FRESCO-PAINTING.

Fig. 231.—St. Timothy the Martyr, Coloured Glass of the end of the Eleventh Century, found in the Church of Neuwiller (Bas-Rhin) by M. Bœswillwald. (From the “History of Glass-Painting,” by M. Lasteyrie.)

its vestments as if it were enclosed in a long sheath. This is the general character of the examples of that period as they are known to us (Fig. 231).

The painted windows which Suger made to adorn the abbey-church of St. Denis, some of which exist in our days, date from the twelfth century. The abbot made inquiries in every country, and gathered together at a great expense the best artists he could find, in order to assist in this decoration. The Adoration of the Magi, the Annunciation, the History of Moses, and various allegories, are there represented in the chapel of the Virgin and those of St. Osman and St. Hilary. Among the principal pictures may be also observed a portrait of Suger himself at the feet of the Virgin. The borders surrounding the subjects may be considered as models of harmony and good arrangement of effect; but still the taste shown in the selection and combination of colours is carried to the highest point in the subjects themselves, the designs of which are very excellent.

In the Church of St. Maurice, at Angers, we find examples of a rather earlier date—perhaps the most ancient specimens of painted windows in France; these are the history of St. Catherine and that of the Virgin, which, in truth, are not equal in merit, as regards execution and taste, to the ancient windows of the Church of St. Denis.

We still have to mention some fragments contained in the Church of St. Serge, and the chapel of the Hospital, in the town of Angers; also a glass-window in the Abbey of Fontevrault; another in the Church of St. Peter, at Dreux, in which is represented Queen Anne of Brittany. We will, in conclusion, mention one of the windows of the choir in the Church of the Trinity, at Vendôme; it represents the Glorification of the Virgin, who bears on her forehead an aureola, the shape of which, calledamandaire,[29]has furnished archæologists with a subject for long discussions; some being desirous of proving that this aureola, which does not appear to be depicted in the same way on any other painted window, tends to show that the works of the Poitevine glass-makers, to whom it is attributed, had been subject to the influence of the Byzantine school; others assert that the almond-shaped crown is a symbol exclusively reserved for the Virgin. Before we proceed to the examples handed down to us from the twelfth century, we must mention some remains of glass to be seen at Chartres, Mans, Sens, and Bourges (Fig. 232), &c. We may also add, as an incidentnot without interest, that a chapter of the order of the Cistercians, considering the great expense to which the acquisition of painted windows led, prohibited the use of them in churches under the rule of St. Bernard.

Fig. 232.—Fragment of a Church-window, representing the “Prodigal Son.” Thirteenth Century. (Presented to the Cathedral of Bourges by the Guild of Tanners.)

“The architecture of the thirteenth century,” according to the judicious remarks of Champollion-Figeac, “by its style of moulding, which is more slender and graceful than the massive forms of Roman art, opened a widerand more favourable field for artists in glass. The small pillars then projected, and extended themselves with a novel elegance, and the tapering and delicate spires of the steeples lost themselves in the clouds. The windows occupied more space, and likewise had the appearance of springing lightly and gracefully upwards. They were adorned with symbolical ornaments, griffins, and other fantastic animals; leaves and boughs cross and intertwine with one another, producing that varied rose-work which is the admiration of modern glass-makers. The colours are more skilfully combined and better blended than in the windows of the preceding century; and although some of the figures are still wanting in expression, and have not thrown off all the stiffness which characterised them, the draperies, at least, are lighter and better drawn.” Examples of the thirteenth century which have remained to our time are very numerous. There is at Poitiers some painted glass composed of small roses, and chiefly placed in one of the windows in the centre of the church and in the “Calvary” of the apse; at Sens, the legend of St. Thomas of Canterbury is represented in a number of small medallions, calledverrières légendaires; at Mans is glass representing the corporations of trades; at Chartres, the painted glass in the cathedral, a work both magnificent and extensive, contains no fewer than one thousand three hundred and fifty subjects, distributed throughout one hundred and forty-three windows. At Rheims, the painted glass is perhaps less important, but it is remarkable both for the brilliancy of its colours and also for its characteristic fitness to the style of the edifice. Bourges, Tours, Angers, and Notre-Dame in Paris, present very beautiful specimens. The Cathedral of Rouen possesses, to this day, a window which bears the name of Clement of Chartres,master glazier, the first artist of this kind who has left behind him any work bearing his signature. We must, in conclusion, mention the Sainte-Chapelle, Paris, which is unquestionably the highest representation of what the art is capable of producing. The designs of the windows in this last edifice arelegendary, and although some few inaccuracies may be noticed in the figures, the fault is redeemed by the studied elegance of the ornamentation and the harmony of colours, which combine to render them one of the most consistent and perfect works of painting on glass.

In the thirteenth century “grisaille” first made its appearance; it wasquite a new style, and has been often since employed in the borders and ornaments of painted windows. “Grisaille,”[30]the name of which is to some extent sufficient to describe its aspect, was used simultaneously with the mosaics of variegated glass, as we see in the Church of St. Thomas, Strasbourg, in the Cathedral of Freybourg in Brisgau, and in many churches of Bourges.

The large number of paintings on glass belonging to the thirteenth century, which may still be studied in various churches, has given rise to the idea of classifying all these monuments, and arranging them under certain schools, which have been designated by the names ofFranco-Norman,Germanic, &c. Some have even gone further, and desired to recognise in the style peculiar to the artists of ancient France a Norman style, a Poitevin style (the latter recognisable, it is said, by the want of harmony in the colours), &c. We can hardly admit these last distinctions, and are the less inclined to do so, as those who propound them seem to base their theories rather on the defects than the good qualities of the artists. Besides, at a period in which a nobleman sometimes possessed several provinces very distant from each other—as, for example, Anjou and Provence—it might so happen that the artists he took with him to his different residences could scarcely fail, by the union of their various works, to cause any provincial influences to disappear, and would finally reduce the distinction between what is called the Poitevin style, the Norman style, &c., to a question of a more or less skilful manufacture, or of a more or less advanced improvement.

In the fourteenth century the artist in glass became separated from the architect; although naturally subordinate to the designer of the edifice, in which the windows were to be only an accessory ornament, he wished to give effect to his own inspiration. The whole of the building was subjected by him to the effect of his more learned and correct drawing, and his purer and more striking colouring. It mattered little to him should some part of the church have too much light, or not light enough, if a flood of radiance deluged the apse or the choir, instead of being gradually diffused everywhere, as in earlier buildings. He desired his labour to recommend him, and his work to do him honour.

The court-poets, Guillaume de Machaut and Eustache Deschamps, celebrate in their poems several works in painted glass of their time, and even give some details in verse on the mode of fabricating them.

Fig. 233.—Legend of the Jew of the Rue des Billettes, Paris, piercing the Holy Wafer with his Knife. (From a Window of the Church of St. Alpin, at Châlons-sur-Marne. Fourteenth Century.)

In 1347 a royal ordinance was proclaimed in favour of the workmen of Lyons. The custom existed at that time of adorning with painted windowsroyal and lordly habitations. The artists produced their own designs, adapting them to the use that was made, in private life, of the halls for which they were intended. Some of these windows representing familiar legends adorned even the churches (Fig. 233).

Among the most important works of the fourteenth century, we must mention in the first place the windows of the cathedrals of Mans, Beauvais, Évreux (Fig. 234), and the rose-windows of St. Thomas at Strasbourg. Next come the windows of the Church of St. Nazaire at Carcassonne and of the Cathedral of Narbonne. There are, besides, in the Church of St. John at Lyons, in Notre-Dame of Semur, in Aix in Provence, at Bourges, and at Metz, church-windows in every respect worthy of attention.

Fig. 234.—Fragment of a Window presented to the Cathedral of Evreux by the Bishop Guillaume de Cantiers. Fourteenth Century.

The fifteenth century only continues the traditions of the preceding one. The principal works dating from this epoch begin, according to the order of merit, with the window of the Cathedral of Mans, which represents Yolande[31]of Aragon, and Louis II., King of Naples and Sicily, ancestors of the good King René; after them we shall place the windows of the Sainte-Chapelle, Riom; St. Vincent, Rouen; the Cathedral of Tours; and that of Bourges, representing a memorial of Jacques Cœur, &c.

The sixteenth century, although bringing with it, owing to religious troubles, many ravages of new iconoclasts, has handed down to us a variety of numerous and remarkable church-windows. We are, of course, unable to mention them all; but it seems expedient—adopting the rule of most archæologists—to divide them into three branches or schools, which are actually formed by the differentstyles of the artists of that epoch; the French school, the German school, and the Lorraine school (Fig. 235), which partakes of the characteristics of the two preceding.

Fig. 235.—Allegorical Window, representing the “Citadel of Pallas.” (Lorraine work of the Sixteenth Century, preserved in the Library at Strasbourg.)

At the head of the French school figures the celebrated Jean Cousin, who decorated the chapel of Vincennes; he also made for the Célestins monastery,Paris, a representation of Calvary; for St. Gervais, in 1587, the windows representing the “Martyrdom of St. Lawrence,” the “Samaritan conversing with Christ,” and the “Paralytic.” In these works, which belong to a high style of painting, the best method of arrangement, vigorous drawing, and powerful colouring, seem to reflect the work of Raphael. Windows in “grisaille,” made from the cartoons of Jean Cousin, also decorated the Castle of Anet.

Another artist, named Robert Pinaigrier, who, although inferior to Cousin, was much more fertile in production, assisted by his sons Jean, Nicholas, and Louis, and several of his pupils, executed a number of windows for the churches of Paris, of which the greater part have disappeared: Saint-Jacques la Boucherie, the Madeleine, Sainte-Croix en la Cité, Saint Barthélemy, &c. Magnificent specimens of his work still remain at Saint-Merry, Saint-Gervais, Saint-Etienne du Mont, and in the Cathedral of Chartres. Pinaigrier’s works in the decorations of châteaux and the mansions of the nobility are perhaps equally numerous.

At this period several windows were made from the drawings of Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, and Parmigiano; it may also be remarked that two patterns of the latter’s work were used by Bernard Palissy, who was a glass-maker before he became an enameller, in forming windows in “grisaille” for the chapel of the Château of Ecouen. For the same place, following the style of Raphael, and from the drawings of Rosso, calledMaître Roux, Bernard Palissy executed thirty pictures on glass, representing the history of Psyche, which are justly considered as ranking among the most beautiful compositions of the epoch; but it is not now known what has become of these valuable windows, which at the Revolution were transported to the Museum of French Monuments.

They were, it is said, executed under the direction of Leonard of Limoges, who, like all the masters of that school (Fig. 236), applied to painting on glass the processes of enamelling, andvice versâ. In the collections of the Louvre and of several amateurs, there are still examples of his composition, on which he employed the best glass-painters of his time; for he could not himself work on all the objects that proceeded from his studios, and which were almost exclusively destined for the king’s palace.

The French art of glass-working became cosmopolitan. It was introduced into Spain and also into the Low Countries under the protection ofCharles V. and the Duke of Alba. It even appears to have crossed the Alps; for we know that in 1512 a glass-painter of the name of Claude adorned with his works the large windows of the Vatican; and Julius II. summoned Guillaume of Marseilles to the Eternal City, the pontiff when occupying the sees of Carpentras and Avignon having appreciated his talent. We must not omit to mention, among the Flemish artists who escaped this foreign influence, the name of Dirk of Haarlem (Fig. 237), the most celebrated master in this art at the close of the fifteenth century.

Fig. 236.—St. Paul, an Enamel of Limoges, by Etienne Mercier.

While French art was thus spreading over the continent, foreign art

Fig. 237.—Flemish Window (Fifteenth Century), half life-size. Painted in Monochrome, relieved with yellow, by Dirk of Haarlem. (Collection of M. Benoni-Verhelst, Ghent.)

was being introduced into France. Albert Dürer employed his pencil in painting twenty windows in the church of the Old Temple, in Paris, and produced a collection of pictures characterised by vigorous drawing, and warm and intense colouring. The celebrated German did not work alone—other artists assisted him; and, notwithstanding the devastations which took place during the Revolution, in many a church and mansion traces of theseskilful masters may still be found; their compositions, which are generally as well arranged as they are executed, are marked with a tinge of German simplicity very suitable to the pious nature of the subjects they represent.

In 1600, Nicholas Pinaigrier placed in the windows of the Castle of La Briffe seven pictures in “grisaille,” copied from the designs of Francis Floris, a Flemish master, who was born in 1520. At this same period Van Haeck, Herreyn, John Dox, and Pelgrin Rösen, all belonging to the school of Antwerp, and other artists who had decorated the windows of most of the churches in Belgium, especially St. Gudule in Brussels, influenced either directly or indirectly the glass-painters of the east and north of France. Another group of artists, the Provençals, imitators of the Italian style, or rather perhaps inspired by the same luminary, the sun of Michael Angelo, trod a similar path to that which Jean Cousin, Pinaigrier, and Palissy had followed with so much renown. The chiefs of this school were Claude, and Guillaume of Marseilles, who, as we have just mentioned, carried their talent and their works into Italy, where they succeeded in educating some clever pupils.

With regard to the school of Messin or Lorraine, it is principally represented by a disciple of Michael Angelo, Valentin Bousch, the Alsatian, who died in 1541 at Metz, where he had executed, since 1521, an immense number of works. The windows of the churches of St. Barbe, St. Nicolas du Port, Autrey, and Flavigny-sur-Moselle, are due to the same school, in which Israel Henriet was also brought up; he became the chief of a school exclusively belonging to Lorraine, at the time when Charles III. had invited the arts to unite under the patronage of the ducal throne. Thierry Alix, in a “Description inédite de la Lorraine,” written in 1590, and mentioned by M. Bégin, speaks of “large plates of glass of all colours,” made in his time in the mountains of Vosges, where “all the herbs and other things necessary to painting” were found. M. Bégin, after having quoted this curious statement, adds that the windows which at that era were produced in the studios of Vosges, and subsequently carried to all parts of Europe, constituted a very active branch of commerce.

“Nevertheless,” says Champollion-Figeac, “art was declining. Christian art especially was disappearing, and had almost come to an end, when Protestantism stepped in and gave it the last blow; this is proved by the window in the cathedral church of Berne, in which the artist, Frederic

“FRANCIS I. AND ELEANOR HIS WIFE AT PRAYERS.”PART OF A WINDOW IN THE CHURCH OF ST. GUDULE IN BRUSSELS. FROM “L’HISTOIRE DE LA PEINTURE SUR VERRE EN EUROPE.”This magnificent window was given to the Church of St. Gudule by Francis I. and Eleanor of Spain, his wife, sister of Charles V., and widow by her first marriage of Emmanuel the Great, King of Portugal.The donors are represented kneeling, each one protected by his or her patron saint; the king is attended by St. Francis of Assisi, who is receiving in a vision the impress of the stigmata of Jesus on the Cross; the queen is accompanied by St. Eleanor, who holds in her hand the palm of the elect. This window is from a design by Bernard van Orley.Francis I. and Eleanor expended on the window two hundred and twenty-two crowns, or four hundred florins, an important sum in those days (1515-47).

“FRANCIS I. AND ELEANOR HIS WIFE AT PRAYERS.”

PART OF A WINDOW IN THE CHURCH OF ST. GUDULE IN BRUSSELS. FROM “L’HISTOIRE DE LA PEINTURE SUR VERRE EN EUROPE.”

This magnificent window was given to the Church of St. Gudule by Francis I. and Eleanor of Spain, his wife, sister of Charles V., and widow by her first marriage of Emmanuel the Great, King of Portugal.

The donors are represented kneeling, each one protected by his or her patron saint; the king is attended by St. Francis of Assisi, who is receiving in a vision the impress of the stigmata of Jesus on the Cross; the queen is accompanied by St. Eleanor, who holds in her hand the palm of the elect. This window is from a design by Bernard van Orley.

Francis I. and Eleanor expended on the window two hundred and twenty-two crowns, or four hundred florins, an important sum in those days (1515-47).

FRANCIS I. AND ELEONORA AT THEIR DEVOTIONS.Portion of a Stained Glass Window in the Church of St. Gudule at Brussels.

FRANCIS I. AND ELEONORA AT THEIR DEVOTIONS.

Portion of a Stained Glass Window in the Church of St. Gudule at Brussels.

Walter, dared to launch his satire against doctrine itself, and to ridicule transubstantiation by representing a pope shovelling four evangelists into a mill, from which come forth a number of wafers; these a bishop is receiving into a cup in order to distribute them to the wondering people. Any edification of the masses by the powerful effect of transparent images placed, so to speak, between the earth and heaven, soon ceased to be possible, and glass-painting, henceforth alienated from the special aim of its origin, was destined also to disappear.”

Fig. 238.—Temptation of St. Mars, a Hermit of Auvergne, by the Devil disguised as a Woman. Fragment of a Window of the Sainte-Chapelle of Riom. Fifteenth Century. (From “Histoire de la Peinture sur Verre,” by M. F. de Lasteyrie.)

The Nature of Fresco.—Employed by the Ancients.—Paintings at Pompeii.—Greek and Roman Schools.—Mural Paintings destroyed by the Iconoclasts and Barbarians.—Revival of Fresco, in the Ninth Century, in Italy.—Fresco-Painters since Guido of Siena.—Principal Works of these Painters.—Successors of Raphael and Michael Angelo.—Fresco inSgraffito.—Mural Paintings in France from the Twelfth Century.—Gothic Frescoes of Spain.—Mural Paintings in the Low Countries, Germany, and Switzerland.

“TOO frequently in conversational language and even in the writings of grave authors,” says M. Ernest Breton, “the wordfrescois made synonymous with mural painting in general. This confusion of terms has sometimes caused the most fatal errors. The etymology of the word is the best definition of the subject. The Italians give the name of paintingsin frescoora fresco, that is to say,à frais, orsur le frais, to those works executed upon damp stucco into which the colour penetrates to a certain depth. The ancient French authors, preserving the difference existing between the Italianfrescoand the Frenchfrais, wrote the wordfraisque. At the present day Italian orthography has prevailed, and with us this word has now more relation to its etymology than its real signification.”

Whatever may be the common acceptation of the word, we must, in order to keep within the limits of our subject, here only take into consideration real frescoes, or in other words, works of art executed upon a bare wall, properly prepared for the purpose, with which they are as it were incorporated; for in the roll of art all are excluded from the catalogue of mural paintings, rightly so called, which, although applied to walls either directly or by the aid of panels or fixed canvas, are produced otherwise than with water-colours, and used in such a manner as to penetrate the special kind of plaster with which the wall had been previously covered.We will mention as a striking example of this the famous “Lord’s Supper” of Leonardo da Vinci, which has many times been called a fresco (it is well known to have been painted upon the wall of the refectory of Santa Maria della Gratia, at Milan), but is nothing but a painting in distemper[32]on a dry partition—a circumstance, by-the-bye, which has not a little contributed to the deterioration of this magnificent work.

Fresco has long been considered the most ancient style of painting. Vasari, who wrote in the middle of the sixteenth century, says in apt terms that “the ancients generally practised paintingin fresco, and the first painters of the modern schools have only followed the antique methods;” and, in our own day, Millin, in his “Dictionnaire des Beaux-Arts,” asserts that the great paintings in the “Pœcile” of Athens and the “Lesche” of Delphi, by Panænus and Polygnotus, spoken of by Pausanias, were executed by this process; the same author also ranks among frescoes the numerous paintings left by the Egyptians in their temples and catacombs. “It was,” he remarks, “what the Romans calledin udo pariete pingere(to paint on a damp wall); they sayin cretula pingere(to paint on chalk) to designate water-colour painting on a dry ground.”

Some persons have considered the paintings found at Herculaneum and Pompeii to be frescoes; nevertheless Winckelmann, who is an authority in these matters, said, a hundred years ago, in speaking of those works, “It is to be remarked that the greater part of these pictures were not painted on damp lime, but upon a dry ground, which is rendered very evident by several of the figures having scaled off in such a way as to show distinctly the ground upon which they rest.”

The whole mistake has arisen from taking the expression “in udo pariete,” found in Pliny, in too literal a sense; the error, which might at all events have been dissipated by an attentive examination of the examples themselves, would not have lasted long if the passage from Pliny hadbeen compared with a statement of Vitruvius, which informs us that they applied to fresh walls uniform tints of black, blue, yellow, or red, which were destined to form the grounds of paintings, or even allowed them to remain plain, like our present coloured walls. The employment of this process may also be easily recognised in the paintings of Pompeii, where this uniform colouring has sometimes penetrated nearly an inch into the stucco of the wall. On this ground, when it was perfectly dry, ornamental subjects were painted either in distemper or encaustic.

Thus, therefore, it is shown that the process of paintingin frescowas unknown to the ancients, and was invented by artists of succeeding times; but it would be difficult to assign any precise date to this invention; for however far we go back, we do not find any authors who fix the epoch at which the new method was for the first time followed. We are, therefore, compelled to notice the age of some particular example which shows that the discovery had then taken place, without being able to determine the exact date of its commencement.

Painting, which with the Greeks attained its greatest height in the reign of Alexander, fell, says M. Breton, “with the power of Greece. In losing its liberty, the country of the Fine Arts lost, too, the perception of the beautiful.” At Rome, painting never reached the same degree of perfection as it did in Greece; for a long time it was only practised by men of the lowest rank and by slaves. A few patricians, such as Amulius, FabiusPictor(painter), and Cornelius Pinus, were, at the best, able to bring about only some slight revival. After the twelve Cæsars, painting followed the movement of decadence which carried away with it all the arts; like them, it received its death-blow in the fourth century, on the day when Constantine, quitting Rome in order to establish the seat of empire at Byzantium, took with him into his new capital not only the best artists, but also a prodigious number of their productions, and of those of the artists who preceded them. Several other causes may also be mentioned as having led to the decline of art, or to the destruction of examples which would now bear witness to its power in remote ages. In the first place, there was the birth of Christian Art, which rose on the ruins of Paganism; then, the invasion of barbarians which took place in the fifth century; lastly, in the eighth and ninth centuries, the fury of the Iconoclasts, or Image-breakers, a sect at the head of which figured several emperors of the East, from Leothe Isaurian, who reigned in 717, down to Michael the Stammerer and Theophilus, who respectively ascended the imperial throne in 820 and 829.

Even among the ignorant masses, to whom we owe the loss of so manychefs-d’œuvre, were some individuals who formed honourable exceptions, not only by opposing the devastations, but also by manifesting a laudable conservative instinct. Cassiodorus tells us that Theodoric, king of the Goths, re-established the office ofcenturio nitentium rerum(guardian of beautiful objects), instituted by the emperor Constantius; and we know that the Lombard kings who succeeded this prince and reigned in Italy for 218 years, although less zealous in the culture of the arts, did not fail to honour and protect them. In Paul the Deacon[33]we read that, in the sixth century, queen Teudelinde, wife of Autharis and afterwards of Agilulphus, caused the valorous deeds of the first Lombard kings to be painted on thebasilicathat she had consecrated at Monza under the name of St. John. Other paintings of the same epoch may still be seen at Pavia. The Church of St. Nazaire at Verona possesses in its crypt paintings spoken of by Maffei, which have been engraved by Ciampini and Frisi: these must date back to the sixth and seventh centuries. Lastly, they have recently found in the subterranean chapel of thebasilicaof St. Clement, in Rome, some admirable mural paintings, which archæologists refer to the same epoch.

The Eastern artists, driven away by the persecutions of the Iconoclasts, sought an asylum in Italy, where the Latin Church, obedient to the prescriptions of the Council of Nice, seemed determined to multiply sacred images as much as possible. The arrival of the Grecian artists in the West was also singularly promoted by the commercial relations which from that time were established between all points of the Mediterranean shore and the maritime or mercantile towns of Italy—Pisa, Genoa, and Venice. Thus was brought about the movement which, although taking place on Italian soil, drew from an entirely Eastern source the inspiration of the revival of the Fine Arts; thus was continued the so-called Byzantine school, destined to be the foundation of all modern art.

In 817 some Greek artists, by order of Pope Pascal I., executed under the portico of the Church of St. Cecilia in Rome a series of frescoes, the subjects of which were taken from the life of the saint. To the same schoolwe are indebted for the sitting figures of Christ and His mother (Fig. 239), in the old Church of Santa-Maria Trans-Tiberia, in Rome; the large Madonna painted on the walls of Santa-Maria della Scala, Milan, which, at the time when this church was destroyed and replaced by the theatre of La Scala, was taken away and carried to the Church of Santa-Fidelia, where it still remains; a series of portraits of the Popes after St. Leo, a collection of which a large portion perished in the fire of St. Paul-extra-Muros, Rome (Fig. 240); and lastly, the paintings in the vaults of the Cathedral of Aquila.

Fig. 239.—Christ and His Mother. Fresco-Painting of the Ninth Century, in the Apse of Santa-Maria Trans-Tiberia, Rome.

“The works of these earliest painters,” observes M. Breton, “seem to mark the transition from painting to sculpture: they are long figures as stiff as columns, single or arranged symmetrically, forming neither groups nor compositions, without perspective or effects of light and shade, and having nothing to express their meaning than a sort of legend proceeding out of the mouths of the characters. These frescoes, which are so weakwhen looked at in an artistic point of view, are remarkable for their material execution, being extremely solid in their workmanship. It is astonishing to see the wonderful preservation of some pictures of saints that adorn the pilasters of St. Nicholas in Treviso and the walls of the church in Fiesole, whereon are preserved the frescoes of Fra Angelico.”

Among the paintings remaining to our time, the first in which the authors departed from the uniform style of the Byzantine masters are those which adorn the interior of the ancient temple of Bacchus, now the Church of St. Urban in the Campagna of Rome: there is nothing Grecian either in the figures or draperies, and it is impossible not to recognise in them an Italian pencil; the date, however, is 1011. Pesaro, Aquila, Orvieto, and Fiesole, possess examples of the same epoch.

Fig. 240.—Portrait of the Pope Sylvester I. Fresco-Painting in Mosaic, on a gold ground, in the Basilica of St. Paul-extra-Muros, Rome.

At last, in the thirteenth century, notwithstanding its fierce intestine struggles, Italy, and especially Tuscany, witnessed the dawn of the sun of the Fine Arts, which, after a long period of darkness, was to shine with so much brilliancy over the whole world. Pisa and Siena, earliest in therevival, gave birth respectively to Giunta and Guido (Palmerucci), each of whom in his time acquired great renown; but the only works of these artists which remain now, in the Cathedral of Assisi, seem but to indicate a desire of progress without manifesting any real advancement in art.

Fig. 241.—The Apostles in the Garden of Gethsemane. Fresco by Berna, at San-Geminiano. (Fourteenth Century.)

To Guido of Siena succeeds, but not immediately, the friend of Petrarch,Simon Memmi, whose frescoes in the Campo Santo of Pisa testify to his powerful genius, and denote the first remarkable stage of art.

In the collegiate church of San-Geminiano[34]may be still seen a fresco by Berna (Fig. 241), an eminent master in the school of Siena, who died in 1370.

Passing, but not without mention, Margaritone and Bonaventura Berlinghieri, who were only the timid harbingers of a great individuality, the Florentine school places in the first rank of its celebrities Cimabue (1240-1300), justly regarded by the artistic world as the true restorer of painting. Cimabue pointed out the path; Giotto, his pupil, trod it. He took nature for his guide, and has been surnamed “nature’s pupil.” Real imitation was the object of his endeavour, and as he found this system marvellously applied in the beautiful antique marbles which had already inspired, in the preceding century, the sculptors John and Nicolas of Pisa, he made an earnest study of these ancientchefs-d’œuvre. The impulse was given, and the Campo Santo of Pisa shows us its first results in “The Dream of Life.”

For two centuries there was a slow but always progressive improvement, owing to the industry of Buffamalco, Taddeo Gaddi, Orcagna, Spinello of Lucca, and Masolino of Panicale. With the fifteenth century appeared Fra Angelico of Fiesole (Figs. 242and246), and Benozzo Gozzoli; then Masaccio, Pisanello, Mantegna, Zingaro, Pinturicchio, and lastly Perugino, the Master of the divine Raphael. In the sixteenth century art attained its culminating point. At this epoch Raphael and his pupils painted the “Farnesina” and the “Stanze” and “Loggie” of the Vatican (it is known that the two first pictures of the “Loggie” (Fig. 243) were painted solely by the hand of Raphael); Michael Angelo alone executed the immense expanse of the “Last Judgment,” and Paul Veronese painted the ceilings of the palace of the Doges at Venice. Then Giulio Romano covered with his works the walls of the Te palace at Mantua; Andrea del Sarto, those of the “Annunziata” and “Dello Scalzo” at Florence. Daniel of Volterra painted his famous “Descent from the Cross” for the Trinité du Mont, Rome; at Parma, the Pencil of Correggio worked marvels on the circle of the dome of the cathedral. Leonardo da Vinci, besides the picture of the “Lord’s Supper,” which we before mentioned only to exclude it from the

“THE DREAM OF LIFE.”FRESCO-PAINTING, BY ORCAGNA, IN THE CLOISTER OF THE CAMPO SANTO OF PISA. (FOURTEENTH CENTURY.)This fresco is by Andrea Cione, called Orcagna, a Florentine painter of the fourteenth century, who executed for the Campo Santo of Pisa a series of paintings which are still admired, representing the four destinies of man:—“Death,” “Judgment,” “Hell,” and “Paradise.” Each of these large compositions embraces several scenes; that which we give belongs to the “Triumph of Death.”Petrarch had just given to the world the concluding notes of his funereal song, and the wish of the painter seems to have been to call to life, in his fresco, the strange vision of the poet. The happy of this world are here represented gathered together under cool shades and upon carpets of verdure; gay lords are murmuring magic words into the ears of the young ladies of Florence. Even quiet falcons on the wrists of the lords seem captivated by this delicious music. Everything appears to invite forgetfulness of the miseries of life,—the richness of the vestments, the beautiful sky of Italy, the perfumes, the love-songs.... This is the “Dream of Life,” which “Death” is destined to dispel with one sweep of his mighty wing.

“THE DREAM OF LIFE.”

FRESCO-PAINTING, BY ORCAGNA, IN THE CLOISTER OF THE CAMPO SANTO OF PISA. (FOURTEENTH CENTURY.)

This fresco is by Andrea Cione, called Orcagna, a Florentine painter of the fourteenth century, who executed for the Campo Santo of Pisa a series of paintings which are still admired, representing the four destinies of man:—“Death,” “Judgment,” “Hell,” and “Paradise.” Each of these large compositions embraces several scenes; that which we give belongs to the “Triumph of Death.”

Petrarch had just given to the world the concluding notes of his funereal song, and the wish of the painter seems to have been to call to life, in his fresco, the strange vision of the poet. The happy of this world are here represented gathered together under cool shades and upon carpets of verdure; gay lords are murmuring magic words into the ears of the young ladies of Florence. Even quiet falcons on the wrists of the lords seem captivated by this delicious music. Everything appears to invite forgetfulness of the miseries of life,—the richness of the vestments, the beautiful sky of Italy, the perfumes, the love-songs.... This is the “Dream of Life,” which “Death” is destined to dispel with one sweep of his mighty wing.

THE DREAM OF LIFE.(After a Copy made for the Library of M Ambroise Firmin Didot.) From a fresco Painting by Orcagna, in the Cloister of the Campo Santo of Pisa. Fourteenth Century.

THE DREAM OF LIFE.

(After a Copy made for the Library of M Ambroise Firmin Didot.) From a fresco Painting by Orcagna, in the Cloister of the Campo Santo of Pisa. Fourteenth Century.

number of frescoes, endowed the monastery of St Onofrio at Rome with a magnificent Madonna, and the palace of Caravaggio, near Bergamo, with

Fig. 242.—Group of Saints, taken from the large Fresco of “The Passion” in the Convent of St. Mark. Painted by Fra Angelico of Fiesole.

a colossal Virgin. It was, in short, the age of splendid productions inmural painting, that in which the great Buonarotti exclaimed when engaged in enthusiastic labour on one of his sublime conceptions—“Fresco is the only painting; painting in oils is only the art of women and idle and unenergetic men.” And yet, at least as regards improvements in the process of execution, fresco had hardly reached its climax.

In the seventeenth century the school of Bologna, after having for a long time maintained a merely imitative style of art, shone forth with independent light under the influence of the Carracci, who, summoned to Rome, covered the walls of the Farnesian gallery with frescoes, to which none others could be compared for brilliancy and powerful effect. As much must be said of the works of their pupils: the “Martyrdom of St. Sebastian,” in the Church of St. Mary of the Angels; the “Miracles of St. Nil,” at Grotta-Ferrata, near Rome; the “Death of St. Cecilia,” at Saint-Louis-des-Français, by Domenichino; “Aurora,” by Guercino, at the Villa Ludovici; the “Chariot of the Sun,” by Guido, in the Rospigliosi Palace, &c.

Fig. 243.—First Picture of the Loggie of Raphael—“God creating the Heaven and the Earth.”

Luca Giordano, a Neapolitan painter, founder of the gallery of the Ricciardi Palace at Florence, and author of the frescoes in numerous churches in Italy and Spain, must not be forgotten; and with him mustbe mentioned Pietro da Cortona, of the Roman school, who especially distinguished himself in the ceilings of the Barberini Palace, at Rome.

We still have to mention the fertile painters of the Genoese and Parmesan schools—Lanfranc, Carloni, and Francavilla; but the hour of decadence had come when these artists appeared; they had more boldness than talent, they aimed at the majestic, but only succeeded in attaining to the gigantic; their pencils were skilful, but their soul lacked fervour and conviction; in spite of their efforts, fresco-painting declined under their hands, and since that time has only decayed and gradually sunk into oblivion.

We must not quit the classical ground of the Fine Arts without mentioning a process of painting which is closely allied to fresco, and bears the characteristic name ofsgraffito(literally, a scratch). This style of painting, or rather of drawing (for the works had the appearance of a large drawing in black crayon), was more generally used for the exterior of buildings, and was produced by covering the wall first with black stucco, then with a second layer of white, and afterwards by removing with an iron instrument the second layer so as to lay bare, in places, the black ground. The most important work executed in this style is the ornamentation of the monastic house of the knights of St. Stephen, at Pisa; this work is by Vasari, to whom also has been attributed—but wrongfully—the invention ofsgraffito, which was used long before his time.

Hitherto we have chiefly confined our remarks to Italy and Italian artists; however, in the consideration of them we have nearly summed up our brief history of fresco. If we would look to France for any remarkable works of this kind, we must refer to the epochs in which Italy sent Simon Memmi to decorate the palace of the popes at Avignon, and Rosso and Primaticcio to adorn that of the kings at Fontainebleau. Prior to this, all we meet with are, at the most, a few primitive, not to say barbarous, subjects, painted here and there, in distemper, by unknown artists, on the walls of churches or monasteries. Among these conventional examples it is, however, only just to distinguish some pictures of powerful effect, if not in execution, at least for the ideas they are intended to convey; we would speak of the “Dance of Death,” or “Dance of the Dead,” like that which existed at Paris in the Cemetery of the Innocents, and another still to be seen in the Abbey of Chaise-Dieu, in Auvergne; legends more than

Fig. 244.—“Fraternity of the Cross-bowmen.” (Fresco-Painting of the Fifteenth Century, in the ancient Chapel of St. John and St. Paul, Ghent.)

pictures, and philosophical compositions rather than manifestations of art. Spain, too, has no reason to be proud of her national productions; for, with the exception of the Gothic frescoes still existing in the Cathedral of Toledo, representing the combats between the Moors and the Toledans(pictures specially worthy of the attention of archæologists), the only frescoes of Spanish origin we can mention are the paintings of a few ceilings in the Escurial and in a chapter-room in the Cathedral of Toledo; all the other frescoes must be attributed to Italian artists.

Whenever the northern artists, usually so cold and methodical in their mode of operation, devoted themselves to mural painting, it seems to have been necessary that they should enliven their temperament in the sunny rays of a southern sky; for while in Holland and Belgium we notice but few walls covered with decorative painting, we find a large number of Italian churches and palaces which contain frescoes bearing the signature of Flemish masters.

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