219. THE DEAD CHRIST.

Ascribed to Peruzzi(Sienese: 1481-1536).

Baldassare Peruzzi, an excellent draughtsman and fair painter, was most distinguished as an architect. His life, says Sir Edward Poynter, was one which any artist might envy. "Brought up at his own wish as a painter at Siena, he soon gave evidence of such talent that he was entrusted with important commissions at Rome, making acquaintance by this means with one of the great Roman patrons of art, Agostino Chigi, the same for whom Raphael painted a chapel in Santa Maria del Popolo. Baldassare found leisure to devote himself to the study of architecture; from this time he seems to have had almost the happiest lot that one can imagine falling to an artist, that of building palaces and decorating them with his own hand" (Lectures on Art, ch. viii.). Among these were the Farnesina Palace for Agostino Chigi, and the Palazzo Massimi, which is "justly considered one of the most beautiful and ingeniously constructed in Rome." It is characteristic of the taste of the time that what Vasari most admired in Peruzzi's buildings was "the decoration of the Loggia at the Villa Farnesina, painted in perspective to imitate stucco work." "This is done so perfectly," he says, "with the colours, that even experienced artists have taken them to be works in relief. I remember that Titian, a most excellent and renowned painter, whom I conducted to see these works, could by no means be persuaded that they were painted, and remained in astonishment when, on changing his point of view, he perceived that they were so." Baldassare also designed the fortifications of Siena, and on the death of Raphael was appointed architect of St. Peter's at Rome. His life was not free from adventures. At the sack of Rome in 1527 he was plundered of all he possessed by the Imperial soldiers, and was forced to paint a picture of their general, the Constable Bourbon, who had been killed in the assault of the city. He died at Rome, not without suspicion of having been poisoned, and was buried in the Pantheon, near the tomb of Raphael.

There is a drawing by Peruzzi of this subject in possession of the National Gallery, No. 167. Girolamo da Treviso (623) made a copy of it, which is perhaps this work. The figures of the three magi are interesting as having been portraits of Titian, Raphael, and Michael Angelo.

Unknown(Lombard School, 16th century).

Perhaps to be ascribed to Bazzi (see under 1144).

Rembrandt(Dutch: 1606-1669).See45.

Compare No. 672. That was painted when he was about thirty; this, some thirty years later. We see here the same features, though worn by age; the same self-reliant expression, though broken down by care. "In manner," says Sir Walter Armstrong, "it is amazingly free, irresponsible, and what in any one but a stupendous master we should call careless. It looks as though he had taken up the first dirty palette on which he could lay his hands, and set himself to the making of a picture with no further thought. To those who put signs of mastery above all other qualities, it is one of the most attractive pictures in the whole Gallery" (Portfolio, September 1891).

Jan van Eyck(Early Flemish: about 1390-1440).See186.

See also(p. xix)

Kneeling below are Girolamo Rucellai and his son. The arms of the Rucellai family are at each end of thepredella. The picture wasoriginally an altar-piece in the Rucellai Chapel in the church of the Eremiti di San Girolamo at Fiesole. Formerly ascribed to Cosimo Rosselli, the picture is now conjecturally attributed to Botticini (for whom see under 1126).

St. Jerome (A.D.342-420) who first made the great Eastern book, the Bible, legible in the West, by translating the Hebrew into Latin, was one of the chief saints of the Latin or Western Church, and was a favourite subject in Christian art; there are a dozen pictures of him in the National Gallery alone. One of the chief events in his life is told in the left-hand compartment at the bottom of this picture. Jerome is tending a sick lion, and in all the pictures of him a lion appears as his constant companion. The story is that one evening a lion entered the monastery, limping as in pain, and all the brethren fled in terror, as we see one of them doing here, whilst the others are looking on safely behind a door; but Jerome went forward to meet the lion, as though he had been a guest. And the lion lifted up his paw, and Jerome, finding it was wounded by a thorn, tended the wild creature, which henceforward became his constant companion and friend. What did the Christian painters mean by their fond insistence on the constancy of the lion-friend? They meant to foretell a day "when the Fear of Man shall be laid in benediction, not enmity, on inferior beings,—when they shall not hurt or destroy in all the holy Mountain, and the Peace of the Earth shall be as far removed from its present sorrow, as the present gloriously animate universe from the nascent desert, whose deeps were the place of dragons, and its mountains, domes of fire. Of that day knoweth no man; but the Kingdom of God is already come to those who have tamed in their own hearts what was rampant of the lower nature, and have learned to cherish what is lovely and human, in the wandering children of the clouds and fields" (Bible of Amiens, ch. iii. § 54). The other compartments depict incidents in the lives of St. Damasus, St. Eusebius, St. Paula, and St. Eustache—saints associated with St. Jerome. The picture itself shows an earlier period of his life, when, before he settled in a monastery, but after a life of pleasure in Rome, he left (as he himself tells us) not only parents and kindred, but the accustomed luxuries of delicate life, and lived for ten years in the desert in the effort to obtain some closer knowledge of the Being and Will of God. The saints who are made by the painter to keep St. Jerome company below are in sorrow; the angels above, in joy. The other kneeling figures are portraits of the patron for whom the the picture was painted.

Bassano(Venetian: 1510-1592).See173.

Christ is driving out from the House of Prayer all those who had made it a den of thieves—money-changers, dealers in cattle, sheep, goats, birds, etc. A subject which lent itself conveniently to Bassano's characteristicgenrestyle.

Francisco Zurbaran(Spanish: 1598-1662).

Zurbaran—the contemporary of Velazquez—unites in a typical manner the two main characteristics of the Spanish School—asceticism in subject, realism in presentment. He is, says Stirling-Maxwell, the peculiar painter of monks, as Raphael is of Madonnas, and Ribera of martyrdoms; he studied the Spanish friar, and painted him with as high a relish as Titian painted the Venetian noble, and Vandyck the gentleman of England. In the Museum of Seville are several pictures which he painted for the Carthusians of that city. "The venerable friars seem portraits; each differs in feature from the other, yet all bear the impress of long years of solitary and silent penance; their white draperies chill the eye, as their cold hopeless faces chill the heart; and the whole scene is brought before us with a vivid fidelity, which shows that Zurbaran studied the Carthusian in his native cloisters with the like close and faithful attention that Velazquez bestowed on the courtier, strutting it in the corridors of the Alcazar or the alleys of Aranjuez" (Annals of the Artists of Spain, ch. xi.). Zurbaran was the son of a peasant, but having shown an early talent for drawing was released from the plough and sent to the studio of the painter-priest Juan de Roelas, at Seville. His abilities and his close study of nature soon gained him a high reputation; his forcible naturalistic style acquired for him the name of "the Caravaggio of Spain." He was employed in the cathedral of Seville, which remained his abode for the greater part of his life. In his picture of "St. Thomas Aquinas" in the museum there, the dark wild face, immediately behind the Imperial adorer, is traditionally held to be the portrait of Zurbaran himself. His habits were those of the recluse, but in 1650 he was, through the influence of Velazquez, called to Madrid. There he was set to a task little suited to his tastes—the production of a series of pictures (now in the Prado) to illustrate the labours of Hercules. Philip IV. used, we are told, to visit the artist whilst engaged on these pictures, and on one occasion expressed his admiration of his powers by laying his hand on his shoulder, and calling him "painter of the King, and king of the painters." "His best characteristic," says Burton, "is his power of imparting the sense of life to the heads of his figures. He was in fact a great, though not a professed, portrait painter."

It is a transcript from the religious life around him that Zurbaran here sets before us. Seville was the most orthodox city in the most Catholic country—at every corner of the streets there were Franciscan monks, with prayers or charms to sell in exchange for food or money. "For centuries in Spain country people bought up the monks' old garbs, to use them in dressing the dead, so that St. Peter might pass them into heaven thinking they were Franciscans." It was in the streets and convents of Seville therefore that Zurbaran found his models. This picture was bought for the National Gallery from the Louis Philippe sale in 1853. When the gallery of Spanish pictures to which it formerly belonged was inaugurated in the Louvre, "what remained most strongly in the Parisian mind, so impressionable and soblasé, was not the suavity of Murillo, nor the astonishing pencil of Velazquez, making the canvas speak and palpitate with life; it was a certain 'Monk in prayer' of Zurbaran, which it was impossible to forget, even if one had seen it only once" (C. Blanc, cited in W. B. Scott'sMurillo, p. 55). "Of his gloomy monastic studies," says Stirling-Maxwell, "the kneeling Franciscan holding a skull is one of the ablest; the face, dimly seen beneath the brown hood, is turned to heaven; no trace of earthly expression is left on its pale features, but the wild eyes seem fixed on some dismal vision; and a single glance at the canvas imprints the figure on the memory for ever."

Francisco Zurbaran(Spanish: 1598-1662).See230.

A characteristic and fine example of the naturalistic treatment of such subjects by the Spanish School; formerly supposed to be an early work of Velazquez, now attributed by the authorities of the Gallery, following M. de Beruete, to Zurbaran.[116]The affinity of the Spanish School in thisrespect to the Italian naturalists may be seen by a glance at No. 172 in the late Italian Room. In the distance is the guiding angel as the star of the Epiphany. It is a pretty piece of observation of child nature that makes the painter show the boy offering his animals to the infant Christ. One remembers George Eliot's "young Daniel" (inScenes of Clerical Life), who says to Mr. Gilfil, by way of making friends, "We've got two pups, shall I show 'em yer? One's got white spots." Zurbaran was noted for his successful delineation of animals. Palomino mentions with approbation his picture of an enraged dog from which chance observers used to run away, and of a yearling lamb, deemed by the possessor of more value than a hecatomb of full-grown sheep.

Catena(Venetian: died 1531).

Of Vincenzo di Biagio, commonly called Catena (possibly from a partiality for jewellery), little is known, and until recently little was heard. Modern critics have, however, decided that he was one of the ablest of the School of Bellini, and have attributed to him many beautiful works, which have hitherto borne famous names.[117]He was born at Treviso; his first master was probably the elder Girolamo da Treviso, but he must have finished his artistic education in the School of Bellini. Signed pictures from his hand are to be found in several of the Venetian churches and elsewhere. He was fond of introducing a partridge (as here and in 694) and a white poodle dog (as here) into his pictures, by which they may often be recognised. An altar-piece,representing S. Cristina in the church of S. Maria Mater Domini, and another of S. Giustina in S. Simpliciana are referred to as offering marked analogies with the work now before us. A letter is extant, dated April 11, 1520, when Raphael was just deceased and Michelangelo infirm, in which Catena is recommended to be on his guard, "since danger seems to be impending over all very excellent painters." He was famous for his portraits; the portrait of Count Raimund Fugger, specially praised by Vasari, is now at Berlin. He died in 1531, in which year he made a will leaving legacies to a number of poor painters, and the greater part of his substance to the Guild of his art. In his later works the influence of Giorgione is strongly marked—as here in the rich full colour of the Kneeling Knight, and in other respects. "Giorgione," says Mr. Berenson, "created a demand which other painters were forced to supply. One of them, turning toward the new in a way that is full of singular charm, gave his later works all the beauty and softness of the first spring days in Italy. Upon hearing the title of one of Catena's works in the National Gallery,A Warrior Adoring the Infant Christ, who could imagine what a treat the picture itself had in store for him? It is a fragrant summer landscape enjoyed by a few quiet people, one of whom, in armour, with the glamour of the Orient about him, kneels at the Virgin's feet, while a romantic young page holds his horse's bridle. A good instance of the Giorgionesque way of treating a subject; not for the story, nor for the display of skill, nor for the obvious feeling, but for the lovely landscape, for the effects of light and colour, and for the sweetness of human relations" (The Venetian Painters of the Renaissance, p. 31).

Observe, for the technical merits of this picture, the horse-bridle: "An example of true painter's work in minor detail; unsurpassable, but not, by patience and modesty, inimitable" (Academy Notes, 1875, p. 48). As for the subject, the warrior portrayed is nameless. This is suggestive; it is not a peculiar picture, it is a type of what was the common method of Venetian portraiture. "An English gentleman, desiring his portrait, gives probably to the painter a choice of several actions, in any of which he is willing to be represented. As for instance, riding his best horse, shooting with his favourite pointer, manifesting himself in his robes of state on some great public occasion, meditating in his study, playing with his children, or visiting his tenants; in any of these or other such circumstances, he will give the artist free leave to paint him. But in one important action he would shrink even from the suggestion of being drawn. He will assuredly not let himself be painted praying. Strangely, this is the action which, of all others, a Venetian desires to be painted in. If they want a noble and complete portrait, they nearly allchoose to be painted on their knees" (Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. iii. § 15). Notice also the little dog in the corner—"one of the little curly, short-nosed, fringy-pawed things which all Venetian ladies petted." "The dog is thus constantly introduced by the Venetians (in Madonna pictures) in order to give the fullest contrast to the highest tones of human thought and feeling.... But they saw the noble qualities of the dog too—all his patience, love, and faithfulness ...," and introduced him into their sacred pictures partly therefore in order to show that "all the lower creatures, who can love, have passed, through their love, into the guardianship and guidance of angels" (Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. iii. § 21, ch. vi. § 14;Fors Clavigera, 1877, p. 31).[118]

Giuseppe Ribera, called Spagnoletto(Spanish: 1598-1648).

Ribera is a leading artist amongst what are called theNaturalistiorTenebrosi(an alternative title, curiously significant of the warped and degraded principle of the school, as if "nature" were indeed only another name for "darkness").[119]His works show remarkable force and facility; his subjects were painful. As Byron says—

Spagnoletto taintedHis brush with all the blood of all the sainted.

"It is a curious example of the perversity of the human mind," says Stirling-Maxwell, "that subjects like these should have been the chosen recreations of an eye that opened in infancy on the palms and the fair women of Valencia, and rested for half a lifetime on the splendour of the Bay of Naples." His life was like his art, being "one long contrast between splendour and misery, black shadow and shining light" (Scott). He made his way when quite a youth to Rome, where one day, as he was sketching in the streets, dressed in rags and eating crusts, he was picked up by a cardinal and taken into his household. They called him in Italy, owing to his small stature, by the name Lo Spagnoletto, the little Spaniard. But Ribera could not brook the cardinal's livery, and stole away into poverty and independence again. He especially studied the works of Caravaggio, and went afterwards to Parma to study Correggio. Then he moved to Naples, where a picture-dealer discovered his talent and gave him his daughter in marriage. A large picture of the martyrdom of St. Bartholomew, which he painted about this time, was exhibited by the dealer on the balcony of his house, and created such afurorethat the Spanish Viceroy, delighted at finding the painter to be a Spaniard, loaded him with appointments and commissions. This was the making of Ribera's fortune. He soon became very wealthy—never going out but in his carriage, and with an equerry to accompany him, and so hard had he to work to keep pace with his orders that his servants were instructed at last to interrupt him when working hours were fairly over. He kept open house—entertaining Velazquez, for instance, when the latter visited Naples in 1630; but though lavish he was yet mean. Ribera, Corenzio (a Greek), and Caracciolo (a Neapolitan), formed a memorable cabal, with the object of establishing a local monopoly in the artistic profession for themselves. In this object, by means of force and fraud, they succeeded for many years. Domenichino, Annibale Carracci, and Guido Reni were all more or less victims of the cabal. The story of the conspiracy of Ribera and his allies to get the commission for painting the chapel of St. Januarius, forms one of the most curious and disgraceful chapters in the history of art, and may be read in Lanzi'sHistory of Painting(vol. ii. in Bohn's translation). Ribera's life ended like his pictures, in darkness. His daughter was carried off by one of his great friends, Don Juan of Austria, and Ribera was so overwhelmed with grief that he left Naples and was never more heard of.[120]

The Virgin, accompanied here by St. John and Mary Magdalen, is weeping over the dead Christ—the subject termed by the Italians aPietà. It is instructive to compare this Spanish treatment of it with an Italian Pietà, such as Francia's No. 180. How much more ghastly is the dead Christ here! How much less tender are the ministering mourners!

Claude Joseph Vernet(French: 1714-1789).

Vernet, one of the most celebrated of French landscape and marine painters, received his inspiration and lived a large part of his life in Italy. He was born at Avignon, and in 1732 went to Italy with a view of improving himself in historical painting, but the beautiful scenery of Genoa and Naples induced him to devote himself to marine landscape. One of his Mediterranean pictures is No. 1393 in this Gallery. It is said that on his first voyage he was so impressed with the effect of a stormy sea as to have himself tied to the mast in order to be able more accurately to observe it. For some time Vernet lived in poverty. He had to paint carriages, and a picture, afterwards sold for 5000 francs, procured him only a single suit of clothes. His subjects were now the rivers, landscapes, and costumes of Rome (as in this picture). In 1752 he was invited to Paris by Louis XV. In the following year he was elected a member of the French Academy of Arts, and was commissioned by the Government to paint his celebrated pictures, now in the Louvre, of the seaports of France. This task occupied him the greater part of the year. He died in the Louvre, where he had been given apartments by the king. His last years were embittered by the madness of his wife, a daughter of the Pope's naval commandant, whom he had married in 1745. He was the grandfather of the celebrated historical painter, Horace Vernet (see 1285).

Past and present in the eternal city, as it was in Vernet's day. Behind is the castle which the Emperor Hadrian had built for his family tomb, in which were buried several of the Emperors after him, and the history of which in the Middle Ages was almost the history of Rome itself. In front is a fête on the Tiber, with a fashionable crowd in crinolines watching the boats tilting on the river.

Rembrandt(Dutch: 1606-1669).See 45.

Of interest as being one of his last works: dated 1666.

Jan Weenix(Dutch: 1640-1719).

Jan Weenix, the younger, was born at Amsterdam—the son of Jan Baptista Weenix (see 1096)—and is usually considered the best of all Dutch artists in this style. For some years he was employed at the Court of John William, Elector of the Palatinate.

A stag, a couple of hares (a speciality with this artist), a heron, and a fowling-piece.

Aart van der Neer(Dutch: 1603-1677).See152.

A good example of "the penetrating melancholy of moonlight"—an effect in which this painter excelled.

Nicolas Berchem(Dutch: 1620-1683).See78.

Teniers(Flemish: 1610-1694).See154.

"An example," says Mr. J. T. Nettleship in a comparison between Morland and some of the Dutch masters, "not only of the works that Morland loved, but of the life (alas!) he best loved too. In one respect it at once takes rank above the English painter, for every man must be a portrait; the two playing might indeed be English as well as Dutch, the man looking on is a degraded boor. In the chimney-place are several men farther off—one with his back to you is seated on a bench with his head against the chimney-jamb, a 'poor drinker,' he seems. The standing man, standing with his back to the fire, smoking a long clay, looks half-pitying, half-scornful at the feebler sinner" (George Morland, p. 23).

Rembrandt(Dutch: 1606-1669).See45.

A noble picture of the dignity of old age (dated 1659).

Spagnoletto(Spanish: 1598-1648).See235.

Hans Baldung(German-Swabian: 1476-1545).

This portrait is dated 1514, and signed with the monogram of Albert Dürer, to whom it was formerly ascribed. But the monogram is now said to be a forgery, and the picture is identified as the work of Dürer's friend Baldung. On the death of Dürer (in 1528) Baldung received a lock of his hair (now preserved in the Library of the Academy of Arts at Vienna), and Dürer, in his Journal in the Low Countries, records having sold several of Baldung's engravings. Baldung, painter, engraver, and designer, was a native of Gmünd in Swabia, and his earliest works show the influence of Martin Schongauer (see 658). He lived at Freiburg-in-the-Breisgau (in the monastery at which place is his greatest work, a "Coronation of the Virgin"), and also at Strassburg, of which latter city he became a senator shortly before his death. Baldung's portraits, says the Official Catalogue, "are highly individual and full of character. When unsigned they have sometimes passed for the work of Dürer, but they want his searching modelling." Baldung acquired and adopted the name of Green or Grün, either from his habit of dressing in that colour or from his fondness for a peculiarly brilliant tint of green often found in his pictures.

The influence of Dürer was strong on Hans Baldung, and a similar spirit is discernible in the works of both painters. This old man, strong and yet melancholy, is precisely true to Dürer's favourite type of human strength founded on labour and sorrow. And the choice of this type is characteristic of his mind. With the Reformation came, says Mr. Ruskin, "the Resurrection of Death. Never, since man first saw him face to face, had his terror been so great." Nothing shows the character of men of that time so clearly as the way in which they severally meet the King of Terror. "It haunted Dürer long; and the answer he gave to the question of the grave was that of patient hope; and twofold, consisting of one design in praise of Fortitude, and another in praise of Labour.... The plate of 'Melancholia' is the history of the sorrowful toil of the earth, as the 'Knight and Death' is of its sorrowful patience under temptation" (Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. iv.).

Girolamo del Pacchia(Sienese: 1477-1535).

Pacchia, who is often confused with his fellow-countryman Pacchiarotto, was born at Siena, being the son of a cannon-founderfrom Croatia who had settled in that city. He first studied in his native town, but afterwards went to Florence. His works recall the style of the Florentine masters of the time. In 1500 he went to Rome, returning to Siena with an established reputation in 1508. Many of his works are to be seen in the churches and picture-gallery in that city, famous alike for its religious revivals, its artistic activity, and its civic turbulence. Pacchia, in company with Pacchiarotti, joined the revolutionary club of the Bardotti, and on its suppression in 1535 the two artists fled the city. After that date no record of Pacchia has been found.

This graceful picture resembles the style of Andrea del Sarto.

Matteo di Giovanni(Sienese: 1435-1495).See1155.

"Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns, and the purple robe. And Pilate saith unto them, Behold the man!" (Ecco Homo) (St. John xix. 5). In the "glory" around the head are the Latin letters signifying "Jesus Christ of Nazareth"; on the outer edge of the background, "at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things on earth, and things under the earth" (Philippians ii. 10).

Fra Filippo Lippi(Florentine: about 1406-1469).See666.

"St. Bernard was remarkable for his devotion to the blessed Virgin; one of his most celebrated works, theMissus est, was composed in her honour as mother of the Redeemer; and in eighty sermons from the Song of Solomon he set forth her divine perfection. His health was extremely feeble; and once, when he was employed in writing his homilies, and was so ill that he could scarcely hold the pen, she graciously appeared to him, and comforted and restored him by her divine presence" (Mrs. Jameson:Legends of the Monastic Orders, p. 152). Notice the peculiar shape of the picture, the upper corners of the square being cut away. The picture was painted in 1447 (the artist receiving 40lire, equal now perhaps to £60, for it and another work) to fit a space over the door of the Palazzo della Signoria at Florence. "Have you ever considered, in the early history of painting, how important is the history of the frame-maker? It is a matter, I assure you, needing your very best consideration, for the frame was made before the picture. The painted window is much, but the aperture it fills was thought of before it. The fresco by Giotto is much, but the vault it adorns was planned first ... and in pointing out to you this fact, I may once for all prove to, you the essential unity of the arts" (Ariadne Florentina, §§ 59, 60).

Lorenzo di San Severino(Umbrian: painted 1483-1496).

This picture is signed by the artist "Laurentiusthe secondof Severino"—to distinguish himself from the earlier Lorenzo, who was born in 1374, and who painted some frescoes at Urbino in 1416. The date of this picture is approximately fixed by the fact that Catherine is described on her nimbus as "saint," and she was not canonised till 1461; and perhaps also by the influence on Lorenzo of Crivelli (painted 1468-1493), which has been traced in the execution of the details: see for instance the cucumber and apple on the step of the throne (cf.724, etc).

St. Catherine of Siena (1347-1380) is one of the most remarkable figures of the Middle Ages. She was the daughter of a dyer, brought up in the humblest of surroundings, and wholly uneducated. When only thirteen she entered the monastic life as a nun of the Dominican order (St. Dominic is here present on the right), and at once became famous in the city for her good works. She tended the sick and plague-stricken, and was a minister of mercy to the worst and meanest of her fellow-creatures. On one occasion a hardened murderer, whom priests had visited in vain, was so subdued by her tenderness that he confessed his sins, begged her to wait for him by the scaffold, and died with the names of Jesus and Catherine on his lips. In addition to her piety and zeal she succeeded as a mediator between Florence and her native city, and between Florence and the Pope; she travelled to Avignon, and there induced Gregory XI. to return to Rome; she narrowly escaped political martyrdom during one of her embassies from Gregory to the Florentine republic; she preached a crusade against the Turks, and she aided, by herdying words, to keep Pope Urban on the throne. But "when she died she left behind her a memory of love more than of power, the fragrance of an unselfish and gentle life. Her place is in the heart of the humble. Her prayer is still whispered by poor children on their mother's knee, and her relics are kissed daily by the simple and devout."

The mystical marriage which forms the subject of this picture, where the infant Christ is placing the ring on her finger, suggests the secret of her power. Once when she was fasting and praying, Christ himself appeared to her, she said, and gave her his heart. For love was the keynote of her religion, and the mainspring of her life. In no merely figurative sense did she regard herself as the spouse of Christ; she dwelt upon the bliss, beyond all mortal happiness, which she enjoyed in supersensual communion with her Lord. The world has not lost its ladies of the race of St. Catherine, beautiful and pure and holy, who live lives of saintly mercy in the power of human and heavenly love. (See further, for St. Catherine of Siena, J. A. Symonds,Sketches in Italy(Siena), from which the above account is principally taken.)

The Meister von Werden(German: 15th Century).

The Meister von Werden, or the painter of this picture and of Nos. 251 and 253, which were found in the old Abbey of Werden, near Düsseldorf, is otherwise unknown. These three pictures probably formed folding wings of an altar-piece. A fourth panel, belonging to the same series, is in the National Gallery of Scotland.

The saints in this picture are Jerome (with his lion), Benedict (in the habit of his order), Giles (with his doe), and Romuald (founder of the eremite order of the Camaldoli).

The Meister von Werden. See under250.

The saints in this picture are Augustine (with the heart transfixed with an arrow), Ludger (Bishop of Münster, Apostle of Saxony), Hubert (patron saint of the chase, see No. 783) and Maurice.

The Meister von Werden. See under250.

For St. Hubert, see under 783. Here the saint, in his canonicals, is represented bending before the altar; while an angel from heaven is, according to the legend, descending with the stole.

The Meister von Liesborn(German: about 1465).

The principal work of this master, whose name has not come down to us, was a high altar-piece for a convent church of the Benedictines at Liesborn, near Münster in Westphalia. This work was cut in pieces and sold in 1807, when the convent was suspended, and Napoleon established the modern kingdom of Westphalia. Some of the pieces were afterwards lost, some were obtained by different collectors, while others, which were acquired by Herr Krüger of Minden, were purchased in 1854 by the British Government. The sweet but feeble faces, with the gold background, recall the earliest Lower Rhine School, of which the Westphalian was an offshoot.

In 259—a Head of Christ on the Cross—we have a fragment of the centre compartment of the altar-piece.

In 260 and 261 we have the saints who stood by the side of the Cross (hence their melancholy expression). In 260 the saints are St. John, St. Benedict, and St. Scholastica (the first Benedictine nun and the sister of St. Benedict himself). In 261 the saints are Sts. Cosmas and Damian (see under 594), and the Virgin.

In 254 and 255 we have other saints: in 254, St. Ambrose (see under 50), St. Exuperius (a Bishop of Toulouse), and St. Jerome (saying, as it were, "Down, down" to his lion); in 255, St. Gregory, St. Hilary, and St. Augustine.

On either side of the central groups in the altar-piece were represented various sacred subjects. No. 256, represents the Annunciation; No. 257, the Purification of the Virgin and the Presentation of Christ in the Temple; No. 258, The Adoration of the Magi.

School of the Meister von Liesborn. See underlast pictures.

In the form of a predella or decoration of the base of the altar-piece. In the centre is Christ on the Cross; on either side are four Saints; on the left St. Scholastica, Mary Magdalen, St. Anne with the Virgin in her arms, who holds the Infant Christ; and the Virgin. On the right St. John the Evangelist, St. Andrew, St. Benedict, and St. Agnes with the Lamb. In the background is a representation of Jerusalem; here depicted as a little Westphalian town.

Unknown(Early Flemish).

The count and the confessor. The count, attired as a monk, is praying. Behind him is his patron saint (St. Ambrose), holding a cross in one hand, a scourge in the other. More important, however, than the penitence of the count is the splendour of the robes. The picture is a good illustration of the love of jewellery characteristic of the time. "That this love of jewels was shared by the painters is sufficiently shown by the amount and beauty of the jewelled ornaments introduced by them into their pictures. Not only are brooches and clasps, sceptres and crowns, studded with precious stones, but the hems of garments are continually sewn with them, whilst gloves and shoes of state are likewise so adorned" (Conway, p. 121). This picture is by some ascribed to Gerard van der Meire (see under 1078).

Unknown(Flemish School: Early 16th Century).

Lambert Lombard(Flemish: 1505-1566).

Lambert Lombard of Liège was, says Vasari, "a distinguished man of letters, a most judicious painter, and an admirable architect." His pictures, which are scarce, are generally remarkable for correctness of drawing, but his colouring was thin and cold. Lombard, who was apupil of Mabuse (see 656), travelled as a young man in Germany and France, and visited Italy in the suite of Cardinal Pole, when he became acquainted with Vasari. On his return he opened a school at Liège.

Paolo Veronese(Veronese: 1528-1588).See under26.

A striking example of the old symbolical conception, according to which the adoration of the Magi—the tribute of the wise men from the East to the dawning star of Christianity—was represented as taking place in the ruins of an antique temple, signifying that Christianity was founded upon the ruins of Paganism. This picture was painted in 1573 for the church of San Silvestro in Venice, where it remained until 1835. It is mentioned in most of the guidebooks and descriptions of Venice. One of these published in 1792 says, in describing the church of San Silvestro: "Many are the pictures by Tintoretto, by scholars of Titian, by Palma Vecchio, etc.; but among them all the famous Adoration of the Magi by Paolo Veronese deserves especial attention." The picture has recently been covered with glass, an operation which is noteworthy on account of the great size of the pane required, 11 ft. 7 in. by 10 ft. 7 in. The pane had to be obtained in France.

Giorgione(Venetian: 1477-1510).

Giorgio[121]of Castelfranco, called Giorgione, George the Great,—a name given him, according to Vasari, "because of the gifts of his person and the greatness of his mind,"—is one of the most renowned of the old masters, and exercised a deeper influence upon the artists of his time than any other painter. He was the fellow-pupil with Titian of Bellini at Venice, and after executing works at his native place was employed in Venice. Here by way of exhibiting a specimen of his ability, he decorated the front of his house with frescoes. He was afterwards employed in conjunction with Titian there to decorate the façade of the Fondaco de' Tedeschi. These paintings have been destroyed by the sea-winds.[122]But what was moreoriginal in Giorgione's work was his small subject pictures. He was, says Pater, "the inventor ofgenre, of those easily movable pictures which serve for uses neither of devotion, nor of allegorical or historical teaching—little groups of real men and women, amid congruous furniture or landscape—morsels of actual life, conversation or music or play, refined upon or idealised, till they come to seem like glimpses of life from afar." Some of Bellini's late works are already of this kind; but they were a little too austere and sober in colour for the taste of the time. Carpaccio was full of brilliancy, fancy, and gaiety, but he painted few easel pictures. Giorgione brought to the new style all the resources of a poetical imagination, of a happy temper, and of supreme gifts as a colourist. He was, says Ruskin, one of "the seven supreme colourists."[123]The chief colour on his palette, it has been said, was sunlight. In the glowing colour with which he invested the human form "the sense of nudity is utterly lost, and there is no need nor desire of concealment any more, but his naked figures move among the trees like fiery pillars, and lie on the grass like flakes of sunshine" (Modern Painters, vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. i. ch. xiv. § 20). Giorgione, says Mr. Colvin, came to enrich Venetian painting further, with "a stronger sense of life and of the glory of the real world as distinguished from the solemn dreamland of the religious imagination. He had a power hitherto unknown of interpreting both the charm of merely human grace and distinction, and the natural joy of life in the golden sunlight among woods and meadows." Giorgione, by his originality and his exact correspondence with the spirit of the time, created a demand which other painters were forced to supply. His influence, says Morelli, is not only to be traced in the early work of Titian; it stands out broadly in the paintings of nearly all his Venetian contemporaries—Lotto, Palma, Pordenone, Bonifacio, Cariani, and many others, not to speak of his scholar, Sebastiano del Piombo. The surviving pictures which are undoubtedly by Giorgione's own hand are very few. This category hardly includes more than four,—the altar-piece at Castelfranco (see below), the so-called "Famiglia di Giorgione" (now identified as "Adrastus and Hypsipyle," in the Palazzo Giovanelli at Venice), the "Three Philosophers" (in the Belvedere at Vienna), and the lovely "Sleeping Venus," identified by Morelli, in the Dresden Gallery. Among pictures in a second and less certain category, may be mentioned the "Concert" in the Louvre (the "Venetian Pastoral" of Rossetti's sonnet), another "Concert" in the Pitti, the "Head of a Shepherd" at Hampton Court, and (more doubtfully) No. 1160 in this Gallery. The number of reputed Giorgiones is very large. His fame has been constantfrom his own day to ours, and as every gallery desired to have a Giorgione, the wish was freely gratified by dealers and cataloguers. Modern criticism has played havoc among most of these so-called Giorgiones;[124]but the Giorgionesque spirit remains—unmistakable and distinct—in many works. Such in this Gallery are Nos. 930, 1123, and 1173, ascribed by the director to "the School of Giorgione." It is a school, as we have seen, ofgenre. It "employs itself mainly with painted idylls, but, in the production of this pictorial poetry, exercises a wonderful tact in the selecting of such matter as lends itself most readily and entirely to pictorial form, to complete expression by drawing and colour. For although its productions are painted poems, they belong to a sort of poetry which tells itself without an articulated story." Vasari remarked that it was difficult to give Giorgione's representations an explanatory name. As Morelli has well pointed out, the genius of Titian was wholly dramatic; Giorgione was a lyric poet, who gives us at most dramatic lyrics. A picture by Giorgione or in his style "presents us with a kind of profoundly significant and animated instant, a mere gesture, a look, a smile perhaps—some brief and wholly concrete moment—into which, however, all the motives, all the interests and effects of a long history, have condensed themselves, and which seem to absorb past and future in an intense consciousness of the present. Such ideal instants the school of Giorgione selects, with its admirable tact, from that feverish, tumultuously coloured life of the old citizens of Venice—exquisite pauses in Time, in which, arrested thus, we seem to be spectators of all the fulness of existence, and which are like some consummate extract or quintessence of life." Pictures in the Giorgionesque spirit are, as it were, "musical intervals in human existence—filled with people with intent faces listening to music, to the sound of water, to time as it flies" (Pater: "The School of Giorgione,"Fortnightly Review, October 1877, reprinted in the third edition ofThe Renaissance). The landscapes of Giorgione have the same quality of quickened life. "Most painted landscapes leave little power to call up the actual physical sensations of the scenes themselves, but Giorgione's never fail to produce this effect; they speak directly to the sensations, making the beholder feel refreshed and soothed, as if actually reclining on the grass in the shade of the trees, with his mind free to muse on what delights it most. In so far as poetry may be compared to painting, Giorgione's feeling for landscape suggests Keats" (Mary Logan:Guide to the Italian Pictures at Hampton Court, p. 13).Giorgione's pictures may be described as showing us golden moments of a golden age. His life, as told by Vasari and Ridolfi, corresponds with this ideal, which also was in exact accordance with the spirit of the times. Many readers will remember that it is with a mention of Giorgione that Ruskin prefaces his noble description of Venice in the days of the early Renaissance: "Born half-way between the mountains and the sea—that young George of Castelfranco—of the Brave Castle; stout George they called him, George of Georges, so goodly a boy he was—Giorgione. Have you ever thought what a world his eyes opened on—fair, searching eyes of youth? What a world of mighty life, from those mountain roots to the shore; of loveliest life, when he went down, yet so young, to the marble city, and became himself as a fiery heart to it?" (Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. ix. § 1). He spent his childhood at Castelfranco, "where the last crags of the Venetian Alps break down romantically with something of a park-like grace to the plain." "Giorgione's ideal of luxuriant pastoral scenery, the country of pleasant copses, glades and brooks, amid which his personages love to wander or recline with lute and pipe, was derived, no doubt, from these natural surroundings of his childhood." Close by his birthplace is Asolo, whence the wordasolare, "to disport in the open air; to amuse oneself at random" (see Browning'sAsolando). Giorgione "found his way early into a circle of notable persons—people of courtesy, and became initiated into those differences of personal type, manner, and even of dress, which are best understood there. Not far from his home lived Catherine of Cornaro, formerly Queen of Cyprus, and up in the towers which still remain, Tuzio Costanzo, the famouscondottiére—a picturesque remnant of mediæval manners, in a civilisation rapidly changing" (Pater). In Venice Giorgione's gracious bearing and varied accomplishments introduced him into congenial company. "He took no small delight," says Vasari, "in love-passages and in the sound of the lute, to which he was so cordially devoted, and which he practised so constantly, that he played and sang with the most exquisite perfection, insomuch that he was for this cause frequently invited to musical assemblies and festivals by the most distinguished personages." "It happened, about his thirty-fourth year, that in one of those parties at which he entertained his friends with music, he met a certain lady of whom he became greatly enamoured, and 'they rejoiced greatly,' says Vasari, 'the one and the other in their love.' And two quite different legends concerning it agree in this, that it was through this lady he came by his death; Ridolfi relating that, being robbed of her by one of his pupils, he died of grief at the double treason; Vasari, that she being secretly stricken of the plague, and he making his visits to her as usual, he took the sickness from her mortally, along with her kisses, and so briefly departed" (Pater).[125]

Giorgione's pictures may be described as showing us golden moments of a golden age. His life, as told by Vasari and Ridolfi, corresponds with this ideal, which also was in exact accordance with the spirit of the times. Many readers will remember that it is with a mention of Giorgione that Ruskin prefaces his noble description of Venice in the days of the early Renaissance: "Born half-way between the mountains and the sea—that young George of Castelfranco—of the Brave Castle; stout George they called him, George of Georges, so goodly a boy he was—Giorgione. Have you ever thought what a world his eyes opened on—fair, searching eyes of youth? What a world of mighty life, from those mountain roots to the shore; of loveliest life, when he went down, yet so young, to the marble city, and became himself as a fiery heart to it?" (Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. ix. § 1). He spent his childhood at Castelfranco, "where the last crags of the Venetian Alps break down romantically with something of a park-like grace to the plain." "Giorgione's ideal of luxuriant pastoral scenery, the country of pleasant copses, glades and brooks, amid which his personages love to wander or recline with lute and pipe, was derived, no doubt, from these natural surroundings of his childhood." Close by his birthplace is Asolo, whence the wordasolare, "to disport in the open air; to amuse oneself at random" (see Browning'sAsolando). Giorgione "found his way early into a circle of notable persons—people of courtesy, and became initiated into those differences of personal type, manner, and even of dress, which are best understood there. Not far from his home lived Catherine of Cornaro, formerly Queen of Cyprus, and up in the towers which still remain, Tuzio Costanzo, the famouscondottiére—a picturesque remnant of mediæval manners, in a civilisation rapidly changing" (Pater). In Venice Giorgione's gracious bearing and varied accomplishments introduced him into congenial company. "He took no small delight," says Vasari, "in love-passages and in the sound of the lute, to which he was so cordially devoted, and which he practised so constantly, that he played and sang with the most exquisite perfection, insomuch that he was for this cause frequently invited to musical assemblies and festivals by the most distinguished personages." "It happened, about his thirty-fourth year, that in one of those parties at which he entertained his friends with music, he met a certain lady of whom he became greatly enamoured, and 'they rejoiced greatly,' says Vasari, 'the one and the other in their love.' And two quite different legends concerning it agree in this, that it was through this lady he came by his death; Ridolfi relating that, being robbed of her by one of his pupils, he died of grief at the double treason; Vasari, that she being secretly stricken of the plague, and he making his visits to her as usual, he took the sickness from her mortally, along with her kisses, and so briefly departed" (Pater).[125]

This little panel is a study for the figure of San Liberale, the warrior-saint, in the altar-piece by Giorgione at Castelfranco—one of his acknowledged masterpieces, and according to Ruskin one of the two best pictures in the world.[126]Notice "the bronzed, burning flesh" of the knight—"the right Giorgione colour on his brow" characteristic of a race of seamen (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. v. ch. i. § 19). This "original little study in oil, with the delicately gleaming silver-grey armour is," says Mr. Pater, "one of the greatest treasures of the National Gallery, and in it, as in some other knightly personages attributed to Giorgione, people have supposed the likeness of his own presumably gracious presence." From a MS. memorandum on the back of the Castelfranco picture, it appears, however, that the warrior was said to represent Gaston de Foix. The only difference between this study and the picture is that in the altar-piece the warrior wears his helmet, while in the picture he is bareheaded. On this ground, and owing to the high finish of our picture, some have argued that it is not an original study for the picture, but a later copy from it (seee.g.Richter'sItalian Art in the National Gallery, p. 86). The argument does not seem conclusive. Do artists never make elaborate studies? and is not an artist as likely to vary his design as a copyist his model? Our picture, which was formerly in the collection of Benjamin West, P.R.A., was bequeathed to the National Gallery by Samuel Rogers.

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