. A Street in Co/ogne, signed " J. V. D. H.," is in the National
Gallery. The Fie7C' of a Public Square, surrounded by trees, at Munich; the Convent
Garden, at Grosvenor House ; the View of Antwerp, at the Plague ; the View of a
Dutch Tozcfn, at Amsterdam ; and the View of the Town Hall of Amsterdam, at Paris,
in which the figures are painted by Adriaan van de Velde, are some of the highest
works of this sjjecial genre, in which Van der Heyden, who had scarcely a predecessor,
has remained without a rival and even without an imitator.
Jan Weenix — called " the younger," to distinguish him from his fiither — was born
at Amsterdam in 1644. He received his instruction m art from his father, whose
style he greatly acquired. He painted several years at the court of the Elector John
William, but returned to Amsterdam, where he died in 1719. For his subjects Weenix
chose small game — hares, pheasants, snipe, ducks, birds of all sorts — of the finest
forms and colours, which he grouped with hunting weapons, or under the charge of
a dog. Many of Weenix's best pictures are in England ; the National Gallery has
but one. Dead Game and a Dog, signed "J. Weenix^ f. 1708;" his masterpiece, The
Pheasant, is in the gallery at the Hague.
Rachel Ruysch, who was born at Amsterdam in 1664, is still considered the rival of
Van Huysum. She was not merely the only female artist produced by the Low
Countries since the sister of the great painter of Bruges, Margaret van Eyck; she has
remained even down to our own times the first of female painters. Of her works the
Rotterdam Museum possesses a Flower-piece ; the gallery at the Hague, two more ; and
the Six Collection, another pair of Flower-pieces. Rachel Ruysch endetl a laborious
life at Amsterdam in 1750.
Jan van Huysum was born at Amsterdam in 1682. His father, a scene painter,
employed him together with his three brothers to assist him in his work. Young Jan
shewed much aptitude for painting flowers, and accordingly selected that subject for
\\\% genre. He worked chiefly at Amsterdam, where he died in 1749.
Among the painters of flowers Van Huysum stands pre-eminent. He arranged flowers
with so much taste and skill that flower-sellers might take lessons in their trade before his
pictures, as well as painters in their art. The smiling Vases of Flowers, far preferable
to the dark Bouquets of Ba])tiste Monnoyer — who was brought forward as a rival to
Van Huysum in the time of Madame de Pompadour — are varied and improved by
agreeable accessories, such as the vases themselves elaborately carved, the marble
stands, and brilliant insects, the flowers of animal life. Two flower-pieces by Van
Huysum are in the National Gallery. He is also well represented in the Dulwich
Gallery, and in many private collections. His works abound on the Continent. Van
Huysum occasionally painted landscapes, but with little success.
A.l). 1500.
FRENCH SCHOOL. 3^9
liOO Iv \ I.
THE FRENCH SCHOOL.
WE can trace the history of the French school of painting ahuost as far l)ack as
the history of France itseU". Emeric David reminds us that uven in the
time of Charlemagne it was the custom to cover the walls of churches with
paintings {in ciniiitu dcxtra hcvaqiic, in/us ct extra) " in order to instruct the people,
and to decorate the buildings." It was in France, about the middle of the ninth
century, that painters first endeavoured to represent the Almighty Father Himself in
human form, an attempt which was not made in Italy before the thirteenth century,
and is not to be found at all in liyz^^ntine painting. Painting on glass for church
windows was likewise invented or perfected in France. A great number of French
prelates and abbots also decorated their churches and monasteries with iiaintings of
all sorts ; amongst these were the Inshops Hincmar of Rheims, Hoel of Mans, Geoffroy
of Auxerre, and the abbots Angilbert of Saint-Ri(]uior. Ancesige of Fdntenelle, Richard
of Saint- Venne, and Bernard of Saint-Sauveur.
After the concpiest of England by William of Normantly, the liciu n ( uried the
art of chun h decoration, and a taste for it, into England with Lanfranc and Anselm of
Canterbury. Tradition has even preserved the names of several celebrated French
painters of the Middle Ages, the greater part of whom were monks, belonging especially
to the order of St. IJasil. Of this number were Matialulphe of Cambray, Ailelard of
Louvain, Ernulfe of Rouen, Herbert and Roger of Rheims, and Thiemon. who was also
a sculptor and professor of the fine arts. But these crude essays, which did not
culminate in a national art, are not worthy of a lengthened account
French as well as Sjianish art, both the pupils of Italy, can only be said to have
really commenced after the slow and laborious development of the Middle .\ges ; when
all the knowledge possessed by anticpiity reappeared at one lime, and produced the
revival known by the name of the Rinaissanck. The iiilluence which Italy exerted
on French painting made itself felt as early as the middle of the fifteenth century,
although it was nearly a hundred years later before the French .school may be said to
have commenced.
Reu^ of Anjou, Count of I'rovence, the prince successively despoiled of Naples,
Lorraine, and Anjou. ami who consoleil himself for his political disgraces by cultivating
poetry, music, and painting -this good King Rene, who was born about 1408, learnt
370 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1500.
painting in Itah^ either under II Zingaro at Naples, when disputing the crown of the
Two Sicihes witli the kings of Aragon, or under Bartolommeo della Gatta at Florence
when forming an alliance with the Duke of Milan against the Venetians. " He com-
posed," says the chronicler Nostradamus, " several beautiful and elegant romances,
such as La Conqiicstc de la Doulce Merci, and the Mortifiement de Vai?ie Flaisance, but
he loved painting in particular with a passionate love, and was gifted by nature with
such an uncommon aptitude for this noble profession that he was famous among the
most excellent painters and illuminators of his time, which may be perceived by several
masterpieces accomplished by his divine and royal hand." In the Cluny Museum
there is a picture by Rene which, although not worthy of being called a " divine master-
piece " of the period that had produced Fra Angelico da Fiesole anil Masaccio, is yet
valuable and remarkable. The subject is the Praich'mgof tJie Magdalen at Marseilles,
where tradition asserts that she was the first to proclaim the Gospel. In the background
and in Chinese persj)ective, is the i)ort of the old Phocian colony ; in the foreground
is the audience of the converted sinner, in which Rene has introduced himself with his
wife Jeanne de Laval. The scene is well conceived, clear and animated. Rene died
m 1480.
Jacquemin Gringonneur jjainted packs of cards, to afford Charles VI. an easy
amusement in the lucid intervals which his madness allowed him. Gringonneur has
been called the inventor of cards ; but this invention — ^which is also attributed to
■xno\\\>ix yinaigier, Nicolas Pepyn — belongs to a much earlier period; it dates back as
far as the thirteenth century.
Jehan Fouquet, born at Tours between 141 5-1 420, painted the portrait of Pope
Eugenius IV. at Rome, and studied the Italian artists of the time of Masaccio. His
works, or at least those of them which remain, are to be found at Munich, Frankfort,
and in the large library at Paris ; they are comjiosed only of manuscript ornamentation,
so that Fouquet is merely a superior _)'Wrt;4'-/(V.
Jehan Cloet — known in France as Jean Clouet, generally calleil Janet, was a
Fleming who settled in France and was made painter and varlet-de-ehambre to P'rancis I.
in 1518. He died in 1541.
Francois Clouet — often called Janet, a contemporary of those who studied art in
Italy, but himself a distimt disciple of Van Eyck, through the lessons of his father
Jehan Cloet — was born at Tours in 15 10. There are in the Louvre by Francois
Clouet, the portraits of Charles IX. and of his wife Elizabeth of Austria, which are
truthful and of wonderful delicacy. Besides the portraits oi Henri II., oi Henri IV. as
a child, of the Duke of Guise, le Balafre, of the wise chancellor Miehel de rilopital,
all of a small size, there are also two small comi)ositions formed by several portraits
in a group ; one is of the Marriage of Margaret of Lorraine, sister of the Guises, with
Duke Anne of Joyeuse; the other is a Court Ball, at which Henri III., then king, his
niother, Catherine de Medicis, young Henry of Navarre, and other personages of the
time, are present. These pictures, which are as valuable to the history of France as
the chronicles of Monstrelet or the journals of L'Estoile, are no less precious to the
history of painting as the memorials of an art of which they were the earliest expression.
At Castle Howard, there is a fine painting by Clouet, of the Family of Henri II.,
giving life-size portraits of Catherine de Medieis and their children — and a collection of
nearly three hundred portraits — drawi^'s in lilack and white, with flesh tints, of kings
A.u. is.o.l FRENCH SCHOOL.
and (lucLMis and importint pL-rsonaLjes of the French Couri. Many i)f these have been
lithographed by Lonl Ron:dd (lower. Franc^ois Clouet, who was the fourth portrait-
l)ainter of the family, died in 1574.
The real imitation of the Italian school, and through that the formation of a French
school of painting, may be traced back to the beginning of the sixteenth century.
Italian art had already attainetl to the dazzling splendour of its noon when the first
beams of its light fell u|)on France. It was not until after the military expeditions of
Charles VIII., of Louis XII., and of Francis I., when the French had traversed the
whole of the Italian peninsula, from Milan to Naples, and were filled with surprise and
admiration before the buiKlings and their decorations, when Francis I. brought to Paris
some fine works of art, ami collected great artists arouml him, that from the contact
with them, and through their influence, France at length awoke.
Leonardo da Vinci and Andrea del Sarto, by their brilliant reputation and l>y
means of their works ; Rossi (maitre Roux) Primaticcio, Niccolb Abati, and others,
by the practical les.sons waich they gave, and by the great works which they com-
pleted in their adopted country, founded the first French school, which is calleil the
school of Fontainebleau. The first French jiainter who rose to a level with them by
means of their lessons, and who carried Painting to the same rank to which Jean
Goujon and (jeniiain Pilot had raised Sculpture, and Pierre Lescot, Jean Pullant, and
Philibert Delorme, Architecture, was
Jean Cousin, who was horn at Soucy, near Sens, aliout 1500. Unfortunately, he was
more occujjied widi jiainting cluircli windows than with his easel ; and, as he devoted a
jKirt of his time to engraving, to sculpture, and even to literature, he has left but a
small number of pictures. The i)rincii)al of these is a Last JiiJgmait, and it is
doubtless the similarity of subject rather than of style or manner, which has given its
author the name of the" French Michelangelo." Although it was the first ])icture by a
French artist which had the honour of being engraveil, this masterpiece of Jean Cousin
was for a long time forgotten in the Sacristy of Minimes at Vincennes. It has now
found a worthy place in the Louvre. As far as a numl)er of small figures assembled in
an easel jiicture can be comjiared to the gigantic figures covering the wall ol the Sistine,
so much may Jean Cousin be said to resemble Michelangelo. The wliole is har-
monious, although i)owerful and terrible; the groups are skilfully formed and varied ;
the nude figures, a new thing in France, are well studied and well rendered, and these
merits of composition and drawing are enhanced by a warm Venetian colouring, and
still more so, by a unity and symmetry of thought which is wanting in the model. As
Michelangelo finished his celebrated fresco in 1541. it is jirobable that Jean Cousin
treated this vast subject at a later period, for he would have been able before leaving
France to become ac(|uaiiucd \\ ith die L.ast Juili^nunt of die Vatican by coi)ies or engrav-
ings, amongst others, that by Martin Rota. But his version of the same subject was
at least a very free one, composed of ditVerent details, and with a totally difiereni spirit
running through it. Jean Cousin lived to be nearly ninety years ot age.
Martin Fr^minet, the son of a painter, was born at Paris in 1567. .After a long
sojourn in Italy, he brought back with him the taste which prevailed there at the close
of the great age, a little before the foundation of the Carracci school. Leaving the calm
and simple beauty which Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael ami Correggio had taught, he
372 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1600.
adopted, like the mistaken imitators of Michelangelo, an ostentatious display of the
science of anatomy, and a mania for foreshortening. At the same time his great
pictures in the Louvre — both the Venus waiting for Mars, who is disarmed by Cupids,
or yEneas abandoning Dido by order of Mercury — are remarkable for several reasons.
In the first place, because, after the small figures of Francois Clouet and Jean Cousin,
he painted his figures the size of life, and also, that, after a long and continuous series
of sacred subjects, he produced a mythological scene. Henri IV. appointed Freminet
painter to the court, and commissioned him to decorate the ceiling of the chapel at
Fontainebleau. Fre'minet died at Paris in 161 9.
Simon Vouet, the son of a painter, was born in Paris in 1592 (?), He had been,
from his earliest youth, remarkable 'for his precocious talents ; and after fourteen
years' residence at Rome he carried with him the lessons of the Carracci school to
Paris. In his great composition, the I'rcsentation in the Temple — in the Entombment,
the Madonna, the Roman Charity (a young woman feeding an old man), we trace
clearly the influence of the Bolognese school, although he possesses neither the
profound expression of Domenichino, the elegance of Guido, nor the powerful
chiaroscuro of Guercino. The style of his masters is impaired by poorness of design
and insufficiency of colouring — in short, by too much haste ; for Vouet, who soon
became the first painter of Louis XIII., to whom he gave lessons, overwhelmed with
honours and laden with orders, accepted labours beyond his power to perform.
Pictures for churches or palaces, portraits, ceilings, w\iinscotings, tapestry, all were
undertaken in order to keep the work from others ; and in this universal monopoly,
his early talent, instead of increasing with riper age, continually decreased. We must
do him the justice to add that it was his lessons and example which taught Eustache
Lesueur, Charles Lebrun, and Pierre Mignard ; and that thus, like the Carracci, he was
greater through his pupils than through his own works, Vouet died in Paris in 1641.
Jacques Callot, the son of a noble family, was born at Nancy in Lorraine in 1592.
He was an enemy to all discipline, and, in order to give free course to his fancy, fled
from his father's house in the train of a troop of mountebanks. Entirely occupied
with etching according to processes of his own invention — his Beggars, Gipsies, iVob/es,
Devils and scenes descriptive of the Miseries of War, Callot finished but a very
small number of paintings. Thus, while he has left fifteen or sixteen hundred
engravings, both large and small, we have not met with more than two pictures
bearing his name, the Military Execution, at Dresden, and the Village Fair, at Vienna ;
both are on copper, with very small figures, and such pale colouring that at the first
glance one is not favourably impressed. Callot's talent has remained so thoroughly
sui generis that he has had no descendants. He was a great artist, who has no place
in the history of the fine arts, even of his own country. He died at Nancy in 1635.
Nicolas Poussin, the prince of the Frencli school, was born at Andelys in Normandy
in 1594. He was descended from a noble fomily of Soissons, who lost their property
in the civil Avars. His father served under Henri IV. An admirable example of the
power of natural taste, Poussin, who was almost without a master, remained a long
time without a patron. Braving poverty, although twice interrupted by it on his way
to Italy, he at length reached Rome on foot and almost destitute. Here his talent
was first developed before the masterpieces of past ages ; and although at a subsequent
period the king recalled him to Paris, in order to add the lustre of a great painter to
his own fame, Poussin soon tired of the annoyances caused by the Court painters and
NICOLAS rOUSSIN.
Pagr 372.
A.n. 1625.] NICOLAS PGUSSIN.
the Court fools, and went back to his dear hermitage at Rome, which he did not again
leave — not even betiueathing his ashes to his native country. There, in solitary study
and always avoiding, with a force of judgment in which he is scarcely equalled, the bad
taste of his country and of his time, he progressed step by step towards perfection.
Poussin has been called tlie painter of inteiUct : this name is just, especially if it be
meant to convey the idea that Poussin can only be understood and admired by high
and cultivated intellects.
The only reproach which the traducers of Poussin in the French school have been
able to bring against him is, that he is wanting in grace. Certainly in the execution of
his most usual subjects, he showeil rather the gravity and austerity natural to his
genius, but he has shown grace, and even playful grace, when it was suitable. To be
convinced of this, it is only necessary to examine some of his numerous bacchanalian
scenes. Two of his best are in the National Gallery in London. One is a forcible
painting, simply called a Bauhanalian Dancf, but varied and full of pleasant incident ;
all the figures are in harmony, from the nymph trii)ped up by the satyr, to the little
tipsy children quarrelling for the cuj) into whicli a bacchante is squeezing grapes.
The other, a Bacc/iana/ian Ffsfha/, although less finished in execution, is one of the
most important works of Poussin, who shared the love of the ancients for this subject.
The details are graceful and spirited, and, being jierfectly harmonious, form a most
charming comedy. Here wc see the fat, tipsy Silenus, supported with difficulty by two
fauns; there, a gay and animated dance; further off, an insolent ass attacks the
haunches of a centaur, who punishes him with a stick for his impuilence ; then a
laughing female satyr endeavouring to ride on a refractory goat. In fact, all the
ancient comedy is revived, so that we could almost fancy it a representation of one
of those gay and riotous Atci/antc'hxow'^hi into Rome from the Campania.
AV'ith regard to the other subjects treated by Poussin, Paris has no reason to envy
England or any other countr}', as she possesses his masterpieces. We will first speak of
Poussin s portrait, by himself, taken, when fifty-six years of age, for his friend Chantelou ;
the only one whicii he would have painted if his patron at Rome, Cardinal Rosj)igliosi
(afterwards Clement, IX.) had not some time later ordereil another. The inscription
placed on the tomb of Poussin, /// tahiilis vivit ct e/oquitur, might also be written over
this portrait, for we can clearly trace in it the artist's soul, the nature of his genius, and
the character of his works. We find in the moilest dignity of his noble countenance a
])Ovverful intellect, a strong will, and that great power of application which justifies the
saying of Ikiflbn, " Genius consists of a great power of attention.'"
At the I.ouvre there are some immense i)ictures by Poussin, with full-length
figures: the Past Supper, Francis Xavier in India, -wmX the Virj^in appearin:^ to St.
John. His only painting of this size out of France is the Martyri/om of St. Erasmus,
the pendent in St. Peter's at Rome to the Martyrdom of Sjn I'roeesso, by his friend
Valentin. lUit these large pictures are by no means the greatest works of Poussin.
Loving to restrict a vast subject to a small space, Poussin seems to wax groati r m lii^
ditViculties increase, and his best works are certainly simply easel-pictures.
Having now come to the real domain of Poussin, we may classify his works by
their subjects, or, as he himself said, l)y modes. He designated by this name, in the
manner of the Greeks, the style, colour, measure — in fact, the general arrangement of
a picture according to its suliject. The religious compositions are taken from the Old
and New Testaments, .\mong those from the former, we must notice the charming
grouj) of AW'eiYii at the Well, when Kliezer, .Abraham's messenger, recognises her
374
ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1650.
among her companions, and offers her the ring ; Moses exposed on the Nile by his
mother and sister ; Moses saved from the Water by Thermutis, the daughter of Pharaoh :
the Manna in the Desert, a scene admirable in the grandeur of the whole, and the
interest of the details ; and lastly, the Jjidgnient of Solomon.
We must also class amongst the Old Testament subjects the four celebrated
pendents named Spring, Summer, Autiunn, and Winter, but which are far better
known by the names of the subjects chosen to represent the seasons allegorically. Spring
is typified by Adam and Eve in Paradise, before their fall ; summer, by Ruth gleaning
in the field of Boaz ; autumn, by the Return of the Spies from the Promised Land,
bringing back the wonderful bunch of grapes, which two men can scarcely carry ;
winter, by the Deluge. There is no need of any word of explanation or praise for this
THE SHEPHERDS OF ARCADIA. — BY NICOLAS POUSSIN.
In the Louvre.
picture; it was Poussin's last work ; he was seventy-one years of age when he painted
it, and he died soon afterwards.
Amongst the subjects taken from the Gospels and from the Acts of the Apostles,
we must call attention to the Adoration of the Magi, the Repose in Egypt, the Blind
Men of fericho, the Woman taken in Adultery, the Death of Sappldra, the St. Paul
caught up info the Seventh Heaven. But Poussin did not confine himself to biblical
subjects, which he treated with philosopliical freedom and in a purely human character;
he also, like all the great masters, treated subjects from profane history, as the Will of
Eudamidas, in England, and the Rape of the Sahincs, at Paris ; he entered the regions
of pure mythology, as may be seen by the Death of Eurydice and the Triumph of Flora, at
Paris. He also treated sometimes of allegory, for instance the Triumph of Truth, which
he left, as a proud homage to his own genius, when he quitted France, a victim to envy
A.D. lOso.] NICOLAS rOUSSIN. 375
without hope of return. Lastly, he penetrated, as we have already seen, into the
Hcence of bacchanalian scenes. lUit whatever he umlertook, or from whatever source
his subjects were taken, Toussin was always an historical i)ainter.
He was so even in his landscajjes, as if he had no idea that nature coulil be
representetl alone ami without man. Wlien, by tlie power of liis genius, he has
revived one of the primitive landscapes trodden by the guds and heroes, he brink's
into it the gi.mt /Wv/^/ui/ii/s,
" Sur son roc assis,
Cliantant .lux vents ses anu)urciix soucis ; ''
and when lie is ]);unting a landscajie in the vicinity of Athens lie introduces tiie ligure
of the cynic philosopher JJ/oi^i/ns throwing away his bowl as supertluous on seeing a
bov drink out of his hand. When he wishes to show, in the smiling and pastoral
A nil. /ill, the image of earthly hajjpine^s, a tomb amongst the flowers reminds us that
hfe nnist have a termination. Certaiid)-, in this career of historical landscape painting,
Poussin was i)receded by .\nnibale Carracci and Domenichino, but he carried it much
further than they did.
There is not, jjerh i])s. in any scliool of j)ainting, a master the mere siglit of whose
works is more capable of explaining the three words so difficult to define, though so
t)ften repented — style, com]insition, and expression. For style we may examine the
Ravissenicn/ dc St. rati/, when, in his ecstasy, ''he heard words unlawful for a man to
utter." This magnificent group, crowning a delicious knulscape, reminds us, by the
grandeur of the figures, of one of the masterpieces of Raphael, the Vision of Ezikic/.
The almost inexplicable science of com])osition may be studied in tlie Rilhwa. and
Moses sa-'Ci/ fro»i t/i,- Waters: it is carried to the greatest height in the S//r/>/u-n/s of
Arcadia, a charming pastoral, full of deej) jioetrv and touching morality. To surprise
the secrets of movenienl and ex|)ression, we have only to look at the Judgment of
S0/0///0/1, the lVo»ian ta/crn in jldidtcry, the B/ind Men of Jeric/io. For the union of
tiiese difleient and sujierior (Uialities of jxiinting we must come to the De/u\;e, where
art may be seen to perfection.
Poussin died at Rome in 1665, and was buried in the church of San Lorenzo.
Caspar Dughet, called Gaspar Poussin, was born of French ])arents in Rome in
i6i,v The great Nicolas Poussin marrietl Caspar's sister, and Dughet became, under
llie instruction of his brother-indaw, an ex( client landscape painter. His subjects are
usually taken from the pictures(iue country in the neighbourhood of Rome. He died
in that city in 1675. There ;ire six of his best works in the National Gallery.
Claude Gel^e of Lorraine, usually called Claude Lorraine, was born of very
l)oor i)arents at Chateau de Chamagne, a village in the Vosges, in 1600. \\'iien
(|uite a lad he was apprenticeil to a baker ami pastrycook, and before he was twenty
years of age accomjianied some fellow- workmen to Rome and became the servant of
Agostino Tassi, a hunlscape painter of eminence. It is said that young Claude
prepareil his master's ilinner and ground his colours; at all events, from Tassi he first
acquired that love of art which has rendered his name so famous. He received lessons
also from Sandrart, who was at Rome at the same time. His earliest pictures and
etchings bear dates varying from 1630 to 1670. Claude died at Rome in 1682, and
was burieil in the church of La Trinilh de' Monti.
.Mthough he did not resemble Poussin in learning, as he scarcely knew how to read
or to sign his name, Claude at all events resembled hnn in hi.s pertinacit) at wo.»^k, his
376
ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1650.
power of application, and, in his own flishion, by his depth of thought, as well as by
his correctness of observation. He also received a surname, the Raphael of Landscape
paitding. And this surname is, for once, appropriate.
Less fortunate than with the works of Poussin, France has not retained the best of
Claude's pictures. There was formerly in the Louvre one of his principal works
universally admired and celebrated. It was called the Ford. This beautiful picture
has perished under the hands of restorers.
Let us see what remains. Li the first place, there are tvvo small pictures, in
the form of the lunettes of Annibale Carracci, a calm Latidscape and a Marine piece,
glittering with the rays of the noonday sun, which Claude alone, like tlie eagle, dared
to face ; then an interesting view of the Campo Vaccifio at Rome (that is to say, the
ancient forum where the affairs of the world were formerly transacted, now used as
CROSSING THE FORD. — BY CLAUDE LORRAINE.
a cattle market) ;— then two pendents, also a Marine piece and a Landscape of rather
larger dimensions, lighted by the rays of the rising sun ; then two other still larger
pendents — Marine pieces — warm and golden in the setting sun. The figures they
contain, by the pencil of some of the usual assistants of Claude — Guillaume Courtois,
Jean Miel, Filippo Lauri, or Francesco Allegrini — are intended to show in one
the La/iding of Cleopatra at Tarsus, where she had been summoned by Mark Antony ;
in die other, Ulysses restoring Chryseis to her Father. These two marine pieces are in
the style that Claude was especially fond of, in spite, or perhaps on account of, its
extreme difficulty, and which belongs especially to him, as no one since his time has
dared to practise it ; the sea in the distance, shut-in in the foreground by two rows of
palaces and gardens, which form a port in perspective, and the sun beyond, low on the
horizon, illuminating the surface of the waves which are agitated by the breeze.
A.D. 1650.] CLAUDE LORRAINE. 37_7
These works are worthy of Claude, and suffice to show his claim to be considered
the first landscai.c-i)aintcr of the world, or perhaps, more correctly, as the most skilful
composer of landscapes, the greatest poet of nature, who adorned it with the language
which speaks to the eye. Vet these fme works have not the importance of some of
those of wliich France has been deprived. Besides the Embarkation of the Quern of
Sluba (known as the " Bouillon Claude "), the National Gallery possesses the Embarka-
tion of St. Ursula, ami another marine i.iece, a Seaport at Sunset, with palaces m the
foreground, a wonderful masterpiece; and eight landscapes with figures, representmg
Ha^^ar in the Desert; David in the Cave of Adullam ; the Death of Procris ; .\arcissus
fai/in- in love 7cith his 07.'n ////<fiv-an exquisite work, a sort of summary of all the
familiar marvels of Claude— anil four others.
The Museo del Rey, among nine works by his hand, has two of unportance. One-
shows us an Anchoret at braver in one of those barren and rocky desert lamjscapes
always given as the retreat of the first Christian hermits, such as St. Paul the Hermit.
St. Antony and St. Jerome. In the other picture is seen another victim of voluntary
penance, the Ma>;Ja/en, kneeling before a cross supported by the trunk of a tree.
This is also a desert, but one more suited for a woman, more gracious and mvitmg.
Between the rocks, where sheets of water fall in natural cascades, and the clumi.s of
trees, which overshadow the valley to which the repentant sinner has retired, a vast
horizon is seen, where in the extreme distance there may be seen the edifices of a
great town, the sight of which would doubtless make her sigh with repentance and
shame. Passing on to St. Petersburg, we find a magnificent series of four pendents,
which the Hermitage obtained from Malmaison, with the Arquebusiers of Temers and
the Cow of Paul Potter. They are called Morning, Noon, Evening, and Night. We
will not attempt any insufl^cient description or superfluous praise ; it is enough to say
that this precious series of paintings equals the most famous masterpieces at Madrid,
Paris, or London.
But Claude is not merely to be found in public museums ; many of his pictures are
in private cabinets, especially in England, where the great landscape-painter is much
admired. We did not see more than six pictures by Claude in Italy-where he passed
the whole of his long arcistic life, and where he died at the age of 82— whUe in London
alone, we counted more than fifty. By means of her gold, England has obtained nearly
all his works, leaving only a few specimens for the rest of the world. The cabinet of
the Marquis of Westminster contains as many as the museums of France or Madrid.
Two pendents in this collection are the largest i)ictures known by Claude. This size
ailds to their intrinsic value. The subject of one is the Worship of tlw Golden Calf,
that of the other, the Sermon on the Mount. Neither scene is in a desert; both, on the
contrary, have all the luxury and splendour of Italian scenery. In the former, the
landscape is flat, of immense depth, broken by clumps of trees and sheets of water.
One of the assistants of Claude put in the golden calf, adored, not by Jews, but by
a small grouj) of people clothed in Grecian costume. In the second, a rock crowned
by several trees rises in front of a large plain which extends as far as the eye can
reach. Under these trees stands Christ in the midst of his disciples, and from there
addresses to the crowd assembled at the foot of this natural pulpit His wonderful
discourse on human brotherhood. The figures in these two pictures are, in this case,
very beautiful, and do honour to the assistant painter, whether it were Filippo Laun,
Francesco AUegrini, Guillaunie Courtois, or any other. As for the landscapes
themselves, no language could describe the brilliancy of the sky, the beauty of the
a
378 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1650.
earth, the scientific aerial perspective, the happy contrast of Hght and shadow, the
majesty of the whole, in short, everything that can delight the eye. " Claude
Lorraine," wrote Goethe, " knew the material world thoroughly, even to the slightest
detail, and he used it as a means of expressing the world in his own soul."
A series of sketches which he made for his pictures are preserved in a book which
he called Libra di Verikl; these are now in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire.
They were engraved by Earlom in 1777.
Moise Valentin was born at Colomiers en Brie in 1600. He attended the school of
Simon Vouet for some years, and then went to Italy, where he was a friend of Poussin
and of Claude. He died of a fever in 1632. A rival of Ribera in the imitation of the
turbulent Caravaggio, Valentin deseTted entirely the traditions of French art, and only
belongs to the French school from the circumstance of his birth. {See Index.) At the
Louvre, in the Tribute Money — whicli is not treated like that by Titian— in ^-\q. Judgment
of Solomon — very unlike that by Poussin— in the Four Evangelists — far inferior to the
St. Mark of Fra Bartolommeo — Valentin displays the same incapabihty as his model
Caravaggio of making his works equal to their titles ; and, like Caravaggio also, when
he treats simple and commonplace subjects, as in his two Family Concerts., which appear
to be held in very suspicious places, amongst courtesans and bravi, he shows wonderful
energy and execution. But to judge Valentin justly, and to appreciate the loss art sus-
tained in his early denth, occasioned by the excesses of a fiery temperament, we must be
acquainted with his better and nobler works, which show thought and reflection ; the Mar-
tyrdom of Si. Lawrence in the Museum of Madrid, and the Martyrdom of San Frocesso,
in the Vatican. We then see what progress his talent might have made with the example
and advice of Poussin, and what certain excellence he would have attained at a riper age.
S^bastien Bourdon, another of the French disciples of Italy, was born at Montpellier
in 16 1 6 (?). He received his first education from his father, who was a painter on
glass, and when still a boy was taken by his uncle to Paris, where he studied art for
some years. At eighteen years of age he went to Italy, and painted both at Rome and
Venice. He afterwards returned to Paris, and painted there his celebrated picture of
the Crucifixion of St. Peter. In 1652 he was prevailed upon to visit Sweden, and
executed several important works for Queen Christina, He again returned to Paris
and died there in 167 1 (?). AVithout having taken any direct lessons from Poussin
during his residence at Rome, Bourdon succeeded, after several attempts in an easier
style, in adopting the style and manner of the master^ and becoming, like Caspar
Dughet, the happy imitator of the painter of Andelys. Although with less depth and
grandeur than Poussin, he possesses his scientific correctness and sentiment.
Eustache Lesueur, the son of a simple artisan, never quitted Paris, where he
was born in 161 7, and where he died in 1655. Driven from the court by Lebrun,
as Poussin had been by Vouet, he lived in voluntary solitude ; and it was when shut up
in the convent of the Carthusians, where he died so young, that he produced his
principal works. He was thus able to obtain the independence necessary for an artist,
and could give free scope to his genius. Though he lived but few years, he displayed
all the brilliant (jualities to which Poussin only attained at a riper age — wisdom,
grandeur, power of expression, depth of thought, and a touching sensibility and
tenderness, which sometimes raises him to the sublime.
Lesueur has left all his works at Paris. The Louvre has obtained fifty of these,
including all of any importance. There he may be seen from his austere and studious
Cl.ALDK GELEK OF LORKAINE.
J '-Is''- 37^-
A.D. 1650.] LESUEUK. 379
youth to his early death ; from the dark and fiintastic History of St. Bnitio, which he
commenced in 1647, when thirty years old, to the gay and laughing History of Love,
which was his last work. Although he modestly gave the title of sketches to the
pictures which compose the legend of the founder of the Carthusians, the History of
St. Bruno forms, as a whole, the cfuf-iVauvre of this master. Without going into a
detailed explanation of these twenty-two pictures, all alike in shape and size, we shall
merely direct special attention to the first, the Preaching of Raymomd Diocres ; to the
third, the Resurrection of the Canon, who half opens the cover of his coffin, during the
service for the dead to announce to those present that he is lost ; to the four following,
representing the Vocation of St. Bruno, who is calling to his friends to retire from the
world, and is directed by a vision of three angels ; to the tenth, the Journex to La
Chartreuse, where St. Bruno is pointing out the place to be occupieil by the Convent
in the midst of the wildest desert of the Alps (painted perhaps by Patel) ; and lastly,
the twenty-first, the Death of St. Bruno, a masterpiece of pathetic expression.
When Lesueur was intrusted with a part of the decorations of the mansion of the
president Lambert de Thorign}', the Salon des Muses and the Salon de C Amour fell to
his share. He had to pass from the Christian to the mythological poem, from austere
asceticism to worldly grace ; and this complete change of mode, as Poussin would have
called it, was not too great for his genius. In the six paintings representing the
History of Love ; and in the five pictures in which the nine Muses are grouped, Lesueur
merely gave a different direction to his mind, to his scientific combinations, passionate
expression, and natural grace. He varied his style without ceasing to be himself.
But between the two extreme modes required by the subjects of a series of pictures
for a Carthusian convent, and for the sumptuous mansion of a millionaire, Lesueur
painted many separate compositions of an intermediate and varied style, although
they were all on religious subjects, in which he shows all the fulness and pliancy of
his genius. Of these are — the Descent from the Cross, the Mass of St. Martin, the brother
martyrs St. Gervasius and St. Protasius refusing to worship false gods. The latter
picture, which was painted as a pendent to the two works of Philippe de Champagne
on the same legend, is as large as the largest works of Lebrun or Jouvenet. To this
number also belong two small pictures, Christ i\ la colonne and Christ bearing the Cross,
which seems to us, as in the works of Poussin, preferable in style and perfection to
larger works. The Preaching of St. I\iul at Ephesus, painted in 1649, an^l oftered
to Notre Dame of Paris by the guild of goldsmiths, may likewi.se be placed here.
It represents the apostle of the Gentiles causing the books of magic, the books of
curious arts, to be burnt at his feet. This has been very rightly placed in tlio sallr
des chefs-da-uvre, for it is the masteipiece of Lesueur.
Charles Lebrun, the son of a sculptor, was born at Paris in i(')i9. As he showed a
decided talent for drawing, he was placed under Simon Vouet, with whom he remained
for some years. He then went to Italy, and under the tuition of Poussin studied the
works of the great masters. Shortly after his return to i'aris, Lebrun received the
patronage of Louis XIV., who made him painter to the court, and director of the
Gobelins manufactory. The King also decorated him with the order of St. Michael.
Lebrun ilied in Paris in 1690.
As Velasquez is to be seen in the Museum of Madrid, so Lebrun is to be found
entirely in the Louvre. Twenty-two pictures represent him there, at the head of which
stands the History of Alexander. This famous series, which was ordered by Louis
38o ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1675.
XIV. in 1660, and which was completed in 1668, is no less important among his
works than the History of St. Brimo among those of Lesueur. To make known and
to popularise this great poem in five cantos — the Passage of the Granicus, the Batt/e of
Arbcla, the Family of Darius made captive, the Defeat of Poms, and the Triumph of
Alexander at Babylon— ^.w evident allegorical flattery of the early triumphs of the
great Louis. Lebrun had the good fortune to have it engraved by Edelinck
and Audran.
The other great paintings of Lebrun, the Day of Pctitecost (where he has introduced
himself in the figure of the disciple standing on the left) ; the Christ with Angels,
painted to immortalise a dream of the queen mother ; and the Repentant Magdalen,
which every one calls Mademoiselle de la Valliere ; show us once more the oflicial
painter suiting himself to his master's tastes like a skilful courtier. He is more natural
and true in the Stoning of St. Stephen, as well as in the small pictures on profane
history, Cato and Mntius Sceevola, works of his youth, which were attributed to the
great Poussin. At last when, dehvered from the master's eye, he descended from
royal pomp and reduced his subjects to small figures, Lebrun seems to ascend in art in
proportion as he becomes humble and modest. If any one look at three small
pictures representing the Entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem ; Jesus on his ivay to Calvaiy ;
and a Crucifixion, especially the second, which reminds us in its subject of the Spasimo,
he will find finer and more varied painting, a simpler though not less noble style, and
a deeper and more touching expression.
Bon BouUongne, the son of an historical painter, Louis Boullongne, was born at
Paris in 1649. He was much patronized by Louis XIV., who sent him to Rome to
study the old masters. He painted m.any of the decorations of Versailles. He died at
Paris in 17 17. His younger brother, Louis Boullongne the younger, was also a good
painter. He died in 1734.
Jean Jouvenet, the son of a painter, was born at Rouen in 1644. At seventeen
years of age he went to Paris, where he quickly rose to fame. He was a pupil and
assistant of Lebrun, and followed his style. In old age he lost the use of his right hand
by palsy, and, to the astonishment of his brother artists, painted with his left hand the
Magnificat, now in Notre Dame. Nearly all his pictures were of sacred subjects. He
died at Paris, in 17 17. Jouvenet's art is theatrical, carried almost to the style of scene-
painting. By what other name could we call the enormous sheets of canvas on which
the Miraculous Draught of Fishes, the Christ driving the Money- Changers out of the
Temple, and even the famous Raising of Lazarus, are described ? The dramatic
arrangement, the exaggerated expression, the angular drawing, the pale and almost
monochromatic colouring, all make his works resemble the decorations of a theatre,
only intended to be looked at from a distance and to be taken in at a glance, but
which will not sustain a closer examination. It is only fair to add, however, that
Jouvenet's less ambitious compositions, such as the Descent fro?n the Cross, which he
painted for the Convent of the Capucines, and an Ascension for the Church of St. Paul,
are simpler and calmer in their style, besides being better in every other respect.
Jean Baptiste Santerre was born at Magny, near Pontoise, in 165 1. He went early
in life to Paris, where he studied under Boullongnp. His pictures are carefully
composed and harmoniously coloured. He died in Paris in 17 17.
At the same time that, in order to flatter the pompous taste of Louis XIV., Jouvenet
was exaggerating the exaggeration of Lebrun, there was one artist who religiously observed
A,D. 1675.] . MIQNARD. 381
the worship of the beautiful. This was Jean Daptiste Santerrc. Like Lesueur before
him, and Prud'hon after him, he escaped from academic tyranny, as well as from the
slavery of the court. He sought for real greatness more than for f:ime or fortune, and
found it, far from theatrical eftect, in <!eliracy and grace. Always set aside, almost
unknown, and doing scarcely anything but studies, which he destroyed before his
death, Santerre, in a tolerably long life, completed but few works, and the Louvre has
only succeeded in obtaining one, the modest Susannah at the Bath, which seems to
make the link in the chain uniting C'orreggio to Prud'hon, A St. Uurcsa by him is in
the chapel at Versailles.
Peter Patel, who was born about the middle of the seventeenth century, is a painter
of whom next to nothing is known. His Chri.stian name is, by some, said to be Peter,
and by others, Paul. Neither the date of his birth nor that of his death is undisputed.
He is supposed to have visited Rome, because he ])ainted scenes near that city.
Patel's Landscapes are executed in a good imitation of Claude Lorraine, and make one
wish that one knew more of the author. Patel had a son, who was also a painter.
To bring into one group the best portrait-painters of the age to which Louis XIV.
has given his name, we must go back a few years, and commence with
Pierre Mignard, although born in 161 2 at Troyes in Chami)agne, was called the
" Roman," because after having studied under Simon Vouet, he passed twenty-two
years at Rome. Pierre Mignard was not merely a portrait ])ainter ; he also painted
historical pictures and even in the dome of Val-de-Grace painted frescoes larger in size
if not really greater, than that of Correggio in the duomo of Parma, He succeeded
the disgraced Lebrun in the office of king's painter ; he was ennobled, made a
Chevalier de Saint-Michel, a professor, rector, director, and chancellor of the Academy.
He even entered into direct rivalry with Lebrun in a Fatnily of Darius at the feet of
Alexander, wow m the Hermitage of St. Petersburg ; and in the Louvre we may see the
charming Vierge a la Grapfe, brought from Italy, in which he imitated the style of
Annibale Carracci, whilst exaggerating the studied grace of Albani. But the composi-
tions of Mignard, with the exception oH\\h Madonna with the Grapes, have not retained
their passing celebrity ; he is now only remembered by his portraits, to be found in the
galleries of many noble families. In the Louvre, where we are surprised to see no
portrait of Louis XIV., whom Mignard painted very frequently and at nearly every
period of his life except old age, there are a great number of historical portraits, the
Grand Dauphin, the Duke of Burgundy, \\\^ Duke of Anjou, Madame de Maitttenon, and
Mignard himself In all these works —historical paintings as well as portraits he
displays the same cold correctness, the same skilfuhiess in the art of flattery, the same
care in minute details, carried to the extreme which has made his name a proverb
in France, at first in praise, and now in blame ; but they also show a lightness of
touch and vivacity of colouring which, in that i)eriod of systematic abandonment
of colouring, easily rendered him the first colourist amongst the court painters of
France. He died at Paris in 1695.
Claude Lefevre was born at Fontainebleau in 1633. He was a pupil of Lesueur and
Lebrun, and painted portraits which remind us of Philippe of Champagne. He visited
England in the reign of Charles II., and it is believed that he died in London in 1675.
Nicolas de Largilli^re, though born at Paris in 1656, received his early education
in art at Antwerp, where his father settled as a merchant. He visited England, and
382 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1675.
painted portraits of Charles IL, James IL, and many of the nobihty. Louis Quatorze
also sat to him. He died at Paris in 1746.
Hyacinthe Rigaud, the son of an artist, was born at Perpignan, in 1659. Rigaud
has deserved his name, the French Vandyck, at all events through his fertility.
Amongst his pictures in the Louvre, Louis XIV. figures in the front rank; and Bossuet,
who seems to be holding a court in his bishop's robes as the chief of the church and the
king of eloquence. They are known everywhere, thanks to engraving; for Rigaud, no
less fortunate than Lebrun, who had been engraved by Edelinck and Audran^ found the
illustrious Pierre Drevet as his interpreter. By the advice of the jealous Lebrun, Rigaud
became and remained a portrait painter, studying from nature, and seeking truth not
merely in living figures, but also in the inanimate objects of the accessories. He has been
reproached, and not without reason, with having given such amphtude to the dresses that
the persons always seem taking part in some ceremony. He also, like Vandyck,
imparted such an expression of nobility and dignity to all his models that it may be
thought he usually gave it gratuitously. Under his pencil even the Cardinal Dubois
assumes the moral grandeur of an upright man. Rigaud died in 1743.
Antoine Coypel, the son of Noel Coypel, an artist of some celebrity, was born at
Paris in 1661. He accompanied his father to Rome, and studied the style of Bernini.
On his return to Paris, he became a very popular artist, and was much employed in
painting royal palaces. He treated history in a theatrical manner, and clothed the
ancient Greeks in silk breeches. Coypel died at Paris in 1722.
Antoine Watteau, the son of a poor thatcher of Valenciennes, was born in the year
1684. He was placed with an obscure artist, in his native city, and for a long time
painted pictures of St Nicholas for three francs a week and his soup. In 1702, he went
to Paris — where the scene-painter, Claude Gillot, introduced him to the green-room of
the opera — and founded a school of painting ; or rather, he was so superior to the other
imitators of this genre that he has been called its founder ; yet his name, whatever
amount of blame he may have incurred, must occupy an honourable place amongst
those of French artists. It was in the hands of his plagiarists — the Van Loos, the
Paters, Lancrets, Natoires, and the long train of their followers — that the decay was
most manifest ; that art was more and more degraded and dishonoured in ridiculous
and licentious paintings of sheepfolds decorated with satin ribbons ; and pictures were
merely used as ornaments for boudoirs.
Watteau only attempted very small gcn?'e subjects ; but he has imparted such eleva-
tion and grandeur to them that he will always be considered far above a mere decorator
of ladies' boudoirs. In the works of this painter of Fetes Galantcs, besides the
exquisite colouring taken from Rubens, we shall always have to admire his invention,
fun, wit, and even propriety ; for we feel that he was, as his biographer Gersaint says, a
" libertine in mind, though of good morality."
Nicholas Lancret, a jlainter of Fetes Galantes^ who was born- at Paris in 1690,
studied under one Pierre d'Alin, but took Watteau as his model, and became an ignoble
disciple of that master, though in his own time his works were very popular. He died
in Paris in 1743.
In the National Gallery is a series of four paintings — mentioned by D'Argenville
among the principal works of Lancret. They are the four ages of man — Infancy,
Youth., Manhood., and Old Age.
A.l). 1700.]
WATTE A U.
>S3
Jean Baptists Joseph Pater, who was born at Valenciennes in 1696, went, when
still young, to Paris, and entered the studio of Watteau, whom he copied both in
subject and, as far as possible, in style. His works are somewhat scarce. Pater
died in 1736.
Francois Boucher, who was born at Paris in 1704, was one of the most popular
artists of his time, Avas appointed painter to the king, and acquired a great reputation,
which did nbt long survive him. He died at Paris in 1768. Boucher was called the
UNK KKIK (■..\I.ANTK.--BY W.XTTKAU.
" Painter ot the Graces," because, in the midst of landscapes as weak and false as
the scenes at the opera, he introduced, as the shepherdesses of his be-ribboned sheep,
veritable dolls, without modesty, fat, and only fresh-looking from the vermilion of their
toilette, or because they arc reposing in the style of goddesses on clouds of cotton.
How surprised the Greeks would have been to see these Graces !
Fraii9ois Desportes, who was the first in France to make a special domain for
himself by imitating ."^nyders, and who became the historiographer of the hunts of
384 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1750.
Louis XIV., was born at Champigneul in 1661. It is said that he visited and painted
sporting scenes in England. He died in 1743.
Jean Baptiste van Loo, the grandson of an artist, was born at Aix in Provence, in
1684. He painted in public buildings at Toulon, Turin, and Rome, and was made a
member of the Academy at Paris. In 1737 he paid a visit to England, and was
patronized by Sir Robert Walpole. He painted many portraits of the nobility.
In 1742, he returned to his native land, and there he died in 1746.
Jean Baptiste Oudry, whose genre was the same as that of Desportes, was born at
Paris in 1686. He became in his turn the historian of the hunts of Louis XV. His
works, which are very numerous in the \^o\\\xq —Hunts of stags, wolves, boars,
pheasants, and partridges— and also simple portraits of dogs and groups of game,
show that he had neither the invention nor the movement of Snyders, nor the exquisite
skill and touch of Fyt and Weenix. But the habits of the animals have been well
studied, the forms are well given, and they compose very good hunting-pictures, much
sought after by the possessors of country houses. Oudry died at Beauvais in 1755.
Simeon Chardin, the worthy rival of Willem Kalf, the painter of Dutch kitchens,
was born in 1699. Chardin, who was a powerful colourist, rivals the Dutch school in
the vigour of his tints, until then unknown in the French school. "Oh, Chardin !"
cries the enthusiastic Diderot, " it is not colours alone that you mix on your palette ;
it is the very substance of the objects, it is air and light with which you paint." Chardin
died in 1779.
Carle van Loo, the younger brother of Jean Baptiste, was born at Nice in 1705.
He was the best of the four painters in his fiimily, and showed to what a depth of
decay an artist, endowed by nature with great and solid qualities, may be led by the
bad taste of his age. Had Carle van Loo been born two centuries earlier, he would
pro])ably have been one of the masters of his art. In his early years he was noted for
his correct drawing, his severe style, and his antique elegance. " He had all the signs
of genius," affirms Diderot, who yet calls his works " masterpieces of dyeing ;" and no
painter of the time acquired greater renown, fortune, or honours, than he. Van Loo
should have restricted himself to the anecdotal style, or to ge/ire painting ; but he
attempted history and sacred subjects, and failed utterly. He died at Paris in 1765.
Claude Joseph Vernet, the celebrated marine painter, was born at Avignon in 17 14.
A whole room in the Louvre is devoted to his works ; there are nearly fifty
of them ranged on the walls round his bust in marble. These are, in the first
place. Views of the principal French Seaports, painted in 1754 to 1765, by order
of Louis XV. ; an ungrateful task, which would have required a mind inexhaustible in
its resources. There is a large number of Marine Pieces properly so called, in which
he has represented the sea in all its forms, in all its aspects, in the south and the
north, by day and by night, in the morning and in the evening, with the sun and the
moon, the fog and fire, in rain and in fine weather, iai calm and tempest. These
marine pieces certainly do not possess the intoxicating poetry of Claude, or the
dreamy poetry of Ruysdael, or the powerful reality of Willem van de Velde, or Eack-
huysen. Claude Joseph Vernet died in 1789. He had a son, Carle Vernet, who
painted battle-pieces, and who died in 1836 at the age of 78. He was the fadier of
the celebrated Horace Vernet, of whom we shall speak hereafter.
A. II. 1750.]
GREUZE.
:M
Jean BapUste Greuze was bom at Toumai in 1725. I i,e (omc-nii.orary literary
school of tlie (lay inculcated a return to nature. Creuze listened to this advice, and
ajiproached nature, not in the manner of Houcher, by ridiculous pastoral caricatures,
but by taking' his figures from rural life, and representing sim])le and touching village
scenes. Diderot sa)s, " He was the first who thought of bringing morality into art."
THK SLKKI'INc; «;|RI.. IIV CKKir/.t:.
Some of these village scenes contain merely a comic incident, such as the Broken
Pi/c/icr; others rise to pathetic drama, like the rather s Curse. The /V/A/<,r JJriiic is
of intermediate style, more simple and graceful, and may be considered as the
masterpiece of his transition style. These choice works are in the Louvre, and
P'rance may consider herself fortunate to have secured them beforehand from the
amateurs, who now dispute with cigc-rncss for the sliulitisi ski-trlns of a painter.
x86
ILLUSTRATED HLSTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1750.
whose old age was passed in extreme poverty. He died at Paris in 1805. The
gallery of Sir Richard Wallace contains twenty-two paintings by Greuze ; several
of which have been engraved. There are three in the National Gallery, two of
which were bequeathed by Mr. Wynn Ellis.
Joseph Marie Vien was born at Montpellier in 17 10. He studied first in Paris,
and it was he who in historical painting, gave the signal for reform when, in 177 1
to 1 78 1, he directed the French school at Rome. In studying the works of the
earlier ages, he learned to understand the greatness of the art which had almost
perished. He endeavoured to return to the style of the great masters. To Vien,
then, belongs the honour of having clearly seen the evil and its remedy, and of
THE SABINE WOMEN. — BY DAVID.
having been the first to attempt the part of a reformer, which was accomplished by his
pupil Louis David. This honourable attempt may be seen, in his fine composition,
St. Germain of Atixerre aiid St. Vincent of Saragossa receiving martyrs' crowns from
an angel ; and for chastened and powerful execution, in the Hermit asleep. It is said
of this last picture that one day, in his studio at Rome, the hermit who served him
for a model went asleep whilst playing on the violin. The artist took his portrait in
this attitude, and with much success.
Vien said, "I have only half opened the door; it is M. David who will throw it
wide open." Vien, the regenerator of painting in France, died at Paris in 1809.
Jacques Louis David, the nephew of Francois Boucher, the " Painter of the Graces,"
was born at Paris in 1748. He accompanied Vien to Rome, and with him studied
JACQUl..-> i.« 'I 1.^ I'.W Ih
/■^;v3^'
•^•'♦- 1 7 75- J LOUIS DAVin.
J87
the works of the great masters. Following the rapid incline which urges every reaction
to an extreme, Louis David resolved to bring back art not merely to the finest epoch
of the French school in the times of Poussin and Lesueur, or the finest perioti of
Italian art in the times of Raphael and Titian, but to antiquity. In order to delineate
Roman sul)jects and Roman manners, he sought his models in the ruins of ancient
Rome ; he studied the statues and the bas-reliefs,— Tacitus and Plutarch.
As long as David painted merely in his studio and before his pupils, his works and
lessons were, in some degree, a public good ; by the severity of his taste and forms, l.y
the admiration of noble thoughts and fine actions, he brought back art to dignity and
true grandeur. But when the Empire, had overthrown the Republic, when David,
painter to the emperor, had become, less from character than from position, the
regulator of taste, the dispenser of favours— in short, the prefect of the deparunent of
the Fine Arts— there reappeared the usual tyranny. All works of art, from the
historical picture down to ornamental furniture, all works of literature, from the epic
poem to the couplet of romance, received the order of the day, a watchwonl, which
was called the style of the Empire. "Art," says Plato, "is a forest I.inl uhi.h hue.
the cage, and can only live at liberty."
We will rapidly mention the best works of David to be found lu the Luuvrc.
placing them in chronological order, so that we may be able to appreciate tiij
modifications made on the talent of the painter. The Oath of the Horatii was painteil
at Rome in 1784. It is said that Louis XVI. ordered this first republican picture.
When it was first produced, it was as if David had passed at a single bountl to the
very antipodes of the licentious paintings with which, until then, both the court and
the town had been satisfied. Its appearance caused, indeed, such sensation, even in
the frivolous world of the Parisian salons, that from this time we may date the
commencement of the fashion for Roman forms in garments, hangings, and furniture.
The second rei)ublican picture is of Marcus Brutus, to whom the lictors are bringing
the corpses of his two sons, whom he had condemned to death. In this work, dated
1789, David also foretells the future, for this horribly grand action of Hrutus seems to
announce, alas ! the frightful hecatomb which the France of 1793 would make of her
children. It is as well that the artist placed the face of Brutus in the shade near the
statue of Romulus with the Wolf, for the struggle in him between the heroism of the
citizen and the grief of a father is ahnost too great to conceive, ami the human mind
hesitates to decide what should be the jjredominating feeling of the unhapi»y f'ltlier.
He next painted the Sabine Women throwing themselves into the midst of the conflict
between the Romans and the Sabines : it was after having passed five months in prison
after the 9th Thermidor, as tlie friend of Robespierre and Sl Just, that David
commenced this picture, wishing to commemorate, it is said, the perilous efforts maile
by his own wife to save him. Between the Brutus and the Sibine li'omen, whilst
sitting among the Convention, David had sketched out the Oath of the /eu-tlc-Baume,
a vast composition, as full of fire and energy as that first scene of the great drama of
the Revolution, and he had also painted the Death of Marat, struck by Charlotte
Corday. This latter work is by some considered his masterpiece in j)oint of
execution.
^\'e next come to the Leonidas at Thermopyhc. .\lthough between this i)icture and
the Sabines the whole interval of the Empire intervenes, we may yet call them twin
pictures. What has been said of the one will do for the other, weakeneil, however, in
execution. All the details of Leonidas are borrowed from the narrative of the fight at
S88 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1800.
Thermopylae, placed by the Abbe Barthelemy in the introduction to his 'Travels
of Anacharsis in Greece.' David has simply placed his narration in painting.
The works of David which we have just been considering show all his good qualities
and defects in the clearest light. On one hand the fine subjects, noble sentiments,
austere forms, correct drawing, and chastened painting ; on the other, in the composi-
tion may be seen an academic, or, rather, sculptural stiffiiess, making the living beings
look as if cut out in marble, and of a painted picture a sort of bas-reUef; and in the
execution a sad and monotonous colouring, increased still more by the bad distribution
of light. In addition to the historical pictures, there are a number of portraits. One
of the most celebrated of these is that of Pope Pius VII. It is, like all David's portraits,
well copied from nature, and full of physical life ; but the breath of poetry and of the
ideal has not passed over the brow of the prisoner of Fontainebleau.
After the fall of Napoleon, David took refuge in Brussels, where he continued to
paint for many years. He died in 1825, in his seventy-eighth year. His chief pupils
form a brilliant assemblage around him in the Louvre.
Guillaume Guillon Lethiere, one of David's pupils, was born in Guadeloupe in
1760. He is represented in the Louvre by those enormous pictures,' nine yards
in length, called the Death of Virginia and Death of the Sons of Brutus. These
pictures were exhibited in Lond(5n in 18 16 and received with much applause. Lethiere
died in 1832.
Anne Louis Girodet Trioson was born in 1767. His most important works
may be found in the Louvre. The Revolt in Cairo, a theatrical combat ; the
Interment of Atala, describing, with greater simplicity, a scene from Chateaubriand ;
a Scefw from the Deluge, which took the prize in 18 10; a fine group of nudes,
reminding us a little of the convulsive enlacements of the Laocoon, but which,
unfortunately, provokes comparison with the calm masterpiece of Poussin ; the Sleep
of Endymion, an agreeable mythological scene, offering a new and charming idea.
Trioson died in 1824.
Francois Gerard was born at Rome in 1770. His celebrated group of Cupid and
Psyche may dispute the prize of prettiness with the Dido ; but he has painted a larger
and far better work in the Entrance of Heiiri IV. into Paris, and his Blind
Beiisarius. Gerard, to whom many of the most illustrious characters of Europe
sat for their likeness, was rather a jjortrait than an historical painter, and was
still more an intellectual man than an artist of genius. With Gerard, who died in 1837,
ends the direct school of David, for we cannot count the sad and frozen imitations of
those who are called in politics the queue djin parti.
Antoine Jean Gros, who was born in 177 1, suddenly quitted the usual track, to
open a fresh career for himself Gros marks the second phase, the passage between
the imprisoned art of the Empire and the emancipated art of the Restoration.
\\^ithout returning to sacred history, he abandoned mythology and ancient history, and
formed himself on his own country and time, and painted the men and the things
before his eyes. To this radical change of subject he had to join a similar change in
style and taste, and even to give the contemporary costumes picturesque aspects ; and,
what completes his originality is, that he introduced two fresh elements in the
execution, too much neglected by the old school — colour and movement. The style
of Gros was an undoubted progress. The proof of this is to be found in some fine
works taken to tlic Louvre from the galleries of Versailles, such as the Jaffa plague
A.D. 1800.]
PRUniiON.
38«;
stricken, the Battle o/Aboiikir, and especially the Battle-field of Eylau, a great work as
well as an instructive lesson, the most heartrending image of the desolation caused by
\v:ir ever traced by pencil. Gros died in 1S35.
Pierre Narcisse Gu^rin, born at i'aris in 1774, was the pupil of Jean Regnault, who
followed tlie track thrown open by David. His Marcus Scx/iis returning; from exile
and finding his hearth devastated by misery and death, a fine painting, which made the
artist known in 1798, has remained his principal work. His later pictures are scenes
rather theatrical than truly dramatic, and the last in date, DiJo lisunini;: to flit-
narrative 0/ .Eneas, falls completely into the style of the " pretty," the worst enemy of
tlie beautiful. Guerin died in 1S33. Many of his works have been engraved.
DIVINK JUSTICK .\N1) VKNGKANCE I'UKSUINO CKIMK. — HY IKUUlluN.
Pierre Paul Prud'hon, tiie thirteenth child of a mason of Burgundy, was born in
1758. Brought up by charity, and inventing for himself the processes of painting,
waging a continual war widi poverty, obliged, in order to gain a livelihood for his
family, to devote his days and nights to unworthy labours, such as drawing vignettes
for books and designs for sugar-plum bo.xes, Prud'hon was long neglected. In early
life he went to Rome, and formed accptaintance with Canova. In 1799 he returned to
France, and he was already forty-nine when, in 1807, his fellow-countryman Frochot, the
prefect of the Seine, onlered a picture of him, his first composition in high art, the
celel)rateil allegory o{ Divine Justice and Vengeance pursuiu}^ Crime. Notwithstanding
the prevailing taste of the time, this painting attracieil great notice. The admirers
of ancient sculpture placed on canvas condescended to acknowleilge that there
390
ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1800.
were great qualities of execution; a happy arrangement, correct expression, skilful
touch, harmonious and powerful effect. The Louvre has acquired this work, and it
has also taken a Christ on Calvary from the cathedral of Strasburg. Notwithstanding
the usual figures around, the Virgin, Mary Magdalene, and John, a group of wonderful
beauty, this dying Christ, whose countenance is to a certain degree lost in tlie darkness,
reminds us of the wonderful Christ on the Cross which Velasquez has painted
like a pale spectre in the gloom of night. In both these works there is the same
melancholy and solemn majesty.
But both these pictures are pathetic, and we have said that the special merit of
Prud'hon was grace. His favourite model was Leonardo da Vinci, from whom he
derived his moving and smihng grace, and whom he called " my master and my hero."
THE RAFT OF THE MEDUSA. — BY GERICAULT.
Prud'hon is, therefore, incomplete in the Louvre; we must seek in private collec-
tions for other works — such as Zephyr rocked on the Waters., the Rape of Psyche
by the Zephyrs, or the Desolate Family, to show how he treated the antique, and
that he could impart as much poetry to contemporary sufferings as to the fictions of
mythology. Prud'hon died at Paris in 1823.
Francois Marius Granet, another mason's son, was born at Aix-en-Provence,
in 1775. He is celebrated for his Interiors, two of which may be seen in the Louvre,
the Cloister of the Church of Assist, and the Fathers of Mercy redeeming captives.
Granet, differing in this from Peter Neefs and Emmanuel de Witt, animated his portraits
of buildings by scenes from human life, and like Pieter de Hooch raised his less
familiar subjects to the rank of historical pictures. Granet died in 1849.
•^•"- 1^25.] JSGA£S. 39,
Theodore G^ricault, who was bom at Rouen in 1 791, was .a pupil first of Carle
Vernet, and next cf Pierre Gucrin. At first he was a simi)le amateur, cultivaiin!; art
only as a pastime, and as he died very young, leaving scarcely anything but sketches,
it is difficult to understand how it happened that he played so important a part in
French art, and exerted such influence on the whole school. But he came forward
at the time when literary liberty was reviving with political libeny, and the whole of
society was advancing. The example of Gc'ricault coming in at this moment was
sufficient to urge French art forward in this general movement of the human miml.
His wovks in the Louvre mark the commencement and close of his short life. The
Chasseur dc /a Garde and the Cuirassier biesse belong to the period when, still follow-
ing on the traces of Carle Vernet, he was simply a painter of horses.
It was towards the close of his life that Gcricault painted the only great work of
his life, the Ra/f of the Medusa. After the destruction of a frigate of that name on the
coasts of Senegal, the crew endeavoured to save themselves on a raft made from the
wreck of the ship, and scarcely fifteen men, kept alive with the flesh of the dead,
survival the horrors of revolts, combats, stormy seas, hunger, and thirst. It is the
moment preceding their deliverance that the artist, after some hesitation, chose for his
subject. This picture was at first received with a storm of reproaches, but when it was
exhibited in London it won much praise, and is now one of the celebrities of the
Louvre. Gcricault died, when but thirty-three years of age. in 1824.
Jean Dominique Augustine Ingres was born at Montauban, about 1780, and in his
early boyhood showed an equal taste for music and painting. At the age of sixteen,
he chose art as his profession, and entered the studio of the stern classic master
David, where he remained four years, and gained many proselytes to his own peculiar
ideas amongst his fellow jnipils. In 1800 he won the second, and in 1801 the first
Academic prize, and receiveil a pension of one thousand francs. In 1802, Ingres
painted his first important work, Bonaparte passing the Brid^^e of AV///, ami in 1806
realized a long cherished dream of visiting Rome, where he remained until 1820,
studying the works of Raphael, and the other great masters of the golden age of painting
with eager and unceasing enthusiasm. In 1820 he removed to Florence, where he
resided four years, i)ainting the Entry of Charles V. into Baris, ami the Vim' of
Louis XIII. now in a church at Montauban. In 1824 he returned to Paris, to find the
school of David supplanted by that of Delacroix, and to begin that struggle with public
opinion, which lasted until his death. His works were ridiculeti in the journals ; an«! the
honours, such as the decoration of the Legion of Honour, seem to have but siiijhtly
atoned for the pain inflicted by the pens of the reviewers.
In 1827 he cpmpleted \\\^ Apotheosis of Homer, on a ceiling in the Louvre; in
1829 was elected Professor of Painting in the Kcole des Peaux-Arts ; in 1833 •>ecame
an officer of the Legion of Honour, and in 1835 Director of the French Academy in
Rome; the last-named appointment enabling him to return to the city of his aflcctions.
But his spirit seems to have been broken by the heartlessness of his countrymen ; he
painted but few ])ictures ; declined a connnission for which ^16,000 was offered him and
devoted the remainder of his life, rather to implanting his i)rinciples in the breasts of
his pupils than to carrying them out himself. He returned to France in 1840 ; in 1845
was nominated Commander, and in 1855 Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour.
Ingres died in January 1687, leaving behind him, in addition to the masterpieces
we liave mentioned, several great work.s, including the Odalesque, which appeared in
392
ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1825.
1819; the Martyrdom of St. Symphorkn; Christ delivering the keys to St. Peter;
Roger rescuing Aiigrlique ; Stratonice; CEdipus explaining the riddle of the Sphinx ; and
La Source^ the picture which attracted such universal admiration in the London Exhi-
bition of 1862.
Eraile Jean Horace Vernet, the son of Carle Vernet, was born in the Louvre, where
his father had apartments, in 1789. His father early taught him to become his own
master, rather than depend upon others for instruction in art. He first exhibited in
1805, and in the following years appeared such works as his famous Barriere de Clichy,
Capture of the Redoubt, the Entrance of the French army into Breslau, the Defence of
Paris, and the Massacre of the Mamelukes. In 1826, Vernet was made a member
of the Institute, and two years later he was elected Director of the French Academy
in Rome, where, like Rubens, he combined politics with painting, and with equal
STRATONICE. — BY INGRES.
success. At Versailles, one whole gallery — the Constantine— was devoted to his works
illustrative of the victories achieved by the French armies in Algeria. These pictures
display a thorough knowledge of the Algerians, Avhose customs he was enabled to study
personally on more than one occasion. Of this series tlie most noteworthy for its
merit, as well as for its size, is the Capture of the Smala of Ahd-el-Kader.
In 1642, Vernet, having been previously made knight, was created commander of
the Legion of Honour ; he is said to have been the only artist who has enjoyed that
title. He continued to work on his fiivourite subjects — battle scenes — and occasionally
on Biblical pictures, up to the time of his death, which occurred in 1863, at Paris.
Claude Marie Dubufe was born in Paris in 1793, "^"^^ took his first lessons in art
in the studio of the great classic master, David. His earliest independent works were
historical, and included tite well-known Roman family dying of famine, and Achilles
KMII.K I KAN HoKACi: \F.RN i:i"
l\i,y V-
A.D. 1825.] FRENCH SCHOOL. 393
taking:; Iphii:;cma utuh'r his protection. They were succeeded by Christ stilling the
Tempest; Apollo and Cyparissits ; \\\c Birtli of the Duke of Bordeaux ; Christ walking
on the Sea of Galilee; the Deliverance of St. Beter, which attracted so much attention
as to induce the French Government to confide to their gifted author, the decoration
of the first saloon of the state council chamber. The i)ictures painted for this purpose
were symbolical rather than historical, and represented Egypt, Greece, Italy and
France. In 1827 Dubufe changed his style and class of subjects; his Remembranees,
Regrets, the iVesf, the Slave Merchant, taking high rank as genre pictures. His
portraits, especially those of the Queen of the Belgians, the Duchess of /stria, and
Mdlle. Vernon as Fenella, are also greatly admired. Dubufe died in April, 1S64.
Leopold Robert was born in Switzerland, in 1794. At first an engraver, then a
l)upil of l)a\i(,l and Gerard at Paris, whilst Gericault was studying under Pierre Gucrin,
he went very late to Italy to become an original painter, and almost immediately after
gave up art by a voluntary and premature death. In Italy he returned to the tradition
of historical landscape — scenes of history mixed with the scenes of nature. His
subjects varied, are chosen intelligently, and carefully studied even in their slightest
detail, and are full of poetry. We always feel in them his love of the beautiful as
well as of the true ; and the country round Rome, as he represents it, becomes as noble
as ancient Arcadia. Three of his most important works were presented to the Louvre
by King Louis-Philippe — the Italian Iinprovisatore, the Feast of the Madonna di Bie-
di-grotta, and the Harvest Feast in the Roman Campagna. This Agro Romano, where
the handsome mountaineers have come down for the harvest, with their pifferari, as
they had come down for the sowing, flying off again to escape the attacks of malaria —
this Agro Romano, which has been popularised by the fine engraving of Mercuri,
contains a complete summary of the merits of its author. It is a pity that to these
three magnificent pictures, full of sunshine and joy, the Louvre has not been able to
add one which the painter has, on the contrary, covered with a veil of melancholy, the
Departure of Fishing Boats in the Adriatic, in which Leopold Robert seems to foretell
a departure without a return, and which he completed at Venice just before he ended
his own life in the year 1835.
Ary Scheffer, who was born at Dordrecht of French parents in 1795, '^'"^^^ i'^^'
misfortune when (luite young to lose his father, who had, however, given him an
elementary education m art. His widowed mother took him in 181 1 to Paris,
and apprenticed him to Pierre Guerin, from whom he learned his art, though he
acquired but little of that master's style. He died at Argenteuil, near Paris, in 1858.
Ary Scheffer might comi)lain with justice of having nothing in the Louvre but
works jjainted during his youth, the Femmes souliotes, and the Larmoyeur ; however
distinguished these works may be, they cannot compare with the works of a riper age.
They are far from eiiualling the Francesca di Rimini in the possession of the Due
d'.'\umale — his Gaston de Foix found dead— now in the Gallery at Versailles— or
the four subjects taken from Goethe's Faust: and certainly they give no indications
of what might be expected in the Christ the Comforter, the St. Monica, and the
Temptation of Christ, in all of which, leaving dogma for morality, and reconcciling
sacred history with the ideas of his own century, Ary SchefTer endeavoured to found
a fresh school of religious plilosophy.
Jean Baptiste Camilla Corot, one of the best of modern French landscape painters,
was born at Paris in 1796. He was apprenticed to a draper, but young Corot was
determined to be a painter, and. in spite of all that his parents did to dissuade him,
3 K
394 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1825.
entered in 1822, the studio of Michallon. When that artist died, Corot studied for
a time under Victor Bertin, but quitting that master, he went to Italy, where, during
a stay of several years, he applied himself diligently to study landscape painting from
nature. In 1827 appeared Corot's first works, a View of Narni, and the Campagna
of Rome; in the Paris Exhibition of 1855, he exhibited Mo niing Effect and Evening,
and in the same )ear received a first-class medal ; in the London Exhibition of 1862,
he was one of the artists who represented the French school, and again in 1871^
in which year he exhibited no less than twenty-one pictures. He was also a
frequent exhibitor in the French Gallery, Pall Mall. He died in 1S75. " Corot was
a poet, and his canvases are the expression of ideas, refined almost to sentimentality,
full of fancy and imagination, yet, still somewhat late in life, wanting in that delicacy
of execution which seems almost essential to the appropriateness of his subjects —
moonlight scenes, peaceful sunsets, and cool, grey mornings." ('Art Journal.')
Paul Delaroche, the celebrated painter of historic scenes, was born in Paris in 1797.
(His real Christian name was Hippolytus, but he was always called Paul.) He studied
art under Gros, and made rapid progress. He exhibited his first picture in 1819 — but
it was not till 1824 that he produced three paintings which earned him his celebrity
— these were Vincent de Paul preaching; Joan of Arc examined in Prison; and a
St. Sebastian. In succeeding years he painted his well-known Z^t'<7/// ^ ^?/^<^/z Elizabeth ;
the Children of Edward IV. ; the Death of the Duke of Guise, and many other equally
celebrated works. His cliief work, however, was the decoration of the Amphitheatre
of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts — to which he devoted four years. In this stupendous
undertaking, Delaroche introduced seventy-five full-length portraits of the most
eminent painters. This Hemicycle — as it is called — has been engraved in a grand
manner by Henriquel-Dupont. After an active life, in which he produced many of the
most celebrated paintings of his time, Delaroche died on the 4th of November, 1856.
Ferdinand Victor Eugene Delacroix was born at Charenton Saint-Maurice, near
Paris, in 1799. When eighteen years of age he Avas apprenticed to Guerin ; but,
being dissatisfied with that master's art, he struck out a new path for himself and became
the leader of the so-called "Romantic School." In 1830 Delacroix visited Spain,
Algiers and Morocco, and on his return was much patronized by M. Thiers, who
procured for him the commission to paint numerous works in the Palais Bourbon ;
the Hotel de Ville; the Luxembourg; the Louvre; and other public buildings, as well
as churches in Paris. He died in 1863.
Eugene Delacroix is well represented by the four works in the Louvre, which
bear his name: Dante and F/;-^// painted in 1822, \\-\^ Massacre of Scio in 1823, the
Algerian Women in 1834, and ih^ Jewish marriage in Morocco, in which we are able to
follow the several phases of his talent. These works were succeeded by the Bridge of
Taillebourg, a Medea, the Sliipzu recked Mariners, tlie Entrance of Baldwin into Con-
statitinople, and many others.
Joseph Louis Hippolyte Bellange was born in Paris in 1800, and took his earliest
lessons in art from Gros, acquiring some reputation for his lithographic drawings of
military figures when scarcely more than a boy. In 1824 Bellange' won a second-class
medal for an historical picture; in 1834, he was made a member of the Legion
of Honour; in 1855, he obtained one of the prizes of the French International
Exhibition; and in 1861 was created an officer of the Legion of Honour. He is
chiefly known in England by two pictures sent to the International Exhibition of
1862 : the Two Friends, belonging to the Duke of Hamilton, a small but highly
I'AUL DKLAROCIIK.
Paf^C jo.»
A.i>. i'S25.] FRENCH SCHOOL. yy,
finished work, and A Sijuare of Rcpuhlican /n/iintry repulsing Austrian Dragoons^
1795. His most important pictures, however, are to be seeu in the Collections at
Versailles and the Luxeinbouri,', and include his Batik of the Alma, Painful A Jieux,
the Departure from the Cantonment, tlie Cuirassiers at Waterloo, the Battle of Fleurus,
tlie Return from Elba, the Mornin:r after the Battle of Gemappes, the Defile after
the Victory. This popular piinter of battle-scenes died in May, 1865.
Alexandre Gabriel Decamps, who was born at Paris in 1803, is chiefly celebrated
for the pictures of Kistern subjects which he introduced to the Parisian public.
The gallery of Sir Richard Wallace contains more than thirty paintings by this artist-
many of which are Scriptural subjects. His Turkish School, the History of Samson,
and the Defeat of the Cimbri, are among his most celebrated works. Decamps died
at Fontainebleau in i860.
Jean Hippolyte Flandrin was born at Lyons in 1S09, and accompanied by his
brother Jean Paul, went to Paris to enter the school of Les Beaux-.\rts in 1829, carry-
ing off during his studentship there the first grand prize for his picture of Theseus
recognising his Father at a Banquet, besides several minor honours. In 1S32 he went
to Rome and became a student in the French school of art in that city, then presided
over by Horace Vernet. In 1835 Vernet was replaced by Ingres, who conceived a
warm affection for young Flandrin, and did much to forward his career. 'I'lie chief
works produced by the young artist at this time were a scene from the Inferno;
Euripides writing his Tragedies in a Cavern near Salamis ; and 5/. Clair first Bishop
of Nantes healing the Blind, which last (now in the cathedral of Nantes) took the
Roman gold medal of the first class. About 1S39 Flandrin retured to Paris
and the next (q\w years of his life were devoted to the decoration of the chapel
of St. John in the church of St. Severin. That task satisfactorily accomi^lished, and
rewarded with the order of the Legion of Honour, Flandrin painted, first, a picture of
St. Louis dictating the Latus of the Constitution, for the present senate-house, and then
a series of twenty subjects from the Old and New Testament in the church of Sl
Germain des Pres. He also contributed a frieze, containing over two hundred figures,
to the decorations of the church of St. Paul at Nantes. In 1853 Flandrin became an
officer of the Legion of Honour, and a member of the French Academy. In 1857 he
was elected i)rofessor of painting at that institution, and held the appointment until his
death, which took place in March 1864.
Constantine Troyon was born at Sevres in 1810, and began life as a painter on
porcelain in his native town. He soon however sought a wider field for his energies
took lessons of Riocreux, and in 1833 began exhibiting at the Salon des Heaux-.Vris,
Paris. His Lute at Sh'res, and A Corner of the Park at St. Cloud, revealed his peculiar
excellencies as a landscape painter, and betrayed his loving study of our own Old
Crome and Constable, but they were surpassed in 1841, by his VlriO in Brittany ami
somewhat later by his Going to Market (exhibited at the French Gallery, London, in
1869), a small work of the very highest quality, representing an old woman on a
donkey going to market with vegetables and other farm produce, now in the collection
of Mr. H. Jenkins. As typical works, illustrating Troyon's careful study of nature
subdued colouring and truthful drawing, we may also name a Sedgy River with cattle
grazing, exhibited in London in 1869; Evening in the Meadon's, remarkable for its
delicate aerial perspective antl fine chiaroscuro ; ami a Ferry Boat \ this painting was
being exhibited in Brussels at the time of its artist's death, when it was tlrapcd ivi black
396 ILLUSTRATED HLSTORY OF PALNTERS. [a.d. 1850.
and the pictures surrounding it were removed. The latter years of Troyon's hfe were
clouded, first by impaired sight, the result of too close an application to work, and
secondly by loss of reason ; but shortly before his death, he recovered his intellect and
was restored to his friends. He died in March, 1865.
Jean Frangois Millet was born at Greville, near Cherbourg, in 1815, As his
parents were but peasants, and unable to afford to give their son an art education —
which his early-displayed talent showed would not be thrown away upon him — the
authorities of Greville furnished him with the means of going to Paris, and entering
the studio of Paul Delaroche. But young Millet showed neither taste nor aptitude for
historic painting, and accordingly, after a short sojourn with Delaroche, he left that master
and sought instruction from nature alone. He married, and settled at Barbizon near the
Forest of Fontainebleau, and there from tlie fields and woods, and from the peasants
he took the subjects of his works. His first exhibited picture, the Milkwoman,
appeared at the Paris Salon in 1844; to the Paris Exhibition of 1855 he sent his
Feasant grafting a Tree; in the London Exhibition of 1862 appeared a Rustic Scene ;
and in the Paris Exhibition of i867_, no less than nine pictures of rustic life.
The Flax crushers, one of his best pictures, was exhibited in the French Gallery,
Pall Mall, in 1874. Millet died at Barbizon on the 20th of January, 1875.
Jean Louis Hamon was born at Plouha, C6tes-du-Nord, in 1821, and was educated
for the priesthood. His love of art, however, led him to renounce the sacred profes-
sion ; and having obtained a grant of five hundred francs from his native place, he
made his way to Paris, and began the study of painting under Paul Delaroche and
M. Gleyre. In 1848 appeared his first pictures, one a genre subject called Le Desstis
de Parle, and the other a sacred work, Chrisfs Tomb, succeeded a little later by a
Roman placard, the Seraglio, and other similar productions which scarcely met with
the recognition they deserved. Compelled to earn his daily bread, Hamon now for a
time gave up easel painting, and accepted employment in the Sevres manutactory,
where he succeeded so well, that in 1852 he was able to resume oil-painting —
producing, in the same year his Comcdie Humaine which made his reputation. The
most noteworthy of his later works are Ma soeiir liy est pas ; Ce 71' est pas moi; Les
Orphclins ; F amour de son Troupeau. In 1856 Hamon went to the East, and most
of the pictures subsequently painted are on Oriental subjects. He resided some years
at Capri, but returned to France shortly before his death, which took place at St.
Raphael, in the department of the Var, in 1S74.
Alexandre Georges Henri Regnault was born at Paris in 1847, and was the pupil
of MM. Lamothe and Cabanel. In 1866 Regnault won the prize of Rome, and in
1869 a gold medal. In the succeeding years he attracted much notice by his Still
Life, his portrait of General Prim, and An Execution at the Alhambra, all exhibited at the
Gallery of the Society of French Artists in New Bond Street, and Salome la danseuse,
exhibited in the Paris Salon of 1870, in which the first art critics of the day recognised
an originality of design, and force of execution, likely to entitle their possessor to the
highest rank amongst contemporary painters; but the terrible war of 1870-1, which
frustrated so many hopes, and cut short so many careers, broke out just as Regnault
was attaining to celebrity. The news of the declaration of hostilities reached him when
he was studying at Tangier, and leaving his unfinished work upon his easel, he returned
to France, took service as a national guard, and was killed in the sortie from Paris.
He was only twenty-four years old.
A.D. I500.] ENGLISH SCHOOL. yr,
BOOK vn
THE ENGLISH SCHOOL.
INTRODUCTION.*
IN England, as in the other countries of Europe, the miiUlle ages naturally pro-
duced artists of every kind, from architects to goldsmiths — and painters ; painters
of the walls of churches, or of altar-panels, painters for glass and tapestry,
painters of portraits and cabinets for public buildings and castles, i)ainters who
illustrated missals and manuscripts. Few remains of these curiosities have been
preserved ; wars and conflagrations, the Reformation and Puritanism having in their
turn destroyed the relics of former times. There scarcely exist more than a few
traces of wall-painting in the churches and other public buildings ; and a few
books ornamented with miniatures.
Up to the end of the fifteenth century, the history of art in England is
shrouiled in obscurity. It is only from about the time of Henry VTII., that an historic
sketch of painting in England can be commenced. But even then it is not of a native
school -the English School did not have its origin until the eighteenth century with
Hogarth and Reynolds —but of a succession of foreign pamters, who worked during
more than two centuries for the court and the aristocracy.
The most ancient painting of which the author is known, and the date ascertained,
is the portrait of Henry VIII. ds a c/iilJ, with his youni^ l>rothi-r iviti sisUr, Arthur ami
Margaret, by Jan Gossaeri, called Mabuse. There are several replicas of it ; that at
Hampton Court bears the date 1495. ^ magnificent picture, the Adoration of
the Kin^^s by the same artist, anil of about the same date, is at Castle Howard.
Early in the sixteenth century Hans Holbein, of Augsburg, came over to England on
a visit to Sir Thomas More. The chancellor introduced him to the king — who made
him painter to the court, ami gave him a handsome sahiry. Holbein, who stayeil
twenty-eight years in England — with the exception of a few short journeys on the
Continent — has left a large number of portraits in the palaces of English royalty
and in the mansions of the aristocracy. The Manchester exhibition inchuled about
twenty of these masterpieces, and quite as many were shown in the National Portrait
Exhibition of 1866.
During the reign of Henry VIII., there also came to England a Fleming, Gerard Luca
Horrebout, who was born at Ghent in 1498, and died at London in 1558, and a native
* I'"ioin i/iitoitc lies Pdnltcs Ji toiiUi Us Juola. I!> W . Ijiirgcr.
398 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1575.
of Holland, Luca Cornells Engelbrechtsen, son of Cornells Engelbrechtsen, who was
the master, or at least one of the early instructors of Lucas van Leyden. About the
time of Holbein's death, another great artist came to London, who had been painter
to Charles V., and who came to place himself in the service of the Princess Mary, the
wife of Philip the Second : Sir Anthony More, called in his own country Antonio
Moro, was, like his master Jan van Schoorel, a citizen of the world ; born at
Utrecht, in Holland, he worked in Italy, Spain, Portugal, and England, and subse-
(^uently died at Antwerp, He had a rival at the court of Queen Mary, a Fleming,
Joas van Clave of Antwerp (Van Cleve le foii), a portrait painter of considerable talent.
Another Fleming, Luca de Hsere, born at Ghent in 1534, also painted for Queen
Mary, and continued to be employed during the next reign.
Queen Elizabeth was not in want of painters — foreigners for the most part ; a native
of Holland, Cornells Ketel, who was born at Gouda in 1548, arrived in 1573, and
lived in London for eight years; an Italian, Federigo Zuccaro, who was born in 1543,
arrived in 1574; and a Fleming, Mark Gerard, who was born at Bruges in 1561,
stayed many years in England, where he died in 1635.
Nevertheless the influence of Holbein produced a few posthumous followers,
especially in miniature painting. Nicholas Hilliard, born at London in 1547, has
left some good miniatures, as well as life-sized portraits, without taking into account
that he was a goldsmith and jeweller ; he was still working in the reign of James I.,
and died in 16 19. Isaac Oliver, born at London in 1555, the pupil of Hilliard and
Zuccaro, painted miniatures equally well ; his son Peter Oliver, and himself often
signed " Olivier." Perhaps Hilliard and these Olivers were of French descent. Isaac
died in 16 17, and Peter about 1654.
Of this period is the celebrated Portrait of Shakespeare, formerly in the collections
of the Duke of Buckingham and Lord Ellesmere, \vho presented it to the nation. It
was painted from life by the actor Richard Burbadge, the friend of the poet and the
interpreter of his works at the theatre, notably in the character of Richard III.
To these should be added, durmg the reign of Elizabeth, some Dutch marine
painters, such as Cornells Vroom, the elder, born in 1566 at Haarlem, where he
died in 1640. Walpole also mentions a Pieter van de Velde, who was perhaps the
ancestor of the Willems, who were patronized later by Charles I. and Charles II.
In the reign of James I., there was a new generation of foreign painters: Paul
van Somer, born at Antwerp in 1576, was in London after 1606, he died in 162 1 ;
Cornells Jansen van Ceulen (of Cologne) arrived there in 16 18; Daniel Mytens a
little after, without doubt, for the first date which we find on the portraits painted by
him in England is 1623. Both Mytens and Van Ceulen became court painters
to Charles I., of whom they have left excellent portraits, as well as of the royal
family and the English aristocracy. Daniel Mytens was born at the Hague in
1590. Van Ceulen was born at Amsterdam in the same year. Both these painters
became intimate with Vandyck, who himself painted a portrait of Mytens ; who left
England in 1633, a year after the arrival of the illustrious Fleming, and returned to
his birth-place, where he was still working in 1656. Van Ceulen remained in London
till 1648, and returned to die at Amsterdam.
The reign of Charles I. is a bright period in the history of art in England — thanks
to foreigners. In 1629, Rubens came and sojourned a year; and in 1632 Vandyck
took up his abode in London. The designs painted by Rubens for the ceiling
at Whitehall, illustrating the History of Achilles, intended for reproduction in tapestry
A.D. I
620.] ENGLISH SCHOOL. 399
at the nianufartorv at Mortlake. are preserved in Knplish galleries, as well as the
portraits, many times repeated, of the Earl of ArumUl and of the Duke of Buckingham.
It does not appear that Rubens produced any other great works in England than the
St. George now at Huckingham Palace, the Assumption of ih: Virgin, painted for the
Earl of Arundel, and perhaps the allegory, Peace and War. now in the National
Gallery. This painter has always been a favourite in England ; there were more
than fortv of his works at the Exhibitions at Manchester ami at South Kensington.
The English have good urounds for considering Vandyck as a painter of their
school. In'his last style, from 1632 to his death, Vandyck. tlie native of .Antwerp,
is as truly English as Claude Lorraine is Italian. Naturally endowed with elegance,
of that type at once haughty and frank which characterises the English aristocracy,
Vandyck excelled as a portrayer of this exceptional society.
His genius well suited the times of Charles I. .Ml tlie foreigners before him had
passed away without leaving a mark in the art of the country. The great Holbein
himself was not able to found a school. Vandyck succeeded almost dunng his
lifetime, and it can be said, at all events, that he had a posthumous school. The
true English school, bom more than a century after him, has continued his work.
In truflC Vandyck is the progenitor of Reynolds and of Gainsborough, of Lawrence
and of all the English portrait j^ainters up to the i)resent day.
Around Vandyck were grouped a band of Flemings and natives of Holland, his
assistants, his pupils, or his imitators, but we have not room to mention them.
A very good painter was George Jameson, born at Aberdeen in 15S6; we have
seen portrai'ts of his in the style of both Vandyck and of Rubens ; for Jameson had
worked in the studio of Rubens at Antwerj), and he there met the young Vandyck.
It must have been about 1615 that he was on the Continent. In 1620 he returned to
his native town, and painted history, landscape, and allegorical subjects from mythology
and the Bible. One of his first paintings, which is daied 1633, is a Portrait group,
where he has represented himself, holding his palette and his brushes, and looking over
the shoulder of his wife, from whose hands their young child is taking roses. His
growing reputation soon caused him to take up his abode at Edinburgh, where .some ol
his paintings were noticed by Charles I., when tliis monarch visited Scotland in 1633.
Jameson had the good fortune to be invited to i)aint the portrait of the king. ALiny of
his works may still be seen at Aberdeen and in vari.^us residences of the nobility.
Jameson died' at Edinburgh in 1644. He left several pupils, and amongst others
Michael Wright, who attained some celebrity as a jiorlrait painter. He died in 1700.
\ clever miniature painter, John Hoskins, has left excellent portraits of Charles I.
and his Queen and many of the nobility. He died in 1664. His nephew and
pupil, Samuel Cooper, who was born in Loudon in 1609. was likewise a gowl
minii'lurisi. He painted excellent i)oriraits of Oliver Cromwell and Charles II. and
his Court; he was on intimate terms witli Pepys, by whom he is mentioned with
praise. He died in 1672.
A good painter, James Gandy, who was born in 161 9, and died m 1689, lived
nearly ^always in Ireland, in the service of the Duke of Ormond. His son William
Gandy, who settled at Exeter, is also consitlereil as an artist of repute.
At' London, one of tiie three sons of Nicholas Stone— the celebrated sculptor, who
had married in Holland the ilaughter of I'ieter de Keyser, architect and sculptor of the
city of Amsterdam,— Henry Stone, called " Old Stone " to distinguish him from his
brothers, also painted in the style of Vandyck. In the collection of the Duke of
400 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1650.
Sutherland at Stafford House, there is a portrait by him of Henry Jermyn, Earl of
St. Albans, copied from Vandyck. Old Stone died at London in 1653.
But the greatest English artist whom Vandyck formed was William Dobson, a true
artist, whose portraits are worth little less than those of his master. Born at London
in Holborn, in 16 10, he had first studied under Francis Cleyn the elder, especially
known by his designs for tapestry for the celebrated manufactory at Mortlake ; then
under Robert Peake, a painter and picture dealer. It is related that Vandyck, having
seen in a shop window a picture by Uobson, took him into his studio and introduced
him to Charles I. After the death of Vandyck, Dobson held the posts of Serjeant
painter, and of groom of the privy chamber, and in this office he accompanied the
court to Oxford, where he painted the Portrait of the King, and those oi Prince Rupert,
and several other persons of high rank. Notwithstanding this exalted patronage,
Dobson, who lived in great style, was imprisoned for debt, and scarcely out of prison,
died in London, on the 28th of October, 1646.
Dobson's works are found in the best galleries, in the collections of the Duke of
Marlborough, the Duke of Manchester, Lord Lyttelton, Earl Craven, and at the Bridge-
water Gallery. He is mentioned by Walpole, with the praise which he merits.
We may also consider Robert Walker as a good portrait painter. The dates of
his birth and death are not known, nor whether he studied immediately under Van-
dyck, whose style he imitated. He painted several portraits of Cromwell, those of
Sir Thomas Fairfax, Ireton, Fleetwood, and the greater part of the men connected
with the Commonwealth. His own ])ortrait, where he has represented himself holding
a drawing, was engraved by Peter Lombart.
To name all the foreign painters who worked in England during the first half of the
seventeenth century is nearly impossible. The most celebrated were Gerard Honthorst,
the two Netschers, Dirk Stoop, the two Van de Veldes, and Van Huysum. Many of
the works of these Dutchmen are preserved in the mansions of the English aristocracy.
Vandyck had scarcely died, when Peter Lely appeared. He had the same success
as Vandyck ; he painted Charles I. and his court ; then Cromwell and his soldiers ; then
Charles II. and all the beauties of his court. This lasted for nearly forty years, until
his death in 1680. Lely was only twenty-five years old when he came to London,
and he found himself the best painter in England, or at all events the most popular,
when Charles Stuart in 1660 restored the monarchy. His genius suited admirably
the witty and elegant ladies, and the thoughdess cavaliers, who drowned in luxury
and pleasure the still recent recollection of Cromwell and the Commonwealth. Lely
painted them by hundreds. Many of his portraits were at the Exhibitions at Manchester
and South Kensington. At Hampton Court there is a gallery full of them.
As soon as Lely was dead, another famous painter succeeded him at the Court,
and soon monopolised the public taste. Godfrey Kneller, who was born at Lubeck
in 1646, arrived at London in 1674, painted during the reigns of Charles II.,
James II., William III., Queen Anne, and after the accession of the house of Hanover
he was still living. He did not die till 1723, during the reign of George I.
Kneller has portrayed the greater part of the sovereigns and princes of his time,
including Louis XIV. and the Czar Peter of Russia, He painted the great Duke of
Marlborough and the "Patriot" William Russell; Newton and Locke; Sir Christopher
Wren ; Pope, Addison, Steele, Congreve, and the other poets, and literary members
of the celebrated Kit Cat Club. About thirty of his portraits were included in the
Exhibitions at Manchester, and at South Kensington.
A.D. 1675.] ENGLISH SCHOOL. 401
By the side of the German Kneller, who was esteemed unrivalled in portraiture,
was another foreigner, Antonio Verrio, born in the NeapoHtan States about 1639, who
charmed England by his architectural paintings. Krom 1676, he was in the pay
of Charles II., and in a few years cost him nearly 10,000 guineas for the decoration
of NVindsor Castle. In 1683, he was joined by a Frenchman, Louis Laguerre, who
was born at Paris in 1663. His father was a Catalan, and held the post of keeper
of the menagerie at Versailles. Laguerre took his christian name from Louis XIV.,
who was his godfather. .\t first brought up amongst the Jesuits, then studying at the
.\cademy of Painting and in the sluilio of Charies Le P.run, he obLiined all that would
enable him to succeed. Verrio dying at Hampton Court in 1707, Laguerre continued
the work until he himself died in 1721. The number of decorative works these two
■ men painted in Kngland is truly wonderful, not only in public buildings, at Windsor
Castle, at Hampton Court, at the Hospitals of Christ Church and SL Bartholomew,
but also in the town ami country residences of the nobility.
Towards tlie close of his career, Laguerre had as an assistant an Knglishman,
James Thornhill, born in 1676 at Melcombe Regis. Thornhill in his youth had visited
France, and he appears to have formed his style esjjecially on that of Le Bnm. His
principal works are in the cupola of St. Paul's, London, the great hall of Greenwich
Hospital, an apartment at Hampton Court, a saloon of Blenheim Palace, ceilings and
altar i)ieces in the churches at Oxford, a chapel at Weymouth, anil that of Lord
Oxford in Cambridgeshire. George I. knighted him, and his birthplace sent him
to parliament. Nevertheless, Sir James Thornhill, the first Englis/i painter who
received the honour of knighthood, would now perhaps have been forgotten, if
he had not been — in spite of himself — the fliiher-in-law of Hogarth. Thornhill
died in 1734. Besides his daughter, Mrs. Hogarth, he left a son named James,
for whom he had obtained the office of chief marine painter. He had several
pupils who assisted him in the pictures of the cupola at St. Paul's, and who also
carried out the decorations in various other public buildings.
We have touched on the birth of the English school, and we have only u. .uciui..ii
the painters who had a certam reiiutation when Hogarth first laid the foundations of a
trulv national art. At this time throughout Europe, art was in a state of entire
decadence. The brilliant schools which had flourished in the seventeenth century in
Flanders, Holland, and Spain, had no successors in their own countries. Italian art
had sunk into the grave with the last of the Bolognese school. Only France at that
time possessed a few original artists, who nevertheless held but an inferior position.
The painters, who appeared at the end of the seventeenth century, and at the
beginning of the eighteenth, and who were destined to be eclipsed before the true
En-lish school, are, amongst others : Jonathan Richardson, born in 1665, died in 1745,
pupil and nephew of John Riley, and author, in conjunction with his son, of several
works on art ; Charles Jervas, 1 675-1739, an Irishman whose style was formed under
Kneller, and whom his friend Pope diil not hesitate to compare with Zeuxis ; George
Knapton, 1698-1778, the pupil of Richardson; Thomas Hudson, 1 701-1779. also the
pupil of Richardson, whose daughter he married : he was the master of Reynolds ;
Francis Hayman, 1708-1766, the master of Gainsborough, and some others.
The exhibition at Manchester included portraits by the greater part of these
painters, together with specimens of the birds of Luke Craddock, who ilied in 1717 ;
of the horses of John Wootton, who died in 1765 ; of the sea-i)ieces of Samuel Scott,
who died in 1772, and whom Walpole compares with the Van de Veldes.
3 I"
4C2 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1730
With Hogarth, the satiric and homely painter ; with Wilson, the landscape painter
who moreover still affected the foreign style ; with Reynolds, the great and tlioroughly
English portrait painter ; and Gainsborough, who was both a portrait and landscape
painter, commences the succession of those masters who laid the foundation of the
English school of painting. We have sketched the condition of Art in England before
their time, but it is also necessary to give a history of this new school, which henceforth
takes its place by the side of the other schools of Europe.
THE ENGLISH PAINTERS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
William Hogarth, the founder of the English school of painting, Avas born in the
parish of St. Bartholomew the Great, London, on the loth of December, 1697. In
early life he was, by his own wish, apprenticed as a silver-plate engraver to Ellis
Gamble, at that time an eminent silversmith in Cranbourne Street. He had naturally
a good eye and a fondness for drawing, and soon found engraving shields and crests
to be too limited an employment. His dislike of academic instruction, and his
natural and proper notion of seeing art through stirring life are very visible in all
he says or writes. Copying other men's works he considered to resemble pouring
wine out of one vessel into another ; there was no increase of quality, and the flavour
of the vintage was liable to evaporate. His first attempt at satire, of any merit, was
the Taste of the Town., engraved in 1724, which sharply lashed the reigning follies
of the day. At that time it appears that he did not depend wholly upon original
composition for his living, but continued to engrave arms and crests. But he soon
felt that his powers' lay in another direction : publishers employed him to illustrate
their books with cuts and frontispieces. Amongst the earliest works infused with
his satiric spirit was the Hudibras, published in the year 1726, the illustrations of
which were the first that marked him as a man above the common rank.
On the 23rd of March, 1729, Hogarth married Jane, the only daughter of Sir
James Thornhill, the sergeant-painter and history-painter to the king. The marriage
took place without the consent of her father, who being a member of parliament and
a person of public importance was deeply offended, for he considered that his daughter
ought to have become the wife of a man of a higher station in life. Eventually
Thornhill and Hogarth became reconciled, and the latter, who was even at that time
recognized as a painter only by a few, resolved to lay aside his satiric designs and
commenced portrait painting; "the most ill-suited employment," says Walpole,
" to a man whose turn was certainly not flattery, nor his talent adapted to look on
vanity without a sneer. Yet his facility in catching a likeness, and the method
he chose of painting familiar and conversation pieces in small, then a novelty, drew
him a prodigious business for some time. It did not last, either from his applying
to the real bent of his disposition, or from his customers apprehending that a satirist
was too formidable a confessor for the devotees of self-love." Amongst his best
portraits are Captain Coram, the projector of the Foundling Hospital, David Gar rick
as Richard III. starting from a couch in terror, and the demagogue yi'/^;/ Wilkes.
Hogartli painted several portraits of Himself, all of which are very like ; in one
he is seated in his study sketching a figure on a canvas ; in another he is accompanied
by his favourite bull-dog. Trump ; this is in the National Gallery.
WILLIAM IK^C.ARTIL
Pagt 4,oz
A.D. I730-]
HOGARTH.
■403
He next turned his thoughts to painting and engraving subjects of a modern kind
and moral nature ; a field, he says, not broken up in any country or any age. The
first of these compositions of which he speaks, and which have rendered his name
immortal, was the Harlot's Proip-css. It appeared in a series of six [)lates in 1734, and
was received with general approbation. Tlie next to follow was ilic /u/Xv'jr Progress.
in a series of eight scenes, each complete in itself, and all iinitin.u' in relating a domestic
history in a way at once natural, comic, satiric, and serious. The folly of man,
however, was not so warmly welcomed by the public as that of the woman had been.
The gloss of novelty was dimmed, and criticism was no longer to be sur|)rised into
approbation ; it lia.l leisure to seek for faults, nor was it slow in finding them.
404 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1750.
The boldness, originality, and happy handling of these productions made them
general favourites, and by the aid of the graver they were circulated over England
with the celerity of a telegraphic despatch. For the Harlofs Progress no less than
1200 subscribers' names were entered on the artist's books. Theophilus Gibber
converted it into a pantomime ; it also appeared on the stage in the shape of a ballad
opera, under the name of " The Jew Decoyed ; or a Harlot's Progress." Of the
Rakes Progress the success is less distinctly stated, but it must have been great ; for
it was satisfactory to the artist himself — who was now confirmed in his own notions of
Avhat was fittest for art. In these fourteen plates are contained the stories of two
errino- creatures who run their own separate careers ; and never did dramatist or
painter read two such sharp, satiric, and biting lessons to mankind.
The fame of Hogarth was now so well established, that the daily and weekly
collectors of news began to find it worth while to describe on what works he was
engaged, and the characters which were satirized in his compositions. The popularity
of his works excited printsellers to pirate his works, so much so that Hogarth applied to
Parliament, and in 1735 obtained an Act for recognizing a legal copyriglit in engravings.
In 1736 several more satires on the follies of London appeared. T\\e SlceJ>ing
Cofigregatio7i, in which a heavy parson is promoting, with all the alacrity of dulness, the
slumber of his flock, was followetl by the Distressed Poet, and Modern. Midnight Conver-
sation; this last named, in which most of the figures are jjortraits, carried the name of
Hogarth into foreign lands, and is considered in France and Germany to be the best of
his single works. The next print published Avas the Enraged Musieian. It seems
impossible to increase the annoyance of this sensitive mortal — who by the frogs on his
coat appears to be a Frenchman — by the addition of any other din. " This strange
scene," said a wit of the day, " deafens one to look at."
The next production, the Strolling Actresses, was, says Allan Gunningham, " one of
the most imaginative and amusing of all the works of Hogarth." This wondrous
picture Avas sold for the ridiculously small sum of twenty-six guineas, to Mr. Wood, of
Littleton House, near Staines, where it was unfortunately destroyed by fire in
December, 1874.
It is only possible to mention the next composition pieces, the six scenes of
Marriage-a-la-Mode — representing profligacy in high life — which are in the National
Gallery ; and the four different stages of the Election of a Member of Parliament ; as the
dramatic story in the one, and the varied scenes of an electioneering contest in the
other, would each require a volume to describe.
In 1750 appeared the celebrated March of the Guards to Finchlcy, which is steeped
in humour, and strewn over with absurdities. The original painting, on publication of
the print, was disposed of by a lottery. Seven shillings and sixpence was fixed as the
])rice of the print, and every purchaser of a print was entitled to a chance in the lottery
for the picture. Hogarth presented some tickets to the Foundling Hospital, and the
winning card was drawn by that fortunate institution.
The last work of Hogarth, worthy of his genius, and known by the title of Credulity,
Superstition, aiid Fanaticism, was issued early in 1764. Shortly afterwards, his health
began to decline. He was aware of this, and purchased a small house at Ghiswick, to
which he retired during the summer, amusing himself by making slight sketches, and
retouching his plates. He left Ghiswick on the 25th of October of the same year,
and returned to his residence in Leicester Sijuare. On the very next day he was
seized with a sudden illness, and, after two hours of suffering, expired. Hogarth was
A.L). 1750.] H'JLSOX
405
buried without any ostentation in the churchyard of Chisuick ; where a monument
was erectetl to his memory.
Richard Wilson, the third son of a clergyman, was born at Pinegas in Montgomerv-
shire, in 17 13. Owin'^ to tlie influence of his uncle, Sir George Wynn, who took him
to London when quite youni,', he received a certain amount of tuition in art from a
painter of little note, named Wright.
In 1748 the young artist was considered worthy to paint portraits of the Prince of
Wales and the Duke of York, to be presented to their tutor, who was afterwards
Bishop of Norwich. At the age of thirty-six, Wilson had managed to save sufficient
money to enable him to go to Italy, and it was there that, by a hapi)y accident, his
attention was drawn to a style of art which was infinitely better suited to his talent.
It is relateel tliat he was waiting to see the Italian artist Zuccharelli : finding the time
long, he amused himself by drawing the view which lay before him, through the open
window ; this he did with so much skill that whea Zuccharelli saw the sketch, he
a(l\ iscd Wilson to study landscape painting. In this he was very successful, as far as
art was concerned, but as the taste for nature was at that time but slowly growing, he
did not find it a lurr.itive employment for a man of his limited means. His chief
works are full of classic feeling ; among them may be named the Death of Xiobf :
Morning; Virw of Rome; P/iaefon ; Celadon and Amelia : the Tiber, near Rome:
Adrian's Villa : the Temple of Venus at Baiw ; anil Nymphs Bathing: from which it is
easy to sec that he did not care to paint a scene simply for its own loveliness, but only
when it was investeil with historic or mythologic interest.
W^ilson was never a favourite with his brother artists ; even Sir Joshua Reynolds was
his enemy, and it is a blot on the character of that great man, that he allowed himself
to sjjcak and act ungenerously towauls his rival. At the latter part of his long life,
when it was almost too late to recompense him for the privations he had borne so long,
Wilson became the possessor of a small estate in Wales, on which there was a leatl
mine. On this property, which had been left him by his brother, he lived in great
retirement, working little, but wandering much around his pretty dwelling. He never
recovered his long-tried health and spirits, and died in May. 178^.
Allan Ramsay, one of the best portrait-painters of the perioil, was born at
I'Alinburgli in 17 13. After receiving education in art in Lomlon, he went, in 1736 to
Itily. On his return to London, he established himself as a painter, though his native
Kdinburgh was occasionally the scene of his labours. Ramsay subsequently paid
three more visits to Italy, and in 1767 was appointed ]ninter to (leorge HI., whose
portrait he frequently took. Ramsay died in 1784 at D-)ver, where he had landed on
his return from his last journey to Italy. His portraits are noteworthy for truth to
nature. Hesides being a painter, he was a man of great attainments. He has
been mentioned with praise for his literary and other accomplishments by Sir Joshua
Reynolds, Johnson, and others of his contemporaries.
George Smith, who was born at Chichester in 171 4, is called " Smith of
Chichester," to distinguish him from the i)ainter of the same name, of Derby. Ceorge
Smith together with his two brothers opened a ])rivate academy, wherein they worked
without instruction except from nature and the old masters. George Smith became
famous as a landscape painter, and was so far successful as to gain a premium from
the Society of Arts. He died in 1766. We may here mention his two brothers.
4o6 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS [a.d. 1760.
William Smith, who was born at Chichester in 1707, first directed his attention to
portrait-painting, but subsequently chose landscapes, fruit and flowers as his subjects ;
he died in 1764.
John Smith was born at Chichester in 17 17. He painted landscapes in tlie
manner of his more famous brother George, and died in 1764. Engravings were made
of many of the Smiths' works, both by themselves and by other artists ; among them
were Woollett, Elliott, and Peake.
Joshua Reynolds, the son of a clergyman, was iDorn at Plympton, in Devonshire,
on the i6th of July, 1723, three months before. the death of Sir Godfrey Kneller, thus
perpetuating, say some of his biographers, the hereditary descent of art. The boy's,
inclination to drawing began to appear at an early date. " His first essays," says
Malone, who had the information from himself, "were copying some slight drawings
made by two of his sisters, who had a taste for art. He afterwards eagerly copied such
prints as he found amongst his father's books."
A provincial place like Plympton, however, was soon too contracted for his expand-
ing powers; consequently he was sent to London in October, 1741, and was placed
under the care of Hudson, the most distinguished portrait-painter at that time. After
continuing for two years in his employment, a disagreement took place between them,
and Reynolds returned to Devonshire, where he remained for three years. When
twenty-two years of age he took a house at Plymoutli Dock, where he resided about
twelve months, and afterwards returned to London.
Rome, which is in reality to painters what Parnassus is in imagination to poets, was
fre(]uently present to the fancy of P.eynolds ; and he longed to see with his own eyes
the glories in art, of which he heard so much. In May, 1749, his desire was realised.
Captain Keppel, with whom he had formed a' friendship, was appointed Commodore
in the Mediterranean station, for the purpose of protecting the British merchants from
the insults of the Algerines, and he invited Reynolds to accompany him.
After paying short visits to Gibraltar and Algiers, and a rather prolonged stay at
Minorca, Reynolds at length reached Rome. There he seems to have employed his
time chiefly in studying all the varieties of excellence, and in acquiring that knowledge
of effect which he was so soon to display. The severe dignity of Michelangelo or
Raphael he had no chance of attaining, for he wanted loftiness of imagination, without
which no grand work can ever be achieved ; but he had a deep sense of character,
great skill in light and shade, a graceful softness and an alluring sweetness, such as none
have surpassed. From the works of Leonardo da Vinci, Fra Bartolommeo, Titian, and
Velasquez, he acquired knowledge, which placed fortune and fame withm his reach ;
yet of these artists he says little, though he acknowledges the Portrait of lunoccut X.
by the last-named to be the finest in the world.
From Rome, Reynolds travelled through Bologna, Genoa, and Parma to Florence,
where he remained two months ; and thence to Venice. He returned to London in
October, 1752 ; and, after visiting Devonshire for a few weeks, established himself as
a professional man in St. Martin's Lane, London, where he rapidly rose to flime ; he
soon changed his residence for a handsome house in Great Newport Street. Shortly
afterwards, Reynolds commenced Avith Samuel Johnson a friendship, which was
continued to okl age without interruption.
In the year 1761, accumulating wealth began to have a visible effect on Reynolds's
establishment. He quitted Newport Street, ])urchased a fine house on the west side of
SIR JOSHUA RHYNOLUS.
Pa^e 406.
A.D. 1760.1 REYNOLDS.
407
Leicester Square, furnished it with much taste, added a si)lendid gallery for the
exhibition of his works, and an elegant dining-room ; and finally taxed his invention
and his purse in the production of a carriage, with wheels carved and gilt, and bearing
on its panels the four seasons of the year.
In 1764, Reynolds was attacked with a serious illness, which was eijually sudden
and alarming. He was cheered by the anxiety of many friemls, and by the .solicitude
of Johnson, and at length recovered his health.
The Royal Academy was jjlanned and proposed in 1768 by Chambers, West, Cotes,
ami Moser; the caution or timidity of Reynolds kept him for some time from assisting.
A list of thirty members was made out ; and West, a prudent and amiable man, called
on Reynolds, and, in a conference of two hours' continuance, succeedetl in persuading
him to join them. He ordered his coach, and, accompanied by West, entered the
room where his brother artists were assembled. They rose up to a man, and saluted
him "President." He was affected by the comi)liment, but declined the honour till
he hail talked with Johnson and Burke; he went, consulteil his friends, and having
considered the consequences carefully, then consented. The King, to give dignity to
the Royal Academy of Great Britain, bestowed the honour of knighthood on the first
President; and seldom has any such distinction been bestowed amidst more universal
approbation. Johnson was so elated with the honour conferred on his friend, that he
drank wine in its celebration, though he had abstained from it for several years.
About the close of the summer of 1773 Sir Joshua visited his native place, ami
was elected Mayor of Plympton, a distinction so much to his liking that he assured
the King — whom on his return he accidentally encountered, in one of the walks at
Hampton Court — that it gave him more pleasure than any other he had ever received,
"excei)ting (he added, recollecting himself,) excepting that which your Majesty so
graciously conferred on me — the honour of knighthood."
In this year he exhibited the Strawberry Girl at the Academy. This work Sir
Joshua always maintained was one of " the half-dozen original things " which he
declared no man ever exceeded in his Ufe's work. He repeated the jMcture several
times ; the original is now in the possession of Sir Richard Wallace.
In 1784 Sir Joshua distinguished himself above all his brother artists bv his
Fortune-Teller, his portraits of Miss Kemble, anil of Mrs. SiUoiis as the Tra^^ic Muse—
all very noble compositions.
Amidst the applause which these works obtained for him, the president met with
a loss which the world could not repair. Samuel Johnson died on the 13th of De-
cember, 1784, full of years and honours. A long, a warm, and a beneficial friendship'
had sul)sisted between them, 'i'he house and the purse of Reynolds were ever open to
Johnson, and the word and die pen of Johnson were equally ready for Reynolds.
Sir Joshua had now reached his sixty-sixth year; the boldness and happy freedom
of his productions were undiminished ; and the celerity of his execution, and the glowing
richness of his colouring, were rather on the increase than the wane. His life had
been uniformly virtuous ami temperate ; and his looks, nt)twithstanding the i)aralytic
stroke he had lately received, promised health ami long life. He was hai)py in his
f.ime and fortune, and in the society of numerous and eminent friends ; and he saw
himself in his old age without a rival. His great i)ruilen(x and fortunate control of
temi)er had prevented him from giving serious offence to any individual; antl the
money he had amassed, and the style in which he lived, unencumbereil with a family,
created a respect lor him amongst those who were incapable of understanding his
4o8 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1775.
merits. But the hour of sorrow was at hand. One day, in the month of July, 1789,
while finishing the portrait of the Marchioness of Hertford, he felt a sudden decay of
sight in his left eye. He laid down the pencil ; sat a little while in mute consideration,
and never lifted it more. His sight gradually darkened, and within ten weeks of the
first attack his left eye was wholly blind.
The last time that Reynolds made his appearance in the Academy was in the year
1790; he addressed a speech to the students on the delivery of the medals, and
concluded by expatiating upon the genius of his favourite master, adding — " I should
desire that the last words which I should pronounce in this Academy, and from this
place, might be the name of Michelangelo."
On the 23rd of February, 1792, Sir Joshua expired, without any visible symptoms
of pain, in the sixty-ninth year of his age. He was buried in one of the crypts
of St. Paul's cathedral, accompanied to the grave by many of the most illustrious
men of the land — forty-two coaches conveyed the mourners, and forty-nine carriages
of the nobility added to the procession. He lies by the side of Sir Christopher
Wren. A statue to his memory by Flaxman was afterwards placed in the cathedral.
Of historic and poetic subjects Reynolds painted upwards of one hundred and
thirty, of which the principal are the Holy Family, the Snake in the Grass, the
Age of Innocence, and Robinctta, all in the National Gallery; Garrick behvecn Tragedy
and Comedy, Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse, Macbeth and the Witches, and Hercules
strangling the Serpents ; the last named was painted for the Empress Catherine of
Russia, for which she paid Sir Joshua fifteen hundred guineas and added a gift of a
gold box, bearing her portrait set in diamonds. It is impossible to state the exact
number of portraits by Sir Joshua, as he executed them in such vast numbers that he
was obliged to employ artists to paint the draperies and backgrounds. No less than
fourteen are in the National Gallery. Of the Portraits of the men who still occupy
their station in history may be mentioned Samuel Johnson, Oliver Goldsmith, Horace
Walpole, Laurence Sterne, Edmund Burke, Lord Heathfield, Admiral Keppel, and
Warren Hastings. Of the ladies it is sufficient to say that there was scarcely one
at that time celebrated either for her rank, accomplishments, or beauty, who did not
sit to Reynolds.
George Stubbs was born at Liverpool in 1724. He went when about thirty years of
age, to Italy, where he remained some time. On his return to England, he became
famous as a portrait painter of horses. In 1776, Stubbs published 'The Anatomy
of the Horse,' with eighteen plates drawn and etched by himself. In 1780, he was
elected an Associate of the Royal Academy, and he would have been a full member in
the following year but for his refusal to present the required diploma-picture. Stubbs
died in London in 1806, at the advanced age of eighty-two.
Giovanni Battista Cipriani was born at Florence in 1727. Though an Itahan by
birth, he must be considered among the painters of England, for after twenty-three
years spent in his native city, and five in Rome, he came in 1755 to London, where he
became one of the most famous of historical painters, and where he thenceforth resided.
On the foundation of the Academy in 1769, Cipriani was one of the original members ;
he also designed the diploma— presented to Academicians and Associates — which
was engraved by his friend Bartolozzi. For this work Cipriani received a silver cup
from his brother academicians. His works obtained great reputation from the fact
that they were engraved by Bartolozzi. Cipriani died at London in 1785.
THE COTTAGE DOOR. By Gainsborough.
In the Crosrenor CaHery.
THOMAS GAIXSHOROrc.H
PaffL- 409.
A.D. 1775.] GAIXSBOROUGH. 409
Thomas Gainsboroagh was born in the spring of the year 1727, at Sudbury, a small
town in West Suffolk, where his father was a clothier. Thomas, the youngest of three
sons, showed signs of talent at a very early age : he made a number of sketches of the
scenery around his native place, and local tradition still loves to point out his favourite
views. It is believed, on very authentic grounds, that he went to London, for the
education necessary to cultivate his genius, when only fourteen years of age. He there
studieil under Hayman, a ])ainter of some repute, and one of the founders of the Royal
Academy. Gainsborough remained in London four years, during which time he very
rapidly mastered the secrets of his art ; and then returned to Sudbury, where he
married, and then removed to Ipswich. Soon afterwards Gainsborough made the
acquaintance of Philip Thicknesse, the governor of Landguard Fort, near Harwich,
who for many years was his chief patron. In 1760 Gainsborough left Ipswich and
settled at Bath, where he made a great reputation as a portrait painter. Sir Joshua
Reynolds, when delivering one of his lectures to the students of the Royal Academy
on the "Character of Gainsborough," said of that artist "whether he most excelled
in portraits, landscapes, or fancy pictures, it is difficult to determine."
When the Royal Academy was founded in 1768, Gainsborough was elected one of
the original members. In 1774 he went to London and rented part of Schomberg
House, Pall Mall. He died of cancer on 2nd of August, 17S8, in his sixty-second
year, and was buried in Kew Churchyard. Gainsborough was passionately fond of
music ; and was extremely kind and thouglitful in all his dealings with his friends, and
wonderfully generous to his relations. His pictures are so numerous that we cannot
pretend to give a complete list of even the principal, but among them we may draw
attention to the following as his best : the Blue Boy, the Cottai:;c Door, a Cottage Girl
loit/i a doi; and pitcher, the Young Lavinia, the Duchess of Devonshire, i\\e Portrait of
Mrs. Siddons in tlie National Gallery — which possesses several other good specimens
of this master — and the Boy at the Stile, ])resented to Colonel Hamilton in exchange
for a violin. His portrait of the celebrated Duchess of Devonshire was recently sold
for upwards of ^10.000.
Sawrey Gilpin, who was born at Carlisle in 1733. wis >(.ni lo London m receive
a mercantile education ; but as he showed a decided taste for art, he entered the
studio of Samuel Scott, the marine painter, with whom he remained nine years. On
leaving Scott, Gilpin adopted animal jiainting as his i)rofession. He was much
patronized by the Duke of Cumberland. In 1770 appeared one of his most
famous pictures, Darius obtaining the Persian Empire by the neighing of his horse.
In 1795, Gilpin was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy, on the walls of
which society he had exhibited for nine years previously. In 1797 he was elected a
full member. He died at IJrompton in 1807. Gilpin was very successful as a
jKiinter of animals — more espcciallv horses. He frctiucntlv worked in coniinK tion
with IJarret and other artists,
Joseph Wright, conunonly called from his birthjjlace " Wright of • Derby," was born
in 1734. In 1 75 1 he went to London, and entered the studio of Hudson, the ]iortrait
painter, with whom he remained two years, and again some time later, fifteen months.
On finally quitting Hudson, Wright established himself as a portrait painter at Derby,
where he enjoyed much fame. Among his best works of this time are the Iron Forge,
in the possession of Lord Palmcrston, and the Experiment u<ith the Air Pump, for
which he receivcil five hundred guineas, and which is now in the National Gallerv.
4IO ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1775.
His works are especially noticeable for candle and fire-light effects, in which he excelled.
In 1773 he went to Italy, where he remained two years. On his return to England,
he painted for some time at Bath, with little success, but finally settled at Derby, where
he again met with the popularity which he had enjoyed previous to his Italian journey.
In 1782, he was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy, but two years later he
removed his name from the society's books. Wright died, of a lingering malady
which had attacked him many years previous to his death, at his native city, in 1797.
Resides portrait and conversation pieces, he painted landscapes with success ; he also
"attempted historic pictures, but in them he failed. In 1785, Wright exhibited twenty-
four of his best pictures in Robinson's auction room in Covent Garden.
George Romney was born at Dalton-le-Furness in Lancashire in 1734. After he
had received instruction in art from one Steel at Kendal, he married in 1756, and
established himself in that town as a painter. In 1762 he came to London, where he
became one of the popular artists of the day. In 1773-75 ^^^ visited Italy. After
twenty-four years of success in London, he returned to Kendal, where he died in 1802.
Romney painted portraits and historical pictures ; of the latter subjects he began
many works which were never finished. As a portrait painter he was in his time
considered little inferior to Reynolds, and indeed many thought him equal, if not
superior to that famous master. Northcote says, " Reynolds was not much employed
as a portrait painter after Romney grew into fashion." It is said that at one time the
latter made nearly four thousand a year by his portraits alone.
Of Romney's pictures the most noteworthy are, Op/niia, the Lifant Shakespeare^
the Shipivreck from the " Tempest," painted for the Boydell Shakespeare, a Portrait
of Worthy Monfagite in a Turkish dress ; and Milton dictating to /lis Daughters. The
National Gallery possesses but one example of this artist^ — a Study of Lady Hamilton,
as a Bacchante, a lady of whom Romney made innumerable studies.
Johann Zoffany was born at Frankfort in 1735 (?). Like Cipriani, he must be
considered as a painter of the English school. He came to this country when about
thirty years of age, and first attracted attention by his Portrait of Lord Barrymore.
He subsequently became famous as a portrait painter, and was elected one of the
original Royal Academicians. From London he paid a visit to Florence, and on his
return went, in 1 781, to the East Indies, where, for about fifteen years, he enjoyed
great reputation. Zoffany died in England in 18 10. Among his principal works are
his Portraits of George III. and his Family, and also of various actors, Garriek, Foote,
Weston and others, and the Trilnine of Florence.
John Singleton Copley, the son of Irish parents who had not long previously
settled in America, was born in Boston— then a British colony— on July 3rd, 1737.
At that time the neighbourhood of his native place was entirely destitute of any means
of art education, but by dint of perseverance young Copley derived from nature that
instruction which the schools of the neighbourhood were unable to afford.
By the year 1760 the young artist had made such great progress that the pictures
whicli he sent to London for exhibition attracted much notice, and excited the most
favourable expectations of his future career. He continued to send specimens of his
works yearly until 1767, when he was elected a Fellow of the Society of Arts.
A iQw years later he set out on the usual painters' tour, going, by way of England,
to Rome, and subsequently visited the chief cities of Italy, and those places in Germany
and the Low Countries where there were most pictures. He returned to England in
A.D. i8oo.] BENJAMIN WEST. 411
1775, and soon decided to establish himself in London. In the following year he was
elected an Associate of the Royal Academy. In 1776 Copley exhibited a picture, called
in the phraseology of the day a Co/nrrsation, consisting of a group of portraits ; and in
1779 he was elected full member of the Royal Academy. About this time he painted
his famous picture, the Death of Lord Chatham, which was extremely popular ; it is
still much admired, and is now in the National Gallery. He then commenced a series
of historical and political pictures, among the most admired of which are the tine
works called Charles the First ordering the Arrest of the Five Members, the Death of
Major Pitrso/i, and the Defeat of the Spanish Floatiti^ Batteries at Gibraltar.
Copley died on September 9th, 1815, j.ossessed of great wealth, at his house in
George Street, Hanover Stiuare, where fur m.iny years his son. the celebrated Lord
Lyndhurst, afterwards lived.
Benjamin West was born on the 10th of October, 173S, at Springfield, in Pennsyl-
vania, of parents, the descentlants of an old family of English Quakers, who had long
previously emigrated to America. Benjamin was born to be a painter, for he displayeil
unmistakable signs of artistic talent when quite a child. It is said, that when onl\
seven years old he drew a striking and graceful likeness of his infant sister as she lay
sleeping in her cot. A friend who had recognized his skill took him to Philadelphia,
where he studied the rudiments of art under an artist named Williams.
In his eighteenth year young West set up as a portrait painter; and, after having
made sufficient money to defray the expenses, he determined to visit Europe. In
1760 he arrived in Rome — the Paradise of all young artists; thence he travelled to
Elorence, Bologna, and other cities of Italy, to feast his eyes on the treasures of art
which they so proudly possess. In the summer of 1763 he arrived in London
provided with introductions, and not unheralded by a somewhat exaggerated reputation.
In 1766 West exhibited in his own house his picture of Orestes and Py lades, now in the
National Gallery. He was' soon afterwards recommended by the Arciibishop of York
to the notice of George III., for whom he painted a picture called Ai^rippina i^ith the
ashes of Germanicus, and from that time he became the object of the King's almost
unceasing patronage. He was one of the original members of the Royal Academy,
and usually contributeil at least three or four works annually to the exhibitions.
On his election as President in 1792 he was offered the honour of knighthooil, but
this he stedfastly declined on account of his religious opinions. During the latter part
of his life West painted a series of i)aintings of scriptural subjects on a large scile ;
• hief among these are, Christ HeaHn,i^ the Sick, now in the National Gallery, Christ
Rejected, and Death on the Pale Horse.
Benjamin West died at his house in Newman .Sireci, March iitii, i8jo. \\\ ins
eighty-secontl year, and was buried with much pomp in St. Paul's Cathedral.
Philippe Jacques Loutherbourg, or is he liked to call himself, De Loutberbourg, who
was born at Strasbourg in 1740, went to Paris when fifteen years of age and entered the
studios of Van Loo and Casanova, under wliom he acquired the art of painting battle
scenes, marine pieces, and lamlscapes. In 1762, Loutherljourg was elected a member ol
the French Academy, but his success in Paris instead of inducing him to remain there,
only determined him to seek his fortune in foreign lands. His travels extended through
Germany, Switzerland, and Italy: and in 1771 he settled in England, where for a
time he painted scenes at Drury I>ane for Garrick, who gave him £s^o a year. In
1780 Loutherbourg was elected an .\ssociate -f 'l"- V- i.k-my. and in th.- following
412 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1800.
year became a full member. He enjoyed considerable popularity as a landscape
painter, till his death at Chiswick in 18 12.
Of the works of De Loutherbourg perhaps the best known are Lord Howe's Victory
on the 1st of June ; the Fire of London ; and the Siege of Vakncicn?ies. In the
National Gallery is a Lake scene in Cumberland ; and the Dulwich Gallery has two
Landscapes with cattle and figures. Before leaving this artist, we must not foil to notice
his diorama, called the Eidophusicon, " which all the world went to see."
James Barry was born at Cork in 1741. He received an elementary education in
art at Dublin, where appeared the first work which brought him into notice — the
Baptism of one of the Kings of Leinster by St. Patrick. Barry was soon after
enabled, through the patronage of Edmund Burke and his brother, to go to Italy,
where he remained five years, the chief part of which time was spent in Rome. In
177 1, the year of his return, he exhibited his Adam and Eve, which he had painted
while abroad. In 1772 appeared his Venus rising from the Sea ; and in the same year
Barry w\as elected an Associate, and in 1773 a full member of the Royal Academy.
Four years later, he commenced the work which has made his name famous — a series
of six pictures on Humaii Culture, painted on the walls of the large room of the
Society of Arts at the Adelphi. The titles which he himself gave to the pictures are :
the Story of Orpheus; a Harvest Home, or Thanksgivijig to Ceirs and Bacchus ; the
Victors of Olympia ; Navigation, or the Iriumph of the Thames ; the Distribution of
Premiuins in the Society of Arts; and lastly, Elysium, or the State of final Retribution.
For this work, on which Barry laboured unassisted for about six years, he received the
gold medal of the Society, a premium of two hundred pounds, and the receipts from
the exhibition of the work — about ^^500. In 1782, Barry was appointed professor of
painting to the Royal Academy, but in 1799 owing to non-conformity with some bye-
laws of the Society, he was expelled from the professorship and also from the list of
the forty. While engaged on another great work — illustrations to Milton's ' Paradise
Lost' — Barry was, on the 6th of February 1806, seized with pleuritic fever, to which
he succumbed in the same month. He was buried in the crypt of St. Paul's.
Henry Fuseli, who was born at Zurich in 1741, was educated for the Church, which
he entered when twenty years of age. Forced through some quarrel with a superior to
quit Zurich. Fuseli— after a journey through Germany — arrived in England in 1765.
He first attempted to maintain himself by teaching, but soon abandoned it for literary
labours, which — at the advice of Sir Joshua Reynolds, to whom he had shown some
sketches — he threw aside in favour of art. Fuseli accordingly in 1779 set out for Rome,
where for eight years he painted, and studied the works of Michelangelo. While in
Italy, Fuseli sent numerous pictures to the Royal Academy and other exhibitions in
London. Three years later appeared one of his most popular pictures, the Nightmare.
When in 1786 Alderman Boydell proposed the Shakespeare Gallery, Fuseli entered
heartily into the scheme, and himself executed nine of the works. Some years later
appeared his own " Milton Gallery," which was unsuccessful. He was elected an Associate
of the Royal Academy in 1788, and a full member two years later. Fuseli died at the
house of the Countess of Guildford, at Putney Heath, in 1825. Next to his Milton
Gallery, Fuseli's Illustrations to Shakespeare are his best Works; we may notice
Lear and Cordelia, Hamlet and his Father's Ghost and Bottom luith the Ass's Head.
Fuseli is not only entitled to fame on account of his paintings ; he was a brilliant
scholar. He delivered to the students of the Royal Academy fifteen lectures on the
A.D. 1775] NORTHCOTE. 4>3
history of art, and the technicalities of painting. In fact there are few men who
have so much influenceil the destiny of Knghsh art as did the Swiss FuseH.
John Hamilton Mortimer, who was born at Kastbourne in 1741, was early in life
sent to London, where lie studied under Hudson. He was also fortunate enough to be
introduced by Cipriani to the Duke of Richmond, who alloweil him to examine tiie
works of art in his gallery. In 1764, Mortimer gained by his St. Paui avivertitis the
Britons, the i>rcmium of one hundred guineas offered by the Society of Arts for the best
historic picture. In 177S he was elected an Associate of the Royal .\cademy ; he died
on the 4th of February in the followmg year. Of his more imixjrtant works we may
notice the Battle 0/ A'^inamrt, i\\\<\ Vortii^ern anil Rojccna, Qxh\h'\\Q(X in 1779 in the
Royal Academy after his death.
David Allan, *• the Scotch Hogarth," was born at .\lloa near Kdinburgh in 1744.
After he had received an art education at Glasgow, he set out, when twenty years of
age, for Italy, where he remained until 1777. While in Rome, he gained the prize
meilal of the society of St. Luke for the best historic picture. The subject of his work
was tlie Corinthian Girl tracing her lover's shad(jw on the wall. On his return to
England, Allan settled in London, where he employed himself in portrait i)ainting. In
1780 he removed to Edinburgh, where he thenceforth resided, enjoying much patronage.
In 1786, he was appointed director of the .\cademy of -\rts in th.at city. He died
near Edinburgh in 1796. Allan executed numerous engravings of great merit.
James Northcote was born at Plymouth in 1746. By his Hither, who was a watch-
maker, he was made to serve seven years' apprenticeship to that trade. On (juitting
his home in 177 1, young Northcote obtained an introiluction to Sir Joshua Reynolds,
who received him into his studio as a pupil, and into his house as a friend. At the
same time Northcote studied in the Academy schools, but as he began to learn art so
late in life, he never fully acquired its technicalities and, like Fuseli, his method of exe-
cution always remained slovenly. In all his works, too, the want of a sound educa-
tion in history is apparent, for they are full of the grossest anachronisms. On leaving
Reynolds in 1775, Northcote spent two years in Devonshire, maintaining himself by
portrait painting. In 1777, he went to Italy, where he studied the works of the old
masters, more especially those of Titian. On his return to England in 1780, Northcote,
after a short time spent in his native county, settled in London, where, as before, he
maintained himself by portrait painting. .Vbout this time too, he executed several con-
versation pieces, which, by means of the engravings made from them, obtained a certain
popularity. But his first great work did not appear untd 1786. It was one of the nine
pictures which he painted for Boydell's ' Shakespeare Oallery,' and the subject was the
Murder of the youn^ Princes in the 7o7i'er. In 1787 he was made a Royal .Academician :
afterwards followed in (juick succession, the Afeetini^ of the youn^ Princes ; Romeo and
fiiliet ; the Death of Mortimer ; Rinx' Edward J V. and his Queen ; Prince Arthur and
Hubert, and lastly, Rint^ Richard II. and Bolini^brohe.
Of one of his best works is the Death of Wat Tyler, painted for the Corporation of
London. It now hangs in the Ciuildhall. Of other works by him we may notice the
series of the Dilii^ent Senant and the Dissipated, intended as a companion to Hogarth's
Idle and Industrious Apprentice. But Northcote's work is in every way far inferior.
He ilied in Lomlon in 1831.
Francis Wheatley, who was born in London in 1747, studied in .Shipley's .school,
and in the Royal .\cademy ; he also assisteil Mortimer, the historical painter, .\fier
414 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1775.
having obtained a certain popularity in London, Wheatley went to ]])ubliu and esta-
blished himself as a portrait painter, but shortly afterwards he was obliged, through the
looseness of his hfe, to quit that city. He returned to London and became popular
as a painter of portraits, genre and conversation pictures. One of his most fiimous
works v.as illustrative of the Riots in London in 1780 ; it has unfortunately perished by
fire. In 1790, , Wheatley was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy, and in the
following year a full member. He died in London in 1801. Besides his paintings
in oil, he executed water-colour drawings of great merit. He was one of the illus-
trators of the ' Shakespeare Gallery,' and Macklin's ' Poets.'
Robert Smirke, who was born at CarUsle in 1752, was apprenticed in London to a
herald-painter; he was also a member of the Incorporated Society of Painters. The
first works which he exhibited in the Royal Academy were Narcisstis and Sabrina ; they
.appeared in 1786. In 1791 he was made an Associate^ and two years later he became
a full member. In 1804 Smirke was elected to the office of Keeper of the Royal
Academy, but owing to his revolutionary politics, the royal sanction was denied.
Smirke died in London in 1845, ^^ the advanced age of ninety-three. He was one of
the painters who illustrated Boydell's ' Shakespeare Gallery.' Smirke also executed
numerous works in illustration of authors both English and foreign.
John Hoppner, who was born in London in 1753, is a painter who owed his success
more to royal favour and patronage, than to his own merits. At first a cliorister in the
Royal Chapel, he entered in 1775 the schools of the Royal Academy, of which society
he became an Associate in 1793, and two years later a full member.
With the exception of Lawrence, Hoppner was without a rival in portraiture, but,
as is the case with many of his contemporaries, his works are not valued so liiglily now
as formerly. Hoppner died in London in 1810. Three works by him are in the
National Gallery — a portrait of William Pitt, one of Getitle?nan Smith, the actor, and
one of the Countess of Oxford. At Hampton Court, among other of his works, is
Mrs. Jordan as the Comic Muse, painted in his early life. Several of his best works
are in St. James's Palace.
William Beechey, the portrait painter, was born at Burford in Oxfordshire, in 1753.
He was originally intended for the law, but his love of art prevailed, and in 1772 lie
entered the Royal Acadeipy schools. After a stay of a few years at Norwich, he
established himself as a portrait painter in London, where, through the patronage of
royalty he became one of the most popukir artists of the day. In 1793 he was elected
Associate of the Royal Academy, and received the appointment of portrait jiainter to
the queen. In 1798, he painted his most successful picture, for it gained him knight-
hood, and his election as a Royal Academician ; it represents George III. , the Prince
of Wales and the Duke of York, attended by a staft" of officers, reviewing the Third
and Tenth Dragoons. This work, which has been engraved by James Ward, now
hangs in Hampton Court. Beechey was a most prolific painter, for in sixty-four years
he exhibited no less than three hundred and sixty-two portraits. He died at Hampstead
in 1839. The National Gallery possesses one example of this master — a Portrait of
Joseph Nollekens, the Sculptor.
George Howland Beaumont, the landscape painter, who was born at Dunmow
in Essex, in 1753, is better known as a i)atron of the fine arts than as a painter. He
was a zealous promoter of the National Gallery, and in 1826, two years after its
foundation, presented sixteen works to the nation. Of these five are English, one by
A.D. 1800.] STOTHARD.
41;
Reynolds, one by Wilkie, the Blind Fiiidlcr, one by West, PylaJis and Orestes, and two
by Wilson. The National Gallery has also two works by the artist himself — a Landscape,
:\nd Jat/ues and t/ie Hounded S/ai^, from Shakespeare's "As you like it," both presented
by his willow. Sir Cleorge Heaumont, who was a baronet, was but an amateur artist ;
he receiveil instruction from Wilson, and occasionally exhibited landscapes in the Royal
Academy, He died at Coleorton, the family seat in Leicestershire, in 1827.
Thomas Stothard, who was born at London in 1755, is better known as a book-
ilhistratur than a painter. He was some years with a designer of brocaded silks ; on
leaving that master, he was at first engaged by the publisher Harrison, to illustrate the
' 'I own anil Country ^Lagazine ;' this led from one commission to another, and Stothard
became famous for his elegant designs. Of the works illustrated l)y him, we may
notice 'Bell's British Poets;' Rogers' 'Poems,' and 'Italy'; the 'Pilgrim's Progress'
and ' Robinson Crusoe.' The British Museum has a fine collection of engravings
from his works. In 1778, Stothard entered the Royal Academy schools, and
henceforth frequently exhibited on the walls of the society. In 1791, he became an
Associate, and three years later a full member. His most important painting
is the Intemperance, executed in fresco on the staircase of Burleigh Hou>e. The
original sketch for this work is in the National dallery, where there are five other
pictures by this master. We may also notice among his oil jiaintings his Canterburx
J'ili^r'nns, and his works for Boydell's Shakspeare. He died in London in 1S34.
Francis Bourgeois, who was horn in London in 1756, is a painter who in his life-
time enjoyed greater fixme than now falls to his lot. He studied art under Loutherbourg,
and after a journey through the Netherlands, France and Italy, established him.se'f as a
landscape painter in London. His first work at the Royal Academy appeared in 1779.
In 1787 he was elected an Associate, and five years later he became a full meml)er.
In 1791, he was appointed painter to Stanislaus, king of Poland, and received at
the same time from that monarch, the honour of knighthood, which three years later
was sanctioned by George III., when he appointed Sir Francis his landscajie painter.
This artist died in London in 181 1. Though Bourgeois's works, which, besiiles land-
scapes, contained animals ami figures, are not now considered of great merit, yet his
name will always be reniembereil in connection with the handsome gift which he
lic(iueathed to the Dulwich College, three hundred and fifty i)ictures — part of which
had been left to him by his friend Desenfans — together with sufficient money to build
\v.\(\ maintain a gallery for their reception.
Hemy Raebum, one of the best of Scottish portrait painters, was born at Stockbridge,
near Edinburgh, in 1756. He was at first apprenticed to a goldsmith, but directed
his attention to miniature painting, which he subsequently abandonctl in favour of oil-
colour. His first instructor in art was one David Martin, a portrait painter of some
repute in Edinburgh. .After a short time spent in London under Sir Joshua Reynolds,
and two years in Italy, Raebum settled in Edinburgh, where he became the popular
artist of the day. In 1812 he was president of the Society of .\rtists in Scotland ; in
the following year he was made an .Associate, and in 18 14 he became a full member of
the Royal .Academy in London ; for though living in F^dinburgh, Raebum was a constant
exhibitor in the rooms of that Society. In 1822, when George IV. went to Scotland, this
artist was knighted and appointed '* His Majesty's limner in that part of his dominions,"
but Sir Henry Raebum unfortunately died in the following year, near Eilinburgh.
William Blake, the painter, poet, and engraver, who was born in London in 1757,
4i6 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS, [a.d. 1800.
was, when fourteen years of age, apprenticed to the younger Basire the engraver. On
leavmg that master, he made and engraved designs for the ilkistration of books. In
1788 appeared his iirst original pubUcation, ' The Songs of Innocence,'— accompanied
by etchings— of which he was not only the author but the ])rinter, for the work was
printed by a process which Blake averred had been revealed to him by the ghost of his
dead brother. This is the first sign of that fine madness " which always should
possess the poet's brain," which is too apparent in everything which Blake afterwards
executed. ' The Songs of Innocence ' were followed by their sequel, ' The Songs of
Experience ;' then came 'America, a Prophecy,' and 'Europe, a Prophecy.' In 1797
Blake designed and engraved illustrations to Young's 'Night Thoughts.' Of his
remaining works we may notice his illustrations to Blair's ' Grave ;' his ' Canterbury
Pilgrims '—which Charles Lamb notices as possessing " wonderful power and spirit,
but hard and dry^ yet with grace" — and his illustrations of Milton. Blake died in
London in 1827. Besides his engravings and designs he executed several paintings —
mostly of a biblical nature— some of which he exhibited at the Royal Academy.
Julius Caesar Ibbetson, who was born at Masham in Yorkshire in 1759, was a
painter of great merit. His works, which are chiefly landscapes, are frequently in
imitation of Wilson. He ended, in 181 7, a life which, like that of Morland, was a
disgrace to his profession.
John Opie was born at St. Agnes near Truro, in 1761. His father, a carpenter, had
determined to bring his son up to his own trade, but Dr. Walcot saw and appreciated
the talent which young Opie had for art, and took him under his protection. In 1781
his patron brought him to London and introduced him to Sir Joshua Reynolds. For
a time young Opie enjoyed great fame in London as the " Cornish wonder," but the
taste of the public changed, and he was left to pursue his art quietly. He first
exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1782. Four years later appeared, with six others,
the Assassination of James I. of Scotland ; in the following year he sent his Death
of Rizzio, which gained him his Associateship, and in the following year his full
membership. His diploma picture was His otun Portrait. Opie was one of the artists
engaged on the Boydell Shakespeare, for which work he painted Jnlict and the
Capulets ; Antigonns sworn to destroy Perdita ; Talbot and the Countess of Auvergne :
the Incantation Scene from Henry VI., Part II., and Timon 7vith Phryne and Timandra.
Although Opie adopted historic painting, he by no means threw aside portraiture. He
was elected professor of painting to the Royal Academy in 1805. He died in London
in 1807, and was buried in St. Paul's. His works display great power, but they are
wanting in harmony of colour, and are frequently too realistic for historic subjects.
They have suffered from the inferiority of his pigments. Only one example of Opie
is in the National Gallery — a portrait of M iUiam Siddons, the husband of the actress.
Edward Bird was born at Wolverhampton in 1762. He was brought up to the
trade of a japanner, but became a drawing-master at Bristol, and subsequently a painter.
In 1809 appeared his first work. Good News, ?iii\\t Royal Academy. Bird at first
confined himself to genre subjects in which he excelled — the National Gallery has a
good example, the Raffle for a Watch — but later in life he adopted historic subjects, to
which his art was not so well suited. In 181 2, he became an Associate, and three years
later a full member of the Royal Academy. He exhibited but eighteen pictures. He
died at Bath in 1819, and was buried in the Cathedral. His masterpiece is the Day
after Chay Chase, which procured him the appointment of historical painter to the
SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE.
Fage All-
A.D. i8oo.] LAWRENCE. 41?
Princess Charlotte. It was purchased for 300 guineas by the Duke of Sutherland, and
now — together with his Death of Eli —hangs in the Stafford House Gallery. The latter
picture was purchased by the same nobleman for 500 guineas ; it also gaineil a ])remium
of 300 guineas from the British Institution.
George Morland, the son of Henry Morland, a painter of some note, was born in
1763. When young, he left his home and went to lodge at the house of William Ward,
a mezzotint engraver, and for a time — actuated, probably, by a really sincere attachment
to the sister of his landlord— worked steadily, painting pictures of rural domestic scenes.
In July, 1786, he married Miss Ward, but this did nothing towards reforming Borland's
character. He lived in the most recklessly extravagant f:ishion as long as he coulil
])aint fast enough to obtain money ; eventually he was arrested for debt, and reduced
to the extremity of beggary. With all this, his works were very popular and often
remarkably clever. The Gipsies, dated 1792, the time when his short spell of prosperity
was at its height, was exhibited in the International Exhibition of 1862, and received
much admiration. After 1802, when he was released from his debts under the terms
of a new Act, Morland's career was a rapid decline of misery, aggravated by useless
self-reproach, until he died in a sponging-house in Coldbath Fields, in October, 1804.
His wife, who was always devoted to her worthless husband, died scarcely a week
aftenvards from a broken heart, and was interred in the same grave. A good example
of Morland's paintings, the Rixkonirig, is in the South Kensington Museum.
ENGLISH PAINTERS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
Richard Westall was born at Hertford in 1765. He was apprenticed to an
engraver on silver in London, and was allowed by his master in 17S5 to enter tiie
Royal Academy schools, where he obtained his instruction in art. On the completion
of his apprenticeship, he first directed his attention to book-illustration, which ever after
occupied an important part of his time, and water-colour painting. He was elected an
Associate of the Royal Academy in 1792, and two years later he became a full member.
His small oil-paintings are much better than those of larger dimensions, but all his
works display a feeble prettiness and a lack of power. Of his book illustrations the
best are those he executed for the Bible, the Prayer-book, and the "Arabian Nights'
Entertainment.' He was instructor in drawing to the Princess Victoria. Westall died
in London in 1836. We may here notice his younger brother,
William Westall, who was born at HertTord in 17S1, received instruction from his
brother Richard and from the Royal Academy schools, and became a good landscape
painter. His principal works are views in Madeira, China, India, Australia, and in
England — many of them executeil for the illustration of books. His oil-jiaintings are
not of so much merit as his water-colour drawings. In iSu he was clei ted an
.Associate of the Royal Academy, but <lie(l in London in 1850 without having attained
full membership.
Thomas Lawrence, the most popular painter of his day, was born at l?ri^tol in 1769.
His father was at that time an innkeeper, and a few years after the birth of his
famous son — the youngest of sixteen children— removeil from Bristol to Devizes, where
he became landlord of the " Black Bear," a well known i)osting-house. Young 'Ihonias
4i8 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1800.
was from the very first an unusually precocious child; when he was no more than
seven years old he not only drew very graceful and accurate likenesses, but recited
poetry, for which he had always a strong love, with really appreciative feeling. In
1779 the flimily again removed — this time to Oxford, where the talents of the boy
attracted many patrons, and where he first painted for money.
Not long afterwards the elder Lawrence, being in poor circumstances, decided on
turning the genius of his son to account, and took a house in Bath ; there the young
man painted portraits at the rate of a guinea and a guinea-and-a-half apiece, and his
fame spread rapidly. Mrs. Siddons sat to him as Zara^ and Sir Henry Harpur, a
local dignitary, was anxious to adopt him as his son.
In 1787 Lawrence went to London.and entered the Royal Academy as a student.
His rise in life was from this time very rapid. In 1791 he was elected an Associate of
the Royal Academy, and upon the death of Sir Joshua Reynolds he was made " Painter
to the King" in his place. In 1794 Lawrence became a full member, and on the death
of West, in 1S20, received the honour of being unanimously chosen President of the
Royal Academy. He had been knighted by the Prince Regent in 18 15, and in 1825
he was elected a chevalier of tlie " Legion d'Honneur." f
His popularity as a portrait painter was such that probably no artist excelled him in
the number of sitters. People of all ranks and classes flocked to his studio ; for he not
only rendered their likenesses with truth and skill, but by his extremely graceful drawing
enhanced the charms of beauty, and endowed even ordinary features with at least a
pleasant air and expression.
Sir Thomas Lawrence died, after a short illness, on the 7th January, 1830, and was
buried in St. Paul's Cathedral, with much honour.
Of Lawrence's works, we must notice, of his portraits, those of Lady Gower a?id
child, Lady Peel, Master Lamhton, and in the National Gallery two oiMrs. Siddons, one
of Benjamiii West, with six others ; and of his historic pictures, Hamlet with Yorick' s
skull; Coriola/nis, and lastly his favourite Satan — all too well-known to need a- de-
scription. Several of Lawrence's finest portraits, painted for the Prince Regent in
1814, are in the Waterloo Chamber at Windsor Castle.
William Owen was born at Ludlow in 1769. When seventeen years of age he
came to London^ and entered the studio of a Mr. Catton, and at the same time studied
in the Royal Academy school. In 1792 he first exhibited at the Royal Academy ;
hiis works were the Portrait of a Gentleman and a Vietv of Ludford Bridge ; and
though he is chiefly known as a portrait painter, Owen continued to paint landscapes
and conversation pieces at intervals during his life. In 1804 he was made an
Associate, and in 1806 he became a full member. Four years later he was made
])ainter to the Prince of Wales, and when the Prince assumed the Regency, Owen
was made his principal portrait painter. He was offered knighthood, but this honour
he refused. He died in London in 1825. Owen, as a portrait painter, is more
remarkable for his truthfulness than for any other merit.
Martin Archer Shee was born in Dublin in 1769. After he had learned his art in
the Academy of that city, and practised a short time as a portrait painter, he removed
to London, where he soon became famous for his likenesses— more especially those
of men. In 1799 he was made an Associate; in 1800 he became a full member, but
higher honours were yet in store for him. On the death of Lawrence in 1830 he was
elected President, and received the usual honour of knighthood. He continued to
A.D. iSoo.] HO HARD.
419
exhibit at the Royal Academy until 1845, in which year his ikrlininL; hc.ilth rciulcrcd
him unfit fur rurther work. He died at IJrighton in 1850. Sir Martin Shee owed his
siicrcss as much to his noble defence of the Royal Academy, and to his courteous
manners and general attainments, as to any particular t;ilent for painting. Three works
r)y him are in the National Gallery, the Infant Jiaahus, a Portrait of Morton the
dranuitist, ami another oi Lnvis as the Manjuis in the ' Midnight Hour.' He executed
a few historical works of no great merit. Uesides his painting. Sir .Martin is famous
for his literary labours — mostly criticisms on art and artists.
Hemy Howard, who was born in I.oiulon in 1769, studied under Philip Reinagle
(whose daughter he subse»iuent!) married) and in the Academy schools. In 1790, in
addition to the silver meilal of the Life school, he gained the gold medal for his
Cnractaciis raognis'uh:; the liead body of his son. Though Howard began life in art under
most propitious circumstances, his after life was not ([uite .so successful. In 1791-94
lie made a .sojourn of three years in Italy, the result of which was seen in the numerous
works exhibited in the Royal Academy in the year after his return. In iSoi he was
elected an Associate, and in 180S a member of the Royal .\cadeiny. In 181 1 he was
made .secretary to the society, and in 18,^3 he became Professor of Painting. Hut,
though he recei\ed numberless honours, his patronage was not great, and his name has
not been handed down to posterity with any large amount of fame He died at Oxford
in 1S47. H's flivourite subjects were from the classics, but somewhat feeble in design.
He occasionally painted portraits. Among his best works we may notice Sunrist' and
the Birth of J'tn/zs. The National Gallery has one example — the Flojocr Girl, a
I)ortrait of a painter's daughter in a Florentine costume.
James Ward, who was born in London in 1769, began life as an engraver, but
when about thirty-five years of age abandoned that art in favour of painting, for which
he had always had a strong predilection, ^\'ard ujay be called a portrait painter of
bulls and horses, for his art rarely rose above those subjects. In 1S07 he was elected
an Associate of the Royal .Academy, and in 181 1 an Academician. In 1820-22 Ward
produced that work which is his masterpiece, and which has helped to make his name
famous, a Landscape with Cattle ; it was painted, at the instigation of West, in emulation
of the celebrated Youn^^ Bull -xi \\\^ Hague, by Paul Potter, though Ward had never
seen that great work. The original cattle of Ward's j>icture were all in the jiosscssion
of Mr. .\llnutt of Clapham, who, with Sir John Y. Leicester, afterwards Lord deTabley,
was this artist's chief patron. This work, which is now in the National Gallerv, was
bought of the painter's son for 1500/. by the Trustees. It was exhibited in the liritish
Institution ; at the .Manchester Exhibition of 1857 ; and in the Intern.itional Exhibition
in 1S62. James Ward died in 1859 at Cheshunt, where he had residctl for the last
thirty years of his life.
Thomas Phillips, the celebrated poMrait-juintei. ..... ...xw at Dudley in Warwick-
shire in 1770. He first studied glass-painting at Hirminghaiii, and when twenty years
of age came to London, where he became a pupil of WesL In 1792 his first work, a
]'iew of /f "///(Avr C<7j//<', ajjpearetl at the Royal .\cadcmy. Eor some lime he was a
jKiinter of historic subjects, which he ultimately abandoned in favour of portraiture.
In 1804 he was elecletl an .\ssociate, and four years later a full member of the .Academy,
In iSj() he was elected Professor <jf Painting ; he resigned the appointment in 1832,
in which year he published his lectures on art. He ilied in London in 1845. .Among
420 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1825.
the sitters of Phillips were some of the most eminent personages of the day, though he
did not enjoy the patronage of royalty. In the National Gallery is a Portrait of Sir
David IVilkic, by him, and also a study called the Wood Nymph.
His son, Henry Wyndham Phillips, who was born in 1820, was an excellent portrait
painter, and constantly exhibited at the Academy. He died in 186S.
Henry Thompson, who was born in London (some writers say at Portsea) in 1773
studied art under Opie and in the Academy schools. In 1800 he first exhibited at
the Academy an historic ])\ecQ—Da;dalus fastening wings on to his son learns; in the
following year he was elected an Associate, and in 1804 a Royal Academician. In
1S25 he was made Keeper of the Academy, but, owing to ill-health, he resigned the
post two years later and retired to Portsea, where he died in 1843. Among his best
works is Pcrdita, which he executed for Boydell's Shakespeare. He painted portraits,
subjects of history, sacred and profane, and, in later life, marine pieces. The National
Gallery has a Dead Robiji by him.
Joseph Mallord William Turner, the most celebrated landscape-painter of the
English school, was born on the 23rd of April, 1775, in Maiden Lane, Covent Garden,
where his father carried on the business of a barber. His love for art developed at an
early age, and it is said that his first attempt at drawing was an heraldic lion copied
from a coat of arms. He was encouraged to persevere by his father, who provided
him with a box of water-colours, and exhibited his son's performances in the shop-
window for sale. The boy soon made such progress that he was employed by Raphael
Smith, the engraver, to colour prints and wash in the backgrounds of architects'
drawings. Dr. Munro, a great art patron, attracted by some of the sketches, which he
saw exhibited in Maiden Lane, was a great benefactor to Turner in his youth. " Girtin
and I," said Turner, " often walked to Bushey and back, to make drawings for good
Mr. Munro at half-a-crown apiece, and the money for our supper when we got home."
Turner was admitted a student in the Royal Academy schools in 1789, when only
fourteen years of age, and exhibited a View of the Archbishop s Palace at Lambeth at
Somerset House in the following year, from this date he diligently pursued his pro-
fession, and between 1790 and 1796 exhibited no less than thirty-two drawings, of
which twenty-three were architectural, principally views of the cathedrals and churches.
In 1793 he made his first tour for a work, " Margate, Ramsgate, and elsewhere."
projected by Mr. Walker, and before he became an Associate of the Royal Academy in
1799 his exhibited works ranged over twenty-six counties of England and Wales, many
of which he had visited several times.
In 1802 Turner was elected a full member of the Royal Academy, and presented
as his diploma picture Dolbadarn Castle, North Wales ; in this year he visited the
Continent for the first time, travelling through France and Switzerland, 'and along the
banks of the Rhine. He returned with his portfolio full of sketches, of which the chief
were the Fall of the Rhine at Schaffhausen and View of St. Michael, near Bonneville.
In 1807 Turner was elected Professor of Perspective in the Royal Academy. "His
lectures," says Mr. Redgrave, "were from his naturally enigmatical and ambiguous style
of delivery almost unintelligible." About this time Turner, at the suggestion of his
friend Mr. Wells, commenced publishing his " Liber Studiorum " in rivalry with
Claude's "Liber Veritatis." It ai)j)eared in parts, each one containing five engravings,
careful elaborations of light and shade eftects, executeil in mezzotint on copper and
printed with brown ink.
5 -5
w
f'ORD WILLIAM TURXKR.
A.v. 1810.] TURNER. 421
In 1 81 5 Turner exhibited two of his finest works at the Royal Academy, Crossini:^
the Brook and Dido buildin;^ Carthage. He never could be persuaded to part with the
latter, though high prices were offered for it.
Again, when it was decided to offer Turner five thousand pounds for his two pictures,
the Rise and Fall of Carthage, for the National Gallery, " No, no.' he exclaimed,
" they shall not have it," but added that Carthage might some day become the proj)erty
of the nation. And so it eventually did, for this picture and the Sun Rising in the Mist,
were left to the National Gallery on condition that they should be hung beside
Claude's Embarkation of the Queen 0/ Sheba, and the Marriage 0/ Isaac and Rebeeea.
In I Si 9 Turner made his first visit to Italy, the second in 1S29, and the last in
1840. Within the space of the ten years between the first visits he completed
nearly four hundred illustrations for i)ublications, such as his South Coast Scenery, his
England and Jf'ales, Rivers of France, Rogers' Italy, Rogers' Poems, the Keepsake, &c.
Turner throughout his life always shunned the society of other men. His mania
for retirement grew stronger in his old age ; even his house in Queen Anne Street,
which always bore the appearance of being deserted, was too much frequented by his
fellow-creatures. He sought out an obscure lodging in Chelsea fiicing the Thames,
and here under the assumed name of Admirai Booth — or rather " Puggy Booth," as he
was known in the neighbourhood — he spent the remainder of his days ; and there
he died on the 19th of December, 1851, in his seventy-sixth year.
His will was a fitting close to his laborious life, and effaced all those traits of
avarice which otherwise blemished it. His noblest dream was to found a charity for
'• male decayed artists," and it was doubtless his intention to leave the bulk of his
projjerty to be devoted to this purpose ; but the will was so confused, that it frustrated
its main object, and after a four years' Chancery suit a compromise was arranged by
all parties to the following effect : —
I. The real property to go to the heir-at-law. 2. The pictures and drawings to the
National Gallery. 3. One thousand pounds for the erection of a monument in St. Paul's
Cathedral. 4. Twenty thousand pounds to the Royal Academy, free of legacv dutv.
5. The remainder to be divided amongst the next of kin. 6. The engravings to the
next of kin and heir-at-law.
The National Gallery now possesses more than one hundred of Turner's i)icuiicN
and a great number of water-colour drawings and sketches.
John Constable was born at East Bergholt, a village in Suffolk, on June 1 nh, 1776.
His father, a man of some property and position, was a miller, and inteniled his
son to follow the same calling ; but the young artist showed such a strong pre-
ference for painting that after a year's trial he was allowed to give free scope to his
taste. In 1800 he was admitted as a student to the Royal Academy schools, where
he was assisted in his studies by Reinagle and Farington. .\ltliough he attempted
portraiture during his early years with varying success, he, from the very first, tlisplayeil
a marked and jjeculiar talent for landscape painting. He was always firmly convinced
that he had the power to ])rotluce works of the highest ( lass, though he fully recognised
the fiict that their merits might probably remain unnoticed by iiis contemporaries.
In 1816 Constable married, and settled in a house in Charlotte Street, Fitzroy
Stjuare, where — with the exception of several trips into the country for the i)urposes of
his art, to which he was faithfully devoted — he resided until 1820, when he took a cotta-c
at llanipslead, for the sake of the lovely scenery and extensive views. H»; was elected
42 2 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. i8io.
an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1819, and a full member in 1829. After several
years of imperfect health, he died at his beloved Hampstead on the ist of April,
1837. As he had himself surmised, Constable's works were more admired after his
death than during his life. It is strange that he met with better appreciation from
the hands of French critics than from those of his native land. His most famous
pictures are the Valley Farm, a work which will ever have an enduring charm ; the
Corfi Field — both in the National Gallery — and a View on ike rivej- Stoiir. The
Sheepshanks Gallery possesses six others of his important works. He was one of the
most truly original landscape painters we have ever had, and kept with rare fidelity
to nature, taking especial care to render the effects of light and shade.
Augustus Wall CallcoU was born • at Kensington Gravel-Pits — then a country
hamlet' — on February 20th, 1779. He studied under Hoppner, and began life as a
portrait painter. His first exhibited picture was a Portrait of Miss Roberts, which
appeared in 1799. In 1802 he discovered that his natural taste lay in another direction,
and abandoned portraiture for landscape painting. In February, 1827, Callcott
married, and shortly afterwards started on a tour through Italy. On his return, he
took a house in the " Mall," and became a fashionable artist. His wife, who was an
accomplished woman, assisted him by her literary labours on art subjects. On the
accession of her Majesty the Queen, Callcott, who was then one of the favourite
artists of the day, received the honour of knighthood.
Sir Augustus Callcott died in 1844, regretted by those who knew him, for he was a
liberal patron of young artists and kind and courteous to all.
His works are mostly views of English scenery, though he sometimes varied them
by producing figure subjects in conjunction with landscape. Some of his best known
paintings are- — the Old Pier at Littlehampton ; Calm in the Medtvay, Rochester ; Entrance
to the Pool of London, and Dutch Peasants retur?ujigfrojn Market. There are nine of
his paintings in the National Gallery.
William Linton, the celebrated classic landscape painter, was born in Liverpool in
1 791, and began life as a clerk in a merchant's oftice in that city. Not liking the
duties imposed upon him, he threw up his situation about the year 1820, made his way
to London, and devoted himself to the study of art. In 182 1 he exhibited his first
picture, the Morning after a Storm, at the British Institution, and about the same time
joined the then newly founded "■ Society of British Artists." He then made a long tour
on the Continent, with a view of extending his range of subjects ; returned to England
in 1829, and produced a fine series of landscapes tieated in the classic style, including
his well-known Italy. He then made a second and more extended tour, visiting (Greece,
Sicily and Calabria, and on his return, exhibited in 1842, at the Gallery of the Society
of Painters in Water-colours, several fine pictures, such as the Embarkation of the Greeks
for Troy, the Temple of Pastum, both exhibited in Westminster Hall. In 1842 his
Lake of Orta and Bellijizona appeared at the Royal Academy, and from that date
he was a frequent contributor to the annual exhibitions of that Institution. During
the latter years of his life Linton devoted much time to art literature, publishing a
pamphlet on " Ancient and Modern Colours," in 1852, and a book on the " Scenery of
Greece and its Islands," with fine illustrations from his own hand, in 1858. Linton
died on the 1 8th of August, 1876. Among his best works we may name Mariiis at
Carthage, Jerusalem at the Time of the Crucifixion, the Triumph of For tuna Muliebris.
William Allan, the historical painter, was born at Edinburgh in 1782. He was
THE VALLKY KARM. ("WILLY LOTTS HOUSE.') Ry Constable.
In Ike Salional CalUry.
A.D. i8io.] UIVJNS. 423
•
first apprenticed to a coach-builder, and subsequently studied in the Trustees' Academy
in his native city. He then came to London and entered the Royal Academy schools,
but, in 1S03, disappointed at his art being unappreciated, he set out on a journey
through Russia, Tartary, and Turkey. While away he sent but one picture to the
Royal Academy, J^iissian Ptustints kefpiti^ their holiday^ but it met with little notice.
In 1814 Allan returneil to Kdinburgh, whence he sent to the Royal Academy several
pictures of the scenes he had witnessed on his travels: Circassian Captives, in 1S15,
Circassian Chief selling::; Captives, in 1816 ; and in 18 17, Tartar Robbers diviiiin^^ their
spoil, now in the National Ciallery. Allan next changed his subjects to those of Scotch
history, and painted J'rince Charlie and Flvra Macdonald ; the Murder of Archbislnp
Sharpe ; John Knox admonishing Mary Queen of Scots, \n 1833 — engraved by Burnet,
the frienil of the painter ; the A furder of Murray, in 1825— this picture caused him
to be elected Associate of tlie Academy ; the Orphan in iS^:;, now in lUickingham
Palace.
In 1835, Allan was made a full meml)er of tlie Royal Academy, and three years
later, he became President of the Royal Scottish Academy. In 1841, he was m.ade
Linmer in Scotland to her Majesty the Queen, and at the same time received the honour
of knighthooil. In 1843 api)eared his Battle of H'aterloo from the French side, ])urchased
by the late Duke of Wellin.'Tton ; three years later, followed the companion ])icture from
the English side, which was sent in competition to Westminster Hall. After numerous
journeys to all parts of Europe, Sir William Allan died at Edinburgh in 1850.
At the time of his death, Allan's art, thanks to the friendship of Sir Walter Scott
and his own perseverance, was more popular than it had been in early life.
Thomas Uwins was born at Pentonville on the 25th of Februar)-, 1782. In his
sixteenth year he was apprenticed to an engraver, with whom, however, he did not
remain long, for in 1797 he was entered as a student of the Royal Academy schools.
As early as 1808, Uwins was employed in designing illustrations for books ; these were
in most cases simply frontisjjieces, vignettes, or title-page adornments, which displayed
remarkable grace. .\ year later he was elected an Associate of the Society of Painters
in Water-colours, and in the following year became a full member ; he afterwards
acted for a short time as secretary to that institution. In 1S14 Uwins went for the
benefit of his health on a visit to the South of France ; while there he made many
sketches and studies, and commenced painting in oil. He returned to England about
1 8 18, and for the next few years lived in Edinburgh, wliere he was very successful
as a portrait painter.
In 1824 Uwins went to Italy, and spent seven years in wandering about that
country, gathering materials for a new style of subject, with which, on his return to
England, he secured a lasting claim to recognition. Tiie pictures he exhibited at the
Royal Academy in 1832 earnetl for him the title of Associate, and, rapidly rising in
public esteem, in the next year he was elected an Academician. In 1844 he was
appointeil Librarian to the Royal Academy; in 1S45, Surveyor of her Majesty's
jjictures ; and in 1S47, Keejier of the National Ciallery. Uwins resigned the two
Litter offices in 1855, and finding his health failing, went to live in quiet seclusion at
Staines, wiiere he spent the remainder of his days, and died at the age of seventy-five,
in August, 1857.
His best pictures in the national collection arc Le Chapcau de Jiris^and, and tlie
Vintat^e in the Claret Vineyards, in the National Gallery; and the Italian Mother
424 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS [a.d. iSio.
teaching her Child the Tarantella, and a Neapolitan Boy decorating the Head of his
Linamorata, in the South Kensington Museum.
John Burnet, who was born near Edinburgh, probably at Musselburgh, on the 20th
of INIarch, 1784, was apprenticed to Robert Scott, an engraver of Edinburgh, and also
studied in the Trustees' Academy in that city. While engaged in this way, he made
the acquaintance of Wilkie, who remained his friend for life. In 1806 Burnet went
to London where, though chiefly known as an engraver, he attained to a certain fame
by his painting.
Of his pictures the best known and most worthy of merit is the Greenwich Hospital
a7id Naval Heroes, which he painted for the Duke of Wellington, and which was exhi-
bited at the British Institution in 1837. As a writer on art, he will be long remembered
by treatises on the principles and practice of different branches of art. He died at
Stoke Newington, on the 29th of April, 1868, aged eighty-four.
James Burnet, the landscape painter, who was born at Musselburgh, in 1788, was a
youno-er brother of John Burnet. Abandoning wood-carving in favour of painting, he
went in 18 10 to London, where his brother was already established ; two years later he
first exhibited Evenijig — Cattle returning home, at the Royal Academy, where his pictures
continued to appear until 181 6, in which year he died at Lee, at the early age of twenty-
eight. James Burnet was a disciple of the Dutch painters, but did not copy them
servilely ; his pictures, which are remarkable for truth to nature, show what he might
have done had he enjoyed a longer life.
David Wilkie was born in tlie year 1785 at Cults, in Fifeshire. Brought up in the
seclusion of a Scotch manse — for his father was minister of the parish — he had during
his boyhood but few opportunities of cultivating his early developed talent. It
was the wish of the whole family that David should enter the Church, but in 1799
the lad had so far gained over his father to his side, that he was sent to the Trustees'
Academy in Edinburgh, where four years later he won the ten-guinea premium for the
best painting of the term ; the subject was Callisto in the Baths of Diana. In 1804
he paid a short visit to his home, and during that time painted a picture called Pitlassie
Fair, the details of which were supplied by the incidents of a neighbouring festival,
and which he sold for twenty-five pounds. At this time too he painted a few portraits
of friends and relatives, and, having realized a little money, started, in May, 1805,
to seek his fortune in London.
Wilkie's first endeavour on his arrival in the metropolis was to obtain an entrance to
the schools of the Royal Academy. He soon afterwards produced the Village Politicians,
one of his best works, which was followed by the Blind Fiddler, now in the National
Gallery, and the Rent Day, which procured for him in 1809 the title of Associate.
In 181 1 he was made a full member of the Royal Academy; and in the same year he
exhibited the Village Festival, which met with universal admiration. In 18 14 he went
abroad, and while in Paris studied at the Louvre ; on his return he enhanced his already
wide-spread reputation by executing such favourite works as the Penny Wedding, and
Reading the Will. Again, in 1825, he made a long tour on the Continent, visiting
Germany, Italy, and Spain. While in Spain he painted many pictures which, owing to
the influence of foreign travel, showed a marked difference in his style. He returned
to England in 1829, and in 1836 received the honour of knighthood.
On a return voyage from the East he died suddenly, on the evening of June ist,
1 84 1, just after the ship had left Malta. He was buried at sea.
<>
A.i). jSio.] HAYDON. 4-^5
William Frederick Witherington was born in Goswcll Street, London, on the 26th
of May, 17S5. In his twentieth year he gained .a(huission to the Royal Academy
schools, and it must be i)resunied that he made but slow progress, for it was not until
181 1 that he exliibitcd his first jjicture, a Vinv of Tinttrn Abbey, at the British Institu-
tion. At this time, and for years subsequently, his works were principally composed of
landscape and fiL^ure subjects in combination.
In 1S30 he was elected an .Associate of the Royal .Kcademy. One of his best-known
works at this period, a Hop Garden, now in the Sheepshanks Collection, was exhibited
at the British Institution in 1S35, In 1840 he was made a Royal Academician.
There are two excellent paintings by him, the S/e/>/>ini^ Stones and the Ho/> Garlaiui,
in the National Gallery, Almost all the pictures ascribed to him are ihorouglily
English ; they are pleasing, natural, and carefully composed.
Witherington died, at the age of seventy-nine, on the loth of April, 1865.
Benjamin Robert Haydon, the son of a bookseller of Plymouth, was born on the
2 yth of January, 1786. He showed an early enthusiasm for art, and though a])pren-
ticed to his father's business, he refused to remain in it, and against the wishes of both
his parents, set out to seek in London the education he desired.
In May, 1804, young Haydon succeeded so far as to obtain admission to the
Royal Academy schools. Probably there never was a jjainter who i)Ossessed a more
exaggerated opinion of his own powers. His whole life was a strange medley of
brilliant successes and the utmost miseries. His first attempt was characteristic of his
nature ; wiien only twenty-one he jiainted a F/i_i^/it info Ei^v^t on a large scale. The
■next work was Dentatus attacked and niinde/rd by his ozcn soldiers, the subject of
Avhich was suggested by Lord Mulgrave, for whom the picture was executed.
In 18 14, Haydon accomi)anied Wilkie to Paris, and m the same year produced the
Judgment of Solomon, \\\\\vh wws exhibited at the British Institution, and sold for six
hundred guineas. His most ambitious work, however, was C/irist's Entry into Jeru-
salem, paiiUeil in 1820, which he predicted would mark an epoch in the history of
English painting ! It was exhibited at the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, and in that way
brought its author nearly 3,000/.
At this time Haydon established an art school at his residence in Lisson Grove,
where he painted the Raising of Lazarus on an enormous scale ; it contains no less
than twenty figures, each nine feet high; it was exhibiteil in 1823. It is now on the
entrance staircase of the National Gallery.
Haydon rarely sent his pictures to the Academy, having a strange and morbid
animosity against the Academicians as a body ; he generally resorted to exhibitions
of his own. In 1840, he commenced a series of lectures, which were published in
1844 and 1846. His last great works were A'ero 7i'atc/iing t/ie Burning of Rome, and
the Banishment of Aristides, which were exhibited in 1846. They were coldly
received by the public, and this so preyed on his sensitive mind that he put an end
to his life in his studio at Connaught Terrace, on the 22nd of June, 1849.
William Hilton, the son of a i)ortrait painter who practised at Newark, was born
at Lincoln on liic 3rd of June, 178(1. In the year 1800, young Hilton was appren-
ticed to John Raphael Smitli. the mcz/otint engraver, and six years later entered
the schools of art at the Royal A( ademy.
Hilton was parti( ularly successful as a student of anatomy and figure drawing. His
early exhibited works were princi[)ally classical subjects, such as Cephalus and Procris,
426 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1810.
Venus carrying the imnnded Ac/iilies, and Ulysses and Calypso ; in 18 10, he produced
a large historical picture, the Citizens of Calais delivering their keys to Ed^vard III,
which gained from the directors of the British Institution a premium of fifty guineas.
In 1813 Hilton was elected an Associate, and in 1819 a full member of the
Royal Academy; in 1827, he was made Keeper, in which office he greatly endeared
himself to the pupils and students. Hilton was a man of particularly retiring habits
and gentle nature, and during the last few years of his life lived in complete seclusion.
He died of heart disease, aggravated by sorrow for the death of a fond wife, on the
30th of December, 1839.
His fine picture, Mary anointing the Feet of Jesus, was presented to the Church
of St. Michael, in the City, by the directors of the British Institution, by whom it
had been purchased for the sum of 550 guineas.
His Christ crowned with Thorns Avas sold to the same purchasers, and by them
presented to the church of St. Peter, Eaton Square. The picture by which, however,
Hilton is probably best known is Edith discovering the dead body of Harold, which
obtained a premium of one hundred guineas. It is now in the National Gallery. A
Crucifixion, in the possession of the Corporation of Liverpool, is a fine painting in
the form of a triptych.
Abraham Cooper was born in Red Lion Street, Holborn, in September 1787.
During his childhood he showed much talent for drawing ; and as his father was an
innkeeper, he was brought into frequent contact with horses, and formed a decided
taste for animal subjects, which influenced the style of his numerous productions
throughout his life. His first attempt was a portrait of a favourite horse belonging to
Sir Henry Meux, which was so successful that the Baronet insisted on purchasing the
work, and gave him commissions for other works.
In 1814, Cooper's first exhibited picture. Tarn d Shanter, appeared at the
British Institution; it was purchased by the Duke of Marlborough. His next
picture, representing the Battle of Marston Moor, was sent to the Royal Academy
Exhibition of 181 7, and was the means of procuring his election as an Associate.
From that time he was a constant exhibitor at the Royal Academy during the remainder
of a long life. He died at Greenwich on Christmas eve, in 1868, in the eighty-second
year of his age.
As might have been expected, there was but little variation in the types of his
subjects and the character of their treatment. Among the more important may be
mentioned, as good specimens of his style, such works as the Fride of the Desert, the
Arab Sheik, the Dead Trooper, Haivking in the Olden Time, the Battle of Bosworth
Field, the Battle of Naseby, Richard I. and Saladin at the Battle of A sea Ion, and Both-
weWs seizure of Mary Queen of Scots.
William Mulready was born at Ennis, County Clare, in Ireland, on the 30th of
April, 1786. All the general education he received was given by three different Roman
Catholic priests in various parts of London, to which city his father had brought him
when he was still a child.
In 1800 Mulready was admitted, through the influence of Banks the sculptor, to the
schools of the Royal Academy, where he showed a remarkable aptitude for drawing
from the life. When only eighteen he married Miss Varley, the sister of the water-
colour painter, in whose school, in company with Hunt, Linnell, and many other well-
known artists, he had studied. The marriage was both imprudent and unhappy.
A.D. i8io.] MULREADY.
427
From this time Mulready was for many years a constant exhibitor at the Roval
Academy. In 1S15 he was elected an Associate, and in the very next year he was
maile an Academician. In the latter year he exhibited the Fight /nterru/>teJ,— now in
the Sheepshanks Collection.
From this time Mulready became a great favourite with the public, and his fame
rai)idly si)read among all classes. The IVo/f ami the Lamb, an excellent study of
character, the Dog with two Minds, the Interior 0/ an English Cottage, Giving a Bite,
Choosing the WedJing Gown, Haymaking, the IVhistonian Controzrrsy, First Love, the
Seven A^es of Man, and Fair Time, are a few among his many pictures which will
always retain their hold upon our affections.
Mulready's later years were passed at Kensington, first in a house in •' The Mall,"
and afterwards in Linden (Jrove, where he died somewhat sucKlenly, on the 7th of Julv,
1863. He was buried with much honour at Kensal Green, where a monument was
erected to his memory by his many friends. Several of Mulready's best works are in
the South Kensington Museum.
Alexander Fraser was born at Edinburgh in 1786, and took his first lessons in art
at the Trustees' Academy in that city, side by side with Wilkie, Gonlon, and other
great contemporaries. About 1825, or perhaps some years earlier, Fraser went to
London and exhibited first several clever and truthful coast-scenes, and then a series
of humorous pictures such as a Cobbler at lunch, the Blackbird and his tutor, the Village
Sign-painter. Later, his affections returned to his native land, and almost all his
scenes were laid in Scotland, and his Newhaven, near Edinburgh, and Sir Walter Scott
dining with one of the Blue-gown Beggars of Edinburgh, may be cited as - excellent
examples of his matured style. Fraser died at Wood Green, in 1865.
George Jones, the son of a mezzotint engraver, was born in London in 1786. He
turned liis attention to art early in life, and in 1801 entered the Royal Academy
schools. But his military ardour was even greater than his love of art, ami he fou^^ht
as an officer of the Militia in the Peninsular War.
When peace was once again restored to Europe, Jones resumed his brush — hastily
cast aside. In 1820 appeared a picture — oft repeated by the painter — the Battle of
Waterloo, to which the British Institution awarded a premium of two hundred guineas.
In 1820 he was elected an Associate of the Academy, and four years later became a
full member. He was for some time Librarian and also Keeper of the Academv.
Jones died in London in 1869 after a most successful career. In the National Gallery
we .shall find examples of his different subjects. Of his scenes of European wars, there
is the Battle of Borodino ; of the illustrations of the adventures of the British .\rmv in
India, the Jielief of Lucknow, Caivn/ore, and the J'assage if the Ganges. Of his
historic pictures, of a biblical nature is the Burning Fiery Furnace, and of a secular
Lady Godiva /re/>arin<; to ride through CtK-entry. And lastly, we have, as an example
of his views of continental cities, the Town Hall of Utrecht.
William Etty was born at York on the loth of March, 1787. His father was a
miller and baker, and a Methodist in his religious opinions. He gave his son a careful
education, beyond which the boy's attainments in ordinary learning were of the
humblest description. When only twelve years old, young Etty was apprenticed to a
printer at Hull, where he remained seven years. At the end of his time, an uncle
who lived in Lombard Street, rejoiced his heart by inviting him to stay in London :
there he found the means of pursuing the studies which he had so long desired,
428 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. i8io.
and, in 1807, he became a student at the Royal Academy. He proved a most dihgent
pupil, and was especially successful in drawing from the nude.
After having worked at the Academy for a year, Etty became a pupil of Lawrence.
His first attempts failed to meet with favour at the hands of either the painters or
the public in general, and it, was not until 181 1 that his first work was admitted
to the exhibitions of the Royal Academy. In 1820 he exhibited the Coral Finders,
and in the following year, Cleopatra, both of whicli met with much admiration, and
he then began a period of unremitting success.
Two years later Etty went to Italy, and visited Rome, Florence, Naples, and
Venice. Delighted with the charms of the queen of the Adriatic, he describes it as
" Venice, the birthplace and cradle of _ colour : the hope and idol of my professional
life." He returned to London in 1824, and in the same year was elected an Associate
of the Royal Academy. Four years later he was made an Academician.
Etty died, beloved by all who knew him, at York — whither he had retired late in
life — on the 13th of November, 1849. He was buried in the churchyard of St. Olave's,
Bot far from the famous Minster.
His talents were of a versatile description. Among the many types he chose for
his pictures, there is a wide range from such stern biblical subjects as Judith and Holo-
f ernes, Bcnaiah, and the Eve of the Deluge, to the light and playful allegory of Youth at
the Pro7u and Pleasure at the Helm. As a colourist he has been rivalled by ^qw.
Englishmen, and in the portrayal of the female form and in the loveliness of his superb
flesh-painting, he probably stands alone.
William Collins, the charming interpreter of English rural and seaside life, was
born in London of Irish parents on the i8th of September, 1787. He learned the
first principles of art in the studio of George Morland — one of the earliest English
painters wlio chose his subjects from the home life of the lower classes of his native
land — whose influence is very distinctly noticeable in the works of his pupil.
In 1807, young Collins entered the Royal Academy schools, and exhibited two
fine landscapes ; but compelled to earn his living by portrait painting, he did not
follow them up with anything of a similar character until 18 10, when, having saved
money, he was able to choose his own subjects. He then produced a series of scenes
of out-door life, such as Children birds' -nesting, or Swinging on gates, Pratun Fishers,
Shrimpers, Fishernun on the look-out, treated in a simple life-like and effective
manner which elicited high praise from the art critics of the day.
In 1820, Collins was elected a Royal Academician, and until 1836 was a continual
exhibitor of subjects similar to those by which he had made his reputation. Unfortu-
nately for his art, he then went to Italy with a view of improving his style, and enlarg-
ing his experience. After two years of travel, he returned home full of enthusiasm
for the beauties of Italian scenery, and Italian peasantry ; and discontented with what
now seemed the " humdrum "' simplicity of every-day English life, he tried a higher
style, and produced Italian landscapes, such as the Cave of Ulysses, and the Bay
of Naples, following them up with the yet more ambitious subjects, Christ in the
Temple with the Doctors, and the Two Disciples at Emmaus ; these subjects were not
very successful, and with true wisdom the ambitious artist returned to his first style,
and remained faithful to it until his death, which took jjlace in Devonport Street, Hyde
Park (iardens, on the 17th of February, 1847.
George Henry Harlow, who was born in London in 17S7, studied successively under
A.I). i8io.] THE XORWICH SCHOOL. 429
De Cort, Driiminond, and Sir Thomas Lawrence, who it is said dismissed him from his
studio. Harlow then maintained himself by painting the portraits of the i)rincii)al
actors and actresses of the day, Miss Stevens, Mathews, and the Kembles, whom he
painted in a Himily t^roiip under the title of the Trial of Qmcn Catlwrinc. In 1S05,
he exhibited at the Royal Academy for the t'lrst time, and continued to do so until his
death in London in 18 19.
Patrick Nasmyth — the son of Alexander Xasmyth, a Scotch landscape painter of no
great note — was born at Fxlinburgh in 17S7. He went to London in 1S07, and soon
became popular as a landscajjc painter. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in
1809. but, joining the Society of British Artists in 1824, he sent more of his pictures to
their exhibitions than to the Royal Academy. This painter — who was deaf through
an illness, and left-handed by necessity, having lost the use of his right hand by acci-
dent — died in London in 1831. Nasmyth, who loved to represent his native scenery,
like Crome, studied the manner of the Dutch masters, but unlike that artist, he aimed
more at detail than general eftect, a grave error in a landscaj)e painter. Two of his
works are in the National (lallery — ^a Cc/A/^f', formerly in Hyde Park, and \\\t Aih^lcrs
Nook. Three are in tlie South Kensington Museum : a Landscape with an Oak —
Nasmyth's f^ivourite tree — believed to be the one that w^as planted in Penshurst Park
on the birth of Sir Philip Sidney in 1554; a Cotlai^c by a Brook: and a Landscape
7i.<itli a Haystack.
John Martin, one of the few English artists who have achieved a great position
indepenilenily of the Royal Academy — was born in 1789 near Hexham, in Northum-
l)erland. He determined from the first to be an artist, but the only opening for him in
his own county was in a coachmaker's office, in Newcastle, where he was apprenticed
with a view to learning heraldic painting. He remained there but one year, ami then
became the jiupil of Boniface Musso, an Italian teacher of some note, and accompanied
him to London shortly afterwards.
In 1806, Martin had made so much progress as to be able to support himself by
painting on glass and china, and by teaching. His first picture, Sadak in search of the
■ii'atcrs of oblivion., was sold for fifty guineas, and was succeeded by Paradise, and the
E.xpulsion from Paradise, all of which gave consitlerable promise of the grand imagina-
tive power which subsequendy characterized everything from his hand. Martin married
at nineteen, and disappointed all j)roi)hecies of consequent ruin by rapidly climbing to
the very summit of his profession, producing in rapid succession such world-famous
works as Be/shazzars Peasf, the Fa/l of Bain Ion, the Destruction of Herculaneum. the
StTcnth Plaj^t/e, and the Creation. His twenty-four illustrations of ' Paradise Lost'
were scarcely less successful. He died at Douglas in the Isle of Man on the 17th
of February, 1S54, leaving in his studio several important unfinished pictures.
rilK NORWICH SCHOOL.
Joim Crome, commonly known as '' Old Crome," the i)rincipal painter of the Norwich
School, was born at Norwich in 1769. He was apjjrenticed to a house and sign
jiainter, antl while he remained witii his master he emi>ioycd his leisure time in jxiinting
the views around his native city. On the completion of his apprenticeship, Crome
iletermined to be an artist, anil in onler to gain sulficient money to enable him to carry
430 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. i8io.
on his profession in comfort, he gave instruction in drawing and painting. Though he
travelled both in England and on the Continent, Crome delighted most in representing
his native scenery. He exhibited but fourteen works— all landscapes, with the
exception of a Blacksmith's Shop—zX the Royal Academy, but if the number of
his pictures which appeared in London during his life is comparatively small, Norwich
has no cause for complaint, for on the walls of the ' Norwich Society of Artists,' of
which he was the founder, he exhibited no less than one hundred and ninety-six pictures.
He died at Norwich on the 22nd of April, 1821. Many of his best works have been
recently shown at the Winter Exhibition of the Royal Academy.
The National Gallery possesses three of his pictures, all views near Norwich :
Mousehold Heath — one of his best works ; a View of Chapel- Fields, and a Windmill on
a Heath, probably Mousehold. " Crome seems to have founded his art on Hobbema,
Ruysdael, and the Dutch School, rather than on the French and Italian painters ;
except so far as these were represented by our countryman Wilson, whose works he
copied, and whose influence is seen mingled with the more naturalistic treatment
derived from the Dutch masters. He had less finesse of execution, and paid less
attention to details than the Dutchmen, and had a fine sense of generaUzed imitation."
(Redgrave's ' Century of Painters.')
We may here notice his elder son, John Bernay Crome, who was born at Norwich
towards the close of the eighteenth century. He painted in the same style as his father,
but in a much inferior manner. He occasionally exhibited in the Royal Academy,
London. He died in 1842 at Yarmouth, where he had resided some time previously.
James Stark, who, next to Crome, is the best painter of the Norwich School, was
born in that city in 1794. At the age of seventeen, he was placed with " Old Crome "
to learn painting. He remained with that master for three years, and derived much
benefit from his instruction. In 18 12 he was elected a member of the Norwich
Society of Artists. Soon after leaving Crome, Stark went to London, and, in 181 7,
entered the Royal Academy schools. Then appeared several of his best works. Boys
Bathing, Flounder Fishing, Lambeth, looking towards Westminster Bridge, and others.
Stark was obliged through illness to leave London, and repair for rest and quiet to his
native city. In 1827 he commenced, and 1834 finished his illustrations for the
' Scenery of the Rivers Yare and Waveney, Norfolk,' which were engraved by Goodall,
the Cookes, and other eminent artists. This work, though it has since made his name
famous, added little to the artist's pocket. In 1830, Stark was sufficiently recovered to
resume his labours in London; but ten years later he went to Windsor, in order to be
near the beautiful scenery of the Thames. Returning to London, Stark died there in
1859. He was a contributor to the Water-colour Society, the British Institution and
the Royal Academy. Stark is a worthy disciple of his master, Crome, but lacks his
vigour both in colour and drawing.
George Vincent, who was born at Norwich towards the close of the eighteenth cen-
tury, studied his art under Crome. From 181 1 till he settled in London in 1818, he
sent pictures to the Norwich Exhibition ; and from 18 14 till 1823, he was anoccasional
exhibitor at the Royal Academy. His pictures were chiefly views near Norwich.
He was also an exhibitor at the British Institution and the Water-colour Society.
His masterpiece is a View of Greenwich Hospital, seen from the river. It was painted
on commission for Mr. Carpenter of the British Museum, and was exhibited in the
International Exhibition of 1862. Vincent was especially fond of sun-light efiects on
A.D. iSio.] HAYTER. 43'
clouds in his pictures. He is supposed to have died in London, but neither the place
nor tlic ilate of his death has been ascerUiined.
John Sell Cotman, who was born at Nonvich in 1782, was in a great measure his
own instructor in art, though he owed much to the kind patronage of Dr. Munro. In
1800 he came to London where he resided, and exhibited at the Royal Academy until
1806, when he returned to Norwich. In the following year he was made a member
and secretary to the Norwich Society of Artists, and in one single year, 1808. he sent
no less than sixty-seven works to the exhibition. After various journeys in Normandy,
and a residence of some years in Yarmouth, Cotman was, in 1834, appointed
Professor of 1 )rawing to King's College School. He held this post until his death
which occurred in London in 1842. Besides his landscapes, and marine pieces in
oil and water-colour, he executed numerous engravings of architecture both of
England and of Normandy.
With this painter we close our account of the Norwich School, for, owing chiefly to
the want of appreciation and patronage of art in Norfolk, the school which had risen
so (|ui(kly (lied out almost as soon.
John Watson Gordon was born in Edinburgh in 1790, and learnt the nidiments of
his art in the " Academy of Trustees for the Encouragement of Manuf'icture," then
presided over by John Graham; he at first intended to be an historical painter,
but soon discovered that portraiture was his true line, and his likenesses of Sir
Walter Scott, Dr. Chalmers, Dr. Forbes, the Prince of Wales, and other celebrities are
by some critics considered worthy to rank with the works of Velasquez and Vandyck.
In 1841 Gordon was elected an .Associate of the Royal Academy, and in 1850
President of the Royal Scottish Academy. In the same year he was appointed
" Limner" to her Majesty for Scotland and was knighted, and in 1851 became a Royal
Academician. He died on the ist of June, 1864, in his seventy-fourth year.
George Hayter, the son of a drawing-master, author of the well-known ' Intro-
duction to Perspective,' was born in 1792. Young Hayter began life as a sailor,
but sopn deserted his profession to practise miniature painting, rapidly achieving so
much success as to be appointed, in 1815, painter to the Princess Charlotte. \ brief
visit to Rome, somewhat later, led to his adopting a more ambitious branch of art, but
his large pictures, such as the Trial of Queen Charlotte, are of inferior merit. Before
his death, which took place in 187 1, at the age of seventy-eight, Hayter received
knighthood, and was appointed Principal Painter-in-Ordinary to her Majesty. His
Coronation of Queen Victoria is his most celebrated work.
Henry Perronet Briggs, who was bom at Walworth in 1792, entered the Royal
Academy schools in London in 181 1. He first exhibited in 1814; the work was a
portrait, but for many years Briggs painted chiefly historic subjects. Of these we
may notice Othello relatin,i^ his adventures ; and the First Conference betic<een the
S/>anianls ami the Peruvians, painted in 1826, and fuliet and her Nurse, painted in
1827, now in the National Gallery. Briggs was elected an .Associate of the Royal
Academy in 1825, and a full member in 1832. Henceforth his talent was so much
in demand for portraiture, that he, against his own wishes, abandoned historic
painting in favour of that branch of art. He died in London in 1844.
432 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. i8io.
Francis Danby, the historical and landscape painter, whose works greatly resemble
Martin's in poetry of design, was born in the county of Wexford, on the i6th of
November, 1793. He learnt the first principles of his art of an Irishman, named
O'Connor, in Dublin, where in 181 2 his earliest picture, a landscape, called Evening,
was exhibited. In 1813, master and pupil set off together to seek their fortunes in
London, but their funds becoming exhausted before they reached the metropolis, they
stopped at Bristol. There Danby managed to sell some drawings, and v^ith the proceeds
paid O'Connor's expenses to Dublin ; but he himself remained in Bristol, and for a few
years supported himself by giving lessons in water-colour painting, now and then
sending up an original picture to the Academy, such as the now well-known Dis-
appointed Love, Clearing up of a Shower, Sunset after a Storm at Sea. His Upas, or
Poison-tree of fava, — now in the Soutli Kensington Museum — first appeared at the
British Institution in 1820. In 1825, \\\^ Delivery of the Israelites on t of Egypt having
won him the honour of election as an Associate of the Royal Academy, he went to
live in London ; he remained there until 1829, producing the yet finer works of the
Opening of the Sixth Seal and other mystical subjects from Revelations. In 1830, a
quarrel with the Royal Academy drove him from England, and for the next eleven
years he lived in Switzerland, giving up his time to boat-building, yachting, and the
painting of pictures on commission. Two works only appeared at the annual London
exhibitions during this long interim, the Golden Age, and Rich and rare were the gems
she wore. In 1841, he returned to England, took up his residence at Lewisham, and
began to paint large subjects for exhibition at the British Institution or the Royal
Academy, with all his old enthusiasm. His Evening Gun, with the sacred pictures
already alluded to, are considered his finest works. He died at Exmouth in 1861.
Charles Lock Eastlake, the son of a solicitor, was born at Plymouth on the 17 th of
November, 1793. Unlike most artists, who have generally had to fight their way up
the ladder of success by their own unaided efforts, all was made easy for Eastlake from
the beginning. He had a good education, first at the Plympton Grammar School;
then in London at the Charterhouse ; and when, at the age of seventeen, he expressed a
wish to become a painter, he was placed under the instruction of Haydon, and entered
as a student at the Royal Academy.
In 1 8 13 he exhibited his first picture, Christ 7-aising the datighter of the Ruler of
the Synagogue; in the following year he went to Paris to copy some of the masterpieces
collected there by Napoleon, and on his return to England in 18 15, he practised
portrait-painting at Plymouth for a short time with considerable success. In 18 19, he
started on an art tour in Italy, and pursued his studies in that country, chiefly at Rome
and Ferrara ; and for fourteen years sent home numerous fine works, which led to his
election as an Associate of the Academy in 1827, and as a Royal Academician in 1830.
At the latter date he reluctantly returned to England, and during the succeeding years
devoted himself entirely to painting; producing his Greek Fugitives, Christ blessing
little Childi-en, Christ lamentifig over Jerusalem, and odier works. In 1842 he edited
the Italian part of Kugler's ' Handbook of Painting,' and soon after published his own
' Materials for a History of Oil-painting.' He held the oiifices of Librarian of the Royal
Academy, and Keeper of the National Gallery. In 1850, he was elected President of
the Royal Academy, and at the same time received the honour of knighthood.
From that date Sir Charles Easdake's time Avas almost entirely occupied in the
onerous task of selecting pictures for purchase by the British Government; and he
A.D. iSio.] CLARKSON STA y FIELD. 433
rarely exhibited anything of his own. In the year 1S65 he started on his annual tour
for collectini,' exam|)les of continental art for the National Gallery, was taken ill at
Pisa, and died there on the 241I1 uf DercMnbcr. His body vvas rcniovci! to Mn^iand
and interred in the Kensal Clreen cemetery.
Sir Charles Eastlake, who is as well known for his contrihuiions to art literature as
by his pictures, was an honorary D.C.I-, of Oxford, a Fellow of the Royal Society, a
Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, and a member of several foreign Academies.
William Clarkson Stanfield, the celebrated marine painter, was born at Sunderland,
of Irish parents, in 1794. He began life as a sailor, but even on board ship he
l)ractised drawing by sketching the vessels as they passed. A severe fall, just as Clarkson
was making his way in the navy, led to his discharge. On his recovery he engaged
himself to the manager of the Old Royalty Theatre as a scene-painter ; and a little later
we find him in the more ambitious position of painter to Drury I^ane Theatre. In
1 813 Stanfield became a member of the Society of Hritish .\rtists, founded in that year,
and in 1827 his first large picture on canvas. Wreckers off .Fort Jiou^i^t; was exhibited at
the British Institution. The same year a Calm appeared at the Royal Academy, and
from that date his progress was rapid. His naval battles, views of foreign seaports,
mountain and river scenery, characterized by a faithfulness to nature under all its
varied aspects, have been seldom surpassed.
In 1S32 Stanfield became an Associate of tlie Royal Academy, and in 1835 a full
member. He died at Hampstead on the i8th of May, 1867, having exhibited one
hundred and thirty-two pictures in the Academy alone. The Winter Exhibition of
1870 included forty-five of his most important works.
Among his best pictures we may name the Battle of Tnifali:;ar, now in the National
Gallery ; the Victory, with the body of Nelson on board, towed into Gibraltar ; British
Troops taking possession of the Heights of San Bartolommeo ; the Abatiiioned :
Jlomervard Bound : Castello (flsc/iia ; and /sola Bella, Laj:^o A/a^iX'o^'''-
Charles Robert Leslie — the celebrated illustrator of Shakespeare, Cervantes, Le
Sage, Moli^re, Addison, Sterne, and other great authors — was born in Clerkenwell on
the nth of October, 1794, of English parents, and when five years of age was taken
by them to America. He was apprenticed to a bookseller, and during this time
drew at the theatre a Portrait of Cooke, the English tragedian, which so much excited
the admiration of his master, and other influential persons, that a subscription was set
on foot to enable him to obtain an art education in London, and he arrived there in
i8ii, provided with excellent letters of introduction. He was cordially welcomed by
West, Allston, and other American artists, and in 18 13 was admitted a student of the
Academy, and gained two silver medals soon after his entrance. Erom that time his
jirogress was rapid. His first oil-paintings, the Murder Scetu from Macbeth, and Sir
Koi^er de Coverley goin^^ to Church, revealed his special vocation, and were rapidly
followed by other similar subjects. In 1821 he was elected an Associate of the
Academy, and in 1826 was admitted to full membership. During the succeeding
years his finest works— including the Merry Wives of Windsor, the Taming of the
Skre^v, Vind Uncle Toby and the Wido7i> Wadman — were j reduced. In 1833 Leslie
accepted an appointment at the Ameri<an Academy of \^'est Point, but he threw it up
in the following year, returned to England, and from that time till his death he lived
and worked in London. In the years 1847 to 1852 Leslie was Professor of Painting
at the .Xcailemy, an<l produced — in addition to his lectures in that capacity, published
3 »^
434 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1820.
in 1845, under the title of 'A Handbook for Young Painters,' — a valuable biography
of his fellow-artist, Constable. Leslie died at London in 1859. His works are chiefly
remarkable for dramatic power and delicate humour. Twenty-four of his best pictures
are in the South Kensington Museum.
Gilbert Stuart Newton, one of the group of American artists who became so entirely
naturalised in England as to be justly claimed as members of our modern school — was
born at Halifax, Nova Scotia^ on the 2nd of September, 1795, and took his earliest lessons
in art from his uncle Gilbert Stuart, who held a good position as portrait painter in
Boston. In 181 7 young Newton left America to travel on the Continent, and after
visitino- Italy went to Paris, where he formed a friendship with his fellow-countryman
Leslie and with him came to London. At once admitted a student at the Royal
Academy, he made rapid progress, exhibited a small head of great beauty, called The
Forsaken, with two other fine works. Lovers' Qiia7'reis and the Importimate Author, at
the British Institution in 182 1, and in 1823 began to contribute to the Royal Academy.
The Do7i Quixote in his Study, and Captain Macheath upbraided by Polly and Lucy, were
much admired, but were thrown into the shade by his Vicar of Wakefield reco7iciling his
Wife to Olivia, exhibited in 1828, and which led to his election as an Associate of the
Royal Academy. This was succeeded by the yet more striking Yorick and the Grisette,
Cordelia and the Physician, and Portia and Bassanio, and other similar works.
In 1832 Newton was elected a full member of the Academy, and the same year he
paid a visit to his native land, where he married, and returned to England a i^w months
later. All now looked bright and promising enough, but in 1833 appeared the first
symptoms of the terrible malady which darkened the remainder of his life. He began
to show signs of mental aberration, exhibited but one more picture, Abclard in his Study,
and soon became totally insane. He died at Chelsea of rapid consumption on the
5th of August, 1835, and was buried in Wimbledon churchyard.
John Frederick Herring, the celebrated animal painter, was born in Surrey in 1795.
His father was an American of Dutch descent. Till he was eighteen years of age young
Herring spent his life in London. He then determined to make a start in life for himself,
and went to Doncaster, where he became first an apprentice to a coach painter,
and subsequently a driver of stage-coaches. He studied art at odd times, and became
known as the " artist coachman/' but it was not till some years after that he was induced
to abandon the reins for the brush. He studied for a short time under Abraham
Cooper, and soon obtained numerous commissions to paint horses for country gentle-
men, and his name as an animal painter became firmly established. For thirty-three
years in succession he painted the winners of the St. Leger Race at Doncaster, all of
which have been engraved. Besides numerous other commissions Herring was
honoured by commands from royalty, and painted portraits of horses both for
George IV. and Queen Victoria.
Herring left Doncaster in 1830, and, after a short residence at Newmarket, returned
to London. From this time he took to a higher branch of art and produced rural
scenes, but still the horse and dog were the prominent features in these paintings. His
later works were exhibited chiefly at the British Institution and at the Society of British
Artists, of which he was elected a member in the year 1841 ; his name also for many
years appeared in the catalogues of the Royal Academy Exhibitions. Amongst the
most popular of his latter style are : — the Feny, Mazeppa, Three Members of the
Tetuperancc Society, and the Frugal Meal, which now hangs in the National Gallery.
A.D. I820.1 DAVID ROBERTS. 435
This excellent and almost entirely self-taught animal painter, after a long course of
success, died at his residence, Meopham Park, near Tunbridge, in September, 1865.
David Roberts— the landscape and architectural painter, whose richly coloured
interiors of continental cathedrals are so widely known and so justly pojiular— was
born at Stockbridge, near Edinburgh, on the 2nd of October, 1796. He began life as a
house decorator, and some time after became a scene-i)ainter to a company of strolling
players, which led to his obtaining an engagement at Drury Lane Theatre in 1822.
His first pictures on canvas were exhibited in Edinburgh, and sold for very low prices ;
but in 1824 he joined the Society of British Artists, and his views, exhibited on the
walls of their gallery in Suftblk Street, brought him into general notice. In 1826 his
Rouen CiUhalral appeared at the Royal Academy. In 1828-29 he worked with Stan-
field for the " British Diorama," and in 1S30 he made excursions in France and
Germany, with a view to extending his range of subjects.
In 1832-33 Roberts wandered about Spain, and to this latter trip wc uwc some of
his most valuable productions, including his large view of Burt^os Ciit/utinj/ and the
well-known series of " Picturesque Sketches in Spain." After his return to England he
started, in 1838, on a most important art tour in Egypt and Syria, resultmg in the pro-
duction in 1 84 1 of his Ruins of Biwlbcc ; in 1843 of his Gate of Cairo ; in 1845 of his
Jerusalem from the South- East, the Mount of Olives ; and between 1842-49 of his well-
known publication called ' Roberts's Sketches in the Holy Land, Syria, and Egypt."
He was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy during his absence in the
East in 1838, and a full meinber in 1841. He died suddenly of apoplexy in London
on the 25th of November, 1S64. Two of his pictures are in the Vernon Collection at
the National ("■allery.
Frederick Yeates Hurlstone was born in London in 1 800. and b-gan life in the
office of the Morning Chronicle, but soon manifesting great talent for art. he was placed
first under the tuition of Sir \\'illiam Reechey, and then of Sir Thomas Lawrence. He
is also supposed to have taken lessons of Haydon. In 1820 he became a student at
the Royal Academy, and after carrying otif several of the medals of that Society, and
producing some very fine portraits, he went to Italy, and thence to Spain and Morocco,
perfecting his style by the study alike of nature and of the old masters. His Prisoner
of Chillon, a Scene in St. Peters, Rome, the Enchanted Garden of Armida. the Sms of
Jacob bringing the blood-stained garment of Joseph to their Father, and Italian Boys
playing at the national game of Mora, are among his best works. Hurlstone died
on the loth of June, 1869. He was President of the Society of British .\rtists for
nearly thirty years.
James Baker Pyne was born at Bristol in iSoo. and began life in the office of a
solicitor; soon, however, leaving it to study art ami earn a scanty subsistence by
painting, teaching, and restoring pictures. In 1835 he went to London, and in 1836
a painting by him was accepted by the Royal Academy. This was the beginning of
a long period of success. One patron sjjrang up after another, and in 1846 Pyne
was able to realise the dream of every art student in a visit to Italy. This resulted in
the formation of his style, the main characteristic of which was the almost Turner-like
treatment of sunlight, and the love of exi)ansive <listances. He became a land.scape
l)ainter of the very first rank, and one of the ablest of the numerous exponents of
English lake-scenery. He ilietl on the 29th of July. 1870. in his seventieth year.
Richaid Parkes Bonington, the landscape painter, was born at Arnold, near
436 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1820.
Nottingham, in 180T. When quite a child he was taken by his father, a portrait
painter, to Paris, and was permitted to study in the Louvre and enter as a student in
the Ecole des Beaux-Arts ; he was also an occasional student of Baron Gros. In 1822
Bonington paid a visit to Italy, and then returned to England ; he did not remain
long, but returned to Paris, where, while sketching, he caught a sun-stroke which caused
brain-fever, from which he never recovered; he died soon after in London, in 1828,
at the early age of twenty-seven.
Bonington is another sad example of genius cut off in its bloom, for the few works
which he painted showed extraordinary talent. He excelled alike in landscape,
marine, and figure subjects. At the British Institution he exhibited amongst others, in
1826, two Views on the French Coast, which were much admired, and the Column of
St. Mark, Venice, now in the National Gallery. To the Royal Academy he sent
but four pictures, Henri III. of France, the Grand Canal, Venice, both painted in
1828, and two Coast Scenes.
Edwin Henry Landseer, the celebrated animal painter— one of the few English artists
who have rivalled the realistic Dutch masters of the seventeenth century in the rendering
of textures such as fur and feathers, and whose forcible and dramatic scenes
from the animal creation have done more to promote sympathy with our " dumb
friends " than the efforts of any society yet founded — was the son of John Landseer,
the engraver, and was born in London on the 7th of March, 1802. His talent was
recognised at a very early age, and lessons in art were given to him by his father
on Hampstead Heath and the adjoining fields, where he spent hours in sketching
horses, donkeys, and dogs, from the life. When still a mere boy he received a prize
from the Society of Arts for a drawing of a Horse for Hwiting, and he was only
fourteen when he became a student at the Royal Academy and exhibited the heads of
a Pointer Bitch and Puppy. At seventeen his Dogs Fighting brought him into general
notice, and from that time his success was rapid and almost unprecedented. In 1826
he was elected an Associate, and in 1831 a full member of the Royal Academy; and
in 1850 he was knighted. His most celebrated early works were, Alpine Mastiffs
rescuing a Distressed Traveller, tlie Larder Invaded, and the Cafs Paiu ; but their
popularity was nothing to that of Chevy Chase, a Jack in Office, the Hunted Stag, the
Pets, and Bolton Abbey in the Olden Time, produced between 1825 and 1834 ; and when
these were succeeded by the Old Shepherd's Chief Mourner,— or\Q of the most pathetic
poems on canvas ever painted ; Tethered Rains, the Highland Shepherd's Home, There's
Life in the Old Dog yet, the public enthusiasm knew no bounds. Admitted into the
highest society. Sir Edwin Landseer became the constant and honoured guest of the
royal family; but at the very zenith of his prosperity (185 1 and 1852) his life was
clouded by a nervous illness which compelled him to retire into complete privacy.
From this he rallied, though his powers were slightly impaired, but in 1868 a railway
accident brought on a serious relapse, and he died in 1873, after three years of great
suffering. He was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral.
In the Winter Exhibition of the Royal Academy in 1874, no less than 461 works
of Sir Edwin Landseer were shown to a delighted public.
George Lance, the most distinguished English painter of fruit, flowers, and still-life,
— the Van Huysum of England — was born at Little Easton, near Dunmow in Essex, in
1802. When he was still young, his fother removed to London, and young Lance
after a short time spent in a manuflictory, engaged himself to Haydon, with whom
A.D. 1 82 5.] SIR EDWIN LAND SEER.
437
he remained seven years, and during that time attended as a student the schools of
the Royal Academy. In 1828 Lance first became an exhibitor, with a picture
entitled Dead Game. From this time he continued to send works to the Academy
until 1862, his picture for that year being a Gham ofSumhiue. Altogether he exhibited
thirty-eight pictures, the most noteworthy of which are Red Cap, now in the National
(jallery, and the Vilhi^^e Coquette,
Although Lance excelled chiefly in producing subjects of still-life, there is evidence
to show that had he followed the footsteps of his master, he would have doubtless
attained equal success as a jiainter of historical subjects; for in 1836 he jjainted, in
competition for the prize offered by the Council of the Liverpool Academy for the
best historical picture of the season, Melancthons first Misgivings of the Church of
Rome, which obtained the award. One of this artist's most noted works, combining
both figure and fruit, is the Seneschal, painted for Sir S. Morton Peto, to decorate his
countr}' residence at Somerleyton.
Suffering from ill-health. Lance went on a visit to his son, at Sunnyside, on the
banks of the Mersey, near Birkenhead, in the hope of regaining his strength, but he
.i,^railually sank, and died on the iSth of June, 1864.
Robert Scott Lauder was born near Edinburgh in 1S02, and owed his art-education
to David Roberts and Sir Walter Scott, the former having been the first to recognise
his talent, and the latter to procure him regular instruction in the now famous 'I'nistees'
Academy, of Edinburgh. Five years in that institution were succeeded by three of study
ill the British Museum, and returning in 1820 to his native city, Lauder became a
Member of the Scottish Academy, and the able assistant of Sir William Allan at the
school in which he had long been himself a pupil. Then followed a short visit to
Italy, and a long residence in London, marked by the production of some of his very .
finest works, such as Ruth, the Bride of Lainmcrmoor, the Trial of Effie Deans, the
Glee Maiden, Christ teaching Humility, and Christ 7i'alhing on the IVaTrs, all character-
ized by forcible drawing and skill of design ; and the two last-named recalling the old
masters in the severe beauty and more than mortal sadness of the face of our Saviour.
Lauder died in Edinburgh on the 21st of April, 1869.
John Frederick Lewis was born in London in 1S05. He was tlie son of an
engraver and landscape painter, who instructed him in both arts, but young Lewis,
when about fifteen years of age, abaniloned engraving in favour of i)ainting. In 1820,
his first work appeared, at the British Institution ; and in the following year, he
became an exhibitor at the Royal Academy. In 1828 he was elected a member of the
Water-colour Society. About this time he commenced a series of travels, which,
lasting through a greater part of his life, furnished him with subjects for many of his
l)cst pictures. He went through the Tyrol to Italy, thence in 1833 to Spain where he
remained two years, and made, besides original sketches and drawings, water-colour
copies of many masterpieces of foreign painters. Sixty-four of these copies were
afterwards purchased by the Royal Scottish Academy as studies for young artists.
.\fter three years residence in England, Lewis went again in 1838, to Italy, thence
in 1S43 to Cairo, and journeyed about Egypt and Asia Minor till 185 1, in which
ycAr he returned to England, where he settletl for the rest of his life. Then
appeared many of his best pictures — executeil from sketches made abroad. In 1856,
he was elected President of the Water-colour Society (which post he subseipiently
resigned), and exhibited his maslerjiiecc, a Eranl: Encampment in the Desert of Mount
438 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY 01 PAINTERS [a.d. 1830.
5///^/, which had occupied him for several years. In 1854, Lewis returned to the
Royal Academy. In 1855 appeared an Armenian Lady ; in 1856 he sent the Greeting
in the Desert ; in 1857, a Syrian Sheik; and in 1858, an Inmate in theHarem; a Kibbob
Shop, and three others. In the next year Lewis was elected an Associate and exhibited
Waiting for the Eerry-boat. In 1865, he was elected a full member, and continued to
exhibit even up to the time of his death. His last works, Mid-day meal, Cairo, a Cairo
Bazaar, and On the banks of the Nile, Upper Egypt, all show that his love for Eastern
subjects was never diminished. Lewis died on the 15th of August, 1876, seventy-one
years of age, at Walton-on-Thames, where he had resided for many years.
Lewis's folio volumes of ' Sketches and Drawings in the Alhambra,' and also his
* Sketches of Spain,' reproduced in lithography, gained him much popularity.
William Dyce, the son of a physician, was born at Aberdeen in 1806, became a
pupil at the Royal Scottish Academy, and for a short time in the Royal Academy
schools. He then went to Italy, where he studied the old masters, who produced a
life -long effect on his style. In 1827, Dyce exhibited at the Royal Academy, Bacchus
nursed by the Nynphs, and he sent home from Italy a Madonna and Child. In 1830,
he returned and settled in Edinburgh, where he rapidly rose to fame. He was elected
an Associate of the Royal Scottish Academy in 1835, and in the following year he
exhibited at the Royal Academy, London, a well-known work, the Desce?it of Venus.
He continued a constant exhibitor on the walls of the Royal Academy. About 1838,
he removed to London, and in 1844, he exhibited Xvi'i Joash shooting the Arrots.' of
Deliverance, and was in the same year elected an Associate, In 1847 appeared the
sketch of the fresco executed at Osborne House — Neptune assigning to Britanjiia the
Empire of the Sea. Dyce continued to exhibit historic works — chiefly of a biblical
nature — of great merit until 1861. Being chosen to decorate the Queen's robing-
room, he began, but did not finish the Legend of King Arthur : he painted five works
typical of Hospitality, Religion, Mercy, Generosity, and Courtesy. He died at Streatham
in 1864, and was buried in the parish church.
Horatio McCulloch, the son of a manufacturer, was born in Glasgow in 1806. He
began life as an apprentice to a house painter, but soon manifested such exceptional
talent as to attract the admiring notice of his artist contemporaries. In 1834 he had
already exhibited nine fine landscapes ; two years later he was an Associate of the
Royal Scottish Academy, and in 1838 a Fellow of that Institution ; the honour being
fairly won by a succession of exquisite views of rugged Scottish scenery, which,
instinct with power and pathos, raised their artist to the very first rank amongst the
many great landscape painters of the North. His Loch Maree, Loch Achray, and
Loch Awe, are among his finest works, but a hst of all that he produced of undeniable
excellence would fill many pages. The last years of his life were darkened by paralysis ;
the two first shocks, though they weakened his body, left his intellect unimpaired, and
he worked on at his easel ; but the third which overtook him at his seaside residence
on the south of Edinburgh proved fatal, and he died on the 24th of June, 1867.
George Harvey, who was born at St. Ninans, Fifeshire, in 1806, is well known from
the part he took in helping to establish the Royal Scottish Academy. He was at first
apprenticed to a bookseller at Stirling, but when eighteen years of age removed to
Edinburgh and commenced an art career for himself He was soon afterwards, in
1826, made an Associate of the new Royal Scottish Academy, and in 1829 he became
a full member. His popularity, in Scotland at least, was great, and in 1864 he was
A.D. 1S40.] THOMAS CRESIVICK. 439
made President of the Society Academy, and three years later received the honour of
knighthood. He died on the 22nd of January, 1876.
The works of Sir George Harvey are mostly of puritanical subjects : Covaiantcri
Communion, painted in 1840; Biinyan imagining his PiliiriMis Progress in BiJjorJ
Gaol ; and in 1836, of a less peaceful nature, the Battle of Dnimclog.
Thomas Duncan, who was born at Kinclaven, Perthshire, in 1807, studied art under
Sir William Allan. He was first brought into notice by his pictures of a Milkmaiil,
and Sir John Falstaff, exhibited in Scotland. In 1840, he sent to the Royal
Academy, the Entrance of Prina' Charlie into Edinburgh after Preston Pans. In the
following year appeared his IVaefu Heart (from ' Auld Robin Gray '), now in the
Sheepshanks Collection, in the South Kensington Museum. In 1843, Duncan was
elected an Associate of the Royal Academy, but died at Edinburgh two years later
without obtaining the diploma of membership. Besides his historic pictures, Duncan
painted several portraits of great merit.
Frank Stone, who was born at Manchester in 1800, was his own instructor in art.
When thirty-one years of age he came to London, and at first painted in water-colour,
but he finally al)antloned that method in fiivour of oil. His pictures are sometimes
portraits, sometimes scenes of domestic life, and occasionally historical pieces. In
1840 appeared the Legend of Montrose, then came the Last Appeal, painted in 1843,
and The Course of true Love never did run smooth, in the following year. Some time
after he exhibited his homely and humorous Impending Afate and Mated — all well
known by engravings. In 1851, Stone was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy,
but he died in 1859, before he was elected to the honour of full membership.
Thomas Creswick — one of the most distinguished members of the moderri English
school of landscape painting, whose works rival, in knowledge of aerial perspective an<I
mastery of colour, those of Turner himself— was born at Sheffield in 181 1. At the
age of seventeen he went to London to seek his fortune, and his jjaintings being readily
accepted both by the Society of British Artists and by the Royal Academy, he made
the capital his home, and enriched the exhibitions with scenes from AVales and
Ireland. About the year 1840, he turned his attention to the beauties of the North of
England, and produced some of his finest works — the cjuiet beauty of our inland scenery
with its broad rivers, shady glens, and romantic dells, living again on his canvas.
In 1842 Creswick was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy, and received
a premium of fifty guineas for the general excellence of his productions. In 1851 he
became a full member of the Academy, and somewhat later painted several works in
conjunction with his colleagues Frith and Ansdell, who gave life and animation to his
pictures by the introduction of figures and cattle. Creswick did in December, 1S69,
at Linden Grove, Bayswatcr, after a long career of unceasing activity, mrl w ^ buried
in Kensal Green Cemetery.
Among his most noteworthy works we may name the London Koad a hundred
years ago, the Weald of Kent, the I'alley Mill, the Blithe Brook, the I'illage Bridge,
and Across the Beck. The three examjjles of his style in our national collections, the
Pathway by the Village Church, a Scene on the Tummel, Perthshire, and a Summer's
Afternoon, are of considerable beauty, and may serve to give a general notion of the
special character of his works. He was one of the members of the well-known Etching
Club, and assisted in the production of all their best works.
Daniel Maclise, the son of a Scotch officer, was born at Cork, on the 25th of January,
440 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1840.
181 1. He was anxious to become an artist from his earliest boyhood, and at the age
of fifteen he left, against his father's will, the office of a banker to whom he had been
apprenticed, and entered the Art Academy at Cork. His first commissions were
portraits of officers of the 14th Dragoons, stationed for a time at Cork, and in 1826
the youthful aspirant for fame was able to indulge in a sketching tour in Wicklow.
In 1828 young Maclise made his way up to London, became a student at the Royal
Academy, and exhibited in 1829 his first subject picture, MalvoHo affecting the Count,
from " Twelfth Night." In i83i,he obtained, by his Choice of Hercules, the gold medal
for the best historical composition ; and in 1835 he was elected an Associate of the
Royal Academy, owing chiefly to his well-known Chivalric Voiv of the Ladies ami the
Peacock, which immediately succeeded Snap-apple Night, and the Installation of
Captain Rock,\iO\h.^CdXct\y\&%% popular. Between 1835 and 1840 were produced some
of his finest and most ambitious works — large compositions, crowded with figures and
remarkable for beauty of drawing and design — of which we may name, among the most
remarkable, Macbeth and the Witches, Olivia and Sophia fitting out Afoscs for the Fair,
the Banquet Scene i?i Macbeth, the Ordeal by Touch, and Robin Hood and Richard Cxur
de Lion. In 1840 Maclise was made a Royal Academician. The latter years of his
life were devoted to the celebrated frescoes in the Houses of Parliament, the
Meeting of Welliiigton and Bliicher, and the Death of Nelson. Under the name of
" Alfred Croquis " Maclise produced a remarkable series of portraits of public
men, which appeared in ' Eraser's Magazine ' ; the original drawings have been
bequeathed to the South Kensington Museum by the late Mr. John Forster. He also
illustrated several works, including Moore's ' Irish Melodies ' and the ' Pilgrims of
the Rhine.' Maclise died on the 25th of April, 1870.
" No artist," said his friend Charles Dickens, at the next Academy dinner, " ever
went to his rest leaving a golden memory more free from dross, or having devoted
himself with a truer chivalry to the goddess whom he worshipped."
William John Miiller, the son of a German father, was born at Bristol in 181 2. He
studied landscape painting under J. B. Pyne and more especially from nature. In
1833 he started on a journey through Germany, Switzerland, and Italy, and returning
to Bath in the following year, estabhshed himself there as a landscape painter, but met
with little success. In 1838 he went to Greece and Egypt, and returning to England
in the following year, after a short sojourn in his native place, settled in London.
In 1 841, Miiller again started on his travels when he accompanied Sir Charles Eellowes
to Lycia. Erom the sketches he made on this journey, Miiller painted several of his
best works : the Burial-ground, Smyrna, exhibited in the Academy in 1844; Land-
scape with two Lycian Peasants — engraved by Cousins, and now in the National
Gallery — and others, exhibited at the Royal Academy and British Institution. Miiller
died in 1845 at Bristol, whither he had retired on perceiving signs of declining health.
Immediately after his death, his works were in great request, and both his paintings
in oil and his sketches in water-colour fetch large sums whenever oftered for sale.
Charles Lucy was born at Hereford in 1814, and began hfe as an apprentice to
a chemist in that town, but soon threw aside the pestle for the palette, and went to
Paris to study art. He first came into notice in London at the time of the keen
competition for the commission to decorate the Houses of Parliament ; exhibiting a
cartoon called Caractacus and his family before the Emperor Claudius wliicii may be
looked upon as a kind of introduction to a long series of historical works, such as the
A.D. 1840.] jony riiiLLw. 441
Parfin^^ of Charles I. n>ith his Children, the Parting of Lord and Lady Russell, Bona-
parte in discussion 7vith the Savants, exhibited from time to time at the Academy. Lucy
died in 1873, leaving behintl him a great reputation alike in Europe and America.
Augustus Leopold Egg, the son of a celebrated gunmaker, was born in London in
1816. He took liis first lessons in drawing of Carey, in Charlotte Street, lUooms-
bury, anil entered the Royal .\cadeniy as a stutlent in 1835. His first works were
Italian views and illustrations of Scott's novels, but they attracted little notice. These
were followed by the Victim, exhibited at Liverpool, which gave promise of great future
excellence, and was so well received that its artist sent other similar subjects to the SutVolk
Street Gallery. Their success encouraged him yet further, and in 1838 he first exhibited
at the Royal Academy ; ])roducing at intervals his Spanish Girl, Sir Piercie Shafton,
Buckini^ham rebuffed. His Lucretio and Bianca, in 1847 gained him his election in the
following year as an Associate of the Royal Academy. In 1850 he painted Peter the
Great sees Catherine his future Empress for the first time, succeeded by the Life ixnA
Death of Buckingham, the Xii^ht before Xaseby, anil Catherine and ]\truchio, — all
manifesting great imagination and skill combined with a melancholy peculiarly their own.
In i860 Kgg became a full member of the Royal Acidemy, but his health was
declining rapidly, and three years later he died at Algiers, whither he had retired by
medical advice. He was buried on a lonely hill near Algiers, away from his family
and friends. The only work by him in our national collection i^ < c, ,.„.. from J.e
Diable Boiteux, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1844.
John Phillip, one of the best colourists of the English School, who was bom at
Abertieen in 181 7, pursued the study of art under difficulties. In his youth he had no
real instructor. When seventeen years old, his desire to see the works in the Royal
Academy brought him to London, where he remained but six days, seeing all that was
possible in so short a time. Soon after his return to Scotland he produced a painting,
which was shown to Lord Panniure, and thus secured for him the patronage of that
nobleman who, in 1836, sent him to London. In 1837, Phillip entereil the Royal
Academy schools as a student. He first exhibited in 1838, when he sent only portraits.
In 1840, the year of his return to Aberdeen, he sent his Tasso in disi:;uise relating his
persecutions to his sister, which was his first attempt at historical painting. His visit
to Scotland was but a short one, for he was in London again in 1841 ; but we do not
find him as an exhibitor at the Royal Academy until 1847, when appeared the
Catechism. Phillip continued for some years to exhibit works of Scotch home life, as
the Baptism, the Free Kirk, the Spae Wife, and others of a similar nature.
In 185 1, Phillip, owing to his ill-health, repaired to the sunny climate of Spain ; the
scenes he saw there, and the paintings of the artists of that country — more especially
of Velasquez — produced a great effect on his mind, and he sent home works of Spanish
life, executed in a Spanish style, which gained him from English critics well-merited
praise, and the sobriquet of " Phillip of Sj)ain." In 1853 ajipeared at the Royal
Academy a Visit to the Gipsy Quarters, in 1854 the Letter loriter of Scrille, in 1S55
El Paseo, and in the next year Phillip returned to England, and continued to exhibit
Spanish scenes, as well as subjects of Hritish life. In 1S57, the date of his election
as Associate of the Academy, appeared the JVison K'indo-w in Seiille. In 1859 he
became a full member ; and in the following year painted, by command of the Queen,
the Marriage of the Princess A'oyal, which was engraved by Auguste Pilanchard. In 1864
appeared La Gloria, one of his most celebrated works. Phillip died in 1867, and
3 L
442 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1850.
was buried at Kensal Green. His pictures combine correctness of drawing with a
beauty of colouring which is seldom met with even in the works of our best painters.
George Hemming Mason was born at Witley in Staffordshire, in 181 8, and had
many difficulties to contend with at the beginning of his career. His father
refused his consent to his son's becoming a painter, and placed him with Dr.
Watts, of Birmingham, to study medicine. For a time young Mason submitted
to the drudgery of mixing drugs, but a portrait painter having come to his master's
house to take the likeness of one of the family, the apprentice borrowed his colour-
box, and by his own unaided efforts produced a picture of such great merit that
the portrait painter urged him to adopt art as his profession. This first ray of
encouragement so inspirited Mason that he deserted his employer, found his way to
Italy, and unassisted by any lessons, worked out an original style of his own, chiefly
characterized by simplicity of design, refinement of colour, delicacy of chiaroscuro and
pathetic expression. His best works are the Caiupagna di Roma, the Gander, the
Return from Ploughing, the Cast Shoe, and above all the Evening IIyjn7i, Girls
Dancing, and Blackberry Gathering. The unfinished Harvest Moon, exhibited at the
Academy in the year of his death, 1872, is also very beautiful. Mason died of heart
disease, after many years of suffering, at the early age of fifty-four. He was elected an
Associate of the Academy in 1868, but did not live to become a full member.
Douglas Cowper was born at Gibraltar on the 30th of May, 1817. When seventeen
years of age he won from his parents — who were unwilling to allow him to become a
painter^a reluctant consent to his leaving home, and made his way to London,
obtained admission to the Royal Academy schools, and soon carried off the silver
medal for the best copy in painting of the subject of the year. His first exhibited
works, produced when only twenty years of age, were a portrait and the Last Intervietv,
followed in 1838 by Shylock, Antonio and Bassanio, and in 1839 by his masterpiece,
Othello relating his Adventures. Unfortunately the great promise given in it was
destined never to be fulfilled ; he exhibited no more at the Academy, and he painted
but five more pictures, four of which he sent to the Suffolk Street Gallery. He died
at the early age of twenty- two, on the 28th of November, 1839, having lived only
just long enough to justify his own determination to be an artist, and to show the
world what great things he might have done.
George Housman Thomas was born in London in 1824, and began Hfe as an
engraver on wood in Paris. In 1845, however, he gave up the mechanical part of a
wood-engraver's profession, and accepted a situation in New York, as illustrator of a
newspaper. A few years later he was the art-correspondent of the ' Illustrated London
News,' during the siege of Rome by the French ; and in 1850 he exhibited his first oil
picture. Garibaldi at the Siege of Rome, at the Royal Academy. He then worked
again as a book-illustrator, producing several clever sets of drawings, including those
for the ' Children's History of Fngland,' and ' Uncle Tom's Cabin.' In 1856 an oil
])ainting, called a Ball at the Camf, Boulogne, was exhibited at the Royal Academy,
and attracting the notice of her Majesty, led to his receiving many commissions to
paint public ceremonials, such as the Review in the Champ dc Mars, the Parade at
Potsdam, the Queen and Prince Consort at Aldcrshot, but, though they brought their
artist a large pecuniary return, added less to his reputation than the small geiire
pictures produced later, known as Dimanche, Want of Confidence, Happy Days, the
A.D. 1850.] FREDERICK WALKER. 443
Ghost Story, the Apple Blossom, and above all the riderless steed called Masterless.
George Thomas tiled at Boulogne on the 21st of July, 1868, from an illness brought
on by a fall from his horse some years previously.
Robert Braithwaite Martineau was born in London in 1826, and educated at
University College School. \\\ 1842 he was articled to a solicitor, but after four years'
study of the law, he tlucw it aside for painting, studied drawing at an ordinary school
for two years, and then entereil the Royal Academy as a student ; carrying oft' a medal
in 1S5 I. A short term in the studio of Holman Hunt completed his art education, and
in 1852 his first work of importance. Kit's Writing Lesson, from the ' Uld Curiosity
Shop,' appeared at the Academy, succeeded by other similar illustrations from well-
known authors. It was his Last Day in the Old Home, and his Last Chapter,
which by their originality of conception and extjuisite finish raised their artist to the
zenith of fame ; but the great expectations they exciteil were never fulfilled, their
melancholy titles were almost jjrophetic, for their artist died in the very prime of life of
heart disease, on the 13th of February 1869.
Frederick Walker, one of the best of modern P^nglish subject painters, was born in
London on the 24th of May, 1840. On leaving school, he passed a short time in the
office of an architect and surveyor, and then, feeling that art was his true vocation,
entered as a student at Leigh's night classes in Newman Street. Walker also occasionally
studied in the Royal Academy schools. He first appeared as a book illustrator, for
the ' Cornhill M.vgazine,' executing the pictures for Mr. Thackeray's ' Philip and his
Adventures on his way through the World,' which received much praise. \Vhen but
twenty-four years of age Walker was elected a member of the Old Water-colour Society,
and subsequently became an Associate of the Royal Academy. He was a constant
exhibitor at both institutions for a few years. To the great regret of the art world, this
promising young artist died suddenly at St. Fildan's, Perthshire, in June 1875, Ijefore
he had reached either the prime of his life or the summit of his art. He was buried in
Cookiiam churchynrd.
Shortly after his death a collection of one hundred and fifty of Walker's best works
were exhibited together, at the French Gallery in Bond Street, where they met with
enthusiastic praise. We may especially name his Boys Bath int^ from the Banks of a
River, retouched, it is said, after its exhibition at the Academy ; the Ploiii^h, '" Man
goeth forlli to his work and to his lal)our uniil the evening," which appeared in 1870,
the Ris^ht of Way, and the OU Gate.
Of Frederick Walker a writer in the 'Art Journal' says, " .\s an artist he was
patient, conscientious, swift-sighted, imbued with an exquisite sense of beauty, and
with a marvellous perception of the fitness of things. Like Millet and Mason, and
Pinwell, his sympathies went forth to what was lowly and familiar, and his genius
sublimeil common things into the region of poetry and art .... But whatever he
touched .... he made inefiably sweet without the sacrifice of one iota of truth ; and
when the sadder mood was on him, he could become almost Greek in the tragic character
of his fiirures."
444 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1750.
PAINTERS IN WATER-COLOURS.
Although the art of painting in water-colours was known and practised by many
of the early Italian and German artists, as well as by the Flemings and Dutch, yet
the honour of having first created a School of Water-colour Painters must certainly
be given to England.
In nearly all the illuminations of missals, water-colours were used, mixed exten-
sively with body-white ; and such was the case also with the miniatures of the seven-
teenth century, in which the Englishtaen Hilliard, the Olivers, and Samuel Cooper,
greatly excelled ; but this was not water-colour art, as the term is now understood.
In the eighteenth century drawings were generally outlined with a reed pen, and then
filled in with colour as required — there are little paintings by Albrecht Diirer in the
British Museum executed precisely in this way — and this style prevailed for many
years, as we can see by the admirable illustrations of the history of water-colour art
exhibited in the South Kensington Museum. But gradually this plan was superseded
by a better method of painting, and early in the present century the works of Thomas
Girtin and J. M. W. Turner showed what much greater scope could be given to water-
colour, and what magnificent effect could be produced by it. Since then the art has
made rapid progress, and it now vies with oil-painting in brilliancy and power. The
exhibitions of the Societies of Painters in Water-colours are as crowded as those of
the Royal Academy, and water-colour drawings decorate the walls of all lovers of art
who are able to aftbrd such luxuries.
Examples of the works of nearly all the most important water-colour painters may
be seen in the gallery at South Kensington ; and Mr. Redgrave's Introduction to the
catalogue gives a complete and most interesting summary of the History of the Art.
Paul Sandby, "the father of water-colour art," was born at Nottingham in 1725,
After some years' service as surveyor to the army, he settled in 1752 at Windsor, near
which town he took the subjects of many of his landscapes. He subsequently painted
many views in Wales for Sir Joseph Banks and Sir Watkin Wynne. Sandby was
instructor in drawing to the children of George III., and was in 1768 elected one of
the original members of the Royal Academy, and in the same year was appointed
drawing-master to the Military Schools at Woolwich. He died at London in i8og.
Besides his views in water-colour and body-colour, Sandby executed numerous engrav-
ings in aquatint, a medium then scarcely knovvn in England. Examples of his
art may be seen in the South Kensington Museum.
Thomas Hearne, who was born at Brinkworth, near Malmesbury in Wiltshire,
studied for six years under Woollett, the engraver. He subsequently spent five years
in the West Indies as draughtsman to the Governor. On his return he painted
landscapes with architectural ruins, and assisted Byrne in ' The Antiquities of Great
Britain.' Hearne died in London in 181 7. His works are seen in the South Kensington
Museum and in many private galleries.
Jolm Robert Cozens, the son of Alexander Cozens, was born in 1752. He studied
art under his flither, and subsequently went to Italy with his patron Mr. Beckford, for
whom he executed numerous views of that country. Cozens died in 1799, having been
A.D. 1775.] PAINTERS IN IVA 2 £K- COLOURS. 445
insane for several years previously. He was one of the best of the early water-colour
painters, and was the forerunner of Turner and Girtin.
Thomas Rowlandson, who was born in London in 1756, painted a few portraits,
and historical jiieces, but he is chiefly known by his caricatures, which he executed
with a fine sense of humour. He died in London in 1S27. Of his works we may
mention his illustrations to the ' Dance of Deatli ' and the ' Dance of Life,' and
' Dr. Syntax in search of the Picturesiiue.' Several of his drawings are in the Dyce
Collection in the South Kensington Museum.
Joshua Cristall was born at Camborne, Cornwall, in 1767. He was first a painter
on china, hut subseijuently studied in the Royal Ac.ulemy schools, and became a
water-colour artist of great merit. He was one of the foundation members of the
Water-colour Society, and he more than once held the prcsiilentshij). Cristall died
in London in 1S47. His pictures usually consist of classic figures with landscape
backgrounds, anil genre subjects as the Young Fisher Boy anil the Fish-markit on
the Hastings Beach, both in the South Kensington Museum.
Robert Hills, who was born at Islington in 17O9, is one of the best of animal
painters in water-colour. He exhibited at intervals at the Royal Academy and at the
rooms of the Water-colour Society, of which he was one of the foundation members.
He died in London in 1844. Hills frequently worked in conjunction with other artists
— as Robson and Barret. An example of this is in the South Kensington Museum,
Deer in a landscape, the animals by Hills and the lanilscai)e by lUirret.
Besides his water-colour drawings, Hills executed numerous etchings cf deer, horses
and other animals, of which the British Museum contains many good examples.
John Massey Wright was born in London in 1773. He was the son of an organ
builder, who wished him to adoj)! his own profession ; but in spite of considerable
feeling for music, the youth, at his own earnest request, was allowed to become an
artist. At the age of sixteen he was fortunate enough to obtain an introduction to
Stothard, who gave him the run of his studio and, from the first, greaUy influenceil
his style and his choice of subjects ; for both artists excelled in the treatment of figures,
and were specially addicted to Shakespeare. This love of the drama was the cause
of Wright's devoting much time at the early part of his career to scene painting ;
he worked both at Astley's and Her ALijesty's Theatre, and some of his panoramas,
executed for the well-known exhibitor " Barker," are still remembered by those
whom they delighted in boyhood. Wxs Procession 0/ the F/iteh 0/ Baeon, c\\\\h\ic(\ in
1817, is one of his best works. He excelled chiefly as a book illustrator. In 1824,
he was elected a member of the Society of Painters in Water-colours, and was a
constant exhibitor. He died in May, 1866, in poor circumstances, in spite of many
years of arduous toil.
Thomas Girtin, one of the originators of modern landscape water-colour painting,
was born in London in 1773. He studied under Daves, a painter in water-colour.
Girtin at first contenteil himself with sketching the views in and near Lomlon, but
subsequently made a tour through Scotland and in the north of England. He first
exhibited at the Royal .\cademy in 1794, and his jjictures were seen on its walls until
1 801, in which year he visited Paris, where he made twenty views which he afterwards
etched with the assistance of other artists. He returned to London but to die, at the
early age of twenty-nine, in 1802, having shown what he might have done, had his life
446 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1775.
been spared. Girtin's favourite subjects are picturesque ruins of abbeys, churches,
and castles, in the north of England. The South Kensington Museum possesses two
good examples of his art — a View on the Wharf e, and Rievaiilx Abbey, Yorkshire.
George Barret, the son of a landscape painter of some note, was born in London (?)
about 1774. His early life was beset with difficulties. In 1800 he exhibited at the
Royal Academy, and became celebrated for his drawings in water-colours. He was
one of the first members of the Water-colour Society, and constantly exhibited his
works on their walls. He was famous as a painter of sunset. After a lengthened
illness, he died in 1842.
William Delamotte was born at Weymouth in 1775. He studied for five years
under West — with whom he had been placed, when sixteen years of age, by George
III. — but abandoned that master's branch of art in favour of landscape painting in
water-colour, which he executed in the style of Girtin. He was for forty years
teacher of drawing at the Military College at Sandhurst. He was a great friend of
Turner, and often went on sketching expeditions with him. Delamotte died at Oxford
in 1863, at the advanced age of eighty-eight. He painted landscapes, and architecture,
equally well ; and especially excelled in representing the foliage of trees. The South
Kensington Museum has examples of his art.
Joseph Mallord William Turner, who was born in London in 1775 and died at
Chelsea 185 1, is almost as well known as a water-colourist as by his paintings in oil.
By his Liber Studiorum — painted in rivalry of Claude's Liber Veritatis—z.\\(S. his illus-
trations to ' South Coast Scenery,' ' England and Wales,' ' Rivers of France,' and Rogers's
' Italy ' and ' Poems,' Turner will ever be remembered as one of the best water-colour
artists of England. "Many," says Mr. Redgrave in his 'Century of Painters,' "date
the perfect development of water-colour painting from Girtin, but it is far more due to
Turner, who, while he could paint in that medium with the power and strength of Girtin
added to that strength, delicacy and quality. " {See Index.)
John Varley, who was born at Hackney in 1778, was first an assistant of a silver-
smith, then of a portrait-painter, and afterwards of an architectural draughtsman, but
he finally found his vocation in the art of landscape painting in v/ater-colours. He was
an original member of the Water-colour Society, and a firm friend to it throughout,
constantly exhibiting pictures on its walls — chiefly views of Wales. His works are
noteworthy for simplicity and truth to nature ; but in later life, as his needy circum-
stances compelled him to work as fast as possible, many of the drawings then executed
are slight and hasty. John Varley died in 1842. He had two brothers, Cornelius and
William Fleetwood, both painters of repute.
John James Chalon, who was born at Geneva in 1778, was brought to England,
when quite a boy, and was intended for a mercantile life. But his love of art prevailed,
and in 1796, he entered the schools of the Royal Academy. His first picture, Banditti
at their Repast, appeared in 1800. In 1808 he, his brother, and several friends, founded
the ' Sketching Society ' for the mutual improvement of artists, and in the same year
he joined the Water-colour Society, but in 18 13 he seceded, and again devoted all his
powers to painting pictures in oil for the Royal Academy. He was not elected an
Associate until 1.827, and did not gain the diploma of membership till 1841. In
1847, ^'^^ ^^'^^^ seized with an illness, from which he never recovered ; he lingered until
1854, in which year he died at Kensington ; he was buried in Flighgate Cemetery.
A.D. i8oo.] PAINTERS IN WATER-COLOURS. 447
The South Kensini^ton Museum ])Ossesses two of his works, the Villn^t' Gossips,
painted in 1815 ; and a \'ie7i< of Hastings , in 1819, one of his best pictures. As further
examples of this artist we may notice. Napoleon on board the Bi/Urop/ion, presented by
Chalon himself to (Ireenwich Hospital.
Of this artist, Leslie says, " Few painters had so great a range of subject. In his
figures, his animals, his landscapes, and his marine pictures, we recognize the hanil of
a master and a miiu! that fully comprehended what it placed before us."
Alfred Edward Chalon, the younger brother of John Chalon, was born at Geneva in
1 781. He adopteil painting as a profession in opposition to the wishes of his parents,
who had intended him to be a merchant. In 1796, he entered the Royal Academy
schools, and soon afterwards became jiopular as a i)ortrait painter in water-colours.
He was elected an Associate of the .\cademy in 181 2, and a full member four years
afterwards. Soon after the accession of her .Majesty the Queen, Chalon painted her
likeness, and was also appointed portrait painter in water-colours to her Majesty.
In 1855, his own works, with those of his recently deceased brother, were exhibited
in the rooms of the Society of Arts at the Adelphi. Alfred Edward Chalon died at
Kensington in i860, and was buried by the side of his brother in Highgiite Cemeter)'.
The most popular, perhaps, of his historic works, is Jo/m Knox reproving the ladies oj
Queen Alary s Court.
Henry Pierce Bone, a miniature painter of celebrity, was born in 1779. For m:ny
years he was a constant exhibitor in the Miniature Room of the Royal Academy. He
died in Lontlon in 1855.
William Havell was born at Reading in 1782. After a course of self-instruction from
nature, he became in 1804 a foundation member of the Water-colour Society, He was
a constant exhibitor till 1817, in which year he went to India. On his return in 1827,
he exhibited but few works at the Water-colour Society, preferring the Royal .'\cademy,
where he exhibited works in oil. Ha\ell died at Kensington in 1857. .\s a painter
in water-colours, he holds an honourable position among the best of English artists.
Havell's works are, for the most part, painted in Turner's sunny manner.
Samuel Prout was born at Plymouth in 17S3. After a course of self instruction in
art, under tlic patronage of Britton the antiijuary, he came to London, and first
exhibited St. Keyne's Well, Cornwall, at the Royal Academy in 1804. From this date
he continued to send his works to the .\cademy Exhibitions, until the year 1815, when
he was elected a member pf the Water-colour Society. In 18 18, Prout, in search of
health, first visited the Continent, and commenced painting those picturesque views
which have made his name so popular. In 18 19 appeared at the exhibition of the
Water-colour Society, the Indiaman ashore, a work of great merit. .\ few years later, he
visited Venice and other cities of Italy, and likewi.se maile a tour in Germany. Many
of the sketches produced in these journeys were engraved in various publications.
Prout died at his residence in Camberwell in 1852. He excelled as a painter of
cottages and anticjue ruins, but showed a singular inability to cope with foliage.
Peter de Wiul was born— of Dutch extraction — at Stone in Staftbrdshire, in 17S4.
He studied under R.iphael Smith, and in the schools of the Royal Academy, where he
exhibited a few works. From 18 10 till his death, which occurred in London in 1849,
he was a constant exhibitor at the Water-colour Society. His works are chiefly views
of hay and corn fields in Lincolnshire and its neighbourhood.
448 ILLUSTRATED HLSTOKY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1825.
The South Kensington Museum possesses many good examples of his art. De
Wint was a thoroughly honest water-colour painter, and entirely free from the tricks of
modern artists.
David Cox, the son of a blacksmith, was born at Birmingham in 1783. He first
worked for a locket-painter, and then as a scene-painter in the Birmingham Theatre,
and at Astley's in London. His love for landscape painting induced him to abandon
the theatre, and to try his fortune as an artist. He was much assisted in his early
attempts by John Varley. Cox also helped to maintain himself by giving drawing-
lessons. He joined the Water-colour Society in 1813, and was for many years a
contributor to their exhibitions. He resided some time in London, then at Hereford,
then again in London, and finally at a small village near Birmingham, called Harbourne,
where he died in 1859, having devoted the last few years of his life to oil-painting.
Cox is one of the truest to nature of all landscape painters. His works, which chiefly
represent scenes in Wales, Scotland, and the Thames and its neighbourhood — are
noteworthy for the truth of their colouring. They now fetch very high prices.
William Essex was born in 1785, and died at Brighton in 1870. He was one of
the very last representatives of the great school of miniature painting, and his delicate
portraits, and copies of ancient and modern subject pictures, will probably never again
be excelled. His art appears to have died with him.
Thomas Miles Richardson was born at Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1784. He was first
apprenticed to a cabinet-maker, whom he served for seven years. On the death of his
father, he succeeded him as head master of St. Andrew's Grammar School in his native
city. Richardson, however, abandoned teaching in favour of art ; he became a land-
scape painter of note, and practised at Newcastle ; his works appeared constantly in
London at the Royal Academy, the British Institution, and the New Water-colour
Society. Richardson died in Newcastle in 1848. It is said that he was first inspired
with a desire to become a painter by the sight of a landscape by Cox, which he saw
in a shop-window ; like that master he was a true expositor of nature.
William John Newton was born in London in 1785. He was a miniature painter
of eminence, and obtained great popularity in this branch of the art, when still quite a
young man. His most important work, the Christening of the young Prince of Wales at
St. George's Cha/>e/, Windsor, was exhibited in 1845. In 1837 he was knighted, and
after having for many years held the post of miniature painter in ordinary to her
Majesty, died in 1869.
Anthony Vandyke Copley Fielding, who was born in 1787, studied his art under
John Varicy. He first exhibited at the Water-colour Exhibition in 1810, and from that
lime his success in art was certain. He became a popular painter, and his vvorks
realised, during his lifetime, higher prices than usually fall to the lot of artists. In
1 83 1, he was elected President of the Water-colour Society, and held that office until
his death, which occurred at Brighton in 1857. Besides his water-colour drawings.
Fielding executed several oil-paintings of merit. His pictures chiefly represent scenes
in England, sometimes on the coast. There are several examples of his art at South
Kensington,
George Fennel Robson, who was born at Durham in 1790, acquired an elementary
education in art in his native city, and then came to London, where he rose to
I)opularity. He exhibited for some time at the Royal Academy, but many of his best
A.D. 1825.1 PAINTERS IN WATER-COLOURS. 449
works appeared at the exhibitions of the Water-colour Society. He died in London
in 1833. His OiitHniS of the Grampians^ and his Picturesque' Vu-U'S of the English
Cities, are among his best works. Robson's pictures were sometimes ornamented with
animals by Robert Hills.
William Henry Hunt was bom in 1790 in Old Belton Street, Long Acre, and, like
Turner before him. was reared in the bye-ways of London. At the age of sixteen he
was apprenticcil to the best art teacher of that time, John Varley ; and in 1S08 obtained
admission as a student to the Royal Academy. He was also fortunate enough to come
under the notice of Dr. Munro, the liberal and benevolent art-patron. In 1807 Hunt
contributeil three paintings in oil to the Royal Academy, and continued to exhibit for
the next four years. In 1814 he sent two views of U'ini/sor Castle to the newly-
formed Society of Painters in Oil and Water-colours. He also added to his income by
teaching, and by painting views of gentlemen's mansions and parks.
In 1822 Hunt again exhibited at the Royal Academy, and continued to do so until
1824, when he became firmly attached to the Society of Painters in Water-colours. In
that year he was elected an Associate of the Society, and three years after>vards he
became a full member ; from that time until the year of his ileath this talented artist
never missed sending his works to the yearly exhibitions. Though of delicate health,
Hunt lived to a good age ; he died in 1864, nearly seventy-four years old, in Stanhope
Street. Regent's Park : he was buried in Highgate Cemetery.
During the early period of his career Hunt painted, besides landscapes, many subjects
from still-life, such as dead poultry, and vegetables ; afterwards his subjects indicated a
growing taste for humour, when he produced those comic sketches of rustic boys and
girls that for so many years delighted and amused the visitors to the Society's exhibi-
tions, such as the Attack, the Defeat, the Puzzled Politician and the Barbers Shop. In
his later years Hunt was principally known by his charming representations of fruit ami
flowers, perfect facsimiles of nature. It appears almost incredible that the same
artist who produced broad sketches so comic both in expression and sentiment, should
have drawn with the utmost delicacy those careful studies of such simple sul)jects as a
basket of plums or a sprig of May blossom.
William Eoss, the son of a miniature painter, was born in London in 1794. His
success began at an early age. As a boy he won medals at the Society of Arts and
the Royal Academy. In 1838, he was made an Associate of the Academy, anil in
1839 became a full member, and was knighted. He died in London in i860. Ross
was one of the most successful miniature painters of the day. He numbereil among
his sitters, her Majesty the (^ueen, the late Prince Consort, the King and (Jueen of the
Belgians, the King and Queen of Portugal, and Prince Louis Napoleon.
Though miniature painting was his profession, Ross also executed several creditable
iiistori< a! works in oil and in water-colour.
James DuflSeld Harding, one of the best landscape-painters in water-. «>n.m.s. w.is
born at Deptford in 1797. .\t the age of fifteen, he was placeil with Samuel Prout He
soon became ambitious, and attempted to sketch from nature, but he found that a tree
with its foliage was beyond his powers ; he could only jiroduce drawings of old archi-
tectural buildings and dilapidated cottages, such as Prout had taught him to copy. In
fact, everything he tlid at that time, as Harding himself used to remark, was a la
Prout. Three years liter, Harding gained a silver mcId fn'in the Society of Arts for
Ts M
450 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1825.
a water-colour drawing, and soon afterwards took to teaching drawing — calling in
lithography to his aid ; and publishing many valuable lesson-books.
Harding until about 1830 rarely produced more than one water-colour painting in a
year, devoting the rest of his time to drawing with the pencil. He visited France and
Italy, and the results of his tours were numerous studies of continental towns and
scenery, which were afterwards reproduced in the ' Landscape Annual.'
For many years his drawings formed an attractive feature at the annual exhibitions
of the Society of Painters in AVater-colours, of which he was a member ; he was the
first artist to use^ to any great extent, body-colour mixed with transparent colours to
produce his effects. Harding died at Barnes, on the 4th of December, 1863.
George Cattermole was born at the village of Dickleburgh, near Diss, in the county
of Norfolk, in the year 1800. When quite a youth he began to study architectural
antiquities, and at the age of sixteen commenced his career as a topographical draughts-
man, receiving employment to make illustrations for Britton's ' English Cathedrals.'
He was elected an Associate of the Society of Painters in Water-colours in the
year 1822, but was at first only an occasional contributor to the Society's exhibitions.
In 1833 he became a full member. About this time, Cattermole travelled through
Scotland and visited the localities mentioned by Sir Walter Scott in his works, for the
purpose of making sketches of the various scenes, many of which afterwards appeared
as illustrations to the ' Waverley Novels.'
Among Cattermole's principal works may be mentioned, Sir Walter Raleigh ivit-
nessing the Execution of the Earl of Essex in the Toiver ; Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh
preparing to shoot the Regent Murray^ exhibited with ten others at Paris in 1855 ;
the Armourer ; Cellini and the Robbers, and the Utiwelcomc Return, painted in 1846,
which was nearly the last drawing of any important size (hat he executed. He
exhibited but one oil-painting at the Royal Academy; it appeared in 1862 and was
entitled a Terrible Secret.
Cattermole died on the 24th of July, 1868, at Clapham Common. He was a
member of the Royal Academy of Amsterdam, and of the Belgian Society of Water-
colour Painters. There are fourteen important drawings by this artist in the South
Kensington Museum.
James Holland was born at Burslem in 1800. He began his career as a flower
painter, and when quite a boy was taken into the estabHshment of Mr. James Daven-
])ort, a manufacturer of high-class earthenware, where he remained for seven years.
In 181 9 he went to London, and for a short time taught flower painting, but soon
threw up this unremunerative employment for the production of original pictures.
His numerous works, of an almost infinite variety, included landscapes and sea
subjects, and were chiefly remarkable for a high style of colouring. We may name
as among the most noteworthy a Vieiu of London from Blackheath, the Interior of
Milan Cathedral, ^nd \.\-\q Rialto, Venice. In 1839 Holland went to Portugal at the
request of the proprietors of the ' Landscape Annual,' to execute drawings for that
work which were published in 1839. He died in February, 1870.
Aaron Penley was born in 1806, and was one of the earliest members of the Water-
colour Society, contributing several landscape paintings of some excellence to their
gallery in the early part of his career. It is rather as an advanced theorist and teacher
than an original designer liowever that this artist merits notice here ; he contributed
A.D. 1850.] r.UXTERS IN WATER- COLOURS. 451
an important volume on the practice of water-colour painting to the an htcraiure of his
clay and Ion" held the post of senior professor of drawing at the Addiscombc Military
College, and afterwards at the Woolwich Military Academy. Penley died suddenly at
Lewisham, in 1S70.
Edward Heniy Wehuert was born in London in 1.M3 of German parents, and sent
l,y them, when twelve years old, to a school at Gottingen. On his return to Kngland
four years later, he began studying drawing in the British Museum, and about 1830
exhibited his first oil i.icture, the Death of Hippolytus. In the succeeding years
Wehnert travelled and resided much on the Continent, and by his earnest study of the
works of the great masters of Italy and the modern painters of France, gained much
of the purity of design and freedom of execution which characterized his numerous
works \s tvpical examples of his style we may name Lulhcr reading:, his sermon to
some friends^ ^^^c Prisoner of Gisors, the Escape of Henry IV. of Germany from his
intendin^r assassins, a Li^ht Bnrden, and Ca.xton examinin- the first proofs from his
Pnntin^r.press. Wehnert was a distinguished member of the Institute of Pamters in
Water-colours and an able book-illustrator. He died at Kentish Town, London, in
September 1868.
Skinner Prout, the nephew of Samuel Prout, was born in 1815 (?). He rcsi.led
for son.e time at Bristol, and then went to Australia, where he lived for many years;
lie finally settled in London, where he died in September 1876. Prout was a member
of the Institute of Painters in Water-colours, and fre.iuently sent works to their
exhibitions. He was the pamler of the panorama of the Go! I Fields, which met with
nuicli success.
John Leech was born in London in 1817, and was educated at the Charterhouse
school Though his works never appeared on the walls of our great exhibitions, no
account of modern art would be complete without a tribute to the memory of the great
satirist whose humorous, vet ever kindly caricatures of our English manners give so true
a picture of the social life of our day, and whose contributions to ' Punch ' and other
journals have raised his peculiar branch of art to a high level. Leech's first sketch
appeared in ' Punch ' in 1849, and from that date till his death in 1864, scarcely a
number of that journal appeared without something from his pencil. His death was
sudden and unexpected, but he is said to have suffered long from the eflects of over-
work, and to have endured a martyrdom from his sensitiveness to street noises.
George Shalders, who was born in 1826, exhibited views of English scenery orna-
mented with animals painted by himself, at the Royal Academy and at the exhibitions
of the Institute of Painters in Water-colours. He died in 1873, of paralysis cn.sed
by overwork. His studies of sheep and cattle, are much appreciated.
Arthur Boyd Houghton was born in 1S36. and w.is one of the ablest of the many
distinguished members of the Society of Painters in Water-colours, contributing many
important works, both to their exhibitions, and to those of the Royal Academy;
including the Mvstery of Folded Sheep, Boy Martyrs, and John the Baptist rebuking
Herod. He also excelled in book illustration, anil we may name his spirited renderings
of scenes from the * Arabian Nights,' as among h:s best works. He dieil in 1875 at
the early age of thirty-nine.
George John Pinwell was born in London m 1S42, and after a good art-education
452 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1875.
at the Hearthly School of Art, began his career as a book illustrator, achieving consi-
derable success in that line on the staff of ' Once a Week,' ' Good Words,' &c., and
later, supplementing his work as a draughtsman on wood, by painting in water-colours.
In 1869 he became an Associate of the Society of Painters in Water-colours. His
exhibited works were characterized by a strange inequality of power, a single picture
sometimes combining delicate and exquisite finish with carelessness of execution.
Much of this is supposed to have been due to ill-health, which often clouded an intellet t
of a high order. Pinwell died in 1875, when only thirty-three years of age.
BENJAMIN WEST.
Page 453-
A.D. 1750 I AMERICAN SCHOOL. 453
BOOK VIII
THE AMERICAN SCHOOL.
^1^1 11*^ last School of I'ainting which claims our attention, both from its liigh merit
I and its jiromise of future excellence, is that which, tluring the last hunilre<l
years, has sprung uj) in America. Beginnini,', as in Kngland, with portrait
painting, this school has progressed until it now numbers in its ranks many very excellent
figure and landscape painters. Their works are constantly brought to Europe to be
exhibited, and are received with the greatest admiration. Year after year we hear
of new men coming to the front, and there can be no doubt but that the late
Centennial Exhibition has done much to forward the true interests of Art throughout
the land.
We give a * brief history ' of those painters who have, hitherto, been most distin-
guished ; regretting that the jtkin of our l)ook docs not pernut us to include the names
of living artists.
John Singleton Copley, the historical painter, was born of Irish parents at Boston,
Uniteil States— then a liritish Colony — in 1737. After painting for several years in
his native city, he started in 1774 for England, where, after a tour on the Continent,
he finally settled. He died there in 18 15. A more detailed account of Copley will
be found among the British artists. {Set Index.)
Benjamin West, who was bom at Springfield, Pennsylvania, in 173S, went to
England in 1763, and rapidly rose in pul)Iic favour, until he reached the height of his
ambition in 1792, when he became President of the Royal .Vcademy. Of this artist,
who died in London in 1S30. a further notice will be found among the British School.
(See ImUx.)
Charles Wilson Peale, who was born at Chesterton. MaryLuui, m 1741, was not
only a painter, but a worker in wood, metal, and leather. Besides his oil-paintings, he
executed numerous miniature.s, for which he " saweil his own ivory, moulded the glasses,
and made the shagreen cases." He studied under various masters — in Philadelphia
uniler a German, in Boston with Copley, and in London with West.
Peale was the most pojmlar portrait-jiainter of his time, and was especially remark-
able from the fact that he painted, in 1772, the first authentic likeness of Washington.
He subsc(iuently made thirteen other portraits of that President. Peale died in 1826.
454 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PALNTERS [a.d. 1800.
Philadelphia is rich in his works— more especially in the Independence Hall, where
there is a complete gallery of his pictures.
Gilbert Charles Stuart, the portrait painter, was born at Narragansett, in Rhode
Island, in 1756. He received his instruction in art from Cosmo Alexander, who
took him to Scotland with him, but Stuart returned to America soon afterwards. In
1 78 1, he went again to Great Britain, and estabhshed himself as a portrait painter in
London, where he enjoyed the friendship and society of some of the famous men of the
day. In 1793 he returned to America, and after residing in New York, Washington
and Philadelphia, he re-established himself finally, in 1806, at Boston, where he con-'
tinued to paint with uninterrupted success until his death, which occurred in 1828.
Of the works of Stuart we may notice — in the Boston Athenaeum, the original
Portrait of Was/iingto?i, whom the artist painted from life but three times ; the first
portrait was destroyed by Stuart because it did not meet with his approval ; the second
was painted for the Marquis of Lansdowne, and the third is the one above-mentioned.
The artist frequently repeated these pictures. The Boston Athenaeum has a Portrait
of Mrs. Washington, and other works by Stuart. His works are commonly seen both
in the public and private galleries in America.
John Trumbull, the historical painter, who was born at Lebanon, Connecticut, in
1756, is one of the best of the early American artists. He combined the professions
of a soldier and a painter, and thus had the means of being an eye-witness of scenes
which suggested the subjects of many of the works which have made his name famous.
He graduated at Harvard, entered the army, was made aide-de-camp to Washington,
and became a colonel. In 1780, Trumbull went through France, to London, where
he studied under his fellow-countryman, West. Arrested as a spy, he was obliged to
leave the country ; he returned to America, but on the ;:essation of hostilities, he went
again to England, and resumed his studies under West. In 1789, Trumbull returned
once more to America, and employed himself in painting the portraits of the celebrated
soldiers of the late war. After a visit to London of nineteen years (1796 to 18 15)
seven of which were spent in diplomatic service — he lived constantly in America.
He died in New York in 18/13, at the advanced age of eighty-seven, and was buried in
Yale College, in a tomb built by himself under a gallery which formerly contained his
original sketches for the four great works executed in the rotunda of the Capitol at
Washington — the Peclaration of Lndcfendence ; the Surrender of Biirgoyne; the Surrender
of Cornzvallis ; and the Resignation of Washington at Annapolis. They have since
])een moved to the Art Gallery in Yale College. Of the first-mentioned of these works,
Henry Greenenough says, " I admire in this composition the skill with which Trumbull
has collected so many portraits in formal session, without theatrical effort, in order to
enliven it, and without falling into bad insipidity by adherence to trivial fact. These
men are earnest, yet full of dignity ; they are firm, yet cheerful ; they are gentlemen ;
and you see at a glance that they meant something very serious in pledging their lives,
their fortunes, and their sacred honours."
Of other works by Trumbull we may notice — in the City Hall, New York, portraits
of Governors Lewis ^nd Ctintvn, and one of Washington — an oft-repeated subject; at
New Haven the Death of General Montgomery., "one of the most spirited battle-pieces
ever painted," the Battle of Bunkers Hill, z, M\-\Q\\gi\\ Portrait of Washington, in
addition to the original sketches for the rotunda pictures, and numerous historic works.
John Vanderlyu, who was born in 1776 at Kingston, New York, like Quintin
A.D. 1800.] AMERICAN SCHOOL. 455
Matsys began life as a blacksmith. His talents were noticed by Colonel Burr, who
gave him a start in life at New York. In 1803, Vanderlyn went to Kurope, anil was
in Paris and Rome, the friend and companion of Allston. In Rome he painted, in
1807, his famous Mar ins sitthti^on the ruins of Ciirt/iaf^e, to which Napoleon personally
awarded the prize medal in the SaUn of 1808, ami which the emperor tried to buy;
but Vanderlyn wished to take it to America, and it was subsequently purchased by
Bishop Kip, in whose possession it still remains at San Francisco. This work is
especially noteworthy for the care which the artist has taken to represent, as nearly as
possible, the arcliitecture and the costumes of the time. Vanderlyn's life was a series
of successes and failures, of riches and poverty, though unfortunately the latter pre-
l)onderated, and he died in great want at his native town, Kingston, in 1852. He
was buried in the Wiltwyck Cemetery, hard by. Besides the J/<7r///y, above mentioned,
this artist executed but one other work worthy to be compared to it. This is the
S/e<'/i//<^ Ariadne-, which the Boston Athenaeum refused to ])urchase for five hundred
dollars, and for which Mr. Harrison of Philadelphia gave ten times that amount. Of
his remaining works, most of which are portraits, we need not speak.
Washington Allston, the chief painter of the American School, was born at
Waccamaw in South Carolina in 1779. After the completion of his university career
at Harvard, he took up his abode at Charlestown, where, however, desiring to go to
F-urope for the improvement of his* art, he did not long remain. He arrived in
London in 1801, and at once entered the Royal Academy schools, where he became
acquainted with his fellow-countryman West, who was then presiilent. In 1804,
Allston went with his friend Vanderlyn to Paris and thence to Rome, where in the
following year he painteil his Joseph's Dream. At Rome, Allston commenced with
Washington Irving a friendship which lasted fpr life. He also became acquainted
with Coleridge, and the Danish sculptor, Thonvaldsen. In 1809, Allston returned to
America, married a sister of Dr. Channing, and then went to London, where he produced
his Dead Man revived b\ the bones of Elisha, which gained a prize of two hundred
guineas from the British Institution. It is now in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine
Arts at Philadelphia. Then followed the Z/V't/v^Z/fW of St. Peter by the A n^^el, wow \\\
the church of Ashby-dc-la-Zouch ; Uriel in the Sun, in the possession of the Duke of
Sutherland ; and /aeob's Dream, in the Petworth Gallery. In 18 18, Allston returned
to America, and settled at Boston, with his health weakened by sorrow for his wife,
lately deceased, and by over-work. In the same year he was elected an Associate of
the Royal Academy. Of the works which he executCil in the following years, we may
notice, the Prophet Jeremiah, now in Yale College ; Saul and the Witch of Endor ;
Miriam's Son^ and Dante s Beatrice. In 1830, Allston marrleil again. His second
choice was the daughter of Chief Justice Dana, of Cambridge. Massachusetts, where he
settled. At Cambridge, Allston sjjent the rest of his life in secluded intlustry,
occasionally internipted by illness. He then produced one of his best known work.s,
Spalatrds vision of the bloody hand, from ' The Italian ' by Mrs. Radcliii'e —especially
remarkable for the effects of light and shade, and for the expression of fright and a
guilty conscience on the face of Spalatro, and the firm determination visible on
the countenance of the monk. This work which was painted for Mr, Ball, of South
Carolina, is now in the Taylor Johnston Collection in New York ; it has been
engraveil by W. J. 1 .inton. 1 lis Rosalie, executed late in life, is also worthy of mention.
Allston died at Cambridge in 1S43, leaving unfinished a large work, on \\hi<h he
456 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1825.
had been engaged at various times for about forty years. It represents Behhazzar's
Feast, and is now in the Boston Athenaeum, where there is also a Portrait of Benjamin
West, which, with that of Coleridge, by the same artist, in the National Portrait Gallery,
proves that AUston excelled in portraiture as well as in historic painting.
The works of Allston, the pride of his country, the " American Titian," are especially
remarkable for the beauty and power of colouring. In his subjects, he was fond of
the terrible, especially noticeable in Spalatrd s Vision, Saul and the Witch of Endor,
and in the unfinished Belshazzars Feast.
John James Audubon, who was born in Louisiana, in 1782, studied in Paris under
David. On his return to America he devoted himself to portraying birds, just in the
same manner as Catlin gave himself up to the painting of American Indians. Audubon's
perseverance must have been great^ for it is said that after he had collected several
thousand sketches of birds, they were accidentally destroyed and the work had to be
recommenced. When published in Edinburgh, the book contained more than one
thousand birds' portraits, the originals of which are now in the possession of the
New York Historical Society. Having exhausted the feathered tribe, Audubon was
engaged on a work on the quadrupeds of America, when he died in 185 1.
Rembrandt Peale, the son of Charles Wilson Peale, was born in Bucks County,
Pennsylvania, in 1787. After a short career as a portrait painter in Charlestown, South
Carolina, he went to London and studied under West. Peale also resided for some
time in Paris, where he painted, among other pictures, portraits for his father's museum.
Rembrandt Peale died in i860. His works are commonly seen in America.
Chester Harding, who was born in the village of Conway, Fraiiklin County, Massa-
chusetts, in 1792, began his career in painting as a sign-painter, at Pittsburgh, but
subsequently turned his attention to portraiture, in which he afterwards became suc-
cessful. From Pittsburgh he went to Philadelphia, thence to St. Louis, and then to
Boston, where he became the fashionable portrait-painter of the day. In 1823, Harding
paid a visit to England, where he received much patronage from the nobility. He
afterwards revisited England, but died at Boston, United States, in 1866. Of his
portraits, that of Pa/iiel Webster is the most famous.
George Catlin, the painter of the aboriginal Indians, was born in Wyoming Valley,
Pennsylvania, in 1794. He was originally intended for the law, but abandoned that
profession in favour of painting, and established himself in Philadelphia. In 1832, he
started on a journey among the tribes of American Indians, and made the accjuaintance
of no less than forty-eight of them. On his return to civihzation in 1839, he published
the result of his journey in the form of a book with illustrations by his own hand.
He had also made a series of portraits of two hundred Indian chiefs, which he
exhibited in America and in England, and which have helped to make his name famous.
He resided for eight years in Europe, and published his impressions of PJngland and the
Continent, in ' Notes of Eight Years' Travel and Residence in Europe.' George Catlin
died in 1872.
Robert Charles Leslie, who was born of American parents in Clerkenwell in 1794,
was taken when quite a child to the United States. In 181 1 he went to England, and,
with the exception of a short visit to America in 1S33, resided there for the rest of his
life. He died in 1859. Further notice of Leslie will be found among the painters of
the British School. {See Index.)
A.D. 1825.1 AMERICAN SCHOOL. 457
Gilbert Stuart Newton, who was lx)rn at Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1795, studied
under his uncle, CJilbert Stuart, went to Europe in 1817, and paid one short visit to
America in 1832. He died in London in 1835. A further account of this artist will
be founil among tlic painters of the British School, (^v Index.)
Thomas Cole, the landscape painter, who was bom at Bolton-le-Moor, Lancashire, in
1 80 1, went when eighteen years of age to Steul)enville, Ohio. After travelling about
the country for some time, he visited New Nork, where he was patronized by Irumbull
and other artists. Cole made two journeys to Kurope, and stayed chiefly in Italy and
Kngland, the scenery of whi( h countries furnished him with subjects for many of his
best works. He died among his " own de.ir Cat^kills." as he calls them : for with all
the magnificent scenery of the Alps and elsewhere in' Europe, he remained true to his
first love. Of Cole's works we may notice, in the possession of the New York
Historical Society, the Course of the Empire— ii\c landscape scenes ; in the Taylor
Johnston Collection of New York, his famous series of /im/.c^ 0/ Life, the Mountain
ForJ. anil Kenihcort/i Castle. Many of his works, frequently views of die Cat^kills.
are in the i)rivate ami public galleries of America.
Henry Inman, who was born at Utica, New York, in 1801. studied for some time
in New York under Jarvis, a good artist of the period. On the completion of
his term. Inman afccr several years spent in New York, married, in 1832, anil settled
?t Philadelphia, where he became famous as a painter of portraits, and occasionally
of landscapes and genre pictures. In 1843. He went to England, where he remained
for two years, much esteemed by the artist-circle in London of the time. Inman died
in New York, in 1846, the year after his return.
The works of this artist are commonly seen in the public and private galleries of
America. The City Hall, New York, has some good portraits by him ; noteworthy
among these is that of Gm-enior Van Buren. His landscapes and genre pictures are
best seen in private galleries. Of the former class, we may notice, a view of
Dundrennan Abbey, in the possession of Mr. James Lenox. New York ; and the
7V«i'j%, belonging to Mr. Sturges, of the same city; xn^ Mumble the Te^^, in Mr.
Carey's collection at Philadelphia.
Inman is more famous from the fact th U he was equally good in three branches of
art— portriiture. landscapes, and genre— than for any particular merit in his works.
Emmanuel Leutze, who was born at the villa;.'c of Kmingen in Wiirtemberg in 1816,
went, when still young, with his father to America. He at first maintained himself by
portniit i)ainting, but his favourite subjects were of a historic nature. His earliest
work of note is an ///,//,/// ^azin^^ on the settinf: sun. In 1841, Leutze determineil to
visit Europe. He arriveil at Amsterdam early in the year, and thence went to Diissel-
dorf. where he studied under Lessing. His Columbus be/ore the eouneil of Salamanca,
was pun based by the Art Union of that city. Erom DusseKlorf Leutze went to Munich,
and became the disciple of Clornelius and Kaulbach. After his H'anderjahre through
Italy and Switzerland, he returned to America in 1859 and became justly famed as a
painter of historic subjects. He subsequently paiil a second visit to Europe, to bring
home a wife, whom he had married at Dusseldorf on his first journey. Leutze dietl
in 1 868.
Of the pictures of Leutze which are chiefly seen in New York and other American
cities, we may notice in the Capitol at Washington the Western Emii^ration—vi\\.\\ the
motto •' Westward the C(jurse of Empire takes its way"— which is considered one of
3 N
458 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAINTERS. [a.d. 1850.
his best Avorks ; also Columbus in chains, and Columbus before the Queeii; the Landing
of the Norsemen in America ; and John Knox admoiiishing Mary Queen of Scots, in
the possession of Mr. M. O. Roberts, of New York.
Charles Loring Elliot, who was born at Scipio, New York, in 1812, Avas at first
intended for a merchant, and then for an architect, his father's profession, but his love
of painting prevailed, and he entered the studio of Trumbull in New York. On the
completion of his studies, he established himself as a painter in that city, where, with
the exception of several years spent in the western part of the State, he chiefly resided.
He died in 1868. Elliot is said to have executed nearly seven hundred portraits. Of
these the acknowledged masterpiece is that of Fletcher Harper, Avhich was selected to
represent American portraiture in the Paris Exhibition. Portraits by Elliot are in the
possession of the Historical Society, and in the City Hall, New York, and also in
2:)rivate galleries in America.
His portraits are noteworthy for vigour of drawing and colouring, and more espe-
cially for life-like representation.
Louis R^my Mignot, who was born in 1831, lived some part of his life in New York ;
he then removed to South Carolina, and subsequently took up his residence in England,
though he paid various visits to his native land. He exhibited in the Royal Academy
from time to time. In 1863 appeared Lagoon of Guayaquil, South America, and a
Winter Morning ; in 1865, an Evening in the Tropics ; he was also a contributor to the
exhibitions of 1866 and 1867. In 1870 appeared his last work, a Sunset off Hastings,
'of genuine poetical treatment.' Mignot died at Brighton, on the 22nd of September,
1870, in his fortieth year.
"His pictures show talent above the average order, and are characterised by much
feeling for the picturesque beauty of nature, and great skill in handling." (' Art
Journal.')
I N D H X
A HAT I, Niccolo
Achcn, Hans van
Aerts/en, I'ictcr
Ai^ricola, Christojih
Alaniannus (Murano)
Albaiii, Francesco .
Albertinclli, Mariotto
Alilegrever, Ilcinrich
Aldighiero da Zcvio
Alfani, Domenico .
Alfani, Orazio
Alfaro y Zanion, J. ile
Alfon, Juan
AHprandi, Ciirolamo
Allan, David .
Allan, William
AUegri, Antonio
AUori, Alessamlro .
Allori, Cristofano
Allston, Washington
Altilorfer, Alhrecht
Aliinno, >i'iccol<')
Amberger, Christopher
Amcrighi, Michelangelo
Amman, Jost .
Andrea da Florentia
Andrea da Solario
Andrea da Salerno
Andrea del Sarto
Angelico, Fra
Ansano di I'ietro MeiK
Antonello da Messina
Antonio da Murano
Antonio da Vene/ia
Apclles .
Apollodonis .
Aretino, Spinello
Arias, Fernandez de
Aristidcs
Arthois, Jacques
Asclepiodorus .
Athenion
Attavante
Audul)on, John J.
Avanzi, Jaci)|io degli
«3i
254 j
32s i
258 I
«3
170 i
98 ;
250
65
79
79
229
192 i
96 I
4'3 I
422 ;
>53
159
177 .
455 I
240 I
241 I
1S2 I
251
42 i
71
129 !
99
48
47
81
84 .
43
9
<» i
44 i
227
9
3'S
9
8
27
456
62
Avanzo da Verona .
Ayala, Bernabe de .
Backer, Jacob
Backhuysen, Ludolf
Bagnacavallo (Kamenghi)
Baldovinetti, Alesso
Baldung, Hans
Barbarelli, tliorgio
Barocci, Federigo
Barret, George
Barry, James .
Bartolo, Taddeo di
Bartolommeo della Gatta
Bartolomnieo, Fra
Basaiti, Marco
Bassano, II (ila Ponte)
Bazzi, Giovanni (or Kazzi
Beaumont, George .
Beccafumi
Beccafumi (Meccherino)
Beechey, William .
Bega, Cornells
Beham, Barthel
Behani, Sebald
Beich, Franz .
Bellange, Hippolytc
Bellini, Gentile
Bellini, Giovanni
Bellini, Jacopo
Belli itto, Bernardo .
BeltralVio, Giovanni .
Benozzo di Lese
Benvcnuti, Giambattista
Berchcm (Claas)
Berkheyde, Gcrrit
Berkheyde, Job
Berrettini, I'ietro
Berruguetc, Alonso .
Berruguele, I'edro .
Biagio. Vincenzio ili
Bink, Jacob .
Bird, Kdward .
Bissolo, Francesco •
Blake, William
65
203
337
364
129
. 55
236
86
161
446
412
46
27
97
85
'47
•03
414
24
104
414
344
249
249
257
394
82
82
81
191
95
53
t33
355
366
366
iSo
214
•93
146
250
416
142
4«5
460
INDEX.
Bles, Henrik de
Bloemart, Abraham.
Bloemen, Pieter van
Blondeel, Lancelot .
Bocaccino, Bocaccio
Bocaccino, Camillo .
Boel, Pieter
Bol, Ferdinand
Bol, Hans
Bone, H. Pierce
Bonfiglio, Benedetto
Bonifazio Veneziano
Bonington, Richard .
Bono Ferrarese
Bonsignori, Francesco
Bonvicino, Alessandro
Bordone, Paris
Borgognone, Ambrogio
Borgognone, II
Bosch, Jerom (Van Aeken)
Both, Andreas
Both, Jan
Botticelli (Filipepi)
Boucher, Francois .
Boullongne, Bon
Boullongne, Louis (the elder)
Boullongne, Louis (the younger
Bourdon, Sebastien .
Bourgeois, Francis .
Bouts, Uieric .
Braniantino (Suardi)
Bramer, Leonhard .
Breughel, Jan .
Breughel, Pieter (the elder)
Breughel, Pieter (the younger)
Briggs, Henry P.
Bril, Paul
Bril, Matthew
Broederlam, Melchior
Bronzino, Angelo
Brosamer, Hans
Brouwer, Adriaan
Bruyn, Bartholomaus
Bry, Theodor de
Buffalniacco (Cristofani)
Bugiardini, Giuliano
Buonarroti, Michelangelo
Buonaventura, Segna di
Buoninsegna, Duccio di
Burbage, Richard
Burgkniair, Hans
Burgkmair, Thomas
Burnet, James
Burnet, John .
Cagliari, Paolo
Cajesi, Patricio
Calcar, Hans von
Calo)tt, A. Wall .
Callot, Jacques
Calvart, L^enys
Camerino, Jacobus de
284
326
316
284
72
72
316
337
288
447
74
146
435
66
69
146
147
71
184
323
352
352
58
383
380
380
380
378
415
274
71
329
292
287
289
431
290
289
269
159
250
339
233
251
41
98
105
45
24, 44
398
236
235
424
424
150
219
254
422
372
163
39
Campi, Antonio
Campi, Bernardino
Campi, Giulio
Campi, Vincenzio .
Canaletto (Antonio Canal)
Cano, Alonso
Caracciolo, Giambattista
Caravaggio, Mich, da
Caravaggio, Polidoro da
Cardi, Lodovico
Carducci, Bartolommeo
Carducci, Vincencio
Carlo Dolci .
Carotto, Giov. Franc.
Carpaccio, Vittore
Carracci, Agostino
Carracci, Annibale .
Carracci, Lodovico
Carreiio, Juan
Carrucci, Jacopo
Carstens, Asmus
Casentino, Jacopo di
Castagno, Andrea del
Castello, Felix
Castillo, Antonio del
Castillo, Juan del .
Castro, Juan Sanchez de
Catena (di Biagio) .
Catlin, George
Cattermole, George
Cavalli, Pietro
Cavallini, P. .
Cavazzuola (Moranda)
Caxes, Eugenio
Caxes, Patricio
Cennino Cennini
Cerquozzi, Michelangelo
Cesari, Giuseppe
Cespedes, Pablo de .
Chalon, Alfred
Chalon, J. James
Champagne, Philippe de
Chardin, Simeon
Choddwiecki, Daniel
Cigoli, da (Cardi)
Cima da Conegliano
Cimabue
Ciampelli, Agostino
Clone, Andrea di .
Cipriani, Giovanni .
Claas, Nicholas (Berchen
Claude Lorraine
Claudius Pulcher
Cloet, Jehan .
Clouet, Fran9ois
Clovio, Giulio
Coello, Claudio
Cole, Thomas
Collins, William
Comontes, Ifiigo de
Conegliano, Cima da
Constable, John
INDEX.
461
Cooper, Abraham .
Cooper, Samuel
Copley, John Singleton
Coiues, Gon/ales {or Cocx)
Corenzio, liclisario .
Cornelis^en, Cornells
Cornelius, I'eter von
Corot, Jean Camilie
Corradi, iJomenico
Correygio (Allet^ri)
Cortona, I'letro ila
Cosimo, Pietro ili
Cosme, U
Cossa, Francesco
Costa, Lorenzo
Cotignola, Cirolamo da
Cotman, J. Sell
Courtois, Jacques .
Cousin, Jean .
Cowper, Douglas
Cox, David .
Coxcyen, Michael van
Coypel, Antoine
Cozens, John R.
Craddock, Luke
Craeyer, Gaspard de
Cranach, Lucas (the elder)
Cranach, Lucas (tiie younger)
Credi, Lorenzo di .
Crespi, Giov. liattista
Creswick, Thomas .
Crevelli, Carlo.
Cristall, Joshua
Cristofaui, Buonamico
Cristofori
Cristus, I'etrus
Crome, John (the elder)
Crome, John (the younger)
Cuevas, I'ictro de las
Cuyp, Albert
Cuyp, Jacob Gerritz
Dalmasio, Lij^po di
Danby, Francis
Daniele da Volterra
David, Gheerardt
David, Louis
Decamps, Gabriel .
Decker, Cornelis
Delacroix, PUigene
Delaroche, I'aul
Delamotte, William
Delii, Dello .
Delmont (\'an der Mont)
De Mom per, Josse .
Denner, iJalthasar .
1 )esportes, Fran<,ois
Deutsch (Manuel)
Dc Willi. I'eter
De Witte, I'ieter
I >(■ Witte, Kmanuel
Dietrich, rhiisii:ui .
4«
PAOK
426
399
o. 453
3'5
185
292
266
393
59
«53
180
94
67
68
68
129
431
184
371
442
448
285
382
444
401
302
251
253
94
176
439
84
445
41
24
276
429
430
217
350
326
61
432
1 12
282
386
395
35'
394
394
446
11)2
3"
291
258
241
447
289
365
25.)
Dionysius (of Colophon)
Dionysius (of Rome)
Dobsun, William
Dolci, Carlo .
Domenichino (Zampieri)
Domcnico, Veneziano
Doni, I'aolo .
Donzelli, Ippolito and I'ictro
Dossi, Dosso .
Dossi, Giambattista
Dou, Gerard (or Dow)
Doughet, Caspar
Dubufc, Claude M. .
Duccio di Buoninsegna
Duchatel, Frans
Du Jardin, Karel
Duncan, I'homas
Diirer, Albrecht
Dusart, Cornelis
Dyce, William
Eastlakk, Charles Lock
Kgg, Augustus
Flliot, Charles L.
I'^lzheimer, Adam
Engelbrechtsen, Cornelis
Engelbreciitsen, Luca
Espinosa, Jacinto de
Essex, William
Etty, William .
Eupompus
Euphranor
Everdingen, Aldert van
Fabius Pictor
Fabriano, Gentile da
Fabritius, Card
P'alcune, Aniello
Fassola, Bernardino
Fattore, 11 (Penni) .
Ferrarese, Bono
Ferrarese, Lodovico
Ferrari, Gaudcnzio .
Feti, Domenico
Fiammingo (Calvart)
Fielding, Copley
Fiesole, Fra Giovanni <la
Fiore, Colantonio del
Fioreiuo di Lorenzo
Flandrin, Ilippolyte
Flemael, Bartholet .
Flinck, Govaert
Floris, Frans (\an Vricndt)
Fontano, Lavinia
Fontano, E'rospero .
Foppa, Vincenza
Foquet, Jehan
Forii, Meloz/o ila
Fortuiiy, Mariano
Franco (of Bologna)
Francesca, Pietro deiia
l""r.\iiLCsco da Ponte .
4
»3
400
17S
170
50
SO
1S5
132
^11
342
375
392
24. 44
3>5
35S
439
242
349
43»
432
441
458
25s
323
397
1 98
448
427
6
7
355
•3
80
186
96
128
66
^11
96
178
»*'3
448
48
185
79
395
3'S
337
286
'63
161
70
370
74
230
27
73
14S
462
INDEX.
PAGE
PAGE
Francia Bigio . . . . • 99
Guido Reni ....... 167
Francia (Raibolini) .
. 62
Francken, Frans
• 293
Hackaert, Jan ..... 361
Fraser, Alexander .
• 427
Hals, Frans .
. 326
Freminet, Martin
• 371
Hamon, J. Louis
396
Fuseli, Henry
. 412
Harding, Chester .
. 456
Fyt, Jan
. 312
Harding, J. Duffield
Harlow, George
• 449
. 428
Gaddi, Agnolo
. 41
Harvey, George
• 438
Gaddi, Gaddo .
24, 40
Havell, William .
• 447
Gaddi, Taddeo
. 41
Haydon, Benjamin .
425
Gainsborougli, Tliomas
• 409
Hayman, Francis .
. 401
Gallegos, Fernando .
• 193
Hayter, George
431
Gandy, William and Jame
• 399
Hearne, Thomas
444
Garbo, Raffaellino del
. 60
Heere, Luca de
398
Garofalo (Tisio)
• 132
Heintsch, Johann .
• 257
Garrard, Mark
291, 398
Heinz, Joseph
255
Gelee, Claude
• 375
Hemskerk, Martin (Van Veen)
285
Gentile da Fabriano
. 80
Herlen, Friedrich .
235
Gerard, Franfois
. 388
Herrera, Francisco de
202
Gerard, Mark
291, 398
Herrera, F. de (the younger)
211
Gericault, Theodore
• 391
Herring, John F. .
434
Ghent, Justus van .
• 277
Hess, Heinrich von
267
Ghirlandajo (Corradi)
• 59
Hess, Peter von
266
Ghirlandajo, Ridolfo
• 99
Hilliard, Nicholas .
398
Giambono, Michael
. 81
Hills, Robert .
445
Gilpin, Sawrey
• 409
Hilton, William
425
Giordano, Luca
. 187
Hobbema, Meindert
361
Giorgione (Barbarelli)
. 86
Hoefnagel, Jooris .
288
Giovanni da Udine .
. 130
Hogarth, William .
402
Girolamo dai Libri .
• 70
Holbein, Hans (the elder)
235
Girolamo, Romanino
. 146
Holbein, Hans (the younger)
23
7, 397
Giottino
• 42
Holbein, Sigmund .
236
Giotto ....
24, 40
Holland, James
450
Giovanni da Fiesole, Fra
. 48
Hondecoeter, Melchior de
366
Giovanni da Murano
• 83
Honthorst, Wilhelm
329
Girtin, Thomas
• 445
Honthorst, Gerard
32
9, 400
Giulio Romano (Pippi)
. 128
Hooch, Pieter de (or Hoogh)
347
Giunta (of Pisa)
. 38
Hoppner, John
414
Giuseppino (Cesari)
. 163
Horrebout, Gerard Luca .
397
Godeman
• 27
Hoskins, John
399
Goltzius, Heinrich .
. 291
Houghton, Arthur B.
451
Gomez, Sebastian .
. 212
Howard, Henry
419
Gonzales, Bartolome
. 217
Hudson, Thomas .
401
Gordon, J. Watson .
• 431
Hunt, William H.. .
449
Gossaert, Jan .
282, 397
Hurlstone, Fredeiick Y. .
435
Goya y Lucientes
. 229
Huysman, Jacob
316
Gozzoli, Benozzo .
• S3
Huysmans, Cornells
319
Graff, Anton .
. 263
Granacci, Francesco
. 60
Ibbetson, Julius Caesar .
416
Granet, Franfois
• 390
Imola, Linocenzio .
131
Grebber, Pieter Frans de
• 330
Ingegno (Luigi)
77
Greuze, Baptiste
• 385
Ingles. Jorge
193
Grien (Baldung)
• 236
Ingres, Jean Dominique .
391
Gringonneur, Jacquemin
• 370
Inman, Henry
457
Gros, Antoine Jean
• 388
Iriarte, Ignacio de .
211
Griinevvald, Matthaus
. 242
Guardi, Francesco .
. 191
Jacobsz, Luc
323
Guercino (di Cento)
• 173
Jacopi, Giovanni
42
Guerin, Pierre
• 389
Jacopo da Ponte
147
Guidi, Tommaso
• SI
Jameson, George .
399
Guidi) (of Siena)
■ 38
Janet (Fran9ois Clouet) ,
370
INDEX.
Janet (Jehan Cloet)
Jans, Cieerlgen van St.
Jansen, Comelis
Jansen van Cculen .
Jansens, Abraham .
Jcrvas, Charles
Joanes, Juan .
Jones, George
|()nj,'e. Van iler Meer de
Jortlacns, Jacob
Jouvenet, Jean
Justus van Cihcnt
Justus of I'adua
Juvenel, Paulus
Kai.f, Willem
Kauffmann, Angelica
Kaulbach, Wilhebn von
Ketel. Cornells
Keyser, Theodor de
Knapton, George
Kneller, Godfrey
Knoller, Martin von
Koning, Solomon .
Koningh, Philip de .
Kulmbach, Hans von
Kunz
Kupetzky, Joliann .
Laguerre, Louis .
Laia or Lala .
Lairesse, Gerard de .
Lance, George
Lancret, Nicolas
Landine, Jacopo
Landsccr, Edwin .
Lanfranco, Giovanni
Lanini, Bernardino .
Largilliere, Nicolas de
Lastmann, Pieter
Lauder, R. Scott
Lawrence, Thomas .
Leal, Juan de Valdcs
Lebrun, Charles
Leech, John .
Lefevre, Claude
Lely, Peter (Vander Faes)
Leonardo da Vinci .
Leslie, Charles Robert
Lesucur, Kustachc .
Lelhiere, Guillaume
Leutze, Emmanuel .
Lewis, J. F. .
Lcyden, Lucas van .
Ixys, Henri
Liafio, Phelipe
Liberale
Liberatore da Foligno
Libri, Girolamo dai .
Liemakerc, Nicholas de
Lievens, Jan .
Lingelbach. Johann .
433
370 !
323
328
398
301
401
195
427
363
30S
380
277
64
256
366
263
267
398
329
401
400 ;
261
352
353
248 I
231 i
25S \
401
13
318 I
436 I
382
43
43^^
179
96
381
325
437
417
212
379
451
381
6, 400
SS
.456
37S
38S
457
437
323
320
217
7. 69
75
70
339
366
Linton, William
Lippi, Fra Filippo .
Lippi, Filippino
Lippo di Dalmasio .
Lochner, Stephan .
Lombardus (Sustermann) .
Lorenzetti, Ambrogio
Lorenzetti, Pictro
Lorenzo di Crcdi
Lorenzo, Don (II Monaco)
Lorenzo, Fiorcnzo di
Lotto, Lorenzo
l^utherbourg, Philippe
Luciani, Sebastiano
Lucy, Charles
Ludius . . ■ •
Luigi, Andrea di
Luini, Bernardo
Mahuse (Gossaert) .
McCuUoch, Horatio
! Maclise, Daniel
' Macip, Vicente Juan
! Maes, Nicholas
I Maiano, Benedetto of
1 Maiano, Giuliano of
Mantegna, Andrea .
' Mantegna, Francesco
i Manuel, Nicolas
' Maratti, Carlo
March, Esteban
j March, Miguel
Margheritone . ■ • •
Mariani . . • ■ •
I^Lirtin, John . • • •
Martineau, Robert B.
Martinez, Juan B. .
>Lirziale, Marco
1 Masaccio (Guidi)
1 ^Lx^olinn da Panicale
Mason, George
; Master of * Cologne Crucifixion
Master of ' Death of the Virgin '
^L-vster of Liesborn .
Master of ' Lyvcrsberg Passion '
Master Stephan <if Cologne
Master Wilhelm
^Latsys, Jan .
Matsys, Quintin
Matteo di Giovanni di Bartolo
^^ayno, Juan B.
Ma//olini, Lodovico
Mclanthius
M clone, Altobello .
Mclo/zo da Forli
Mehi, Francesco
Mcmliug. Hans
Mcmnii, l.ippo
Memmi, Simone
Mcngs, Raphael
Messina, Antonello da
Mctrodorus .
463
I'AGB
422
52
bo
61
232
285
46
46
94
50
79
>43
411
144
440
«3
77
95
!S2, 397
438
439
"95
338
24
24
66
67
241
181
1 98
1 98
38
24
429
443
228
86
5«
49
442
233
233
234
234
232
232
284
280
47
217
133
S
70
74
96
- / /
45
45
262
Si
I %
464
INDEX.
Metsu, Gabriel
Michelangelo Buonarroti
Micon .
Mierevelt, Michiel .
Mieris, Frans van
Mignard, Pierre
Mignot, L. Reiny
Milano, Cesare da .
Mi'ano. Giovanni da
Millet, Fran9ois (Mile)
Millet, Fran9ois
Mino di Turrita
Modena, Tommaso da
Mola, Giov. Battista
Mola, Pietro Francesco
Monaco, II (Don Lorenzo
Montagna, Bartolommeo
Montngna, Benedetto
Morales, Luis de
Moranda, l^aolo
More, Anthony
Moreelse, Paul
Moreland, George .
Moretto, II (Bonvicino)
Moro, Antonio
Morone, Francesco .
Moroni, G, Battista .
Mortimer, John Hamilton
Mostaert, Jan
Moucheron, Frederick
Moya, Pedro de
Mudo, El (Navarrete)
Midler, William J. .
Mul ready, William .
Murano, Antonio da
Murano, Bartolommeo da
Murano, Giovanni da
Murillo, Bartolome .
Mytens, Daniel
Nasmyth, Patrick .
Navarrete, Fernandez
Neacles .
Neefs, Pieter (the elder)
Neefs, Pieter (the younge
Netscher, Gaspar
Netscher, Theodor
Netscher, Constantine
Newton, G. Stuart .
Newton, William J,
Nicias .
Nicomachus .
Northcote, James .
Oderissi (of Guljbio)
CEser, Adam .
Oggione, Marco da .
Oliver, Peter and Isaac
Opie, John
Orcagna
Orrente, Pedro
Ortolano (Benvenuti)
343
105
6
326
345
381
458
95
42
319
396
24
I, 231
170
180
50
69
69
214
70
286, 398
326
417
146
286, 398
70
147
413
323
361
204
216
440
426
83
204
328. 398
• 429
. 216
10
• 293
• 293
• 346
349,400
• 349
434, 457
• 448
7
8
• 413
• 27
. 261
• 95
• 398
. 416
• 43
. 198
■ 133
Osorio, Francisco .
Ostade, Isaac van .
Ostendorfer, M ichael
Oudry, Jean .
Owen, William
Ovverbeck, Friedrich
Pacchiarotto, Jacopo
Pacchia, Girolamo del
Pacheco, Francesco
Pacuvius
Padovano (Justus) .
Padovanino (Varotari)
Pagani, Gregorio
Palamedes (Anton Stevens)
Palma, Jacopo (the younger)
Palma Vecciiio
Palmezzano, Marco
Palomino de Castro
Pamphilus .
Pansenus
Pantoja de la Cruz .
Pareja, Juan .
Parmigiano (Mazziioli)
Parrhasius
Patel .
Pater, Jean
Patinir, Joachim de
Paul Veronese
Pausias .
Peale, Charles W. .
Peale, 'Remlirandt .
Pedrini, Giovanni .
Pellegrino da San Daniele
Pencz, Georg .
Penley, Aaron
Penni, Giovanni
Pepyn, Martin
Perino del Vaga
Perugino
Peruzzi, Baldassare .
Pesellino
Pesello .
Peters, Bonaventura
Phillip, John .
Phillips, Thomas and Henry
Philoxenus
Pietro della Francesca
Pinturicchio .
Pinwell, George J. .
Piombo, Sel^astiano del
Pippi, Giulio .
Pisano, Vittore
Pisanello
Pizzolo, Marco
Poelemberg, Cornelis
Polanco .
Polidoro da Caravaggio
Pollajuolo, Antonio
Pollajuolo, Pietro .
Polygnotus
Pontormo, Jacopo da
INDEX.
465
Pordenone (G. Antuniu) .
Potter, Paul ,
Pourbus, Frans (the elder)
Pourljus, Frans (the younger)
Pourbus, Pieter
Poussin, Caspar (Doughet)
Poussin, Nicolas
Previtali, Amlrea
Primaticcio, Francesco
Procaccini, Camillo
Procaccini, Carlo
Procaccini, Ercole (the elder)
Procaccini, Ercole (the younger)
Procaccini, CtuUo .
Protogcnes
Prout, Samuel
Prout, Skinner
Provenzale
Prud'hon, Pierre Paul
Pynacker, Adam
Pyne, J. B. .
QUELLINUS, Erasmus
(^ucllinus, Jan
Querfurt, August
Raeburn, Henry .
Kaffaellino Capponi.
Raibolini (Francia) .
Ramsay, Allan
Raphael, Sanzio
Razzi, Giovanni (or Bazzi)
Rcgnault, Henri
Reiner, Wenzel
Rembrandt van Rijn
Rene, King of Anjou
Reni, Guido .
Reynolds, Joshua
Ribalta, Francisco de
Riballa, Juan de
Ribera, Josef de
Ricci, Sebastian©
Richardson, Jonathan
Richardson, Thomas M
Rigaud, Hyacinthe .
Rincon, Antonio del
Rizi, Francisco
Rizi, Juan
Robert, Leopold
Roberts, David
Robson, George F".
Robusti, Domenico
Robusti, Jacopo
Robusti, Marietta
Rode, Christian
Ro«flas, Juan de las
Rogcl, Maestro
Rokes, Hcndrik
Romanino, Girolamo
Romano, Giulio (I'ippi)
Rombouts, Theodor
Roniney, George
FAGB
>43
355
288
292
286
375
372
142
129
.76
176
176
176
176
8
447
45'
24
389
355
435
310
310
259
415
60
62
405
113
103
396
259
33"
369
167
406
195
196
I 86, 196
1 89
401
44S
3S2
193
219
219
393
435
448
'50
148
«5o
261
200
192
344
146
128
304
410
Rocs, J. Heinricli
Roos, Philip .
Roose (de Liemakcro
Rosa, Salvator
Ross, William
RosscUi, Cosimo
Rosselli, Matteo
Rossi, P'rancesco
Rossi, Rosso de'
Rothcnhammer, Johann
Rowlandson, Thomas
Rubens, Peter Paul
Rugendas, Georg
Ruysch, Rachel
Ruysdael, Solomon .
Ruysdael, Jacob
Ryckaert, David
Rysbraek, Peter
Sabbatini, Lorenzo
Sacchi, Andrea
Salaino, Andrea
Salerno, Andrea da
Salvator Rosa
Salvi, Giovanni Battista
Salviati, del (Rossi)
Sanchez Coello, Alons..
Sandby, Paul .
Samlrart, J. von
Santcrre, Baptiste .
Santi, Giovanni
Sanzio, Raphael
Saracino, Carlo
Sarto, Andrea del .
Sassoferrato (Salvi) .
Savery, Roelaiult
Schadow, Friedrich
Schafier, Martin
Schalken, Godfried .
SchaufTclin, Hans .
Schcdone, Bartolommeo .
SchcfTcr, Ary .
Schiavone, Andrea .
Schiavone, Gregorio
Schnorr von Carolsfeld
Schoenfeldt, Hcinrich
Schongauer, Martin (Schon)
Schorcel, Jan .
Schut, Cornelius
Schwartz, Christopli
Scott, Samuel
Scrcta, Carl .
Sebastiano del Piomb"
Semitccoli), Niccnlo
Sermoneta, Girolamo da
Sesto, Ccsarc da
Shalders. George
Shee, Martin Archer
Signorelli, Luca
Simbrecht, Matthias
Slingelantlt, Piefcr Van
Smirke, Robert
PACK
257
257
301
. 186
449
57
178
160
ro2
255
• 445
294, 398
258
. 368
353
359
3'S
319
162
180
96
129
186
180
160
215
444
256
380
75
«>3
1 84
99
iSo
292
266
236
347
248
«79
393
150
66
267
256
234
324
3"
254
401
256
•44
80
I to
95
45 «
418
57
257
346
414
466
INDEX.
Smith, George (of Chichester)
Smith, John .
Smith, WilUam
Snayers, Peter
Snyders, Frans
Sodoma, II
Sogliani, Giovanni
Solario, Andrea da
Solario, Antonio
Solis, Virgilius
Spadara, Micco
Spagna, Lo (Giov. di Pietro)
Spagnoletto, II (Ribera)
Spinello di Spinelli .
Spranger, Bartholomaus
Squarcione, Francesco
Stanfield, Clarkson .
Stanzioni, Massimo
Staphinus, Georgius
Stark, James .
Steen, Jan
Stephanus, Hans
Stefano (Fiorentino)
Stevens, Anton (Palamedes)
Stevens, Paul (Palamedes)
Stone, Frank .
Stone, Henry .
Stoop, Dirk .
Stothard, Thomas .
Stuart, Gilbert
Stubbs, George
Suardi, Bartolommeo
Sustermann, Lamprecht
Sustermans, Justus .
Sylvester, Don
Tacconi, Francesco
Taddeo di Bartolo .
Tafi, Andrea .
Teniers, Abraham .
Teniers, David (the elder)
Teniers, David (the younger)
Terburg, Gerard
Theodorich (of Prague)
Theon .
Theotocopuli, Domenico
Thiele, Johann
Thomas, George H.
Thompson, Henrj' .
Thornhill, James
Tibaldi, Pellegrino .
Tidemand, Adolf
Timanthes (of Sicyon)
Timanthes (of Cythnos)
Timoteo della Vite
Timomachus .
Tintoretto, II .
Titi, Santo di .
Titian
Tobar, Alonso de
Tommaso da Modena
Trioson, Girodet
35
405
406
406
312
301
103
96
71
185
251
186
79
186
44
288
65
433
186
26
430
344
254
42
349
349
439
399
, 400
415
454
408
71
285
303
42
72
46
24,38
315
311
313
339
231
8
217
259
442
420
401
112
268
10
6
127
10
148
162
134
213
61, 231
Tristan, Luis ...
Troyon, Constantine
Trumbull, John
Tura, Cosimo .
Turner, J . M. W. .
Turrita, Jacobus de .
UccELLO (Paolo Doni) .
Udine, Giovanni da.
Udine, Martino da .
Uggione (Marco da Oggione)
Utrecht, Adriaan van
Uwins, Thomas
V^Nius, Otto (Van Veen)
Vaga, Perino del
Vaillant, Wallerant .
Valdes Leal, Juan de
Valentin Moise
Van Achen, Hans .
Van Aeken, Hieronymus .
Van Bloemen, Jan .
Van Bloemen, Pieter
Van Cleve, Joas
Van Craesbecke, Joas
Van Coxcyen, Michael
Van de Capelle, Jan
Van Deelen, Dirk .
Van de Heem, Jan .
Van der Eeckhout .
Van der Faes, Pieter (Lely)
Van der Goes, Hugo
Van der Hagen, Jan
Van der Heist, Bartholomew
Van der Heyden, Jan
Van der Hoecke, Jan
Vanderlyn, John
Van der Meer, Jan .
Van der Meer de Jonge .
Van der Meire, Gerard
Van der Meulen, Anton .
Van der Mont, Deodat
Van der Neer, Aart
Van der Neer, Hendrik .
Van der Venne, Adriaan .
Van der Werfif, Adriaan .
Van der Weyden (the younger)
Van der Weyden (the elder)
Van der Velde, Esaias
Van de Velde, Adriaan .
Van de Velde, W. (the elder)
Van de Velde, W. (the younger
Van de Velde, Pieter
Van Dicpenbeck, Abraham
Vandyck, Antony .
Van Egmont, Justus
Van Everdingen, Aldert
Van Eyck, Hubrecht
Van Eyck, Jan
Van Eyck, Lambert
Van Eyck, Margaret
Van Goyen, Jan
PAGE
. 218
• 395
• 455
• 67
420, 446
• 39
• 50
• 130
. 147
• 95
• 312
• 423
. 291
• 130
• 315
. 212
184, 378
• 254
• 323
• 319
. 316
285, 398
• 315
• 285
• 365
• 365
• 365
• 338
316, 400
. 276
• 361
• 342
. 366
• 3"
• 454
• 345
• 363
. 276
. 318
• 3"
• 353
• 347
• 328
• 348
• 279
• 274
. 328
• 363
364, 400
364, 400
• 398
• 310
304. 398
• 3"
• 355
. 269
. 271
• 273
• 273
• 349
INDEX.
467
Van Herp, Gerard .
Van Hoogstraten, Samuel
Van Iluchteiiburg, Jan
Van Iluysum, Jan
Van Laer, Pieter
Van Loo, Carle
Van Loo, Jean
Van Mandcr, Carel
Van Mieris, Frans .
Van Mieris, Willem
Van Mol, Pieter
Van Muscher, Michael
Vannucchi, Andrea
Van Oost, Jacob
Van Oost, Jacob (the you
Van Orley, Bernhard
Van Ostade, Adriaan
Van Ostade, Isaac .
Van Ouwater, Albrecht
Van Slingelandt, Pieter
Van Somer, Paul
Van Steenwyck
Van St. Jans, Geertgen
Van Swanevelt, Ilerniani
Van Tulden, Theodor
Vanuccio, Pietro di .
Van Uden, Lucas
Van Veen, Martin .
Van Veen, Othon .
Van Vriendt, Frans
Varela, Francisco
Vargas, Luis de
Varley, John .
Vasari, Giorgio
Vazquez, Alonso
Vecellio, Marco
Vecellio, Orazio
Vecellio, Tiziano
Veit, Philipp .
Velasquez de Silva .
Venezia, Antonio da
Veneziauo, Bonifazio
Veneziano, Domcnico
Venusti, >Lircello .
Vermeyen, Cornelis
Vemet, Claude Joseph
Vemet, Emile J. H.
Veronese, Paul (Cagliari)
Verrio, Antonio
Verrocchio, Andrea
Victor, Jan
Vien, Marie .
Villaviceiicio, Nuiiez de
Vincent, George
Vinci, Gaudenzio
Vinci, Leonardo da
Vinckeboons, David
Vitale .
292
3"
338
363
368, 400
352
384
384
288
345
346
3"
348
99
312
316
283
340
344
323
346
,398
289
323
353
310
76
303
285
291
286
204
199
446
160
200
142
142
134
267
220
43
146
50
112
285 i
384 '
392
150
401 I
56 I
.338
386 !
212
430 '
96 1
88 I
293
61 I
Vite, Timoteo della
Vivarini, Bartolommeo
Vivarini, Luigi
Vlieger, Simon dc
Volterra, Daniele ila
Vos, Martin de
Vouet, Simon
Vroom, Cornelis
Vroom, Hendrik
Wagner, Hans
Walker, Frederick
Walker, Robert
Ward, James .
Watteau, Antoine
Weenix, Jan (the elder)
Weenix, Jan (the younger)
Wehnert, Edward II
Werden, Meister von
West, Benjamin
Wcstall, Richard
Westall, William
Whcatley, Francis
Wildens, Jan .
Wilhelm, Meister
Wilkic, David
Willaerts, Adam
Wilson, Richard
Witherington, William
W^ohlgcmuth, Michael
Wootton, John
Wouters, Frans
Wouvermans, Jan .
Wouvermans, Philip
Wouvermans, Pieter
Wright, John M. .
Wright, Joseph
Wright, Michael
Wurmser, Nicholas.
Wynants, Jan
Zamacois, Eduardo
Zampieri, Domenico
Zegers, Daniel (or Segers)
Zegers, Gerard (or Seghers)
Zeitblom, Barlholom'aus
Zenale, Bernardo
Zeuxis .
Zingaro, II (Solario)
Zoffany, Johann
Zoppo, Marco
Zuccaro, Taddeo
Zuccaro, Federigo
Zuccato, Valerio
Zuccato, Francesco
Zucchcrelli, Francesco
Zurbaran, Francisco
127
■ 84
84
363
112
. 287
••^4, 372
• 398
248
443
400
419
382
355
368
45'
234
453
4«7
417
4J3
303
232
424
293
405
425
242
401
311
354
354
354
445
409
399
231
349
• 230
. 170
3>2
■ 303
• 235
. 71
5
. 185
. 410
. 62
. 161
162, 39S
24
24
• 191
. 202
PRINTED BY WILLTAM CLOWES AND SONS,
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