709. MADONNA AND CHILD.

Unknown[171](Early Flemish: 15th century).

The Madonna offers Christ an apple—symbol of the forbidden fruit, and thus of the sin in the world which he came to remove.

Unknown(Flemish School; 15th-16th century).

See also(p. xx)

"In Flemish pictures the varnish was incorporated with the surface colours, and cannot be removed without destroying at the same time the very fabric of the work. For this reason all attempts to, what is called,restore, or clean pictures of the Flemish School, result only in the destruction of the work, and by this means many fine pictures have, for all practical purposes, perished.... (This picture) is a lamentable example" (Conway'sEarly Flemish Artists, p. 119).

Unknown[172](Early Flemish: 15th century).

Roger van der Weyden(Flemish: 1400-1464).See 664.

"It was a common custom with Roger's followers to copy single heads out of their master's large groups. Such single heads always have gold backgrounds, usually dotted over with little black dashes" (Conway'sEarly Flemish Artists, p. 275). These companion panels are perhaps instances, and the heads selected for reproduction are typical of the overstrained pathos of this school. Notice how prominently the tears in the sorrowing mother, and the blood and tears in the "Ecco Homo" are made to stand out.

Jan Mostaert(Early Dutch: 1474-1555).

See also(p. xx)

Mostaert, a native of Haarlem, was for eighteen years painter to Margaret of Austria, Regent of the Netherlands. A picture ascribed to him is preserved in the church of Notre Dame at Bruges, but no known pictures bear his signature. A large number of his works perished in the great fire at Haarlem in 1571.

One of the few specimens in the Gallery of the first period of Dutch art, when it was still following the traditions of the Early Flemish School.

Cornelis Engelbertsz(Dutch: 1468-1533).

See also(p. xx)

Engelbertsz was one of the earliest oil painters at Leyden, and is said to have been the master of Lucas of Leyden. Most of his important religious works were destroyed by the Dutch iconoclasts of the sixteenth century.

Joachim Patinir(Early Flemish: died 1524).

See also(p. xx)

Patinir (born at Dinant, but settled in Antwerp) was styled by Albert Dürer, who stayed with him when in Antwerp, drew his portrait and attended his wedding, "Joachim the good landscape painter." What distinguishes his landscape is its greater expanse, as compared with earlier works. The Flemish painters preceding him were mostly content with the narrow domestic scenery of their own Maas country. But Patinir's pictures "embrace miles of country, and open on every side.... Some far-away cottage by the river-side, some hamlet nestling against a remote hill-slope, some castle on a craggy peak, blue against the transparent sky—such objects were a joy to him.... Moreover, with Patinir the fantastic element was of much importance. He wished his landscapes to be romantic.... He would have precipitous rocks.... His river must pass through gorges or under natural archways; his skies must be full of moving clouds; his wide districts of country must present contrasts of rocky mountain, water, and fertile plains.... He saw also the grandeur of wild scenery, and strove, though not with perfect success, to bring that into his pictures, showing thereby the possession of a foretaste of that delight in nature for her own sake, the full enjoyment of which has been reserved for the people of our own century" (Conway'sEarly Flemish Artists, pp. 299, 300). "His figures," says Sir F. Burton, "whileretaining old Netherlandish characteristics, are good, expressive, and even noble in conception." Most of the Galleries contain pictures by Patinir. Madrid is particularly rich in them.

"A high authority on early Flemish art, M. Henri Hymans, has stated that the figures in the 'Crucifixion' given to Joachim Patinir, and of which the landscape is undoubtedly his, are by the painter's friend, Quentin Matsys. Unquestionably these figures differ much in colour and execution from those contained in such other examples of Patinir in the National Gallery as the 'Nun' (945), or 'The Visit of the Virgin to St. Elizabeth' (1082)" (Claude Phillips in theAcademy, September 28, 1889).

Joachim Patinir(Early Flemish: died 1524).See 715.

One of the earliest attempts in painting to tell the beautiful legend of Christopher (the Christ bearer), the hermit ferryman, who, "having sustained others in their chief earthly trials, afterwards had Christ for companion of his own." The best account of the legend of St. Christopher is to be found in Miss Alexander'sRoadside Songs of Tuscany, edited by Ruskin, illustrated with "the most beautiful and true designs that have ever yet been made out of all the multitude by which alike the best spiritual and worldly power of Art have commended to Christendom its noblest monastic legend."

Joachim Patinir(Early Flemish: died 1524).See 715.

The evangelist on the island of Patmos, writing the revelations out of an ink-horn held by an eagle, which an imp is attempting to steal. In the sky above are the revelations themselves: "And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.... And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads" (Revelation xii. 1, 3).

Ascribed to Hendrik Bles(Flemish: about 1480-1550).

Bles, called by the Italians "Civetta" (the owl), on account of the owl which he often adopted as his monogram, was an imitator of Patinir (see 715). Van Mander says that his nickname was Met de Bles (with the forelock), but as he signs himself Henricus Blessius, it is probable that Bles was his real name.

Ascribed to Hendrik Bles(See last picture).

For the subject see No. 654.

Jan van Schorel(Dutch: 1495-1562).

Schorel, so called from his birthplace, belongs to the second period of Dutch art, and was one of the most successful of the "Italianisers"; but neither of these pictures is a good or indeed a certain specimen. He was a poet and musician as well as a painter, and studied under Albert Dürer at Nuremberg. He afterwards visited Venice, whence he went to Jerusalem, returning by Rhodes to Rome. In 1522 he was made by his countryman, Pope Adrian VI., Keeper of the Art Collection of the Vatican. He afterwards returned to Utrecht, where he died a Canon of St. Mary's. He was the master of Anthony Mor.

Unknown(German: 15th-16th century).

Formerly ascribed to Sigmund Holbein (1465-1540). A German housewife—with a characteristic mixture about her of sentimentality (for she holds a forget-me-not in her hand) and of austerity (for there is something forbidding, surely, in these terribly angular fingers of hers).

Carlo Crivelli(Venetian: painted 1468-1493).See 602.

Full of the dainty detail which characterises the Venetian pictures of this time. Notice the fruit placed everywhereabout the Virgin's throne; and above, the vases of flowers and the swallow—hence the name of the picture, "Madonna della Rondine." Notice also the beautiful dress patterns and the rich hanging brocades. The Virgin's dress is a lovely silk brocade, of a design which might well be copied for muslins and curtains. In this picture, however, "Crivelli's gift of characterisation has been overpowered by his interest in the accessories. St. Jerome, indeed, is a noble and dignified figure, but who could believe in the St. Sebastian? As a study of costume the figure is interesting, reproducing every detail with minute fidelity, and bringing before us the model of a well-dressed young man of Crivelli's time. But the features are of an ignoble type, and the attitude is suggestive only of self-conscious vanity. Instead of a devout attendant at the throne, we seem to get a dandy posing for the admiration of the spectator." The scenes of the predella, on the other hand, are full of animation, of feeling, and of force (Rushforth'sCrivelli, p. 72). The picture is signed by Carolus CrivellusMiles, so that it is one of his later works. In the centre of the step is the escutcheon of the Odoni family, for whose chapel in the church of the Franciscans at Matelica the picture was painted.

Giovanni Bellini(Venetian: 1426-1516).See 189.

An early work of the master, painted probably about 1459 (nearly half a century earlier than the Doge's portrait, 189), but interesting as showing the advance made by him in landscape. "We see for the first time an attempt to render a particular effect of light, the first twilight picture with clouds rosy with the lingering gleams of sunset, and light shining from the sky on hill and town—the first in which a head is seen in shadow against a brilliant sky" (Monkhouse:The Italian Pre-Raphaelites, p. 73). "In the figures of the Apostles, especially in the one on the left, the repose of sleep is expressed in so admirable and convincing a manner, that it would be difficult to name a second painter of thequattro-centowho could compare with Bellini in this respect" (Richter). Nor is the advance one in the technique of art only. The picture is one of the earliest in which art made use of what Ruskin calls "the pathetic fallacy"—in which,that is, art represents nature as sympathising with human emotion. Bellini "called in nature," says Mr. Hodgson, R.A. (Magazine of Art, 1886, p 215), "to sympathise with human sorrows, or rather he was the first to point out that nature takes her colouring and her aspects from the conditions of our passions and sentiments.[173]That sombre sky, with its gleam along the horizon, that long dark hill, the wild plain over which the traitor and his accomplices are stealing, have exactly the aspect which they would present to one who stood there knowing that a horrible treason was going to be perpetrated." Compare, for this "pathetic fallacy" in painting, Titian's "Noli me tangere" (No. 270). Bellini's picture should be compared with Mantegna's of the same subject in an adjoining room (1417). Mantegna seizes only the sublimity of the idea of the Agony, Bellini's penetrating sympathy renders its infinite pathos. Mantegna's picture is in some technical respects the more accomplished; "but in all that concerns the imaginative conception of the subject, in the harmonising of all the accessories to produce a single profound impression on the emotions, above all in the large and reposeful spaciousness of the composition, Bellini is surely the more to be admired" (Roger Fry:Giovanni Bellini, p. 22). Both pictures may be profitably compared with Correggio's of the same subject, in which we are introduced to a new order of ideas (See notes on No. 76).

Francesco Pesellino(Florentine: 1422-1457).

This accomplished master was called Pesellino to distinguish him from his grandfather Pesello, by whom he was brought up. He is "entitled to one of the highest places in the ranks of the Florentine School of the fifteenth century. His compositions are distinguished by their lively grace, and the beautiful and truthful expressions of the persons portrayed" (Kugler). In beauty of colour and dignity of design the work before us is his masterpiece. He was a pupil of Fra Filippo Lippi, and subsequently opened a workshop in Florence in partnership with a certain Piero di Lorenzo. He died at the early age of thirty-five, leaving a widow and several children in penury. Hisworks are very rare. Two compartments of a predella by him are in the Accademia at Florence, a fourth being in the Louvre. The collection of Morelli (now in the Public Gallery of Bergamo) contains three charming little pictures by him, which strongly recall the style of Fra Filippo (Morelli's account of the painter is in hisRoman Galleries, pp. 253-58). "In the Torrigiani Palace at Florence are two remarkable panels fromcassoni, there ascribed to Gozzoli, but by modern criticism more justly to Pesellino; they bear out Vasari's remark as to this painter's skill in delineating animals" (Burton).

This picture is perhaps the finest version extant of the conventional Italian representation of the mystery of the Trinity. The Son on a crucifix is supported by the Father, whilst the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove hovers over the head of the Son. The head of the First Person of the Trinity is a very majestic conception. "In this face, so full of beauty and power, of intensity and calm, as well as the careful modelling of the pathetic figure of Christ upon the cross, Pesellino touches heights which Lippi could not reach; but in the charming cherubim and seraphim with which the severity of the subject is softened and decorated, and in the beauty of the colour (though that has suffered much) we may recognise the influence of his master. We have only to compare this picture with the representations of the same subject by Landini (580a) and Orcagna (570) to show how the power to render the most august subjects had been increased by progress in technical accomplishment and the liberation of the artist's imagination, even when the elements and arrangements of the composition remained virtually unchanged from the traditional type" (Monkhouse,In the National Gallery, p. 62). The picture is referred to by Vasari: "At Pistoja is a work by Pesello, representing the Trinity, with figures of San Zeno and San Jacopo" (ii. 115). On the suppression of the religious congregation to whom the church of the Holy Trinity at Pistoja belonged, the picture was sold, and passed into the collection of Mr. Young Ottley. The side panels referred to by Vasari are still in private collections.

Beltraffio(Lombard: 1467-1516).

Giovanni Antonio Beltraffio came of a noble family in Milan (his epitaph is in the Brera) and filled public offices in his native town. He fell under the influence of Leonardo, and when that master settledat Milan, Beltraffio lodged in his house, and became his ardent disciple. "His most ambitious creation, where he lamentably fails, is the Louvre altar-piece, the redeeming features of which are the fine portraits of the Casio family, his friends and patrons. When he confined himself to portraiture he was often strikingly successful, and the older Milanese families still possess a number of ancestral portraits by him, some of which are of great charm. He seems to have become the pet artist of the society of his day, often painting the portraits of his friends in the guise of a St. Sebastian, or as Sta. Barbara. He accompanied Leonardo to Rome in 1514. Although not a great artist, and entirely lacking in imagination and dramatic power, he exhibits singular refinement. His cultured intellect enabled him to appreciate, and in a measure reflect, the fastidious spirit of his master. His works charm by their high finish, and by the absence of all vulgarity or display. His portraits do not reveal much penetration, and he never caught the subtleties of character or the intellectual qualities of his sitters" (Catalogue of the Burlington Fine Arts Club Exhibition, 1898, p. lviii.). His pictures are for the most part on a small scale. Good specimens are to be seen in the Morelli collection at Bergamo, and the Poldi-Pezzoli collection at Milan. To delineate the human figure on a large scale, or human passions, was not his forte; he succeeded better in expressing naïve innocence in children, and gentle grace in the Mother of God, or devoted women (Morelli'sGerman Galleries, pp. 425-48;Roman Galleries, p. 163).

Of Beltraffio's powers in the respect last mentioned this charming picture is perhaps the best specimen extant. The child with its quaint belly-band, and still more the noble but slightly languishing grace of the mother, at once recall Leonardo.

Vincenzo Foppa(Lombard: about 1425-1492).

Foppa—Il Vecchio as he is called, to distinguish him from a younger Foppa of the Brescian School[174]—is an important person in the history of art. Born at Brescia, but removing in early manhood to Milan, he "holds both in the School of Brescia, and especially in that of Milan, the same place that the mighty Mantegna does at Padua, and Cosimo Tura at Ferrara," representing that early period of development when force of character is more insisted on than beauty of expression. In relation to the Milanese, Foppa was the founder ofthe school which prevailed before and up to the time of Leonardo da Vinci. He was already an artist of repute in 1456, when he was employed to decorate the Medici Palace at Milan with frescoes. These works, and many others executed by him in Milan and the neighbourhood, have perished. His best remaining frescoes are those of the Four Fathers of the Church in S. Eustorgio at Milan. Foppa was also employed in Genoa and Savona. Late in life he returned to Brescia, where he received a renewed grant of citizenship, and a pension, and where also he died. Of his extant works, the earliest is a Crucifixion in the Bergamo gallery. This is dated 1456, and supports the statement of old writers that Foppa had studied under Squarcione at Padua. His latest work is the altar-piece, now in S. Maria di Castello at Savona. This belongs to the year 1490, and agrees in style with our National Gallery picture. Foppa is said to have written on perspective, and many painters of the Lombard School studied under him.

Traces of the older style of work, from which Foppa freed his school, may here be seen in the embossed ornaments in gilt stucco. Notice the daintiness of the picture throughout: the pretty flowers in the foreground, the splendid brocades of the kneeling king, the birds and weeds in the ruined stable. In the background are the star and city of Bethlehem. "The general effect is dark and heavy, relieved by an abundant use of red; the flesh tones, as usual, are of ashen hue. The Madonna is of Foppa's characteristic type, of solid build. It is interesting to find that there is little or no direct trace of Leonardesque influence, a fact which shows that Foppa was too advanced in years to modify perceptibly his style on the advent of the mighty Florentine in 1481" (Catalogue of the Burlington Fine Arts Club Exhibition, 1898, p. xxviii.).

Aart van der Neer(Dutch: 1603-1677).See 152.

The figures in the picture are supposed to be by Lingelbach (see No. 837).

Andrea Solario(Lombard: about 1460-1520).

Andrea belonged to an artist family, the Solari (of Solaro, a village near Saronna); one of his brothers, Christopher (nicknamed "Il Gobbo," the hunchback), was an architect and sculptor, and fromhim perhaps Andrea learnt his superb modelling of the head—a point which is conspicuous in this picture, and in which he surpassed all his contemporaries. His repute in his own time is attested by the journey he made to France in 1507. The Cardinal George of Amboise desired to entrust the decoration of a chapel to Leonardo; but Leonardo was too much taken up with hydraulic works at Milan to accept the commission, and the Cardinal's representative sent Andrea in the great man's place. It is not known with whom Solario studied painting, but his subject-pictures prove conclusively that he came within Leonardo's sphere of influence. "Although by birth and training a Lombard artist, Solario was so much in Venice that his native style was largely modified. There is no historical evidence that he ever met Antonello da Messina, but his works bear such close resemblance to that master's productions that it cannot be doubted they were acquainted. The portrait No. 923 is obviously Venetian in character; indeed, it passed not long since under Bellini's name. It seems unnecessary to suppose [with Morelli] that he paid a visit to Flanders. The Flemish traits so conspicuous in his work could well be derived from contact with Antonello. To the end of his life he painted with the utmost finish and delicacy. The brilliance and warmth of his colour compensate for the somewhat cold ivory pallor of his flesh tones. His landscapes are remarkably picturesque and full of incident. That behind the figure of Longono in the National Gallery portrait is of the greatest delicacy and charm" (Catalogue of the Burlington Fine Arts Club Exhibition, 1898, p. lxi. See also Morelli'sGerman Galleries, pp. 63-68;Roman Galleries, pp. 170-176). Subject-pictures by Solario may be seen in the Brera and the Poldi-Pezzoli Gallery at Milan, and in the Louvre. His last work was a large "Assumption of the Virgin" for the Certosa of Pavia (now in the Sacristy), which his death prevented him from finishing.

A portrait (dated 1505) of the artist's friend, a Milanese lawyer, whose name, John Christopher Longono, is written on a letter in his right hand. He wears the gown and cap (not unlike that still worn by French "advocates") of his profession. Observe the landscape background—here quaintly peopled with prancing dogs and horses on the left, and servants in red pushing off boats on the right—with which the old painters, like some of our modern photographers, were fond of flattering their subjects. But in this case the subject is well entitled to his "setting," for he is a nobleman as well as a lawyer, and the background is perhaps studied from his country seat. On the bottom of the panel is a Latin inscription which, literally interpreted, runs, "Not knowing what you have been or what you may be, may it for long be your study to be able to see what you are,"i.e.by looking at this picture of yourself—aneatly-turned compliment at once to the painter and his subject: the picture is to last for many a long year, and the lawyer for many a long year is to grow no older. Or is the inscription also meant to describe the lawyer's character in words, as the portrait does in colours—a man not troubled overmuch with what has been or what may be hereafter, but one who is keenly alive to what he is, and who pours all his powers into the tasks and interests of the present?

Paolo Morando(Veronese: 1486-1522).

Paolo Morando, otherwise known as Cavazzola (his father was Taddeo Cavazzola di Jacobi di Morando), was a pupil of Morone (see 285). He "infused a higher life, and a fine system of colouring into the Veronese School, making thus a great advance upon his contemporaries, and preparing the way for Paul Veronese.... He shows, as Dr. Burckhardt has justly observed, 'a marvellous transition from the realism of the fifteenth century to the noble free character of the sixteenth, not to an empty idealism'" (Layard, i. 270). His masterpieces are still in his native Verona, and nowhere else, except in the National Gallery, can he be studied.

St. Roch is the patron of the sick and plague-stricken. The legend says that he left great riches to travel as a pilgrim to Rome, where he tended those sick of the plague, and by his intercession effected miraculous cures. Through many cities he laboured thus, until at last in Piacenza he became himself plague-stricken, and with a horrible ulcer in his thigh he was turned out into a lonely wood. He has here laid aside his pilgrim staff and hung his hat upon it, and prepared himself to die, when an angel appears to him and drops a fresh rose on his path. There is no rose without a thorn, and no thorn in a saint's crown without a rose. He bares his thigh to show his wound to the angel, who (says the legend) dressed it for him, whilst his little dog miraculously brought him every morning a loaf of bread.

Francesco Bonsignori(Veronese: 1455-1519).

Called incorrectly, by Vasari, Monsignori. He was born at Verona, where, in the churches of S. Fermo, S. Bernardino, S. Paolo, andin the Pinacoteca, works by him may be seen. In the grand but not always attractive productions of his earlier style, Bonsignori followed the traditions and manner of the Veronese School. Later in life he went to Mantua, where he settled and was influenced by Mantegna (see Morelli'sGerman Galleries, p. 103,note).

A portrait—remarkable for vigorous execution, and strong individuality—of a senator, from the life, "in his habit as he stood,"—a branch of art in which this painter excelled. He has been called indeed "the modern Zeuxis," after the famous Greek painter whose painted grapes deceived the birds. For so lifelike were Bonsignori's pictures—says Vasari in his entertaining account of this painter—that on one occasion a dog rushed at a painted dog on the artist's canvas, whilst on another a bird flew forward to perch itself on the extended arm of a painted child. The portrait before us is executed in tempera. The study in chalk, for it is in the Albertina collection at Vienna.

Ruysdael(Dutch: 1628-1682).See 627.

Carlo Crivelli(Venetian: painted 1468-1493).See 602.

Mary is kneeling in her chamber; while a golden ray from a glory above, piercing the house wall, has struck her head, over which is hovering a dove, the symbol of the Holy Spirit. The angel of the Annunciation is outside in the court, but she cannot see him, for a wall stands between them—"a treatment of the subject which may be intended to suggest that the angel appeared to her in a dream." It also gives the painter an opportunity for introducing an additional display of incident and ornament. Beside the angel is St. Emidius, the patron saint of Ascoli, with a model of the city in his hand. "There could not be better examples of what we may call Crivelli's 'exquisite' style, which is only just saved by its refinement from mere prettiness and affectation. This angel is aposeurif ever there was one." The picture is very characteristic, in two features, of mediæval art. First, it was never antiquarian: it did not attempt to give a correct historical setting (cf.under294). No mediæval painter made the Virgin a Jewess; they nationalised her, as it were, and painted her in the likeness of their own maidens. So too their scenery was the likeness of their own homes and their own country. Here, for instance, is a picture of an Italian city in gala attire, somewhat idealised, no doubt, in splendour, but otherwise a "perfectly true representation of what the architecture of Italy was in her glorious time; trim, dainty,—red and white like the blossom of a carnation,—touched with gold like a peacock's plumes, and frescoed, even to its chimney-pots, with fairest arabesques,—its inhabitants, and it together, one harmony of work and life" (Guide to the Venetian Academy, p. 21). And secondly, the picture shows the pleasure the painters took in their accessories, and the frank humour—free at once from irreverence and from gloom—with which the Venetians especially approached what was to them a religion of daily life. Notice especially the little girl at the top of the steps on the left, looking round the corner. The whole of this side of the picture shows a naturalistic treatment which forms "a curious accompaniment and contrast to Crivelli's ordinary conventional manner. The group talking with a friar at the house door, the citizen who passes along bent on business, the dandy who shades his eyes from the sun and looks up at the house, the figures on the arch, and the people walking in the open space by the town walls beyond, make up a picture of real life unequalled among Crivelli's works" (Rushworth'sCrivelli, p. 63). As a representation of the "Annunciation," the picture should be compared and contrasted with Lippi's (666). The Madonna and the Angel, "though essential to the work from the point of view of the patrons, who commissioned it, were merely its occasion from the point of view of that extraordinarily painstaking and detail-loving creature, its painter. There is endless profusion of decorative work; elaborate arabesques on the pilasters of the Madonna's lordly house, elaborate capitals, elaborate loggias, an elaborate cornice. The grain of the wood on her reading-desk is carefully painted; so are the planks in the wall of her bedchamber.... Besides the endless interest of its decorative work, this picture is useful as marking the difference between the spiritual and ideal motives which dominated Florence, and the worldly motives of richness and splendour which dominated Venice. Compare its purely adventitious detail with the poetical background of Filippo Lippi. In the Florentine, the detail is therefor the sake of the picture; in the Venetian, the picture is there for the sake of the detail" (Grant Allen, in thePall Mall Magazine, July 1895). See under 1139 for further notes on the subject.

The picture is signed and dated, 1486, at the bottom of the pilasters of the Virgin's chamber. On the face of the step below is an inscription between three coats of arms (the Bishop's, the Pope's, and the town's)—Libertas Ecclesiastica, which is of some historical interest. In the year 1482 the city of Ascoli came to an agreement with the Pope, whereby, in return for an annual tribute and the acknowledgment of his suzerainty, the Pope issued a Bull in favour of its citizens, conferring on them municipal Home Rule. A new phrase—Libertas Ecclesiastica, Independence under the Church—was invented to describe the new settlement. The arrival of the Charter on March 25, the Feast of the Annunciation, was celebrated henceforth by ceremonies on that day, in which a procession to the church of the Annunziata was a prominent feature. Our picture was painted for that church, where it remained until 1790.

Sassoferrato(Eclectic: 1605-1685).See 200.

Ascribed to Velazquez.[175]See under 197.

The closing scene, according to one of the many legends, in the history of that "peerless paladin," Orlando, or Roland, who was slain at the battle of Roncesvalles, when returning from Charlemagne's expedition against the Saracens in Spain. Invulnerable to the sword, he was squeezed to death by Bernardo del Carpio. He lies, therefore, prostrate, but fully dressed and armed, his right hand resting on his chest, his left on the hilt of his famous sword. Over the dead man's feet there hangs from a branch a small brass lamp, the flame of which, like the hero's life, has just expired. On either sideare the skulls and bones of other "paladins and peers who on Roncesvalles died."

Moroni(Bergamese: 1525-1578).See 697.

An excellent example of the painter's third or naturalistic manner. There is an ease of attitude and an absence of constraint which makes the portrait transparently natural.

Raphael(Umbrian: 1483-1520).See 1171.

This picture—known as the "Garvagh Madonna," from its former owner, Lord Garvagh, or the "Aldobrandini Madonna," from having originally belonged to the Aldobrandini apartments of the Borghese Palace at Rome—belongs to Raphael's third or Roman period, and a comparison with the "Ansidei" shows the changes in feeling between the painter's earlier and later manners. The devotional character of the Umbrian School is less marked. In the "Ansidei Madonna" the divinity of the Virgin is insisted on; and above her throne is the inscription "Hail, Mother of Christ." But here the divinity is only dimly indicated by a halo. And as the Madonna is here a merely human mother, so is the child a purely human child. The saints in contemplation of the "Ansidei" are replaced by a little St. John, and the two children play with a pink. The expressions of the children, as indeed the whole picture, are full of sweetness and beauty.[176]Very beautiful too is the pyramidal composition of the group. Of the ultimate significance of the change marked by Raphael's third manner, Ruskin says that it—

"Was all the more fatal because at first veiled by an appearance of greater dignity and sincerity than were possessed by the older art. One of the earliest results of the new knowledge was the putting away the greater part of theunlikelihoodsand fineries of the ancient pictures, and an apparently closer following of nature and probability. Theappearances of nature were more closely followed in everything; and the crowned Queen-Virgin of Perugino sank into a simple Italian mother in Raphael's 'Madonna of the Chair.' ... But the glittering childishness of the old art was rejected, not because it was false, but because it was easy; and, still more, because the painter had no longer any religious passion to express. He could think of the Madonna now very calmly, with no desire to pour out the treasures of earth at her feet, or cover her brows with the golden shafts of heaven. He could think of her as an available subject for the display of transparent shadows, skilful tints, and scientific foreshortenings,—as a fair woman, forming, if well painted, a pleasant piece of furniture for the corner of a boudoir, and best imagined by combination of the beauties of the prettiest contadinas"[177](Modern Painters, vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. iv. §§ 12, 13).

It should, however, be remembered that the "Madonna di San Sisto," perhaps the most spiritual of all Raphael's conceptions, was the latest of the series.

Velazquez(Spanish: 1599-1660).See 197.

Few kings have left so many enduring monuments of themselves as Philip IV., whose face figures twice on these walls and meets one in nearly every European gallery. But nowhere, perhaps, has it been more supremely rendered than on this canvas, where the king seems to live and move before us. The picture is "perhaps the finest example of oil-painting accessible to the British student. Though one of the later works of the master, it is constructed out of a carefully wrought and smooth impasto, without any 'bravura' strokes. The lights are nowhere loaded. The hair is painted, not modelled; the jewels on the dress are easily touched in without relief-effect or juggling. The wonder of the thing is the infinite variety over a surface so simply treated. The face is in such broad, even light that one has to adopt some device which brings it freshly into the field of vision—as byturning the head down or looking at it through the hand—in order to see how firm is the modelling. The flesh-tints are simple enough. Yet take almost any square inch of surface on the face—say the upper lip with its moustache—and note the effect of each one of the free brush-strokes which draw the pale, umber hair over the warm rubbing on the flesh; or in the cold, lack-lustre, blue eye, measure the apparent ease of the touches against their firm, incisive clearness. Everything is there—form, expression—in a word, the life; but it has all grown into perfection on the canvas so quietly, so smoothly, as if Velazquez had indeed painted with the will only and not with the hand" (Baldwin Brown:The Fine Arts, p. 319). "Velazquez fuses his colours in a way that baffles painters. They melt into each other by imperceptible gradations, as he deals with plane after plane in his subtly-modelled faces. Observe the action of light on the pallid face of the worn-out king, giving to the skin the breath of life in its delicate transparency" (Quarterly Review, April 1899).

The face is one which, once seen, is not soon forgotten. Velazquez, as we have said, caught its expression at once, and by comparing the face in its youth (1129) with its middle age here, one can almost trace the king's career. In youth we see him cold and phlegmatic, but slender in figure graceful and dignified in bearing, and with a fine open forehead. But the young king was bent on ease and pleasure, and his minister Olivares did nothing to persuade him into more active kingship. The less pleasing traits in his character have, in consequence, come to be deeper impressed at the time of this later portrait. He was devoted to sport, and the cruelty of the Spaniard is conspicuous in the lip—more underhung now than before. In the growth of the double chin and yet greater impassiveness of expression, one may see the traces of that "talent for dead silence and marble immobility" which, says the historian, "he so highly improved that he could sit out a comedy without stirring hand or foot, and conduct an audience without movement of a muscle, except those in his lips and tongue." It is not the face of a great ruler; but it is one which rightly lives on a painter's canvas, for no king was ever at once so liberal and so enlightened a patron of the arts as he. Himself too he was something of an artist; and the best-known piece of his painting tells a pretty story, which it is pleasant to rememberin front of Velazquez's portraits of him. Velazquez painted once his own portrait in the background of the king's family (the "Maids of Honour"—Las Meninas—now at Madrid). "Is there anything wrong with it?" Velazquez asked. "Yes," said the king, taking the palette in his hand, "just this"—and he sketched in on the painter's portrait the coveted red cross of the order of Santiago. "In all his portraits Philip wears thegolilla, a stiff linen collar projecting at right angles from the neck. It was invented by the king, who was very proud of it. In regard to the wonderful structure of Philip's moustaches, it is said that, to preserve their form, they were encased during the night in perfumed leather covers calledbigoteras" (J. F. White, inEncyclopædia Britannica).

Ruysdael(Dutch: 1628-1682).See 627.

This picture is signed and dated 1673.

Ascribed to Hans Memlinc. See 686.

St. Lawrence may nearly always be distinguished by his gridiron—the emblem of his martyrdom. He was a pious deacon of the Christian Church, who was put to death by the Romans. A new kind of torture was, says the legend, prepared for him. He was stretched on a sort of bed, formed of iron bars in the manner of a gridiron, and was roasted alive. "But so great was his constancy that in the middle of his torments he said, 'Seest thou not, O thou foolish man, that I am already roasted on one side, and that, if thou wouldst have me well cooked, it is time to turn me on the other?' Then St. Lawrence lifted up his eyes, and his pure and invincible spirit fled to heaven."

Girolamo dai Libri(Veronese: 1474-1556).

Girolamo inherited his surname ("of the books") from the occupation of his father, who was an illuminator of manuscripts. Girolamo himself excelled in this branch of art, but he also became famous as apainter of altar-pieces. He had "a playful fancy, and loved to introduce into his pictures festoons of flowers and fruit, trees of rich green foliage bearing lemons and oranges, and angels singing and playing on musical instruments. He was a true Veronese in his feeling for colour, which in his works is always rich and gay. In his backgrounds are frequently seen distant views of his native city, with her castellated hills and blue mountains" (Layard, i. 269). Girolamo, whose friendship with Francesco Morone (285) is on record, was born in Verona, and it is there that many of his principal works are preserved. In the Pinacoteca are several charming pictures, and there also is a collection of Girolamo's missals. In S. Giorgio Maggiore is a "Madonna Enthroned," dated 1526, which is by many considered the painter's masterpiece. The German artist Ludwig Richter,[178]thus records (in hisLebenserinnerungen) the impression it made upon him:—"I thought that I had scarcely ever seen anything so beautiful and touching. The picture was by Girolamo dai Libri, an old master of whom until then I had never heard, nor, indeed, have I seen any other picture by him since. Here it was that there first arose in me a suspicion of what a depth of spiritual life, and of the heavenly beauty that is born of it, lay in the masters of the pre-Raphaelite period. The master's way of seeing and feeling, his style—and the style is the man—impressed me deeply and permanently, touched me sympathetically. In fact this dear old painter became veritably my patron saint, for he it was who first opened to me the gates of the inner sanctuary of Art" (quoted by Dr. Richter, in theArt Journal, February, 1895).

A picture "with a pedigree," being mentioned by Vasari. "In the church of the Scala (at Verona)," he says, in his life of the painter, "the picture of the Madonna with St. Anna is by his hand, and is placed between the San Sebastiano of Il Moro and the San Rocco of Cavazzola (Morando)." The latter picture (735) and Girolamo's now hang on the same wall of our Gallery. In the composition of this picture one may trace, perhaps, the influence of the dainty work Girolamo was first accustomed to. Thus the trefoil, or cloverleaf pattern, is followed both in the arrangement of the Virgin, St. Anne, and the Child, and in that of the little playing angels below. Notice the pretty trellis-work of roses on either side, and the slain dragon at the Virgin's feet, emblematic (the latter) of Christ's victory over the powers of evil, and (the former) of the "ways of pleasantness" and "paths of peace" that he came to prepare.

Back to Index Next