FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[38]It is worth noting that a similar incident (which in this picture has greatly shocked some of the critics) is introduced in Orcagna's great fresco of the Triumph of Death. "The three kings of the German legend are represented looking at the three coffins containing three bodies of kings, such as themselves, in the last stage of corruption.... Orcagna disdains both poetry and taste; he wants thefactsonly; he wishes to give the spectator the same lesson that the kings had, and, therefore, instead of concealing the dead bodies, he paints them with the most fearful detail. And then, he does not consider what the three kings might most gracefully do. He considers only what they actually, in all probability,would have done. He makes them looking at the coffins with a startled stare, and one holding his nose" (Lectures on Architecture and Painting, pp. 209, 210).A comparison of the various opinions expressed on this picture would form a diverting chapter in the history of art criticism. Thus in Kugler'sHandbookwe are told that it is "in many respects one of the noblest pictures existing"; Sir Henry Cole ("Felix Summerly") called it "doubtless the greatest Italian painting in this country"; Hazlitt said it was "one of the best pictures on so large a scale that he was acquainted with"; Waagen pronounced it to be "the most important specimen of Italian art in England"; Solly called it "the second picture in the world"; and Mrs. Jameson saw in it a combination of "the characteristic power and beauty of the finest school of design and the finest school of colouring in the world." For an equally uncompromising condemnation see Landseer'sCatalogue, pp. 92-119. It is interesting to note that in some cases the admiration excited by the picture was due to the dirt with which by long neglect and lapse in time it had come to be discoloured. Thus Hazlitt says that "the figure of Lazarus is very fine and bold. The flesh iswell-baked,dingy, and ready to crumble from the touch, when it is liberated from its dread confinement to have life and motion impressed on it again" (Criticisms on Art, 1843, p. 9). Thus it was inferred that Sebastiano stooped to the trivial artifice of imparting an appearance of half putrefaction to the exhumed corpse. The absurdity of this criticism is well exposed by Henry Merritt, the famous picture restorer, in his essay on "Dirt and Pictures Separated" (Art Criticism and Romance, i. 69). The fact is that the whole picture was sadly darkened with time, and that it had become "embedded beneath a thick covering, compounded of half opaque varnish, patches of modern paint, and dirt." It has only been found possible partly to remove this covering. It may not be uninteresting to add that the picture was a favourite with Charles Darwin. "Many of the pictures in the National Gallery," he wrote, "gave me much pleasure; that of Sebastian del Piombo exciting in me a sense of sublimity" (Life, i. 49).The poet Tennyson was another great admirer of the picture. His son, describing visits with the poet to the National Gallery, says, "he always led the way first of all to the "Raising of Lazarus," by Sebastian del Piombo, and to Titian's "Bacchus and Ariadne."" "The Christ I call Christlike," said Tennyson on one occasion to Carlyle, "is Sebastian del Piombo's in the National Gallery" (Memoir, ii. 235). It is possible that the poet may have written the stanzas cited above with his eye on Sebastiano's picture.[39]"When they went to nature, which I believe to have been a very much rarer practice with them than their biographers would have us suppose, they copied her like children, drawing what they knew to be there, but not what they saw there" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. ii. ch. iii. Â§ 7).[40]The "Claude Lorraine glass"â€”a convex dark, or coloured hand-mirror used to concentrate the features of a landscape in a subdued toneâ€”"gives the objects of nature," says an old writer, "a soft mellow tinge like the colouring of that master."[41]But Ruskin does not quite keep his promise. "If Claude had been a great man he would not have been so steadfastly set on painting effects of sun; he would have looked at all nature, and at all art, and would have painted sun effects somewhat worse, and nature universally much better" (Modern Painters, vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. xviii. Â§ 23).[42]The passages quoted from Sir F. Burton are to be found in his edition of the Official Catalogue (unabridged) of the Foreign Schools. That work, which occupied the late Director's leisure for many years, is a worthy monument of his wide learning and fastidious taste. A large-paper edition was issued by the Stationery Office in 1892.[43]See, however, the sunset picture of his predecessor, Bellini (726). Connoisseurs should note that this picture is referred to by Richter as bearing on the vexed question of Palma Vecchio's relation with Titian, and showing that the latter imitated the former rather thanvice versÃ¢(Italian Art in the National Gallery, p. 85. See also Morelli'sGerman Galleries, p. 25).[44]Called also "Sinon before Priam" (Ã†neid, ii. 79).[45]The two pictures were bought by the nation in 1834 for Â£11,550. The sum was then thought a very large one, and the trustees fortified themselves with the opinion of experts. Amongst these Sir David Wilkie, R.A., wrote, "It is certainly a large sum for two pictures; but giving this difficulty its due weight, I would decidedly concur in giving this sum rather than let them go out of the country, considering the rarity of such specimens even in foreign countries, and their excellence as examples of the high school to which they belong, to which it must be the aim of every other school to approach."[46]The picture is inscribed "Mariage d'Isaac avec Rebecca," but it is a repetition with some variations in detail of the Claude known asIl Molino(The Mill) in the Doria palace at Rome. Ruskin characterises this version of the subject as a "villainous and unpalliated copy." "There is not," he adds, "one touch or line of even decent painting in the whole picture; but as connoisseurs have considered it a Claude, as it has been put in our Gallery for a Claude, and as people admire it every day for a Claude, I may at least presume it has those qualities of Claude in it which are wont to excite the public admiration, though it possesses none of those which sometimes give him claim to it; and I have so reasoned, and shall continue to reason upon it, especially with respect to facts of form, which cannot have been much altered by the copyist" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. iii. ch. i. Â§ 9, sec. iv. ch. ii. Â§ 8).[47]The following is the text of this portion of Turner's will: "I give and bequeath unto the Trustees and Directors for the time being of a certain Society or Institution, called the 'National Gallery' or Society, the following pictures or paintings by myself, namely Dido Building Carthage, and the picture formerly in the De Tabley collection. To hold the said pictures or paintings unto the said Trustees and Directors of this said Society for the time being, in trust for the said Institution or Society for ever, subject, nevertheless, to, for, and upon the following reservations and restrictions only; that is to say, I direct that the said pictures or paintings shall be hung, kept, and placed, that is to say, always between the two pictures painted by Claude, The Seaport and Mill." The "picture formerly in the De Tabley collection" is the "Sun rising in a Mist," 479. Turner bought it back at Lord de Tabley's sale at Christie's in 1827 for Â£514: 10s., and ever afterwards refused to part with it. The other picture, the Carthage (498), was returned unsold from the Academy, and Turner always kept it in his gallery. His friend Chantrey used to make him offers for it, but each time its price rose higher. "Why, what in the world, Turner, are you going to do with the picture?" he asked. "Be buried in it," Turner repliedâ€”a remark he often made to other friends.[48]"So in N. Poussin's 'Phocion' (40) the shadow of the stick on the stone in the right-hand corner, is shaded off and lost, while you see the stick plainly all the way. In nature's sunlight it would have been the direct reverse: you would have seen the shadow black and sharp all the way down; but you would have had to look for the stick, which in all probability would in several places have been confused with the stone behind it" (ibid.).[49]Compare on this point G. Poussin's "Abraham and Isaac" (31).[50]One may compare with Ruskin's description the similar one by Tennyson of a distant view of Monte Rosaâ€”How faintly-flush'd, how phantom-fair,Was Monte Rosa, hanging thereA thousand shadowy-pencill'd valleysAnd snowy dells in a golden air.The Daisy.[51]"In some of the convents (in Mexico) there still exist, buried alive like the inmates, various fine old paintings ... brought there by the monks" (Dublin National Gallery Catalogue). The Spanish influence gave birth, moreover, to a native Mexican School of painting, said to be of considerable merit.[52]"Murillo, of all true painters the narrowest, feeblest, and most superficial, for those reasons the most popular" (Two Paths, Â§ 57n.)â€”"The delight of vulgar painters (as Murillo) in coarse and slurred painting merely for the sake of its coarseness, opposed to the divine finish which the greatest and mightiest of men disdained not" (Modern Painters, vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. i. ch. x. Â§ 3).[53]The French partiality for Murillo is traditional, dating back to Marshal Soult's time, from whose collection the "Immaculate Conception" was bought. Murillos were his favourite spoils from the Peninsular War. "One day, showing General Gâ€”â€” his gallery in Paris, Soult stopped opposite a Murillo, and said, 'I very much valuethat, as it saved the lives of two estimable persons.' An Aide-de-camp whispered, 'He threatened to have both shot on the spot unless theygaveup the picture'" (Ford'sHandbook).[54]"He was not abadpainter," continued Ruskin, "but he exercises a most fatal influence on the English School, and therefore I owe him an especial grudge. I have never entered the Dulwich Gallery for fourteen years without seeing at least three copyists before the Murillos. Ineverhave seenonebefore the Paul Veronese.... I intend some time in my life to have a general conflagration of Murillos." Ruskin would have been relieved to know that of late years at the National Gallery Paul Veroneseâ€”and especially his St. Helenaâ€”has been very frequently copied.[55]Amongst the curiosities of criticisms are the differences between experts as to whether this is a morning or an evening effect. Contradictory opinions on the point were submitted to the Select Committee of 1853, but as the picture had been "restored," each side was able to impute the difficulty of deciding to the "ruinous" nature of that operation.[56]It may be interesting to note on the other side that Dr. Waagen (whose experience of the sea is given under No. 149) finds the waves in this picture to "run high," and to be "extraordinarily deep and full."[57]Compare for equally defective perspective the covered portico in 30.[58]Visitors to Venice may like to be reminded that most of Ruskin's criticism upon Tintoret's works there is now easily accessible in (1)The Relation between Michael Angelo and Tintoret, (2)The Stones of Venice, travellers' edition, and (3) the reissue of the second volume ofModern Painters. Mr. Ruskin always accounted his "discovery" of Tintoret as one of the chief works of his life. "I have supplied," he wrote inStones of Venice(1853), "somewhat copious notices of the pictures of Tintoret, because they are much injured, difficult to read, and entirely neglected by other writers on art." "I say with pride," he wrote in the epilogue to the second volume ofModern Painters(1883), "what it has become my duty to express openly, that it was left to me, and to me alone, first to discern, and then to teach, so far as in this hurried century any such thingcanbe taught, the excellency and supremacy of five great painters, despised until I spoke of them;â€”Turner, Tintoret, Luini, Botticelli, and Carpaccio. Despised,â€”nay, scarcely in any true sense of the word, known." For the Pre-Ruskinian view of Tintoret, the reader may consult Kugler'sHandbook of Painting.[59]For an exhaustive and interesting history of the legend see Mr. J. R. Anderson's Supplement toSt. Mark's Rest. One account, it seems, places both Perseus and St. George in the Nile Delta. Politicians who say that England has gone to Egypt to save that country from itself may perhaps see some significance in this. The superstitious in such things will not forget either that one of Gordon's names was George.[60]It is proper to mention that most of the critics dispute the genuineness of this picture, and consider it a copy by some scholar or imitator. "It is but a school repetition of a signed picture in The Hermitage, with the omission, however, of a charming figure of St. Catherine." In connection with this disputed point, it may not be out of place to recall the famous forgery in which Andrea himself played the chief part. The Duke of Mantua coveted Raphael's portrait of Leo X., and obtained permission from the Pope to appropriate it. The owner determined to meet force by fraud, and employed Andrea to make a copy which was sent to the Duke as the original. The copy, when at Mantua, deceived even Giulio Romano, who had himself taken part in the execution of the originalâ€”a fact which might well induce some modesty of judgment in connoisseurs.[61]The title usually given to this picture, "Christ Disputing with the Doctors," cannot be correct, for the figure of Christ is too old for an incident which occurred when he was twelve years old.[62]In the little-known collection in the library of Christ Church, Oxford, there is a powerful but unpleasantly realistic picture of a group in a butcher's shop, by one of the Carracci, which is perhaps a family portrait.[63]See Blake'sAuguries of Innocence.[64]Gaspard was particularly unfaithful to the variety of nature in his representation of leaves (see 98). It is interesting therefore, as showing how long it passed for truth, to note that Lanzi (i. 481) singles out this point for special praise: "Everything that Gaspard expresses is founded in nature; in his leaves he is as various as the trees themselves."[65]Compare on this point Claude's "Isaac and Rebecca," No. 12.[66]This anecdote is a modern counterpart of that of Protogenes, the rival of Apelles, who worked continuously, we are told, during the siege of Rhodes by Demetrius Poliorcetes, notwithstanding that the garden in which he painted was in the middle of the enemy's camp. Demetrius, unsolicited, took measures for the painter's safety, and when he was told that one of the masterpieces by Protogenes was in a part of the town exposed to assault, he changed his plan of operations.[67]"If you live in London you may test your progressaccuratelyby the degree of admiration you feel for the leaves of vine round the head of the Bacchus in Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne" (Elements of Drawing, p. 82). Another technical beauty referred to in the same book (p. 77n.) is "the points of light on the white flower in the wreath of the dancing child-faun." Similarly, "the wing of the cupid in Correggio's picture (10) is focused to two little grains of white at the top of it." Elsewhere Ruskin calls attention to "the leaves which crown the Bacchus, and the little dancing faun: every turn of the most subtle perspective, and every gradation of colour, is given with the colossal ease and power of the consummate master" (Academy Notes, 1855, p. 22).[68]Ruskin's analysis of Rubens's technical method, which is here omitted as foreign to the scope of this handbook, will be found in his review of Eastlake'sHistory of Oil Painting, now reprinted inOn the Old Road, i. Â§Â§ 98-136.[69]"The conditions of art in Flandersâ€”wealthy,bourgeois, proud, free,â€”were not dissimilar to those of art in Venice. The misty flats of Belgium have some of the atmospheric qualities of Venice. As Van Eyck is to the Vivarini, so is Rubens to Paolo Veronese. This expresses the amount of likeness and difference" (Symonds:Renaissance, iii. 265n).[70]See, for a further instance of this, what is said of Rubens's landscapes below, under 66.[71]Dr. Elisabeth Denio, in her monograph on Poussin (1899), adduces good reason for altering the commonly accepted date 1594 to 1593.[72]SeeLanzi, i. 477, and a paper by Mr. R. Heath in theMagazine of Artfor September 1877, where Poussin's theory is illustrated from his pictures in the Louvre. English readers may be reminded that Poussin is particularly well represented in the Dulwich Gallery.[73]Elsewhere Ruskin says of Poussin, "Whatever he has done has been done better by Titian." Also, "the landscape of Nicolo Poussin shows much power, and is usually composed and elaborated on right principles, but I am aware of nothing that it has attained of new or peculiar excellence; it is a graceful mixture of qualities to be found in other masters in higher degrees. In finish it is inferior to Leonardo's, in invention to Giorgione's, in truth to Titian's, in grace to Raphael's" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. i. ch. vii. Â§ 14).[74]"He feared the fascinations of colour, and once wrote from Venice that he must flee from a place where they lured him too much. He did not know how needless was the alarm" (Sir F. Burton).[75]Constable, who made some studies from this picture, was of the same opinion. In a letter to Fisher he describes it as "a noble Poussin: a solemn, deep, still summer's noon, with large umbrageous trees, and a man washing his feet at a fountain near them. Through the breaks in the trees are mountains, and the clouds collecting about them with the most enchanting effects possible. It cannot be too much to say that this landscape is full of religious and moral feeling" (Leslie'sLife of Constable, p. 90).[76]"Hang these pictures in a very strong light," said Rembrandt of his early work. "The smell of paint is not good for the health," he said many years afterwards, when a visitor came close up to one of his later pictures.[77]Baldwin Brown'sThe Fine Arts, p. 298, where Mr. Whistler's beautiful description of a "nocturne" on the Thames is cited as being in direct artistic descent from Rembrandt. "To Rembrandt," said the late Mr. Wornum (Epochs of Painting, 1864, p. 421), "belongs the glory of having first embodied in art and perpetuated [such] rare and beautiful effects of nature" as are referred to above. Ruskin took up the sentence, and replied with characteristic emphasis: "Such effects are indeed rare in nature; but they are not rare, absolutely. The sky, with the sun in it, does not usually give the impression of being dimly lighted through a circular hole; but you may observe a very similar effect any day in your coal-cellar. The light is not Rembrandtesque on the current, or banks, of a river; but it is on those of a drain. Colour is not Rembrandtesque, usually, in a clean house; but is presently obtainable of that quality in a dirty one. And without denying the pleasantness of the mode of progression, which Mr. Hazlitt, perhaps too enthusiastically, describes (in a criticism upon the present picture) as obtainable in a background of Rembrandt's, 'you stagger from one abyss of obscurity to another,' I cannot feel it an entirely glorious speciality to be distinguished, as Rembrandt was, from other great painters, chiefly by the liveliness of his darkness, and the dulness of his light. Glorious or inglorious, the speciality itself is easily and accurately definable. It is the aim of the best painters to paint the noblest things they can see by sunlight. It was the aim of Rembrandt to paint the foulest things he could seeâ€”by rushlight,"â€”a statement from which, of course, deduction must be made, in forming a general idea of Ruskin's estimate, for his appreciation of Rembrandt's portraits.See,e.g.under 51.[78]To further understand Rembrandt's principle of choice, contrast that of Veronese. See the passage quoted under No. 26.[79]Yet Rembrandt's pictures are often more deceptiveâ€”look more like realityâ€”than others which are really more true. Why? It is because "people are so much more easily and instinctively impressed by force of light than truth of colour.... Give them the true contrast of light, and they will not observe the false local colour." The references to Ruskin areModern Painters, vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. iii. Â§ 16; vol. iv. pt. v. ch. ii. Â§Â§ 11-19; vol. v. pt. ix. ch. vi. Â§ 10;On the Old Road, i. 498-505.[80]Ruskin, writing to theTimesin 1847, said of the then condition of the picture: "I have no hesitation in asserting that for the present it is utterly, and for ever partially, destroyed. I am not disposed lightly to impugn the judgment of Mr. Eastlake (that is, the then Keeper and subsequent Director, the late Sir C. L. Eastlake), but this was indisputably of all the pictures in the Gallery that which least required, and least could endure, the process of cleaning. It was in the most advantageous condition under which a work of Rubens can be seen; mellowed by time into more perfect harmony than when it left the easel, enriched and warmed, without losing any of its freshness or energy. The execution of the master is always so bold and frank as to be completely, perhaps even most agreeably, seen under circumstances of obscurity, which would be injurious to pictures of greater refinement; and though this was, indeed, one of his most highly-finished and careful works (to my mind, before it suffered this recent injury, far superior to everything at Antwerp, Malines, or Cologne), this was a more weighty reason for caution than for interference. Some portions of colour have been exhibited which were formerly untraceable; but even these have lost in power what they have gained in definitiveness,â€”the majesty and preciousness of all the tones are departed, the balance of distances lost. Time may, perhaps, restore something of the glow, but never the subordination; and the more delicate portions of flesh tint, especially the back of the female figure on the left, and of the boy in the centre, are destroyed for ever" (Arrows of the Chace, i, 56, 57).[81]The magnificent portrait No. 52 is by some critics ascribed to Rubens. Van Dyck hardly ever signed his pictures.[82]Not all artists have learnt from this great work gladly. It was exhibited at the first exhibition of "Old Masters" at the British Institution in 1815, and B. R. Haydon tells the following story: "Lawrence was looking at the Gevartius when I was there, and as he turned round, to my wonder, his face was boiling with rage as he grated out between his teeth, 'I suppose they think we want teaching!'" (Autobiography, i. 292).[83]Such is the tradition. By many modern critics the picture is, on internal evidence, taken away from Van Dyck and given to Rubens. Mr. Watts in the article cited above says: "Attributed to Van Dyck, but hardly, I think, suggesting his work, though it would be difficult to attribute it to any other painter, unless, perhaps, on some occasion Rubens might have been inspired with so fervent a love for art that he forgot his satisfaction in scattering his over-ripe dexterity."[84]The statement found in many biographies of the painter that he was a brewer is a mistake. It arose from the fact that his daughter married a brewer, and that the painter himself was buried from his son-in-law's brewery.[85]SeeModern Painters, vol. v. pt. vii. ch. iv. Â§ 13.[86]Ruskin (ibid., vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. ii. ch. iv. Â§ 16) notices this treatment of Apollo under the head of "Imagination Contemplative," as an instance of an imaginative abstraction "in which the form of one thing is fancifully indicated in the matter of another; as in phantoms and cloud shapes, the use of which, in mighty hands, is often most impressive, as in the cloudy-charioted Apollo of Nicolo Poussin in our own Gallery, which the reader may oppose to the substantial Apollo in Wilson's Niobe," see No. 110.[87]This figure is specially good. It was to rival this great landscape that James Ward (see 688), as he avows in his autobiography, painted his "Fighting Bulls," now in the South Kensington Museum. "How full of lithe natural movement," says Mr. J. T. Nettleship, "is the man in the foreground, in heavy boots and feathered hat, stooping and creeping towards the covey of partridges under cover of bramble and bush, compared with the clumsy anatomical bulls in Ward's picture" (George Morland, p. 54).[88]Ruskin is here speaking of the somewhat similar "St. George" picture in the Church of St. James at Antwerp.[89]See also No. 98, in which the tree is said by Ruskin to be "a mere jest" compared to this.[90]No. 78 was formerly Sir Joshua Reynolds's "Holy Family," on which notes will be found in Volume II. of this Handbook. The picture has now been withdrawn from exhibition and little remains of it, for owing to the excessive use of asphaltum the pigments have disappeared.[91]"Garofano" is the Italian for "gillyflower" (or clove-pink), and Tisio sometimes painted this flower as his sign-manual (like Mr. Whistler's butterfly).[92]Authorities differ between this title and "Pan teaching Apollo to play on the pipes." Certainly there is the "Pan's pipe," but then if it is Pan he ought to have goat's legs and horns. The fact that the picture is a companion to "Silenus gathering Grapes" makes also in favour of the description given in the text above.[93]See also Ruskin's remarks on the companion storm piece, No. 36.[94]It should be noted that this, as well as very many other pictures, has of late years been cleaned. Thus 98 and 68 (in 1880), 36 and 40 (in 1868), have been "cleaned and varnished." 31 was "relined, repaired, and varnished" in 1878; 161 was "cleaned and repaired" in 1868.[95]The diminutive title "Il Canaletto" was originally applied to Antonio's nephew and pupil, Bernardo Bellotto, but came to be transferred to Antonio Canale himself. The two Canaletti painted so much alike that their works are not easily distinguished.[96]Ruskin, on one of his latest visits to the National Gallery (1887), confessed that he had found himself admiring Canaletto. "After all," he said to me, "he was a good workman in oils, whereas so much of Turner's work is going to rack and ruin." Ruskin had made a similar concession long before to Claude. Writing to Mr. Fawkes on the death of Turner, he mentions a rumour that the artist had left only his finished pictures to the nation. "Alas! these are finished in a double senseâ€”nothing but chilled fragments of paint on rotten canvas. The Claudites will have a triumph when they get into the National Gallery" (quoted inThe Nineteenth Century, April 1900).[97]An amusing instance of the naÃ¯ve ignorance of the sea which underlay much of the excessive admiration of Vandevelde is afforded by Dr. Waagen, for many years director of the Berlin Gallery, and author ofTreasures of Art in England. At the end of a passage describing his "first attempt to navigate the watery paths," he says: "For the first time I understood the truth of these pictures (Bakhuizen's and Vandevelde's), and the refined art with which, by intervening dashes of sunshine, near or at a distance, andships to animate the scene, they produce such a charming variety on the surface of the sea." "For the first time!" exclaims Ruskin (Arrows of the Chace, i. 16, 17), "and yet this gallery-bred judge, this discriminator of coloured shreds and canvas patches, who has no idea how ships animate the sea untilâ€”charged with the fates of the Royal Academyâ€”he ventures his invaluable person from Rotterdam to Greenwich, will walk up to the work of a man whose brow is hard with the spray of a hundred storms, and characterise it as 'wanting in truth of clouds and waves.'" Dr. Waagen, it should be explained, had, on the strength of his first "navigation of the watery ways" pronounced Turner's works inferior in such truth to Vandevelde. Clearly Dr. Waagen, more fortunate than most of our foreign visitors, had a calm crossing.[98]It is interesting that another contemporary man of letters, the late Matthew Arnold, singled out these same lines for special praise: "No passage in poetry," he said, "has moved and pleased me more" (Fortnightly Review, August 1887, p. 299).[99]In this town were born two other painters, who are sometimes known by its name. Curiously enough, all three were originally masons.[100]Ruskin speaks of "the ruffian Caravaggio, distinguished only by his preference of candle-light and black shadows for the illustration and reinforcement of villainy" (On the Old Road, i. Â§ 48).[101]According to Morelli (Italian Masters in German Galleries, p. 56n.), this familiar tale is legendary, Francia being merely an abbreviation of his Christian name, Francesco. But the painter sometimes signed his name Franciscus Francia, a form which on Morelli's hypothesis would be tautological.[102]Francia's friendship with Raphael, on which art historians have based many theories and spun many interesting tales, is now discredited, the documents in question being comparatively modern forgeries (see p. 366 of Kugler'sItalian Schools of Painting, 5th edition, revised by Sir A. H. Layard, 1887, elsewhere referred to asLayard).[103]Vasari's story that Francia died of chagrin on seeing how far the whole work of his own life was transcended by Raphael's picture of St. Cecilia, which was sent to its destination at Bologna about 1516, is hardly credible.[104]Ruskin said of this picture in 1847: "The attribution to him of the wretched panel which now bears his name is a mere insult" (Arrows of the Chace, i. 64). "Petrus Peruginus" is inscribed in gold on the base of the mantle of the Virgin, but the picture may be the work of his disciple, Lo Spagna (see 1032).[105]Up to the time of the Van Eycks the general process of artistic painting for detached pictures was tempera. In this method the colours, after being ground with chalk, were laid on with a medium of water, white of eggs, juice of unripe figs, or some similar substance. Some kind of oil varnish was, however, often laid on afterwards, and a few Italian artists sometimes tried to mix their colours with oil in the first instance; but the results cannot have been satisfactory, for even Crivelli, who died in 1495, was still exclusively a painter in tempera. The objection to tempera, so far at any rate as northern countries were concerned, was that it suffered from the damp. Thus in an old retable in Westminster Abbey, so painted, the painting has flaked off. The objection to the early attempts at using oil as a medium was that it took a long time to dry. This caused Van Eyck incessant annoyance; his knowledge of chemistry led him to make experiments, and at last he obtained a medium which hastened the drying without the necessity of exposure to the sun. This medium was probably a mixture of linseed and nut oils. This method is different from that now called oil-painting. Now the colours are laid on by an oily medium, and when the picture is finished the whole surface is protected by a transparent varnish. Then the varnish was incorporated with the surface colours (see Conway'sEarly Flemish Artists, p. 119; and Wauters'sFlemish School of Painting, p. 35).[106]Arrows of the Chace, i. 66. "John Bellini is the only artist who appears to me to have united, in equal and magnificent measures, justness of drawing, nobleness of colouring, and perfect manliness of treatment, with the purest religious feeling. He did, as far as it is possible to do it, instinctively and unaffectedly, what the Carracci only pretended to do. Titian colours better, but has not his piety; Leonardo draws better, but has not his colour; Angelico is more heavenly, but has not his manliness, far less his powers of art" (Stones of Venice, Venetian Index). Morelli's estimate is the same; seeGerman Galleries, p. 361.[107]This letter of DÃ¼rer's gives an interesting glimpse into the art life of the time. "I have many good friends among the Italians, who warn me not to eat and drink with their painters. Many also of them are my enemies; they copy my things for the churches, picking them up whenever they can. Yet they abuse my style, saying that it is not antique art, and that therefore it is not good. But Giambellini has praised me much before many gentlemen; he wishes to have something of mine; he came to me and begged me to do something for him, and is quite willing to pay for it. And every one gives him such a good character that I feel an affection for him. He is very old, and is yet the best in painting; and the thing which pleased me so well eleven years ago has now no attractions for me" (Catalogue of Standard Series in the Ruskin Drawing School, P. 7).[108]SeeReport of Select Committee on the National Gallery, 1853, p. 432, where the whole story will be found very frankly told in Sir C. Eastlake's evidence.[109]Similarly Raphael Mengs, a later Spanish painter, said of Velazquez that he appeared to have painted with his will only, without the aid of his hand.

[38]It is worth noting that a similar incident (which in this picture has greatly shocked some of the critics) is introduced in Orcagna's great fresco of the Triumph of Death. "The three kings of the German legend are represented looking at the three coffins containing three bodies of kings, such as themselves, in the last stage of corruption.... Orcagna disdains both poetry and taste; he wants thefactsonly; he wishes to give the spectator the same lesson that the kings had, and, therefore, instead of concealing the dead bodies, he paints them with the most fearful detail. And then, he does not consider what the three kings might most gracefully do. He considers only what they actually, in all probability,would have done. He makes them looking at the coffins with a startled stare, and one holding his nose" (Lectures on Architecture and Painting, pp. 209, 210).A comparison of the various opinions expressed on this picture would form a diverting chapter in the history of art criticism. Thus in Kugler'sHandbookwe are told that it is "in many respects one of the noblest pictures existing"; Sir Henry Cole ("Felix Summerly") called it "doubtless the greatest Italian painting in this country"; Hazlitt said it was "one of the best pictures on so large a scale that he was acquainted with"; Waagen pronounced it to be "the most important specimen of Italian art in England"; Solly called it "the second picture in the world"; and Mrs. Jameson saw in it a combination of "the characteristic power and beauty of the finest school of design and the finest school of colouring in the world." For an equally uncompromising condemnation see Landseer'sCatalogue, pp. 92-119. It is interesting to note that in some cases the admiration excited by the picture was due to the dirt with which by long neglect and lapse in time it had come to be discoloured. Thus Hazlitt says that "the figure of Lazarus is very fine and bold. The flesh iswell-baked,dingy, and ready to crumble from the touch, when it is liberated from its dread confinement to have life and motion impressed on it again" (Criticisms on Art, 1843, p. 9). Thus it was inferred that Sebastiano stooped to the trivial artifice of imparting an appearance of half putrefaction to the exhumed corpse. The absurdity of this criticism is well exposed by Henry Merritt, the famous picture restorer, in his essay on "Dirt and Pictures Separated" (Art Criticism and Romance, i. 69). The fact is that the whole picture was sadly darkened with time, and that it had become "embedded beneath a thick covering, compounded of half opaque varnish, patches of modern paint, and dirt." It has only been found possible partly to remove this covering. It may not be uninteresting to add that the picture was a favourite with Charles Darwin. "Many of the pictures in the National Gallery," he wrote, "gave me much pleasure; that of Sebastian del Piombo exciting in me a sense of sublimity" (Life, i. 49).The poet Tennyson was another great admirer of the picture. His son, describing visits with the poet to the National Gallery, says, "he always led the way first of all to the "Raising of Lazarus," by Sebastian del Piombo, and to Titian's "Bacchus and Ariadne."" "The Christ I call Christlike," said Tennyson on one occasion to Carlyle, "is Sebastian del Piombo's in the National Gallery" (Memoir, ii. 235). It is possible that the poet may have written the stanzas cited above with his eye on Sebastiano's picture.

A comparison of the various opinions expressed on this picture would form a diverting chapter in the history of art criticism. Thus in Kugler'sHandbookwe are told that it is "in many respects one of the noblest pictures existing"; Sir Henry Cole ("Felix Summerly") called it "doubtless the greatest Italian painting in this country"; Hazlitt said it was "one of the best pictures on so large a scale that he was acquainted with"; Waagen pronounced it to be "the most important specimen of Italian art in England"; Solly called it "the second picture in the world"; and Mrs. Jameson saw in it a combination of "the characteristic power and beauty of the finest school of design and the finest school of colouring in the world." For an equally uncompromising condemnation see Landseer'sCatalogue, pp. 92-119. It is interesting to note that in some cases the admiration excited by the picture was due to the dirt with which by long neglect and lapse in time it had come to be discoloured. Thus Hazlitt says that "the figure of Lazarus is very fine and bold. The flesh iswell-baked,dingy, and ready to crumble from the touch, when it is liberated from its dread confinement to have life and motion impressed on it again" (Criticisms on Art, 1843, p. 9). Thus it was inferred that Sebastiano stooped to the trivial artifice of imparting an appearance of half putrefaction to the exhumed corpse. The absurdity of this criticism is well exposed by Henry Merritt, the famous picture restorer, in his essay on "Dirt and Pictures Separated" (Art Criticism and Romance, i. 69). The fact is that the whole picture was sadly darkened with time, and that it had become "embedded beneath a thick covering, compounded of half opaque varnish, patches of modern paint, and dirt." It has only been found possible partly to remove this covering. It may not be uninteresting to add that the picture was a favourite with Charles Darwin. "Many of the pictures in the National Gallery," he wrote, "gave me much pleasure; that of Sebastian del Piombo exciting in me a sense of sublimity" (Life, i. 49).

The poet Tennyson was another great admirer of the picture. His son, describing visits with the poet to the National Gallery, says, "he always led the way first of all to the "Raising of Lazarus," by Sebastian del Piombo, and to Titian's "Bacchus and Ariadne."" "The Christ I call Christlike," said Tennyson on one occasion to Carlyle, "is Sebastian del Piombo's in the National Gallery" (Memoir, ii. 235). It is possible that the poet may have written the stanzas cited above with his eye on Sebastiano's picture.

[39]"When they went to nature, which I believe to have been a very much rarer practice with them than their biographers would have us suppose, they copied her like children, drawing what they knew to be there, but not what they saw there" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. ii. ch. iii. Â§ 7).

[40]The "Claude Lorraine glass"â€”a convex dark, or coloured hand-mirror used to concentrate the features of a landscape in a subdued toneâ€”"gives the objects of nature," says an old writer, "a soft mellow tinge like the colouring of that master."

[41]But Ruskin does not quite keep his promise. "If Claude had been a great man he would not have been so steadfastly set on painting effects of sun; he would have looked at all nature, and at all art, and would have painted sun effects somewhat worse, and nature universally much better" (Modern Painters, vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. xviii. Â§ 23).

[42]The passages quoted from Sir F. Burton are to be found in his edition of the Official Catalogue (unabridged) of the Foreign Schools. That work, which occupied the late Director's leisure for many years, is a worthy monument of his wide learning and fastidious taste. A large-paper edition was issued by the Stationery Office in 1892.

[43]See, however, the sunset picture of his predecessor, Bellini (726). Connoisseurs should note that this picture is referred to by Richter as bearing on the vexed question of Palma Vecchio's relation with Titian, and showing that the latter imitated the former rather thanvice versÃ¢(Italian Art in the National Gallery, p. 85. See also Morelli'sGerman Galleries, p. 25).

[44]Called also "Sinon before Priam" (Ã†neid, ii. 79).

[45]The two pictures were bought by the nation in 1834 for Â£11,550. The sum was then thought a very large one, and the trustees fortified themselves with the opinion of experts. Amongst these Sir David Wilkie, R.A., wrote, "It is certainly a large sum for two pictures; but giving this difficulty its due weight, I would decidedly concur in giving this sum rather than let them go out of the country, considering the rarity of such specimens even in foreign countries, and their excellence as examples of the high school to which they belong, to which it must be the aim of every other school to approach."

[46]The picture is inscribed "Mariage d'Isaac avec Rebecca," but it is a repetition with some variations in detail of the Claude known asIl Molino(The Mill) in the Doria palace at Rome. Ruskin characterises this version of the subject as a "villainous and unpalliated copy." "There is not," he adds, "one touch or line of even decent painting in the whole picture; but as connoisseurs have considered it a Claude, as it has been put in our Gallery for a Claude, and as people admire it every day for a Claude, I may at least presume it has those qualities of Claude in it which are wont to excite the public admiration, though it possesses none of those which sometimes give him claim to it; and I have so reasoned, and shall continue to reason upon it, especially with respect to facts of form, which cannot have been much altered by the copyist" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. iii. ch. i. Â§ 9, sec. iv. ch. ii. Â§ 8).

[47]The following is the text of this portion of Turner's will: "I give and bequeath unto the Trustees and Directors for the time being of a certain Society or Institution, called the 'National Gallery' or Society, the following pictures or paintings by myself, namely Dido Building Carthage, and the picture formerly in the De Tabley collection. To hold the said pictures or paintings unto the said Trustees and Directors of this said Society for the time being, in trust for the said Institution or Society for ever, subject, nevertheless, to, for, and upon the following reservations and restrictions only; that is to say, I direct that the said pictures or paintings shall be hung, kept, and placed, that is to say, always between the two pictures painted by Claude, The Seaport and Mill." The "picture formerly in the De Tabley collection" is the "Sun rising in a Mist," 479. Turner bought it back at Lord de Tabley's sale at Christie's in 1827 for Â£514: 10s., and ever afterwards refused to part with it. The other picture, the Carthage (498), was returned unsold from the Academy, and Turner always kept it in his gallery. His friend Chantrey used to make him offers for it, but each time its price rose higher. "Why, what in the world, Turner, are you going to do with the picture?" he asked. "Be buried in it," Turner repliedâ€”a remark he often made to other friends.

[48]"So in N. Poussin's 'Phocion' (40) the shadow of the stick on the stone in the right-hand corner, is shaded off and lost, while you see the stick plainly all the way. In nature's sunlight it would have been the direct reverse: you would have seen the shadow black and sharp all the way down; but you would have had to look for the stick, which in all probability would in several places have been confused with the stone behind it" (ibid.).

[49]Compare on this point G. Poussin's "Abraham and Isaac" (31).

[50]One may compare with Ruskin's description the similar one by Tennyson of a distant view of Monte Rosaâ€”How faintly-flush'd, how phantom-fair,Was Monte Rosa, hanging thereA thousand shadowy-pencill'd valleysAnd snowy dells in a golden air.The Daisy.

[50]One may compare with Ruskin's description the similar one by Tennyson of a distant view of Monte Rosaâ€”

How faintly-flush'd, how phantom-fair,Was Monte Rosa, hanging thereA thousand shadowy-pencill'd valleysAnd snowy dells in a golden air.

The Daisy.

[51]"In some of the convents (in Mexico) there still exist, buried alive like the inmates, various fine old paintings ... brought there by the monks" (Dublin National Gallery Catalogue). The Spanish influence gave birth, moreover, to a native Mexican School of painting, said to be of considerable merit.

[52]"Murillo, of all true painters the narrowest, feeblest, and most superficial, for those reasons the most popular" (Two Paths, Â§ 57n.)â€”"The delight of vulgar painters (as Murillo) in coarse and slurred painting merely for the sake of its coarseness, opposed to the divine finish which the greatest and mightiest of men disdained not" (Modern Painters, vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. i. ch. x. Â§ 3).

[53]The French partiality for Murillo is traditional, dating back to Marshal Soult's time, from whose collection the "Immaculate Conception" was bought. Murillos were his favourite spoils from the Peninsular War. "One day, showing General Gâ€”â€” his gallery in Paris, Soult stopped opposite a Murillo, and said, 'I very much valuethat, as it saved the lives of two estimable persons.' An Aide-de-camp whispered, 'He threatened to have both shot on the spot unless theygaveup the picture'" (Ford'sHandbook).

[54]"He was not abadpainter," continued Ruskin, "but he exercises a most fatal influence on the English School, and therefore I owe him an especial grudge. I have never entered the Dulwich Gallery for fourteen years without seeing at least three copyists before the Murillos. Ineverhave seenonebefore the Paul Veronese.... I intend some time in my life to have a general conflagration of Murillos." Ruskin would have been relieved to know that of late years at the National Gallery Paul Veroneseâ€”and especially his St. Helenaâ€”has been very frequently copied.

[55]Amongst the curiosities of criticisms are the differences between experts as to whether this is a morning or an evening effect. Contradictory opinions on the point were submitted to the Select Committee of 1853, but as the picture had been "restored," each side was able to impute the difficulty of deciding to the "ruinous" nature of that operation.

[56]It may be interesting to note on the other side that Dr. Waagen (whose experience of the sea is given under No. 149) finds the waves in this picture to "run high," and to be "extraordinarily deep and full."

[57]Compare for equally defective perspective the covered portico in 30.

[58]Visitors to Venice may like to be reminded that most of Ruskin's criticism upon Tintoret's works there is now easily accessible in (1)The Relation between Michael Angelo and Tintoret, (2)The Stones of Venice, travellers' edition, and (3) the reissue of the second volume ofModern Painters. Mr. Ruskin always accounted his "discovery" of Tintoret as one of the chief works of his life. "I have supplied," he wrote inStones of Venice(1853), "somewhat copious notices of the pictures of Tintoret, because they are much injured, difficult to read, and entirely neglected by other writers on art." "I say with pride," he wrote in the epilogue to the second volume ofModern Painters(1883), "what it has become my duty to express openly, that it was left to me, and to me alone, first to discern, and then to teach, so far as in this hurried century any such thingcanbe taught, the excellency and supremacy of five great painters, despised until I spoke of them;â€”Turner, Tintoret, Luini, Botticelli, and Carpaccio. Despised,â€”nay, scarcely in any true sense of the word, known." For the Pre-Ruskinian view of Tintoret, the reader may consult Kugler'sHandbook of Painting.

[59]For an exhaustive and interesting history of the legend see Mr. J. R. Anderson's Supplement toSt. Mark's Rest. One account, it seems, places both Perseus and St. George in the Nile Delta. Politicians who say that England has gone to Egypt to save that country from itself may perhaps see some significance in this. The superstitious in such things will not forget either that one of Gordon's names was George.

[60]It is proper to mention that most of the critics dispute the genuineness of this picture, and consider it a copy by some scholar or imitator. "It is but a school repetition of a signed picture in The Hermitage, with the omission, however, of a charming figure of St. Catherine." In connection with this disputed point, it may not be out of place to recall the famous forgery in which Andrea himself played the chief part. The Duke of Mantua coveted Raphael's portrait of Leo X., and obtained permission from the Pope to appropriate it. The owner determined to meet force by fraud, and employed Andrea to make a copy which was sent to the Duke as the original. The copy, when at Mantua, deceived even Giulio Romano, who had himself taken part in the execution of the originalâ€”a fact which might well induce some modesty of judgment in connoisseurs.

[61]The title usually given to this picture, "Christ Disputing with the Doctors," cannot be correct, for the figure of Christ is too old for an incident which occurred when he was twelve years old.

[62]In the little-known collection in the library of Christ Church, Oxford, there is a powerful but unpleasantly realistic picture of a group in a butcher's shop, by one of the Carracci, which is perhaps a family portrait.

[63]See Blake'sAuguries of Innocence.

[64]Gaspard was particularly unfaithful to the variety of nature in his representation of leaves (see 98). It is interesting therefore, as showing how long it passed for truth, to note that Lanzi (i. 481) singles out this point for special praise: "Everything that Gaspard expresses is founded in nature; in his leaves he is as various as the trees themselves."

[65]Compare on this point Claude's "Isaac and Rebecca," No. 12.

[66]This anecdote is a modern counterpart of that of Protogenes, the rival of Apelles, who worked continuously, we are told, during the siege of Rhodes by Demetrius Poliorcetes, notwithstanding that the garden in which he painted was in the middle of the enemy's camp. Demetrius, unsolicited, took measures for the painter's safety, and when he was told that one of the masterpieces by Protogenes was in a part of the town exposed to assault, he changed his plan of operations.

[67]"If you live in London you may test your progressaccuratelyby the degree of admiration you feel for the leaves of vine round the head of the Bacchus in Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne" (Elements of Drawing, p. 82). Another technical beauty referred to in the same book (p. 77n.) is "the points of light on the white flower in the wreath of the dancing child-faun." Similarly, "the wing of the cupid in Correggio's picture (10) is focused to two little grains of white at the top of it." Elsewhere Ruskin calls attention to "the leaves which crown the Bacchus, and the little dancing faun: every turn of the most subtle perspective, and every gradation of colour, is given with the colossal ease and power of the consummate master" (Academy Notes, 1855, p. 22).

[68]Ruskin's analysis of Rubens's technical method, which is here omitted as foreign to the scope of this handbook, will be found in his review of Eastlake'sHistory of Oil Painting, now reprinted inOn the Old Road, i. Â§Â§ 98-136.

[69]"The conditions of art in Flandersâ€”wealthy,bourgeois, proud, free,â€”were not dissimilar to those of art in Venice. The misty flats of Belgium have some of the atmospheric qualities of Venice. As Van Eyck is to the Vivarini, so is Rubens to Paolo Veronese. This expresses the amount of likeness and difference" (Symonds:Renaissance, iii. 265n).

[70]See, for a further instance of this, what is said of Rubens's landscapes below, under 66.

[71]Dr. Elisabeth Denio, in her monograph on Poussin (1899), adduces good reason for altering the commonly accepted date 1594 to 1593.

[72]SeeLanzi, i. 477, and a paper by Mr. R. Heath in theMagazine of Artfor September 1877, where Poussin's theory is illustrated from his pictures in the Louvre. English readers may be reminded that Poussin is particularly well represented in the Dulwich Gallery.

[73]Elsewhere Ruskin says of Poussin, "Whatever he has done has been done better by Titian." Also, "the landscape of Nicolo Poussin shows much power, and is usually composed and elaborated on right principles, but I am aware of nothing that it has attained of new or peculiar excellence; it is a graceful mixture of qualities to be found in other masters in higher degrees. In finish it is inferior to Leonardo's, in invention to Giorgione's, in truth to Titian's, in grace to Raphael's" (Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. i. ch. vii. Â§ 14).

[74]"He feared the fascinations of colour, and once wrote from Venice that he must flee from a place where they lured him too much. He did not know how needless was the alarm" (Sir F. Burton).

[75]Constable, who made some studies from this picture, was of the same opinion. In a letter to Fisher he describes it as "a noble Poussin: a solemn, deep, still summer's noon, with large umbrageous trees, and a man washing his feet at a fountain near them. Through the breaks in the trees are mountains, and the clouds collecting about them with the most enchanting effects possible. It cannot be too much to say that this landscape is full of religious and moral feeling" (Leslie'sLife of Constable, p. 90).

[76]"Hang these pictures in a very strong light," said Rembrandt of his early work. "The smell of paint is not good for the health," he said many years afterwards, when a visitor came close up to one of his later pictures.

[77]Baldwin Brown'sThe Fine Arts, p. 298, where Mr. Whistler's beautiful description of a "nocturne" on the Thames is cited as being in direct artistic descent from Rembrandt. "To Rembrandt," said the late Mr. Wornum (Epochs of Painting, 1864, p. 421), "belongs the glory of having first embodied in art and perpetuated [such] rare and beautiful effects of nature" as are referred to above. Ruskin took up the sentence, and replied with characteristic emphasis: "Such effects are indeed rare in nature; but they are not rare, absolutely. The sky, with the sun in it, does not usually give the impression of being dimly lighted through a circular hole; but you may observe a very similar effect any day in your coal-cellar. The light is not Rembrandtesque on the current, or banks, of a river; but it is on those of a drain. Colour is not Rembrandtesque, usually, in a clean house; but is presently obtainable of that quality in a dirty one. And without denying the pleasantness of the mode of progression, which Mr. Hazlitt, perhaps too enthusiastically, describes (in a criticism upon the present picture) as obtainable in a background of Rembrandt's, 'you stagger from one abyss of obscurity to another,' I cannot feel it an entirely glorious speciality to be distinguished, as Rembrandt was, from other great painters, chiefly by the liveliness of his darkness, and the dulness of his light. Glorious or inglorious, the speciality itself is easily and accurately definable. It is the aim of the best painters to paint the noblest things they can see by sunlight. It was the aim of Rembrandt to paint the foulest things he could seeâ€”by rushlight,"â€”a statement from which, of course, deduction must be made, in forming a general idea of Ruskin's estimate, for his appreciation of Rembrandt's portraits.See,e.g.under 51.

[78]To further understand Rembrandt's principle of choice, contrast that of Veronese. See the passage quoted under No. 26.

[79]Yet Rembrandt's pictures are often more deceptiveâ€”look more like realityâ€”than others which are really more true. Why? It is because "people are so much more easily and instinctively impressed by force of light than truth of colour.... Give them the true contrast of light, and they will not observe the false local colour." The references to Ruskin areModern Painters, vol. iii. pt. iv. ch. iii. Â§ 16; vol. iv. pt. v. ch. ii. Â§Â§ 11-19; vol. v. pt. ix. ch. vi. Â§ 10;On the Old Road, i. 498-505.

[80]Ruskin, writing to theTimesin 1847, said of the then condition of the picture: "I have no hesitation in asserting that for the present it is utterly, and for ever partially, destroyed. I am not disposed lightly to impugn the judgment of Mr. Eastlake (that is, the then Keeper and subsequent Director, the late Sir C. L. Eastlake), but this was indisputably of all the pictures in the Gallery that which least required, and least could endure, the process of cleaning. It was in the most advantageous condition under which a work of Rubens can be seen; mellowed by time into more perfect harmony than when it left the easel, enriched and warmed, without losing any of its freshness or energy. The execution of the master is always so bold and frank as to be completely, perhaps even most agreeably, seen under circumstances of obscurity, which would be injurious to pictures of greater refinement; and though this was, indeed, one of his most highly-finished and careful works (to my mind, before it suffered this recent injury, far superior to everything at Antwerp, Malines, or Cologne), this was a more weighty reason for caution than for interference. Some portions of colour have been exhibited which were formerly untraceable; but even these have lost in power what they have gained in definitiveness,â€”the majesty and preciousness of all the tones are departed, the balance of distances lost. Time may, perhaps, restore something of the glow, but never the subordination; and the more delicate portions of flesh tint, especially the back of the female figure on the left, and of the boy in the centre, are destroyed for ever" (Arrows of the Chace, i, 56, 57).

[81]The magnificent portrait No. 52 is by some critics ascribed to Rubens. Van Dyck hardly ever signed his pictures.

[82]Not all artists have learnt from this great work gladly. It was exhibited at the first exhibition of "Old Masters" at the British Institution in 1815, and B. R. Haydon tells the following story: "Lawrence was looking at the Gevartius when I was there, and as he turned round, to my wonder, his face was boiling with rage as he grated out between his teeth, 'I suppose they think we want teaching!'" (Autobiography, i. 292).

[83]Such is the tradition. By many modern critics the picture is, on internal evidence, taken away from Van Dyck and given to Rubens. Mr. Watts in the article cited above says: "Attributed to Van Dyck, but hardly, I think, suggesting his work, though it would be difficult to attribute it to any other painter, unless, perhaps, on some occasion Rubens might have been inspired with so fervent a love for art that he forgot his satisfaction in scattering his over-ripe dexterity."

[84]The statement found in many biographies of the painter that he was a brewer is a mistake. It arose from the fact that his daughter married a brewer, and that the painter himself was buried from his son-in-law's brewery.

[85]SeeModern Painters, vol. v. pt. vii. ch. iv. Â§ 13.

[86]Ruskin (ibid., vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. ii. ch. iv. Â§ 16) notices this treatment of Apollo under the head of "Imagination Contemplative," as an instance of an imaginative abstraction "in which the form of one thing is fancifully indicated in the matter of another; as in phantoms and cloud shapes, the use of which, in mighty hands, is often most impressive, as in the cloudy-charioted Apollo of Nicolo Poussin in our own Gallery, which the reader may oppose to the substantial Apollo in Wilson's Niobe," see No. 110.

[87]This figure is specially good. It was to rival this great landscape that James Ward (see 688), as he avows in his autobiography, painted his "Fighting Bulls," now in the South Kensington Museum. "How full of lithe natural movement," says Mr. J. T. Nettleship, "is the man in the foreground, in heavy boots and feathered hat, stooping and creeping towards the covey of partridges under cover of bramble and bush, compared with the clumsy anatomical bulls in Ward's picture" (George Morland, p. 54).

[88]Ruskin is here speaking of the somewhat similar "St. George" picture in the Church of St. James at Antwerp.

[89]See also No. 98, in which the tree is said by Ruskin to be "a mere jest" compared to this.

[90]No. 78 was formerly Sir Joshua Reynolds's "Holy Family," on which notes will be found in Volume II. of this Handbook. The picture has now been withdrawn from exhibition and little remains of it, for owing to the excessive use of asphaltum the pigments have disappeared.

[91]"Garofano" is the Italian for "gillyflower" (or clove-pink), and Tisio sometimes painted this flower as his sign-manual (like Mr. Whistler's butterfly).

[92]Authorities differ between this title and "Pan teaching Apollo to play on the pipes." Certainly there is the "Pan's pipe," but then if it is Pan he ought to have goat's legs and horns. The fact that the picture is a companion to "Silenus gathering Grapes" makes also in favour of the description given in the text above.

[93]See also Ruskin's remarks on the companion storm piece, No. 36.

[94]It should be noted that this, as well as very many other pictures, has of late years been cleaned. Thus 98 and 68 (in 1880), 36 and 40 (in 1868), have been "cleaned and varnished." 31 was "relined, repaired, and varnished" in 1878; 161 was "cleaned and repaired" in 1868.

[95]The diminutive title "Il Canaletto" was originally applied to Antonio's nephew and pupil, Bernardo Bellotto, but came to be transferred to Antonio Canale himself. The two Canaletti painted so much alike that their works are not easily distinguished.

[96]Ruskin, on one of his latest visits to the National Gallery (1887), confessed that he had found himself admiring Canaletto. "After all," he said to me, "he was a good workman in oils, whereas so much of Turner's work is going to rack and ruin." Ruskin had made a similar concession long before to Claude. Writing to Mr. Fawkes on the death of Turner, he mentions a rumour that the artist had left only his finished pictures to the nation. "Alas! these are finished in a double senseâ€”nothing but chilled fragments of paint on rotten canvas. The Claudites will have a triumph when they get into the National Gallery" (quoted inThe Nineteenth Century, April 1900).

[97]An amusing instance of the naÃ¯ve ignorance of the sea which underlay much of the excessive admiration of Vandevelde is afforded by Dr. Waagen, for many years director of the Berlin Gallery, and author ofTreasures of Art in England. At the end of a passage describing his "first attempt to navigate the watery paths," he says: "For the first time I understood the truth of these pictures (Bakhuizen's and Vandevelde's), and the refined art with which, by intervening dashes of sunshine, near or at a distance, andships to animate the scene, they produce such a charming variety on the surface of the sea." "For the first time!" exclaims Ruskin (Arrows of the Chace, i. 16, 17), "and yet this gallery-bred judge, this discriminator of coloured shreds and canvas patches, who has no idea how ships animate the sea untilâ€”charged with the fates of the Royal Academyâ€”he ventures his invaluable person from Rotterdam to Greenwich, will walk up to the work of a man whose brow is hard with the spray of a hundred storms, and characterise it as 'wanting in truth of clouds and waves.'" Dr. Waagen, it should be explained, had, on the strength of his first "navigation of the watery ways" pronounced Turner's works inferior in such truth to Vandevelde. Clearly Dr. Waagen, more fortunate than most of our foreign visitors, had a calm crossing.

[98]It is interesting that another contemporary man of letters, the late Matthew Arnold, singled out these same lines for special praise: "No passage in poetry," he said, "has moved and pleased me more" (Fortnightly Review, August 1887, p. 299).

[99]In this town were born two other painters, who are sometimes known by its name. Curiously enough, all three were originally masons.

[100]Ruskin speaks of "the ruffian Caravaggio, distinguished only by his preference of candle-light and black shadows for the illustration and reinforcement of villainy" (On the Old Road, i. Â§ 48).

[101]According to Morelli (Italian Masters in German Galleries, p. 56n.), this familiar tale is legendary, Francia being merely an abbreviation of his Christian name, Francesco. But the painter sometimes signed his name Franciscus Francia, a form which on Morelli's hypothesis would be tautological.

[102]Francia's friendship with Raphael, on which art historians have based many theories and spun many interesting tales, is now discredited, the documents in question being comparatively modern forgeries (see p. 366 of Kugler'sItalian Schools of Painting, 5th edition, revised by Sir A. H. Layard, 1887, elsewhere referred to asLayard).

[103]Vasari's story that Francia died of chagrin on seeing how far the whole work of his own life was transcended by Raphael's picture of St. Cecilia, which was sent to its destination at Bologna about 1516, is hardly credible.

[104]Ruskin said of this picture in 1847: "The attribution to him of the wretched panel which now bears his name is a mere insult" (Arrows of the Chace, i. 64). "Petrus Peruginus" is inscribed in gold on the base of the mantle of the Virgin, but the picture may be the work of his disciple, Lo Spagna (see 1032).

[105]Up to the time of the Van Eycks the general process of artistic painting for detached pictures was tempera. In this method the colours, after being ground with chalk, were laid on with a medium of water, white of eggs, juice of unripe figs, or some similar substance. Some kind of oil varnish was, however, often laid on afterwards, and a few Italian artists sometimes tried to mix their colours with oil in the first instance; but the results cannot have been satisfactory, for even Crivelli, who died in 1495, was still exclusively a painter in tempera. The objection to tempera, so far at any rate as northern countries were concerned, was that it suffered from the damp. Thus in an old retable in Westminster Abbey, so painted, the painting has flaked off. The objection to the early attempts at using oil as a medium was that it took a long time to dry. This caused Van Eyck incessant annoyance; his knowledge of chemistry led him to make experiments, and at last he obtained a medium which hastened the drying without the necessity of exposure to the sun. This medium was probably a mixture of linseed and nut oils. This method is different from that now called oil-painting. Now the colours are laid on by an oily medium, and when the picture is finished the whole surface is protected by a transparent varnish. Then the varnish was incorporated with the surface colours (see Conway'sEarly Flemish Artists, p. 119; and Wauters'sFlemish School of Painting, p. 35).

[106]Arrows of the Chace, i. 66. "John Bellini is the only artist who appears to me to have united, in equal and magnificent measures, justness of drawing, nobleness of colouring, and perfect manliness of treatment, with the purest religious feeling. He did, as far as it is possible to do it, instinctively and unaffectedly, what the Carracci only pretended to do. Titian colours better, but has not his piety; Leonardo draws better, but has not his colour; Angelico is more heavenly, but has not his manliness, far less his powers of art" (Stones of Venice, Venetian Index). Morelli's estimate is the same; seeGerman Galleries, p. 361.

[107]This letter of DÃ¼rer's gives an interesting glimpse into the art life of the time. "I have many good friends among the Italians, who warn me not to eat and drink with their painters. Many also of them are my enemies; they copy my things for the churches, picking them up whenever they can. Yet they abuse my style, saying that it is not antique art, and that therefore it is not good. But Giambellini has praised me much before many gentlemen; he wishes to have something of mine; he came to me and begged me to do something for him, and is quite willing to pay for it. And every one gives him such a good character that I feel an affection for him. He is very old, and is yet the best in painting; and the thing which pleased me so well eleven years ago has now no attractions for me" (Catalogue of Standard Series in the Ruskin Drawing School, P. 7).

[108]SeeReport of Select Committee on the National Gallery, 1853, p. 432, where the whole story will be found very frankly told in Sir C. Eastlake's evidence.

[109]Similarly Raphael Mengs, a later Spanish painter, said of Velazquez that he appeared to have painted with his will only, without the aid of his hand.

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