CHAPTER XI.

Books Recommended: The works on Italian art before mentioned and also consult General Bibliography, (page xv.).

THE VENETIAN SCHOOL:It was at Venice and with the Venetian painters of the sixteenth century that a new art-motive was finally and fully adopted. This art-motive was not religion. For though the religious subject was still largely used, the religious or pietistic belief was not with the Venetians any more than with Correggio. It was not a classic, antique, realistic, or naturalistic motive. The Venetians were interested in all phases of nature, and they were students of nature, but not students of truth for truth's sake.

What they sought, primarily, was the light and shade on a nude shoulder, the delicate contours of a form, the flow and fall of silk or brocade, the richness of a robe, a scheme of color or of light, the character of a face, the majesty of a figure. They were seeking effects of line, light, color—mere sensuous and pictorial effects, in which religion and classicism played secondary parts. They believed in art for art's sake; that painting was a creation, not an illustration; that it should exist by its pictorial beauties, not by its subject or story. No matter what their subjects, they invariably painted them so as to show the beauties they prized the highest. The Venetian conception was lessaustere, grand, intellectual, than pictorial, sensuous, concerning the beautiful as it appealed to the eye. And this was not a slight or unworthy conception. True it dealt with the fulness of material life, but regarded as it was by the Venetians—a thing full-rounded, complete, harmonious, splendid—it became a great ideal of existence.

FIG. 47.—GIORGIONE(?). ORDEAL OF MOSES. UFFIZI.FIG. 47.—GIORGIONE(?). ORDEAL OF MOSES. UFFIZI.Please click here for a modern color image

Please click here for a modern color image

In technical expression color was the note of all the school, with hardly an exception. This in itself would seem to imply a lightness of spirit, for color is somehow associated in the popular mind with decorative gayety; but nothing could be further removed from the Venetian school than triviality. Color was taken up with the greatest seriousness, and handled in such masses and with suchdignified power that while it pleased it also awed the spectator. Without having quite the severity of line, some of the Venetian chromatic schemes rise in sublimity almost to the Sistine modellings of Michael Angelo. We do not feel this so much in Giovanni Bellini, fine in color as he was. He came too early for the full splendor, but he left many pupils who completed what he had inaugurated.

THE GREAT VENETIANS:The most positive in influence upon his contemporaries of all the great Venetians wasGiorgione(1477?-1511). He died young, and what few pictures by him are left to us have been so torn to pieces by historical criticism that at times one begins to doubt if there ever was such a painter. His different styles have been confused, and his pictures in consequence thereof attributed to followers instead of to the master. Painters change their styles, but seldom their original bent of mind. With Giorgione there was a lyric feeling as shown in music. The voluptuous swell of line, the melting tone of color, the sharp dash of light, the undercurrent of atmosphere, all mingled for him into radiant melody. He sought pure pictorial beauty and found it in everything of nature. He had little grasp of the purely intellectual, and the religious was something he dealt with in no strong devotional way. The fête, the concert, the fable, the legend, with a landscape setting, made a stronger appeal to him. More of a recorder than a thinker he was not the less a leader showing the way into that new Arcadian grove of pleasure whose inhabitants thought not of creeds and faiths and histories and literatures, but were content to lead the life that was sweet in its glow and warmth of color, its light, its shadows, its bending trees, and arching skies. A strong full-blooded race, sober-minded, dignified, rationally happy with their lot, Giorgione portrayed them with an art infinite in variety and consummate in skill. Their least features under his brush seemed to glow like jewels. Thesheen of armor and rich robe, a bare forearm, a nude back, or loosened hair—mere morsels of color and light—all took on a new beauty. Even landscape with him became more significant. His master, Bellini, had been realistic enough in the details of trees and hills, but Giorgione grasped the meaning of landscape as an entirety, and rendered it with poetic breadth.

Technically he adopted the oil medium brought to Venice by Antonello da Messina, introducing scumbling and glazing to obtain brilliancy and depth of color. Of light-and-shade he was a master, and in atmosphere excellent. He, in common with all the Venetians, is sometimes said to be lacking in drawing, but that is the result of a misunderstanding. The Venetians never cared to accent line, choosing rather to model in masses of light and shadow and color. Giorgione was a superior man with the brush, but not quite up to his contemporary Titian.

FIG. 48.—TITIAN. VENUS EQUIPPING CUPID. BORGHESE PAL., ROME.FIG. 48.—TITIAN. VENUS EQUIPPING CUPID. BORGHESE PAL., ROME.Please click here for a modern color image

Please click here for a modern color image

That is not surprising, forTitian(1477-1576) was thepainter easily first in the whole range of Italian art. He was the first man in the history of painting to handle a brush with freedom, vigor, and gusto. And Titian's brush-work was probably the least part of his genius. Calm in mood, dignified, and often majestic in conception, learned beyond all others in his craft, he mingled thought, feeling, color, brush-work into one grand and glowing whole. He emphasized nothing, yet elevated everything. In pure intellectual thought he was not so strong as Raphael. He never sought to make painting a vehicle for theological, literary, or classical ideas. His tale was largely of humanity under a religious or classical name, but a noble, majestic humanity. In his art dignified senators, stern doges, and solemn ecclesiastics mingle with open-eyed madonnas, winning Ariadnes, and youthful Bacchuses. Men and women they are truly, but the very noblest of the Italian race, the mountain race of the Cadore country—proud, active, glowing with life; the sea race of Venice—worldly wise, full of character, luxurious in power.

In himself he was an epitome of all the excellences of painting. He was everything, the sum of Venetian skill, the crowning genius of Renaissance art. He had force, power, invention, imagination, point of view; he had the infinite knowledge of nature and the infinite mastery of art. In addition, Fortune smiled upon him as upon a favorite child. Trained in mind and hand he lived for ninety-nine years and worked unceasingly up to a few months of his death. His genius was great and his accomplishment equally so. He was celebrated and independent at thirty-five, though before that he showed something of the influence of Giorgione. After the death of Giorgione and his master, Bellini, Titian was the leader in Venice to the end of his long life, and though having few scholars of importance his influence was spread through all North Italian painting.

Taking him for all in all, perhaps it is not too much to say that he was the greatest painter known to history. If it were possible to describe that greatness in one word, that word would be "universality." He saw and painted that which was universal in its truth. The local and particular, the small and the accidental, were passed over for those great truths which belong to all the world of life. In this respect he was a veritable Shakespeare, with all the calmness and repose of one who overlooked the world from a lofty height.

FIG. 49.—TINTORETTO. MERCURY AND GRACES. DUCAL PAL., VENICE.FIG. 49.—TINTORETTO. MERCURY AND GRACES. DUCAL PAL., VENICE.Please click here for a modern color image

Please click here for a modern color image

The restfulness and easy strength of Titian were not characteristics of his followerTintoretto(1518-1592). Hewas violent, headlong, impulsive, more impetuous than Michael Angelo, and in some respects a strong reminder of him. He had not Michael Angelo's austerity, and there was more clash and tumult and fire about him, but he had a command of line like the Florentine, and a way of hurling things, as seen in the Fall of the Damned, that reminds one of the Last Judgment of the Sistine. It was his aim to combine the line of Michael Angelo and the color of Titian; but without reaching up to either of his models he produced a powerful amalgam of his own.

He was one of the very great artists of the world, and the most rapid workman in the whole Renaissance period. There are to-day, after centuries of decay, fire, theft, and repainting, yards upon yards of Tintoretto's canvases rotting upon the walls of the Venetian churches. He produced an enormous amount of work, and, what is to be regretted, much of it was contract work or experimental sketching. This has given his art a rather bad name, but judged by his best works in the Ducal Palace and the Academy at Venice, he will not be found lacking. Even in his masterpiece (The Miracle of the Slave) he is "Il Furioso," as they used to call him; but his thunderbolt style is held in check by wonderful grace, strength of modelling, superb contrasts of light with shade, and a coloring of flesh and robes not unworthy of the very greatest. He was a man who worked in the white heat of passion, with much imagination and invention. As a technician he sought difficulties rather than avoided them. There is some antagonism between form and color, but Tintoretto tried to reconcile them. The result was sometimes clashing, but no one could have done better with them than he did. He was a fine draughtsman, a good colorist, and a master of light. As a brushman he was a superior man, but not equal to Titian.

Paolo Veronese(1528-1588), the fourth great Venetian,did not follow the line direction set by Tintoretto, but carried out the original color-leaning of the school. He came a little later than Tintoretto, and his art was a reflection of the advancing Renaissance, wherein simplicity was destined to lose itself in complexity, grandeur, and display. Paolo came on the very crest of the Renaissance wave, when art, risen to its greatest height, was gleaming in that transparent splendor that precedes the fall.

FIG. 50.—P. VERONESE. VENICE ENTHRONED. DUCAL PAL., VENICE.FIG. 50.—P. VERONESE. VENICE ENTHRONED. DUCAL PAL., VENICE.Please click here for a modern color image

Please click here for a modern color image

The great bulk of his work had a large decorative motive behind it. Almost all of the late Venetian work was of that character. Hence it was brilliant in color, elaborate in subject, and grand in scale. Splendid robes, hangings, furniture, architecture, jewels, armor, appeared everywhere, and not in flat, lustreless hues, but with that brilliancy which they possess in nature. Drapery gave way to clothing, and texture-painting was introduced even in the largest canvases. Scenes from Scripture and legend turned into grand pageants of Venetian glory, and the facial expression of the characters rather passed out in favor of telling masses of color to be seen at a distance upon wallor ceiling. It was pomp and glory carried to the highest pitch, but with all seriousness of mood and truthfulness in art. It was beyond Titian in variety, richness, ornament, facility; but it was perhaps below Titian in sentiment, sobriety, and depth of insight. Titian, with all his sensuous beauty, did appeal to the higher intelligence, while Paolo and his companions appealed more positively to the eye by luxurious color-setting and magnificence of invention. The decadence came after Paolo, but not with him. His art was the most gorgeous of the Venetian school, and by many is ranked the highest of all, but perhaps it is better to say it was the height. Those who came after brought about the decline by striving to imitate his splendor, and thereby falling into extravagance.

These are the four great Venetians—the men of first rank. Beside them and around them were many other painters, placed in the second rank, who in any other time or city would have held first place.Palma il Vecchio(1480?-1528) was so excellent in many ways that it seems unjust to speak of him as a secondary painter. He was not, however, a great original mind, though in many respects a perfect painter. He was influenced by Bellini at first, and then by Giorgione. In subject there was nothing dramatic about him, and he carries chiefly by his portrayal of quiet, dignified, and beautiful Venetians under the names of saints and holy families. The St. Barbara is an example of this, and one of the most majestic figures in all painting.

FIG. 51.—LOTTO. THREE AGES. PITTI.FIG. 51.—LOTTO. THREE AGES. PITTI.Please click here for a modern color image

Please click here for a modern color image

Palma's friend and fellow-worker,Lorenzo Lotto(1480?-1556?) came from the school of the Bellini, and at different times was under the influence of several Venetian painters—Palma, Giorgione, Titian—without obliterating a sensitive individuality of his own. He was a somewhat mannered but very charming painter, and in portraits can hardly be classed below Titian.Rocco Marconi(fl. 1505-1520) was another Bellini-educated painter, showing the influence ofPalma and even of Paris Bordone. In color and landscape he was excellent.Pordenone(1483-1540) rather followed after Giorgione, and unsuccessfully competed with Titian. He was inclined to exaggeration in dramatic composition, but was a painter of undeniable power.Cariani(1480-1541) was another Giorgione follower.Bonifazio Pitatiprobably came from a Veronese family. He showed the influence of Palma, and was rather deficient in drawing, though exceedingly brilliant and rich in coloring. This latter may be said forParis Bordone(1495-1570), a painter of Titian's school, gorgeous in color, but often lacking in truth of form. His portraits are very fine. Another painter family, the Bassani—there were six of them, of whomJacopo Bassano(1510-1592)and his sonFrancesco Bassano(1550-1591), were the most noted—formed themselves after Venetian masters, and were rather remarkable for violent contrasts of light and dark,genretreatment of sacred subjects, and still-life and animal painting.

PAINTING IN VENETIAN TERRITORIES:Venetian painting was not confined to Venice, but extended through all the Venetian territories in Renaissance times, and those who lived away from the city were, in their art, decidedly Venetian, though possessing local characteristics.

At BresciaSavoldo(1480?-1548), a rather superficial painter, fond of weird lights and sheeny draperies, andRomanino(1485?-1566), a follower of Giorgione, good in composition but unequal and careless in execution, were the earliest of the High Renaissance men.Moretto(1498?-1555) was the strongest and most original, a man of individuality and power, remarkable technically for his delicacy and unity of color under a veil of "silvery tone." In composition he was dignified and noble, and in brush-work simple and direct. One of the great painters of the time, he seemed to stand more apart from Venetian influence than any other on Venetian territory. He left one remarkable pupil,Moroni(fl. 1549-1578) whose portraits are to-day the gems of several galleries, and greatly admired for their modern spirit and treatment.

At VeronaCarotoandGirolamo dai Libri(1474-1555), though living into the sixteenth century were more allied to the art of the fifteenth century.Torbido(1486?-1546?) was a vacillating painter, influenced by Liberale da Verona, Giorgione, Bonifazio Veronese, and later, even by Giulio Romano.Cavazzola(1486-1522) was more original, and a man of talent. There were numbers of other painters scattered all through the Venetian provinces at this time, but they were not of the first, or even the second rank, and hence call for no mention here.

PRINCIPAL WORKS:Giorgione, Fête Rustique Louvre, Sleeping Venus Dresden, altar-piece Castelfranco, Ordeal of Moses Judgment of Solomon Knight of Malta Uffizi;Titian, Sacred and Profane Love Borghese, Tribute Money Dresden, Annunciation S. Rocco, Pesaro Madonna Frari Venice, Entombment Man with Glove Louvre, Bacchus Nat. Gal. Lon., Charles V. Madrid, Danæ Naples, many other works in almost every European gallery;Tintoretto, many works in Venetian churches, Salute SS. Giovanni e Paolo S. Maria dell' Orto Scuola and Church of S. Rocco Ducal Palace Venice Acad. (best work Miracle of Slave);Paolo Veronese, many Pictures in S. Sebastiano Ducal Palace Academy Venice, Pitti, Uffizi, Brera, Capitoline and Borghese Galleries Rome, Turin, Dresden, Vienna, Louvre, Nat. Gal. Lon.;Palma il Vecchio, Jacob and Rachel Three Sisters Dresden, Barbara S. M. Formosa Venice, other altar-pieces Venice Acad., Colonna Palace Rome, Brera, Naples Mus., Vienna, Nat. Gal. Lon.;Lotto, Three Ages Pitti, Portraits Brera, Nat. Gal. Lon., altar-pieces SS. Giovanni e Paolo Venice and churches at Bergamo, Treviso, Recanti, also Uffizi, Vienna, Madrid Gals.;Marconi, Descent Venice Acad., altar-pieces S. Giorgio Maggiore SS. Giovanni e Paolo Venice;Pordenone, S. Lorenzo Madonna Venice Acad., Salome Doria St. George Quirinale Rome, other works Madrid, Dresden, St. Petersburg, Nat. Gal. Lon.;Bonifazio, St. John, St. Joseph, etc. Ambrosian Library Milan (attributed to Giorgione), Holy Family Colonna Pal. Rome, Ducal Pal., Pitti, Dresden Gals.; Supper at Emmaus Brera, other works Venice Acad.;Paris Bordone, Fisherman and Doge, Venice Acad., Madonna Casa Tadini Lovere, portraits in Uffizi, Pitti, Louvre, Munich, Vienna, Nat. Gal. Lon., Brignola Pal. Genoa;Jacopo Bassano, altar-pieces in Bassano churches, also Ducal Pal. Venice, Nat. Gal. Lon., Uffizi, Naples Mus.;Francesco Bassano, large pictures Ducal Pal., St. Catherine Pitti, Sabines Turin, Adoration and Christ in Temple Dresden, Adoration and Last Supper Madrid;Savoldo, altar-pieces Brera, S. Niccolò Treviso, Uffizi, Turin Gal., S. Giobbe Venice, Nat. Gal. Lon.;Romanino, altar-pieces S. Francesco Brescia, Berlin Gal., S. Giovanni Evangelista Brescia, Duomo Cremona, Padua, and Nat. Gal. Lon.;Moretto, altar-pieces Brera, Staedel Mus., S. M. della Pieta Venice, Vienna, Berlin, Louvre, Pitti, Nat. Gal. Lon.;Moroni, portraits Bergamo Gal., Uffizi, Nat. Gal. Lon., Berlin, Dresden, Madrid;Girolamo dai Libri, Madonna Berlin, Conception S. Paolo Verona, Virgin Verona Gal., S. Giorgio Maggiore Verona, Nat. Gal. Lon.;Torbido, frescos Duomo, altar-pieces S. Zeno and S. Eufemia Verona;Cavazzola, altar-pieces, Verona Gal. and Nat. Gal. Lon.

Books Recommended: As before, also General Bibliography, (page xv.); Calvi,Notizie della vita e delle opere di Gio. Francesco Barbiera; Malvasia,Felsina Pittrice; Sir Joshua Reynolds,Discourses; Symonds,Renaissance in Italy—The Catholic Reaction; Willard,Modern Italian Art.

THE DECLINE:An art movement in history seems like a wave that rises to a height, then breaks, falls, and parts of it are caught up from beneath to help form the strength of a new advance. In Italy Christianity was the propelling force of the wave. In the Early Renaissance, the antique, and the study of nature came in as additions. At Venice in the High Renaissance the art-for-art's-sake motive made the crest of light and color. The highest point was reached then, and there was nothing that could follow but the breaking and the scattering of the wave. This took place in Central Italy after 1540, in Venice after 1590.

Art had typified in form, thought, and expression everything of which the Italian race was capable. It had perfected all the graces and elegancies of line and color, and adorned them with a superlative splendor. There was nothing more to do. The idea was completed, the motive power had served its purpose, and that store of race-impulse which seems necessary to the making of every great art was exhausted. For the men that came after Michael Angelo andTintoretto there was nothing. All that they could do was to repeat what others had said, or to recombine the old thoughts and forms. This led inevitably to imitation, over-refinement of style, and conscious study of beauty, resulting in mannerism and affectation. Such qualities marked the art of those painters who came in the latter part of the sixteenth century and the first of the seventeenth. They were unfortunate men in the time of their birth. No painter could have been great in the seventeenth century of Italy. Art lay prone upon its face under Jesuit rule, and the late men were left upon the barren sands by the receding wave of the Renaissance.

FIG. 52.—BRONZINO. CHRIST IN LIMBO. UFFIZI.FIG. 52.—BRONZINO. CHRIST IN LIMBO. UFFIZI.

ART MOTIVES AND SUBJECTS:As before, the chief subject of the art of the Decadence was religion, with many heads and busts of the Madonna, though nature and the classic still played their parts. After the Reformation at the North the Church in Italy started the Counter-Reformation. One of the chief means employed by this Catholic reaction was the embellishment of church worship, and painting on a large scale, on panel rather than in fresco, was demanded for decorative purposes. But the religious motive had passed out, though its subject was retained, andthe pictorial motive had reached its climax at Venice. The faith of the one and the taste and skill of the other were not attainable by the late men, and, while consciously striving to achieve them, they fell into exaggerated sentiment and technical weakness. It seems perfectly apparent in their works that they had nothing of their own to say, and that they were trying to say over again what Michael Angelo, Correggio, and Titian had said before them much better. There were earnest men and good painters among them, but they could produce only the empty form of art. The spirit had fled.

THE MANNERISTS:Immediately after the High Renaissance leaders of Florence and Rome came the imitators and exaggerators of their styles. They produced large, crowded compositions, with a hasty facility of the brush and striking effects of light. Seeking the grand they overshot the temperate. Their elegance was affected, their sentiment forced, their brilliancy superficial glitter. When they thought to be ideal they lost themselves in incomprehensible allegories; when they thought to be real they grew prosaic in detail. These men are known in art history as the Mannerists, and the men whose works they imitated were chiefly Raphael, Michael Angelo, and Correggio. There were many of them, and some of them have already been spoken of as the followers of Michael Angelo.

Agnolo Bronzino(1502?-1572) was a pupil of Pontormo, and an imitator of Michael Angelo, painting in rather heavy colors with a thin brush. His characters were large, but never quite free from weakness, except in portraiture, where he appeared at his best.Vasari(1511-1574)—the same Vasari who wrote the lives of the painters—had versatility and facility, but his superficial imitations of Michael Angelo were too grandiose in conception and too palpably false in modelling.Salviati(1510-1563) was a friend of Vasari, a painter of about the same cast of mind andhand as Vasari, andFederigo Zucchero(1543-1609) belongs with him in producing things muscularly big but intellectually small.Baroccio(1528-1612), though classed among the Mannerists as an imitator of Correggio and Raphael, was really one of the strong men of the late times. There was affectation and sentimentality about his work, a prettiness of face, rosy flesh tints, and a general lightness of color, but he was a superior brushman, a good colorist, and, at times, a man of earnestness and power.

FIG. 53.—BAROCCIO. ANNUNCIATION.FIG. 53.—BAROCCIO. ANNUNCIATION.Please click here for a modern color image

Please click here for a modern color image

THE ECLECTICS:After the Mannerists came the Eclectics of Bologna, led by theCaracci, who, about 1585, sought to "revive" art. They started out to correct the faults of the Mannerists, and yet their own art was based more on the art of their great predecessors than on nature. They thought to make a union of Renaissance excellences by combining Michael Angelo's line, Titian's color, Correggio's light-and-shade and Raphael's symmetry and grace. The attempt was praiseworthy for the time, but hardly successful. They caught the lines and lights and colors of the great men, but they overlooked the fact that the excellence of the imitated lay largely intheir inimitable individualities, which could not be combined. The Eclectic work was done with intelligence, but their system was against them and their baroque age was against them. Midway in their career the Caracci themselves modified their eclecticism and placed more reliance upon nature. But their pupils paid little heed to the modification.

There were five of the Caracci, but three of them—Ludovico(1555-1619),Agostino(1557-1602), andAnnibale(1560-1609)—led the school, and of these Annibale was the most distinguished. They had many pupils, and their influence was widely spread over Italy. In Sir Joshua Reynolds's day they were ranked with Raphael, but at the present time criticism places them where they belong—painters of the Decadence with little originality or spontaneity in their art, though much technical skill.Domenichino(1581-1641) was the strongest of the pupils. His St. Jerome was rated by Poussin as one of the three great paintings of the world, but it never deserved such rank. It is powerfully composed, but poor in coloring and handling. The painter had great repute in his time, and was one of the best of the seventeenth century men.Guido Reni(1575-1642) was a painter of many gifts and accomplishments, combined with many weaknesses. His works are well composed and painted, but excessive in sentiment and overdone in pathos.Albani(1578-1660) ran to elegance and a porcelain-like prettiness.Guercino(1591-1666) was originally of the Eclectic School at Bologna, but later took up with the methods of the Naturalists at Naples. He was a painter of far more than the average ability.Sassoferrato(1605-1685) andCarlo Dolci(1616-1686) were so super-saturated with sentimentality that often their skill as painters is overlooked or forgotten. In spirit they were about the weakest of the century. There were other eclectic schools started throughout Italy—at Milan, Cremona,Ferrara—but they produced little worth recording. At Rome certain painters likeCristofano Allori(1577-1621), an exceptionally strong man for the time,Berrettini(1596-1669), andMaratta(1625-1713), manufactured a facile kind of painting from what was attractive in the various schools, but it was never other than meretricious work.

FIG. 54.—ANNIBALE CARACCI. ENTOMBMENT OF CHRIST. LOUVRE.FIG. 54.—ANNIBALE CARACCI. ENTOMBMENT OF CHRIST. LOUVRE.

THE NATURALISTS:Contemporary with the Eclectics sprang up the Neapolitan school of the Naturalists, led byCaravaggio(1569-1609) and his pupils. These schools opposed each other, and yet influenced each other. Especially was this true with the later men, who took what was best in both schools. The Naturalists were, perhaps, more firmly based upon nature than the Bolognese Eclectics.Their aim was to take nature as they found it, and yet, in conformity with the extravagance of the age, they depicted extravagant nature. Caravaggio thought to represent sacred scenes more truthfully by taking his models from the harsh street life about him and giving types of saints and apostles from Neapolitan brawlers and bandits. It was a brutal, coarse representation, rather fierce in mood and impetuous in action, yet not without a good deal of tragic power. His subjects were rather dismal or morose, but there was knowledge in the drawing of them, some good color and brush-work and a peculiar darkness of shadow masses (originally gained from Giorgione), that stood as an ear-mark of his whole school. From the continuous use of black shadows the school got the name of the "Darklings," by which they are still known.Giordano(1632-1705), a painter of prodigious facility and invention,Salvator Rosa(1615-1673), best known as one of the early painters of landscape, andRibera, a Spanish painter, were the principal pupils.

THE LATE VENETIANS:The Decadence at Venice, like the Renaissance, came later than at Florence, but after the death of Tintoretto mannerisms and the imitation of the great men did away with originality. There was still much color left, and fine ceiling decorations were done, but the nobility and calm splendor of Titian's days had passed.Palma il Giovine(1544-1628) with a hasty brush produced imitations of Tintoretto with some grace and force, and in remarkable quantity. He and Tintoretto were the most rapid and productive painters of the century; but Palma's was not good in spirit, though quite dashing in technic.Padovanino(1590-1650) was more of a Titian follower, but, like all the other painters of the time, he was proficient with the brush and lacking in the stronger mental elements. The last great Italian painter wasTiepolo(1696-1770), and he was really greatbeyond his age. With an art founded on Paolo Veronese, he produced decorative ceilings and panels of high quality, with wonderful invention, a limpid brush, and a light flaky color peculiarly appropriate to the walls of churches and palaces. He was, especially in easel pictures, a brilliant, vivacious brushman, full of dash and spirit, tempered by a large knowledge of what was true and pictorial. Some of his best pictures are still in Venice, and modern painters are unstinted in their praise of them. He left a son,Domenico Tiepolo(1726-1795), who followed his methods. In the late days of Venetian painting,Canaletto(1697-1768) andGuardi(1712-1793) achieved reputation by painting Venetian canals and architecture with much color effect.

FIG. 55.—CARAVAGGIO. THE CARD PLAYERS. DRESDEN.FIG. 55.—CARAVAGGIO. THE CARD PLAYERS. DRESDEN.

NINETEENTH-CENTURY PAINTING IN ITALY:There is little in the art of Italy during the present century that shows a positive national spirit. It has been leaning on the rest of Europe for many years, and the best that the livingpainters show is largely an echo of Dusseldorf, Munich, or Paris. The revived classicism of David in France affected nineteenth-century painting in Italy somewhat. Then it was swayed by Cornelius and Overbeck from Germany.Morelli(1826-[2]) shows this latter influence, though one of the most important of the living men.[3]In the 1860's Mariano Fortuny, a Spaniard at Rome, led the younger element in the glittering and the sparkling, and this style mingled with much that is more strikingly Parisian than Italian, may be found in the works of painters likeMichetti,De Nittis(1846-1884),Favretto,Tito,Nono,Simonetti, and others.

[2]Died, 1901.

[3]SeeScribner's Magazine, Neapolitan Art, Dec., 1890, Feb., 1891.

Of recent days the impressionistic view of light and color has had its influence; but the Italian work at its best is below that of France.Segantini[4]was one of the most promising of the younger men in subjects that have an archaic air about them.Boldini, though Italian born and originally following Fortuny's example, is really more Parisian than anything else. He is an artist of much power and technical strength ingenresubjects and portraits. The newer men areFragiocomo,Fattori,Mancini,Marchetti.

[4]Died, 1899.

PRINCIPAL WORKS:Mannerists—Agnolo Bronzino, Christ in Limbo and many portraits in Uffizi and Nat. Gal. Lon.;Vasari, many pictures in galleries at Arezzo, Bologna, Berlin, Munich, Louvre, Madrid;Salviati, Charity Christ Uffizi, Patience Pitti, St. Thomas Louvre, Love and Psyche Berlin;Federigo Zucchero, Duomo Florence, Ducal Palace Venice, Allegories Uffizi, Calumny Hampton Court;Baroccio, Pardon of St. Francis Urbino, Annunciation Loreto, several pictures in Uffizi, Nat. Gal. Lon., Louvre, Dresden Gal.Eclectics—Ludovico Caracci, Cathedral frescos Bologna, thirteen pictures Bologna Gal.;Agostino Caracci, frescos (with Annibale) Farnese Pal. Rome, altar-pieces Bologna Gal.;Annibale Carracci, frescos (with Agostino) Farnese Pal. Rome, other pictures Bologna Gal., Uffizi, Naples Mus., Dresden, Berlin, Louvre, Nat. Gal. Lon.;Domenichino, St. Jerome Vatican, S. Pietro in Vincoli, Diana Borghese, Bologna, Pitti, Louvre, Nat. Gal. Lon.;Guido Reni, frescos Aurora Rospigliosi Pal. Rome, many pictures Bologna, Borghese Gal., Pitti, Uffizi, Brera, Naples,Louvre, and other galleries of Europe;Albani,Guercino,Sassoferrato, andCarlo Dolci, works in almost every European gallery, especially Bologna;Cristofano Allori, Judith Pitti, also pictures in Uffizi;BerrettiniandMaratta, many examples in Italian galleries, also Louvre.Naturalists—Caravaggio, Entombment Vatican, many other works in Pitti, Uffizi, Naples, Louvre, Dresden, St. Petersburg;Giordano, Judgment of Paris Berlin, many pictures in Dresden and Italian galleries;Salvator Rosa, best marine in Pitti, other works Uffizi, Brera, Naples, Madrid galleries and Colonna, Corsini, Doria, Chigi Palaces Rome.Late Venetians—Palma il Giovine, Ducal Palace Venice, Cassel, Dresden, Munich, Madrid, Naples, Vienna galleries;Padovanino, Marriage in Cana Kneeling Angel and other works Venice Acad., Carmina Venice, also galleries of Louvre, Uffizi, Borghese, Dresden, London;Tiepolo, large fresco Villa Pisani Stra, Palazzo Labia Scuola Carmina, Venice, Villa Valmarana, and at Wurtzburg, easel pictures Venice Acad., Louvre, Berlin, Madrid;CanalettoandGuardi, many pictures in European galleries.Modern Italians[5]—Morelli, Madonna Royal chap. Castiglione, Assumption Royal chap. Naples;Michetti, The Vow Nat. Gal. Rome;De Nittis, Place du Carrousel Luxembourg Paris;Boldini, Gossips Met. Mus. New York.

Eclectics—Ludovico Caracci, Cathedral frescos Bologna, thirteen pictures Bologna Gal.;Agostino Caracci, frescos (with Annibale) Farnese Pal. Rome, altar-pieces Bologna Gal.;Annibale Carracci, frescos (with Agostino) Farnese Pal. Rome, other pictures Bologna Gal., Uffizi, Naples Mus., Dresden, Berlin, Louvre, Nat. Gal. Lon.;Domenichino, St. Jerome Vatican, S. Pietro in Vincoli, Diana Borghese, Bologna, Pitti, Louvre, Nat. Gal. Lon.;Guido Reni, frescos Aurora Rospigliosi Pal. Rome, many pictures Bologna, Borghese Gal., Pitti, Uffizi, Brera, Naples,Louvre, and other galleries of Europe;Albani,Guercino,Sassoferrato, andCarlo Dolci, works in almost every European gallery, especially Bologna;Cristofano Allori, Judith Pitti, also pictures in Uffizi;BerrettiniandMaratta, many examples in Italian galleries, also Louvre.

Naturalists—Caravaggio, Entombment Vatican, many other works in Pitti, Uffizi, Naples, Louvre, Dresden, St. Petersburg;Giordano, Judgment of Paris Berlin, many pictures in Dresden and Italian galleries;Salvator Rosa, best marine in Pitti, other works Uffizi, Brera, Naples, Madrid galleries and Colonna, Corsini, Doria, Chigi Palaces Rome.

Late Venetians—Palma il Giovine, Ducal Palace Venice, Cassel, Dresden, Munich, Madrid, Naples, Vienna galleries;Padovanino, Marriage in Cana Kneeling Angel and other works Venice Acad., Carmina Venice, also galleries of Louvre, Uffizi, Borghese, Dresden, London;Tiepolo, large fresco Villa Pisani Stra, Palazzo Labia Scuola Carmina, Venice, Villa Valmarana, and at Wurtzburg, easel pictures Venice Acad., Louvre, Berlin, Madrid;CanalettoandGuardi, many pictures in European galleries.

Modern Italians[5]—Morelli, Madonna Royal chap. Castiglione, Assumption Royal chap. Naples;Michetti, The Vow Nat. Gal. Rome;De Nittis, Place du Carrousel Luxembourg Paris;Boldini, Gossips Met. Mus. New York.

[5]Only works in public places are given. Those in private hands change too often for record here. For detailed list of works see Champlin and Perkins,Cyclopedia of Painters and Paintings.

Books Recommended: Amorini,Vita del celebre pittore Francesco Primaticcio; Berger,Histoire de l'École Française de Peinture au XVIImeSiècle; Bland,Les Peintres des fêtes galantes, Watteau, Boucher, et al.; Curmer,L'Œuvre de Jean Fouquet; Delaborde,Études sur les Beaux Arts en France et en Italie; Didot,Études sur Jean Cousin; Dimier,French Painting in XVI Century; Dumont,Antoine Watteau; Dussieux,Nouvelles Recherches sur la Vie de E. Lesueur; Genevay,Le Style Louis XIV., Charles Le Brun; Goncourt,L'Art du XVIIImeSiècle; Guibel,Éloge de Nicolas Poussin; Guiffrey,La Famille de Jean Cousin; Laborde,La Renaissance des Arts à la Cour de France; Lagrange,J. Vernet et la Peinture au XVIIImeSiècle; Lecoy de la Marche,Le Roi René; Mantz,François Boucher; Michiels,Études sur l'Art Flamand dans l'est et le midi de la France; Muntz,La Renaissance en Italie et en France; Palustre,La Renaissance en France; Pattison,Renaissance of Art in France; Pattison,Claude Lorrain; Poillon,Nicolas Poussin; Stranahan,History of French Painting.

EARLY FRENCH ART:Painting in France did not, as in Italy, spring directly from Christianity, though it dealt with the religious subject. From the beginning a decorative motive—the strong feature of French art—appears as the chief motive of painting. This showed itself largely in church ornament, garments, tapestries, miniatures, and illuminations. Mural paintings were produced during the fifth century, probably in imitation of Italian or Roman example.Under Charlemagne, in the eighth century, Byzantine influences were at work. In the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries much stained-glass work appeared, and also many missal paintings and furniture decorations.

Fig. 56.—POUSSIN. ET IN ARCADIA EGO. LOUVRE.Fig. 56.—POUSSIN. ET IN ARCADIA EGO. LOUVRE.Please click here for a modern color image

Please click here for a modern color image

In the fifteenth centuryRené of Anjou(1408-1480), king and painter, gave an impetus to art which he perhaps originally received from Italy. His work showed some Italian influence mingled with a great deal of Flemish precision, and corresponded for France to the early Renaissance work of Italy, though by no means so advanced. Contemporary with René wasJean Fouquet(1415?-1480?) an illuminator and portrait-painter, one of the earliest in French history. He was an artist of some original characteristics and produced an art detailed and exact in its realism.Jean Péreal(?-1528?) andJean Bourdichon(1457?-1521?) with Fouquet's pupils and sons, formed a school at Tours which afterward came toshow some Italian influence. The native workmen at Paris—they sprang up from illuminators to painters in all probability—showed more of the Flemish influence. Neither of the schools of the fifteenth century reflected much life or thought, but what there was of it was native to the soil, though their methods were influenced from without.

SIXTEENTH-CENTURY PAINTING:During this century Francis I., at Fontainebleau, seems to have encouraged two schools of painting, one the native French and the other an imported Italian, which afterward took to itself the name of the "School of Fontainebleau." Of the native artists theClouetswere the most conspicuous. They were of Flemish origin, and followed Flemish methods both in technic and mediums. There were four of them, of whomJean(1485?-1541?) andFrançois(1500?-1572?) were the most noteworthy. They painted many portraits, and François' work, bearing some resemblance to that of Holbein, it has been doubtfully said that he was a pupil of that painter. All of their work was remarkable for detail and closely followed facts.

The Italian importation came about largely through the travels of Francis I. in Italy. He invited to Fontainebleau Leonardo da Vinci, Andrea del Sarto, Il Rosso, Primaticcio, and Niccolò dell' Abbate. These painters rather superseded and greatly influenced the French painters. The result was an Italianized school of French art which ruled in France for many years. Primaticcio was probably the greatest of the influencers, remaining as he did for thirty years in France. The native painters,Jean Cousin(1500?-1589) andToussaint du Breuil(1561-1602) followed his style, and in the next century the painters were even more servile imitators of Italy—imitating not the best models either, but the Mannerists, the Eclectics, and the Roman painters of the Decadence.

FIG. 57.—CLAUDE LORRAIN. FLIGHT INTO EGYPT. DRESDEN.FIG. 57.—CLAUDE LORRAIN. FLIGHT INTO EGYPT. DRESDEN.Please click here for a modern color image

Please click here for a modern color image

SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY PAINTING:This was a century of great development and production in France, the time ofthe founding of the French Academy of Painting and Sculpture, and the formation of many picture collections. In the first part of the century the Flemish and native tendencies existed, but they were overawed, outnumbered by the Italian. Not even Rubens's painting for Marie de' Medici, in the palace of the Luxembourg, could stem the tide of Italy. The French painters flocked to Rome to study the art of their great predecessors and were led astray by the flashy elegance of the late Italians. Among the earliest of this century wasFréminet(1567-1619). He was first taught by his father and Jean Cousin, but afterward spent fifteen years in Italy studying Parmigianino and Michael Angelo. His work had something of the Mannerist style about it and was overwrought and exaggerated. Inshadows he seemed to have borrowed from Caravaggio.Vouet(1590-1649) was a student in Italy of Veronese's painting and afterward of Guido Reni and Caravaggio. He was a mediocre artist, but had a great vogue in France and left many celebrated pupils.

By all odds the best painter of this time wasNicolas Poussin(1593-1665). He lived almost all of his life in Italy, and might be put down as an Italian of the Decadence. He was well versed in classical archæology, and had much of the classic taste and feeling prevalent at that time in the Roman school of Giulio Romano. His work showed great intelligence and had an elevated grandiloquent style about it that was impressive. It reflected nothing French, and had little more root in present human sympathy than any of the other painting of the time, but it was better done. The drawing was correct if severe, the composition agreeable if formal, the coloring variegated if violent. Many of his pictures have now changed for the worse in coloring owing to the dissipation of surface pigments. He was the founder of the classic and academic in French art, and in influence was the most important man of the century. He was especially strong in the heroic landscape, and in this branch helped form the style of his brother-in-law,Gaspard (Dughet) Poussin(1613-1675).

The landscape painter of the period, however, wasClaude Lorrain(1600-1682). He differed from Poussin in making his pictures depend more strictly upon landscape than upon figures. With both painters, the trees, mountains, valleys, buildings, figures, were of the grand classic variety. Hills and plains, sylvan groves, flowing streams, peopled harbors, Ionic and Corinthian temples, Roman aqueducts, mythological groups, were the materials used, and the object of their use was to show the ideal dwelling-place of man—the former Garden of the Gods. Panoramic and slightly theatrical at times, Claude's work was not without its poetic side,shrewd knowledge, and skilful execution. He was a leader in landscape, the man who first painted real golden sunlight and shed its light upon earth. There is a soft summer's-day drowsiness, a golden haze of atmosphere, a feeling of composure and restfulness about his pictures that are attractive. Like Poussin he depended much upon long sweeping lines in composition, and upon effects of linear perspective.

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