156. A STUDY OF HORSES.

Teniers(Flemish: 1610-1694).See underlast picture.

A man and his wife—usurers, we may suppose—counting their money. There is all the miser's misery in the withered careworn faces, all the miser's greed in the thin, tremulous hands. The man alone seems not quite to like some transaction which they are discussing; the woman—Portia's prerogative of mercy being reversed—seems to be thinking, "Come, man, don't be a fool: a bond is a bond."

Van Dyck(Flemish: 1599-1641).See49.

An interesting sketch as illustrating Van Dyck's affection for the horse. "In painting, I find that no real interest is taken in the horse until Van Dyck's time, he and Rubens doing more for it than all previous painters put together. Rubens was a good rider, and rode nearly every day, as, I doubt not, Van Dyck also. The horse has never, I think, been painted worthily again, since he died" (Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. vi. § 22).

The particular choice of subject in this sketch shows further in its literary connection a lover of the horse. The subject, as we know from the wordsequi Achillison a scrollin the left corner of the picture, is the horses of Achilles, said for their swiftness to be the sons of the wind Zephyrus: in the upper part of the picture is a sketch of a zephyr's head. "The gentleness of chivalry, properly so called, depends on the recognition of the order and awe of lower and loftier animal-life, ... taught most perfectly by Homer in the fable of the horses of Achilles. There is, perhaps, in all theIliadnothing more deep in significance—there is nothing in all literature more perfect in human tenderness, and honour for the mystery of inferior life, than the verses that describe the sorrow of the divine horses at the death of Patroclus, and the comfort given them by the greatest of the gods"[98](Fors Clavigera, 1871, ix. 13).

Rubens(Flemish: 1577-1640).See38.

For Rubens's landscapes see under 66. "It is to be noted, however, that the licenses taken by Rubens in particular instances are as bold as his general statements are sincere.... In the Sunset of our own Gallery many of the shadows fall at right angles to the light" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. i. ch. vii. § 15).

Teniers(Flemish: 1610-1694).See154.

Nicolas Maes(Dutch: 1632-1693).See153.

"There are few pictures in the National Gallery," says C. R. Leslie (Handbook for Young Painters, p. 243), "before which I find myself more often standing than at this." Its great attraction, he adds, is "the delight of seeing a trait of childhood we have often observed and been amused with in nature, for the first time so felicitously given by art." The Dutch housewife sits intently engaged in scraping a parsnip,whilst the child stands by her side "watching the process, as children will stand and watch the most ordinary operations, with an intensity of interest, as if the very existence of the whole world depended on the exact manner in which that parsnip was scraped." Note the Flemishkruik, or beer-jug, so often introduced into the pictures of Maes. Signed and dated 1655.

Mola(Eclectic-Bologna: 1612-1668).See69.

The Italians gave this title to the subject of the Holy Family resting on the way in their flight to Egypt,—"the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt."

Gaspard Poussin(French: 1613-1675).See31.

Gaspard travelled largely in Italy in search of the picturesque, and this striking landscape may be a recollection of the mountain scenery in the North—possibly near Bergamo. The spray of foliage prominent on the left is characteristic of Gaspard's method:—

"One of the most remarkable characters of natural leafage is the constancy with which, while the leaves are arranged on the spray with exquisite regularity, that regularity is modified in their actual effect. For as in every group of leaves some are seen sideways, forming merely long lines, some foreshortened, some crossing each other, every one differently turned and placed from all the others, the forms of the leaves, though in themselves similar, give rise to a thousand strange and differing forms in the group.... Now go to Gaspard Poussin and take one of his sprays, where they come against the sky; you may count it all round: one, two, three, four, one bunch; five, six, seven, eight, two bunches; nine, ten, eleven, twelve, three bunches; with four leaves each; and such leaves! every one precisely the same as its neighbour, blunt and round at the end (where every forest leaf is sharp, except that of the fig-tree), tied together by the stalks, and so fastened on to the demoniacal claws above described (see under 68), one bunch to each claw" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. vi. ch. i. §§ 16, 17).

Canaletto(Venetian: 1697-1768).See127.

The Church, that of S. Simeone Piccolo, was built in Canaletto's time. "One of the ugliest churches in Venice or elsewhere. Its black dome, like an unusual species of gasometer, is the admiration of modern Italian architects" (Stones of Venice, vol. iii. Venetian Index,s. v.Simeone).

Nicolas Poussin(French: 1593-1665).See39.

The Philistines having overcome the Israelites removed the ark of the Lord to Ashdod, and placed it in the temple of their god Dagon. "And when they of Ashdod arose early on the morrow, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the earth before the ark ..." (seen here in the temple to the right). "But the hand of the Lord was heavy upon them of Ashdod, and he smote them with a loathsome plague" (1 Samuel v. 4, 6).

The picture—a ghastly subject ghastlily treated—is yet a good instance of Poussin's learned treatment. Everywhere the intention to express alarm is obvious, and in the foreground are figures fleeing the infection, with nose and mouth muffled. Others are engaged removing the dead and dying, while in the centre are the dead bodies of a mother and child; another child approaches the mother's breast, but the father stoops down to avert it. A similar group to this occurs in a design by Raphael, "Il Morbetto," and was also in the celebrated picture by Aristides which Alexander the Great, at the sack of Thebes, claimed for himself and sent to his palace at Pella (Wornum:Epochs of Painting, p. 47, ed. 1864). This picture is a replica of one, now in the Louvre, which was painted in Rome in 1630—Poussin receiving only 60 scudi (about 12 guineas) for it.

Rembrandt(Dutch: 1606-1669).See45.

Michel ascribes this portrait to the year of Rembrandt's tribulations. "At this period, when his emotions were sodeeply stirred by the vision of a compassionate Saviour, he felt a kindred attraction for those mystic souls who sought in solitude and prayer a closer communion with the Christ to whom he felt himself drawn by his own sorrows. The 'Capuchin' in the National Gallery has suffered from time, but the devout gravity of the face is finely expressed" (Rembrandt: his Life, his Work, and his Time, ii. 126).

Peruzzi(Sienese: 1481-1537).See218.

This drawing—of the same composition as we see in the picture No. 218—was made at Bologna in 1521 for Count Giovanni Battista Bentivogli. The drawing was presented to the National Gallery by Lord Vernon, together with a print from the plate engraved from it by Agostino Carracci.

Raphael(Urbino: 1483-1520).See1171.

This is a picture of Raphael's second period—"painted about the year 1507, to judge from its close resemblance in style to the celebrated picture of the Entombment in the Borghese (Rome), which is known to have been executed at that time." There are several studies for the picture in the University Galleries at Oxford, and another in the Chatsworth collection. The finished cartoon in black and white chalk, pricked for transfer to the panel, is exhibited in the Louvre.

A perfect picture of saintly resignation. St. Catherine (for whose story see 693) leans on the wheel, the instrument of her martyrdom, and "looks up to heaven in the dawn of the eternal day, with her lips parted in the resting from her pain." Her right hand is pressed on her bosom, as if she replied to the call from above, "I am here, O Lord! ready to do Thy will." From above, a bright ray is seen streaming down upon her, emblematic of the divine inspiration which enabled her to confound her heathen adversaries. The studies existing show the pains Raphael took with the exquisite expression; but the result defies analysis. "It is impossible to explain in language the exact qualities of the lines on which depend the whole truth and beauty of expression about the half-opened lips of Raphael's St. Catherine."But these lines should be noticed as exemplifying the principle of "vital beauty"—of beauty, that is to say, as consisting in the appearance in living things of felicitous fulfilment of function. Thus eyes and mouths become more beautiful precisely as they become more perfect means of moral expression. The mouth of a negro is ugly because it is only a means of eating; the mouth of St. Catherine is beautiful for the feeling it expresses (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. i. ch. vii. § 47; vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. i. ch. xii. § 10, sec. ii. ch. v. § 21). It may be noticed, lastly, how much the pathetic feeling of the picture is heightened by the herbage in the foreground, and especially perhaps by the carefully-painted dandelion "clock": "so soon passeth it away, and we are gone."

Ludovico Mazzolino(Ferrarese: 1480-1528).

Ludovico Mazzolino, "whose brilliant colours play through all shades," has been called "the glowworm of the Ferrarese School;" creamy-toned backgrounds of architectural subjects also enrich his compositions. "He was principally agenrepainter, though in his early period he is said to have worked much in fresco. His brilliant colouring made him a favourite with art-loving prelates of succeeding generations; hence his small pictures abound in Roman collections" (Italian Painters, Borghese Gallery, p. 219). Morelli elsewhere adds the conjecture that Mazzolino studied at Ferrara under Domenico Pannetti. In another of his characteristics—the minuteness, namely, of his work—he resembles rather the Flemish School. Of his life little or nothing is known; but his interest in decorative craftsmanship is proved by his pictures.

The background and accessories here, as well as in 641, are particularly interesting as a record of the decorative art of the time. A few years before the date of these pictures the Pope Leo X. had unearthed the buried treasures of the Baths of Titus, and Giovanni da Udine rediscovered the mode by which their stucco decorations were produced. This method of modelling in wet plaster on walls and ceilings was extensively used in house decoration from that time down to the middle of the last century, but has since then been supplanted by the cheaper process of casting. No sooner was Giovanni da Udine's invention known than it must have been adopted by Ferrarese artists, for here we find Mazzolinoportraying it in the background of his picture. As in Tura's pilaster (see 772), the winged sphere plays a principal part in the design, for it was a favourite badge of the ducal house of Ferrara. Nor is it only in the plaster modelling that Mazzolino's interest in decorative art shows itself. The back of the bench on which the Madonna sits is crowned by the most delicate carving, whilst up aloft, peeping over the wall on which the plaster work occurs, there is a choir of angels playing on a portable organ, which is full of suggestions for decorative design (G. T. Robinson inArt Journal, May 1886, pp. 151, 152).

Garofalo(Ferrarese; 1481-1559).See81.

Notice the rich cap in which the little St. John is dressed; it is not unlike those which French and Flemish children are still made to wear as a protection from tumbles. There is a grace in the figures of the Virgin and St. Elizabeth which recalls Raphael. A less happy effect of his influence may be seen in the vision of the heavenly host above, full of that exaggerated action which marks the decadence of Italian art. God the Father is represented gesticulating wildly, almost like an actor in melodrama. And so with the playing angels. In pictures of the great time they are shown "with uninterrupted and effortless gesture ... singing as calmly as the Fates weave" (Relation between Michael Angelo and Tintoret, p. 15), but here they are all scrambling through their songs, their hair floating in the breeze and their faces full of excited gesture.

Caravaggio(Naturalist: 1569-1609).

Michael Angelo Amerighi, the son of a mason, is usually called Caravaggio from his birthplace, a town of that name near Milan.[99]He was the leader of the so-called "Naturalist" School (see introduction to "The Later Italian Schools"), which numbered among itsdisciples Spagnoletto (235) and the Dutch Gerard von Honthorst (1444). The characteristics of his art, as described below, were not out of keeping with the sombre character of the man.[100]He had established himself as a painter at Rome, when he had to fly for homicide. He was playing at tennis and became so violent in a dispute that he killed his companion. After a short stay at Naples he went to Malta, where he gained the favour of the grand-master, and was made a Knight of the Cross of Malta. His ungovernable temper, however, again led him into trouble, and quarrelling with one of the knights, he was cast into prison. He escaped to Sicily and thence returned to Naples. Having procured the Pope's pardon for his original offence, he hired a felucca and set sail for Rome. The coast-guard arrested him in mistake for another person; the crew of the felucca plundered him of all his belongings; and after wandering disconsolately along the coast, he was seized with fever, and died at the early age of forty.

One notices first in this picture the least important things—the supper before the company, the roast chicken before Christ. Next one sees how coarse and almost ruffianly are the disciples, represented as supping with their risen Lord at Emmaus (Luke xxiv. 30, 31). Both points are characteristic of the painter, who was driven by the insipidities of the preceding mannerists into a crude "realism," which made him resolve to describe sacred and historical events just as though they were being enacted in a slum by butchers and fishwives. "He was led away," says Lanzi (i. 452), "by his sombre genius, and represented objects with very little light. He ridiculed all artists who attempted a noble expression of countenance or graceful folding of drapery." His first altar-piece was removed by the priests for whom it was painted, as being too vulgar for such a subject. "Many interesting studies from the taverns of Italy remain to prove Caravaggio's mastery over scenes of common life. For the historian of manners in seventeenth-century Italy, those pictures have a truly precious value, as they are executed with such passion as to raise them above the more careful but more lymphatic transcripts from beer-cellars in Dutch painting. But when he applied his principles to higher subjects, then vulgarity became apparent. It seems difficult for realism, either in literature or art, not to fasten upon ugliness, vice, pain, and disease, as though these imperfections of our nature were more real than beauty,goodness, pleasure, and health. Therefore Caravaggio, the leader of a school which the Italians christened Naturalists, may be compared to Zola" (Symonds, vii. 221).

Bassano(Venetian: 1510-1592).

Jacopo da Ponte is commonly called Il Bassano or Jacopo da Bassano from his native town, near Venice. His father, Francesco, who was a painter in the school of the Bellini, was his first master; he afterwards studied under Bonifazio at Venice. After a short stay in that city, Jacopo returned to his native town, where he remained for the rest of a long life. "His best works are almost worthy," says Sir F. Burton, "of Titian. They are conspicuous among other qualities for Venetian excellence of colouring—especially in his green, where he exhibits a peculiar brilliancy. Most of his pictures seem at first sight as dazzling, then as cooling and soothing, as the best kind of stained glass; while the colouring of details, particularly of those under high lights, is jewel-like, as clear and deep and satisfying as rubies and emeralds." No. 228 in this Collection has passages which illustrate this point. Jacopo was nearly contemporary with the great Tintoretto, but while the latter was the last of the Venetian painters in the grand style, Bassano after a time devoted himself to simple scenes of country life. His distinguishing place in the history of art is that he was the first Italian painter ofgenre—a painter, that is,du genre bas, painter of a low class of subjects, of familiar objects such as do not belong to any other recognised class of paintings (as history, portrait, etc.): see, for instance, No. 228, in which the religious subject merely gives the painter an opportunity for a scene of market life. "His pictures were for the inhabitants of the small market-town from which he takes his name, where, besides the gates, you still see men and women in rustic garb crouching over their many-coloured wares; and where, just outside the walls, you may see all the ordinary occupations connected with farming and grazing. Inspired, although unawares, by the new idea of giving perfectly modern versions of Biblical stories, Bassano introduced into nearly every picture he painted episodes from the life in the streets of Bassano and in the country just outside the gates. Another thing Bassano could not fail to do, working as he did in the country and for country people, was to paint landscape. He loved to paint the real country. He was, in fact, the first modern landscape painter" (Berenson:Venetian Painters of the Renaissance, § xxi). "Giovanni Bellini places his figure in the crystal air of an Italian morning; Titian and Tintoretto give us daylight, mighty while subdued; but Bassano throws a lurid grey over his landscape and carries the eye to the solemn twilight spread along the distant horizon. This peculiarity of feature is partly accounted for by the position of the town ofBassano, which is wrapped in an early twilight by the high mountains above it on the west" (Layard's edition ofKugler, ii. 624).

A fine portrait—somewhat recalling Rembrandt in style—of a very refined face. In the vase beside him is a sprig of myrtle. This painter is fond of introducing such vases: see one in 277. In the principal street of Bassano, where the artist was born and, after studying at Venice, continued to live, such vessels may still be seen placed out for sale.

Carlo Maratti(Roman: 1625-1713).

Carlo Maratti (called also Carlo delle Madonne, from the large number of Madonna pictures that he painted) was an imitator of Raphael, and for nearly half a century the most eminent painter in Rome. The portrait of a cardinal should have come kindly to him, for he was in the service of several popes, and was appointed superintendent of the Vatican Chambers by Innocent XI.

Murillo(Spanish: 1618-1682).See 13.

An interesting illustration of the substitution of the palpable image for the figurative phrase. The mission of St. John the Baptist was to prepare the way for Christ, to proclaim to the people "Behold the Lamb of God!" Murillo makes the standard of the Lamb, with those words upon it, lie upon the ground below; but he further represents the young St. John as embracing an actual lamb.

Guido(Eclectic-Bologna: 1575-1642).See 11.

Just such a picture as might have suggested the lines in Pope's epistle on "The Characters of Women"—

Let then the fair one beautifully cry,In Magdalen's loose hair and lifted eye;Or dress'd in smiles of sweet Cecilia shine,With simpering angels, palms, and harps divine;Whether the charmer sinner it, or saint it,If folly grow romantic, I must paint it.

Just such a picture, too, as Guido turned out in numbers."He was specially fond," says one of his biographers, "of depicting faces with upraised looks, and he used to say that he had a hundred different modes" of thus supplying sentimentality to order.

Francia(Ferrarese-Bolognese: 1450-1517).

Of Francesco Raibolini's life the two most interesting things are these: first, that great artist though he came to be, he never painted a picture, so far as we know, till he was forty; and secondly, the intimate connection, exemplified in him, between the artist and the craftsman. He was the son of a carpenter, and, like so many of the greatest old masters, was brought up to the goldsmith's trade. The name of Francia was that of his master in goldsmith's work, and was adopted by him in gratitude.[101]He attained great skill in his trade, especially as a die-engraver and a worker in "niello" (inlaying a black composition into steel or silver). He was appointed steward of the Goldsmiths' Guild in 1483, and afterwards became master of the Mint—a post which he held till his death. In some of his earlier pictures the hand of a goldsmith is seen—in the clear outline, the metallic and polished surface, and the minuteness of detail; and even on some of his later and more important works, such as 179, he signed himself "Franciaaurifex(goldsmith) Bononiensis." It was with Costa, the Ferrarese artist (see 629), who migrated to Bologna, and with whom he entered into partnership, that Francia learnt the art of painting, and thus, though a Bolognese, he is properly included in the Ferrarese School. His work marks the culminating point of that school, just as Raphael's[102]marks that of the Umbrian, and in these pictures (originally one altar-piece, painted for the Buonvisi chapel in S. Frediano at Lucca, where, says Vasari, it was held to be of great value) we have some of his best work. Many of his pictures are still at Bologna, including the one which some consider hischef d'œuvre, the Bentivoglio altar-piece in S. Giacomo Maggiore.Francia is the most pathetic of painters. Raphael is said to have remarked that Francia's Madonnas were the most devoutly beautiful he knew,[103]and there is considerable affinity between Francia and Perugino. But the Umbrian master was more ideal; in Francia there are touches of realism. "It will be observed in No. 180 that the Virgin is represented as a middle-aged woman, and that the lids of the angels' eyes are red with weeping. In spirit also they are different. Francia makes his angels appeal to the spectator as if to enlist his sympathy in the pathos of the tragedy, holding up the beautiful tresses of Christ's hair to aid in the appeal. This Perugino would never have done; his angels, and his saints also, are always wrapt in a spiritual ecstasy to which Francia could not attain" (Monkhouse:In the National Gallery, p. 173).

(179) On the throne are the Virgin and her mother, St. Anne, who offers the infant Christ a peach, symbolical, as the fruit thus offered in these pictures originally was, of "the fruits of the spirit—joy, peace, and love." At the foot of the throne stands the little St. John (the Baptist), "one of the purest creations of Christian art," holding in his arms the cross of reeds and the scroll inscribed "Ecce Agnus Dei" ("Behold the Lamb of God"). The discovery of Benedetto Buonvisi's will has shown why the various saints were selected—St. Anne, because the Buonvisi chapel was dedicated to her; St. Lawrence as the patron of the founder's father; St. Paul as the patron of the founder's brother and heir; St. Sebastian as the saint invoked in plagues (from which calamity Lucca suffered in 1510); and St. Benedict as the patron of the founder (G. C. Williamson'sFrancia, p. 111).

(180) This picture, which was the "lunette," or arch, forming the top of the altar-piece, is a "pietà,"i.e.the Virgin and two angels weeping over the dead body of Christ. The artist has filled his picture with that solemn reverential pity, harmonised by love, which befits his subject. The body of Christ—utterly dead, yet not distorted nor defaced by death—is that of a tired man whose great soul would not let him rest while there was still His father's work to do on earth. In the face of the angel at His head there is a look of quiet joy,as of one who knows that "death is but a covered way that leads into the light"; in the attitude and expression of the angel at the feet there is prayerful sympathy for the sorrowing mother. The face of the mother herself, which before was pure and calm, is now tear-stained and sad, because her son has met so cruel a death—

What else in life seems piteous any moreAfter such pity?

Yet it bears a look of content because the world has known him. She rests His body tenderly on her knee as she did when he was a little child—thus are "the hues of the morning and the solemnity of eve, the gladness in accomplished promise, and sorrow of the sword-pierced heart, gathered into one human Lamp of ineffable love" (Modern Painters, vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. ii. ch. v. § 21).

Perugino(Umbrian: 1446-1523).See 288.

If really by Perugino,[104]this must be one of his early works. It is painted intempera. The Flemish process of oil-painting found its way to Venice, where Perugino is known to have been in 1494, and where he probably learnt it. The superiority of the new method may be seen in a moment by comparing the cracked surface and faded colours of this picture with 288, which was painted when Perugino had obtained complete mastery over the new medium, and which is still as bright and fresh as when it was painted. The style of this picture is, however, thoroughly Peruginesque. It is interesting to compare the Umbrian type of the Madonna—innocent and girl-like, with an air of far-off reverie—with the types of other schools. The Umbrian Madonna is less mature, more etherealised than the Venetian. She is a girl, rather than a mother. Therein she resembles the Florentine type; but an air of dreamy reverie in the Umbrian takes the place of the intellectualmysticism of the Florentine. In Perugino "the Umbrian type finds its fullest and highest representative. Dainty small features, all too babyish for the figures that bear them; a mouth like a cupid's bow; a tiny and delicate chin; eyes set well apart, with curiously heavy and drooping lids; faint pencilled eyebrows; a broad smooth forehead,—these are the main elements in Perugino's Madonnas" (Grant Allen in thePall Mall Magazine, 1895, p. 620).

Nicolas Lucidel(German: 1527-1590).

Lucidel (a name which is supposed to be a corruption of Neufchatel) studied painting at Antwerp, and afterwards settled at Nuremberg. This picture, dated 1561, was formally ascribed to Sir Antonio More and supposed to represent Jeanne d'Archel; but it reveals (says the latest edition of the Official Catalogue) "in its style and its Upper German costume, the handiwork of Lucidel."

"The picture is much obscured," says Sir Edward Poynter, "by a coarse brown varnish. A beautiful example of this master, in the collection of Lord Spencer, is remarkable for the purity of its colour, and doubtless this portrait had originally the same qualities" (The National Gallery, i. 294).

Jan van Eyck(Early Flemish: about 1390-1440).

The Van Eycks—Hubert, the elder brother, and Jan—were natives of Maesyck (Eyck-sur-Meuse), and are famous as being the artists to whose ingenuity the first invention of the art of painting in oils was for a long time ascribed. The probability is that although the practice of mixing oil with colours was employed for decorative purposes in Germany and elsewhere long before their time, they were the first to so improve it as to make it fully serviceable for figure-painting.[105]Theart of oil painting reached higher perfection in many ways after their time; but there is no picture in the Gallery which shows better than this, one great capacity of oil painting—its combination, namely, of "imperishable firmness with exquisite delicacy" (On the Old Road, i. 141). The place of the Van Eycks in the development of early Flemish art has been described in the introduction to that School, but the suddenness and completeness of their mastery remains among the wonders of painting. "The first Italian Renaissance," says Fromentin, "has nothing comparable to this. And in the particular order of sentiments they expressed and of the subjects they chose, one must admit that neither any Lombard School, nor Tuscan, nor Venetian, produced anything that resembles the first outburst of the School of Bruges." The two brothers were granted the freedom of the profession by the Corporation of Painters of Ghent in 1421. In that year Jan left Hubert and took an appointment as painter to Count John of Bavaria at the Hague. In 1424 he returned to Bruges as painter to Philip, Duke of Burgundy, in whose service he remained to the end of his life. Like Rubens, the painter Jan van Eyck "amused himself with being ambassador." "He was frequently employed on missions of trust; and following the fortunes of a chief who was always in the saddle, he appears for a time to have been in ceaseless motion, receiving extra pay for secret services at Leyden, drawing his salary at Bruges, yet settled in a fixed abode at Lille. In 1428 he joined the embassy sent by Philip the Good to Lisbon to beg the hand of Isabella of Portugal. His portrait of the bride fixed the Duke's choice. After his return he settled finally at Bruges, where he married, and his wife bore him a daughter, known in after years as a nun in the convent of Maesyck. At the christening of this child the Duke was sponsor; and this was but one of the many distinctions by which Philip the Good rewarded his painter's merits" (Crowe). But never was there an artist less puffed up. "Jan van Eyck was here." "As I can, not as I would." Such signatures are the sign-marks of modesty. In 1426 his brother Hubert died, leaving the great altar-piece—the Adoration of the Lamb—for Jan to finish. This masterpiece of the Van Eycks was in 1432 set up in the Chapel of St. Bavon at Ghent, where thecentral portions still remain—the other original panels being now at Brussels and Berlin. The portraits by Jan in our Gallery belong to the next three years. There are no finer specimens of his marvellous precision and delicacy in this branch of the art.

This wonderful picture of a Flemish interior—dated 1434—is as spruce and clean now (for the small twig broom did its work so well that the goodman and his wife were not afraid to walk on the polished floor without their shoes), as it was when first painted five hundred years ago. This is the more interesting from the eventful history the picture has had. At one time we hear of a barber-surgeon at Bruges presenting it to the Queen-regent of the Netherlands, who valued it so highly that she pensioned him in return for the gift. At another it must have passed again into humbler hands, for General Hay found it in the room to which he was taken in 1815 at Brussels to recover from wounds at the battle of Waterloo. He purchased the picture after his recovery, and sold it to the British Government in 1842. "It is," says Sir Edward Poynter, "one of the most precious possessions in the national collection, and, in respect of its marvellous finish, combined with the most astounding truth of imitation and effect, perhaps the most remarkable picture in the world."

For the delicacy of workmanship note especially the mirror, in which are reflected not only the objects in the room, but others beyond what appears in the picture, for a door and two additional figures may be distinguished. In the frame of the mirror, too, are ten diminutive pictures of the ten "moments" in the Passion of Christ "as material for the lady's meditation while doing her hair." Notice also the brass-work of the chandelier. "There are many little objects about, such as an orange on the window-sill, placed there to catch the light. Through the window you can see a cherry-tree, with sunshine on the ripe fruit. In the treatment of these and similar details Jan van Eyck shows a liking for dots and spots of light" (Conway). Above the chandelier, elaborately wrought, is the painter's signature. This signature (in Latin), "Jan van Eyck was here," exactly expresses the modesty and veracity which were the keynote of his art. The artist only professed to come, to see, and to record what he saw. Arnolfini was the representative at Bruges of a Lucca firm of merchants, and Van Eyck gives us a picture of the quiet, dry, business folk exactly as he found them.

Rubens(Flemish: 1577-1640).See 38.

A sketch of a picture in the possession of the Earl of Jersey. This sketch was formerly in the possession of Sir David Wilkie, R.A.

Giovanni Bellini(Venetian: 1426-1516).

Giovanni Bellini (often shortened into Giambellini)—the greatest of the fifteenth-century artists—"the mighty Venetian master who alone of all the painters of Italy united purity of religious aim with perfection of artistical power"[106]—belonged, it is interesting to note, to a thoroughly artistic family. His father, Jacopo, drawings by whom may be seen in the British Museum, was an artist of repute; his elder brother Gentile (see 1213) was another. The two brothers studied together in their father's school at Padua, and there they formed a friendship with Mantegna, who afterwards married their sister. Two pictures in our Gallery (Bellini's, 726; and Mantegna's, 1417) recall the days of their early association. By blood every inch an artist, so was Giovanni also in character. His life was one long devotion to his art. He lived to be ninety, and showed to the end increasing knowledge and power. Albert Dürer wrote in 1506, when the grand old man was eighty, that "though very old he was still the best painter in Venice."[107]

This famous portrait must have been painted about the same time, for Leonardo Loredano only became Doge in 1501. About 1460, Bellini had settled in Venice, where he soon rivalled and eclipsed the established school of the Vivarini. In 1479, when his elder brother Gentile departed to Constantinople, Giovanni was appointed in his place to carry on the series of pictures for the Hall of the Great Council in the Ducal Palace. These works were destroyed by fire in 1577. The documents referring to them show the terms on which he worked. He was engaged at a fixed rate of salary to work "constantly and daily, so that said pictures may be completed as expeditiously as possible, with three assistants, also paid by the State, to render speedy and diligent assistance." One of these assistants was Carpaccio (see 750). Three years later he was appointed State painter to the Republic. His fame is sounded by Ariosto, who in "Orlando Furioso" ranks him with Leonardo. It may be gathered also from the number of great painters who attended his studio, including Giorgione and Titian. He was overwhelmed with work, and doubtless employed assistants to complete commissions from his design. Hence the confusion that exists in the matter of attribution among pictures of this school (see under 599). With Titian he was on terms of warm friendship, and his last work (a companion piece to Titian's "Bacchus and Ariadne," now in the Duke of Northumberland's Gallery at Alnwick) was left for Titian to finish. Bellini was buried in the Church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo, in the same tomb where Gentile had lain since 1507.Giovanni Bellini's long life covers the end of one period and the beginning of another in the history of Italian art. In point of technique this is so: his earliest works are in tempera, his later ones in oil—the use of which medium he learnt perhaps from Antonello da Messina. It is so also in motive. "The iridescence of dying statesmanship in Italy, her magnificence of hollow piety, were represented in the arts of Venice and Florence by two mighty men on either side—Titian and Tintoret, Michael Angelo and Raphael. Of the calm and brave statesmanship, the modest and faithful religion, which had been her strength, I am content to name one chief representative artist at Venice, John Bellini." The years of change were 1480-1520 (roughly speaking those of Raphael's life). "John Bellini precedes the change, meets and resists it victoriously till his death. Nothing of flaw or failure is ever to be discerned in him" (Relation between Michael Angelo and Tintoret, pp. 11-13). His position is thus unique: he was the meeting-point of two ways: as great in artistic power as the masters who came after, as pure in religious aim as those who went before. An interesting episode is recorded which marks the transition and Bellini's meeting of it. Isabella Gonzaga, the Duchess of Mantua, wrote in 1501 to her agent in Venice to get Bellini to do for her a picture of which the subject was to be profane, to suit Mantegna's allegories. Bellini suggests that he cannot do such a subject in a way to compare with Mantegna; with such a subject "he cannot do anything to look well." Isabella thereupon is content to put up with a religious subject,but Bellini on his side agrees to add "a distant landscape and other fantasies" (qualche luntani et altra fantaxia). Bellini, however, was by no means stagnant in his art, or in his outlook. At the end of his life, he undertook, as we have seen, a Bacchanal, and in his middle period he painted the beautiful little allegories now in the Academy at Venice. "Bellini," says Morelli, "was ever making progress. He knew how to adapt himself to his subject, and was, as occasion required, grand and serious, graceful and attractive, naïve and simple." It is in Venice that Bellini can be best studied; but our National Gallery is fortunate in having more of his works than can be seen in any other collection north of the Alps. And how varied are his powers! The same hand has given us subjects of intense religious conviction, like "The Agony in the Garden" (726) and "The Blood of the Redeemer" (1233); "sunny pictures of devotional sentiment" (280 and 599); the noble portrait here before us; and delicate landscape work, like the "Peter Martyr" (812). In his earliest pictures he devoted himself to the profoundest sentiments of Christianity—perhaps, as has been suggested, under the influence of S. Bernardino, then preaching at Padua (Roger Fry'sGiovanni Bellini, p. 22). Afterwards the "note" in Bellini's work is rather "genial serenity." The expression of his Madonnas is often tender and solemn, but he never lets it pass into the region of the ecstatic. All is bright and peaceful and sunny. He belongs to what Ruskin calls "the age of the masters," in which the main object is "pictorial perfectness and deliciousness."

Giovanni Bellini's long life covers the end of one period and the beginning of another in the history of Italian art. In point of technique this is so: his earliest works are in tempera, his later ones in oil—the use of which medium he learnt perhaps from Antonello da Messina. It is so also in motive. "The iridescence of dying statesmanship in Italy, her magnificence of hollow piety, were represented in the arts of Venice and Florence by two mighty men on either side—Titian and Tintoret, Michael Angelo and Raphael. Of the calm and brave statesmanship, the modest and faithful religion, which had been her strength, I am content to name one chief representative artist at Venice, John Bellini." The years of change were 1480-1520 (roughly speaking those of Raphael's life). "John Bellini precedes the change, meets and resists it victoriously till his death. Nothing of flaw or failure is ever to be discerned in him" (Relation between Michael Angelo and Tintoret, pp. 11-13). His position is thus unique: he was the meeting-point of two ways: as great in artistic power as the masters who came after, as pure in religious aim as those who went before. An interesting episode is recorded which marks the transition and Bellini's meeting of it. Isabella Gonzaga, the Duchess of Mantua, wrote in 1501 to her agent in Venice to get Bellini to do for her a picture of which the subject was to be profane, to suit Mantegna's allegories. Bellini suggests that he cannot do such a subject in a way to compare with Mantegna; with such a subject "he cannot do anything to look well." Isabella thereupon is content to put up with a religious subject,but Bellini on his side agrees to add "a distant landscape and other fantasies" (qualche luntani et altra fantaxia). Bellini, however, was by no means stagnant in his art, or in his outlook. At the end of his life, he undertook, as we have seen, a Bacchanal, and in his middle period he painted the beautiful little allegories now in the Academy at Venice. "Bellini," says Morelli, "was ever making progress. He knew how to adapt himself to his subject, and was, as occasion required, grand and serious, graceful and attractive, naïve and simple." It is in Venice that Bellini can be best studied; but our National Gallery is fortunate in having more of his works than can be seen in any other collection north of the Alps. And how varied are his powers! The same hand has given us subjects of intense religious conviction, like "The Agony in the Garden" (726) and "The Blood of the Redeemer" (1233); "sunny pictures of devotional sentiment" (280 and 599); the noble portrait here before us; and delicate landscape work, like the "Peter Martyr" (812). In his earliest pictures he devoted himself to the profoundest sentiments of Christianity—perhaps, as has been suggested, under the influence of S. Bernardino, then preaching at Padua (Roger Fry'sGiovanni Bellini, p. 22). Afterwards the "note" in Bellini's work is rather "genial serenity." The expression of his Madonnas is often tender and solemn, but he never lets it pass into the region of the ecstatic. All is bright and peaceful and sunny. He belongs to what Ruskin calls "the age of the masters," in which the main object is "pictorial perfectness and deliciousness."

A magnificent portrait of one of the greatest men of the Venetian Republic. Leonardo, the 67th Doge, held office from 1501 to 1521. He belonged to one of the most ancient and noble families in the State, and Venice, under his rule, was one of the Great Powers of Europe—as the league of Cambrai formed against him sufficiently shows. There is all the quiet dignity of a born ruler in his face—"fearless, faithful, patient, impenetrable, implacable—every word a fate" (Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. ix. § 1). In his capacity of State painter to the Republic it was Bellini's duty to execute the official portraits of the Doges. During his long life he saw no fewer than eleven Doges, and was State painter during the reigns of four. This, however, is the only portrait of a Doge by Bellini which has been preserved (Richter'sLectures on the National Gallery, p. 42). It is remarkable alike for strong characterisation, simplicity of conception, and brilliancy of colouring.

Rembrandt(Dutch: 1606-1669).See45, and also under 51.

Guido(Eclectic-Bologna: 1575-1642).See 11.

St. John is charming in the beauty of boyhood. In the youthful Christ the painter has striven after something more "ideal," and has produced a somewhat namby-pamby face.

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