88. ERMINIA AND THE SHEPHERDS.

Domenichino(Eclectic-Bologna: 1581-1641).See48.

For St. Jerome, see under 227. The apparition of the angel implies the special call of St. Jerome to the work of translating the Scriptures.

Annibale Carracci(Eclectic-Bologna: 1560-1609).See9.

A scene from the "Jerusalem Delivered" by Carracci's contemporary, Tasso. Erminia from the beleaguered city of Jerusalem had beheld the Christian knight, Tancred, whom she loved, wounded in conflict. Disguised in the armour ofher friend Clorinda, wearing a dark blue cuirass with a white mantle over it, she stole forth at night to tend him. The sentinels espy her and give her chase. But she outstrips them all, and after a three days' flight finds herself amongst a shepherd family, who entertain her kindly. The old shepherd is busily making card-baskets, and listening to the music of his children. Their fear gives place to delight as the strange warrior, having dismounted from her horse and thrown off her helmet and shield, unbinds her tresses and discloses herself a woman—

An old man, on a rising ground,In the fresh shade, his white flocks feeding near,Twig baskets wove; and listen'd to the soundTrill'd by three blooming boys, who sat disporting round.These, at the shining of her silver arms,Were seized at once with wonder and despair;But sweet Erminia sooth'd their vain alarms,Discovering her dove's eyes and golden hair."Follow," she said, "dear innocents, the careOf heaven, your fanciful employ;For the so formidable arms I bear,No cruel warfare bring, nor harsh annoyTo your engaging tasks, to your sweet songs of joy."

From Landseer'sCatalogue, p. 214.

This picture has sometimes been ascribed to Domenichino; as the latter was occasionally employed by Annibale to execute his designs, both masters may have had a share in the work.

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

Annibale Carracci(Eclectic-Bologna: 1560-1609).See9.

Silenus in a leopard skin, the nurse and preceptor of Bacchus, the wine-god, is being hoisted by two attendant fauns, so that with his own hands he may pick the grapes. This and the companion picture, 94, originally decorated a harpsichord.

Annibale Carracci(Eclectic-Bologna: 1560-1609).See9.

A clever picture of contrasts. The old preceptor is leering and pampered, yet with something of a schoolmaster's gravity, "half inclining to the brute, half conscious of the god." The young pupil—like the shepherd boy in Sidney'sArcadia, "piping as though he should never be old"—is "full of simple careless grace, laughing in youth and beauty; he holds the Pan's pipe in both hands, and looks up with timid wonder, with an expression of mingled delight and surprise at the sounds he produces" (Hazlitt:Criticisms upon Art, p. 6).

These two pictures—together with the "Lot" and "Susannah" of Guido (193 and 196)—used to hang in the Lancellotti Palace in Rome. Lanzi describes our picture, No. 94, as one of the principal treasures of that collection. It is exquisitely finished, he says; the figures are "at once designed, coloured, and disposed with the hand of a great master" (Bohn's translation, iii. 79).

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

Dido, Queen of Carthage, enamoured of the Trojan Æneas, the destined founder of Rome, sought to detain him by strategy within her dominions. The goddess Juno, who had espoused Dido's cause, contrived that a storm should befall when the Queen and her guests were on a hunting party (Æneid, iv. 119). In front of the cave a Cupid holds the horse of Æneas, and two others are fluttering above. High in the clouds is Juno, accompanied by Venus, who had contrived all this for Dido's undoing.

As for the execution of the picture, "the stormy wind blows loudly through its leaves, but the total want of invention in the cloud-forms bears it down beyond redemption. Lookat the wreaths ofcloud(?), with their unpleasant edges cut as hard and solid and opaque and smooth as thick black paint can make them, rolled up over one another like a dirty sail badly reefed"[93](Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. iii. ch. iv. § 23; vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. ii. ch. ii. § 18).

Paolo Veronese(Veronese: 1528-1588).See26 & p. xix.

(A study for a larger picture now at Vienna.) Jupiter, enamoured of Europa, a Phoenician princess, transformed himself into a white bull, and mingled with her father's herds whilst she was gathering flowers with her attendants. Europa, struck by the beauty and gentle nature of the beast, caressed him, and even mounted on his back. Two of her attendants are here assisting her, while a third remonstrates with her on her foolhardiness. Europa is replying that she has no fears. The amorous bull meanwhile is licking her foot. He is garlanded with a wreath of flowers, which is held by his master Cupid, forming thus the leading-string of Love. With the other hand Cupid has "taken the bull by the horn"; whilst above, two little winged loves are gathering fruit and scattering roses. In the middle distance Europa and the bull appear again, about to enter the sea; whilst farther on, the bull is swimming with her toward the land. For the story goes that as soon as Europa had seated herself on his back Jupiter crossed the sea and carried her safely to the island of Crete, and from this rape of Europa comes the name of the continent to which she was carried.

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

This picture and the scene of it—the ancient town of Aricia, about fifteen miles from Rome, famous in Roman legend, and Horace's first stopping-place on his journey to Brindisi—are described by Ruskin in a celebrated passage ofModern Painters:—

"Whether it can be supposed to resemble the ancient Aricia, now La Riccia, close to Albano, I will not take upon me to determine,seeing that most of the towns of those old masters are quite as much like one place as another; but, at any rate, it is a town on a hill, wooded with two-and-thirty bushes, of very uniform size, and possessing about the same number of leaves each. These bushes are all painted in with one dull opaque brown, becoming very slightly greenish towards the lights, and discover in one place a bit of rock, which of course would in nature have been cool and grey beside the lustrous hues of foliage, and which, therefore, being moreover completely in shade, is consistently and scientifically painted of a very clear, pretty, and positive brick red, the only thing like colour in the picture. The foreground is a piece of road which, in order to make allowance for its greater nearness, for its being completely in light, and, it may be presumed, for the quantity of vegetation usually present on carriage-roads, is given in a very cool green grey; and the truth of the picture is completed by a number of dots in the sky on the right, with a stalk to them, of a sober and similar brown.[94]"Not long ago, I was slowly descending this very bit of carriage road.... The noonday sun came slanting down the rocky slopes of La Riccia, and their masses of entangled and tall foliage, whose autumnal tints were mixed with the wet verdure of a thousand evergreens, were penetrated with it as with rain. I cannot call it colour: it was conflagration. Purple and crimson and scarlet, like the curtains of God's tabernacle, the rejoicing trees sank into the valley in showers of light, every separate leaf quivering with buoyant and burning life; each, as it turned to reflect or to transmit the sunbeam, first a torch and then an emerald. Far up into the recesses of the valley, the green vistas arched like the hollows of mighty waves of some crystalline sea, with the arbutus flowers dashed along their flanks for foam, and silver flakes of orange spray tossed into the air around them, breaking over the grey walls of rock into a thousand separate stars, fading and kindling alternately as the weak wind lifted and let them fall. Every glade of grass burned like the golden floor of heaven, opening in sudden gleams as the foliage broke and closed above it, as sheet-lightning opens in a cloud at sunset; the motionless masses of dark rock—dark though flushed with scarlet lichen, casting their quiet shadows across its restless radiance, the fountain underneath them filling its marble hollow with blue mist and fitful sound; and over all, the multitudinous bars of amber and rose, the sacred clouds that have no darkness, and only exist to illumine, were seen in fathomless intervals between the solemn and orbed repose of the stone pines, passing to lose themselves in the last, white, blinding lustre of the measureless line where the Campagna melted into the sea. Tell mewho is likest this, Poussin or Turner?" (vol. i. pt. ii. sec. ii. ch. ii. §§ 1-3).

"Not long ago, I was slowly descending this very bit of carriage road.... The noonday sun came slanting down the rocky slopes of La Riccia, and their masses of entangled and tall foliage, whose autumnal tints were mixed with the wet verdure of a thousand evergreens, were penetrated with it as with rain. I cannot call it colour: it was conflagration. Purple and crimson and scarlet, like the curtains of God's tabernacle, the rejoicing trees sank into the valley in showers of light, every separate leaf quivering with buoyant and burning life; each, as it turned to reflect or to transmit the sunbeam, first a torch and then an emerald. Far up into the recesses of the valley, the green vistas arched like the hollows of mighty waves of some crystalline sea, with the arbutus flowers dashed along their flanks for foam, and silver flakes of orange spray tossed into the air around them, breaking over the grey walls of rock into a thousand separate stars, fading and kindling alternately as the weak wind lifted and let them fall. Every glade of grass burned like the golden floor of heaven, opening in sudden gleams as the foliage broke and closed above it, as sheet-lightning opens in a cloud at sunset; the motionless masses of dark rock—dark though flushed with scarlet lichen, casting their quiet shadows across its restless radiance, the fountain underneath them filling its marble hollow with blue mist and fitful sound; and over all, the multitudinous bars of amber and rose, the sacred clouds that have no darkness, and only exist to illumine, were seen in fathomless intervals between the solemn and orbed repose of the stone pines, passing to lose themselves in the last, white, blinding lustre of the measureless line where the Campagna melted into the sea. Tell mewho is likest this, Poussin or Turner?" (vol. i. pt. ii. sec. ii. ch. ii. §§ 1-3).

Ruskin further instances the picture as an example of "untruth of trees." It is an elementary law of tree structure that stems only taper when sending off foliage and sprays:—

"Therefore we see at once that the stem of Gaspard Poussin's tall tree, on the right of the 'La Riccia,' is the painting of a carrot or a parsnip, not of the trunk of a tree" (see further,ibid., vol. i. pt. ii. sec. vi. ch. i. § 6; andcf.vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. ii. ch. ii. § 18).

Nicolas Lancret(French: 1690-1743).

Lancret, a painter of the "fêtes galantes" school, was an imitator of Watteau, but his productions lack the airy grace and touch of poetry which elevate even the most frivolous pictures of that "prince of court painters" into works of fine art. Examples of Watteau are now included among the National treasures in the Wallace collection at Hertford House. Lancret was the son of humble parents, and received his early training as an engraver. Entering subsequently the studio of Claude Gillot he came under the influence of Watteau, but his friendship with that painter was short-lived. A rivalry appears to have sprung up between them, and they remained estranged until the closing year of Watteau's life. "Lancret was a thoroughbourgeois, and passed his time chiefly in Paris. He was a regular frequenter of the opera and the 'Comique,' and was a friend of the dancers La Camargo and La Sallé, whom he frequently represented in his works" (Bryan'sDictionary of Painters). In 1719 he was admitted into the Academy, and in 1735 was elected Councillor. In 1840 he married a grand-daughter of the comic poet Boursault.

These pictures, which are among the principal works of Lancret, are interesting historical records as showing the ideal of life at the French Court in the time of the regent Orleans and Louis XV. In "Infancy" (101) children, in the gayest clothes and garlanded with flowers, are at play under a stately portico—life being not so much a stage as a game, and all the men and women (in that sense) "merely players." To what should children, thus educated, grow up but to the pomps and vanity of life, as shown in "Youth" (102)? The adornment of the person is the chief occupation, it would seem, of the dwellers in "the Armida Palace, where the inmates live enchanted lives, lapped in soft music of adulation, waited on by the splendours of theworld." And "Manhood" (103) is like unto youth. The business of life is pleasure on the greensward, with shooting at the popinjay! "Old Age" (104) has no place in such a philosophy of life. One old man is indeed attempting a last amour. The other caresses a dog, while the old women sleep or spin. But in "Old Age" the painter changes his scene from the court to common life; the thought of old age is banished, it seems, from the high life of princes. "In short," wrote an English observer at the time when this picture was painted, "all the symptoms which I have ever met with in History, previous to all Changes and Revolutions in government, now exist and daily increase in France" (Lord Chesterfield: see Carlyle'sFrench Revolution, bk. i. ch. ii.).

Jacob Huysman(Dutch: 1656-1696).

Huysman was one of the many foreign artists who settled in England under the Stuarts. He obtained considerable employment as a portrait painter, in spite of Sir Peter Lely's rivalry; one of the portraits among the "Windsor Beauties," now at Hampton Court, was painted by him.

A portrait of the retired city hosier who became famous as the author of theComplete Angler. It was painted for his family (with whom it remained till it was presented to the National Gallery in 1838), and was engraved in one of the later editions of the book (1836). Izaak Walton—"that quaint, old, cruel coxcomb" (as Byron, who was no fisherman, called him)—lived to be ninety: his fishing did something, one may expect, to keep him in the vigorous health which is here stamped on his face. "The features of the countenance often enable us," says Zouch in theMemoirs of Izaak Walton(cited in M. E. Wotton'sWord Portraits of Famous Writers, p. 323), "to form a judgment, not very fallible, of the disposition of the mind. In few portraits can this discovery be more successfully pursued than in that of Izaak Walton. Lavater, the acute master of physiognomy, would, I think, instantly acknowledge in it the decisive traits of the original,—mild complacency, forbearance, mature consideration, calm activity, peace, sound understanding, power of thought, discerning attention, and secretly active friendship. Happy inhis unblemished integrity, happy in the approbation and esteem of others, he enwraps himself in his own virtue. The exaltation of a good conscience eminently shines forth in this venerable person."

Canaletto(Venetian: 1697-1768).

Antonio Canale, commonly called Canaletto,[95]was born in Venice, lived in Venice, and painted Venice. His pictures (of which the one before us is among the best) are in some respects very like the place, but most of those who love it best soon find much that is wanting in Canaletto's representations. "The effect of a fine Canaletto," says Ruskin, "is, in its first impression, dioramic. We fancy we are in our beloved Venice again, with one foot, by mistake, in the clear, invisible film of water lapping over the marble steps of the foreground. Every house has its proper relief against the sky; every brick and stone its proper hue of sunlight and shade; and every degree of distance its proper tone of relieving air. Presently, however, we begin to feel that it is hard and gloomy, and that the painter, compelled by the lowness of the utmost light at his disposal to deepen the shadows, in order to get the right relation, has lost the flashing, dazzling, exulting light which was one of our chief sources of Venetian happiness. But we pardon this, knowing it to be unavoidable, and begin to look for something of that in which Venice differs from Rotterdam, or any other city built beside canals. We know that house, certainly; we never passed it without stopping our gondola, for its arabesques were as rich as a bank of flowers in spring, and as beautiful as a dream. What has Canaletto given us for them? Four black dots. Well; take the next house. We remember that too; it was mouldering inch by inch into the canal, and the bricks had fallen away from its shattered marble shafts, and left them white, skeleton-like; yet, with their fretwork of cold flowers wreathed about them still, untouched by time, and through the rents of the wall behind them there used to come long sunbeams, greened by the weeds through which they pierced, which flitted and fell, one by one, round those grey and quiet shafts, catching here a leaf and there a leaf, and gliding over the illumined edges and delicate fissures, until they sank into the deep dark hollow between the marble blocks of the sunk foundation, lighting every other moment one isolated emerald lamp on the crest of the intermittent waves, when the wild sea-weeds and crimson lichensdrifted and crawled with their thousand colours and free branches over its decay, and the black, clogging, accumulated limpets hung in ropy clusters from the dripping and tinkling stone. What has Canaletto given us for this? One square red mass, composed of—let me count—five-and-fifty, no; six-and-fifty, no; I was right at first, five-and-fifty bricks, of precisely the same size, shape, and colour, one great black line for the shadow of the roof at the top, and six similar ripples in a row at the bottom! And this is what people call 'painting nature'! It is, indeed, painting nature, as she appears to the most unfeeling and untaught of mankind. The bargeman and the bricklayer probably see no more in Venice than Canaletto gives—heaps of earth and mortar, with water between—and are just as capable of appreciating the facts of sunlight and shadow, by which he deceives us, as the most educated of us all. But what more there is in Venice than brick and stone—what there is of mystery and death, and memory and beauty—what there is to be learned or lamented, to be loved or wept—we look for to Canaletto in vain" (Modern Painters, vol. i. sec. ii. pt. i. ch. vii. § 7, first edition). Canaletto's pictures of Venice in this room should be compared with Turner's. It is impossible to get a more instructive instance of the different impression made on different minds by the same scenes. Canaletto drew, says one of his admirers (Lanzi, ii. 317), exactly as he saw. Well, what he did see we have shown us here. What others have seen, those who have not been to Venice can discover from Turner's pictures, from Shelley's and Byron's verse, or Ruskin's prose. "Let the reader restore Venice in his imagination to some resemblance of what she must have been before her fall. Let him, looking from Lido or Fusina, replace, in the forest of towers, those of the hundred and sixty-six churches which the French threw down; let him sheet her walls with purple and scarlet, overlay her minarets with gold, ... and fill her canals with gilded barges and bannered ships; finally, let him withdraw from this scene, already so brilliant, such sadness and stain as had been set upon it by the declining energies of more than half a century, and he will see Venice as it was seen by Canaletto (as it might have been seen by him, Ruskin means); whose miserable, virtueless, heartless mechanism, accepted as the representation of such various glory, is, both in its existence and acceptance, among the most striking signs of the lost sensation and deadened intellect of the nation at that time.... The mannerism of Canaletto is the most degraded that I know in the whole range of art. Professing the most servile and mindless imitation, it imitates nothing but the blackness of the shadows; it gives no single architectural ornament, however near, so much form, as might enable us even to guess at its actual one; ... it gives the buildings neither their architectural beauty nor their ancestral dignity, for there is no texture of stone nor character of age in Canaletto's touch; which is invariably a violent, black, sharp, ruled penmanlike line, as far removed from the grace of nature as from her faintness and transparency: and for his truth of colour let thesingle fact of his having omitted all record whatsoever of the frescoes, whose wrecks are still to be found at least on one half of the unrestored palaces, and, with still less excusableness, all record of the magnificent coloured marbles" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt ii. sec. i. ch. vii. § 30). Stated in the fewest words, the difference between Canaletto and the others is this: To Canaletto Venice was a city of murky shadows, to them it is a city of enchanted colour. But his pictures satisfied the taste of his time, as the great number of them still extant testifies. Moreover his fame extended beyond his own country. There was an English resident at Venice who engaged Canaletto (who started in life at his father's profession, that of scene painter) to work for him at low prices, and then used to retail the pictures at an enormous profit to English travellers. At last Canaletto came to England himself, and was given many commissions; but after two years he returned to Venice, as it was still Venetian pictures that his patrons wanted. How completely the public taste has now changed is shown by the fact that the Venice of all the most popular painters to-day, of whatever nation, is the Venice of Ruskin and Turner. Canaletto's pictures, however, will always possess one element of interest, apart from any fluctuations in taste. Within his limits they are historical records of the appearance of Venice in his time; and as more and more of the old Venice is destroyed, Canaletto's pictures will increase in interest. For though he is mechanical, yet his mechanism is very good. He was, by the way, the first to apply the camera obscura to linear perspective, and he painted in a workmanlike manner, so that his pictures endure.[96]

An interesting piece of "old Venice." Beyond the canal is what is now the National Gallery of Venice—the Academy of Arts—but was in Canaletto's time still the Scuola della Carità, the conventual buildings of the Brotherhood of our Lady of Charity. Notice the green grass in the little square: the Campo, as it is called (the field), is now covered with flagstones (there is a sketch of this spot among the Turner drawings given by Ruskin to the University Galleries at Oxford: seeGuide to the Venetian Academy, p. 34).

Cornelius Gerritz Decker(Dutch: died 1678).

"Amongst the artists who followed the footsteps of Ruysdael and Hobbema, the one who most nearly resembled these masters was Cornelius Decker, whose works may be classed among the best Dutch landscapes" (Havard'sDutch School, p. 209). He painted at Haarlem, and studied under Salomon Ruysdael (see 1344).

Canaletto(Venetian: 1697-1768).See127.

The artist, "disgusted with his first profession (of scene painter), removed," we are told, "while still young to Rome, where he wholly devoted himself to drawing views from nature, and in particular from ancient ruins" (Lanzi, ii. 317).

Jan van Goyen(Dutch: 1596-1656).

Jan van Goyen, one of the first masters in the native Dutch art of landscape as opposed to the exotic work of the Italianisers, was born at Leyden in 1596. He studied with the elder Swanenburch, the father of Rembrandt's first master, and subsequently went to Haarlem to work under Esaias van de Velde. His position in the world of art was considerable. In 1640 he was President of the Guild of St. Luke at the Hague; his portrait was painted by Vandyck and Frans Hals; and Jan Steen was his son-in-law. His earlier extant pictures date from 1621, his latest go down to the year of his death. His production during this period of thirty-five years was immense; "a single London expert claims to have had at least three or four hundred genuine pictures by the master passing through his hands during the last thirty years." Like so many of the Dutch masters whose works are now prized, he received in his lifetime very small sums for his pictures—often not more than fifteen or twenty florins apiece. He tried to help his income by speculating in houses, and even, after the fashion of the time, in tulips. But he died insolvent. His work, however, and influence remained. His extant pictures are very numerous; and among the successors whose skill was largely formed by him are Cuyp, Jan van de Cappelle, and Salomon Ruysdael. "The subjects which he preferred were of two kinds: flat landscapes with a little broken ground in the front, a cottage, the figures of a few peasants, and a clump of trees; or, on the other hand,—and these are his best and mostcharacteristic productions—broad views of the river scenery of Holland, a wide expanse of water under a wide sky." He was one of the first to discover a poetry in the unbroken horizons of his native land. "Where he is at his best is in the painting of the infinitely varied sky that overhangs a great Dutch river or estuary, the clouds taking at every movement new shapes or new effects of light and shade, and the water below reflecting them" (see an article on "The Landscape Painters of Holland" inThe Quarterly Review, October 1891). In order to give his favourite effects, he generally placed the skyline very low in the picture, sometimes not more than a quarter of the canvas being given to the landscape. Van Goyen aimed rather at tone than at colour. "His silvery river-views, with all their delicate shades of grey, are almost studies in monochrome." In his landscapes the foliage and the herbage partake more or less of brown or gray. "No heavy, dark, no bright colour disturbs," says Sir F. Burton, "the dreamy monotone."

This work was formerly ascribed to J. Ruysdael.

Giovanni Antonio Panini(Roman: 1695-1768).

Panini, who obtained celebrity as a painter of architectural subjects, was born at Piacenza, and studied in Rome. His settled place of abode was that city, but for some time he lived in Paris, and in 1732 he was elected a member of the French Academy.

Roman ruins with the pyramid of Caius Cestius.

Bartholomeus van der Helst(Dutch: 1611-1670).

Of the life of Van der Helst, one of the most distinguished of the Dutch portrait painters, little is known, except that he resided constantly at Amsterdam, and was in good practice there as a portrait painter. He had a part in founding the Painters' Guild there, whilst his likeness of Paul Potter at the Hague (1654), and his partnership with Bakhuizen, who laid in the backgrounds of some of his pictures in 1668, indicate a constant companionship with the best artists of the time. His masterpiece is in the Museum at Amsterdam. It contains thirty-five portraits, whole length, and represents a banquet given by a company of the civil-guard of Amsterdam, in commemoration of the Peace of Münster, in 1648. Sir Joshua Reynolds, in hisJourney to Flanders and Holland, says of that work that it "is, perhaps, the first picture of portraits in the world, comprehending more of those qualities which make a perfect portrait than any other I have ever seen." Whilst delighted with Van der Helst, Sir Joshua was disappointed byRembrandt; and certainly "Van der Helst attracts by qualities entirely differing from those of Rembrandt and Frans Hals: nothing can be more striking than the contrast between the strong concentrated light and the deep gloom of Rembrandt, and the contempt of chiaroscuro peculiar to his rival, except the contrast between the rapid sketchy touch of Hals and the careful finish of Van der Helst."

This picture is dated 1647.

Abraham Storck(Dutch: 1630-1710).

About the life of this marine painter nothing is known. His pictures usually represent views near Amsterdam, "with a variety of shipping and boats, and a number of small figures, correctly drawn, and handled with spirit. His ships are well drawn, his colouring clear and transparent, and his skies and water light and floating" (Bryan).

Rotterdam is seen in the distance.

Agostino Carracci(Eclectic-Bologna: 1557-1602).

Agostino was the elder brother of Annibale Carracci (see under 9) and cousin of Lodovico (see under 28). It was he who composed the well-known sonnet in which the aims of the Eclectic School are set forth. He was the most learned of the Carracci, being painter, engraver, poet, and musician, and well versed in the arts and sciences generally. His pictures are rare. The best is the "Communion of St. Jerome" in the Academy at Bologna. His prints are numerous; his engraving of Tintoretto's "Crucifixion," executed at Venice in 1589, was highly praised by that artist. In the same year Agostino returned to Bologna, and became the principal teacher in the school of the Carracci. He afterwards went to Rome to assist Annibale in the frescoes for the Farnese Palace. He executed the "Cephalus and Aurora" and "Galatea" in that series; his success excited the jealousy of Annibale, and caused a feud between the two brothers. Agostino thereupon left Rome for Parma, where he died shortly afterwards.

These are the cartoons made by Agostino for the frescoes referred to above. They formed part of Sir Thomas Lawrence's collection of drawings. In 147, Cephalus, while on a hunting expedition on Mount Hymettus, is forcibly carried off by Aurora. The aged Tithonus, her husband, is sleeping in theforeground. In 148, the sea-nymph Galatea is borne on the ocean by Glaucus, preceded by Triton blowing his horn, and surrounded by Nereids and Cupids on Dolphins.

Willem van de Velde(Dutch: 1633-1707).

William Van de Velde, the younger, was the son of an artist of the same name, and the two together were the most famous sea-painters of their time. The father was specially commissioned by the East India Company to paint several of their ships. The son was for a time engaged in painting the chief naval battles of the Dutch. In 1675 they were both established in England, living at Greenwich, as painters to King Charles II., who granted each of them a pension of £100 a year; the father "for taking and making draughts of sea-fights"; and the son "for putting the said draughts into colours." The Vandeveldes, thus employed, "produced," says Macaulay, "for the king and his nobles some of the finest sea-pieces in the world." "The palm," says Walpole, "is not less disputed with Raphael for history than with Vandevelde for sea-pieces." But in no branch of art has the English School of this century made more conspicuous advance than in sea-painting, and those who are fresh from reminiscences of Turner or Lee, or, amongst later artists, of Hook and Moore and Brett, will hardly be inclined to agree at this day with such high praise of Vandevelde. "It is not easily understood," says Ruskin, "considering how many there are who love the sea, and look at it, that Vandevelde and such others should be tolerated. Foam appears to me to curdle and cream on the wave sides, and to fly flashing from their crests, and not to be set astride upon them like a peruke; and waves appear to me to fall, and plunge, and toss, and nod, and crash over, and not to curl up like shavings; and water appears to me, when it is grey, to have the grey of stormy air mixed with its own deep, heavy, thunderous, threatening blue, and not the grey of the first coat of cheap paint on a deal floor.""It is not easy to understand," perhaps, but two helps towards understanding may be mentioned in Ruskin's own words. First, previous painters—including even the Venetians, sea-folk though they were—had all treated the sea conventionally. Vandevelde and his fellows, at any rate, endeavoured to study it from nature. Bakhuizen, as we shall see, like Turner after him, used to go to sea in all weathers, the better to obtain "impressions." Hence the Dutch sea-painting did mark an advance, and how great was its influence on later artists and sea-lovers we know from the case of Turner, who "painted many pictures in the manner of Vandevelde, and always painted the sea too grey, and too opaque, in consequence of his early study of him." And this grey and opaque rendering of the sea by the Dutch was to some extent due to natural causes. "Although in artistical qualities lowerthan is easily by language expressible, the Italian marine painting usually conveys an idea of three facts about the sea,—that it is green, that it is deep, and that the sun shines on it. The dark plain which stands for far-away Adriatic with the Venetians, and the glinting swells of tamed wave which lap about the quays of Claude, agree in giving the general impression that the ocean consists of pure water, and is open to the pure sky. But the Dutch painters, while they attained considerably greater dexterity than the Italian in mere delineation of nautical incident, were by nature precluded from ever becoming aware of these common facts; and having, in reality, never in all their lives seen the sea, but only a shallow mixture of sea-water and sand; and also never in all their lives seen the sky, but only a lower element between them and it, composed of marsh exhalation and fog-bank,—they are not to be with too great severity reproached for the dulness of their records of the nautical enterprise of Holland.Weonly are to be reproached, who, familiar with the Atlantic, are yet ready to accept with faith, as types of sea, the small wavesen papilloteand peruke-like puffs of farinaceous foam, which were the delight of Bakhuizen and his compeers"[97](Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. v. ch. i. § 20; vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. xviii. § 30;On the Old Road, i. 283;Harbours of England, p. 18). The storms of Van der Velde are certainly unattractive, but the silvery daylight of his "calms at sea" gives to many of his works an enduring charm. This painter is well represented both in the Dulwich Gallery and in the Wallace collection.

"It is not easy to understand," perhaps, but two helps towards understanding may be mentioned in Ruskin's own words. First, previous painters—including even the Venetians, sea-folk though they were—had all treated the sea conventionally. Vandevelde and his fellows, at any rate, endeavoured to study it from nature. Bakhuizen, as we shall see, like Turner after him, used to go to sea in all weathers, the better to obtain "impressions." Hence the Dutch sea-painting did mark an advance, and how great was its influence on later artists and sea-lovers we know from the case of Turner, who "painted many pictures in the manner of Vandevelde, and always painted the sea too grey, and too opaque, in consequence of his early study of him." And this grey and opaque rendering of the sea by the Dutch was to some extent due to natural causes. "Although in artistical qualities lowerthan is easily by language expressible, the Italian marine painting usually conveys an idea of three facts about the sea,—that it is green, that it is deep, and that the sun shines on it. The dark plain which stands for far-away Adriatic with the Venetians, and the glinting swells of tamed wave which lap about the quays of Claude, agree in giving the general impression that the ocean consists of pure water, and is open to the pure sky. But the Dutch painters, while they attained considerably greater dexterity than the Italian in mere delineation of nautical incident, were by nature precluded from ever becoming aware of these common facts; and having, in reality, never in all their lives seen the sea, but only a shallow mixture of sea-water and sand; and also never in all their lives seen the sky, but only a lower element between them and it, composed of marsh exhalation and fog-bank,—they are not to be with too great severity reproached for the dulness of their records of the nautical enterprise of Holland.Weonly are to be reproached, who, familiar with the Atlantic, are yet ready to accept with faith, as types of sea, the small wavesen papilloteand peruke-like puffs of farinaceous foam, which were the delight of Bakhuizen and his compeers"[97](Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. v. ch. i. § 20; vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. xviii. § 30;On the Old Road, i. 283;Harbours of England, p. 18). The storms of Van der Velde are certainly unattractive, but the silvery daylight of his "calms at sea" gives to many of his works an enduring charm. This painter is well represented both in the Dulwich Gallery and in the Wallace collection.

Willem van de Velde(Dutch: 1633-1707).See149.

Jan van Goyen(Dutch: 1596-1656).See137.

Signed with the artist's name, and dated 1645.

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

This painter was a native of Amsterdam, and lived and worked there. His pictures are now much appreciated; but he died destitute, and the pictures he left behind him were valued at only three florins apiece.

Aart (Arthur) van der Neer is the Dutch painter of "the hues and harmonies of evening." Before the door of the country house are a lady and gentleman, who have come out as if to gaze on one of such effects. This is one of the largest of his pictures—which is the more valuable as the figures are by Cuyp, whose name is inscribed on the pail; but 239 is perhaps more attractive.

Nicolas Maes(Dutch: 1632-1693).

Maes (or, in more modern form, Maas), was a pupil of Rembrandt, and ranks high among Dutch masters, being distinguished from many of thegenrepainters by his richer colouring. "He assimilated the principles of his master," says Sir. F. Burton, "without adopting his subjects. In the class of pictures by which he is best known, namely, indoor scenes taken from ordinary life, he unites subtlety of chiaroscuro, vigorous colour, and great mastery in handling, with that true finish which never becomes trivial. The figures are finely drawn, and their action is perfect. Harmonies of red and black prevail in these works—sometimes pervading the picture in subdued tones; sometimes brought out in full contrasting force against white. The smaller pictures by Maes in this Gallery are among the finest examples of the former mode of treatment." Maes entered Rembrandt's studio in 1650 and remained there four years. He then returned to Dort, his native town, where he lived till 1678. In that year he moved to Amsterdam, where he remained to the end of his life, and was employed by most of the distinguished persons of his time. In these latter years he was mostly engaged in portraits. His earlier portraits (of which No. 1277 is a good specimen) are worthy of a pupil of Rembrandt. The later portraits are so different in style and inferior in quality that some critics ascribe them to the painter's son or some other artist of thesame name. "Maes's favourite colour," says Havard, "was red. No artist uses this colour with more boldness or more success than he does in his earlier works [note,e.g.the crimson curtain which forms the background in 1277]. For this reason doubts have been raised if he ever painted the series of large bewigged portraits which have been attributed to him, sombre and morose faces, uniformly set against a dark background. It is difficult to imagine the brilliant painter of 'The Cradle' forgetting his skill in light and shade and his love of nature, to give himself up, as in these commonplace productions, to mannerism and affectation" (The Dutch School, p. 100).

David Teniers, the younger(Flemish: 1610-1694).

Teniers, though a Fleming by birth, belongs rather to the Dutch School in style—being one of the principalgenrepainters, of whom most of the other leading masters are Dutch. His art stands, however, in direct relation to that of the Flemish painters preceding him, through the want of spiritual motive common to him and to them. But Teniers and thegenrepainters carry this banishment of spiritual motive a step further. "Rubens often gives instructive and magnificent allegory. Rembrandt, pathetic or powerful fancies, founded on real Scripture-reading, and on his interest in the picturesque character of the Jew. And Van Dyck, a graceful rendering of received Scriptural legends. But (with Teniers) ... we lose, not only all faith in religion, but all remembrance of it. Absolutely now at last we find ourselves without sight of God in all the world.... Farthest savages had, and still have, their Great Spirit, or, in extremity, their feather-idols, large-eyed; but here in Holland we have at last got utterly done with it all. Our only idol glitters dimly, in tangible shape of a pint pot, and all the incense offered thereto comes out of a small censer or bowl at the end of a pipe." The place of Teniers in art history is, therefore, so far as the ideals of art go, that he is,par excellence, "the painter of the pleasures of the ale-house and card-table" (Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. vi. §§ 10, 11; ch. viii. § 11). He did, indeed, occasionally venture on the ground of religious painting; but his essays in this sort are absurd. His devotion togenreentirely hit the taste of his time, and his fame was rapid and enduring. He was taught the rudiments of art by his father, David Teniers, the elder, a mediocre painter of small rustic subjects (see 949); but his real masters were Rubens and Brouwer, though he did not actually study with them. In 1633, at the age of twenty-three, he received the dignity of master. Four years later he married the daughter of Velvet Breughel, the former ward of Rubens, who acted as witness at the marriage ceremony. His talents were in universal request. The Archduke Leopold-William, Governor of the Spanish Netherlands, appointed him his private painter, andgave him an office in his household. Queen Christina of Sweden and King Philip IV. of Spain were amongst his patrons. He gave Don Juan of Austria lessons in painting, and this prince painted the portrait of Teniers's son, and presented it to the master as a token of his regard. In 1644 he was chosen to preside over the Antwerp Guild of Painters. In 1647 he took up his abode in Brussels. His country-seat at Perck (see 817) was a constant resort of the Spanish and Flemish nobility. Shortly after the death of his first wife in 1656 he married Isabella de Fren, daughter of the Secretary of the Council of Brabant, and he strove his utmost to prove his right to armorial bearings. The king declared his readiness to grant the request, but only on condition that Teniers should give up selling his pictures. Teniers did not accept the condition, and transferred his energies to procuring a charter for an Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp to which artists should alone be admitted, whereas the former Guild of St. Luke made no distinction between art and handicraft.The aristocratic leanings of Teniers may be detected in his pictures. He is indeed, as we have seen, "the painter of the ale-house." "He depicted the manners of the Flemish rustic, told of the intimacy of his domestic life and his happy, coarse laughter. His folk go to market, clean out the stable, milk the cows, raise the nets, sharpen knives, shoot off arrows, play at nine-pins or cards, bind up wounds, pull out teeth, cure bacon, make sausages, smoke, sing, dance, caress the girls, and, above all things, drink, like the live Flemings they are." Yet as compared with some other masters ofgenre, Teniers seems to treat his rustics somewhat from the outside. Their expressions are often exaggerated, and their gestures pass into grimace. "Brouwer knew more of taverns; Ostade was more thoroughly at home in cottages.... Teniers seems anxious to have it known that, far from indulging in the coarse amusements of the boors he is fond of painting, he himself lives in good style and looks like a gentleman. He never seems tired of showing the turrets of his château of Perck, and in the midst of rustic merry-makings we often see his family and himself received cap in hand by the joyous peasants" (e.g.in 817). So too, though many of his interiors are very good, Teniers is on the whole at his best in open-air scenes. In his skies he has given (says Ruskin) "some very wonderful passages" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. iii. ch. i. § 20; H. Hymans inEncyclopædia Britannica; Wauters'sFlemish School, p. 294). Good examples of Teniers continue to be greatly appreciated. The Belgian Government, for instance, gave £5000 in 1867 for the "Village Pastoral," now in Brussels Museum. The taste of Teniers may justly be condemned; his technique will always be admired. "Take," says Ruskin, "a picture by Teniers, of sots quarrelling over their dice; it is an entirely clever picture—so clever that nothing in its kind has ever been done equal to it; but it is also an entirely base and evil picture. It is an expression of delight in the prolongedcontemplation of a vile thing, and delight in that is an 'unmannered' or 'immoral' quality" (Crown of Wild Olive, § 56). His bright palette, his freshness of handling, his straightforwardness in means and intent, give to the best works of Teniers a permanent interest. He "touched with a workmanly hand, such as we cannot see rivalled now"; and he seems "never to have painted indolently, but gave the purchaser his thorough money's worth of mechanism." Hence it is that Sir Joshua Reynolds, though condemning Teniers's vulgarity of subject, yet held up his pictures as models to students who wished to excel in execution. It should, however, be noted that his works vary very much in this respect. Many of his later pictures are painted so thinly that the ground is in places barely covered. They have been called "afternoons," not from their subject, but from the time the painter took in producing them.

The aristocratic leanings of Teniers may be detected in his pictures. He is indeed, as we have seen, "the painter of the ale-house." "He depicted the manners of the Flemish rustic, told of the intimacy of his domestic life and his happy, coarse laughter. His folk go to market, clean out the stable, milk the cows, raise the nets, sharpen knives, shoot off arrows, play at nine-pins or cards, bind up wounds, pull out teeth, cure bacon, make sausages, smoke, sing, dance, caress the girls, and, above all things, drink, like the live Flemings they are." Yet as compared with some other masters ofgenre, Teniers seems to treat his rustics somewhat from the outside. Their expressions are often exaggerated, and their gestures pass into grimace. "Brouwer knew more of taverns; Ostade was more thoroughly at home in cottages.... Teniers seems anxious to have it known that, far from indulging in the coarse amusements of the boors he is fond of painting, he himself lives in good style and looks like a gentleman. He never seems tired of showing the turrets of his château of Perck, and in the midst of rustic merry-makings we often see his family and himself received cap in hand by the joyous peasants" (e.g.in 817). So too, though many of his interiors are very good, Teniers is on the whole at his best in open-air scenes. In his skies he has given (says Ruskin) "some very wonderful passages" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. iii. ch. i. § 20; H. Hymans inEncyclopædia Britannica; Wauters'sFlemish School, p. 294). Good examples of Teniers continue to be greatly appreciated. The Belgian Government, for instance, gave £5000 in 1867 for the "Village Pastoral," now in Brussels Museum. The taste of Teniers may justly be condemned; his technique will always be admired. "Take," says Ruskin, "a picture by Teniers, of sots quarrelling over their dice; it is an entirely clever picture—so clever that nothing in its kind has ever been done equal to it; but it is also an entirely base and evil picture. It is an expression of delight in the prolongedcontemplation of a vile thing, and delight in that is an 'unmannered' or 'immoral' quality" (Crown of Wild Olive, § 56). His bright palette, his freshness of handling, his straightforwardness in means and intent, give to the best works of Teniers a permanent interest. He "touched with a workmanly hand, such as we cannot see rivalled now"; and he seems "never to have painted indolently, but gave the purchaser his thorough money's worth of mechanism." Hence it is that Sir Joshua Reynolds, though condemning Teniers's vulgarity of subject, yet held up his pictures as models to students who wished to excel in execution. It should, however, be noted that his works vary very much in this respect. Many of his later pictures are painted so thinly that the ground is in places barely covered. They have been called "afternoons," not from their subject, but from the time the painter took in producing them.

This and the companion picture, 158, are characteristic specimens of the painter. The human specimens are ugly and vulgar; the pottery is pretty, and beautifully painted.

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