LOVE IN ART
 
 Art Lovers* Scries 
 
 The Madonna in Art 
 
 Christ in Art 
 
 Angels in Art 
 
 Saints in Art 
 
 Heroines of the Bible in Art 
 
 Child Life in Art 
 
 Love in Art 
 
 Shakespeare in Art 
 
 Music in Art 
 
 Japanese Art 
 
 A History of American Art. 2 vols. 
 
 Beautiful Women in Art. 2 vols. 
 
 J* 
 
 L, C PAGE & COMPANY 
 200 Summer St., Boston, Mass.
 
 LOVE IN ART 
 
 BY 
 
 MARY KNIGHT POTTER 
 
 EUustratrt 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 L. C. PAGE AND COMPANY 
 
 (INCORPORATED) 
 1898
 
 Copyright, f8<?8 
 Bar L. C. PAGE' AND COMPANV 
 
 (INCORPORATED) 
 
 Colmtial 
 
 Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION yii 
 
 I. LOVE IN GREEK ART . . . .15 
 II. BIBLICAL LOVE STORIES ... 29 
 
 III. VENUS AND CUPID . . . . .48 
 
 IV. MYTHS AND FANCIES .... 76 
 V. PAINTERS' LOVES 96 
 
 VI. THE GODDESS OF LOVE AND HER SON 131 
 
 VII. MYTHOLOGIC AND IDEAL LOVE SCENES 156 
 
 VIII. LOVE SCENES IN LITERATURE . . 196 
 
 IX. WIVES AND SWEETHEARTS . . .224 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 251 
 
 INDEX 253 
 
 2051012
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 FACE 
 
 MRS. KENYON Cox. The Lovers ... Frontispiece 
 
 Venus of Melos , 17 
 
 PRAXITELES. Cupid 23 
 
 FRANCIA. Meeting of St. Cecilia and Valerian ... 37 
 
 GUIDO RENI. Rebecca at the Well 45 
 
 BOTTICELLI. Birth of Venus 51 
 
 CORREGGIO. Education of Cupid 57 
 
 TITIAN. Sated and Artless Love 61 
 
 TITIAN. Venus and Cupid 67 
 
 CORREGGIO. Detail from Danae 85 
 
 BELUCCI. Cupid and Psyche 91 
 
 DA VINCI. Monna Lisa 103 
 
 RAPHAEL. The Fornarina 107 
 
 MICHAEL ANGELO. Vittoria Colonna 113 
 
 RUBENS. Rubens's Wife and Children 119 
 
 VAN DYCK. Maria Ruthven 123 
 
 REMBRANDT. Rembrandt and His Wife 127 
 
 FRANCESCHINI. Cupid with a Bow 133 
 
 VOLTERANNO. Sleeping Cupid 137 
 
 v
 
 VI ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 MAP 
 
 CABANEL. Birth of Venus 145 
 
 WATTEAU. Jupiter and Antiope 159 
 
 LEIGHTON. Helen of Troy 163 
 
 LEIGHTON. Wedded 167 
 
 MILLAIS, Yes! 171 
 
 WATTS. Love and Death 175 
 
 THUMAN. Springtime of Love 185 
 
 HUNT. Marguerite 189 
 
 McEwEN. Paris at the Court of Menelaus . ... 195 
 
 ROSSETTI. Head of the Blessed Damozel .... 201 
 
 MILLAIS. Bride of Lammermoor 207 
 
 CABANAI Death of Francesca da Rimini . . . . 211 
 
 TISSOT. Meeting of Faust and Marguerite .... 215 
 
 ROMNEY. Lady Hamilton 227 
 
 MILLAIS. The Huguenot Lovers 231 
 
 ROSSETTI. Beata Beatrix 237 
 
 BRUSH. Mother and Child 245
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 " I ^HE love between man and woman has 
 been told in story and poem since 
 long before the days of Sappho. It forms, 
 indeed, the subject of the great bulk of 
 what we call literature. In music, love's 
 domain is less extended. With the excep- 
 tion of song and the opera, most of the 
 greatest music has, in its title at least, no 
 hint of the great heart history of human 
 kind. In this respect the plastic arts are 
 more allied to music than to literature. 
 
 The masterpieces in painting and sculp- 
 ture are generally not labelled love stories. 
 It is possible, to be sure, to interpret some 
 of them till a half hidden love suggestion
 
 Vlll INTRODUCTION. 
 
 appears, made more beautiful, perhaps, by 
 its very obscurity. But this is exactly 
 what poetic minds frequently attempt 
 when listening to the great sonatas and 
 symphonies. The composer may have 
 meant something of what the musical 
 psychic thinks he finds; or he may 
 never have dreamed of expressing any- 
 thing except purely musical thoughts, 
 inexpressible in words. 
 
 There is, indeed, more than fancy in 
 the claim that sound and color has each 
 its own language with which it conveys 
 its message to the initiated, strengthened, 
 rather than limited, when words fail prop- 
 erly to interpret it. Perhaps, too, it is 
 because love's romance has been told 
 so voluminously in literature that the 
 two other arts give less time to its por- 
 trayal. 
 
 However this may be, it is nevertheless 
 true that many beautiful pictures and
 
 INTRODUCTION. IX 
 
 sculptures do tell, in no uncertain lan- 
 guage, the old, old story which will 
 charm the world so long as there are 
 men and women to read it. To separate 
 and properly classify every picture and 
 statue produced since the beginning of 
 the great Grecian period, touching in any 
 way upon this subject, is practically im- 
 possible. Even a summary of the most 
 remarkable works must, from some points 
 of view, be incomplete. There is always 
 the question how much reading into a 
 picture is allowable. Moreover, people do 
 not always agree as to what constitutes a 
 love story. 
 
 In the following chapters an effort has 
 been made to reduce the work to its sim- 
 plest proportions. 
 
 As Venus has been known for ages as 
 the goddess of love, any picture or statue 
 of her may unquestionably come within 
 its scope. Cupid, her irresponsible son,
 
 X INTRODUCTION. 
 
 whose game is the human heart, being 
 the cause of all the heart troubles and 
 heart happinesses, must also have a place 
 here. 
 
 The illustrations of any definite love 
 story, whether the amours of god and 
 goddess, of people who live in literature 
 or only in the artist's fancy, are, of course, 
 still more natural divisions of the book. 
 After these come the real love stories of 
 real people. Here is where discrimina- 
 tion must come in and where the author's 
 individual opinion may war against that 
 of the majority. 
 
 When an artist portrays a family group, 
 of father, mother, and children, that may 
 seem to be a fair example of Love in Art. 
 At least, one hopes the ideal passion was 
 at the basis of the union which made the 
 family possible. Again, when a man or 
 king commands the portrait of his sweet- 
 heart, wife, or mistress, the fulfilment of
 
 INTRODUCTION. XI 
 
 the order, since it represents the man's 
 or king's love, might also reasonably be 
 counted upon to come within the pages 
 of this volume. 
 
 There seems, however, one flaw in the 
 reasoning of both these assertions. To 
 know what love is, one must have loved, 
 just as truly as, to know what life is, one 
 must have lived. Unless, then, the love 
 story is felt, there must be something 
 lacking to its perfect presentation. Now, 
 given certain experiences and instincts, a 
 painter may paint a king's mistress or 
 a true man's bride so that the world 
 might guess the love story of the lustrous 
 eyes, and curving lips. Undoubtedly, how- 
 ever, the painter usually does no such 
 thing. From some points of view a cow- 
 slip is always merely a cowslip to the most 
 poetic of artists. Another man's beloved 
 inspires him, perhaps, to paint the most 
 charming and truthful of portraits. He
 
 Xll INTRODUCTION. 
 
 does not put into it, however, what, even 
 without his knowledge, will always go into 
 his picture of his own true love. 
 
 It may be urged that neither does the 
 artist's interpretation of merely ideal, or 
 mythologic, or literary love scenes hold a 
 truer expression of his own feelings. Yet, 
 generally, if a story is of unknown or ideal 
 people, every one is apt to read into it 
 some of his own experiences, thus making 
 it more truly personal. Besides, painting 
 or chiselling a self-chosen subject is always 
 different from fulfilling any commission, 
 even though it be to portray a beautiful 
 woman. This is the distinction which 
 has seemed of sufficient weight to decide 
 the lines upon which this book is laid. 
 Only when it appears that the artist 
 himself felt the story he was telling has it 
 been introduced here. Portraits of the 
 loves of the artists by the artists them- 
 selves, then, are the only witnesses to
 
 INTRODUCTION. xiii 
 
 the real love stories of real people which 
 have been admitted. 
 
 The historical order is chosen because 
 it seems the most natural and least confus- 
 ing. As will be seen, Greek art is placed 
 immediately before that of the Renais- 
 sance. Roman art at its best was a 
 hybrid, and all that was worth preserv- 
 ing in it came directly from the Greek. 
 Consequently, the book is divided simply 
 into the Greek, Renaissance, and modern 
 periods of art. 
 
 The line is somewhat arbitrarily drawn, 
 separating the art of the Renaissance from 
 that of modern days. It is always a ques- 
 tion where one begins and the other leaves 
 off, unless the term Renaissance is applied 
 strictly to a period of Italian history. The 
 influence of the great Italians, however, 
 is so strongly shown in the works of 
 Velasquez, Murillo, Van Dyck, Rubens, 
 Poussin, and, perhaps in a lesser degree,
 
 XIV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 in Rembrandt, that it seems best to place 
 these masters within the charmed days of 
 the rebuilding of art. In this book, then, 
 modern art is supposed to date from 
 about the middle of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury. If the division is unsupported by 
 many authorities, at least it has the 
 advantage of being easily remembered. 
 As this is not an exhaustive treatise, 
 but is primarily for those who have 
 neither time nor desire to do much 
 original research, and to present an 
 interesting subject in as uncomplicated 
 and direct a manner as possible, the 
 present scheme appears to be, on the 
 whole, the best attainable.
 
 PART i. 
 
 GREEK ART.
 
 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 LOVE IN GREEK ART. 
 
 HERE are only a few broken 
 fragments left of the art of 
 ancient Greece; yet these frag- 
 ments have been the guide, teacher, in- 
 spirer of all art of the Western world, for 
 over two thousand years. The more one 
 thinks of what this means, the more mar- 
 vellous it seems. If these broken, defaced 
 figures place this art above that of all 
 other times or nations, what would be 
 the result if we might see the unspoiled 
 labor of those wonderful centuries before 
 the Christian era? The fame of Greek 
 15
 
 1 6 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 art does not rest, however, upon its prob- 
 able perfection. It is the perfection of 
 the mutilated remains themselves which 
 dwarfs all consequent endeavors. 
 
 If it could be proved that these memen- 
 tos were really all that ever came from 
 the hands of Pheidias, Cleomenes, Praxi- 
 teles, Scopas, we must still acknowledge 
 in them a beauty since unapproached. 
 Even more might be said. If the Par- 
 thenon wonders had been entirely obliter- 
 ated ; if the Hermes lacked torso, as well 
 as arms and legs; if the Laocoon had 
 perished in its own constrictions ; if not 
 even a coin bearing feeble copies of 
 renowned statues remained ; if nothing 
 save the Venus of Melos were left as 
 witness of the grandeur of Greek art, 
 this statue would be enough to show 
 the inadequacy of all that man has since 
 accomplished. 
 
 For once, popular prejudice and aes-
 
 VENUS OF MELOS.
 
 LOVE IN GREEK ART. I 
 
 thetic criticism are in accord. To the 
 uncritical, as to the connoisseur, this 
 figure seems the embodiment of all the 
 majesty, power, and beauty of perfect 
 womanhood. As she stands amid her 
 rich-toned hangings in the Louvre, one 
 pities the generations who never knew 
 her. Indeed it is hard to realize that 
 till 1825, for perhaps two thousand years, 
 her existence was not even suspected. So 
 completely does she satisfy the craving for 
 artistic perfection of form and pose, com- 
 bined with spiritual grace and beauty, that 
 one wonders how art could have lived 
 without her. 
 
 As is well known, modern criticism is 
 inclined to assert that the incomparable 
 figure was intended to represent the God- 
 dess of Victory. To the world at large, 
 however, she will remain what she was 
 first called when taken from her rocky 
 hiding on Melos: Venus, the Goddess of
 
 20 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 Love. The very fact that she is, as Mr. 
 Stillman says, of grander lines than belong 
 to the Greek Venus, that her figure is 
 more commanding, her face nobler, only 
 makes her more truly a fit personification 
 of what great love should be. 
 
 No one knows her sculptor. She be- 
 longs probably to the immediately post- 
 Pheidian epoch. Authoritative opinions 
 attribute her to the time and school of 
 Scopas, who worked about the middle of 
 the third century before Christ. There is 
 one bit of internal evidence to prove that 
 she represents a higher type of woman- 
 hood, or goddess-hood, than the Greeks 
 gave to their Venuses. It is an old 
 Greek saying that only a cow-herder 
 like Paris would ever prefer Praxiteles's 
 Venus to the Minerva of Pheidias. This 
 is very fair testimony as to what was con- 
 sidered a true Venus type. The records 
 go to show that Pheidias, the loftiest
 
 LOVE IN GREEK ART. 21 
 
 sculptor the world has known, never 
 chiselled a statue of Venus. No beauty 
 of form could appeal to him unless it 
 was vivified and deified by nobility of 
 mind and spirit. Minerva, rather than 
 Venus, claimed his worship, and he carved 
 many rarely wonderful statues to her honor. 
 The most beautiful of all, probably, was 
 the one that stood in the Parthenon. 
 He used scenes from the life of Venus, 
 however, as accessories to other groups 
 and figures. On the base of his greatest 
 masterpiece, the statue of Jupiter, for in- 
 stance, one of the reliefs in gold repre- 
 sented Aphrodite rising from the sea, 
 while Eros received her, and Peitho 
 crowned her. 
 
 Praxiteles, on the contrary, found the 
 charm and grace of the goddess of love 
 peculiarly attractive, and he produced 
 many exquisite statues of her. This 
 artist came just before the more corrupt
 
 22 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 and sensual age that succeeded the Pelo- 
 ponnesian War. Lovely as his work was, 
 it lacked something of the purity of line 
 and conception of the greater Pheidias. 
 His Venus of Cnidus, however, was al- 
 most as much esteemed as was the latter's 
 magnificent Jupiter Olympus. 
 
 In that statue she was shown nude, 
 standing easily, and gracefully dropping 
 her garment on a vase at her side. The 
 general outlines are known from the Cni- 
 dian coin, and in the Glyptothek at Mu- 
 nich is perhaps the most celebrated copy 
 of her. His Cupids were also rarely be- 
 witching. In the Vatican is a torso sup- 
 posed to be a copy of one of them. The 
 beautiful boy's head is inclined forward, 
 and the face wears a charmingly soft and 
 dreamy expression. 
 
 To Cleomenes, a contemporary, as well 
 as to Praxiteles himself, is attributed the 
 Venus de Medici. She was excavated
 
 PRAXITELES. CUPID.
 
 LOVE IN GREEK ART. 25 
 
 near the middle of the fifteenth century; 
 her arms were gone, and it is doubtful if 
 the restoration gives their correct position. 
 If they were differently placed, it seems 
 sure that the graceful form would at least 
 show to better advantage. She is the 
 forerunner of many well-known Venuses : 
 Venus crouching in the bath, Venus loos- 
 ening her sandal, Aphrodite Callipygus in 
 the Museum at Naples, Medicean Venus 
 in the Capitolene at Rome, Venus Ano- 
 dyomene, Venus of the Vatican, and 
 Venus Victrix of the Louvre. 
 
 Whether the ancient masters ever por- 
 trayed in their figures of goddess or 
 nymph the face of their wives or sweet- 
 hearts cannot be positively known. Per- 
 haps then as now some of the perfection 
 they saw in loved ones was transferred to 
 enduring marble. Probably, however, till 
 the beginning of the decadence of the art, 
 their greatest triumphs were in purely
 
 26 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 ideal conceptions. There are many copies 
 of their Venuses and Cupids, but the most 
 beautiful are those here spoken of. And 
 high above all stands the glorious Melos. 
 In truth she is a Victory rather than a 
 Venus, the victory that physical beauty, 
 when reinforced by the charms of mind 
 and soul, must always win over the mere 
 perfection of face and form.
 
 PART n. 
 
 RENAISSANCE ART.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 BIBLICAL LOVE STORIES. 
 
 [ANY centuries unproductive of 
 great artistic achievement stretch 
 from the decadence of Greek art 
 to the beginning of the Italian Renais- 
 sance. At length, following the dark- 
 ness of the middle ages, came the 
 first gleams of the dawn of that revival 
 which was to blaze to midday splendor 
 and sink into a gorgeous sunset, whose 
 rosy afterglow may still be seen even 
 about the horizon of the art of to-day. 
 
 The painter and sculptor were so com- 
 pletely the servants of the Church during 
 the early years of the Renaissance, that 
 their brush and chisel seldom delineated 
 29
 
 30 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 any subject of a secular character. Con- 
 sequently artists seldom pictured that love 
 which at its highest joins man and woman 
 in true wedlock. Such scenes would have 
 found few purchasers among their churchly 
 patrons. Pictures of the life of Christ 
 chiefly appealed to the taste of the time ; 
 but Biblical or ecclesiastical stories of any 
 sort were both legitimate and marketable. 
 Before the beginning of the fourteenth 
 century, the great Giotto painted on the 
 walls of the Arena Chapel the meeting of 
 St. Joachim with his wife St. Anna. Here, 
 whatever heavenly inspiration fills their 
 hearts, we find the two stately figures em- 
 bracing each other very tenderly and very 
 humanly. They are coming from oppo- 
 site directions across a passageway under 
 an arch raised on severely simple pillars. 
 The two are attended by youths and maid- 
 ens, who, heavily draped and somewhat 
 figureless, are yet not without distinct
 
 BIBLICAL LOVE STORIES. 31 
 
 actuality. St. Joachim's arms are about 
 St. Anna, while her hands press his face 
 close to hers. In spite of their middle- 
 aged sedateness, there is about them a 
 real feeling of wedded happiness. The 
 picture as a whole perhaps does not show 
 Giotto at his best, but its lines of compo- 
 sition are interesting and forceful, and the 
 figures live and move. The tremendous 
 advance painting had made from the time 
 of Giotto's master, Cimabue, is here clearly 
 shown and might fairly prove Giotto's 
 right to be called the father of modern 
 painting. 
 
 Fra Angelico, who came nearly a cen- 
 tury later, of all the painters of the Re- 
 naissance was the most ideally spiritual. 
 Mundane affairs never disturbed his serene 
 soul, and his pictures of saints and angels 
 are so full of the very essence of piety and 
 religious ardor, that one can well believe 
 Vassari's statement that this painter-monk
 
 32 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 never began a picture without first seeking 
 inspiration in prayer. Fra Angelico never 
 introduced into his holy scenes anything 
 more worldly than the portraits of some of 
 his brother priests. Yet, though he may 
 not have realized it himself, he left behind 
 as sweet a love story as was ever confided 
 to wall or canvas. In the Academy at 
 Florence is his Last Judgment, painted 
 originally for the Church of the Monks of 
 the Angeli in Florence. On the Paradise 
 side of this old fresco the angelic inhab- 
 itants of the Blessed Land are meeting and 
 conducting on their way the souls of those 
 who are worthy. The tender rejoicing 
 with which they clasp each other in greet- 
 ing has surely never been more delicately, 
 yet fervidly indicated. In the foreground 
 is a man with a monk's shaven head. His 
 arms are about a lovely little angel who 
 clasps his neck and presses his head to 
 hers. Near by are other pairs, embracing
 
 BIBLICAL LOVE STORIES. 33 
 
 with equal joy and tenderness. The ring 
 which they are joining for the celestial 
 dance is formed, of many such couples, 
 holding each other confidingly by the 
 hand. Fra Angelico probably devoutly 
 believed that in heaven there would be no 
 marriage. Yet even he could not depict 
 the perfect happiness of united souls, and 
 leave wholly untold the story of such love 
 as existed between his own father and 
 mother. 
 
 Fra Filippo Lippi, another painter 
 from the priestly ranks, was quite unlike 
 his pious predecessor. Little of the an- 
 gelic quality is found in his work, but he 
 struck a joyous, human note, and in his 
 little pictures he was especially happy. 
 Like the majority of the Renaissance 
 painters, he principally represented scenes 
 from the life of the Virgin. At Oxford, 
 however, there is a charming panel by him 
 that comes under our title : the Wedding
 
 34 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 Feast of Joachim and Anna, which is a 
 fair example of his pleasing arrangement 
 of figures, and his lovely coloring in deli- 
 cate blues, greens, and whites. 
 
 Contemporary with Filippo Lippi, 
 though outliving him for nearly thirty 
 years, was Benozzo Gozzoli. He was a 
 pupil of Fra Angelico, but he, too, has 
 little of his master's spirit. He delighted 
 in picturing all sorts of extravagances, 
 from queer beasts, birds, and reptiles, to 
 strange and profusely decorated buildings. 
 He was one of the most naive of the early 
 painters, and his genuine joy in outdoor 
 sports and gay festivities is constantly 
 shown in his innumerable decorations. 
 On the walls of the Campo Santo, that 
 wonderful old burial-ground in Pisa, his 
 riotous fancy finds full sway, and here is 
 his version of the Marriage Feast of 
 Joachim and Anna. A reproduction of 
 dancing girls who seem fairly filled with
 
 BIBLICAL LOVE STORIES. 35 
 
 the joy of movement and life, is taken 
 from this scene. 
 
 The story of St. Cecilia was a favorite 
 one with the Italian painters, and pictures 
 of her marriage or meeting with Valerian 
 are frequently seen. Francesco Francia, 
 the friend and admirer of Raphael, painted 
 one such marriage, which is still at Bo- 
 logna, in the Oratory of St. Cecilia. It 
 is a quiet, dignified composition, well, if 
 not vividly drawn, showing the two under 
 a marble archway, surrounded by many 
 companions. There is a complete lack of 
 jewels or embroideries in the costumes 
 of the pair, and St. Cecilia's white tunic 
 with its crimson over-robe and her sleeves 
 beneath of a pinkish red, are richly hand- 
 some only because of the harmonious 
 coloring and graceful lines. The saint's 
 face is slightly immobile, though feminine 
 and rather pleasing, her yellow hair being 
 her really pretty feature. The background
 
 36 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 is a landscape in pale, cool green, and the 
 composition as a whole is stately and 
 interesting 
 
 On canvas, which was used by the 
 Venetians long before it was popular in 
 the rest of Italy, Carpaccio painted for 
 the Scuolo of St. Ursula an exquisite 
 meeting of the Prince of Britain with 
 Ursula. This is now in the Academy at 
 Venice, and in grace of form and move- 
 ment, and charm of expression, is worthy 
 to be placed high on the list of beautiful 
 works. Carpaccio has caught the very 
 essence of the pure, devout spirit which 
 legend says characterized those two 
 youthful saints. Another love scene by 
 this sensitive painter is his meeting of 
 Joachim and Anna, now in the Academy 
 at Venice. 
 
 In the Loggia of the Vatican in Rome 
 are the remarkable frescoes called Ra- 
 phael's Bible. Among these world-famous
 
 BIBLICAL LOVE STORIES. 39 
 
 scenes is that of the first meeting between 
 Jacob and Rachel. It has not quite the 
 symmetry and noble lines in composition 
 of most of the great Umbrian's work, but 
 it is delightful for its pastoral simplicity 
 in color and drawing. Wonderfully real 
 sheep are thirstily drinking at the trough, 
 while Rachel and the girl with her have 
 turned towards the bearded stranger who 
 is rapidly approaching. His outstretched 
 hand, his whole air of eager admiration, 
 as he gazes at Rachel, tell the story of 
 his attraction. She, in turn, looks at 
 him from under lowered lids, a half con- 
 scious blush showing upon her drooping 
 face. 
 
 David Watching Bathsheba is also in 
 the same collection. The future mother 
 of Solomon does not appear as beautiful 
 as the old story describes her, except per- 
 haps for her long wavy hair, which she is 
 brushing. David's charmed delight, how-
 
 4O LOVE IN ART. 
 
 ever, as he leans forward watching her, 
 are clearly shown in his face and pose. 
 Raphael was only twenty-five when he 
 painted these frescoes, and though his 
 art grew with every year of his life, even 
 at that age he had left most of his com- 
 petitors far behind him. 
 
 The one wall painting which is surely 
 Titian's is in the Carmine in Padua, and 
 is probably the only Biblical love story 
 his brush ever essayed. It represents the 
 meeting of Joachim and Anna, and is not 
 Titian at his best. 
 
 One thinks of Giorgione as antedating 
 Titian, yet he really was born a year later. 
 If he had lived to Titian's age, Cadore 
 might not have been the birthplace of the 
 greatest of Venetian painters. There is 
 little left now to show what Giorgione 
 actually accomplished, but it is enough 
 to prove him a better draughtsman and a 
 no less marvellous colorist than his famous
 
 BIBLICAL LOVE STORIES. 4! 
 
 rival. One of his supposed works is the 
 Meeting of Jacob and Rachel, now in 
 the Dresden gallery. In this painting 
 the absence of affectation, the freshness 
 of motive, and the wonderful expression 
 in both their faces, and especially in that 
 of the shepherd boy watching the love 
 greeting, make it far more beautiful than 
 the one in the Vatican. 
 
 The sixteenth century had passed its 
 first quarter, when Paul Veronese was 
 born. His very name calls up a series 
 of glorious-colored, life-embued composi- 
 tions which give him a unique place even 
 among the color-loving Venetians. The 
 best known of all his works are perhaps 
 his series of frescoes in St. Sebastian, illus- 
 trating the Life of Esther, the woman who 
 won the love and honor of Ahasuerus. 
 One of these shows the Jewish girl led 
 down a royal flight of marble steps to the 
 king. It has all the life, light, and verve
 
 42 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 that characterize this Venetian. Though 
 there is a suspicion of the theatric in 
 Esther's pose, and in that of the man 
 bowing before her, the general lines of 
 the composition are grand, and the 
 masses are splendidly balanced. An- 
 other shows Esther richly and exquis- 
 itely dressed, fainting in the arms of two 
 attendants, while the king starts towards 
 her from his throne. 
 
 With the exception of Tintoretto, 
 Veronese is the last great name of the 
 Renaissance. For the next century the 
 true spirit of these years of revival is to 
 be found in other countries, who thus late 
 came under the influence of Italian art as 
 it was at its best. 
 
 Contemporary with Giovanni Bellini, 
 Titian, and Veronese, were the two great 
 Northerners, Holbein and Diirer. Hol- 
 bein left a series of woodcuts showing 
 Esther crowned queen, with the king
 
 BIBLICAL LOVE STORIES. 43 
 
 whom her beauty had subjugated beside 
 her. Diirer painted Anna and Joachim 
 embracing at the Gate of Jerusalem. 
 
 Nearly a century later, Nicholas Pous- 
 sin, father of the classic school of painting 
 in France, was continuing with indefati- 
 gable zeal the traditions of the masters of 
 art. His Ruth and Boaz, in the Louvre, 
 is one of his most characteristic Biblical 
 subjects. This represents a large field 
 full of women harvesting. Ruth in the 
 foreground kneels in front of Boaz, who 
 in answer to her supplications orders a 
 slave to let the charming girl glean as she 
 desires. The drawing and composition 
 are excellent and dignified, and something 
 of the spirit of old Biblical history dwells 
 upon the scene. In the same gallery hangs 
 his Eliezer and Rebecca. 
 
 Here, too, is one of Rembrandt's works, 
 Bathsheba Reading a Letter from David. 
 In color, this is as charming as anything
 
 44 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 Titian or Correggio ever achieved. The 
 flesh tints of Bathsheba, who sits nude 
 on a white-covered couch, are exquisite. 
 Another Biblical love scene by the great 
 Dutchman is Samson's Wedding, a some- 
 what boisterous composition, rather in 
 Rembrandt's later style. 
 
 Guido Reni was born more than twenty- 
 five years before Rembrandt, and with 
 none of his mighty genius. But, even if 
 his own talent had been greater, the deca- 
 dence into which Italy had fallen might 
 have benumbed it to incomplete expres- 
 sion. Guide's works, however, have 
 always been very popular. A certain 
 story-telling quality, joined to extremely 
 pleasing color, has made him a favorite. 
 His Rebecca at the Well is a fair example 
 of his style. Rebecca's face is sweetly at- 
 tractive, and if Eliezer was not personally 
 charmed with the helpful maiden, he was 
 of sterner stuff than have been the emis-
 
 GUIDO REXI. REBECCA AT THE WELL.
 
 BIBLICAL LOVE STORIES. 47 
 
 saries of most princes. It hangs in the 
 Pitti at Florence. 
 
 The Spanish Murillo painted this same 
 subject. In his work Eliezer has already 
 begun to drink from the pitcher. It is 
 rather less theatric and is better balanced 
 than the former. It now hangs in the 
 Museum of Madrid.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 VENUS AND CUPID. 
 
 VENETIAN art was late in devel- 
 oping, and almost from its birth 
 it differed radically from that of 
 its sister cities. Religion in Venice 
 lent itself readily to all the gorgeousness 
 and pomp that were a very part of the 
 city's existence, and there was little more 
 of the ascetic in cloister and church than 
 in civic life. As a natural sequence the 
 Greek goddess of love very early became 
 a subject for Venetian painters. 
 
 Giovanni, son of Jacopo Bellini, first of 
 
 those great Venetians whose color was to 
 
 capture the world, painted Venus at least 
 
 twice. One, called the Venus of the Bei- 
 
 4 8
 
 VENUS AND CUPID. 49 
 
 vedere, is now in Vienna. The other, 
 Venus as Empress of the World, is in 
 the Museum of Fine Arts in Venice. 
 To our modern view, there is some- 
 thing crude and hard about this latter, 
 and Venus has little of her historic 
 beauty. It is an extremely interesting 
 composition, however, though it falls far 
 behind the wonderful Bellini Madonnas, 
 one or two of which in many respects 
 have never yet been surpassed. 
 
 Andrea Mantegna married Bellini's 
 sister, but in the somewhat uncouth, 
 if rarely vigorous works of Mantegna, 
 there is little to show the influence of 
 his brother-in-law. In the Louvre is an 
 example of him at his very best. It rep- 
 resents the Muses dancing to Apollo's 
 lyre, while Mars, Venus, and Cupid stand 
 on a rocky height looking down upon 
 them. At a slight distance Vulcan is 
 threatening his faithless spouse. The
 
 50 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 very spirit of Greek art is in this little 
 picture. It is composed with all Man- 
 tegna's wonderful feeling for line, bal- 
 ance, and mass, and the figures are 
 drawn with less of that meagreness 
 which characterizes many of his classical 
 subjects. 
 
 Contemporary with these two men, 
 though not born until 1447, was one 
 Florentine who had little in common 
 with his churchly brethren. The weird 
 imagination of Sandro Botticelli gives 
 him a unique place among the artists 
 of any age or country. During the rage 
 of Pre-Raphaelitism, worship of him was 
 rampantly insisted upon. To-day there are 
 two strongly antagonistic opinions con- 
 cerning him. Either he is tremendously 
 admired or tremendously detested. It 
 has to be admitted that his work is capa- 
 ble of arousing some kind of intense 
 thought and feeling ; indifference to it is
 
 VENUS AND CUPID. 53 
 
 hardly possible. He painted numbers of 
 Venuses, and of them all the one called 
 the Birth of Venus, in the Uffizi, is per- 
 haps the most beautiful. The goddess, 
 standing in a charmingly graceful attitude 
 upon a huge shell, is borne to earth by 
 numerous loves and graces. Much has 
 been written of Botticelli's wonderful feel- 
 ing for the rhythm of line. Even the 
 least of his admirers must recognize 
 the exquisite sense of curve and move- 
 ment in the long hair of the goddess, 
 and in the outline of her figure. If the 
 face were less mournful, with less of the 
 strained expression which we of nine- 
 teenth century nerves know so well, this 
 work would surely have captivated even 
 Botticelli's detractors. Another Venus, 
 less celebrated, in the National Gallery 
 of London, shows her reclining, while 
 Amorini pelt her with roses. In the 
 same gallery is still another Venus, fully
 
 54 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 robed, partly sitting, and partly lying, 
 watching with a resigned expression the 
 apparently noisy sleep of a stolid-faced 
 Mars. Two or three Satyrs enjoy the 
 scene, and are evidently the only ones 
 who see any fun in it. One twisting 
 over towards them is a veritable imp. 
 The lines of composition, and especially 
 the line from Mar's shoulders to his foot, 
 are beautiful. Otherwise there is little 
 in the picture to give pleasure. In 
 the Louvre is yet one more Venus by 
 Botticelli, less notable than the two just 
 mentioned. 
 
 Raphael painted no Venus. His de- 
 signs in the Farnesina were only drawn 
 by him, and then colored by his scholars. 
 The outline sketches, however, are Ra- 
 phael's art at its height, and repay the 
 most careful study. To mention only a 
 few of them : Venus pointing out Psyche 
 to Cupid, who is now a youth, and Venus
 
 VENUS AND CUPID. 55 
 
 sitting on a rock with some drapery 
 streaming behind her. The fitting of this 
 and all the other subjects into the spaces 
 assigned to them is a wonderful example 
 of one side of the master's genius. An- 
 other shows Venus seeking aid from Juno 
 and Ceres. She is nude, save a bit of 
 drapery about her loins, one end of which 
 she holds in her right hand. Again, in 
 her car drawn by doves, she is on her 
 way to obtain assistance from Jupiter. 
 
 In the Venice Museum are two ex- 
 quisite drawings of Cupids. In one the 
 chubby little fellows are dancing, and 
 though Raphael hardly more than indi- 
 cated the contours of their figures, it is 
 wonderful how adequately the joy and 
 merriment are expressed. The other 
 shows four little Loves with a pig which 
 they have captured and killed. One is 
 pulling his playmate away as he tries 
 to step upon the prostrate animal.
 
 56 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 Michael Angelo spent little time por- 
 traying the softer emotions of mankind 
 and he is known to have made only 
 one cartoon of Venus. A colored copy 
 of this which shows her embracing Cupid, 
 was made by Pontormo, and is in the 
 Uffizi. A sleeping Cupid was executed 
 by Michael Angelo in his early youth, 
 and its beauty at once made him famous. 
 No one knows what has become of this, 
 though Symonds and some others sug- 
 gest a statue which is in the Liceo of 
 Mantua. Another Cupid by him is in 
 the South Kensington Museum. 
 
 Only one Venus by Giorgione is 
 thought to be in existence, and it has 
 been questioned if even that is really 
 his. Modern criticism, however, gener- 
 ally accords him the lovely sleeping 
 Venus in Dresden. This exquisite figure 
 lies at full length on the sward, one arm 
 over her head, her eyes closed, the very
 
 CORREGGIO. EDUCATION OF CUPID.
 
 VENUS AND CUPID. 59 
 
 spirit of sleep decended upon her. The 
 drawing and flesh tones are equally su- 
 perb; nothing of more perfect feminine 
 beauty and charm is known in all the 
 work of the Renaissance. 
 
 The Education of Cupid, where Mercury 
 is teaching the young god to write, while 
 Venus looks on smilingly, is one of Cor- 
 reggio's works, showing him at his best. 
 He gave more care to line and composi- 
 tion in this than in many of his paintings, 
 and it has, too, all the truth of drawing 
 and beauty of color, so characteristic of 
 this "Faun and Ariel "of the Renaissance 
 as Symonds calls him. The figure of 
 Venus is marvellously perfect, and if she 
 lacks something of the grandeur of the 
 sculptured Venus of Melos, she has still 
 less of the earthiness of the Medici. 
 Here, for the first time in this brief 
 summing of the noted Venuses of the 
 Renaissance, is a charmingly studied ef-
 
 6O LOVE IN ART. 
 
 feet of chiaroscuro. Every bit of light- 
 imbued flesh is balanced by adequate and 
 rich-toned shadow. The whole is a joy- 
 ous scene from the heart of Olympia. 
 It is now in the National Gallery at 
 London. 
 
 Luxurious, rounding form, exquisite 
 flesh, and glorious red hair distinguished 
 the women Titian painted over and over. 
 He named each a Venus, but in many 
 cases the title seems hardly appropriate. 
 Modern taste would oftener call the 
 pictures merely studies of nude women. 
 Presumably, Titian painted the models 
 he chose because their beauty of line 
 and color made him wish to transfer 
 them to canvas. Once finished, how- 
 ever, the taste of the time demanded a 
 literary reason for their existence, and 
 they became " Venuses." 
 
 The first great canvas of Titian's 
 youth was Sated and Artless Love. It
 
 VENUS AND CUPID. 63 
 
 has also been called Sacred and Pro- 
 fane Love, though in that case it seems 
 difficult to decide which figure is sacred 
 and which profane. Sated Love sits at 
 one side of the picture fully dressed in 
 softest silk, shimmering with gray reflec- 
 tions and belted with a red girdle with 
 jewel clasp. In one of her hands are 
 some fading roses. Artless Love is nude 
 except for a bit of golden white drapery, 
 enhancing the still more golden whiteness 
 of her skin. Her hair is chestnut, and 
 falling from her left arm are folds of 
 crimson silk. Between the two, Cupid 
 leans over the heavily carved fountain or 
 well and dabbles in the water. Titian 
 never painted anything more delicate and 
 graceful than the nude woman here. The 
 picture is now in the Borghese Gallery. 
 
 His Venus of Darmstadt lies asleep on 
 red velvet cushions, with one arm under 
 her shoulder. This has been largely
 
 64 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 repainted. The outlines, however, are 
 beautiful, and the curves of the body 
 exquisite. 
 
 In Venus with the Shell there is a per- 
 feet rounding of the flesh, done almost 
 without the help of shadow. Its silvery 
 color contrasts superbly with the brighter 
 tones of the hair, water, and sky. 
 
 The Tribuna of the Uffizi holds another 
 Venus, painted about 1537. Compared 
 with the Darmstadt, she is more fully 
 matured, yet still lithe and slender. 
 Crowe and Cavalcaselle's description of 
 this canvas may be quoted in full. 
 " Lying as nature shaped her, with her 
 legs entwined at the foot of a deep green 
 hanging, on a muslin sheet that covers a 
 ruby tinged damask couch, her left arm 
 reposes on her frame, her right support- 
 ing her on cushions whilst the hand] is 
 playing with a chaplet of flowers. We 
 may fancy her to have bathed and to be
 
 VENUS AND CUPID. 65 
 
 waiting for the handmaids who are busy 
 in the room, one of them having raised 
 the lid of a chest and taken a dress out, 
 whilst a second stoops to select another. 
 Meanwhile, a little dog sits curled up on 
 the couch. In forming this Venus, if 
 Venus be an appropriate name, Titian 
 seems to have conceived his picture, not 
 after the model of a Phryne, nor yet with 
 the thought of realizing anything more 
 sublime than woman in her fairest 
 aspect." He does what no other master 
 of any age does so well, makes " a beau- 
 teous living being whose fair and polished 
 skin is depicted with enamelled gloss, and 
 yet with every shade of modulation which 
 a delicate flesh comports; flesh not mar- 
 bled or cold, but sweetly toned, and man- 
 tling with life's blood, flesh that seems to 
 heave and rise and fall with every breath. 
 Perfect distribution of space, a full and 
 ringing harmony of tints, atmosphere
 
 66 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 both warm and mellow, are all combined 
 with something that is real; and we feel 
 as we look into the canvas that we might 
 walk into that apartment, and find room 
 to wander in the gray twilight into which 
 it is thrown by the summer sky that shows 
 through the coupled windows." 
 
 At Florence, too, is his Venus and 
 Cupid. Here the goddess turns to listen 
 to her son, who whispers over her shoul- 
 der and puts a tiny hand upon her throat. 
 In this picture the lovely woman is in 
 truth the goddess, calm, passionless, beau- 
 tiful. The boy Cupid is arch and hand- 
 some, and as typical of Titian as are 
 Raphael's cherubs in the Sistine Ma- 
 donna of him. 
 
 The Venus of Madrid and the Venus 
 of St. Petersburg are two more of his fa- 
 mous canvases, though little of his own 
 color is left on the latter. 
 
 Once more, in the Borghese Palace,
 
 VENUS AND CUPID. 69 
 
 Venus and Two Graces teach Cupid his 
 vocation. Here the goddess is clothed, 
 but her arms are bare and show every 
 lovely curve as she binds the eyes of 
 Eros, who leans upon her lap. She 
 listens to the whispers of another Cupid 
 resting on her shoulder; and behind 
 them is a sky of pearly tints above a 
 landscape of hills. 
 
 Veronese, whose glorious story of 
 Esther has been mentioned, was no less 
 wonderful in other subjects. At Rome, 
 in the Borghese, is a Venus by him 
 that is more truly drawn than most of 
 Titian's, and is no less superb for its 
 flesh tones. The fair woman is resting 
 on a seat upon which stands a gay little 
 Cupid. A satyr on the other side of 
 Venus raises a basket above his head. 
 
 Tintoretto cared more for telling a 
 story originally than for perfect con- 
 struction of his figures. Often he was
 
 7O LOVE IN ART. 
 
 theatric and over-elaborate, but, at his 
 best, unequalled in expressing movement 
 and the glimmering of light on polished 
 flesh. The Pitti Gallery in Florence 
 holds one of his well-known pictures, 
 the family group of Venus, Cupid, and 
 Vulcan. Venus lies somewhat on her 
 side, leaning upon her elbow as she gazes 
 at the baby Cupid on her arm. Vulcan 
 bends over, lifting the drapery from the 
 baby. As usual, the drawing is not 
 impeccable, and the faces are not over- 
 beautiful. Venus, nevertheless, is charm- 
 ing, and the difference in tone between 
 her light, brilliant flesh and the rugged 
 darkness of Vulcan is strongly effective. 
 Very different from Titian's are the 
 Venuses of Rubens, the painter, states- 
 man, courtier, scholar. The overbuxom- 
 ness, the too-too solid flesh of almost all 
 the women in his pictures, whether they 
 were goddesses, nymphs, or mortals, is
 
 VENUS AND CUPID. Jl 
 
 probably owing to the type of model he 
 found about him in Antwerp. In spite 
 of extraordinary composition, rich flesh 
 tones, and truth of construction, these 
 billowy folds of flesh are never quite 
 forgotten. His Birth of Venus in the 
 National Gallery, and his Venus with 
 Cupid and Adonis, and the picture of 
 Mars and Venus, are three fairly repre- 
 sentative ones of his classic style. 
 
 Van Dyck was the inspired, dissipated 
 portrait-painter of the court of Charles 
 the First of England. Wonderful in 
 color, line, and execution, Van Dyck's 
 works are the direct outcome of the 
 Italian Renaissance, yet are wholly his 
 own. Although preeminently a portrait- 
 painter, his work in other lines is almost 
 equally interesting, and several of his 
 Venuses are noteworthy and beautiful. 
 Among them are his Venus and Adonis; 
 Venus and Vulcan, in the Louvre ; Venus
 
 72 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 looking at herself in a mirror held by a 
 negro, which was probably directly influ- 
 enced by Titian ; Venus taking off the 
 Armor of Mars; and many pictures of 
 Cupids. One of these shows him fast 
 asleep in the position of Giorgione's 
 Venus. He is chubby and curly-wigged, 
 but there is little of the rogue about him. 
 By the later Italians, those men who 
 came just after the last word in painting 
 and sculpture had been said, there are 
 many delightful portrayals of the god- 
 dess of love and her son. In Vienna, 
 Caracci is represented by a Venus and 
 Cupid, and Bronzino has one of the same 
 subject in the Uffizi. Two others of 
 his are Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time, 
 in the National Gallery, London, and 
 Venus with Cupid and a Satyr, in the 
 Colonna Gallery in Rome. Guercino has 
 a charming drawing of a Girl and Cupid 
 in the Museum at Venice, and another of
 
 VENUS AND CUPID. 73 
 
 Venus and Cupid in Rome. Domeni- 
 chino, called the greatest painter of the 
 Bolognese, has a delightful Venus, Cupid, 
 and Satyr in the Pitti. Albani, portrayer 
 of delicate feminine subjects, has a Venus 
 with Cupids in the Corsini Gallery at 
 Rome, and another of Cupids dancing 
 about a tree, while Venus watches from 
 the clouds. Guido Reni has a charac- 
 teristically sweet and tender Cupid in 
 the Corsini; another in the Gallery of 
 St. Luke in Rome, where he stands 
 with bent knee, and one uplifted hand 
 holding an arrow. Still another is 
 asleep, lying on his left side with his 
 wings stretched behind him. This last 
 is a very lovely, sleepy little god, well 
 drawn and with graceful lines of com- 
 position. 
 
 Poussin, of course, with his taste for 
 classic lore, painted both Venus and 
 Cupid. In Dresden is his Sleeping
 
 74 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 Venus, which, in spite of the painter's 
 study of the antique, looks rather too 
 much like a French nymph. The land- 
 scape behind her is hard and polished. 
 Among his others are a Venus and 
 Adonis, in the Montpellier Museum ; 
 Venus Asleep, at Dresden ; Venus Mourn- 
 ing Adonis, and a Venus and Mars in 
 the Louvre. 
 
 Velasquez rarely painted the nude. 
 The religious fervor which pervaded the 
 court of Philip the Fourth frowned upon 
 the too vivid portrayal of beautiful flesh. 
 One Queen of Love, however, he did 
 paint, now at Rokeby Park, England. 
 The goddess reclines with her back 
 turned, her face reflecting in a mirror, 
 which is held by a kneeling Cupid at the 
 foot of the couch. This is a companion 
 piece to one by Titian, and is said to rival 
 it in drawing, color, and wonderful flesh 
 tones.
 
 VENUS AND CUPID. 75 
 
 Venus appealed almost as little, appar- 
 ently, to Rembrandt as to his Spanish 
 compeer. In the Louvre is his Venus 
 and Love, which, however, is more truly 
 a picture of maternal devotion. A brown- 
 haired woman wearing a green dress, with 
 unhooked chemisette, fondles a small Love 
 wrapped in gray cloth, standing on her 
 knee with his wings spread out. The 
 color of this picture is unsurpassed; the 
 flesh is as clear and pure and vividly real 
 as in the greatest works of the Venetians.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MYTHS AND FANCIES. 
 
 [ Y the time of Raphael, artists all 
 over Italy had ceased to confine 
 themselves to the portrayal of 
 religious subjects. Though the northern 
 part of the Peninsula still chiefly pro- 
 duced Madonnas, Ascensions, Cruci- 
 fixions, and the like, even there painters 
 frequently illustrated fancies of their own 
 or scenes from pagan mythology. 
 
 Pier di Cosimo, who helped Roselli 
 with his frescoes of the Sistine Chapel, 
 painted some charming scenes from the 
 Greek myths. In Florence is his story 
 
 of Andromeda, one scene showing her 
 76
 
 MYTHS AND FANCIES. 77 
 
 rescue by Perseus, and in Milan hangs 
 his Theseus and Ariadne. Pier was in- 
 fluenced by Signorelli, Filippo Lippi, 
 and Leonardo da Vinci, while he in turn 
 was the teacher of Andrea del Sarto. 
 His color is beautiful and transparent, 
 his drawing excellent, his ideas thor- 
 oughly original. At present few of his 
 pictures are known to be in existence. 
 
 The story of Danae, one of the loves 
 of Jupiter, has been a favorite theme 
 with painters. A version of the tale by 
 Lorenzo di Tomasso Lotto differs greatly 
 from all others. The picture is in a 
 private collection, but Danae is described 
 as lying fully clothed in a wooded land- 
 scape, while Cupid pours a shower of 
 gold from the clouds. A female satyr 
 watches, peering from behind a tree, and 
 a faun is stretched out in the foreground. 
 It is painted on wood, and is less than a 
 foot square. Danae is poorly drawn, and
 
 78 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 the color is not particularly pleasing. It 
 is evident, however,, that the treatment of 
 the theme is Lotto's own, not in the least 
 an adaptation of some other painter's. 
 
 In the Madrid gallery is a really won- 
 derful example of this master, who has 
 only lately begun to be fully appreciated. 
 A Bride and Bridegroom sit side by side, 
 the man a little back of the woman, while 
 she leans slightly towards him. He holds 
 her hand, and is about to place upon it a 
 ring. Behind them is Cupid, who, look- 
 ing at the new husband with a merry 
 twinkle in his eye, places a laurel-wreathed 
 yoke upon their necks. The color of the 
 picture is very gray, so that photographs 
 of it give an unusually correct representa- 
 tion. Berenson says : " This is perhaps 
 the first positively humorous interpreta- 
 tion of characters and a situation that we 
 have in Italian painting, and we never 
 again have it so well done. The char-
 
 MYTHS AND FANCIES. 79 
 
 acters are presented to us as distinctly as 
 in a modern psychological novel, and in 
 our minds no more doubt is left than in 
 Cupid's as to which of the two will be 
 master in the new household." 
 
 Among Raphael's drawings for the 
 Farnesina is the delightful Cupid and 
 Psyche series. In one of the loveliest of 
 these Cupid shows Psyche to the Graces. 
 The drawing and placing of Cupid is 
 masterly, and one of the Graces in the 
 foreground, who stands with her back 
 turned, is particularly exquisite in line 
 and pose. Another is the Nuptial Ban- 
 quet of Cupid and Psyche, where all the 
 gods and goddesses are eating and drink- 
 ing health to the young couple. 
 
 The wonderful drawing and con- 
 struction of Michael Angelo's Leda and 
 the Swan, now in the Dresden gallery, 
 are too well known to need further 
 description.
 
 8O LOVE IN ART. 
 
 The Leda of Leonardo da Vinci is not 
 one of his great works. Leda, who stands 
 with her arms about the swan, is ill-drawn 
 and unpleasing, and the composition as 
 a whole is not attractive. It \vas in the 
 Bourbon Palace. 
 
 As famous as his Venuses are Titian's 
 many love scenes of god and goddess. 
 One of the best known is Bacchus and 
 Ariadne, which he painted at the court 
 of the Estes, and which is now in 
 England. Ariadne's lawn tunic is loosely 
 enwrapped in an azure peplum, around 
 which is a red scarf. The yEgean in the 
 distance is a deep, delicious blue, and 
 the sky curves over it full of white clouds 
 and myriad stars. The picture is perfect 
 in its classical spirit, the movement is 
 wonderful, and the flesh and form of 
 Ariadne, who is in a focus of light, are as 
 exquisite as even Titian could make 
 them.
 
 MYTHS AND FANCIES. 8 1 
 
 The Danae of this master, now in 
 Naples, is little like Lotto's. Though 
 more voluptuous, it is much better art. 
 The maid, scantily covered with a veil, is 
 half reclining on snow-white cushions. 
 Her face is mostly in shadow, but the 
 entire length of her fair body is thrown 
 into intense light. Cupid, a full-grown 
 boy, glides away with outstretched wings, 
 and his gesture of surprise at the shower 
 of golden pieces is dramatically perfect. 
 Daylight seems about fading as it lingers 
 on the boy, and behind him the last rays 
 of light are swallowed up in darkness. 
 The chiaroscuro of this picture is so per- 
 fectly balanced, the modelling so finished, 
 the painting of the flesh so surpassingly 
 fine, that it seems wholly unapproachable. 
 
 Yet when one looks at his Jupiter and 
 Antiope, one feels that the same ecstatic 
 praise is again deserved. As one critic 
 has said, " Distribution, movement, out-
 
 82 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 line, modelling, atmosphere, and distance 
 are all perfect." The purity and tender- 
 ness of Antiope's flesh is here thrown 
 into strong relief by the weather-beaten 
 ruggedness of Jupiter. It seems as if 
 brush could never achieve such modelling 
 and color. To remember that Titian 
 painted this when he was over eighty, 
 makes it all the more astounding. 
 
 The Three Ages, in Lord Ellesmere's 
 collection, and the picture of the Warrior 
 Davolos parting from his wife, are fancies 
 from Titian's brain, and are both world- 
 renowned. 
 
 Perhaps less sensuous, and in most 
 respects fully as beautiful, are Correggic's 
 Jupiter and Antiope, Leda, Danae, and 
 Jupiter and lo. 
 
 The Jupiter and Antiope, in the 
 Louvre, has a little Cupid asleep at the 
 side of the sleeping maid, while Jupiter, 
 in the guise of a satyr, stands by gazing
 
 MYTHS AND FANCIES. 83 
 
 with intense admiration. The flesh tones 
 under the play of the sunlight are daz- 
 zlingly beautiful, the darker heaviness of 
 Jupiter serving as foil to the exquisite 
 delicacy of Antiope and Cupid. But the 
 awkward position of Antiope, the poor 
 placing of all the figures, show how little 
 care Correggio had for grand lines in 
 composition. 
 
 His Jupiter and lo, however, is as per- 
 fect in line as It is in color, chiaroscuro, 
 and feeling. Anything more beautiful 
 than the curving sweep of the line from 
 lo's lovely chin to the arching instep of 
 her left foot, as she sits clasped in Jupi- 
 ter's arms, is hard to imagine. The 
 massing of light and shadow, too, is 
 superb, the way the light is focused on 
 the beautiful back of lo against the sur- 
 rounding gloom, being especially effect- 
 ive. This painting is in Vienna. 
 
 At the Borghese is his Danae. The
 
 84 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 maid is half raised on a couch, and at her 
 feet the figure of Love holds out a gold 
 piece. Below, at the side of the couch, 
 are two Cupids busily writing. These 
 are well known as a detail, and are 
 charmingly and tenderly drawn. 
 
 Correggio's Leda shows her sitting 
 against a tree in the midst of several 
 other nymphs. The chiaroscuro is lovely, 
 Leda's face and figure captivating. The 
 picture is in the Dresden gallery. 
 
 Paul Veronese's Danae, in the Royal 
 Gallery at Turin, differs essentially from 
 both Titian's and Correggio's. The girl, 
 whose figure is somewhat heavy, is half 
 hiding behind a curtain. About her is a 
 gauzy, striped drapery held by a jewelled 
 belt, and upon her arms is a bracelet. 
 The shadow down her back is beautiful, 
 her feet are delightfully drawn and 
 modelled, and the flesh is pure and clear. 
 But altogether the picture is not so pleas-
 
 MYTHS AND FANCIES. / 
 
 ing as other works by Veronese. It 
 suggests, too, less of myth and more of 
 nature. 
 
 Bacchus and Ariadne, one of Tinto- 
 retto's masterpieces, hangs in the Ducal 
 Palace at Venice. Here are shown both 
 the faults and the charms of this painter, 
 who lived to see all the great lights of 
 the Renaissance one by one die out. 
 Ariadne sits on a curtain-draped mound 
 rising out of the sea, while Bacchus has 
 waded through the water to her side and 
 is holding out the ring. The floating 
 goddess above their heads places a crown 
 of stars upon Ariadne's brow, at the same 
 time lifting Ariadne's left hand to Bac- 
 chus for the wedding ring. The figures 
 are loosely constructed, the heads de- 
 cidedly commonplace; but the wonderful 
 color, astounding management of light 
 and shade, and charming movement, have 
 never been more superbly rendered, and
 
 88 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 the canvas deserves all the lavish praise 
 the years have brought it. 
 
 His Minerva Driving away Mars, also 
 in the Ducal Palace, has the same general 
 characteristics, but is more crowded in 
 composition and is less interesting as a 
 whole. 
 
 After Tintoretto come Ludovici and 
 Annibale Caracci. In the Farnesina are 
 their Jupiter and Juno, where the fickle 
 god seems for the nonce to be making 
 love to his legal spouse ; and the Diana 
 Embracing the Sleeping Endymion. The 
 Caracci were talented draughtsmen, but 
 the decadence is more than hinted at in 
 their work. 
 
 Of still later date are Albani's Apollo 
 and Daphne, in the Louvre ; Guido Reni's 
 Bacchus and Ariadne and Andromeda, in 
 Rome ; Guercino's Sleeping Endymion in 
 the Uffizi ; Domenichino's Perseus and 
 Andromeda in the Farnesina and his
 
 MYTHS AND FANCIES. 89 
 
 Pursuit of Love in the Castle of Bassano. 
 All of these are interesting and often thor- 
 oughly charming works, with drawing and 
 coloring both generally pleasing. Yet 
 they fall so far from the great standard 
 set by the men born in the fullness of 
 time, that their beauties are in conse- 
 quence frequently overlooked. 
 
 One of the most noted masters of the 
 Venetian school before Tiepolo was An- 
 tonio Belucci. His drawing was vigor- 
 ous and of exquisite line, his coloring 
 pure, his compositions original and spir- 
 ited. One of the most noted of his 
 works is the Cupid and Psyche in 
 Munich. Psyche, with a lamp in one 
 hand and a dagger in the other, is start- 
 ing back in terror as she gazes upon the 
 beautiful face and form of Cupid, whom 
 she might have killed. The line and 
 modelling of the youthful god are well- 
 nigh perfect. His whole figure, in its
 
 9O LOVE IN ART. 
 
 supple strength, is a really ideal creation. 
 Belucci proves himself a master, too, in 
 the management of chiaroscuro. Psyche's 
 lamp throws Cupid's head and part of his 
 torso into a forced light, while a delicious 
 shadow sweeps over the rest of his grace- 
 ful form. The canvas is one of real and 
 unusual charm. 
 
 A love scene was Rubens's delight. His 
 brush fairly revelled in the chance to paint 
 blooming, luxurious flesh, excessive, riot- 
 ous movement. Many of his canvases 
 seem to our taste decidedly vulgar and 
 voluptuous, but they are stamped by a 
 vigorous individuality, fertile imagination, 
 and a magnificent, if somewhat strained, 
 feeling for the composition of line and 
 mass. In his Kermesse, in the Louvre, 
 the Feast of Venus, in Vienna, and the 
 Garden of Love, in Dresden, the very 
 worst of his wanton, sensual side is flam- 
 ingly apparent. Crowded with figures
 
 MYTHS AND FANCIES. 93 
 
 twisting, turning, bending, lolling at full 
 length or doubled into all sorts of contor- 
 tions, the massing is always fine if over- 
 elaborate. The Cupids, which Rubens 
 sprinkled with a liberal hand wherever 
 sense or nonsense could expect them, 
 are all lovely. No one has drawn chubby, 
 roguish, little Loves with a surer hand or 
 a gayer sympathy. 
 
 In the Munich gallery is his Castor 
 and Pollux, who are carrying off Hilsera 
 and Phoebe, daughters of Leucippus. The 
 horses are wonderfully drawn, and the 
 action is spirited. His Perseus and An- 
 dromeda, in the Berlin gallery, and at the 
 Prado, in Madrid, Venus and Adonis, in 
 the Uffizi, and Cimon and Iphigenia, in 
 the Belvedere of Vienna, are other well- 
 known characteristic scenes. 
 
 Poussin, the Frenchman who lived and 
 worked mostly in Italy, also painted many 
 classic love episodes. Much more quiet
 
 94 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 and reserved than Rubens, he lacked, too, 
 something of the other's life, vigor, and 
 color. In the Louvre are two of his 
 more important works : Apollo in Love 
 with Daphne, and Orpheus and Eurydice ; 
 at the Cherbourg Museum is Pyramus 
 and Thisbe, and in Rome is his Bacchus 
 and Ariadne. 
 
 Van Dyck's living color, power of 
 characterization, and fine drawing were 
 displayed, as has been said, principally 
 in portraiture. Several love stories in 
 color belong to him, however, among 
 which are Diana Bending over the Sleep- 
 ing Endymion, in Madrid; Danae, at 
 Dresden ; and Cupid and Psyche, 
 probably his last work, and which is 
 now at Hampton Court. 
 
 Though Rembrandt, the great naturalist, 
 seldom entered the fields of mythical love, 
 his own mind suggested themes as full of 
 delicate fancy and suggestion. In St.
 
 MYTHS AND FANCIES. 95 
 
 Petersburg is his Young Fiance'e, a 
 flower-crowned maid with drapery crossed 
 over her breast, her figure in profile, her 
 head turned till it is nearly full-faced. 
 Her hair falls back into the deep shadow 
 behind her, her eyes look out with a wist- 
 ful, questioning expression. Nothing could 
 be more simply stated, but the wondering, 
 half fearful, half glad feelings of the girl 
 about to wed are as vividly told as if we 
 read the words beneath. 
 
 Amsterdam has his Jewish Bride, some- 
 what suggestive of the Young Fiancee ; in 
 this picture the youthful husband stands 
 beside her, one hand on her shoulder, the 
 other at her waist in front, while her hand 
 rests on his. As in the other work, the 
 hands are beautifully drawn and modelled. 
 These are more truly love stories, our 
 modern taste decides, than any that 
 Titian told of god and goddess.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 PAINTERS' LOVES. 
 
 |HE old stories of the loves of 
 god and goddess have a peren- 
 nial charm, whether told by pen, 
 brush, or chisel; the imaginary loves of 
 imaginary people are still a fertile subject 
 for poet and painter, and, well told, never 
 fail to find willing audience ; but tran- 
 scending in interest the most fascinating 
 romance are the real love stories of real 
 people. When these are the great ones 
 of the earth, the interest attaching to their 
 heart histories is even more intense. 
 
 Painters and sculptors, no less than 
 poets and musicians, have a naive way 
 of taking the world into their confidence. 
 9 6
 
 PAINTERS' LOVES. 97 
 
 Often, to be sure, the world is deaf and 
 blind, and cannot understand. The poem 
 is seldom suspected to be the cry of the 
 poet's own heart; the song is sung with 
 little of the composer's meaning; the 
 beautiful face looks from the canvas 
 with eyes into which the painter-lover 
 painted his soul, and the world at large 
 calls it merely a beautiful girl. In after 
 years, when the biographies are written, 
 the true meaning of these expressions 
 of the artist heart is sometimes known. 
 Yet how often it must happen that the 
 real inspiration for many rare works of 
 art is never dreamed of. 
 
 This is, perhaps, especially true of the 
 plastic arts. It is, at least, difficult for us 
 at this late day to know with much cer- 
 tainty the particulars of the lives of the 
 artists of past centuries. Hundreds of 
 pictures on the walls of church, palace, 
 and gallery are to us simply sweet-faced
 
 98 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 Madonnas, saints, and angels. Yet is it 
 not probable that to their painters they 
 were the mirrored faces of loved women ? 
 In some cases we know this to be true, 
 and in others tradition makes us more 
 than suspect it. Tradition, however, fre- 
 quently misinterprets, and sometimes 
 falsifies. Doubtless, tradition is responsi- 
 ble for many more scandalous than 
 righteous tales. 
 
 It is only lately, for instance, that 
 poor Fra Filippo Lippi's name has been 
 cleared from a base story believed ever 
 since Vasari's time. Every one knows 
 how this painter-monk carried off Lu- 
 crezia Buti, the young novitiate, and how 
 she refused to leave him, or he to give her 
 up. Until very recently the title of " Mis- 
 tress" was the only one bestowed upon 
 her, while it was told of Filippo that he 
 refused the Pope's permission to marry 
 her, preferring to be free to follow the
 
 PAINTERS' LOVES. 99 
 
 dictates of a dissolute nature. Old docu- 
 ments have been unearthed, and now it is 
 proved that the monk gave up his eccle- 
 siastical revenues, and remained poor all 
 his life, that he might marry the girl whose 
 face had captivated him. 
 
 We have a very fair idea how this face 
 looked. In all the principal works of her 
 husband, Lucrezia's big, innocent eyes, 
 wide, childlike forehead, piquant nose, 
 and tender mouth have been immortal- 
 ized. Most of his Madonnas are por- 
 traits of her; particularly, perhaps, the 
 one in the Louvre, in which are two 
 priests and six angels; those of his fres- 
 coes at Prato, and the ones in the Pitti 
 and Uffizi. His Gradino in the Comunal 
 Gallery of Prato, consisting of the Pres- 
 entation in the Temple, the Adoration of 
 the Magi, and the Slaughter of the Inno- 
 cents, is thought to be the work he 
 painted when he first induced the nuns
 
 100 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 to let the young girl sit as model for the 
 Virgin. 
 
 There is a grace, a naturalness, and a 
 charm of color in all Filippo's work. He 
 was the first to give the Madonna a tender 
 earthliness, that, while it made her more 
 human, did not detract from the exquisite 
 purity of her face. It would seem as if 
 these child-mothers might have been 
 proof enough, without the resurrected 
 papers, that the girl who posed for them 
 was the well and faithfully beloved of the 
 forsworn monk. 
 
 Not much is known of the wife of 
 Perugino, Raphael's teacher. It is said, 
 however, that the painter's greed for gain 
 so largely developed in his later years, was 
 partly caused by his desire to dress Donna 
 Perugino in the height of fashion. Vasari 
 states that he even personally superin- 
 tended the making and placing of her 
 elaborate head-dresses. She must have
 
 PAINTERS' LOVES. 101 
 
 had a winsome face, if it is true that she 
 was the prototype of the Angel in Peru- 
 gino's Archangel Raphael with Tobias, 
 which is in the National Gallery of Lon- 
 don. The painter was not to be blamed 
 if he spent much time and thought in 
 adorning it. 
 
 What kind of a woman could attract 
 and hold a nature like Leonardo da 
 Vinci's? Engineer, mechanician, musi- 
 cian, painter, sculptor, poet, every 
 phase of life and knowledge found some 
 expression in this man, whose like has 
 never lived. When it is remembered 
 that many of the problems he pro- 
 pounded have never yet been solved ; 
 that his rules, measures, designs for aque- 
 duct, bridge, road, and city foundations 
 are still in advance of time ; that his vol- 
 umes of writings are too voluminous for 
 complete translation; and that with all 
 the rest of his vast knowledge and
 
 102 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 achievements he painted a Last Supper 
 and a woman's face, which the world 
 still sighs in vain to surpass, the brain 
 refuses to photograph the personality 
 of so complex and profound a genius. 
 Whom, among women, could such a man 
 have loved? 
 
 In the Louvre hangs the portrait of 
 the wife of Giovanni del Giocond, known 
 to the world as La Joconde, and Leo- 
 nardo's Monna Lisa. Though time has 
 dulled the once marvellous tones of 
 face and hands, the power and fascina- 
 tion of that inscrutable, beautiful coun- 
 tenance, the grace and suggestiveness 
 of those exquisite hands, are as apparent 
 as they were nearly four hundred years 
 ago. We do not know positively that 
 Leonardo loved her. Tradition asserts 
 that he did, and at least it is true that 
 for four years he worked upon the like- 
 ness; nor would he sell it to any one
 
 DA VINCI. MONNA LISA.
 
 PAINTERS LOVES. 1 05 
 
 till, almost at a command, he parted 
 from it to the French king for the sum 
 of three thousand golden crowns. 
 
 Perhaps the fair woman never dreamed 
 of the feelings she inspired in the pas- 
 sionate breast of the great genius. Or 
 perhaps her subtle, untranslatable smile 
 hints otherwise. Did she know and taunt 
 him with it ? Or, with a mind akin to the 
 painter's own, does the smile mean that 
 she saw over and beyond and behind the 
 passion, and found it too tragic for words 
 or tears ? 
 
 When Raphael died he was betrothed 
 to Marie Bibbieni, and in the Pitti is the 
 portrait he painted of her. Although the 
 portrait is interesting as showing the kind 
 of woman he could consent to marry, it is 
 not his greatest work, nor does one feel 
 any special charm of personality in the 
 rather heavy face. To tell the truth, 
 however, the portrait called the Forna-
 
 IO6 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 rina, in the Barbarini Gallery at Rome, 
 is not much more attractive. Yet very 
 creditable report affirms that she was 
 the woman who ensnared the heart of 
 the young painter, and that even in his 
 will he remembered her generously. He 
 was so fond of her, according to rumor, 
 that, while he was at work on the Far- 
 nesina, he domiciled her near by that he 
 might see her daily. She is supposed 
 to be the model for goddess and nymph 
 in those wonderful frescoes and for 
 several of his later Madonnas. 
 
 As Andrea del Sarto was the teacher 
 of Vasari, the latter's account of his 
 master's household affairs should be 
 trustworthy. The tale Vasari tells of 
 Del Sarto's wife is not a happy one. 
 She was, to put it mildly, very much of 
 a termagant, and her husband, no less 
 than others who came in contact with 
 her, suffered from her unruly nature.
 
 RAPHAEL. THE FORNARIXA.
 
 PAINTERS LOVES. 1 09 
 
 Yet, says Vasari, Andrea never com- 
 plained, but counted it great happiness 
 to be thus tortured by his fair-faced 
 wife ; by which, after all, we may sus- 
 pect that there was something better 
 in the wife than Vasari knew. Surely, 
 judging from the many portraits of her 
 by the husband who loved her till death, 
 she must have been more than a selfish 
 scold. 
 
 The Lady with a Petrarch in her 
 hands, at Madrid, has been well called 
 one of the world's great portraits. This 
 is partly because of the marvellous skill 
 of the painter, but partly, too, it is 
 because of the personality of the sub- 
 ject. Portrait of a Lady indeed ! The 
 calm distinction of the brow, the quiet, 
 reposeful air, the tender mouth and 
 chin, could this face have belonged to 
 a woman such as Vasari describes Del 
 Sarto's wife to be?
 
 I IO LOVE IN ART. 
 
 Another beautiful portrait of her is 
 his Madonna of the Harpies, the great- 
 est of Del Sarto's Madonnas. This pic- 
 ture hangs in the Louvre, testifying 
 with no uncertain voice to the love the 
 painter bore his wife. Standing upon a 
 pedestal supported by two boy angels, 
 the Madonna holds the Christ-child on 
 her right arm, with St. Francis and 
 St. John on either side of her. Her 
 eyes are downcast, her dark hair rolls 
 softly back from her forehead, which is 
 higher at the temples than elsewhere, 
 her mouth curves exquisitely, her hands 
 are fine, and full of feeling. The com- 
 position as a whole is one of consum- 
 mate line and mass. The drapery falls 
 into rich, but simple folds ; the color 
 shows Andrea at his best; the picture 
 is a masterpiece. 
 
 Not only in this, but in almost every- 
 thing he painted can the lovable face be
 
 PAINTERS' LOVES. 1 1 1 
 
 found. In his Birth of Mary, in the 
 Church of the Annunciation in Florence, 
 she is the standing figure in a red gown 
 in the foreground; in Three Magi from 
 the East, in the same building, she is 
 one of the Magian Kings. Also in the 
 Annunciation is his Madonna 'deT c S!ici&or' 
 one of his most remarkable works, pos- 
 sessing a rare spiritual quality; here she 
 is again Heaven's Queen. She, too, is 
 his St. George; and evidently also St. 
 John, in the Pitti, with the deep, earnest 
 eyes, bewitching mouth and chin. 
 
 Once more, in the Pitti, is the noted 
 portrait of himself with an arm about 
 his wife's neck. Here her mouth seems 
 a trifle small. Otherwise it is the same 
 charming face into which the adoring 
 husband gazes with unhindered admira- 
 tion. No, in spite of Vasari, Donna 
 del Sarto could not have been wholly 
 bad or unloving.
 
 112 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 The very power and originality of any 
 great genius isolate him from his fellow 
 beings. Yet, probably there are few, 
 however far beyond their world intellectu- 
 ally and spiritually, but long at times 
 for intimate human companionship. It 
 is seldom that this longing finds its per- 
 fect fulfilment in the wedded life. Des- 
 perate for some personal tenderness, they 
 bind themselves to the first pretty, shal- 
 low woman whose big baby eyes and 
 curving rose-leaf lips look the sympathy 
 their brain cannot supply. Whether, on 
 the whole, they are afterwards unhappier 
 than the ones who go sternly unmated 
 through life, who can tell? 
 
 Until he was sixty years old, Michael 
 Angelo stood unapproachable, alone 
 upon the lofty summit of Fame, with 
 no woman at his side to understand his 
 longings and aspirations. From then, 
 till her death, fifteen years later, all the
 
 MICHAEL ANGELO. VITTORIA COLONNA.
 
 PAINTERS LOVES. I 1 5 
 
 pent up devotion of a singularly solitary 
 lifetime were given to Vittoria Colonna. 
 So much has been written of the ele- 
 vated affection between these two rare 
 natures that it is unnecessary to enlarge 
 upon it now. 
 
 One of the two portraits Michael 
 Angelo ever painted was of this noble 
 lady. Only his crayon sketch of it 
 remains, but it is enough to give us a fair 
 idea of the woman who was worshipped 
 by one of the greatest men the world has 
 known. Nowhere in his works is there 
 any indication that Michael Angelo ever 
 cared much for girlish loveliness. The 
 outline drawing in the Uffizi is the profile 
 of a woman mature enough to be sure of 
 herself, whose gracious, nobly poised 
 head, large eye, and sensitive, mobile 
 mouth indicate calmness and strength, 
 verve and fire, pride and purity, the 
 sort of face, in fact, capable of holding
 
 Il6 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 forever the love of any man great enough 
 to appreciate her. 
 
 In the Ducal Palace in Venice hangs 
 the portrait group of Veronese's family. 
 The elaborately dressed woman on the 
 left is his wife. If we think rather of the 
 magnificence of her clothes and jewels 
 than of the charm or intelligence of her 
 face, we must remember that she was of 
 the end of the sixteenth century in 
 Venice. That was when sumptuousness 
 of color, and overdone richness in every 
 detail of life, were the order of the day. 
 Judging by the riotous splendor of much 
 of Veronese's painting, it was the very 
 thing he cared for most; it is logical to 
 suppose that he and the none too slender, 
 full-faced Venetian matron were well 
 suited to each other. 
 
 An excellent artist was Quentin 
 Metsys, who was born in Antwerp in 
 1466, and became a painter for love of
 
 PAINTERS LOVES. 1 1 7 
 
 a woman. He was twenty years old, and 
 a blacksmith, when he fell desperately in 
 love with the daughter of an artist. She 
 should wed only an artist, vowed her 
 father. Quentin, no wise daunted, 
 changed his anvil for a palette, his 
 hammer for a brush, and, in the course of 
 a year or two, proved to the irate father 
 that he could be a son-in-law worthy of 
 even his esteem. 
 
 The portrait of Metsy's wife, painted 
 by his loving hands, hangs now in the 
 Uffizi. It is a tender, sweet-faced girl, 
 lovable rather than beautiful, with a 
 heavy, white, nun-like head-dress. A 
 rosary falls over perfect hands, which are 
 drawn with extreme care ; the finger nails 
 exquisite in shape, with two heavy rings 
 on the forefinger of the left hand. Her 
 eyes are large and dark, her chin daintily 
 constructed. A bit of still life is on a 
 shelf behind her, clouds are seen in the
 
 IlS LOVE IN ART. 
 
 sky, through the open window. The face 
 is happy and peaceful. 
 
 The great Spanish painters, Velasquez 
 and Murillo, are said to have had quiet, 
 happy, domestic lives. In the Prado is 
 Velasquez's portrait of his wife, whom he 
 married young, and always loved. She is 
 in profile, with regular, almost perfect 
 features, a quantity of soft, dark hair, 
 large deep eye under a beautifully curved, 
 but heavy eyebrow. It is a lovely, inter- 
 esting face, and is a technical triumph of 
 this magician of the brush. 
 
 No known portrait exists of Murillo's 
 wife, but she is reported to have posed 
 for many of his sweet-faced Madonnas. 
 
 Rubens married twice, and to each 
 wife, according to trustworthy accounts, 
 he was a devoted, affectionate husband. 
 He made frequent portraits of them, and 
 they are the models for many faces in his 
 classic and religious pictures. One por-
 
 ffifc. 
 
 RUBENS. RUBENS'S WIFE AND CHILDREN.
 
 PAINTERS LOVES. 121 
 
 trait of his first wife, Isabel Brandt, is in 
 Berlin, and shows an earnest, thoughtful 
 woman with finely cut features. 
 
 His second wife was a niece of his first, 
 and was only eighteen when Rubens, then 
 past fifty, married her. One of the most 
 interesting portraits of her is in the 
 Louvre, where she holds their little boy 
 upon her lap while the small daughter is 
 at her knee. The girl-wife's face is too 
 full and wide, and the features too irreg- 
 ular for beauty, but she has a gentle, 
 attractive expression, and her hands and 
 arms are wonderfully lovely. In general 
 it may be said that Rubens's portraits of 
 his wives are in his more simple style, and 
 are justly ranked among his best works. 
 
 Van Dyck's numerous love affairs 
 probably prevented his caring much for 
 any one woman. Court painter for one 
 of the most dissolute reigns in England, 
 the young artist lived faster and more
 
 122 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 luxuriously than many of the wealthiest 
 and most reckless nobles. He had num- 
 bers of mistresses, and imagined himself 
 in love with many other women. 
 
 A portrait of Margaret Lemon, who 
 tried to cut the cords of his right wrist 
 when he finally married, is at Althorp, 
 and he also painted her as Judith. 
 Another portrait of her at Hampton 
 Court is a grand Titianesque work, and 
 proves her to have been very beautiful. 
 
 When, finally, at the king's command, 
 he married Maria Ruthven, he gave up 
 for the one remaining year of his life his 
 previous immoral existence. The picture 
 of her at Munich is a matchless example 
 of Van Dyck's art. She is a very lovely 
 girl, as she sits holding her cello, and it 
 seems as if the fickle painter must have 
 cared for her as much as he could for 
 any one. 
 
 Saskia, the wife of Rembrandt's youth,
 
 VAN DYCK. MARIA RUTHVEN.
 
 PAINTERS LOVES. 125 
 
 the woman whose face he repeated on 
 canvas after canvas, in etching after etch- 
 ing, must have been a merry-hearted, petite 
 body, with a winsomeness more attractive 
 than greater beauty. Of the many por- 
 traits which exist of her, perhaps the 
 one at Cassel best portrays the flower- 
 like delicacy of her face. 
 
 Then there is the one in Dresden with 
 a blossom in her hand. The best known 
 is also at Dresden, where she sits on Rem- 
 brandt's knee, both faces full of laughter 
 as he holds a long Venetian glass of beer 
 above her head. The whole painting is 
 mostly in the rich brown tones Rembrandt 
 loved so well, Saskia's dress of varying 
 green and reds making the one contrast. 
 Over her hair is a golden network of lace, 
 which falls among her auburn tresses, some 
 of whose dainty ringlets escape on to her 
 forehead and neck. There is a feeling of 
 unconstraint, perhaps of almost too much
 
 126 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 freedom, in the picture. The gaiety is so 
 spontaneous, however, that one can only 
 smile in sympathy. The Northern painter, 
 who loved the mysteries of light and shade, 
 as perhaps has none since Leonardo, gave 
 a very human touch to all he did, and it is 
 never more evident than in this bit of 
 marital felicity.
 
 WIFE.
 
 PART III. 
 
 MODERN ART. 
 
 129
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE GODDESS OF LOVE AND HER SON. 
 
 IHEN an artist of the Renaissance 
 portrayed a nude woman, he called 
 her Venus. Whether there was 
 any suggestion of the outlines and model- 
 ling appropriate to the classic Queen of 
 Love made no difference. Venus was 
 represented nude, and, conversely, any 
 nude woman was Venus. 
 
 Artists of to-day, especially in France 
 and America, often as they depict the 
 undraped figure, seldom produce a 
 Venus. Exquisite feminine forms, 
 charming outlines, pose, and color, are 
 simply labelled "Studies." This is no 
 doubt partly due to the fact that, par-
 
 132 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 ticularly in these two countries, the plas- 
 tic arts are regarded more from the artistic 
 and less from the literary point of view. 
 There is a growing inclination to accept 
 and judge a picture for what it says in its 
 own language, instead of questioning its 
 story-telling quality. 
 
 At the first exhibition of Ten American 
 Artists, Mr. Joseph DeCamp's chief canvas 
 was a nude woman, sitting in profile, her 
 head on her hands, her beautiful auburn 
 hair falling over her face and arms. The 
 color and tone of the flesh, especially of 
 the wonderfully modelled back, were rarely 
 exquisite. Titian would have called the 
 picture Venus. Mr. DeCamp gave it no 
 such name. Yet, who cared ? The charm 
 of the figure was not lessened by the lack 
 of a suggestive title. 
 
 This is merely as illustration of the ten- 
 dency of to-day's art. It is not universally 
 true. Many Venuses and Cupids have
 
 CUPID WITH A BOW. 
 From painting by Marc Antonio Franceschini.
 
 GODDESS OF LOVE AND HER SON. 135 
 
 been painted and chiselled since the Re- 
 naissance, and will undoubtedly continue 
 to be, so long as the symbols of love have 
 any meaning. 
 
 One of the leading artists in Italy at 
 the beginning of the eighteenth century 
 was Marc Antonio Franceschini, notable 
 both for his color and draughtsmanship. 
 In the Uffizi is a delightful composition by 
 him, Cupid with a Bow. The abounding 
 life in the beautiful boy, and his roguish, 
 irresponsible nature are shown with much 
 skill and sympathy. The work is full of 
 the light-hearted joy of Arcadia. 
 
 Franceschini, who was often called Vol- 
 teranno, also painted the Sleeping Cupid 
 now in the Pitti. He lies in the woods, 
 his head on his arm, one chubby hand by 
 his face, the other holding the bit of dra- 
 pery below his breast, his wavy hair falling 
 in tumbled confusion about his face and 
 .neck. A shadow, as if from the wings of
 
 136 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 sleep, falls over his face, and bears his eye- 
 lids down, though his lips still curve with 
 a true " Cupid " smile. 
 
 Canova, the prince of modern Italian 
 sculptors, whose chisel has all the cunning 
 and much of the spirit of the greater Re- 
 naissance, is represented in the Louvre by 
 several statues, one of which is his Venus 
 Victorious. Slightly draped below the 
 waist, she lies on a couch, holding an 
 apple in her hand. The classically per- 
 fect head is a portrait of Pauline Bor- 
 ghese. Somehow, lovely as the figure is, 
 it is strangely unsatisfactory. Perhaps 
 it is all a little too perfect, too prettily 
 faultless. 
 
 His other famous Venus, a replica of 
 which is in the Boston Public Library, 
 also stands in the Louvre. Leaning 
 slightly forward, drawing her drapery up 
 to her breast, she suggests in pose and 
 atmosphere (if a marble form can have
 
 VOLTERANNO. SLEEPING CUPID.
 
 GODDESS OF LOVE AND HER SON. 139 
 
 atmosphere) the Venus de' Medici. Of 
 the majestic grace and purity of the great 
 Melos, however, there is little. 
 
 A circular picture by Pelagio Pelagi, 
 called the Education of Love, is well 
 known by its reproduction. Venus is 
 on her knees, holding a scroll in her 
 hands, while Cupid leans against her and 
 points to the letters upon it. It is prettily 
 massed and possesses charm. 
 
 Fran9ois Boucher ranks as one of the 
 most famous designers of France. His 
 works, however, are strongly saturated 
 with the frivolity and sensuality of the 
 Paris of 1740. As may be guessed, 
 Venus and Cupid were favorite subjects 
 with him. Among a long list are The 
 Birth of Venus, at Berlin ; Venus De- 
 manding the Arms of Vulcan, in the 
 Louvre ; Venus and Adonis, in the Bar- 
 ker collection; Birth of Venus, Venus 
 at her Toilet, and Cupids and Flowers,
 
 140 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 all in Stockholm. Charming in color 
 and line, many of these works breathe a 
 debased morality that to-day finds hard 
 to pardon. 
 
 A Nymph and Cupid, and a Venus, 
 Bacchus, and Cupid, by G. A. Coypel, 
 hang in the Louvre, and suggest a 
 Rubensesque floridity. In the latter pic- 
 ture, Bacchus and Cupid, at an elabo- 
 rately laid table, are pledging Venus, 
 who is above in the clouds. The god 
 of wine, his head thrown back, laughs 
 loudly as he gazes admiringly at the 
 goddess, and Cupid smiles too, with a 
 knowing look. The drawing is striking, 
 but the scene is artificial to the last 
 degree. 
 
 Prud'hon, called the Correggio of 
 France, had much of the color and 
 wonderful chiaroscuro of the great Ital- 
 ian, with little of the sensuality of 
 Boucher and Coypel. Two of his pic-
 
 GODDESS OF LOVE AND HER SON. 14! 
 
 tures, which have brought large sums 
 since his death, come under the head- 
 ing of this chapter: Venus and Adonis, 
 and Innocence, Love, and Repentance ; 
 his Cupid Chastised is in Dublin. 
 
 The first president of England's Royal 
 Academy, Sir Joshua Reynolds, followed 
 the custom of the time, and, except when 
 he painted a portrait pure and simple, 
 tacked a more or less sentimental name 
 to his canvases. The Covent Garden 
 Cupid and the Venus which he be- 
 queathed to the Earl of Upper Ossory 
 are two of his noted works. Others 
 are Venus Chiding Cupid for Learn- 
 ing Arithmetic, Cupid as a Link Boy, 
 and Venus with a Piping Boy. Every- 
 thing that Sir Joshua painted carries 
 with it an air of fine breeding and high 
 distinction, coupled, too, with exquisite 
 color and often with more than super- 
 ficial earnestness. Besides the above
 
 142 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 mentioned pictures, which are privately 
 owned, is his Venus and Cupid in the 
 Hermitage of St. Petersburg. 
 
 If the years have taken from the glory 
 of Angelica Kauffman as an artist, they 
 have in no wise lessened her fame as a 
 brilliant, remarkable woman. Her pic- 
 tures are well composed although some- 
 what commonplace, her drawing correct, 
 if not distinguished. Nothing can make 
 her color charming, however, and most 
 of her work suggests the painstaking 
 student rather than the enthusiastic 
 amateur. Among a number of her 
 paintings of Venus and Cupid, are 
 Venus and Adonis, and Cupid at Play. 
 
 Full of the spirit of true classicism 
 was the great Dane, Bertel Thorwald- 
 sen, and all his works declare his love 
 and study of the great antiques. One 
 of his reliefs of Venus and Cupid is as 
 simply and beautifully balanced as a true
 
 GODDESS OF LOVE AND HER SON. 143 
 
 Greek specimen. Venus is sitting half 
 draped, one arm resting on the rock 
 behind her, with the other on her knee, 
 holding off Cupid's hand, who stands 
 pleading before her. The lines of her 
 figure are noble, her hair is quietly mod- 
 elled, her face with its fleeting smile is of 
 a pure classic type. Two doves are kiss- 
 ing below her, while a rose-bush grows on 
 the other side. 
 
 Another relief is a group of gay little 
 Cupids. One has his arm about a swan's 
 neck, pulling him back for dear life. Two 
 other baby figures are hauling apples from 
 a tree whose branches are reached by 
 one mite standing on the other's back. 
 The grouping of all the merry little 
 fellows is dramatically perfect, and their 
 round, graceful bodies are exquisitely 
 modelled. 
 
 Of the men who are now living and 
 working, or who have so recently died
 
 144 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 that they may be said to belong to the 
 middle and close of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury, few have devoted much time to 
 portraying the goddess of love or her 
 erratic son. Cabanel, Hamon, Picou, 
 Perrault, Gerome, Millet, and Bougue- 
 reau, in France, however, have all some- 
 thing to show under this head. 
 
 Cabanel, the teacher of so many promi- 
 nent painters that he may well be called 
 the master of masters, painted a Birth of 
 Venus which ranks as one of his greatest 
 achievements. The loveliness of grace, 
 color, and line of this entrancing figure 
 is hardly surpassable. Baudry's Pearl 
 and the Wave, a similar conception, is 
 one of the few modern works which strike 
 a higher note. 
 
 Above the Venus numbers of bewitch- 
 ing Cupids fly about, triumphing in her 
 birth and heralding her with shell trump- 
 ets. The Venus herself, lying so easily
 
 II 
 
 "I
 
 GODDESS OF LOVE AND HER SON. 147 
 
 upon the waves, is just waking, and with 
 one hand shields her long, half open eyes. 
 The left arm is thrown back over her 
 beautiful golden hair, which floats on the 
 water far below her knees. One lock of 
 the gleaming tresses strays tenderly over 
 the extended arm till the breeze catches 
 it and melts it into the air above and the 
 water below. The figure is painted in 
 the clearest light, modelled by impercep- 
 tible gradations of the most transparent, 
 purest tones. When the work was first 
 exhibited at the Salon it made a great 
 sensation, and won for Cabanel three 
 honors and the decoration of the Legion 
 of Honor. Since then he has made two 
 copies of it, both smaller, for Americans. 
 The original was sent to the Luxem- 
 bourg. 
 
 One of the first of the so-called neo- 
 Grec school was Hamon, a painter of 
 great charm, fancy, and imagination.
 
 148 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 His Washing of Cupids, where some of 
 the little Loves are in the water, some 
 already hung up to dry, is one of his 
 dainty conceits. There is a lack of color 
 about it, for Hamon delighted in silvery 
 gray harmonies rather than in vivid tones, 
 but the drawing is so charmingly pure 
 and true, the whole composition so ethe- 
 really frolicsome, that there seems little 
 left to desire. 
 
 Allied to his brother neo-Grec, is 
 Picou, whose brush was largely used to 
 paint delightful Cupids in all sorts 
 of conditions. Love on the Penitential 
 Stool, Love at Auction, and a Har- 
 vest of Loves are some of a long 
 list. 
 
 Cupid Rebellious and Sleeping Love, 
 by L. Perrault, are more naturalistic but 
 very attractive pictures of the Olympic 
 boy. Sleeping Love lies under the trees, 
 one hand up to his face, the other out-
 
 GODDESS OF LOVE AND HER SON. 149 
 
 stretched over his brow. He is a very 
 tired, sleepy baby, with little of the god 
 about him. 
 
 Before Millet began to paint his poems 
 of peasant life, many charming mytho- 
 logical scenes came from his hand, and 
 one of them represents another sleeping 
 Cupid, infinitely lovelier, however, than 
 anything Perrault ever designed. He is 
 thrown flat on his back, his feet wide 
 apart, with both chubby arms above his 
 head. His face is mostly in shadow, but 
 a delicious light under his chin and on 
 his neck follows down the lines of his 
 body. Beside him lies his quiver of 
 arrows, ready for use. 
 
 Bouguereau is the artist of lovely line, 
 perfect drawing, charming composition, 
 whose mass and balance are unexcep- 
 tionally fine. But his detractors say that 
 he paints with a brush dipped in colors 
 too pretty for living, pulsating flesh.
 
 150 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 This is one reason why photographs of 
 Bouguereau's works are more satisfactory 
 than the paintings themselves. 
 
 In the Luxembourg hangs his version 
 of the Birth of Venus. The goddess 
 stands on a huge shell, dressing her 
 hair, while in the water about are tri- 
 tons and sea-nymphs watching her, and 
 caressing one another. The shell barge 
 is drawn by a large dolphin, astride of 
 whose back is one roguish Cupid, while 
 another, half on him and half in the 
 water, mischievously pulls one of his fins. 
 Above in the air are more little Loves, 
 their figures perfect, full of life and 
 rhythm. Venus herself is undoubtedly 
 beautiful, the lines of her figure and 
 the curves of her pose being almost 
 faultless. Indeed, one feels the whole 
 canvas to be "faultily faultless," as if 
 it would be more a work of genius if 
 genius were less apparent in every inch
 
 GODDESS OF LOVE AND HER SON. 15! 
 
 of its lovely, perfectly designed and 
 covered surface. 
 
 Far below the level of this picture is 
 one by Kray, called Venus Binding the 
 Wings of Love, where the goddess, hold- 
 ing her son in her arms, ties his wings 
 together, much to his disgust. Thoroughly 
 modern in treatment, there is little in 
 the composition to make it better than 
 a "popular" picture. 
 
 Raphael Mengs succeeded in producing 
 many such popular designs, but most of 
 his have about them besides something 
 that makes them better worthy of praise. 
 One of his best known works is Cupid 
 Sharpening His Arrow. The curly-haired 
 boy, with his wings curving up behind, 
 his eyes and head thrown back, has 
 stopped for a moment's reconnoitre be- 
 fore he continues his task. Charm and 
 delicacy, with a captivating sort of mirth, 
 make this an attractive little study.
 
 152 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 By Schaus, another German favorite, 
 is Cupid in Ambush. Two chubby 
 little fellows are hiding behind thick 
 foliage, watching through the leaves a 
 man and maid beyond, whose heads are 
 close together. One Cupid is about to 
 let fly an arrow, and both are laughing 
 delightedly. 
 
 Sir Frederick Leighton preferred to 
 paint actual love scenes rather than the 
 goddess of love herself, but once at least 
 he painted Venus Disrobing for the Bath, 
 now privately owned. 
 
 On June 17, 1898, occurred the death 
 of Sir Edward Burne- Jones. With the 
 exception of Rossetti, he was the most 
 radical of the pre-Raphaelites. The dil- 
 ettante and the amateur have an admira- 
 tion for him bordering on worship. Many 
 artists agree with the public in general, 
 that his long, often ill-drawn women are 
 ugly, their faces peevish, and the lines
 
 GODDESS OF LOVE AND HER SON. 153 
 
 of his composition frequently too compli- 
 cated and meaningless. The truth about 
 him is, probably, between these two 
 extremes. Certainly some of his pic- 
 tures are beautiful enough to stand 
 the abuse of the present without losing 
 ground for the future. 
 
 His Venus's Looking-glass is an original 
 design, with fine lines. A row of maidens 
 are bending down gazing into a pool, 
 which is straight across the foreground 
 and reflects their figures in its surface. 
 One among them, in an attitude some- 
 thing like the Venus of Melos, stands 
 upright, deigning to bend only her eyes 
 towards the glassy pool below. 
 
 His exaggeration of pose and twisting 
 of drapery is shown plainly in Cupid 
 Sharpening His Arrow. Cupid is a 
 lean, angular youth without joy, and 
 Venus (who is apparently blowing the 
 fire for him) is even less happily featured.
 
 154 LOVE IN ART - 
 
 As has been said, few American artists 
 produce Venuses, though some of their 
 beautiful nude subjects might nobly bear 
 the title. 
 
 Very lovely, but extremely modern in 
 treatment, is Will H. Low's Love Dis- 
 armed. Cupid, a decidedly American 
 little boy, stands at his mother's knee 
 begging for the arrow she has taken 
 from him. Venus herself, sitting upon 
 a wooded bank, is clothed from her hips 
 down, her hair simply but modishly ar- 
 ranged. Her face and figure are those 
 of a charming American girl, and yet 
 are so purely and delicately drawn that 
 the classic outlines are not missed. 
 
 One of the most delightful of Loves is 
 a study for a statuette of Cupid on a 
 Ball, by Macmonnies. This is a joyous 
 dancing boy, poised upon the ball on 
 the tip of his left foot. His left arm is 
 far outstretched, with the bow just sprung,
 
 GODDESS OF LOVE AND HER SON. 155 
 
 his right is curved and over his head as 
 the flying arrow left it. Looking up after 
 its flight, his face has a most winsome, 
 laughing expression that steals straight 
 to one's heart. Pose, construction, idea 
 are all charming, it is a Cupid to live 
 as long as one of Correggio's.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 MYTHOLOGIC AND IDEAL LOVE SCENES. 
 
 JHILE, as said before, there is a 
 growing inclination to accept 
 a picture or statue for what it 
 is, rather than for its literary merit, the 
 story-telling element enters into a large 
 division of the plastic arts. There are 
 many artists, as there are musicians, 
 who use their art principally t to describe 
 some word-definable scene or episode. 
 Mother-love, the love of home, love 
 for one's country, love of man and 
 maid, are themes used over and over 
 again. As in the Renaissance, the love 
 stories of god and goddess still tempt the 
 156
 
 MYTHOLOGIC AND IDEAL LOVE SCENES. 1 57 
 
 brush and chisel, and even more than 
 ever artists tell tender tales of their own 
 imaginings. 
 
 Watteau, whose flower-like pictures of 
 gay gallant and dainty damsel have an 
 unapproached quality of their own, painted 
 one of the famous love scenes of the world : 
 The Embarkation for Cytherea, now in the 
 Louvre. It has been called the first gen- 
 uine painted poem of Europe since the 
 Venetian Renaissance. As one looks at 
 the sunny, golden atmosphere, the shim- 
 mering garments of rose, yellow, blue, 
 ruby, and purplish violet, the gilded ship 
 which is waiting for the groups of lovers, 
 the myriads of Cupids pulling up sail, 
 tightening ropes, flying about in the air, 
 the Olympic grace and charm of the scene 
 take one wholly captive. The distinctive 
 characteristics of the various lovers are 
 incisively yet delicately indicated, while 
 their dependence upon one another as
 
 158 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 component parts of the whole is no less 
 expertly shown. 
 
 Watteau's Jupiter and Antiope, at the 
 Louvre, suggests Titian without being an 
 imitation. The nymph, whose sleep is 
 disturbed by the king of gods, has a 
 rosy, exquisite flesh that reminds one 
 of Rubens. The delicate, piquant sen- 
 suousness of the whole painting, however, 
 is far removed from the voluptuous flesh- 
 iness nearly always felt in the works of 
 the great Flemish painter. 
 
 Amour Paisible, in the Neues Palais, 
 of Potsdam, is another love scene by 
 Watteau, somewhat similar in style and 
 idea to the Embarkation for Cytherea. 
 
 Frangois Boucher designed many love 
 scenes, mostly from myths, but occasion- 
 ally from ideals of his own. Exquisite 
 technically, with charm of color and line, 
 these pictures show the same sensuality 
 always felt in his works. Among them
 
 MYTHOLOGIC AND IDEAL LOVE SCENES. l6l 
 
 are, The Shepherd Sleeping on the Knees 
 of His Shepherdess, at the Bordeaux mu- 
 seum; Leda, in the Douglas collection; 
 Jupiter and Calisto, at the Louvre. 
 
 David, the painter who turned France 
 back to the purity and severity of classi- 
 cism, drew with a correctness bordering on 
 rigidity, yet with beautiful line. His color 
 was not wholly agreeable. His Paris and 
 Helen, in the Louvre, is a fair example of 
 his style. 
 
 Prud'hon's Cupid and Psyche ; Dela- 
 croix's Jewish Wedding, in the Louvre ; 
 Kauffman's Paris and Helen ; Gerard's 
 Cupid and Psyche, at the Louvre; Rey- 
 nolds's Hope Nursing Love, at Lans- 
 downe House, Cymon and Iphigenia, 
 in Buckingham Palace, and Cupid and 
 Psyche ; Greuze's Danae and Betrothed 
 Country Girl, at the Louvre, together 
 with Ribera's The Favorite of the Day 
 (a jewel-laden, satin-clothed, unsmiling
 
 1 62 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 Eastern girl led through costly Moorish 
 halls, to her master), are all love stories 
 by world-known masters. Since other 
 works by the same painters are elsewhere 
 described, it is enough, perhaps, merely 
 to mention these. Most of them are 
 privately owned. 
 
 Thorwaldsen's Sale of Loves is a de- 
 lightful relief, full of both pathos and 
 humor. At one end stands Venus, with 
 a big basket full of little Loves, which 
 she is selling to various applicants. An 
 old man holds out his arms, begging pite- 
 ously for one, but the little fellow flies 
 away in disgust, while a matronly-looking 
 woman is lugging another one off by 
 his wings. Perched upon the back of a 
 middle-aged man is one charming little 
 figure, but his presence is unregarded. 
 Others are going eagerly to women who 
 clasp them tenderly, and bear them away 
 with evident rejoicing.
 
 MYTHOLOGIC AND IDEAL LOVE SCENES. 165 
 
 Perhaps one of the most justly popular 
 groups in marble is Canova's Cupid and 
 Psyche. Cupid, with his wings high over 
 his head, bends to the half prostrate 
 Psyche, and lifts her face to his, while 
 she raises both arms above his head. This 
 masterpiece, with its beautiful lines, charm- 
 ing pose of the figures, and their relation 
 to each other, well deserves the admira- 
 tion it has received. The original is in 
 the Louvre. 
 
 Sir Frederick Leigh ton's works show 
 his keen delight in the tender passion, 
 for he has illustrated many phases of 
 the subject. Once it is Nausicaa Waiting 
 for Odysseus, with the love-light in her 
 beautiful eyes. Again, it is Cymon com- 
 ing upon Iphigenia, who is asleep in 
 the midst of a charming landscape. This 
 is at the Fine Arts Society, in London. 
 Hercules Wrestling with Death for the 
 Body of Alcestis is a remarkably strong,
 
 1 66 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 well-massed composition, the figure of 
 Death, with his huge, black wings, being 
 horribly gruesome. 
 
 Another famous work of this prolific 
 painter is his Helen of Troy. The 
 stately bearing and beautiful figure of 
 Helen are finely expressed. The poise 
 of the noble head is queenly, and the 
 whole picture is a fine example of pure, 
 classic line and spirit. 
 
 Wedded, at the Sidney Museum, New 
 South Wales, has become so universally 
 admired through photographs and repro- 
 ductions that it seems unnecessary to 
 describe it further. The figures are 
 perfectly drawn ; the pose is striking, yet 
 natural and charming. The only fault in 
 the composition is that the arch behind 
 their heads gives no outlook beyond. 
 There is nothing to take one's eyes from 
 the two, or, once taken, to bring them 
 back again.
 
 WEDDED. 
 From painting by Frederick Leighton.
 
 MYTHOLOGIC AND IDEAL LOVE SCENES. 169 
 
 Leighton's successor to the presidential 
 chair of the Royal Academy, Sir John 
 Millais, was equally fond of painting 
 pictures which tell of man's love for 
 woman. Some of them are more popular 
 than are much stronger canvases, yet 
 they are well drawn and composed, with 
 color, if not of living glory, at least inter- 
 esting and reasonable. In this class come 
 his Yes or No, No, and Yes. There is 
 much good dressing in them, but of the 
 style of the middle of this century, and 
 one's eyes linger unpleasantly upon the 
 out-of-date clothes. His Huguenot Lovers, 
 however, strikes a higher note. 
 
 Burne- Jones's Pyramus and Thisbe is 
 exquisite in line, though sometimes one 
 feels a slight irritation at so much line. 
 His Romance of the Rose is one of the 
 loveliest decorative bits of modern art, as 
 is, too, the Briar Rose. The Chant 
 d' Amour and Love Among the Ruins are
 
 170 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 two other noted works. His feeling for 
 space, balance, and mass was rarely sen- 
 sitive, and his expression nearly always 
 truly poetic. 
 
 England's greatest poet-painter, and 
 one of the greatest poet-painters of any 
 clime, is George Watts. Long past his 
 prime, he shows no diminution of power. 
 Even the exhibition of 1898 at the Lon- 
 don Academy held one of the most 
 beautiful compositions he has ever pro- 
 duced. 
 
 This was called Love Triumphant, a 
 subject which he treated very differently 
 some years ago. In this latest work 
 a man and woman lie prostrate upon the 
 ground, their heads towards the spectator. 
 The sickle of Death, which has mowed 
 them to the ground, is under one arm of 
 the man, who is face down, his left hand 
 holding the hand of the woman who is 
 flat upon her back beside him. Standing
 
 YES 
 From painting by John Millais.
 
 MYTHOLOGIC AND IDEAL LOVE SCENES. 173 
 
 between them is the figure of Love, tri- 
 umphant even over Death. A whirling 
 cloud of drapery leaves his figure almost 
 bare. It is a gloriously youthful form, 
 superbly posed. His arms are wide- 
 outstretched to heaven, his head is 
 thrown back, gazing upwards, while high 
 over all arch his beautiful wings. The 
 poetic conception of the whole is per- 
 fected by its lines and color. Though 
 the two figures are not immaculately 
 drawn, the utter prostration is so well 
 expressed, and Love himself is so won- 
 derfully fine, that it is hardly claiming 
 too much to call it one of the world's 
 masterpieces. 
 
 Love and Life, an earlier picture, is 
 another notable work, showing a grand- 
 winged angel leading a frail form over a 
 rocky mountain path. The color in this 
 is dull, almost monochromatic, but the 
 tonal relation between the heavily robed
 
 174 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 angel and the tender, lovely nude form is 
 charmingly rendered. 
 
 Perhaps his best known picture is Love 
 and Death, a composition whose pathetic, 
 wonderful beauty only time's ravages can 
 destroy. Death's figure, with the drapery 
 which falls into such marvellous mass and 
 line, is one of the most remarkably 
 designed and executed figures in all 
 painting. Nothing can be more beautiful 
 than the pose, expressing, as it does, an 
 irresistible, compelling power, free from 
 any suggestion of personal desire, relent- 
 less, but without violence. His head is 
 bent as if he would not see the ruin he is 
 compelled to work, while the uplifted arm 
 reaches calmly, unfalteringly above Love's 
 head, to push open the door which the 
 little figure guards so frantically. Love 
 himself, with his arrows crushed behind 
 him, his baby frame passionately, futilely 
 protesting against the oncoming terror, is
 
 WATTS. LOVE AND DEATH.
 
 MYTHOLOGIC AND IDEAL LOVE SCENES. 177 
 
 a poetic epitome of all fond, suffering 
 hearts. 
 
 The tragedy of love and life appeals 
 strongly to this artist poet, and one of 
 his saddest and most powerful works is 
 Orpheus and Eurydice. This shows the 
 two just as Eurydice is being forced back 
 to the realm of shadow out of the arms of 
 Orpheus. His agony, the utter helpless- 
 ness of the fair maiden, the immutable 
 fate that separates them, are all amazingly 
 expressed. Technically, too, the balance 
 of light and shade, tone and color, is 
 wonderfully managed. 
 
 Very unlike Watts's poems are the 
 Idyls of Alma-Tadema. Of late years 
 they have less pastoral simplicity and 
 more Oriental lavishness about them, but 
 a certain unity of idea saves most of them 
 from becoming mere ornate elaborations. 
 The marble halls and balconies where he 
 places his Greek or Oriental youths and
 
 178 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 maidens form a delicately cool setting foi 
 the classic love tales he delineates so well 
 If there is a little of the hardness of the 
 stone in his gracefully posed, historically 
 correct figures, at least the color scheme 
 is always an entrancing harmony, and 
 the composition beautifully massed and 
 balanced. 
 
 Among many similar scenes is the Old 
 Story. This is unusually simple and sug- 
 gestive. On a delicately veined marble 
 seat are a girl and a man. She is sitting 
 as far from him as possible, while he, lean- 
 ing forward on his elbow, gazes intently 
 at her. The color is charming, the poses 
 are natural; the story is clear and dra- 
 matic. Other works of his are The First 
 Whisper of Love ; Pleading ; Who is it ? 
 Shy ; A Love Missile ; The Question ; 
 this last one of his smallest and most 
 delightful canvases. 
 
 One of the young painters of England
 
 MYTHOLOGIC AND IDEAL LOVE SCENES. 179 
 
 is Philip Burne-Jones, Sir Edward's son. 
 If one may judge from the photograph of 
 a recent painting by him, he is without 
 some of his father's exaggeration, and 
 with much of his talent. The picture 
 referred to is called The Vampire, and 
 shows a man apparently lifeless, thrown 
 back on a couch, while leaning forward on 
 her hands over him is the woman he had 
 loved. Kipling's poem says in words what 
 the brush writes in tone, line, and color: 
 
 " The fool was stripped to his foolish hide, 
 
 (Even as you and I !) 
 
 Which she might have seen when she threw him 
 aside, 
 
 (But it isn't on record the lady tried) 
 So some of him lived, but the most of him died. 
 (Even as you and I ! ) " 
 
 Israal, the Millet of the North, oftener 
 portrays mother-love than the bond be- 
 tween man and woman ; but the most 
 beautiful picture he ever painted tells the
 
 180 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 old, old story as it seldom has been told. 
 Alone in the World shows a peasant sit- 
 ting with his head bowed in his hands 
 beside a bed where the pall of death rests 
 upon a toil-worn, year-worn woman. The 
 light is dim in the little room, most of it 
 coming in through one small window, and 
 the figures are half immersed in the shad- 
 owy light. There is no attempt at care- 
 fully articulated forms, the color is sober, 
 almost sombre, though never cold or thin, 
 and style is absolutely lacking. Yet, some- 
 thing greater than all the technic of Paris 
 holds one in thrall. The very heart of 
 the lonely man is laid bare, tenderly, sa- 
 credly bare, and one can only stand with 
 hushed breath, reading the love story of 
 the old man's life. 
 
 Of the modern French school, Diaz 
 left a number of love scenes, full of his 
 indefinable, mystic charm, suggesting, in 
 spite of an evident gaiety, the weirdness
 
 MYTHOLOGIC AND IDEAL LOVE SCENES. l8l 
 
 of Poe or Hawthorne. The Lovers has 
 something of this quality, chiefly recog- 
 nizable, perhaps, in the shroud-like shadow 
 enveloping the two. The girl is sitting 
 upon her lover's knee, her arm about his 
 neck, the color and shadow about her eyes 
 waking memories of the warm depths of 
 sun-haunted forests. 
 
 The coloring of Diaz was as distinctive 
 as it was exquisite, and at his best he was 
 a true poet with strong originality. His 
 Don't Come In is a charming bit of 
 genre. A young woman, with her throat 
 bare, stands before a curtained door, which 
 a little Love half opens. She beckons 
 three women, standing near, not to come 
 in, while a Love at her feet pushes one of 
 them back. 
 
 Hamon and Aubert have also designed 
 some idyllic love stories, full of a dainty 
 grace. The last work of Hamon struck 
 a deeper note than was usual to his aerial
 
 1 82 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 fancy. The Sad Shore is the shore of 
 Death, and on it he placed the famous 
 lovers of history and poetry, such as 
 Francesca da Rimini and Paolo, Dante 
 and Beatrice, etc. 
 
 More in his lighter style is his Love on 
 a Visit, where a little Cupid knocks at a 
 knobless door and tries to hide his bow 
 and arrows from the girl who looks laugh- 
 ingly out through a big crack. 
 
 Aubert's Cooling the Wings of Love, 
 Approaching Love, and Love on a Vaca- 
 tion, are equally delightful fantastic imag- 
 inings. Love on a Vacation is a popular 
 little canvas, showing Cupid on his jour- 
 ney, with a ridiculous bag in one hand 
 ( since he has no need for apparel ! ) and 
 his bow and arrows in the other, standing 
 before a young maid whom he has met 
 on the path. Both figures are skilfully 
 drawn, and the setting of the scene is a 
 pretty bit of landscape.
 
 MYTHOLOGIC AND IDEAL LOVE SCENES. 183 
 
 The Florentine Poet, by Cabanel, and 
 Bouguereau's Love and Youth, and a 
 Nymph Combating with Cupid, are fine 
 examples of the way these two artists 
 have chosen to describe the universal 
 passion. 
 
 Cot, who in his- 'lightness a'n'cl grace 
 really belongs with Aubert and Hamon, 
 reached in his Spring a classic simplicity 
 and purity rarely attained by moderns. 
 The maid and youth swinging among the 
 trees in the spring-time sunshine are as 
 exquisitely executed as the figures on a 
 Greek vase, and have something of the 
 same Arcadian spirit. 
 
 Lefebvre, another modern classicist, 
 shows in his Toilet of the Bride his 
 feeling for pure outline, serene composi- 
 tion, and delicacy of expression. He also 
 painted the Moorish Bride. 
 
 Love's Messenger, a girl whose skirt 
 full of roses two Cupids are trying to
 
 184 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 steal, is by Chaplin, a true Parisian, with 
 the Parisian's artificiality. 
 
 Taken by death before he had expressed 
 half the artistic soul within him, Bastien 
 Le Page, young as he was, will forever 
 remain one of the great French painters 
 of the nineteenth century. His Love in 
 the Village, almost his last work, won all 
 Paris, and has since, by its poetic grace 
 and unaffected sentiment, gained the 
 applause of the world. It is a simple 
 enough scene of a rough peasant lad 
 trying to ask the momentous question 
 of a little lass who stands on the other 
 side of the fence, with downcast eyes, 
 timid yet eager. The pale green back- 
 ground is a little too monotonous and too 
 noticeable, but otherwise, color, as well 
 as drawing and composition, is poetically 
 realistic. 
 
 Dagnan Bouveret's The Blessing is a 
 faithful transcript of French peasant life,
 
 SPRINGTIME OF LOVE. 
 From painting by Paul Thumann.
 
 MYTHOLOGIC AND IDEAL LOVE SCENES. 1 87 
 
 clearly showing the artist's skill in render- 
 ing the subtle values of light and atmos- 
 phere as well as the deep sympathy with 
 which he approaches every phase of life. 
 It is an interior scene where the young 
 couple, who are starting to church to 
 be made man and wife, kneel a moment 
 before the old father for his blessing. 
 Another room behind is full of maids 
 and youths fluttering about the table 
 spread with the wedding feast. Over 
 all shimmers the golden sunshine, veiled 
 by white muslin curtains at the window. 
 
 One of the greatest of color ists, with 
 deep poetic feeling, and a magnificent 
 draughtsman, was Paul Jacques Aime 
 Baudry, whose decoration of the Foyer 
 of the Nouvel Opera in Paris made him 
 also one of the few great mural painters. 
 Among his poetic versions of old and new 
 love tales are L'Enlevement de Psyche, 
 a phantasy of exquisite tones, Leda,
 
 1 88 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 Orpheus and Eurydice, and Diana 
 Driving Away Love. This last he 
 repeated several times, always varying 
 it slightly. Diana, stepping from a 
 pond at the edge of the woods, finds 
 Cupid sporting about, his bows and 
 arrows lying on her clothes. She picks 
 up one to drive him away, and he flies 
 into the air to escape her wrath. She 
 is a lovely creature, dark-haired, lithe, and 
 graceful, and Cupid is the incarnation 
 of roguish witchery. 
 
 Benjamin Constant, the Orientalist of 
 gorgeous coloring, painted a Riff Pirate's 
 Wife and The Women of the Harem, two 
 rich-toned bits of Eastern poetry. 
 
 Kray's Psyche and The Fisherman's 
 Love, Kaulbach's Helena, Dahl's Female 
 Attraction, Von Bodenhausen's Hero and 
 Leander, Beyschlag's Demanding Toll, 
 Andriotti's Wooing, Netscher's Sacrifice 
 to Venus and Sacrifice to the God of
 
 
 n 
 
 .6y Curto
 
 MYTHOLOGIC AND IDEAL LOVE SCENES. 19 1 
 
 Love (both of which are in the Louvre), 
 are all extremely popular pictures, and so 
 familiar through photographs that descrip- 
 tion of them is practically unnecessary. 
 Of most it is enough to say that they 
 are popular because they tell a pleasing 
 story rather than because they are true 
 works of art. Like the majority of the 
 works mentioned in this chapter, they 
 are mostly in private collections. 
 
 On a slightly higher plane is Paul 
 Thuman's Spring-time of Love, which 
 has a charming chiaroscuro and whose 
 two figures are in the main well drawn. 
 A delicate tenderness is its strongest 
 claim to appreciation. 
 
 America, again, has done less in this 
 subject than other nations. Perhaps one 
 of the most noted and best examples 
 of what our painters have accomplished 
 is William M. Hunt's Marguerite. The 
 charming composition is noble in its sim-
 
 I9 2 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 plicity. The whole story is told in the 
 face and attitude of the lovely girl who 
 asks of the daisy's petals whether her 
 love loves her. 
 
 In the Library of Congress, at Wash- 
 ington, Edward Simmons has nine tym- 
 panum decorations. One of these is 
 Erato, a nude figure holding a rose, the 
 flower of love. She is drawn with much 
 strength and purity of line, and is splen- 
 didly placed. Mr. Simmons has done 
 some remarkable mural paintings, and 
 deservedly ranks among America's most 
 noted decorators. 
 
 Walter Me E wen is also represented in 
 the Library of Congress. Among his 
 nine panels, illustrating episodes in the 
 lives of the Greek heroes, are those show- 
 ing Theseus, Hercules, and Paris. The- 
 seus, at the command of Minerva, is 
 leaving Ariadne to her fate on the Isle 
 of Naxos; Hercules, deeply fascinated
 
 -= to 
 
 2 O 
 
 '= o 
 
 & U 
 
 I 3
 
 MYTHOLOGIC AND IDEAL LOVE SCENES. 195 
 
 with Omphale, the Queen of Lydia, is 
 discovered at her feet, dressed as a 
 woman, and spinning. In the Paris 
 panel, Menelaus and the Trojan hero 
 are conversing at the former's court, 
 while Helen looks on, listening. The 
 composition is interesting in line, mass, 
 and placing; the figures distinguished, 
 simple, and forceful. Helen has hardly 
 the grandeur of face which one expects, 
 but her pose is dignified and graceful, her 
 figure fine. Mr. Me E wan has achieved a 
 distinct success in this work, and has con- 
 tributed nine really beautiful decorations 
 to America's most noted building.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 LOVE SCENES IN LITERATURE. 
 
 llCTORIAL illustration of liter- 
 ary works is, on the whole, a 
 modern invention. During the 
 earliest years of the Renaissance there was, 
 of course, with the exception of the Bible 
 and works in Latin and Greek, very little 
 literature extant. But till nearly the end 
 of the eighteenth century these sources 
 remained almost the only literary inspira- 
 tion for painters and sculptors. 
 
 To-day many of the most talented ar- 
 tists give much time to book illustration, 
 and fine paintings are constantly produced 
 whose subject is found in some noted play, 
 poem, or story. 
 
 196
 
 LOVE SCENES IN LITERATURE. 197 
 
 Delacroix, born at the end of the 
 eighteenth century, was among the first 
 to illustrate a love tale. He has been 
 called the Victor Hugo of painters, and 
 his touch was of marvellous power and 
 charm. His canvases glow with the very 
 soul of his age, and, although drawing was 
 not his strongest point, it is hardly missed 
 in the midst of such remarkable imagina- 
 tion, strength of expression, and perfect 
 presentation of time and place. One of 
 his happiest effects is his Faust and Mar- 
 guerite, a subject peculiarly adapted to his 
 brilliant, searching, sympathetic treatment. 
 
 Boucher, earlier still, painted with ex- 
 travagant brush a picture of Rinaldo and 
 Armida. It is now in the Louvre. In 
 spite of the debased point of view which 
 one always feels in Boucher's works, it 
 has a decided fascination of color and 
 atmosphere. 
 
 Less noted for color than for a remark-
 
 198 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 able depth of expression, is Ary Scheffer's 
 Dante and Beatrice. Both figures are 
 fine. She stands on the clouds, slightly 
 above him, with her face uplifted to the 
 sky, while he gazes at her with hungry 
 eyes. The drawing is true and strong, 
 and the scene dramatic, with a rarefied 
 intensity of feeling. 
 
 Scheffer often painted Marguerite, also, 
 generally alone, the wonderful expression 
 he put into face, eyes, and pose telling at 
 a glance the whole story. Among them 
 are Marguerite at the Fountain and the 
 Walk in the Garden. Another tragic 
 love scene is his Paolo and Francesca 
 da Rimini. 
 
 Many painters have tried to express 
 the temptation, love, sorrow, agony, and 
 repentance of Goethe's Marguerite, and 
 Laurens's Faust and Marguerite in the 
 Garden is one of the more successful 
 attempts. Faust, tall and chivalrous, is
 
 LOVE SCENES IN LITERATURE. 199 
 
 walking beside Marguerite, whose eyes 
 are downcast as she nervously plucks to 
 pieces a daisy. Faust has a haunted, 
 sombre expression, but his eyes are 
 ardent as he studies the fair, tender face 
 beside him. The work has all the direct 
 vigor and command of construction, of 
 which Laurens is past master; the pic- 
 ture is great in the effect it produces by 
 apparently simple means. 
 
 Dante Gabriel Rossetti required, more 
 than most painters, the stimulus of some 
 word description. Nearly every one of 
 his pictures illustrates scenes taken from 
 his own or some other poet's songs. 
 While many of his paintings easily stand 
 by themselves, purely as paintings, it is 
 necessary, as a rule, to know what they 
 illustrate, thoroughly to appreciate or 
 enjoy them. Intensely, but subtly dra- 
 matic, full of a personality often erratic 
 though usually charming, his works pro-
 
 200 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 claim him a master of line and of a 
 refined sensuousness hard to define. 
 Poems dealing with the relation of man 
 to woman appealed especially to him, 
 and were the ones he most frequently 
 illustrated. 
 
 One of his noted works is the Blessed 
 Damozel, picturing his own poem by that 
 name. It is the story of a maiden who 
 waits in heaven with longing heart for the 
 lover she left on earth. The Damozel, in 
 a robe of sky blue with a scarf above of 
 bronze tint with silvery hues, leans on one 
 arm over the golden wall of heaven. Her 
 deep golden hair is twined with purple 
 stars and falls about a beautiful face, sad 
 with watching. Behind her in the heav- 
 enly gardens are numerous reunited 
 lovers, clad in deep blue, embracing 
 each other in the midst of changing 
 lights and shadows. Two ministering 
 spirits are in front of the golden parapet,
 
 ROSSETTI. HEAD OF THE BLESSED DAMOZEL
 
 LOVE SCENES IN LITERATURE. 203 
 
 their wings of blue so intense as almost 
 to be flame, curving grandly over their 
 heads ; they lead the lovers up the heav- 
 enly path when earth has slipped from 
 them. Between and immediately below 
 these two is a seraph, an infant's head 
 surrounded by wings of many curves and 
 folds, of a deep and vivid green, about a 
 face as sad as it is watchful. The pic- 
 ture is rarely fascinating, and if Rossetti's 
 drawing had been as strong as his poetic 
 conception, the only imperfection of an 
 otherwise remarkable work would have 
 vanished. 
 
 The Beloved is better drawn and in 
 many ways more charming. It was de- 
 signed for the words in Solomon's Song : 
 " My Beloved is mine, and I am his ; let 
 him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, 
 for thy love is better than wine." The 
 picture is presumably a marriage proces- 
 sion. The bride is clad in an apple green
 
 2O4 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 robe lustrous as silk and splendid with 
 gold and embroideries of leaves and 
 flowers in natural colors. Her veil of 
 tissue is a different green from her gown, 
 and above her forehead is an aigrette of 
 scarlet enamel and gold. Her face is fair 
 and fine, with the least hint of blushes 
 within the skin, her eyes are "amorous 
 lidded," and there is great tenderness in 
 her look. Below her, leading the pro- 
 cession, is a negro boy carrying a golden 
 vase ; his dark coloring furnishes the 
 needed contrast to all the high light 
 tones. The painting somewhat suggests 
 Tintoretto. 
 
 Tristram and Iseult Drinking the Love 
 Potion is another of Rossetti's mystic, 
 fateful love scenes ; and still another 
 shows Launcelot and Guinevere at the 
 Tomb of King Arthur. 
 
 There are few naturally happy love pic- 
 tures among the works of this king of the
 
 LOVE SCENES IN LITERATURE. 2O5 
 
 Pre-Raphaelites, fate-compelled tragedies 
 appealing more to his nature. See, for 
 instance, the Prison Scene of Marguerite 
 and Faust, Paolo and Francesca, and 
 Found. 
 
 In the first of these, Faust has come to 
 urge Marguerite to fly, but though she 
 embraces him passionately in love and 
 terror, she lets him go without her. The 
 devil has just entered and plainly urges 
 haste. It is not a great drawing, yet the 
 love and terror of Marguerite, the futile 
 anguish of Faust, and the utter helpless- 
 ness of both, caught in the maelstrom of 
 destiny, are all wonderfully indicated. 
 
 The first compartment of the Paolo and 
 Francesca composition shows the two sit- 
 ting in a summer-house beneath an arched 
 opening, the book which has tempted them 
 upon their knees, their heads together, 
 their lips clinging. The story of King 
 Arthur's guilty queen had been the
 
 2O6 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 match to light the passion in their two 
 hearts, and neither had strength nor 
 desire to resist. The complete momen- 
 tary abandon of the two figures is power- 
 fully yet delicately insisted upon. As a 
 composition it is well massed, the curved 
 opening behind and above the man and 
 woman adding much to the beauty of 
 line. 
 
 In the second compartment of the pic- 
 ture the condemned pair are floating in 
 the nether world, still clasping each other, 
 their feet folded, their garments composed 
 as if Death's hand had smoothed them. 
 Dante, in the background, regards the 
 figure of Love, who, holding a flaming 
 heart, passes heavenwards on the other 
 side of the picture, and seems to sign to 
 Dante to follow him and to leave the 
 couple to their fate. This is not without 
 strength or a certain awesome charm, but 
 it falls short of complete expression.
 
 MILLAIS. BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR.
 
 LOVE SCENES IN LITERATURE. 2OQ 
 
 Millais was at one time strongly in- 
 fluenced by the Pre-Raphaelite movement 
 in England, but he broke with the brother- 
 hood finally, and now is chiefly known by 
 his purely " Popular Works." Effie Deans 
 is one of these. She and a dog are on one 
 side of a fence, her lover on the other, 
 with his hand on her arm. There is little 
 to say about it, or about his Bride of Lam- 
 mermoor, whose pale, suffering face will 
 always appeal with strong pathos to the 
 large majority. 
 
 With a hand trained to any demands 
 his artistic concepts may make upon it, 
 George Watts has perfectly rendered the 
 poetic thoughts which fill his mind. There 
 are few Englishmen whose technical abil- 
 ity is equal to their ideas. Watts's Paolo 
 and Francesca, for example, is far ahead 
 in its wonderful suggestiveness of the one 
 by Rossetti. Not necessarily because the 
 former's idea is more poetic, but because
 
 210 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 he portrays it better. Heavily draped, 
 floating into space, surrounded by storm 
 clouds that whirl them like leaves, the 
 two clinging figures express all the agony, 
 the sin, the shame, and their everlasting 
 love. The very spirit of Dante's lines 
 lives again in the picture of the heart- 
 breaking, immutable decree which con- 
 demns the lovers to eternal torment. The 
 lines of the whirling clouds, the clasping 
 figures with their voluminous drapery, all 
 are wonderfully dramatic. It is a poem 
 in line. 
 
 Cabanel also painted a Francesca da 
 Rimini. With the French melodramatic 
 instinct, however, he chose for his subject 
 the moment when Francesca's husband 
 has but just killed her and his brother. 
 Although it is a ghastly scene, Cabanel 
 has handled it so dexterously and with so 
 true a touch that it is the spirit rather 
 than the horrible materialization that
 
 LOVE SCENES IN LITERATURE. 213 
 
 appeals to one. Not the dying bodies 
 and the murderous assassin are seen, but 
 the passion of weak, sinning hearts and 
 the outraged faith of a trusting husband. 
 The composition is superbly balanced in 
 line, chiaroscuro, and mass. The figures 
 are splendid in drawing, the color rich and 
 quiet. It is in the Luxembourg. 
 
 In the Luxembourg, too, France's mon- 
 ument to the merit of living talent, hangs 
 James Tissot's Meeting of Faust and 
 Marguerite. There is nothing devilish 
 or sinister in the quiet scene. It is as if 
 Tissot wished to impress the fact that 
 great sin, great love, or great joy is not 
 heralded by the presence of angels or 
 demons. Marguerite, as she comes out 
 of the church, is a demure maiden with 
 downcast eyes, and a face as pure as it is 
 sweet and tender. Faust, who greets her 
 with much reverence of manner, is a 
 gentlemanly looking, handsomely dressed
 
 214 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 gallant, only the lower part of his face 
 showing the fatal weakness in his charac- 
 ter. Well drawn, and interestingly if not 
 powerfully composed, the picture is un- 
 usually realistic. 
 
 One of the most pathetic of modern 
 love stories is Boutet de Mouvel's draw- 
 ing of Landry at the bedside of the dying 
 Zaviere. This is merely an illustration, 
 pure and simple, of Ferdinand Fabre's 
 charming romance of Zaviere, but it de- 
 serves to rank among the pictures of true 
 pathos and power. Zaviere is in bed, a 
 little Madonna hanging on the wall above, 
 while Landry is on his knee, one hand 
 holding hers, his head hidden on the bed, 
 her right hand resting lightly upon his 
 arm. So pale, so weak, so near to death 
 is the little Zaviere, that she cannot even 
 deeply mourn the parting which is at 
 hand. She is beyond all fear and all dis- 
 may; the brooding of the wings of the
 
 LOVE SCENES IN LITERATURE. 21 7 
 
 angel of death have soothed and quieted 
 her. With equal power has De Mouvel 
 shown the agony of the boy lover, agony 
 which yet for her sake he must constrain. 
 Not a line of Fabre's story is needed 
 to increase the effect of this intensely 
 dramatic drawing. 
 
 Max and Makart, Kaulbach, Hoffman- 
 Zeitz, Dicksee, Castagnola von Bodenhau- 
 sen, Liezen-Mayer, have all painted scenes 
 from well-known love stories. The con- 
 stant sale of photographs of these works 
 proves the appreciation of the public. 
 
 Among them is a dramatic canvas of 
 Filippi Lippi declaring love to Lucrezia 
 Buti, by G. Castagnola, who has followed 
 Vasari's version of the affair. 
 
 On wave-swept rocks stands Hero, 
 painted by Bodenhausen, gazing in an- 
 guish at Leander's body in the surf before 
 her. Though somewhat theatric, the pic- 
 ture has power, and is decidedly vigorous
 
 2l8 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 in handling. Herr von Bodenhausen is 
 the painter of the well-known Nydia, with 
 her basket of flowers, and great unseeing 
 eyes. 
 
 Liezen-Mayer illustrated all of Goethe's 
 Faust, and some of his designs are charm- 
 ing. In the prison scene he has depicted 
 the change which has come over the 
 beautiful face of Marguerite with real 
 force. 
 
 Noted American painters have not only 
 often used episodes taken from literature 
 as subjects for painting, but the majority 
 of them have done a great deal of book 
 illustration. It is hardly asserting too 
 much to say that some of the very best 
 artistic work done in this country is to be 
 found in that department. 
 
 E. A. Abbey's remarkable drawings for 
 Shakespeare's plays are too familiar to 
 need description. Perhaps as excellent 
 as any are Take, O Take Those Lips
 
 LOVE SCENES IN LITERATURE. 2 19 
 
 Away, from " Measure for Measure," 
 where Mariana sits disconsolate on a 
 high carved bench, ordering the young 
 player to leave her to her sorrows ; two 
 scenes from "The Tempest," one where 
 Ferdinand first meets Miranda, and the 
 other where he holds both her hands 
 in his ; and from " The Taming of the 
 Shrew," where Petruchio is lugging the 
 terror-stricken Catherine down-stairs away 
 from her frightened people. Master of 
 composition, of graceful line and well- 
 balanced mass, a strong colorist, and a 
 perfect draughtsman, Mr. Abbey has 
 put much of his great talent into these 
 and other illustrations. 
 
 A volume of old English Songs and 
 Ballads is full of his quaint conceits, 
 love tales in line as well as rhyme. 
 Among them are " Sweet Nelly, My 
 Heart's Delight," " What Hap Had I to 
 Marry a Shrew," " Here's to the Maiden
 
 220 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 of Bashful Fifteen," the lovely pictures of 
 Barbara Allen, " Sally in our Alley," and 
 " Phillada." 
 
 In one of the late London Academy 
 Exhibitions, Mr. Abbey had a large 
 canvas entitled Hamlet and Ophelia. It 
 won great praise, but has not yet been 
 seen in America. 
 
 Elihu Vedder, the American Mystic, in 
 spite of his noted mural paintings and his 
 large army of canvases, is best known by 
 his wonderful illustrations for Omar 
 Khayyam's Poem of Life, Wine, Love, 
 and Death. If Mr. Vedder's color were 
 less formal and sombre, his work would 
 have few rivals. 
 
 Will H. Low is another painter, better 
 known to the world at large as one of the 
 most poetic of illustrators. Among his 
 first successes were his designs for Keats's 
 Odes and Sonnets. One of the most 
 entrancing is for the " Ode to Psyche."
 
 LOVE SCENES IN LITERATURE. 221 
 
 Cupid and Psyche lie asleep on the edge 
 of a stream, high bordered by softest 
 grass. Their wings are under them, and 
 one arm of Psyche has dropped, letting 
 her hand fall into the water. The two 
 figures are exquisitely drawn, and over 
 all is a sylvan, Arcadian charm. His 
 illustrations for " Lamia " are even more 
 beautiful, and show his art at its highest 
 expression. 
 
 Kenyon Cox's illustrations for Rossetti's 
 " Blessed Damozel " are vigorous and mas- 
 terly drawings, without a trace of the mys- 
 tic weirdness Rossetti's own interpretation 
 seems to demand. 
 
 Mrs. Kenyon Cox has recently finished 
 a picture which puts her well up in the 
 list of skilful American painters. This 
 is called The Lovers, and was inspired by 
 Austin Dobson's poem of " A Song of 
 Angiola, in Heaven." The two figures 
 who have met in the lover's dream,
 
 222 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 in heaven, are drawn with much poetic 
 feeling, though their abnormal height at 
 first creates a rather unpleasant effect. 
 They are charmingly posed, and the 
 lights and shadows are treated with 
 unusual sureness of touch. Angiola is a 
 lovely bride-robed figure, and the deli- 
 cacy of the yet passionate greeting of 
 the two is beautifully suggested. If Mrs. 
 Cox's coloring had less of the hardness 
 and thinness characteristic of her hus- 
 band's brush, few women painters would 
 surpass her. 
 
 H. Siddons Mowbray, an artist of 
 strong imagination, of fine drawing and 
 color, devotes most of his talent to por- 
 traying the simplest and sweetest of 
 Greek idylls. He does not often illus- 
 trate, but one delicious half-tone by him 
 accompanied the publication of Lowell's 
 " Love and Thought." Thought is a lovely 
 maiden, with bent brow, downcast, hidden
 
 LOVE SCENES IN LITERATURE. 223 
 
 eyes, and tender, reposeful mouth. Love 
 is one of the most piquant of Cupids ; he 
 is neither the baby boy of Correggio and 
 Titian, nor the lanky youth of Burne- 
 Jones. Between the two ages, with his 
 beautiful face roguishly sweet, his tumbled 
 curly hair, his purely drawn, lithe little 
 figure, he stands looking furtively at 
 Thought, ready to fly in consternation 
 if her reign is to begin. 
 
 " What hath Love with Thought to do ? 
 Still at variance are the two. 
 Love is sudden, Love is rash, 
 Love is like the Levin flash, 
 Conies as swift, as swiftly goes, 
 And his mark as surely knows."
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 WIVES AND SWEETHEARTS. 
 
 'VERY lover finds himself forced 
 to give outward expression to 
 the tender thoughts within his 
 heart. If he is a poet, he writes no rhyme 
 but has his lady's image somewhere in it. 
 If he is a composer, each theme he sings 
 is wreathed with sweet melodic fancies of 
 his heart's delight. When the lover is 
 painter or sculptor, it is her face alone he 
 cares to paint or model. Not only does 
 he make portraits of her, every ideal face 
 or figure he designs has something about 
 it suggestive of her he loves. 
 
 It is, of course, manifestly impossible for 
 224
 
 WIVES AND SWEETHEARTS. 225 
 
 outsiders to recognize more than a very 
 few of these love-likenesses. While a 
 scandal is whispered broadcast, it is only 
 occasionally, even in these days of tele- 
 graphic gossip, that the public is let into 
 an artist's happy love history. So that to 
 decide authoritatively what pictures ideal- 
 ize or realize the loves of modern artists 
 is, except in a few instances, out of the 
 question. 
 
 Boucher's wife is said to have been the 
 model for many of his Venuses. In all 
 his works he seems to have had but one 
 type of feminine beauty, so it is fair to 
 suppose that his wife remained his ideal. 
 One of these semi-portraits is probably 
 to be found in the Venus in the Berlin 
 Museum. 
 
 In the fresco of the Hemicycle of the 
 Fine Arts Room in the Ecole des Beaux 
 Arts, Delaroche, one of the princes of 
 French painters, has immortalized his
 
 226 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 wife in the figure of Mediaeval Art. The 
 loveliness of her face is enhanced by beau- 
 tiful blonde hair, and the painter-husband 
 seems to have put all his heart into this 
 delineation of the woman he so deeply 
 loved. 
 
 For many years Romney was passion- 
 ately devoted to Lady Hamilton, and he 
 painted her in every conceivable costume 
 and pose. She was a very handsome 
 woman, and Romney's pictures of her 
 show his art at its happiest. He painted 
 her as Diana; as Cassandra; as St. Ce- 
 cilia ; as the Tragic and the Comic Muse ; 
 as Circe and as a nun; as a Welsh girl 
 and as Magdalen ; in a servant's cap and 
 with a veil over her head. She is the 
 Bacchante now in the National Gallery, 
 and also the Parson's Daughter. She, too, 
 is Ariadne in a Cave by the Sea, owned 
 by Baron Rothschild ; and in the National 
 Portrait Gallery is a picture of herself in
 
 ROMNEV. LADY HAMILTON.
 
 WIVES AND SWEETHEARTS. 229 
 
 her own fashionable apparel. Whatever 
 the pose or imagined character, she is 
 always Lady Hamilton, with the pure 
 pink and white coloring and graceful lines 
 Romney loved. 
 
 Greuze, one of the first French painters 
 to moralize, had an unhappy married life, 
 and though his wife was his model for 
 many pictures of women, they can scarcely 
 be called love-portraits. Once, however, 
 Greuze loved deeply and was beloved in 
 return. As the maiden was the daughter 
 of an Italian nobleman who never would 
 have consented to her marriage with the 
 humble artist, Greuze heroically refused 
 a clandestine wedding. His Young Girl's 
 Prayer to Cupid is a memento of this 
 episode in his life, and is one of his more 
 charming works. 
 
 When Regnault was killed in the siege 
 of Paris, he was but just engaged to 
 Breton's daughter, whom he loved devot-
 
 230 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 edly. As a rule Regnault's portraits, 
 though of fine color and form, fail in 
 expressing the highest emotions. His 
 portrait of Mile. Breton, however, shows 
 him the lover as well as the painter, and 
 is a picture of great power, wonderfully 
 drawn and posed, and of exquisite flesh 
 tones. 
 
 All the world knows the love story 
 of Sir John Millais: how, when a very 
 young artist, with his laurels yet to win, 
 Ruskin asked him to paint his beautiful 
 girl-wife ; how the two found their heart's 
 mate in each other, and how Ruskin, 
 with a nobility only half appreciated, 
 made it possible for the two to become 
 wedded. 
 
 The Huguenot Lovers is generally sup- 
 posed to be the picture Millais painted 
 during the weeks the two were learning 
 to know each other, and it is perhaps his 
 most perfect as it is his most popular
 
 MILLAIS. THE HUGUENOT LOVERS.
 
 WIVES AND SWEETHEARTS. 233 
 
 canvas. The tender affection, the heart- 
 breaking parting, are wonderfully por- 
 trayed. The two figures are charmingly 
 drawn and posed, the contrast between 
 her fairness and his darker tones is well 
 conceived, and the whole canvas breathes 
 the deep love which inspired it. 
 
 Millet almost never painted wholly 
 from nature. His scenes of peasant life, 
 he had, as it were, absorbed into his heart 
 and mind, and he painted what he found 
 there rather than what his eyes literally 
 saw. It is true, however, that his wife 
 posed for many of his women figures, and, 
 though there is no exact likeness, his 
 thought of her and the tender affection 
 he bore her are more than hinted at in 
 many of his home scenes. 
 
 In the Woman Sewing by Lamplight 
 we may be almost sure it is Madame Mil- 
 let who sits under a crude hanging-lamp, 
 busily plying her needle. The weak
 
 234 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 beams throw only her profile into light, 
 while the dark shadows hang close about 
 her. She is roughly dressed, with a big 
 drooping cap, but her face is lovely, and 
 every line tells of the tenderness in 
 the painter's heart for all toiling, patient 
 woman and wifehood. 
 
 In Couture's large canvas, The Deca- 
 dence of the Romans, the woman in it, 
 who is presumably Venus, was a portrait 
 of her who afterwards became his wife. 
 This is his greatest triumph. Self-con- 
 ceit kept him from progressing, and he 
 never again equalled this effort of his 
 youth. The scene represents an orgy, 
 and the magnificent woman who lies on 
 a long couch looks out with large eyes 
 wearily at the riotous gaiety. Her beauty 
 is of a grand type, and Couture painted 
 it grandly, as became the lover who was 
 yet unmarried. The work hangs in the 
 Louvre.
 
 WIVES AND SWEETHEARTS. 235 
 
 In the Sad Shore, by Hamon, which 
 has been previously noticed, this artist 
 put, among other groups of lovers, the 
 wife whom he had loved and lost. She is 
 being consoled by Cupid himself in the 
 absence of her husband, a task which 
 Cupid, with his eye for beauty of face and 
 form, must have well appreciated. 
 
 Beata Beatrix, in the London National 
 Gallery, one of the loveliest faces Rossetti 
 ever painted, is a poetic version of his 
 wife. Over and over again, until her un- 
 timely death, he pictured the face which 
 was so dear to him, but never more exqui- 
 sitely than here. She sits with loosely 
 folded hands looking up to the heaven her 
 spirit has already reached. Unseen is the 
 dove of rose-colored plumage who brings 
 her one white poppy, a sign of death 
 and chastity. Her face is dreamful, ten- 
 der, wistful. The true spirit of the woman 
 Rossetti loved so long was caught and
 
 236 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 imprisoned here, that the world might see 
 her even as he did. 
 
 In the Luxembourg is one of the great 
 portraits by Carol us- Duran. This is 
 named simply The Lady with the Glove ; 
 but the dignified, charming woman is 
 really the painter's wife. Light and color, 
 which he commands to an extraordinary 
 degree, are here employed with even more 
 than his usual power, and the movement 
 of line and transparency of tone are both 
 felicitous. If Carolus-Duran sometimes 
 seems to be more en rapport with the 
 robes and accessories of his sitters than 
 with their mental characteristics, in this 
 portrait of his wife he shows himself 
 master as well of the higher attributes 
 of his art. 
 
 La Vierge Consolatrice, in the Luxem- 
 bourg, is one of the most satisfactorily 
 beautiful of the many canvases signed by 
 Bouguereau. The mother, who has thrown
 
 ROSSETTI. BEATA BEATRIX
 
 WIVES AND SWEETHEARTS. 239 
 
 herself distractedly across the knees of 
 the Virgin Mary, mourning the death of 
 her beloved baby, is a likeness of his wife. 
 In the unendurable, helpless grief of the 
 picture, he represented his own feel- 
 ings at the death of her and their child. 
 He sold the picture to the government 
 for twelve hundred francs, having pre- 
 viously refused from private parties twice 
 that sum. 
 
 C. de Vos is one of that rare group of 
 painters in Holland who use their tech- 
 nical dexterity never for display, but only 
 for the furthering of some higher spiritual 
 beauty. In the Museum of Brussels he 
 has a wonderful portrait group. It shows 
 himself, his wife, and their children, and 
 the very spirit of the home-life is caught 
 and vividly expressed. The wife has a 
 very Dutch face, and to our notion is 
 not beautiful, but her expression is full 
 of tenderness.
 
 240 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 A famous picture by Mariano Fortuny 
 is the Spanish Marriage, sold to Mme. 
 Cassin. The wedding party have gath- 
 ered to sign the marriage contract in a 
 large sacristy, whose walls are hung with 
 Cordovan leather. Glowing in color, fine 
 in composition, with elaborate accessories, 
 it shows Fortuny at his best, and with 
 good reason. He had been but just 
 married to Madrazo's daughter, and this 
 canvas was painted when his own nuptials 
 were fresh in his mind. The bride is a 
 portrait of his wife. 
 
 Scarcely an American artist, it may be 
 said, but has portrayed his wife or sweet- 
 heart over and over, now in portraits, 
 now as the subject of all sorts of picture- 
 stories. To describe one-half would be 
 now impossible, but a few of the more 
 noted ones may be briefly mentioned. 
 
 Abbott Thayer has been called our 
 greatest artist, and John Sargent, our
 
 WIVES AND SWEETHEARTS. 241 
 
 greatest painter. The characterization 
 is a somewhat just one, yet that does 
 not preclude Mr. Thayer from being 
 also a very beautiful colorist. Can any 
 color scheme be more charmingly appro- 
 priate than that in the picture of the wife 
 of his youth with their child in her lap ? 
 As a portrait it was declared to be won- 
 derfully lifelike ; and the deep-toned eyes, 
 with the hint of suffering in them, the 
 pale, pure face, and the pensive mouth 
 make the face rarely exquisite. 
 
 Mr. William M. Chase has painted his 
 piquantly pretty wife many times. A de- 
 lightfully natural scene shows a corner of 
 an artistic room, with his wife and little 
 girl sitting there. It is a very easy, sym- 
 pathetic bit of genre, and shows Mr. Chase 
 at his best. 
 
 How many of our modern " master- 
 pieces " will be masterpieces a hundred 
 years from now? Unless time wholly
 
 242 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 ruins the exquisite tones, one portrait 
 in the Metropolitan Museum in New 
 York must, it would seem, remain what 
 it is to-day, a masterpiece in line, curve, 
 modelling, pose, color, tone, and delinea- 
 tion. This is the portrait of his wife, by 
 the late Dennis Miller Bunker. Dying 
 when he had but begun his life, this 
 youthful painter had already proved him- 
 self one of the foremost of American 
 artists, and there were many who prophe- 
 sied for him an enviable height on the 
 world's ladder of fame. In some ways 
 this golden-haired woman, with the glori- 
 ous, unfathomable eyes, with the royally- 
 poised head, the proudly perfect mouth, 
 the exquisite paleness of skin which hints 
 of a flush beneath, is his most remarkable 
 achievement. Any height seems possible 
 to the man whose brain could guide his 
 hand to such perfection. 
 
 Whether Wilton Lockwood is a painter
 
 WIVES AND SWEETHEARTS. 243 
 
 with a manner, or whether he is singularly 
 free from even a vestige of affectation, is 
 perhaps a question. His heavy, coarse 
 canvas, and the thinness with which he 
 spreads his pigments upon it, suggest at 
 least a technical style that seems pur- 
 posely adopted rather than naturally 
 fallen into. A certain misty, cloud-like 
 effect, too, is so universal in all he does, 
 that again one feels inclined to suspect a 
 receipt. Yet, as a whole, his works are 
 remarkably direct, simple, and naturally 
 individualistic. Interesting they always 
 are, often charming, sometimes really 
 poetic. He has painted his wife in all 
 sorts of gowns and poses. One of the 
 best of his works reveals Mrs. Lockwood 
 standing in a dark gown, her baby in her 
 arms. Her brown eyes, rather round face, 
 with the soft, dark hair loosely away 
 from her forehead, show the skill of her 
 husband at its height.
 
 244 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 Mr. George de Forest Brush's Mother 
 and Child, in the Boston Art Museum, is 
 a picture of his own wife and child. It 
 is difficult to maintain a critical attitude 
 before such work as this. Drawing, show- 
 ing the absolute knowledge and surety of 
 hand and brain, entrancing chiaroscuro, 
 poetic depth of feeling, are all here united. 
 The color alone is not quite so wonder- 
 ful in its reality. It is hard to pick out 
 any particular beauties, but has any one 
 ever portrayed tenderer, truer, more 
 womanly, motherly hands than the two 
 clasped about the beautiful baby boy? 
 
 William M. Story, Duveneck, and Her- 
 bert Adams have all immortalized the 
 women they loved in undying marble. 
 Mr. Story's monument to the memory of 
 his wife is full of a classic beauty, simple 
 and dignified in its expression of bereave- 
 ment. An angel kneels behind the curved 
 plinth, her face upon one arm resting on
 
 WIVES AND SWEETHEARTS. 247 
 
 its top. The other has dropped over, and 
 hangs with loosely open hand, from which 
 the laurel branch has fallen. Beautiful 
 large wings drooping from each shoulder 
 enhance the grace of line and curve. 
 
 In the Boston Art Museum is the tomb 
 of Duveneck's wife. Lying out at full 
 length, covered with simple, slightly 
 broken drapery, showing the curves of the 
 fair figure beneath, her hands patiently 
 folded on her breast, is the sculptured 
 image of the artist's worshipped wife. Fair 
 as is the form, the purity of the face is 
 even lovelier with the peace of the spirit 
 of Death resting upon it. Few Ameri- 
 can sculptors have done nobler work than 
 this. 
 
 A bust by Herbert Adams of his 
 wife has been seen at several exhibitions, 
 and must be well remembered. It is a 
 piquantly charming head, poised with a 
 dainty grace upon delicately firm shoulders.
 
 248 LOVE IN ART. 
 
 Seen full in the face it apparently repre- 
 sents some sober Puritan maid, with a 
 sweetly downcast look, as appealing as it 
 is pensive. The profile, on the contrary, 
 shows the tip-tilted nose, the irresistible 
 curve of the upper lip, the almost saucy 
 bend of the whole head. Puritan maid no 
 longer, she is a gay little French girl with 
 all the indefinable, attractive charm of that 
 mobile race. 
 
 Messrs. Will Taylor, Irving Wiles, 
 Albert Steiner, C. D. Gibson, and many 
 other of our best-known illustrators who 
 are also painters, fill their compositions 
 with likenesses of their wives. It is safe 
 to say that the characteristic woman of 
 each of these artists mentioned represents, 
 in every case, the lineaments of her who 
 is at the head of his household. 
 
 They do not tell the world in so many 
 words, these modern artists, of the depth 
 of their love, but to those who can read
 
 WIVES AND SWEETHEARTS. 249 
 
 the story of pen, brush, and chisel, no 
 words are needed. 
 
 " Oh, Love ! young Love ! bound in thy rosy band, 
 Let Sage or Cynic prattle as he will, 
 These hours and only these redeem life's years of 
 UL" 
 
 THE ?ND
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 MALCOLM BELL: Edward Burne-Jones. Scribner's 
 Cyclopaedia of Painters and Paintings. 
 
 CLAUDE PHILLIPS : Earlier Works of Titian. Antoine 
 Watteau. 
 
 WALTER ARMSTRONG. ^Ife oi Velasquez. Art of 
 Velasquez. T. Gainsborough. 
 
 JULIA CARTWRIGHT : Early Work of Raphael. J. Bas- 
 tien. 
 
 WILLIAM SHARP: Fair Women in " Portfolio." 
 
 F. G. STEVENS : Dante Gabriel Rossetti. 
 
 P. G. HAMERTON : Rembrandt's Etchings. Man in 
 Art. 
 
 BERNHARD BERENSON : Lorenzo Lotto. Central Ital- 
 ian Poets of the Renaissance. Florentine Painters 
 of the Renaissance. Venetian Painters of the 
 Renaissance. 
 
 J. C. VAN DYKE : Modern French Masters. 
 
 MICHEL : Life of Rembrandt. 
 
 GRIMM : Raphael. Michael Angelo. 
 
 E. H. AND E. W. BLASHFIELD AND A. A. HOPKINS : 
 Vasari's Lives. 
 
 251
 
 252 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 MRS. JAMESON : Early Italian Painters. 
 
 CURTIS : Velasquez and Murillo. 
 
 FURTWANGLER : Masterpieces of Greek Sculpture. 
 
 J. D. PASSAVANT : Raphael of Urbino. 
 
 J. P. RICHTER : Leonardo da Vinci. 
 
 DR. JULIAN MEYER : Antonio Allegri da Correggio. 
 
 CROWE AND CAVALCASELLE : Early Flemish Painters. 
 
 History of Painting in North Italy. Titian: His 
 
 Life and Times. 
 
 J. A. SYMONDS : Renaissance in Italy. Fine Arts. 
 COUNTESS ALBUZZI AND COUNT CICOGNARA: Cano- 
 
 va's Works. 
 W. M. ROSSETTI : Memoirs and Letters of D. G. Ros- 
 
 setti. 
 
 TARBELL : History of Greek Art 
 P. N. JAMES : Painters and Their Works. 
 WILLIAM STIRLING : Velasquez and His Works. 
 PERCY RENDELL HEAD : Van Dyck. 
 RICHARD MUTHER : History of Modern Painting. 
 KUGLER : Handbook of Painting. 
 CHARLES WALDSTEIN : Art of Phidias. 
 WALTER G. PERRY : Greek and Roman Sculpture. 
 A. S. MURRAY : History of Greek Sculpture. 
 STRANAHAN : History of Painting in France.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Abbey: Shakespeare Illustrations, 219; Illustrations for 
 Old English Songs and Ballads, 219; Hamlet and Ophe- 
 lia, 220. 
 
 Adams : Bust of Mrs. Adams, 247. 
 
 Albani : Venus with Cupids, Corsini Gallery, Rome, 73 ; 
 Cupids Dancing, 73 ; Apollo and Daphne, Louvre, 88. 
 
 Alma-Tadema: The Old Story, 178; The First Whisper of 
 Love, 178; Pleading, 178; Who Is It, 178; Shy, 178; 
 A Love Missile, 178; The Question, 178. 
 
 Andriotti: Wooing, 1 88. 
 
 Angelico, Fra : Last Judgment, Academy at Florence, 32. 
 
 Angelo, Michael : Pontormo's colored copy of his Venus, 
 Uffia, 56; Leda and the Swan, Dresden, 79; Cupid, 
 South Kensington Museum, 56; Cupid, Liceo of 
 Mantua, 56; Vittoria Colonna, Uffizi, 113. 
 
 Aubert : Cooling the Wings of Love, 182; Approaching 
 Love, 182 ; Love on a Vacation, 182. 
 
 Baudry: L'Enlevement de Psyche, 188; Leda, 188 ; Or- 
 pheus and Eurydice, 188; Diana Driving Away Love, 
 1 88. 
 
 Bellini : Venus of the Belvedere, Vienna, 49 ; Venus as 
 Empress of the World, Museum of Fine Arts, Venice, 
 49- 
 
 253
 
 254 ' INDEX. 
 
 Belucci : Cupid and Psyche, Munich, 89. 
 
 Benjamin Constant: A Riff Pirate's Wife, 188; The Women 
 
 of the Harem, 188. 
 Beyschlag : Demanding Toll, 188. 
 
 Bodenhausen, Von: Hero and Leander, 188, 217; Nydia, 218. 
 Botticelli: Birth of Venus, Uffizi, 53; Venus, London, 53; 
 
 Venus, London, 54 ; Venus, Louvre, 54. 
 Boucher: Rinaldo and Armida, The Louvre, 197; Birth of 
 
 Venus, Berlin Museum, 139, 225; Venus Demanding 
 
 Arms of Vulcan, Louvre, 139; Venus and Adonis, 
 
 Barker Collection, 139 ; Birth of Venus, Venus at Her 
 
 Toilet, Cupids and Flowers, Stockholm, 139 ; Shepherd 
 
 Sleeping, Bordeaux, 161 ; Leda, Douglas Collection, 161 ; 
 
 Jupiter and Calisto, Louvre, 161. 
 Bouguereau: Birth of Venus, Luxembourg, 150; Love and 
 
 Youth, 183 ; La Vierge Consolatrice, Luxembourg, 236. 
 Bronzino : Venus and Cupid, Uffizi, 72 ; Venus, Cupid, Folly, 
 
 and Time, National Gallery, 72; Venus, Cupid, and 
 
 Satyr, Rome, 72. 
 
 Brush : Wife and Child, Boston Art Museum, 244. 
 Bunker : Portrait of Wife, Metropolitan Museum, New 
 
 York, 242. 
 Bume- Jones, Sir Edward : Cupid Sharpening an Arrow, 1 53 ; 
 
 Venus's Looking-glass, 153; Pyramus and Thisbe, 169; 
 
 Chant d' Amour, 169; Briar Rose, 169; Romance of the 
 
 Rose, 169 ; Love Among the Ruins, 170. 
 Burne- Jones, Philip: The Vampire, 179. 
 Cabanel : Birth of Venus, Luxembourg, 147 ; The Florentine 
 
 Poet, 173; Paolo and Francesca, Luxembourg, 210. 
 Canova: Venus Victorious, Louvre, 136; Venus, Louvre, 
 
 136; Cupid and Psyche, Louvre, 165. 
 Caracci: Frescoes in Famesina, 88; Venus and Cupid, 
 
 Vienna, 72. 
 
 Carolus-Duran : Lady with the Glove, Luxembourg, 236. 
 Carpaccio : Meeting of Prince of Britain with Ursula, Acad-
 
 INDEX. 255 
 
 emy of Venice, 36 : Joachim and Anna, Academy of 
 Venice, 36. 
 
 Castagnola : Filippo Lippi Declaring Love to Lucrezia Buti, 
 217. 
 
 Chaplin: Love's Messenger, 183. 
 
 Chase : Wife and Child, 241. 
 
 Correggio : Education of Cupid, National Gallery, 59 ; Jupi- 
 ter and lo, Vienna, 83; Jupiter and Antiope, Louvre, 
 82 ; Danae, Borghese, 83 ; Leda, Dresden, 84. 
 
 Cosimo: Andromeda, Florence, 76; Theseus and Ariadne, 
 Milan, 77. 
 
 Cot : Spring, 183. 
 
 Couture : Decadence of the Romans, 234. 
 
 Cox, Kenyon: Illustrations for the Blessed Damozel, 221. 
 
 Cox, Mrs. : The Lovers, 221. 
 
 Coypel : A Nymph and Cupid, Louvre, 140 ; Venus, Bacchus, 
 and Cupid, Louvre, 140. 
 
 Dagnan-Bouveret : The Blessing, 184. 
 
 Dahl : Female Attraction, 188. 
 
 David : Paris and Helen, Louvre, 161. 
 
 Delacroix : Jewish Wedding, Louvre, 161 ; Faust and Mar- 
 guerite, 197. 
 
 Delaroche : Fresco, Hemicycle of Fine Arts Room, in ficole 
 des Beaux Arts, 226. 
 
 Diaz: The Lovers, 181 ; Don't Come In, 181. 
 
 Domenichino : Venus, Cupid, and Satyrs, Pitti, 72 ; Perseus 
 and Andromeda, Farnesina, 88 ; Pursuit of Love, Bas- 
 sano, 89. 
 
 Diirer : Anna and Joachim, 43. 
 
 Duveneck : Tomb in Memory of His Wife, Museum of Fine 
 Arts, Boston, 247. 
 
 Dyck, Van : Diana and Endymion, Madrid, 94 ; Venus and 
 Vulcan, Louvre, 71 ; Cupid and Psyche, Hampton Court, 
 94 ; Danae, Dresden, 94 ; Venus Looking at Herself in 
 a Mirror, 72 ; Venus Taking off Armor of Mars, 72 ;
 
 256 INDEX. 
 
 Margaret Lemon, Althorp, 122; Venus and Adonis, 71 , 
 Cupid Asleep, 71 ; Margaret Lemon, Hampton Court, 
 122; Maria Ruthven, Munich, 123. 
 
 Fortuny : Spanish Marriage, 240. 
 
 Franceschini : Cupid with a Bow, Uffizi, 135 ; Sleeping Cupid, 
 Pitti, 135. 
 
 Francia: Marriage of St. Cecilia and Valerian, Bologna, 35. 
 
 Gerard: Cupid and Psyche, Louvre, 161. 
 
 Giorgione : Meeting of Jacob and Rachel, Louvre, 41 ; Sleep- 
 ing Venus, Dresden, 56. 
 
 Giotto : Meeting of St. Joachim and St. Anna, Arena Chapel, 
 
 3- 
 Gozzoli, Benozzo : Marriage Feast of Sts. Joachim and 
 
 Anna, Campo Santo, Pisa, 34. 
 Greuze: Danae, Louvre, 161 ; Betrothed Country Girl, 
 
 Louvre, 161 ; Young Girl's Prayer to Cupid, 229. 
 Guercino: Girl and Cupid, Naples, 72; VenuL and Cupid, 
 
 Rome, 72 ; Sleeping Endymion, Uffizi, 88. 
 Hamon: Washing of Cupids, 148; The Sad Shore, 182, 235; 
 
 Love on a Visit, 182. 
 Holbein : Woodcuts of Esther, 42. 
 Hunt : Marguerite, 191. 
 Israal : Alone in the World, 180. 
 Kauffman: Venus and Adonis, 142; Cupids at Play, 142; 
 
 Paris and Helen, 161. 
 Kaulbach, Helena, 188. 
 Kray : Venus Binding the Wings of Love, 151 ; Psyche, 188 ! 
 
 The Fisherman's Love, 188. 
 Laurens : Faust and Marguerite, 198. 
 Lefebvre: Toilet of the Bride, 183; Moorish Bride, 183. 
 Leigh ton, Sir Frederick: Venus Disrobing for the Bath, 152; 
 
 Wedded, Sydney, 166; Nausicaa Waiting for Odysseus, 
 
 165 ; Cymon and Iphigenia, Fine Arts Society, London, 
 
 165; Hercules Wrestling with Death, 165; Helen of 
 
 Troy, 166.
 
 INDEX. 257 
 
 Liezen-Mayer : Marguerite, 218. 
 
 Lippi, Fra Filippo : Madonna with Two Priests and Six 
 
 Angels, Louvre, 99 ; Frescoes at Prato, 99 ; Madonnas 
 
 in Gradino Communal, Gallery of Prato, 99 ; Wedding 
 
 Feast of Joachim and Anna, Oxford, 33. 
 Lockwood : Wife and Child, 243. 
 Lotto : Danae, 77 ; Bride and Bridegroom, Madrid, 78. 
 Low: Love Disarmed, 154; Illustrations for Keats's Lamia, 
 
 and for Keats's Odes and Sonnets, 221. 
 Macmonnies : Study for Statuette of Dancing Cupid on a 
 
 Ball, 154. 
 
 Mantegna : Muses Dancing to Apollo's Lyre, Louvre, 49. 
 McEwan : Theseus, Library of Congress, 192 ; Hercules, 
 
 Library of Congress, 192; Paris, Library of Congress, 
 
 195- 
 
 Mengs : Cupid Sharpening an Arrow, 151. 
 
 Metsys : Portrait of Wife, Uffizi, 117. 
 
 Millais, Sir John: Effie Deans, 209; Yes or No, 169; .No, 
 169 ; Yes, 169 ; Bride of Lammermoor, 209 , The Hugue- 
 not Lovers, 230. 
 
 Millet: Sleeping Cupid, 149; Woman Sewing by Lamplight, 
 
 233- 
 
 Mouvel, De: Landry at Bedside of Zaviere, Illustration, 214. 
 
 Mowbray: Love and Thought, 222. 
 
 Murillo : Rebecca at the Well, Madrid, 47. 
 
 Netscher : Sacrifice to the God of Love, Louvre, 188; Sacri- 
 fice to Venus, Louvre, 188. 
 
 Page, Le : Love in the Village, 184. 
 
 Pelagi, Pelagic : Education of Love, 1 39. 
 
 Perrault : Cupid Rebellious, 148 ; Sleeping Love, 148. 
 
 Perugino : Archangel Raphael and Tobias, National Gallery, 
 101. 
 
 Pheidias: Statue of Jupiter, 21. 
 
 Picou : Love on Penitential Stool, 148; Love at Auction, 148; 
 Harvest of Loves, 148.
 
 258 INDEX. 
 
 Poussin : Apollo in Love with Daphne, Louvre, 94 ; Orpheus 
 and Eurydice, Louvre, 94 ; Ruth and Boaz, Louvre, 43 ; 
 Eliezer and Rebecca, Louvre, 43 ; Sleeping Venus, Dres- 
 den, 74 ; Pyramus and Thisbe, 94 ; Venus and Adonis, 
 Montpellier, 74; Venus Mourning Adonis, 74; Venus 
 and Mars, Louvre, 74. 
 
 Praxiteles : Venus of Cnidus, 22 ; Cupid, Vatican, 22. 
 
 Prud'hon : Venus and Adonis, 141 ; Innocence, Love, and 
 Repentance, 141 ; Cupid Chastized, Dublin, 141 ; Cupid 
 and Psyche, 161. 
 
 Raphael: Raphael's Bible, Vatican, 36; Marie Bibbieni, 
 Pitti, 105; The Fornarini, Barbarini Gallery, Rome, 106; 
 Farnesina Frescoes, 54, 79 ; Drawings of Cupids, Venice, 
 
 55- 
 
 Regnault : Portrait of Mile. Breton, 230. 
 
 Rembrandt : Bathsheba, Louvre, 43 ; Samson's Wedding, 
 44 ; Venus and Love, Louvre, 7 5 ; The Young Fiancee, 
 St. Petersburg, 95 ; Jewish Bride, Amsterdam, 95 ; Saskia, 
 Cassel, 125; Saskia, Dresden, 125; Rembrandt and His 
 Wife, Dresden, 126. 
 
 Reni, Guido : Rebecca at the Well, Pitti, 44 ; Cupid, Corsini, 
 73 ; Cupid, Rome, 73 ; Bacchus and Ariadne, Rome, 88 ; 
 Andromeda, Rome, 88. 
 
 Reynolds, Sir Joshua: Hope Nursing Love, Lansdowne 
 House, 161 ; Cymon and Iphigenia, Buckingham Palace, 
 161 ; Cupid and Psyche, 161 ; Cupid, Covent Garden, 141 ; 
 Venus, Earl of Upper Ossory, 141 ; Venus Chiding 
 Cupid, 141 ; Cupid as a Link Boy, 141 ; Venus with a 
 Piping Boy, 141 ; Venus and Cupid, St. Petersburg, 142. 
 
 Ribera : Favorite of the Day, 162. 
 
 Romney: Lady Hamilton, National Portrait Gallery, 226; 
 Ariadne in a Cave, Baron Rothschild, 226 ; Bacchante, 
 National Gallery, 226; Diana, 226; St. Cecilia, 226; 
 Tragic and Comic Muses, 226 ; Magdalen, 226 ; Circe, 
 226.
 
 INDEX. 259 
 
 Rossetti : Blessed Damozel, 200 ; The Beloved, 203 ; Tris- 
 tram and Iseult, 204; Launcelot and Guinevere, 204; 
 Prison Scene of Faust, 205 ; Paolo and Francesca, 205 ; 
 Found, 205 ; Beata Beatrix, London, National Gallery, 
 
 235- 
 
 Rubens : Kermesse, Louvre, 90 ; Feast of Venus, Vienna, 
 90 ; Castor and Pollux, Munich, 93 ; Perseus and Androm- 
 eda, Berlin, 93; Venus and Adonis, Uffizi, 71 ; Cymon 
 and Iphigenia, Vienna, 93 ; Garden of Love, Dresden, 
 90 ; Isabel Brandt, Berlin, 121; Helen Fourment with 
 Children, Louvre, 119; Birth of Venus, London, 71; 
 Mars, and Venus, 71. 
 
 Sarto, Andrea del: Lady with Petrarch, Madrid, 109; Ma- 
 donna of the Harpies, Louvre, 1 10 ; Birth of Mary, Flor- 
 ence, in; Three Magi from the East, Florence, 1 1 1 ; 
 Madonna del Sacco, Florence, in ; St. John, Pitti, III ; 
 Portrait of Painter and Wife, Pitti, in. 
 
 Schaus : Cupids in Ambush, 1 52. 
 
 Scheffer, Ary : Dante and Beatrice, 198 ; Paolo and Fran- 
 cesca da Rimini, 198 ; Walk in the Garden, 198; Margaret 
 at the Fountain, 198. 
 
 Simmons : Erato, Library of Congress, 192. 
 
 Story : Tomb in Memory of His Wife, 244. 
 
 Thayer : Mother and Child, 241. 
 
 Thorwaldsen : Venus and Cupid, 142; Cupids at Play, 143; 
 Sale of Loves, 162. 
 
 Thuman : Spring-time of Love, 191. 
 
 Tintoretto: Venus, Cupid, and Vulcan, Pitti, 70; Bacchus 
 and Ariadne, Ducal Palace, Venice, 87 ; Minerva Driving 
 Away Mars, Venice, 88. 
 
 Tissot : Meeting of Faust and Marguerite, Luxembourg, 
 213. 
 
 Titian : Meeting of Joachim and Anna, Carmine, Padua, 40 ; 
 Sated and Artless Love, Borghese Gallery, 60 ; Venus, 
 Darmstadt, 63; Venus with a Shell, 64; Venu? Uffiza,
 
 260 INDEX. 
 
 64; Venus and Cupid, Florence, 66; Venus, Madrid, 
 66; Venus, St. Petersburg, 66; Education of Cupid, 
 Borghese, 69 ; Bacchus and Ariadne, England, 80 ; 
 Danae, Naples, 81 ; Jupiter and Antiope, 81 ; Three 
 Ages, 82 ; Warrior Davolos Parting from His Wife, 82. 
 
 Vedder: Illustrations for Rubaiyat, 220. 
 
 Velasquez : Queen of Love, Rokeby Park, England, 74 ; 
 Portrait of Wife, Madrid, 118. 
 
 Veronese : Life of Esther, St. Sebastian, 41 ; Venus, Bor- 
 ghese, 69; Danae, Royal Gallery, Turin, 84; Family 
 Group, Venice, 1 16. 
 
 Vinci, Da: Leda, Paris, 80; Monna Lisa, Louvre, 103. 
 
 Vos, De : Family Group, Brussels, 239. 
 
 Watteau: Embarkation for Cytherea, Louvre, 157; Jupiter 
 and Antiope, Louvre, 158; Amour Paisible, Neues Pa- 
 lais, Potsdam, 158. 
 
 Watts: Love Triumphant, 170; Love and Life, 173; Love 
 and Death, 174; Orpheus and Eurydice, 177 ; Paolo and 
 Francesca, 209. 
 
 Works not placed here or in the text, may be generally 
 understood to be in private collections.
 
 A 000033279 1