290. A MAN'S PORTRAIT (dated 1432).

Gerrit Lundens(Dutch: 1622-1677).

This is a copy, on a greatly reduced scale, of the famous picture by Rembrandt (painted in 1642), now in the State-Museum at Amsterdam. It is of interest as showing the pristine condition of its great original, which in the earlier part of the eighteenth century was maltreated on all four sides, and thereby shorn of some of its figures in order to suit the dimensions of a room to which it was at that time removed. The picture had so darkened by time or neglect, that it came to be called "The Night Watch." The real subject is the march out of a company of the Amsterdam Musketeers from their Headquarters' Hall, under the command of their captain, Frans Banning Cocq, who is seen advancing in the centre and giving orders to his lieutenant. The principal figures are all portraits, and the names were written on the back of the picture. Our copy was painted for Cocq himself, and after many vicissitudes reached England at the beginning of the nineteenth century.

Jan van Eyck(Early Flemish: about 1390-1440).See 186.

A portrait of a friend of the artist, for it is inscribed "Leal Souvenir"—and a true recollection it obviously is, and was the more acceptable, one likes to think, for being so. "It is not the untrue imaginary Picture of a man and his work that I want, ... but the actual natural Likeness, true as the face itself, nay,truerin a sense, Which the Artist, if there is one, might help to give, and the Botcher never can" (Carlyle,Friedrich).

Lucas Cranach(German: 1472-1553).

Lucas Sunder (or possibly Müller), called Cranach from his native place, was one of the chief of the German painters,—after Dürer, the most famous artist of his day. He was the close friend of Martin Luther, whose features he several times represented. He may indeed be called the painter of the German Reformation, and in his laterworks the reformed doctrines receive symbolical illustration. The influences of the Renaissance were also at work in his art, as may be seen in his classical subjects. He was fond also of drawing birds and animals, and he often depicted hunting scenes. These he rendered with a realism of effect which won the admiration of his princely employers. It was, however, as a portrait-painter that he was chiefly employed. His engravings were also very numerous. In the lower left-hand corner of the picture before us, a crowned serpent will be noticed. This was the arms granted to him in 1508 by the Elector of Saxony, and it superseded his initials on all his pictures after that date. Of Cranach's earlier years, little is known. In 1504 he was established at Wittenburg as court-painter to Frederick the Wise, a post which he occupied under the next two Electors as well. He was a man of importance at Wittenburg, for he was twice mayor of the town, and carried on there, besides large art workshops, a book-printing business and an apothecary's shop. He was also employed in diplomatic missions, and when the Elector Frederick the Magnanimous was in captivity at Augsburg, Cranach was instrumental in procuring his release from the Emperor Charles V., whose portrait had in earlier years been taken by our painter.

"His female portraits have a sort of naïve grace that renders them very pleasing. There is one in the National Gallery, of a young girl in elaborate costume, which is entirely characteristic" (Bryan'sDictionary of Painters).

Antonio Pollajuolo(Florentine: 1429-1498).

This picture is expressly ascribed by Vasari to Antonio alone. On the other hand, Albertini, an earlier authority (1510), ascribes it to Piero, the younger brother of Antonio. It is known that many pictures were the joint production of both brothers—Antonio furnishing the design, and Piero putting it into colour. "In the 'St. Sebastian,'" says Sir F. Burton, "we probably have a work so produced; the severe and strenuous drawing of the elder brother, the sculptor andtoreutaby profession, is visible throughout; whether he shared in the painting, and if he did, to what extent, may remain an open question."Antonio Pollajuolo (the "poulterer,"—so called from his grandfather's trade) is an interesting man from two points of view: first, as an instance of the union of the arts in old times; for he was a working goldsmith and engraver as well as a sculptor and painter. He took to painting comparatively late in life, desiring, says Vasari, "for his labour a more enduring memory" than belongs to works of the goldsmith's art; "and his brother Piero being a painter, he joined himself to him for the purpose of learning the modes of proceeding in painting. He acquired a knowledge in the course of a fewmonths and became an excellent master." He became, indeed, an excellent draughtsman, but "neither harmony of colours nor grace was the strong point of this master" (Morelli'sItalian Masters in German Galleries, p. 351). In 1484 Antonio was invited to Rome by Pope Innocent VIII., and executed some important monumental works in St. Peter's. His brother died in 1496; Antonio, two years later. The two brothers were buried in S. Pietro in Vincoli, where busts of them may be seen. Antonio is interesting, in the second place, for the developments he introduced into Italian painting. He was one of the first of the Florentines to adopt an oil medium, and the first (says Vasari) who had recourse to the dissection of the dead subject. To him, therefore, Ruskin attributes a baleful influence. "The virtual beginner of artistic anatomy in Italy was a man called 'the poulterer'—Pollajuolo, a man of immense power, but on whom the curse of the Italian mind in this age was set at its deepest. See the horrible picture of St. Sebastian by him in our National Gallery." He was the beginner of those anatomical studies, continues Ruskin, which, pursued and established by later masters, "polluted their work with the science of the sepulchre, and degraded it with presumptuous and paltry technical skill. Foreshorten your Christ, and paint Him, if you can, half-putrefied—that is the scientific art of the Renaissance" (Ariadne Florentina, Appendix IV.).

Antonio Pollajuolo (the "poulterer,"—so called from his grandfather's trade) is an interesting man from two points of view: first, as an instance of the union of the arts in old times; for he was a working goldsmith and engraver as well as a sculptor and painter. He took to painting comparatively late in life, desiring, says Vasari, "for his labour a more enduring memory" than belongs to works of the goldsmith's art; "and his brother Piero being a painter, he joined himself to him for the purpose of learning the modes of proceeding in painting. He acquired a knowledge in the course of a fewmonths and became an excellent master." He became, indeed, an excellent draughtsman, but "neither harmony of colours nor grace was the strong point of this master" (Morelli'sItalian Masters in German Galleries, p. 351). In 1484 Antonio was invited to Rome by Pope Innocent VIII., and executed some important monumental works in St. Peter's. His brother died in 1496; Antonio, two years later. The two brothers were buried in S. Pietro in Vincoli, where busts of them may be seen. Antonio is interesting, in the second place, for the developments he introduced into Italian painting. He was one of the first of the Florentines to adopt an oil medium, and the first (says Vasari) who had recourse to the dissection of the dead subject. To him, therefore, Ruskin attributes a baleful influence. "The virtual beginner of artistic anatomy in Italy was a man called 'the poulterer'—Pollajuolo, a man of immense power, but on whom the curse of the Italian mind in this age was set at its deepest. See the horrible picture of St. Sebastian by him in our National Gallery." He was the beginner of those anatomical studies, continues Ruskin, which, pursued and established by later masters, "polluted their work with the science of the sepulchre, and degraded it with presumptuous and paltry technical skill. Foreshorten your Christ, and paint Him, if you can, half-putrefied—that is the scientific art of the Renaissance" (Ariadne Florentina, Appendix IV.).

How popular this "scientific art" was in its day may be seen from the following enthusiastic account which Vasari gives of this picture:—

A remarkable and admirably executed work, with numerous horses, many undraped figures, and singularly beautiful foreshortenings. This picture likewise contains the portrait of St. Sebastian himself, taken from the life—from the face of Gino di Ludovico Capponi, that is. The painting has been more extolled than any other ever executed by Antonio. He has evidently copied nature in this work to the utmost of his power, as we perceive more particularly in one of the archers, who, bending towards the earth, and resting his weapon against his breast, is employing all the force of a strong arm to prepare it for action; the veins are swelling, the muscles strained, and the man holds his breath as he applies all his strength to the effort. Nor is this the only figure executed with care; all the others are likewise well done, and in the diversity of their attitudes give clear proof of the artist's ability and of the labour bestowed by him on his work; all which was fully acknowledged by Antonio Pucci, who gave him three hundred scudi for the picture, declaring at the same time that he was barely paying him for the colours. This work was completed in the year 1475.

The dominant motive in the picture is, it will be seen, interest in the mechanism of the human body; notice especially the muscles of the executioners' legs and their efforts in stretching their bows. There are, however, other points worthy of notice. "The work is not less remarkable for the extent and variety of the landscape, and for the sense of aerial, as distinct from mere linear, perspective. Instead of standing up like a wall behind the figures it appears to recede to the horizon, as in nature. The study of the remains of classical art also is betrayed by the introduction of one of the Roman monumental arches in the background. The groups of soldiers and horses introduced at different distances further attest the variety of the designers' interests" (Monkhouse:In the National Gallery, 1894, p. 77).

Filippino Lippi(Florentine: 1457-1504).

Filippo Lippi, the younger (called "Filippino" to distinguish him from his father), was the son of Fra Filippo Lippi (see 666), and the nun, Lucrezia Buti. In his will, Filippino left an annual provision of corn, wine, oil, and other necessaries to his beloved mother Lucrezia, daughter of Francesco Buti. There is perhaps no other case in art-history of father and son attaining such nearly equal excellence as did the two Lippis. Owing to his father's death when Filippino was still a boy, the latter became the pupil of Botticelli, and so good a pupil was he that the critics are often in doubt, as explained in the footnote, to which master to ascribe pictures.[138]The genius of Filippino seems to have been the more gentle, that of Botticelli the more impetuous. The grace and charm of Filippino are nowhere better shown than in the "Vision of St. Bernard," in the church of the Badia at Florence—awork executed when he was about 23. A copy of it is in the Arundel Society's collection. The pictures in our Gallery which are indubitably by Filippino (namely, this picture and 927), show the same quiet beauty. Filippino was also employed upon important frescoes—in the Branacci Chapel, in Sta Maria Novella, and (at Rome) in Sta Maria Sopra Minerva; in these works he shows great skill in composition, appropriate action, and refined feeling. Filippino lived a busy and a blameless life; and the peace and beauty of his pictures were a reflection of his character. "Having been ever courteous, obliging, and friendly, Filippino was lamented," says Vasari, "by all who had known him, but more particularly by the youth of Florence, his native city; and when his funeral procession was passing through the streets, the shops were closed, as is done for the most part at the funerals of princes only."

This picture is identified by the arms of the Rucellai family below, as the one described by Vasari as "executed in the church of San Pancrazio for the chapel of the Rucellai family." After the suppression of the church, it was removed to the Palazzo Rucellai until it was purchased for the National Gallery.

Paolo Veronese(Veronese: 1528-1588).See 260.

This picture—"the most precious Paul Veronese," says Ruskin, "in the world"—is, according to another critic, "in itself a school of art, where every quality of the master is seen in perfection—his stately male figures, his beautiful women, his noble dog, and even his favourite monkey, his splendid architecture, gem-like colour, tones of gold and silver, sparkling and crisp touch, marvellous facility of hand and unrivalled power of composition."[139]The glowing colouris what strikes one first; and next the dignity, life, and ease of the principal persons represented. It is a splendid example too of what the historical pictures of the old masters were. The scene represented is that of the Macedonian conqueror, Alexander the Great, surrounded by his generals, receiving the submission of the family of the defeated Persian King Darius; but in his treatment of the scene, Veronese makes it a piece of contemporary Venetian life.

"It is a constant law that the greatest men, whether poets or historians, live entirely in their own age.... Dante paints Italy in the thirteenth century; Chaucer, England in the fourteenth; Masaccio, Florence in the fifteenth; Tintoret, Venice in the sixteenth;—all of them utterly regardless of anachronism and minor error of every kind, but getting always vital truth out of the vital present.... Tintoret and Shakespeare paint, both of them, simply Venetian and English nature as they saw it in their time, down to the root; and it does foralltime; but as for any care to cast themselves into the particular ways and tones of thought or custom of past time in their historical work, you will find it in neither of them, nor in any other perfectly great man that I know of" (Modern Painters, vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. vii. §§ 19, 20).

Thus here Veronese simply paints a group of living Venetians of his time,[140]dog,[141]monkey and all. Alexander, in red armour, is pointing to his friend Hephaestion, who stands a little behind on his left, and whom the captives had at first mistaken for the king. The queen-mother implores his pardon, but Alexander tells her that she has not erred, for that Hephaestion is another Alexander. The principal figures representing these different characters are, however, all contemporary portraits of the Pisani family,[142]it is said, for whom the picture was painted, and in choosing this scene of Alexander in one of his best moments Veronese was expressing his ideal of Venetian nobility and refinement. "The greatest portrait painters," says Ruskin,—"Titian, Veronese, Velazquez, and Raphael,—introduce the most trenchant, clear, and complete backgrounds. Indeed, the first three so rejoiced in quantity of accessories, that, when engaged on important portraits, they would paint large historical pictures merely by way of illustration or introduction. The priceless Veronese, 'The Triumph of Alexander,' was painted only to introduce portraits of the Pisani; and chiefly to set off to the best advantage the face of one fair girl" (Academy Notes, 1857, p. 37). So too the dresses to which the picture owes so much of its splendour, are the Venetian dresses of the period. It may be interesting to remark that something of the magnificence in the picture itself attaches also to the circumstances of its painting. Veronese having been detained by some accident at the Pisani Villa at Este, painted this work there, and left it behind him, sending word that he had left wherewithal to defray the expense of his entertainment. As the Pisani family ultimatelysold it to the National Gallery in 1857 for £13,650, Veronese's words were decidedly made good. It may be interesting to add that the negotiations for its purchase extended over nearly four years. Vast sums had been offered for the picture in former centuries, and within the previous thirty years sovereigns, public bodies, and individuals had all been competing for it.

Some of the fame of the picture is due to its splendid preservation. Rumohr speaks of it as "perhaps the only existing criterion by which to estimate the original colouring of Paul Veronese." "The lakes, for instance, in the crimson cuirass and dress of Alexander, which form such a magnificent feature in the composition, are," says Sir Edward Poynter, "as fresh as when first painted, as, indeed, is the whole picture." James Smetham, in one of his eloquent letters, refers to this work in 1858, in illustration of the enduring qualities of a painter's "flying touches"—touches "destined to live in hours and moments whenyouhave fled beyond all moments into the unembarrassed calm of eternity":—

Paul Veronese, three hundred years ago, painted that bright Alexander, with his handsome, flushed Venetian face, and that glowing uniform of the Venetian general which he wears; and before him, on their knees, he set those golden ladies, who are pleading in pink and violet; and there he is, and there are they, in our National Gallery; he, flushed and handsome—they, golden and suppliant as ever. It takes an oldish man to remember the comet of 1811. Who remembers Paul Veronese, nine generations since? But not a tint of his thoughts is unfixed, they beam along the walls as fresh as ever. Saint Nicholas stoops to the Angelic Coronation (26), and the solemn fiddling of the Marriage at Cana is heard along the silent galleries of the Louvre. ("Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter")—yes, and will be so when you and I have cleaned our last palette, and "in the darkness over us, the four-handed mole shall scrape."

Quentin Metsys(Flemish: 1460-1530).

Metsys—whose name appears also in the forms Matsys, Massys, and Messys—was the first of the great Antwerp painters and the last who remained faithful to the traditions of the early Flemish school. The gold background here recalls the earliest Flemish pictures in the Gallery. "He retained," says Sir F. Burton, "the technical method introduced by the Van Eycks, but with a softer and broader handling, and with a wonderfully subtle modelling which gave perfect relief androunding without dark shadows." Among the most important monuments of his skill are the large altar-pieces in the public galleries of Brussels and Antwerp respectively. There are in other galleries pictures similar to the two figures here before us. Metsys was also fond of depicting merchants or money-changers counting their gains—a subject imitated by Marinus van Romerswael (see 944). Metsys was a native of Antwerp, and a person of consequence in his native town. A romantic legend was formerly associated with his name. He was, it is said, a locksmith, but became a painter to obtain the consent of his wife's father to his marriage. Hence the inscription—connubalis amor de mulcibre fecit Apellem. But this story, it now appears, belongs to another Metsys, of Louvain. Our painter was twice married. Portraits of himself and his second wife are in the Uffizi at Florence.

These figures are remarkable for their serenity and dignity. Characteristic also is the care lavished on the jewellery and edgings. The figure of our Saviour somewhat resembles the "Salvator Mundi" of Antonella da Messina (673)—the Italian painter who introduced the Flemish influence to his country.

Florentine School (15th Century).

See also(p. xix)

The authorship of this picture and of No. 781, which must be by the same hand, is one of the unsolved problems of art criticism. It has at different times been ascribed to Domenico Ghirlandajo, to Antonio Pollajuolo, to the school of Piero Pollajuolo, to Verrocchio, and to an unknown master in the school of the last-mentioned painter. Sir F. Burton said, "If not by Verrocchio, it must be the work of one of his most distinguished pupils." Sir Edward Poynter says, "This picture has all the characteristics of Andrea del Verrocchio's best work, and is probably by that painter; but the small number of works that can with certainty be ascribed to him renders the attribution uncertain." Andrea del Verrocchio (1435-1488) was the sculptor of the celebrated equestrian statue of Bartolommeo Colleoni at Venice, than which, says Ruskin, "I do not believe that there is a more glorious work of sculpture existing in the world" (Stones of Venice, vol. iii. ch.I, § 22). As a painter Verrocchio was for a time the master of Leonardo da Vinci, who painted the figure of an angel in Verrocchio's "Baptism of Christ" (in the Florentine Academy). "This figure," says Vasari (ii. 255), "was so much superior to the other parts of the picture that, perceiving this, Verrocchio resolved never again to take pencil in hand." Whether this be so or not, Verrocchio left an enduring markon the art of his time. "He delighted to paint theputto—the infant boy who is just beginning to rejoice in the use of his limbs—and with such a charm did he invest his creations of this kind, whether in sculpture or in painting, that," says Dr. Meyer, "it is not too much to say that he was the creator of that child-type which is so universal in the Italian art of theCinque-cento." "Verrocchio," says E. Müntz, "is the plastic artist, deeply enamoured of form, delighting in hollowing it out, in fining it down; he has none of the literary temperament of a Donatello, a Mantegna, masters who in order to give expression to the passions that stir them, to realise their ideal, need a vast theatre, numerous actors, dramatic subjects. There is nomise-en-scène, no searching after recondite ideas, with Verrocchio. Most suggestive in spirit, he sowed more than he reaped, and produced more pupils than masterpieces. All there is of feminine, one might almost say effeminate, in Leonardo's art, the delicacy, themorbidezza, the suavity, appear, though often merely in embryo, in the work of Verrocchio" (Leonardo da Vinci, i. 23, 25). The one undoubted picture by Verrocchio is "The Baptism" above referred to. In the St. George's Museum at Sheffield there is a "Madonna Adoring" which has a marked affinity (especially in the Virgin's expression and attitude, and in her peculiar head-dress) to our picture. Ruskin, who purchased it in Venice from the Manfrini collection, ascribed it unhesitatingly to Verrocchio, and called it "a picture of extreme value, which teaches all I want my pupils to learn of art." For an excellent reproduction of it, and for a full discussion both of it and of our picture, the reader should consult Mr. W. White'sPrinciples of Art as illustrated in the Ruskin Museum(pp. 62-83). The angel on the left of this picture resembles the angel in the "Baptism," and the drawing of a head in the Uffizi at Florence by Verrocchio is a study for an angel. Dr. Richter, however, thinks the picture must be ascribed to a pupil of Verrocchio only, for "the artist of the Colleoni monument could not have been guilty of the abnormal extension given to the lower part of the Virgin's body. What should we have to say of the proportions of this figure if she were to rise from her seat?" (Italian Art in the National Gallery, p. 33). Morelli, on the other hand, on the strength of various technical details, ascribes the picture to Pollajuolo (Italian Masters in German Galleries, pp. 353-355).

This picture, whatever may be its authorship, is certainly one of the most beautiful examples of Florentine art in the second half of the fifteenth century. Of a very individual and fascinating type are the faces of the two angels; their sweet and childlike loveliness will haunt the memory of any visitor who has once studied them. Mr. Monkhouse suggests that they may represent some member of the Medici family: "It is at all events evident that the originals of these beautiful children, however elevated by the refinement of the artist,belonged to no common stock. Nor can there be any doubt that this extremely elegant type, dainty to a degree unknown before, has a close affinity to the ideal of Leonardo da Vinci." The angels' hands in our picture are also very beautiful, though there is a touch of awkward affectation in the disjointed bend of the little finger in the angel on the left. The spectator will notice further the beautiful embroidery, and the jewelled brooches worn both by this angel and by the Madonna. The child holds a raspberry in one hand, some seeds of which he puts to his lips. The expression of the mother is very beautiful in its serene happiness of worship. Her head-dress is peculiar. "The light golden hair is entirely off the forehead, with but little showing, and is formed into a kind of pad, enclosed in an ornamental veil of thin material, which being tied round upon the top of the head, lightly forms a triangular curved peak upon the forehead, and hangs down gracefully on either shoulder." The entire picture is, as Kugler says, "a work of the most attractive character, from its careful finish, its rich and transparent colour, and its great beauty of expression."

Il Romanino(Brescian: about 1485-1566).

Girolamo Romani was a native of Brescia and the son of a painter; his family belonged originally to the small town of Romano, in the province of Bergamo: hence his name, "Romanino." Like Moretto (whose rival he was), he was little known outside the district of Brescia; but he studied at Venice, where he took Giorgione for his pattern. His best works are remarkable for a brilliant golden colouring, which is unfortunately not conspicuous in this picture. It pervades the fine altar-piece of the "Madonna Enthroned" in S. Francesco at Brescia. Another splendid altar-piece is to be seen in the museum at Padua. Among Romanino's frescoes may be mentioned the lively scenes he executed for the Castle of Malpaga. Copies of these are in the Arundel Society's collection.

Of this altar-piece—painted in 1525 for the church of St. Alessandro at Brescia—Mr. Pater gives the following description: "Alessandro, patron of the church, one of the many youthful patrician converts Italy reveres from the ranks of the Roman army, stands on one side, with ample crimson banner superbly furled about his lustrous black armour; and on theother—St. Jerome, Romanino's own namesake—neither more nor less than the familiar, self-tormenting anchorite.... But the loveliest subjects are in the corners above—Gaudioso, Bishop of Brescia, above St. Jerome; above Alessandro, St. Filippo Benizzi, meek founder of the order of Servites to which that church at Brescia belonged, with his lily, and in the right hand a book, and what a book!... If you wish to see what can be made of the leaves, the vellum covers of a book, observe that in St. Philip's hands. The metre? the contents? you ask: What may they be? and whence did it come?—Out of embalmed sacristy, or antique coffin of some early Brescian martyr, or, through that bright space of blue Italian sky, from the hands of an angel, like his Annunciation lily, or the book received in the Apocalypse by John the Divine? It is one of those old saints, Gaudioso (at home in every church of Brescia), who looks out with full face from the opposite corner of the altar-piece, from a background which, though it might be the new heaven over a new earth, is in truth only the proper, breathable air of Italy. As we see him here, Saint Gaudioso is one of the more exquisite treasures of our National Gallery. It was thus that, at the magic touch of Romanino's art, the dim, early, hunted-down Brescian church of the primitive centuries, crushed into the dust, it might seem, was 'brought to her king,' out of those old dark crypts, 'in raiment of needlework'—the delicate, richly-folded, pontifical white vestments, the mitre and staff and gloves, and rich jewelled cope, blue or green.[143]The face, of remarkable beauty, after a type which all feel, though it is actually rare in art, is probably a portrait of some distinguished churchman of Romanino's own day: a second Gaudioso, perhaps, setting that later Brescian church to rights after the terrible French occupation in the painter's own time, as his saintly predecessor, the Gaudioso of the earlier century here commemorated, had done after the invasion of the Goths. The eloquent eyes are open upon some glorious vision. 'He hath made us kings and priests!' they seem to say for him, as the clean, sensitive lips might do so eloquently. Beauty and holiness had 'kissed each other,' as in Borgognone's imperial deacons at the Certosa. At theRenaissance the world might seem to have parted them again. But here certainly, once more, Catholicism and the Renaissance, religion and culture, holiness and beauty, might seem reconciled, by one who had conceived neither after any feeble way, in a gifted person. Here at least, by the skill of Romanino's hand, the obscure martyr of the crypts shines as a saint of the later Renaissance, with a sanctity of which the elegant world itself would hardly escape the fascination, and which reminds one how the great Apostle St. Paul has made courtesy part of the content of the Divine charity itself. A Rubens in Italy!—so Romanino has been called. In this gracious presence we might think that, like Rubens also, he had been a courtier" ("Art Notes in North Italy" inNew Review, November 1890).

Ambrogio Borgognone(Lombard: about 1455-1523).

Ambrogio Borgognone, called also Ambrogio da Fossano, the latter being the name of a town in Piedmont, was born at Milan. "It may have been Ambrogio's grandfather or great-grandfather who left the little Piedmontese town to settle at Milan; one of his ancestors had probably lived some time in Flanders (then called Borgogna by the Italians) and had thus received the surname of Borgognone. Ambrogio, who holds the same central place in the Milanese School of painting as Perugino in that of Perugia, and Francia in that of Bologna, was, according to my view, a pupil of Vincenzo Foppa the elder, and the real master of Bernardino Luini, the Raphael of the Milanese school. He remains in all his works a thorough Lombard" (Morelli'sGerman Galleries, p. 419). The tenderness of feeling in this "Perugino of the Lombard School" is very marked. "The presentment of divine or holy personages, in calm serenity or in resigned suffering, accorded best," says Burton, "with his temperament. Even his colouring partakes of the pervading sentiment; the grey pallor of his heads is only modified, now and then, by the reddened eyelids of sorrow. In the Accademia at Pavia is a small picture, representing Christ bearing his cross, and followed by some Carthusian Brothers, which in simple pathos and deep religious meaning is perhaps without its equal in art." Ambrogio was distinguished as an architect no less than as a painter, and was employed on the façade of the Certosa of Pavia—a view of which building figures in the background of a picture by Ambrogio in our gallery (1410).

For St. Catherine of Alexandria, see under 693; for St. Catherine of Siena, under 249. Each of them was proclaimed the spouse of Christ for the love they bore him.And Borgognone here places them on either side of the Madonna's throne. "Their names are inscribed on the haloes which surround their heads. The Madonna—an exquisite example of the earlier and purer Lombard type—sits enthroned on a raised seat, which may be compared with that of the Blenheim Madonna and of many other Virgins in our collection. The Child, erect on her knees and short-coated after the earlier wont, is in the very act of placing the ring of His mystic wedding on the timorous hand of St. Catherine of Alexandria. The Saint herself, as the earlier and more famous of the two, stands at the right hand of Our Lady. In her left she grasps the palm of martyrdom. As Princess of Egypt the meek and beautiful lady wears a regal crown. Her long wavy hair, of the type which we usually regard as Leonardesque, but which Leonardo really acquired in Lombardy, is characteristic of this saint, even in pictures of other schools (cf.the Umbrian, No. 646). At her feet lies the wheel, with its conventional hooked spikes, which was the instrument of her torture. On the Madonna's left stands St. Catherine of Siena in her Dominican robes. Her face is pure saintliness—a marvel of beauty; her left hand holds the ascetic white lily of the Dominican order; her right the Madonna takes with a gentle, and one might almost say consolatory gesture. Our Lady seems to comfort her for her less favoured position; and if you look close you will see that the infant Saviour holds in His left hand a second ring, which He extends with childish grace towards the Nun of Siena" (Grant Allen inPall Mall Magazine, June-December 1895, p. 66).

Moretto(Brescian: 1498-1555).

In examples of the Brescian, as of the Veronese School, the National Gallery is very rich. "The dialect of the Brescians is very like that of their neighbours of Bergamo, but not so harsh and rugged (see 1203): the character of the people, too, is more lively and frank, more given to show and swagger (Bresciani spacca-cantoni). The Brescians, wedged in between the Veronese and Bergamese, unite, to some extent, the manly energy of the latter with the greater vivacity and pliancy of the former" (Morelli). The foundation of the Brescian School was laid by Vincenzo Foppa (see 729), whose pupil Il Moretto was. It is characteristic of the wide dispersion of the art gift in Italy that this Alessandro Bonvicino, nicknamed "Il Moretto,"—one of thegreatest of portrait painters,—should have belonged entirely to a provincial city. He was born and educated at Brescia, where his father was a merchant; and with the exception of a very few pictures, he painted only for his native town and the province of Brescia, and it is there that nearly the whole work of his life is still to be found. Indeed he was little known beyond the frontiers of the Brescian district, and it is only during the last half century or so that his reputation has arisen. Moretto never studied in Venice; his development and genius are native, and he rivalled Titian himself in the stateliness and dignity of his figures. His altar-pieces are distinguished further by much gravity of feeling and sincerity of unostentatious religious feeling. The picture in our own gallery (625) is a good example. Others are to be found in the churches of his native town and in some foreign galleries. Among the best are the "Coronation of the Virgin" in SS. Nazzaro e Celso, Brescia; "St. Margaret" in S. Francesco, Brescia; "The Feast of the Pharisee," S. Maria della Pietà, Venice; "Madonna and Child," Städel Institute, Frankfort; and "S. Giustina," Belvedere, Vienna. His nickname of "the Blackamoor" is particularly inappropriate to his style, which is distinguished for its silvery tones, "a cool, tender, and harmonious scale of colour which has a peculiar charm, and is entirely his own" (Layard, ii. 577). This harmony of colour, which became characteristic of the Brescian School, may be observed also in his rival, Romanino. Moretto is distinguished not more for his religious subjects than for his portraits, of which we possess two very beautiful specimens in the picture now before us, and in No. 1025. He was the master of another great portrait-painter, Moroni of Bergamo (see 697), and works of the two are often confused. In addition to the charm of his harmonious colouring, Moretto's portraits are remarkable for the dignity he imparts to his subjects. "Moretto," says Morelli, "shows himself the higher artist of the two; his conception of a subject and his drawing are nobler and more elegant than those of his matter-of-fact scholar; but these intellectual qualities, which are not perceptible to every eye, do not always suffice to distinguish his weaker works from Moroni's best. In such cases the only means we have of determining the authorship is an exact and minute examination. The shape and expression of the hand, for instance, are very different in Moroni from what they are in Moretto. The hands of the latter, with pointed fingers, suggestive of the academy, are never so true to nature as those which Moroni can make when he chooses in drawing from life. Moretto's flesh-colours, too, have a delicate silver tone, while Moroni's, with their earth-like tints, are more realistic" (German Galleries, pp. 47-50, 169-171, 396-403).[144]

This painter is conspicuous, says Lanzi (History of Paintingin Italy, Bohn's edition 1847, ii. 181), for his "skill in imitating every kind of velvet, satin, or other cloth, either of gold or silver." His portraits are remarkable, as is noticed under 1025, for their poetic insight. He is not content with producing an obvious likeness in the flesh; he strives at portraying or suggesting some spiritual idea in all his sitters. These characteristics are conspicuous in the present picture. Thus notice, first, the splendid brocades. Then secondly, how the painter tells you not only that this was what the sitter looked like, but what was his character. It is clearly the portrait of some one who combined with an important position the tastes of adilettante, and who had an aspiring soul. On his cap is a label inscribed ιου λιαν ποθω, which being literally interpreted means "Alas, I desire too much!"—an inscription which accords with the yearning upward gaze and the pose selected by the painter. But the motto has also a punning reference. Reading the two first words as one, it becomes ιουλιαν ποθω, "I desire Julia," or with a further pun on the last word, "Julia Potho." We thus obtain a clue to the identity of the sitter. The Potho or Pozzo family was well known at the time in Brescia. Francesco dal Pozzo, 3rd Marquis of Ponderano (born 1494), had as his first-born a daughter Julia. She became the wife of Giacomo Gromo, Signor di Ternengo, who was a man of official status in Biella in 1539, having to do with the fiscal arrangements of the district. This may be indicated in our picture by the two coins of bronze and gold, and the die or seal. The sandalled foot on the table (an antique lamp?) may indicate his love of antiquities. "It is to be hoped, if our picture be a portrait of Monsignor Giacomo Gromo di Ternengo, that he had not long to wait before he became the devoted husband of Julia Potho, for whom he so yearned, and whose favour he wore in his hat." (W. Fred Dickes inAthenæum, June 3 and Aug. 26, 1893).[145]

Cima da Conegliano(Venetian: 1460-1518).

Some miles north of Venice, in the Friuli, rises the town of Conegliano, which, from its isolated and castled hill, overlooks the plain of Treviso. Cima, whose real name was Giovanni Battista, takes his title in art-history from the "cima," or castled "height," of his native place—a picturesque feature which he introduced, wherever it was at all possible, into his pictures. We see these towers of Conegliano in the present picture; and a window is opened in the large composition, No. 816, in order to give us a glimpse of a similar height. In his love of his native landscape is one of the principal charms of Cima's work. "Morning is his favourite time—morning among the hills; and then and there the painter enjoyed more happiness than any twilight gondola could give him. In our National Gallery are two examples of the Conegliano scenery, but the brilliant daylight that so distinguishes Cima is strangely absent" (Gilbert'sLandscape in Art, p. 329). One of his best works is the "St. John the Baptist" in the church of S. Maria dell' Orto, Venice. "He is here painting," says Ruskin, "his name-saint; the whole picture full of peace and intense faith and hope, and deep joy in light of sky and fruit and flower and weed of earth. The picture was painted for the church of Our Lady of the Garden, and it is full of simple flowers, and has the wild strawberry of Cima's native mountains gleaming through the grass.... He has given us the oak, the fig, the beautiful 'Erba della Madonna' on the wall, precisely such a bunch of it as may be seen growing at this day on the marble steps of that very church; ivy, and other creepers, and a strawberry plant in the foreground, with a blossom, and a berry just set, and one half-ripe, and one ripe, all patiently and innocently painted from the real thing, and therefore most divine.... His own Alps are in the distance, and he shall teach us how to paint wild flowers, and how to think of them" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. i. ch. vii. § 9; vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. x. § 5; OxfordLectures on Art, § 150;Catalogue of the Educational Series, p. 27). The charming landscape and fine colourof Cima are accompanied by earnestness of religious feeling, and a sense of peace and quiet, unmixed with any ascetism. "The painter," says Ruskin, of another of his pictures, "does not desire the excitement of rapid movement, nor even the passion of beautiful light. But he hates darkness as he does death. He paints noble human creatures simply in clear daylight; not in rapture, nor yet in agony. The unexciting colour will not at first delight you; but its charm will never fail, and you will find that you never return to it but with a sense of relief and of peace.... Cima is not supreme in any artistic quality, but good and praiseworthy in all" (Lectures on Landscape, § 60;Guide to the Academy at Venice, p. 14). Cima is usually reckoned among the disciples of Giovanni Bellini, and is believed at one time to have superintended the workshop of that master.

In the background, on the right, are the towers of Conegliano; on the left, the neighbouring castle of Colalto. There is something very pretty in the way in which the earlier Venetian masters placed their Holy Families in their own fields and amongst their own mountains (comparee.g.the Madonna in the Meadow, No. 599), thus imagining the Madonna and her child not as a far-away sanctity in the sky, but as an actual presence nigh unto them, at their very doors.[146]"There has probably not been an innocent cottage-home throughout the length and breadth of Europe during the whole period of vital Christianity, in which the imagined presence of the Madonna has not given sanctity to the humblest duties, and comfort to the sorest trials of the lives of women; and every brightest and loftiest achievement of the arts and strength of manhood has been the fulfilment of the assured prophecy of the poor Israelite maiden, 'He that is mighty hath magnified me, and holy is his name'" (Fors Clavigera, 1874, p. 105).

J. M. W. Turner, R.A.(British: 1775-1851).

For the circumstances under which this picture by Turner and the "Dido Building Carthage" (498) hang not in the Turner Gallery but beside the Claudes, see under 12.

This picture was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1807, and belongs therefore to Turner's first period, which wasdistinguished by "subdued colour and perpetual reference to precedent in composition." This effect of sunrise in a mist was a favourite one with Dutch painters, and Turner, when he went to the sea-shore, painted it in the Dutch manner. A time was to come when he would paint the sun rising no longer in a mist. Yet from the first, the bent of his own mind was visible in his work. He paints no such ideal futilities as are pointed out above in Claude's picture, but fishermen engaged in their daily toil. One of his father's best friends was a fishmonger, whom he often visited: "which gives us a friendly turn of mind towards herring-fishing, whaling, Calais poissardes, and many other of our choicest subjects in afterlife." He was the painter not of "pastoral indolence or classic pride, but of the labour of men, by sea and land" (Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. ix.).

J. M. W. Turner, R.A.(British: 1775-1851).

From the technical point of view this is not one of Turner's best pictures. It was exhibited in 1815, and belongs therefore to his first period, when he had still not completely exorcised "the brown demon." The picture, says Ruskin, "is quite unworthy of Turner as a colourist," "his eye for colour unaccountably fails him,"[147]and "the foreground is heavy and evidently paint, if we compare it with genuine passages of Claude's sunshine" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. i. ch. vii. § 45, sec. ii. ch. i. § 13, ch. ii. § 18).

But there is a noble idea in the picture. Dido, Queen of Carthage, surrounded by her people, and with plans and papers about her, is superintending the building of the city which was to become the great maritime power of the ancient world. "The principal object in the foreground (on the left) is a group of children sailing toy boats. The exquisite choice of this incident, as expressive of the ruling passion which was to be the source of future greatness, in preference to the tumult of busy stone-masons or arming soldiers, is quite as appreciable when it is told as when it is seen,—it has nothing to do withthe technicalities of painting; a scratch of the pen would have conveyed the idea and spoken to the intellect as much as the elaborate realisations of colour. Such a thought as this is something far above all art; it is epic poetry of the highest order" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. i. sec. i. ch. vii. § 2).

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