nofo CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE Cornell University Library arV17080 in 3 1924 031 254 SSD olln,anx Date Due AUG I i995i i f PSll Cornell University i^VNaS/if Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031254620 RENAISSANCE < I I \ I AND MODERN ART BY WM. H. QOODYEAR, M.A. Lecturer on the History of Art in the Cooper Institute^ Brooklyn Institute, and Teachers^ College. Author of ^'Ancient and Modem History, ^^ ^'A History of Art,' ^ "The Grammar of the Lotus," "Ro- man and Medieval Art,'' etc., etc. ■JWlitb ^ani2 Ullustratlone. MEADVILLE PENNA FLOOD AND VINCENT iCbe ^bautauqua^OTentut? '^xtM 1894 Copyright, 1894, By Flood <& Vinceht. All rights reserved. The Ohautauqua-Oentury Press, Meadville, Jta., IT. iS. A. Eleotrotyped, Printed, and Bound by Flood & Vincent. PREFACE. The first wish of the student, who has been introduced to a new and important field of study by means of a sum- mary and closely condensed compendium, is to know of the books which may supplement and enlarge his field of view, which may supply him with a larger number of facts about it, and bring him nearer to the individual lives and historic details which the space available for a summary compendium is insufficient to include. Not the least' im- portant matter of this work will, therefore, be the hints here and there scattered through it as to such further source of in- formation. The ' ' Suggestions in Aid of Reading, ' ' which I have compiled for the special course in Art History of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle, would furnish a number of additional references, among which historical works, as distinct from those specially devoted to art, have received considerable attention. The English author who has made a specialty of the historic Renaissance is Sy- monds. Jacob Burckhardt's "Civilization of the Renais- sance," translated from the German by Middlemore, is a pithier, more philosophical, and much shorter work. I should not wish to urge its use to the exclusion of Symonds, but no serious student can afford to forego the knowledge of it. It may be said in general that the wider one's knowledge of history and literature, the more interesting does the art of the Renaissance become; and, conversely, that there is no better introduction to the study of modern history and modern literature at large than the study of this art. Of all histories of English Literature, Taine's is the one iv Preface. which keeps closest in touch with the point of view which recognizes Renaissance Italy as the main source of modern culture, while Ranke's histories, especially his " History of the Popes" and his " History of England," are the best general reference for the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- turies at large. Fiske's "Discovery of America," and Campbell's "Puritan in Holland, England, and America," are the books best calculated to bring our own American history into line with that of continental Europe. I have mentioned these various books from the conviction that the only true philosophy of modern history is that which moves from the Renaissance as its elementary basis, that the study of Renaissance art is the best approach to Renaissance history, and that the best supplementary reading is that of the historians whose point of view is the largest and most comprehensive. I have to make acknowledgment in this preface to the persons whose kindness has enabled me to illustrate the works of recent American and recent foreign artists. Among these I must specialize, first, the American painters and sculptors who have allowed me to publish their works, and the various owners of the same. Mr. Henry T. Chap- man, Jr., of Brooklyn, has allowed me to publish several of his precious possessions. Prof Halsey C. Ives, chief of the Art Palace at the Columbian Exposition, was good enough to give me carte blanche in his department, subject to the permission of the artists and owners concerned. Finally, I have to thank Mrs. Mabel Rolfe, of Cambridge, Mass. , for her goodness and cleverness in the matter of the photographs taken at Chicago. The pictures for my frontis- piece and for all American paintings published were taken by her, as well as the pictures of Thornycroft's Teucer and Rodin's Andromeda. CONTENTS. Chapter. I. The Renaissance Period. — Limits of the Renaissance Period. — The Term Defined .... 15 11. Contemporaneous History . 19 III. Position of Art in the Italian Re- naissance . ... 27 IV. History of Italy Since the Renais- sance, AS Explaining the Decline OF Italian Art .... 33 V. Divisions of Renaissance Periods and Style .... 39 VI. The Traits of Renaissance Architec- ture . . ... 42 VII. Philosophy of Renaissance Archi- tecture 54 VIII. Renaissance Architecture in Theory AND IN Practice ... 61 IX. Criticism of Renaissance Architec- ture 64 X. Historic Sketch of Fifteenth Cen- , TURY Renaissance Architecture 72 XI. Historic Sketch of Sixteenth Cen- tury Renaissance Architecture 86 XII. Decadence of Renaissance Architec- ture, Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries 97 XIII. Relation of Painting to Other Arts of the Renaissance . . 107 XIV. Fifteenth Century Renaissance Painting . . . ni Contents. Chapter. Page. XV. Philosophy of the Perfection of Italian Painting . 125 XVI. Leonardo da Vinci . 132 XVII. Raphael Santi of Urbino . 139 XVIII. Michael Angelo Buonarroti . 150 XIX. Correggio and Titian . . 159 t-XX. Seventeenth Century Renaissance Painting . . . . .170 L^XI. Sixteenth Century German and Flemish Painting . . . 183 oXXII. Seventeenth Century Dutch Paint- ing 187 \^XXIII. Renaissance Sculpture. — Relations to Modern History ... 196 XXIV. Early Renaissance Sculpture. — Crit- ical Review . . . . .199 XXV. Early Renaissance Sculpture. — His- toric Sketch .... 205 XXVI. Renaissance Sculpture. — Philosophy of its Decline . . . . 218 XXVII. Renaissance Sculpture. — Michael An- gelo ..... 222 UXXVIII. Renaissance Sculpture. — Later Styles and Decadence .... 229 XXIX. The Greek Revival of the Eigh- teenth Century . . .' 240 XXX. Architecture of the Nineteenth Century . . . 250 XXXI. Sculpture of the Nineteenth Cen- tury ..... 256 XXXII. English and French Painting. — Eigh- teenth and" Nineteenth Centuries . 272 XXXIII. Recent American Art . 292 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Samson, by Elihu Vedder Frontispiece. Figure. Page. 1. Late French Renaissance Carved and Gilded Wooden Chest and Table i6 2. Armor of Christian II. of Denmark. Italian Renaissance Ornamentation 20 3. Tomb of the Children of Charles VIII. Tours 21 4. German Renaissance Fowling Pieces 23 5. French Renaissance Bellows 24 6. Renaissance Italian silver-gilt Wine Pitcher. School of Benvenuto Cellini 25 7. Wrought-iron Standard-holder on the Strozzi Palace, Florence. By Caprarra 28 8. Carved wooden Trousseau Chest, supporting the Roman Wolf Early Italian Renaissance 29 9. Italian Renaissance Bronze Gates in Venice . . 31 10. French Renaissance Doorway at Frejus .... 36 1 1. Room in the Chateau of Oyron 43 12. Renaissance pediment, entablature, and "en- gaged" columns. Equitable Building, New York 46 13. Brownstone Front. New York 47 14. French Renaissance Detail, House of Agnes Sorel, Orleans .48 15. So-called Temple of Saturn, Rome, and Arch of Septimius Severus 50 16. Renaissance Villa near Vicenza, by Palladio . . 51 17. Temple of St. Peter, in the Cloister of S. Pietro in Montorio, Rome. By Bramante . 52 18. Early French Renaissance "engaged" classic columns. Chateau d'Usson . . .... 55 19. Renaissance Fifteenth Century Decorative , De- tails, borrowed from Greco-Ronj^iiJ, ..... 59 vii viii List of Illustrations. Figure. Page. 20. French Renaissance pediment and entablature. Hotel Colbert, Paris 62 2 1 . Early French Renaissance ' ' engaged ' ' classic columns. Viviers 63 22. Architectural Renaissance Details framing a Madonna Relief, by Mino da Fiesole .... 65 23. Early French Renaissance engaged columns and entablature. Church at Gisors .... 66 24. Ancient Roman Ruin. Theater of Marcellus 67 25. Cathedral of Versailles. Eighteenth Century . . 69 26. Palace Poll, and Fountain of Trevi, Rome 71 27. Church of San Lorenzo, Florence. By Brunel- lesco, 1425 . 73 28. Church of San Spirito, Florence. After the de- sign of Brunellesco 74 29. Church of the Annunciation. Genoa . . 75 30. Doorway of the Cloister of Santa Croce, Flor- ence. By Brunellesco 77 31. Window Pediment of the Doge's Palace. Ven- ice. By Pietro Lombardo 78 32. Early Renaissance Capital. Venice ... 79 33. Ornament from the Tomb of Gaston de Foix 80 34. French Renaissance Wood-carving . . . 81 35. Court of the Ducal Palace at Urbino . . 82 36. Palace Rucellai. Flor^ence. By Alberti . . 83 37. Pitti Palace, by Brunellesco. Florence. . . 84 38. Strozzi Palace, by Benedetto da Majano ... 85 39. Arcade and Court of Palace Massimi. Rome 86 40. Cancellaria Palace, Rome. By Bramante . . 87 41. Court of the Church of Santa Maria della Pace 88 42. St. Peter's Church. Rome. Interior ... 89 43. St. Peter's Church. Rome. Exterior . 90 44. Court of the Palace Massimi. Rome . . . gi 45. Palace Bartolini. Florence 92 46. Second Story, Court of the Farnese Palace 93 47. Palace Marcantonio Tiene, by Palladio. Vi- cenza 95 48. French Doorway. Villeneuve-les-Avignon . 97 49. French Doorway. Villeneuve-les-Avignon . . 98 List of Illustrations. ix Figure. Page. 50. French Doorway. Villeneuve-les-Avignon . 99 51. Cathedral of Murcia. Spanish Renaissance . 100 52. St. Mary's College. Oxford loi 53. St. Etienne du Mont. Paris . . 102 54. St. Paul's Cathedral. London . . 103 55. House in Leyden. Dutch Renaissance . . . 104 56. Town Hall of Leyden. Dutch Renaissance 105 57. Ceiling of a Room in the Chateau of Oyron, with Mythologic Paintings 108 58. Loggia or Corridor of the Vatican . . . 109 59. Detail from the Raising of Eutychus. Masaccio. Brancacci Chapel, Florence 113 60. St. Paul Visiting St. Peter in Prison. Design by Masaccio 116 61. Christ Giving the Keys to Peter. Fresco by Perugino. Sistine Chapel, Rome. . . 117 62. Detail from the Fresco of Peter and Paul Heal- ing the Sick and Lame. Probably by Ma- saccio. Brancacci Chapel, Florence .... 120 63. Detail from the Framing of a Madonna. Era Angelico. Uffizi Gallery, Florence .... 121 64. Meeting of Mary and Elizabeth. Ghirlandajo 122 65. Detail from the Series of Paintings by Carpac- cio for the Story of St. Ursula 123 66. Detail of a Madonna, by Filippo Lippi ... 125 67. Virgin Adoring the Infant Savior. Lorenzo di Credi. London ... 126 68. The Virgin and Child with two Saints. Peru- gino. London 127 69. Martyrdom of St. Sebastian. PoUajuolo . 128 70. Portrait of Leonardo da Vinci. Uffizi Gallery. 132 71. La Gioconda. Portrait by Da Vinci .... 133 72. The Virgin and St. Anne. Da Vinci. Louvre 134 73. The Last Supper. Da Vinci. Milan . . 136 74. Fresco by Luini at Lugano 138 75. House in Urbino where Raphael was born . . 139 76. The Camera della Segnatura in the Vatican . 140 77. Plato and Aristotle. From the "School of Athens." Vatican. By Raphael 141 List of Illustrations. Figure. Page. 78. Apollo. Detail of the "Parnassus," by Ra- phael. Vatican 142 79. Detail from the "Jurisprudence," by Raphael. 143 80. Detail of the " Madonna in the Meadow," by Raphael. Vienna 144 81. Detail from the Betrothal of Mary and Joseph, by Raphael. Milan 145 82. Detail of the Portrait of Angiolo Doni, by Ra- phael. Pitti Palace 146 83. Portrait of Maddalena Doni, by Raphael. . . 147 84. Detail of the "Transfiguration," by Raphael. 148 85. Bust of Michael Angelo, dating 1570 150 86. Creation of the Sun and Moon. Detail from the Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel . ... 151 87. Detail from the Series representing the Fore- fathers of Christ. Sistine Chapel Ceiling . . 152 88. The Sistine Chapel. Vatican Palace 154 89. Detail from the Last Judgment, by Michael Angelo 156 90. Decorative Figure, Sistine Chapel Ceiling. ... 157 91. Detail from Correggio's Virgin Adoring the In- fant Savior. Uffizi Gallery. Florence . . 159 92. Christ Appears to Mary Magdalen after the Resurrection. Gorreggio. Madrid . . . 160. 93. Hall of the Grand Council, Doge's Palace . . 162 94. Detail from Titian' s Portrait of "La Bella. ' ' Pitti Palace, Florence . . 163 95. Detail from Titian's Assumption of the Virgin. Venice Academy. ... 164 96. St. Bridget offering Flowers to the Infant Sa- vior. Titian. Madrid 165 97. Detail from Titian's Presentation of the Virgin. Venice Academy ... 166 98. Portrait by Palma Vecchio. Vienna 167 99. Detail from the Feast in the House of Levi, by Paul Veronese. Venice Academy 168 100. Portrait of Henrietta of France, Queen of Charles I. of England. Van Dyck. Pitti Palace. . . 170 loi. The Dead Savior. Van Dyck. Antwerp. 171 List of Ilhistratiojis. Figure. Page, 102. Jacob's Ladder. Ribera. Madrid 172 103. Portrait of the Dwarf El Primo. Velasquez. 173 104. The Divine Shepherd. Murillo. Madrid. . 174 105. Detail from a Holy Family, by Rubens . . . . 176 106. Madonna, by Guido Reni. Uffizi Gallery. 177 107. The Annunciation. Sassoferrato. Louvre . 178 108. Saint Cecilia. Sassoferrato 179 109. Detail from Diana's Chase. Domenichino. . 180 no. Portrait of Lucas Baumgartner. Albert Diirer. 182 111. Woodcut by Albert Diirer 184 112. The Flagellation. Woodcut by Albert Diirer 185 113. Portrait of Hans Holbein, by himself. ... . 186 114. Franz van Mieris. Portrait of the Artist and his Wife. The Hague 187 115. Cattle. Paul Potter. The Hague 188 116. The Anatomy Lesson. Rembrandt. The Hague 189 117. Banquet of the Officers of the Archers' Corps of St. Adrian. Franz Hals. Haarlem . 190 118. Portrait. Rembrandt. Amsterdam .... igi 119. The Doctor's Visit. Jan Steen. The Hague 192 1 20. Dutch Landscape. Ruisdael. Amsterdam 193 121. Tavern Scene. David Teniers the Younger. . 194 122. Swathed Infant, by Andrea della Robbia . . . 199 123. Equestrian Statue of Gattamelata. By Dona- tello. Padua 200 1 24. Christ Healing the Sick. By Andrea and Luca della Robbia. Florence 201 125. The Annunciation. Relief in Enameled Terra Cotta. By Andrea della Robbia. Prato. 202 126. Lunette in Enameled Terra Cotta. By Luca della Robbia. Madonna and Child. 203 127. The Baptistery of Florence . . . 205 128. Christ and the Money Changers. Bronze Relief Panel, by Ghiberti ... 206 1 29. Christ and Peter Walking on the Water. Bronze Relief Panel, by Ghiberti 207 1 30. Design for a Bronze Door Panel, by Brunellesco. 208 131. Design for a Bronze Door Panel, by Ghiberti. 209 132. Bronze Doors, by Ghiberti. Florence . . 210 List of Illustrations. Figure. _ Page. 133. The Story of Jacob and Esau, by Ghiberti. . . 211 134. Sacrifice of Isaac. Abraham and the Angels. Hagar and Ishmael, by Ghiberti 212 135. The Story of Joseph, by Ghiberti . . . . 213 136. Decorative Details from the second pair of Bronze Doors by Ghiberti 214 137. Equestrian Statue of Colleoni, by Verocchio. . 215 138. Bust of Nicolo da Uzzano, by Donatello ... 215 139. Marble Shrine Relief of the Madonna and Child in Vienna. Florentine Work . 216 140. St. George, by Donatello. Florence. . . 218 141. David, by Verocchio. Florence. . . 219 142. David, by Donatello. Florence 220 143. Detail of the David, by Michael Angelo. . . 222 144. Moses, by Michael Angelo. Rome . . 223 145. Detail of the Tomb of Lorenzo Medici .... 224 146. Tomb of Lorenzo Medici. Florence. . . 225 147. Allegorical Figure of the Day from the Tomb of Giuliano Medici, by Michael Angelo . . 226 148. Captive, by Michael Angelo. Louvre .... 227 149. Perseus, by Benvenuto Cellini. Florence. . 229 150. Figures from the Reliefs of the Fountain of the Innocents, by Jean Goujon . . . 230 151. Mary of Burgundy. Maximilian's Tomb at Inn- spruck 231 152. King Arthur. Bronze; by Peter Vischer. From the Maximilian Monument at Innspruck . . 232 153. Wood-carved Confessionals at Antwerp 233 154. .^neas and Anchises, by Bernini 234 155. Pulpit of the Brussels Cathedral 235 156. The Escape from Error, by Queirolo. Naples. 236 157. Prometheus, by Adam. Louvre 237 158. Statue of Louis XV., by Nicolas Coustou . . 238 159. Portrait of Col. Epes Sargent, by John Single- ton Copley . . 241 1 60. Ganymede, by Thorwaldsen. Copenhagen 246 161. Detail of the Perseus, by Canova. Vatican . 247 162. The Angel of Death. Detail of the Tomb of Clement XIII., in St. Peter's. By Canova . 248 List of Illustrations. Figure. . Page. 163. Houses of Parliament, London. By Barry . . 252 164. Courthouse and Jail of Pittsburg, by H. H. Richardson. Romanesque Revival . 254 165. Teucer, by Hamo Thornycroft 256 166. Bronze Equestrian Statue of Frederick the Great, by Rauch. Berlin . ... 257 167. Andromeda. Design for the Gates of Hell. (Dante's Inferno.) By Rodin . . . 258 168. Cast of a Lion, by Barye. Trocadero Museum. 259 169. Teucer, by Hamo Thornycroft. . . . 261 170. Bronze Group. Charles Dickens and Little Nell, by F. Edwin Elwell 263 171. Bronze Statue of Henry Ward Beecher. Brook- lyn. By J. Q. A. Ward 264 172. Bronze Statue of Hamilton, Brooklyn. By William Ordway Partridge 265 173. Landscape Group, by E. C. Potter and Daniel C. French. Columbian Exposition .... 266 174. Statue of the Republic, by Daniel C. French . '267 175. Sea Horses. Detail from the Fountain, by MacMonnies. Columbian Exposition . . 267 176. Mounted Indian, by Proctor. Columbian Ex- position ... 268 177. Aerial Navigation, by John J. Boyle. Trans- portation Building, Columbian Exposition . 269 178. Bronze Statue of Abraham Lincoln, by Augus- tus St. Gaudens. Lincoln Park, Chicago 270 179. Boy Fighting, by Gainsborough 273, 180. Landscape, by Diaz .... 274 181. Peasant Woman, by Millet 275 182. Landscape, by Corot 276 183. Landscape, by Claude Lorrain 278 184. Landscape, by Homer Martin .....' . 279 185. Maine Coast in Winter, by Winslow Homer . 280 186. Labor, by J. F. Millet 284 187. A Great Gale, by Winslow Homer .... 285 188. " Sailors, Take Warning," by Winslow Homer 286 189. Greek Girls Playing at Ball, by Sir Frederick Leighton. . . . 287 xiv List of Illustrations. Figure. Page. 190. Love and Death, by George F. Watts .... 288 191. Reading from Homer, by Alma-Tadema . . . 28^ 192. Sea Nymph, by Burne-Jones 290 193. The Young Marsyas, by Elihu Vedder . . . . 291 194. Design for an Illustration of Browning's "Men and Women," "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came." By John La Farge . . 292 195. Portrait, by J. S. Sargent 293 196. The Lair of the Sea Serpent, by Elihu Vedder. 294 197. The Deserted Inn, by Wordsworth Thompson . 296 198. The Sculptor and the King, by George de Forest Brush 297 199. Christ and the Fishermen, by F. V. Du Mond 298 200. "Got Him," by Henry F. Farny 299 201. An Impromptu Affair in the Days of "The Code, ' ' by Frederick James , 300 202. The Fisherman and the Geni. From "The Arabian Nights." By Elihu Vedder . . 302 203. Delilah, by Elihu Vedder 303 The engravings of pictures reproduced from photographs fnade by the special permission of artists and owners for this book are protected by copyright. RENAISSANCE AND MODERN ART. CHAPTER I. THE RENAISSANCE PERIOD. Limits of the Renaissance Period. The period covered by the title of my book has had a duration of about five hundred years. The Renaissance had fairly begun in the early part of the fifteenth century, and from the standpoint of general history the beginning of the Renaissance was the beginning of modern times. In a broad and general sense this period cannot be considered to have ended yet. Modern civilization dates from the Renaissance and was created by it. This broadest and largest fact about the Renaissance is best explained, proven, and illustrated through the history of art. I4 therefore holds, in a large sense, that Renaissance art must also be conceived as still continumg. It is especially, however, in architecture and in ornament that the proof and illustration of this fact can be most definitely given. In sculpture and in painting, although the relations and connections of modern art with its Renaissance origins are perfectly definite and perfectly continuous, they are not so immediately obvious without research. On the other hand there are uses of the term Renaissance 1-6 Renaissance and Modern Art. in which, both for history in a general sense and for the history of art in a special sense, it must be considered as having long since ended. It seems then proper at the outset of this little book, to indicate the various senses in which this word may be legitimately used as regards limits of time and period ; observing, at the same time, that whenever we feel disposed to restrict the sense of the term, we have still chosen a title for our book which is perfectly explicit. The period to be covered began about 1400 A. D. and has not ended. No one can deny that modern art and history began about this time. Whenever the Renais- sance may have ended, there is no doubt as to when it began. Our title, therefore, covers the ground in any case. A discussion about words is never useless when it tends to bring- out facts. The fact to be indicated then is this: that in some senses the term ' ' Re- naissance, ' ' either in art or history, specially applies to Italy in the ■ fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and to the obvious and palpable influence of Italy on foreign countries at this time. This is the special and generally recognized use Fig. I. — Late French Renkissance Carved and Gilded Wooden Chest and Table. At Moyenmoutier, The Renaissance Period. 17 of the term. Although no one can deny that the seven- teenth century continued to exhibit and spread this influ- ence, the term is not so generally understood as applying to a period of history when the seventeenth century is in question. Still less would the eighteenth century be con- sidered to come within the limits of the period, according to the usual acceptance of historic divisions. On the other hand the history of art during the seventeenth and eigh- teenth centuries enables us to prove without the least diffi- culty that the same historic influences are really always in question. As a matter of fact the first distinct break with these Italian traditions in taste, literature, and art, occurred in the latter half of the eighteenth century, and even then it is only in a narrow and limited sense that they can be said to have ended. The Term Defined. What was the Renaissance ? According to a literal ren- dering of the word, which is French for "rebirth," it was a rebirth of civilization, of literature, and of art, and according to universal acceptance the word relates to Italy ; for we never speak of the English, French, German, or Spanish Renaissance, without the implication that Italy was the original home, center, and inspiration of the movement. But "rebirth" implies that something had ceased to exist which once existed. The word therefore implies two preceding periods as well as its own." It implies a preced- ing period which was reborn, .and it implies an intervening period of cessation, a gap or chasm between that period and itself .The word Renaissance therefore carries with itself a conception of the Middle Age as this intervening period, and a conception of itself as a rebirth of the civili- 1 8 Renaissance and Modern Art. zation of the Roman Empire. These were the conceptions of the Italians of the Renaissance. Now, as a matter of fact, civilization is never reborn; it continues — with changes. Nothing could be more differ- ent, as a matter of fact, than was the civilization of Italy in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries from the civilization of ancient Rome. But this matter-of-fact distinction escaped the perception of the Italians themselves. They believed themselves to be reviving the civilization of the past, when they were in reality only learning from it. This belief colored their language, their literature, their daily life, and, therefore, their art. In the character of the period we shall therefore gradu- ally learn to separate two things: on the one hand, the estimate which the time made of itself, its enthusiasms, sentiment, patriotism, coloring — in brief, the dream of the Roman Empire; on the other hand, the actual conditions and facts of early modern civilization. The first aspect of the Renaissance was mainly confined to Italy of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and its obvious reaction on other European countries. But the actual facts and conditions of early modern civilization were necessarily controlling facts and conditions for all later modern civilization. It is in these two senses that our conceptions of the Renaissance as a special period, and of modern history as a whole, either fall apart or hold to- gether. CHAPTER II. CONTEMPORANEOUS HISTORY. For a perfectly practical and common-sense knowledge of facts (as distinct from theories about terms, which can only carry real meaning in so far as we know these facts) let us remember what we can of the contemporary history of Europe in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when the Renaissance began and most beneficently flourished. In England the Wars of the Roses had ended in the ex- haustion of the feudal aristocracy and the rise to power of a despotic Tudor dynasty (Henry VII., Henry VIII. , Ed- ward VI., Mary, Elizabeth) whose despotic power was mainly used to antagonize the feudal nobles and to exalt the importance of the cities and of the commercial classes. The great personal popularity of Queen Elizabeth, in spite of her arbitrary acts and despotic rule, is the best re- minder of this significance of her dynasty. In France the same alliance of royal despotism and com- merce against feudalism was still more apparent during the reigns of Louis XL, Charles VIII. , Louis XXL, Francis I., and their successors. During these two centuries England, France, and Spain all illustrate the tendency to national consolidation and concentration, as opposed to the earlier dismemberment of these countries in local feudal princi- palities. As regards the existence of modern monarchies and modern states, the history of modern Europe at this time, therefore, clearly begins to show its character. In Ger- 20 Renaissance and Modern Art. many we find at this time the memorable events of the Reformation.^ Otherwise, the great maritime discoveries made first by Portugal and Spain, the invention and spread Fig. 2.— Armor of Christian II. of Denmark. Italian Renaissance Ornamentation. First half of Sixteenth Century. of the art of printing, the use of gunpowder, and of stand- ing armies of artillery and infantry, and the astronomical announcements of Copernicus regarding the true nature of the planetary system are to be mentioned as leading facts of general history. Where then, the student may ask, does the Renaissance appear to be a controlling fact of history ? To this we might answer: first, that in so far as the organization of a modern state is concerned, its necessary Contemporaneous History. basis is admitted to be a uniform system of taxation; and this again presupposes a census, an administrative system, and settled and prosperous industries. Now in all these things it is known that Italy was the teacher of Europe. As opposed to the arbitrary, oppressive, spasmodic, and ill- adjusted levies of money made by the sovereigns of northern Europe down to the close of the Middle Ages, Italy was the country where a census and uniform taxation were first generally in use, and they spread from this Fig. 3.— Tomb of the Children of Charles VIII. Tours. Renaissance style. country to the North. The state of Ferrara has been much quoted for its especially fine administrative system. Florence and Venice were also among the foremost in matters of the census and of regular taxation. The diplo- Renaissance and Modern Art. niatic system of Venice was so highly developed that the reports of her ambassadors to the various states of Europe are at present our best authority for the history of the six- teenth and seventeenth centuries. The histories of the German historian Ranke, which are the best authority for all countries of Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, are largely founded on these reports. What the Rothschilds are to the ' countries of modern Europe, the bankers of Florence were to the sovereigns of the North during the fifteenth century. * Most of the industries of modern civilization can either be traced to the North from Italian sources or were found in Italy in highest per- fection. The manufactures of silks, velvets, and laces may be mentioned as cases in point. It would appear then for the fifteenth and sixteenth cen- turies, that while the size and power of the modern mon- archies in England, France, and Spain may first attract attention, their very existence in the matter of administra- tion was due to Italy. It is significant that it was cus- tomary for the courts of northern Europe during the sixteenth century to have an Italian diplomatist in their employ. Such, for instance, was the true position of the unfortunate Rizzio at the court of Mary Queen of Scots, although he is generally quoted by English historians as having been a musician. In the matter of the maritime discoveries, which are the most obvious distinction of the fifteenth century, it should not be forgotten that Columbus was a Genoese, that the Cabots were Venetians, and that the knowledge of the earth's rotundity, which was the basis of the search of Columbus for the eastern shores of Asia, was spread by * For an account of their enormous loans to French sovereigns, see the History of France by Michelet. Contemporaneous History. 23 Florentine astronomers and men of learning. As regards the science of modern warfare, we may mention that the first treatise on gunnery was written by the artist Leonardo da Vinci, who was himself a practical artilleryman. Al- though printing was invented in Germany, it was in Venice that the art found its early highest development. Coper- nicus was a native of Prussia, but he had studied five years in Rome before reaching his conclusions regarding the planetary system. It would appear from the above suggestions that even where other countries of Europe seem to have been fore- most, an Italian influence may frequently or generally be traced and proven. As regards the general system of modern law we know that the University of Bologna was the great center of legal studies during the centuries which Fig. 4. — German Renaissance Fowling: Pieces (about 1600). In Vienna. Style and designs Italian. 24 Renaissance and Modern Art. prepared the way for modern times, and that the Univer- sity of Padua was the famous center of Europe for the study of anatomy and medicine. It is no mere chance which has made the violins of Cremona famous above all others, and that the word ' ' piano ' ' is Italian, or that Lom- bard Street in London has its name from the Italian bank- ers who were settled there. It is no mere chance which carries the names of Torricelli and Galileo wherever the study of physics travels, or that the name of Galvani has coined a new English word. It is no mere chance that the finest European palace of the nineteenth century, architecturally speaking, was built for the residence of a Florentine banker of the fifteenth century (the Pitti Palace), or that ' ' Venetian glass ' ' is still a synonym for all that is elegant and graceful in that material. It is no mere chance that the parks of French Versailles or German Schwetzingen and Hesse Cassel' were imitations of Italian originals, whose landscape gardening was the in- FiG. 5.— French Reiiais- spiration of all modem art in this direc- sance Bellows. (Italian . -^ . . , . ^ . . style.) Collection ofthe tion. It IS not chance that artificial flowers were known as ' ' Italian flowers' ' in Germany, or that the lace manufactures of Valenciennes and Alen9on were transplanted from the Island of Murano, or that the high ruffs of Queen Elizabeth point to a fashion which came from Italy. For the matter of refinement in behavior, we have the opinion of Dr. Samuel Johnson that the finest work ever Coyitemporaneous History. 25 written on good breeding was that entitled ' ' The ^Cour- tier," which came from the pen of Raphael's friend, the Count Castiglione. For the matter of general education, we have the opinion of Gregorovi- us, the greatest Ger- man authority on the history of medieval Rome, that the Italian ladies of the fifteenth century were the su- periors in education of the German ladies of our own day. We know that lady profes- sors were lecturing in the University of Bo- logna some centuries before the American colleges were hesita- ting to admit a female student. It is only necessary to glance at the portraits of fifteenth and sixteenth century Italians, which will be found in later pages, to be aware of their intellectual and personal refinement; a refinement which does not equally distinguish, for instance, the German portraits of the same age. Finally, in the matter of literature let us notice the Italian inspiration of Spenser' s ' ' Faerie Queene, ' ' and the dramas of Shakespeare which are founded on Italian stories or whose scenes are laid in Italy — then those additional ones (all of the antique subjects) based on the "Lives" of Plutarch, a work which found its way into Shakespeare's Fig. 6. — Renaissance Italian silver-eilt Wine Pitcher. Sixteenth Century. School of Ben- venuto Cellini. Pitti Palace, Florence. 26 Renaissance and Modern Art. library through a French translation, but which first came into notice through Italian students. Or turn to the "Paradise Lost" of Milton,, who had traveled in Italy, and consider the classical citations and references drawn from Italian learning. In the literature of the French, the comedies of MoliSre or the tragedies of Corneille and Ra- cine will offer still more striking illustrations. It is apparent from these references that the statues of Michael Angelo, Donatello, and Verocchio, the paintings of Raphael, Correggio, and Titian, the buildings of Brunel- lesco, of Bramante and Palladio, are not isolated facts ex- plained by isolated individual genius in the history of art. They are facts of general history, phases of general civiliza- tion, illustrations parallel to those which I have just advanced in other lines of intellectual activity, of educa- tion, culture, and refinement. CHAPTER III. POSITION OF ART IN THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE. It is interesting to inquire, for a moment, why the art of the Renaissance has assumed such proportions in the pubHc eye as to dwarf its other claims to glory. Why is it that the influence of Italian studies on Harvey's announcement of the circulation of the blood or the precedence of Italian students in the investigations of political economy is less prominent in the public mind than the frescoes ol the Vatican or the tombs of the Medici ? One obvious answer is that modern science and modern civilization at large have far outstripped their first begin- nings — so far, that these beginnings are forgotten in the magnitude and wonders of later and recent discoveries; whereas the absolute superiority of Italian art in the early sixteenth century to our own art of the nineteenth century is still uncontested and incontestable. No critic has ever claimed that the art of the nineteenth century rivals the Italian art of the early sixteenth century — that we have produced anything to compare with the color of Venetian paintings, with the figure composition of Raphael, or with the colossal genius which reveals itself in the ceiling decora- tion of the Sistine Chapel. In other words, modern civilization has gone forward as a whole, but in its later art it has neither surpassed nor equaled its earliest achievements. The verdict of the modern artist and the modern critic still awards the palm Fig. 7.— Wrought iron Standard-holder on the Strozzi Palace, Florence. By Caprarra. Fifteenth Century Renaissance. Position of Art in the Italian Renaissance. 29 to Ghiberti or to Titian, while the man of science who stands on the shoulders of Galileo possibly forgets him in the marvels of his own discoveries. • One task, therefore, of the art critic and the art historian is to explain the reasons why art and science have so far parted company; to show the peculiar position of art in the Renaissance period, the special causes of its special- ex- cellence and the reasons for its later relative decline; but without forgetting to point out that the excellence of Renaissance art was only one phase of a general culture which otherwise has culminated in the triumph of later civ- ilization. Some further points regarding the relations of art to the public and social life of early Italy have been lii e n - tioned in my ' ' Ro- man and Medieval Art," in matter re- lating to the Italian paintings of the fourteenth century, the late Gothic period of Italy. If we again turn to our question — ^why is it that the art of the Renaissance has assumed such proportions in the public eye as to dwarf its other claims to glory ? — we shall find another obvious answer waiting for us. The paintings of Raphael and the statues of Michael Angelo can be seen. Every traveler in Italy makes acquaintance with them. The beauties of Italian art are Fig, 8. — Carved wooden Trousseau Chest, support- ing the Roman Wolf. Early Italian Renaissance. Siena. 30 Renaissance and Modem Art. familiar to every picture gallery of Europe. Engravings and photographs and casts and copies have spread the knowledge of ^is art wherever moderh civilization has made its way. It is quite a different matter to laboriously search for the principles of law, of governmental science, for the connections of literary influence, to trace out the history of inventions and industries, to follow the course of social life, the history of music or of medicine, of diplomacy or manners. These studies are among the most laborious known to man. They demand the patience and the talents of a specialist, either to make them at first hand or to study them when they have been made. It is partly be- cause buildings, pictures, statues, and decorations last and are visible to every eye, that Italian art holds a place in the history of art which only the specialist is able to concede to Italy in the history of civilization. But we have still a reason why Renaissance art has been exalted at the expense of the Renaissance civilization which produced it. Italy as a country did not long hold the pre-eminence which belonged to her in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Other nations profited by her advance and took her place. In successive order Spain, France, England, and Germany have filled the place which she once took in. science, art, and letters. Italian paintings of the seventeenth century are not superior to those produced by Spain or Flanders at the same time. English artists in the eighteenth century and French and American artists in the nineteenth century have far out- stripped the Italians of these same centuries; and what holds of art holds also of letters and of science when we compare the place taken among nations by the Italy of to-day with the place taken among nations by the Italy of 1500. Of all contrasts, that would be most striking, which Position of Art in the Italian Renaissance. 3 1 should compare the Netherlands of the seventeenth century with the Italy of the same time, as related with a similar comparison for two centuries before. In other words, special nations have controlled the field Fig. g. — Italian Renaissance Bronze Gates in Venice. Sixteenth Century. of history in intellectual and moral force at certain times. Civilization radiated from the Netherlands in the seven- teenth century to England and America* as it radiated from Italy in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries to the Netherlands, Spain, France, and Germany. In our estimate of Renaissance civilization we are bound, therefore, to consider the backwardness of other countries at the given time as compared with Italy, but in our ac- * Douglas Campbell, " The Puritan in Holland, England, and America." — Harper. 32 Renaissance and Modern Art. count of the reasons why ItaHan civiUzation has been eclipsed by its own triumph over other nations, we are bound to consider that these other nations have become in their turn superior. The payment of a debt of gratitude to the past is easily overlooked when the wheel of history has made another turn. Probably, therefore, there is no matter of more immedi- ate importance to our subject than to understand the causes which led to the relative decline of Italy after the first quarter of the sixteenth century, which was the zenith of the Renaissance. A natural skepticism of the human mind often asserts itself above the verdict of the critic. The greatness of the ' ' Old Masters ' ' has been often called in doubt, although never overthrown. Two things appear essential to a reasonable philosophy of their greatness, to show not only what produced it, but to show also why it did not last. CHAPTER IV. HISTORY OF ITALY SINCE THE RENAISSANCE, AS EXPLAIN- ING THE DECLINE OF ITALIAN ART. In our own time only, has Italy taken a place among European powers as a united national state. Her national existence as a country with one government is as recent as 1 87 1, and even the beginnings of her rise to national unity are as recent as 1859. It was in this year that the Kingdom of Sardinia, whose main and most important territory was the province of Sa- voy, began, under Victor Emmanuel, to extend its power over other parts of Italy. In 1859 the territory of Milan was added to this kingdom at the expense of Austria, which then controlled it, by the Peace of Villafranca. It will assist our conception of the condition of Italy dur- ing the period between the early Renaissance and the second half of our own century if we now trace the history of Milan from 1859 back to 1545. Till 1859 Milan had been Austrian territory since the French Revolution. Be- fore the French Revolution it had been Austrian territory since 17 13 and the close of the War of the Spanish Suc- cession. Before 1700 Milan had been Spanish territory since 1545. In i860, one year after the Kingdom of Sardinia had acquired Milan, General Garibaldi inaugurated a revolution in Sicily which had momentous consequences. The State of Naples, that is all Italy south of the States of the 34 Renaissance and Modern Art. Church, including Sicily, declared for Italian unity under Victor Emmanuel; and Tuscany, with several minor Italian States, followed the same course. This gave Italy her present national dimensions, less the States of the Church and the State of Venice. We will now trace back the histories ot Naples and Tus- cany to the time of the early Renaissance, as we have already traced that of Milan. Before i860 Naples and Sicily were ruled by a Spanish Bourbon dynasty. Aside from the time of the French Revolution and of Bonaparte, Naples and Sicily had been Spanish Bourbon since 1738. Before 1738 they had been Austrian territory since 1713. Before 1713 they had been Spanish territory since 1501. Before i860 Tuscany was ruled by a branch of the House of Austria, and had been so ruled, aside from the time of the French Revolution and of Bonaparte, since 1737. Be- fore 1737 Tuscany had been ruled in the interest of Spain by a dynasty dating from the year 1530 and the marriage of a Medici grandee with a daughter of the Hapsburg Emperor, Charles V. We will now return to modern Italy after i860. Her next step toward consolidation was the incorporation of the territory of Venice, which fell to Italy as a result of her participation in the war waged by Prussia against Austria under the direction of Count Bismarck, in 1866. Venice, therefore, before 1866, was Austrian territory and had been so ruled since the Congress of Vienna, in 1815. The loss of her independence had been then as recent as the cam- paigns of Bonaparte in Italy. The final step in the consolidation 01 modern Italy was the acquisition of the States of the Church and the occupa- tion of Rome as the capital city of the nation. This event occurred in 1871 as a result of the Franco-Prussian war. History of Italy since the Renaissance. 35 The French troops who had occupied Rome in the interests of the States of the Church were withdrawn for service at home against the Germans, and united Italy thus gained Rome for its capital. The independence of the States of the Church then terminated, dated from the time when the Exarchate of Ravenna was presented to the popes by the father of Charlemagne.* From this sketch of the recent history of Italy, and from these facts relating to the earlier history of her various ter- ritories it results that at the opening of the French Revolu- tion and the close of the last century, her only important independent territories were the States of the Church and the State of Venice, then in a condition of political dotage and decay. Otherwise, it results from this sketch, that of the three main political divisions of Italy, aside from the two just named, Naples and Sicily were foreign territory as. early as 1499; that Tuscany was ruled in foreign interest as early as 1530, and that Milan was Spanish as early as 1545. In other words, the decline of Italy and of Italian art after the first quarter of the sixteenth century is explained by a loss of political independence, according to dates and conditions thus briefly sketched, and what has been said about the greater Italian States holds, with slight variations of time and detail, for the lesser ones. In the political downfall of Italy, following the early Renaissance period, we have two turning points of decisive import: the sack of Rome by the army of Charles V. in 1527, the siege of Florence and consequent downfall of Tuscany in 1529 and 1530. All other events are merely matters of detail in comparison with these. In 1527, through the sack of Rome, the popes were obliged to * " Roman and Medieval Art," p. Il6. 36 Renaissance and Modern Art. abandon the task they had set themselves — of defending Italy from foreign invasion. In 1530 the establishment of a Medici despotism over the State of Florence (Tuscany) sounded the death-knell of the less powerful Italian free- states and principalities.* Let us now observe the relation of dates in the history of Italian art to these events. The last monumental wall- painting in point of time, belonging to the zenith of the Italian Renaissance, was Michael Angelo's "Last Judgment." This was begun in 1534; the painter, Cor- reggio, died in the same year. Raphael died in 1520 and Le- onardo da Vinci died in 1 5 19. We cannot point to any important school or artist of the zenith of the Italian Renaissance after 1534, outside of the school of Venice, whose per- fection lasted for some time longer. We also note that Venice was the one important State of Italy which had preserved its independence after this time. In the architecture and decoration of Renaissance style, we trace a rapid contemporaneous decline. In the sculpture of the * Grimm's " Life of Michael Angelo " offers an excellent account of these events. Fig. 10. — French Renaissance Doorway at Frejus (Southern France.) History of Italy since the Renaissance. 37 Renaissance we follow the same course and tendency. In the philosophy of our subject, then, we follow the lead of all great writers and critics in connecting the greatest de- velopment of Italian art with a period of then unexampled commercial prosperity, which the country enjoyed between 1300 and 1530 — and with the existence of a series of small but vigorous and stirring principalities, republics, and free- states, whose small dimensions allowed and favored a wonderful development and assertion of individual char- acter, whose very rivalries and contentions contributed to a production of works of art in which each little state strove to surpass its neighbors.* In the philosophy of our subject we again agree with greater authorities in connecting the first decline of Italian Renaissance art with the political overthrow of the small Italian principalities and free-states. But this political downfall of the Italian communities has a deeper significance for social history, both in Italy and in northern Europe, than might be imagined. When its obvious causes are sought for they appear to be the weakness of small states divided by jealousies and unable to unite against a foreign foe (France or Spain, as the case might be) of greater military power. Undoubtedly the Italian States were small and divided one against the other. Undoubtedly the Italians had grown effeminate through over-civilization, by contrast with the more brutal soldiery and larger standing armies of the North — but the essential fact remains that Italy became the battle-ground of Europe in the early sixteenth century because her territories were the richest and most highly civilized. The essential fact remains that the entry of northern powers into Italy, implies the necessary spread of *For the relations of the artists to these political conditions, see "Roman and Medieval Art," pp. 216-228. 38 Renaissance and Modern Art. Italian civilization to the North by virtue of this contact. The decline of the Italian Renaissance at home is thus contemporaneous with the spread of the Italian Renaissance over Europe, and the very downfall of the Italian States attests the superiority of their material prosperity and of their civilization as attracting the cupidity of France and Spain and Germany. CHAPTER V. DIVISIONS OF RENAISSANCE PERIODS AND STYLE. In the periods of Renaissance art we thus distinguish two divisions of especial importance — one between 1400 and 1530, the time of development, of greatest success, of supreme triumph; one after 1530, the time of expansion over Europe and of relative decline at home. These divisions in the history of art correspond to the general facts respecting civilization at large, which the art accompanies, attests, and reflects. It is in line with these facts that the general art ot North Continental Europe is mainly superior in the seventeenth century to that of Italy, although originally derived from it. This seventeenth century art of North Continental Europe again yields in importance to that of England when the eighteenth century is reached. In the art of painting, at least, the Renaissance drew its last breath on the shores of the New World, with the painters of the American revo- lutionary time, who in their turn had derived from England the inspiration of Reynolds and of Gainsborough. The art of the Americans, Washington AUston, Copley, Gilbert Stuart, and Rembrandt Peale, is thus an interesting contin- uation and survival of that of the "Old Masters." It will now assist our sketch of the early Renaissance (1400- 1 530) to fix a few synchronisms in mind. In 1453 the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks ended the history of the Byzantine Empire and of ancient Roman civilization. This event is universally quoted for 39 40 Renaissance and Modern Art. its influence on the intellectual activity and the learning of Italy, as many learned Greeks then settled there, and the treasures of ancient classic literature were, in consequence, more actively studied. In 1452 the second pair of Ghib- erti's bronze doors for the Florence Baptistery were fin- ished. There is, therefore, an exact synchronism between the revival of classic learning in Italy and the comple- tion of Ghiberti's doors, which are the most remarkable works of art finished during the earlier Renaissance. In 1498 Columbus touched the shores of the American continent. About the same year Leonardo da Vinci finished his ' ' Last Supper ' ' at Milan, which is the paint- ing of paintings in the history of art; not because it is nec- essarily the greatest of all pictures, although this might easily be claimed for it, but because nothing done before it remotely approached either its greatness of conception, or its perfection of execution, and because nothing was done after it which did not owe a portion of its perfection to the influence of the great master who achieved it. In the following year Leonardo's patron, the Duke Lu- dovico Sforza, fled from Milan, as the French, under Louis XII., invaded his territory, one step in the series of cam- paigns which thirty years later terminated in the political downfall of Italy. Most of the greatest Italian paintings belong to the intervening time. In 1501 Ferdinand the Catholic, of Spain, conquered the territory of Naples and Sicily, that is all Italy south of the States of the Church. In 1509 Henry VIII. of England succeeded his father. In 1506 Pope Julius II. began the erection of St. Peter's Church, at Rome, the greatest building of the Renaissance. In 1 508 the ceiling frescoes of the Sistine Chapel were be- gun by Michael Angelo, and the frescoes of the Vatican Palace were begun by Raphael. Divisions of Renaissance Periods and Style. 41 In 1 52 1 Luther attended the Diet of Worms, and the great wars began in Italy between France and Spain for the leadership of Europe and the mastery of Milan. Raphael died one year, and Da Vinci died two years before these events. In 1527 and 1530 respectively, occurred the sack of Rome and the capitulation of Florence. None of the greater Italian painters survived these events more than a fejv years — excepting Michael Angelo and the artists of the Venetian school. In Vasari's " Lives of the Artists," our one great original authority for artists' biographies in Italy, it is of great interest to follow the fortunes and work of the various painters as affected by the sack of Rome, and their conse- quent dispersion and failing fortunes. According to foregoing dates the zenith of the Italian Renaissance dates between the completion of the ' ' Last Supper," 1498, and the beginning of the "Last Judg- ment," 1534. CHAPTER VI. THE TRAITS OF RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE. I HAVE endeavored to indicate some various answers to the question, ' ' What was the Renaissance ? ' ' but we have not yet penetrated beneath the surface or touched the heart of the matter. In fact, until we take up its art in individual examples, it would be difficult to fix the real character of the time. So far, in the illustrations scattered throughout preceding pages, my idea has been to show, through forms, orna- ment, furniture, details of buildings, and the like, the general influence of Italian Renaissance civilization on for- eig'n countries and the rest of Europe, from the point of view that the object which can be seen represents a wider influence in science, manners, laws, and culture. Comparison with following illustrations from Italy will indicate the relation and dependence of this art, and, there- fore, of the attendant civilization, on the Italian. It often happens that a superficial fact represents and im- plies an underlying current, a hidden spring of power, a deep-seated motive and cause. Thus it is with the archi- tecture and ornament of this historic period, whose lasting historic influence on every phase of modern life is still attested by the ' ' brownstone fronts ' ' of New York City, by the new Parliament House of Berlin, by the Opera House of Paris, by the City Halls of New York, of Phila- delphia and Chicago, by countless public and business Fig, II,— Room in the Chateau of Oyron. French Renaissance. 44 Renaissance and Modern Art, buildings in every city of Europe and America, and by the terminal ornaments of many bedsteads and bureaus of ordi- nary fashion down to the year 1870. I have in my ' ' Roman and Medieval Art ' ' given some account of the ' ' Italian Gothic ' ' architecture, of its repug- nance to the usual appearance and natural principles of the Gothic of northern Europe, of its remarkable versatility of appearance, combined with constant rejection of what we know as Gothic character. In this rejection of the Gothic by the so-called "Italian Gothic," we have a prophecy of the character of the Renaissance, whose leading feature was outspoken reaction against the ideals, tastes, and habits of the Middle Ages. In northern Europe the overthrow of the Gothic art was violent, revolutionary, and essentially sudden. It was dis- placed by the Italian architectural style and art now known as the Renaissance, and the Gothic rapidly tended to dis- appear after the opening of the sixteenth century in favor of this Italian style, and ultimately disappeared entirely. Some English buildings of the middle seventeenth cen- tury are among the latest to show Gothic character, and England, by virtue of her remote and insular position, was the last country, aside from Russia, to yield completely to the Italianizing movement, which naturally reached her through intermediate countries. The spread of this Italian style to the north was simply one result of a diffusion of Italian taste and culture which carried with itself a particular architectural style. In other words, the history of Renaissance architecture in northern Europe is a secondary fact', conveying a much larger fact in social life and general history — some of whose phases I have briefly mentioned in preceding pages. But although the history of architecture belongs to a series of secondary The Traits of Renaissance Architecture. 45 facts, it is, notwithstanding, a visible and ocular illustration of this larger fact of greater importance: that the ideals, tastes, and habits of medieval Europe were displaced and over- thrown by a wave of Italian culture and Italian civilization. At bottom, it was a question in northern Europe of the comforts and luxuries which were mainly unknown to the Middle Ages — the use of window glass or of carpets, a better table, more garden vegetables, greater refinement of manners, more intellectual activity, less rude hunting and warfare, more music and books, more luxurious furniture, more fashionable clothes, more comfortable houses, and the like. All these various refinements of living spread from Italy and carried with themselves tastes of decoration and architectural style, which also were Italian. A great assistance to the knowledge of our subject at large is, consequently, some specific information as to the general backwardness of northern Europe, as compared with Italy for the given time. For American and English readers the best work on this subject is Douglas Campbell's " Puritan in Holland, England, and America." When we understand that even an English queen had to send to the Netherlands for a salad; when we can fix the date when starched and properly laundried linen was first procurable in England, and how it came there; or the time when window glass was generally introduced from the Continent — it is much easier to appreciate the gradual flow and gradual introduction into northern Europe of the ordinary refine- . ments and comforts of modern life from Italy. It is true that Campbell's book solely concerns the contrast between England and the Netherlands, but it none the less graphic- ally portrays the condition of England at this time; and what holds at one time, and in some particulars for England as against the Netherlands, holds at slightly earlier dates 46 Renaissance and Modern Art. and in other particulars for northern Europe in general as against Italy. It is not difficult to understand, therefore, why an Italian architecture should have so completely overrun northern Europe, and why its traditional repetition should have lasted to our own day. It is not quite so immediately obvious why the style whose dominant features are illustrated in these pages should have sprung up in Italy itself. In so far as we have attempted -to describe Italian civilization of the Renaissance, it has been by emphasizing its mod- ern character and by asserting the absence of this modern quality in northern Europe before Italian influence introduced it there. Why, then, should this modern quality have disguised itself in Italy by that imitation of ancient Roman art and architecture which is the one essential feature of the Renaissance style ? Before answering this question, let us verify this essential feature in details and by examples (Figs. 12-29, inclusive). In its developed examples we specify as the most obvious characteristic of the Renaissance style the use of the ' ' Greek Orders, ' ' and of the classic columns, capitals, and details as continued by the Roman Empire; the regular or r w l^^^^Km II 1 Fig. 12. — Renaissance Pediment, Entablature, and " Engag:ed " Columns. Equitable Building, New York. The Traits of Renaissance Architecture. 47 frequent employment of the ' ' engaged ' ' columns and ' ' en- gaged ' ' entablatures, that is, of the simulated Greek colon- nades familiar on Roman ruins; and the gable-shaped or curved pediments, likewise familiar as decorations over niches in Roman art, and originally borrowed from the con- struction of the front of a Greek temple. (In this deriva- tion we do not include the curved pediment as having been directly borrowed from Greek forms; this is a Roman decorative variant of the gable-shaped pediment.)* Otherwise we emphasize in Renaissance surface orna- ment a revival of the scroll ornaments, ' ' honeysuckles, ' ' an- themions, lotus trefoils, egg-and-dart mould- ings, and ' ' acanthus ' ' ornaments ; of the griffins, masks, cupids, and tritons, which were the decorative stock in trade of the later Greeks and their Ro- man copyists. The ' ' bead mouldings, ' ' guilloche, and meander (key pattern or Greek fret), and rosette are also constant or familiar ornaments of the Renaissance copies of the Greco-Roman patterns, f *For the pediment, see "Roman and Medieval Art," Figs. 19 and 21. For illustrations of " engaged " columns and entablatures, see its Figs. 11, 18, 19. For theRoman use of Greek architectural " Orders " and ornamental details, see also the architectural illustrations of Chapter VI., of the same work. ■f See illustration p. 51, " Roman and Medieval Art." The most important series of illustrations for these ornamental details will be found in " Greek Architecture and Sculpture," Chautauqua Series, pp. 47-5S. All these Greek ornaments were handed down to the Roman architecture and were thence borrowed by the Renais- sance. See also Figs, i, 23, 38, same work, and all its illustrations for the "Orders," capitals, bases, etc. FiG. 13. — " Brownstone Front." New York. 48 Renaissance and Modern Art. Let us finally lay especial stress on the revival ot the round arch and the entire abandonment of its pointed form. This again was due to the Roman influence. In the matter of these various details which specify Re- FiG. 14. — French Renaissance Detail. .House of Agnes Sorel, Orleans. naissance style in architecture, the greatest difficulty of the learner is his great familiarity with their constant repetitions in nineteenth century use. This seems a strange assertion and yet it is strictly true. It is not always easy to under- stand that with which we are most closely in contact. The constant traditional repetition of Renaissance pediments in furniture, of Renaissance ornamental details in street cars or on silverware, of Renaissaince pediments, ' ' engaged ' ' columns and entablatures to be everywhere seen on public and private buildings, cultivates a presumption that such details are a necessary feature of our surroundings, a matter-of-course appearance. As now used they have gen- erally lost the artistic quality which they once possessed. The Traits of Renaissance Architecture. 49 either of composition or execution or both. To indicate some distinctions between the average Renaissance forms of our own art and the first Italian originals is one important task of my book, and is best apparent from the illustrations themselves. These modern traditional repetitions rarely attract the eye by the beauty of the older originals, and by force of constant repetition they have become common- place — unnoticed because they are too familiar. We have then, as learners, two distinct points of view and two points in view. One is to gra:sp the great lesson of modern history involved in this constant repe- tition — the lesson that our civilization still carries with itself this mute witness and evidence of its Italian origin and coloring. On the other hand our effort must be to place ourselves at a point of view where these architectural ornaments and forms would be an absolute novelty, to con- ceive the time when they were unknown and unfamiliar, and then finally to grasp the causes which led to their re- adoption and exclusive use. Whatever may be the facts of to-day, the eye of Europe in the Middle Ages was not accustomed to Greco- Roman forms in art. In Spain, France, Germany, or Britain, the Roman ruins were even then so rare, although they have become rarer since, that any knowledge of them, even in an antiquarian sense, was out of question. In Italy Roman ruins were no rarity, and in Rome they were abundant, but the idea of copying their architecture never suggested itself to an Italian of the Middle Age. That antiquarian and historic interest in relics of the past which is so natural to us, is an interest which dates from the Renaissance. To the Middle Age the ruin was a quarry; nothing more. This was its use and interest until the ruin disappeared, and an- other was sought to be destroyed in its turn. 50 Renaissance and. Modern Art. We have then this problem. For a thousand years, from the fifth to the fifteenth century, the Roman ruins of Italy, and especially of the city of Rome itself, were an even more familiar feature of the daily surroundings of the people than they are to-day (for many have been destroyed since the fifteenth century, and even the use of the Colos- seum as a quarry was not stopped till the eighteenth cen- tury) yet no one had taken an interest in them. Least of all had any architect undertaken to transplant their orna- ments, and their constructive details, to a modern building. Then, about the middle of the fifteenth century we find Fig. 15.— So-called Temple of Saturn, Rome, and Arch of Septimius Severus. Renaissance Church in the background. new buildings in which every ornamental detail and many constructional forms are directly borrowed from the Roman ruins. By the beginning of the sixteenth century it is Traits of Renaissance Architecture. 51 impossible to point to any Italian building which does not show their influence. Half a century later and all which make pretensions to architectural effects are borrowers from end to end and from top to bottom of Greco- Roman de- tails. To comprehend the sweeping character of the revolution in art and history which had thus taken place, we need above all to familiarize the eye with the appearance of the northern medieval or Italian Gothic buildings which pre- ceded. Our present illustrations are too precious to be allotted to these earlier buildings. None the less must the reader bear them constantly in mind and make use of all accessible illustration for them.* Examine the house, the castle, and the church of the Middle Age — first in northern Europe. The house was a plain but picturesque utilitarian structure; often show- ing its timber frame- work, which thus became at once a dec- orative and construc- tive feature, often with overhanging upper stories ^ — thus econo- mizing ground space, enlarging upper rooms, and contributing to picturesque effect. The castle was a stern and massive pile of masonry. The church was a miracle of stone lace- work, of lofty spires, pointed pinnacles, rising buttresses, grotesque gargoyles, *" Roman and Medieval Art," type of the house, Fig. 122; typeof the castle, Fig. 120. Compare all its illustrations for Gothic and Italian Gothic churches. Fig. 16. — Renaissance Villa near Vicenza by Palladio, with Greco-Roman portico. Sixteenth Century. 52 Renaissance and Modern Art. furrowed piers, stained-glass windows, and sculptured door- ways. In the great town halls of Flanders or of northern France we find such details transferred also to the secular public buildings. Compare the Italian Renaissance build- ings. The frowning castle is displaced by a mansion, a country- seat, a villa, a palace, or a university. It is not only in the ap- pearance, but in the uses and purposes of buildings, that we find a change. As regards secular architecture and private architec- ture, we have an enormous revolution in society thus im- plied. The decorative exteriors of domestic architecture and private buildings are one sign of that modern life in Italy which was then beginning there. In the private dwellings of Italy we begin, then, to recog- nize the modern mansion as distinct from the picturesque but generally unadorned house of the medieval burgher. In churches, the Italian could not abandon the Gothic dizzy interior altitude, the deeply furrowed and clustered pier, or the series of exterior perpendicular buttresses with crown- ing pinnacles, because in the Italian Gothic he had already Fig. 17.—" Temple of St. Peter," in the Cloister of S. Pietro in Montorio, Rome. (Greco- Roman Colonnade.) By Bramante, 1502. Traits of Renaissance Architedute. 53 rejected them. What he did abandon was the pointed arch, which the ItaUan Gothic had in common with the North, the exterior panelling in horizontal stripes, or in lozenges, of vari-colored masonry and the beautiful decora- tive details which he had himself worked over and adopted from the northern Gothic. What he introduced we have already said was the classic ' ' Orders ' ' ; columns, entabla- tures, niche, door, and window pediments, and the whole catalogue of ancient Greco-Roman ornaments. CHAPTER VII. PHILOSOPHY OF RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE. We HAVE pointed out that the change from Gothic to Renaissance style was mainly an abrupt and sudden one in northern Europe, whereas the Italian Gothic had fore- shadowed, at least in a negative way, the dislike for medieval art forms which the Renaissance openly pro- claimed. It is also understood that the Renaissance style appeared in northern Europe at a relatively later date, and after the fashion was distinctly established in Italy. As distinct from the more formal and abrupt introduction of this architectural style in the North, the growth of Renaissance style in Italy was gradual and tentative at first, and in the details of carved ornament of the Italian Gothic we can detect many anticipations of the classic influence which ultimately became a constant formula. • We will not, however, just yet deal with the actual historic beginnings or tentative features of the early Renaissance. We will rather accept it in ultimate forms and fixed and definite character, in order to meet the question so far unanswered: "What was the cause of its introduction ? Why did the first modern nation of Europe turn back to Roman antiquity for its ideas of art in architecture ? ' ' Strangely enough the answer does not begin with archi- tectural history. On the contrary it appeals to the history of literature. And the appeal to literature goes back to the elementary facts regarding the modern features of Re- Philosophy of Renaissance Architecture. 55 naissance civilization which I have already sketched; but in a somewhat roundabout and novel fashion. Let us return to our starting point and elementary posi- tion that Italy, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, had reached a phenomenal degree of material prosperity, of comfort, of luxury, and of refinement. With this condition the Italian had to con- trast ; first, the con- temporary condition of northern medieval and feudal Europe; second, his own previous me- dieval condition. Both of these contrasts were to his thinking, to the disadvantage of the Germanic element in medieval history. The empire of Rome in western Europe had been overthrown by invasions' of German tribes, and the Italian had since that time justly conceived of northern Europe as Germanic, or as he termed it, using the name of one German tribe for all — "Gothic." In our days the memory that medieval Spain dates from the invasions of Visigothic Germans, that medieval France dates from the invasion of Prankish and Burgundian Ger- mans, is not so distinct, unless it be to the professional his- FiG. 18. — Early French Renaissance. (Engaged classic columns.) Chateau d'Usson at Echebrune. 56 Renaissance and Modern Art. torian, as it was to. the Italian of the fourteenth and fif- teenth centuries. He knew well that the desolation, bar- barism, pillage, and downfall that had overwhelmed Ro- man Europe and his own country in the fifth century after Christ, were the work of the "Goths," as he termed them. Both the West-Goths (Visigoths) and East-Goths (Ostro- goths) had actually pillaged Italy, and although she had suffered more from the barbaric Lombard Germans who subsequently settled there, the word ' 'Goth' ' kept alive the memory of all these injuries. The very word ' ' Gothic, ' ' as still applied to northern architecture, was originally used by the Italians and used by them as a term of reproach and contempt, as we should say "barbarian."* For Italian conception the Middle Age was ' ' Gothic, ' ' that is to say Germanic, in origin and character. When the period of barbarism, or of depressed civilization, in Italy had been lived down ; when refinement, culture, and prosperity had returned, two results were natural — a revived interest in that national past, of the time of the Roman Empire, when refinement, culture, and prosperity had also prevailed; and a consciousness of national superiority to the ruder and rougher traits of contemporary northern Europe. With wealth and leisure came the cultivation of liter- ary tastes and habits; the language of the Italian was itself a modified Latin, and to him the study of the ancient Latin offered no great difficulties. The learning which had so far slumbered in the monasteries or which had been con- fined to superior prelates of the church, was opened to the laity and the nation at large. Italian poets and authors like Dante, Petrarch, and Boc- caccio, had already in the fourteenth century awakened a taste for reading, but they did not suffice to meet the pop- * " Roman and Medieval Art," p. 159. Philosophy of Renaissance Architecture. 57 ular demand. The Latin authors were now at hand to meet it. National patriotism, the revived memory of an- cient glories when Rome and Italy had led the world, com- bined with that appreciation for the refinement, simplicity, and vigor of the ancient Latin literature which has always since been felt by the cultivated man of letters and which the Italian felt most warmly because he felt it first. It is difficult, when the study of Latin has become the bugbear of the schoolboy, the ungrateful task of most college students, and the rapidly abandoned burden of the college graduate, to realize the enthusiasm of the time when people studied Latin because they liked it and not because they were forced to it. Notwithstanding, all our Latin studies, as pursued in modern colleges, are an inherit- ance from the Italian Renaissance. To say that Roman history and literature were studied critically would be saying too much, but they were studied enthiisiastically, which was something better. More than this, it must be remembered that the fund of actual science and actual information was a narrow and limited one in the fifteenth century as compared with ours. There were not then a multitude of school geometries borrowed from Euclid's to take the place of Euclid. The astronomy and geography which led to the discovery of America were studied in Ptolemy. Pliny was, in the sixteenth century, a more important authority in natural history than he is to-day. As for the history of antiquity, that which we learn now from a hundred modern authors, was learned then at first hand from those ancient originals, which the later modern authors have worked over for our use, and which we can now more easily afford to ignore. There were no Gibbons and Mommsens in the fifteenth century. The ' ' knowledge of the ancients ' ' was no empty 58 Renaissance and Modern Art. phrase to an Italian of that time. Much or most that he knew himself, he was forced to learn from them. The Latin authors, therefore, were not studied then as they are now — as matter of "literature" and simply for literary style and literary training. What they contained was not only worth knowing, but it was more than the time itself otherwise knew. These enthusiasms of the Renaissance were emphasized, exaggerated, and directed by the influence of the learned Byzantine Greeks, whose influx into Italy we have already mentioned as a consequence of the Turkish conquest of Constantinople and the territories of the Byzantine Empire. The stamp of the Renaissance was, therefore, a literary ' ' craze, ' ' fully justified and explained by the history of the time, but curiously eccentric in many of its outward mani- festations. The giving of Latin names to children, the Latinizing of one' s own name, were a constant occurrence. We are told by the greatest historian of the Renaissance,* that a pope of the fifteenth century, who was engaged in war with the State of Naples, spared the town of Arpinum from sack because it had been the birthplace of Cicero. Another strange story concerns a conspiracy in Milan, where it appeared on the trial of the conspirators that they had carefully studied the Catiline of Sallust before laying their plans. Burckhardt also mentions the diplomatic contro- troversy between the States of Florence and Naples, which was ultimately settled by the transfer from Florence to Naples of the finest copy of Virgil in the possession of the former state. We have also the well-known fact regarding the discovery of the Laocoon group of statuary now in the Vatican, that Pope Julius II. awarded the owner of the ground on which it was found an annuity not only payable * Burckhardt, *' Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy." Philosophy of Renaissance Architecture. 59 for life but hereditary in the family. This extraordinary reward appears to have been mainly due to the fact that the group is. mentioned by Pliny as having been considered the finest work of sculpture in ancient Rome. Nor did this ' 'craze' ' stop at literature or at eccentricities which have an obvious literary bearing. The re-awakened sense for form and elegance, the dawning distaste for the grotesque but imaginative art of the Middle Ages, did not stop with exalting Virgil at the expense of Chaucer, or with preferring Cicero and Plato to the medieval theologians. It applied its own studies in anatomy and in sculpture to the appreciation of the antique statues, which after 1500 were rapidly brought to light from the piles of rubbish and of ruined buildings which had covered them in Rome. At Fig. 19. — Renaissance Fifteenth Century Decorative Details, borrowed from Greco-Roman. From a tomb in S. Maria del Popolo, Rome. 6o Renaissance and Modem Art. a still earlier date the few ancient statues which were known in Florence and in Padua were highly valued. Lorenzo Medici founded in Florence a studio garden for sculptors' studies and the display of ancient statuary (later part of the fifteenth century) ; and the anatomists of the University of Padua had their due influence on the interest which Man- tegna and Squarcione devoted to andent art. The influence of the Torso Belvedere of Hercules now in the Vatican, on the studies of Michael Angelo is well at- tested. It is sa.id that in extreme old age, when eyesight failed him, he still caused himself to be led to this fragment that he might feel and touch it. In a similar way the frag- ments of ancient wall painting in the ruins of the Baths of Titus furnished the motives and suggestions which Raphael elaborated in the decoration of the Loggie of the Vatican. Among all these instances of enthusiasm for the ancients, it was natural that architecture should have its place and share. Hence the architectural, style of the Renaissance, as copy of the constructional forms and ornamental details of the Roman ruins. CHAPTER VIII. RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN THEORY AND IN PRACTICE. According to the archseologic and critical antiquarian views of our own day, an ancient building can only be said to be copied when it is imitated entire. But this anxious and literal point of view did not worry the architects of the Renaissance. We have seen that civilization as a whole in Italy could not be, and was not, a revival of the ancient; however much it learned from it and admired it, however much the ideal of an actual revival might have been believed in by its enthusiasts. The actual prosperity, the actual industries, and the actual people were and remained Italian of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, not Roman of the first or« second century. In Renaissance architecture we are not dealing in any sense with a revival of Roman architecture. We are only dealing with an imitation of Roman forms applied to modern buildings. This distinction between Renaissance and Roman architecture is one of supreme importance, and for the very reason that Roman borrowed designs and forms were so exclusively used. Rome had left ruins of temples, amphitheatres, public baths, basilicas, and triumphal arches. The Italians were building churches, villas, palaces, and mansions. The general modern use and modern appearance of these Italian 62 Renaissance and Modern Art. buildings are perfectly obvious to us. No one could ever mistake them for Roman buildings. This was one of their merits, but it sometimes leaves a beginner in doubt as to what makes a building ' ' Renaissance. ' ' The only way out of this difficulty is a wide familiarity with the details of classic Roman architecture. The application of any such detail to any modern building is ' ' Renaissance ' ' ; provided we are not dealing with the literal and exact imitations of Fig. 20.— French Renaissance Pediment and Entablature ; Roman Doric (" Tuscan ") details. Hotel Colbert. Paris. the original Greek temples and temple -forms which did not come in vogue until the latter half of the eighteenth century. Since that time Renaissance traits are often found in build- ings which are also under the influence of this Greek re- vival; to be subsequently considered. There was the widest variety of appearance and structure in the buildings of the time; it is only by their details, the fashion of their ornament, and the method of its application, that we are able to date and recognize them. Sometimes the cornice of the building, the arcades of its interior court, Renaissance Architecture in Theory and Practice. 63 or the pediment of a door, or a window here and there, are the only indications. Certainly the only satisfactory study of the subject is that which makes clear what was done and what was not done before the Renaissance began. In other wordsy the best and only real basis for a knowledge of this subject is a fair acquaintance with the architecture of the Middle Ages, and the ability to know things by know- ing what they are not. It may be added, however, unfortunately, that the versa- tility and variety of early Renaissance buildings have not been perpetuated by the nineteenth century use of the same style, and the earmarks of the style in these later phases are tolerably easy to recognize. Fig. 21 — Early French Renaissance, Viviers. " Engaged " Classic Columns. CHAPTER IX. CRITICISM OF RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE. There was undoubtedly in Italy at the time that this style was introduced, a wide development of Villa and pal- ace construction with certain general arrangements peculiar to the country and the time, but these" arrangements as re- gards detail would come within the province of the student of domestic economy or of social life rather than under the ndtice of the critic of art. Each country of Europe had likewise its own methods of arrangement and construction, and each adopted the one ornamental style from Italy, just as Italy had adopted the one ornamental style from the ruins of Rome. In France, for instance, one dominant type of building was a country seat evolved from the older feudal castle. In Germany, houses which are palpably con- tinuations of the medieval fashions were veneered with Italian ornament. It follows that when we face the historic monuments we have to deal rather with a period than a ' ' style, ' ' at least so far as similarities of construction are concerned. In order then to specify ' ' Renaissance ' ' traits one needs simply the ability to distinguish the ' ' Orders ' ' of the Greeks as they were used by the Romans ; the Tuscan Doric, the Ionic, and the Corinthian (with its bastard variant, the Composite). One needs to be familiar with the divisions of architrave, and frieze, and cornice, and the peculiar de- tails allotted to each member according to the Doric and 64 Criticism of Renaissance Architecture. 65 Ionic methods respectively.* One needs sufficient famili- arity with ornamental patterns to know the stamp of a clas- sic design. Otherwise a knowledge of the Italian Renais- sance architecture is a knowledge of special historic build- ings, of individual examples; above all a knowledge of the distinctions between better and worse, early and late, which are to the student of history the most inter- esting reflex of the general changes in his- toric life. There is, however, one matter of especial importance to the crit- icism of Renaissance art, viz. : a knowledge of the general attitude of modern criticism to the Roman architec- ture which was copied. It is a well estab- lished canon of criti- cism that the appli- cation made by the Romans of Greek ele- ments of construction to purposes of ornament without reference to constructive meaning, was a departure from Greek ideals of art and from the theoretic ideal of art in general. According to these ideals the first mission of form is to express and convey its use. A column, therefore, which was devised as a means of * Compare "Greek Architecture and Sculpture," Chautauqua Series. Fig. 22. — Architectural Renaissance Details fram- ing a Madonna Relief by Mine da Fiesole. At Fiesole near Florence. Fifteenth Century. 66 Renaissance and Modern Art. support, allowing of intervening open spaces, is not a thoroughly appropriate decorative member as applied to a solid wall, where intervening spaces are not desired. The significance of a capital is to emphasize by ornament the point of pressure, of a base, to emphasize by ornament the point of support, of a cornice, to emphasize by ornament the roof line. The significance of a division between ' ' architrave ' ' and ' ' frieze ' ' is the existence of an actual stone lintel supporting another lintel, both destined to sup- port the ceiling of a portico. When these various mem- bers are simply imi- tative carvings on a solid surface to which they bear no relation of ornamental empha- sis, they have in so far lost their meaning. For the Romans themselves, who in many other ways lacked the higher re- finement of the earlier Greeks, we have a his- toric point of view which does not de- mand that they should have been more than they were. Moreover, we know that although they frequently over- looked the theoretic principle in question, they did not do so at the expense of general effects of construction. Their construction was Fig. 23. — Early French RenaissancCj Columns anci Entablature. ,o.=„..^^. Engaged" Church at Gisors. Criticism of Renaissance Architecture. 67 solid, massive, powerful, and imposing, and their use of the Greek colonnades in surface ornament was not such as to impair these effects, and was in its way certainly deco- rative and picturesque. In other words they essentially. Fig. 24. — Ancient Roman Ruin. Theatre of Marcellus, showing Columns and Entablature. Engaged" according to their own needs and character, built sensibly and artistically, without claiming or showing the higher refinement of the Greeks, whose forms they adopted and used.* For the architecture of the early Renaissance we are again obliged to make the concession due to common sense and to history, as regards the use of the ' ' engaged ' ' col- umns and entablatures. As for the Italians themselves, it * For the critical objections to Roman methods of ornament, see Viollet le Due's " Discourses on Architecture," translated by Van Brunt. 68 Renaissance and Modern Art. must be remembered also that they were unacquainted with ancient Greek architecture, which first came into notice in the latter half of the eighteenth century. (At this late date men of learning in Rome were planning an explora- tion of southern Italy to study the Greek ruins supposed to be there, as remains of the old Greek colonies of south Italy. As late as the eighteenth century it was not known that the Greek ruins at Paestum were the only ones, and this shows how recently they had then attracted attention. ) The virtues of early Renaissance buildings, like those of the Romans, are also superior to the theoretic objection to the ' ' engaged ' ' columns and entablatures based on the origi- nal use and meaning of the Greek colonnade. The deli- cacy and vigor of their ornament, the large effects of mass and surface, and the practical adherence to constructive ap- pearance, are worthy of all praise in the early Renaissance. It is in the decadence of the Renaissance that we find cause especially to regret the use of the ' ' engaged ' ' column, simulated entablature and pediment — ^above all, when their influence on our own modern standards of taste is considered. In this decadence the wall column and associated features became a mania, a tedious repetition, a mechanical and life- less formula. The influence of this decadence is shown in many of our American Renaissance buildings, which must be judged and condemned accordingly. The one objectionable feature of the Renaissance style was that it tended to divorce the system of ornament from the system of construction; not only because one was ancient and the other was modern, but also because the Romans themselves had admitted the opening wedge in this direction. When this divorce had been finally effected there was no bound to the license of arbitrary forms and Criticism of Renaissance Architecture. 69 lines. The effect on modern taste of the later Renaissance decadence was to obliterate the perception that a general correspondence between form and use, a correspondence in which ornament is consequently used to emphasize or indicate construction, is the only standard admissible in the strict criticism of buildings, furniture, and utensils. Generally speaking, the division of dates already fixed by the downfall of the Italian Free-states marks the time when the decadence first began (1530). It showed itself in the later part of the sixteenth century mainly by a colder and more mechanical exe- cution of decorative details, by a more formal and rigid ap- pHcation of the "Or- ders" to wall surfaces. In the early Renais- sance the ornamental scroll-work is more elastic and spirited, the carving of details is bolder and finer, the relief of the projected columns and entab- latures is lower. The higher the pro- jection and relief of the ' ' engaged ' ' columns and pediments, the later the date. In late Renaissance the feeling of the architect was effect, less suggestive Fig. 25. — Cathedral of Versailles. Eighteenth Century. more fretful, more anxious of reserve and power. For for the 7© Renaissance and Modern Art. higher and more numerous the projections of the ornament, the deeper and more numerous the shadows. These shad- ows again, when not determined by construction, detract from the effects of mass and the repose and power of the main lines and surfaces of the fcuilding. In the seventeenth century there was an ever-increasing tendency to multiply the breaks of surface and of outline, often of so bold and so forceful design that it is difficult not to admire, even when we feel disposed to criticise or at least to withhold approval. On the whole, delicacy, refinement, and repose distinguish the early Renaissance (before 1530). On the whole, picturesque license, bold but arbitrary out- lines, and cold and mechanical details, distinguish the seventeenth century. The eighteenth century continued in the same tendencies until the ' ' Greek Revival ' ' at its close reacted against them, and for a time displaced them by a more formal, more ' ' correct, ' ' though colder, and perhaps equally me- chanical, resurrection of the original Greek forms. The force of the above remarks regarding the relation of style to period will be considerably strengfthened if the reader will immediately proceed to compare in bulk the illustra- tions for Chapter X. (fifteenth century) with those for Chapter XII. (seventeenth century). The illustrations for Chapter XL (sixteenth century) will relate, as the case may be, and according to comparative dates, either to the fifteenth or seventeenth century as regards tendencies. In spite of the above distinctions and gradations of Re- naissance style, as between the fifteenth and eighteenth cen- turies inclusive, we are also obliged to admit that as late as the eighteenth century bold and powerful composition was still generally practiced and that our own nineteenth cen- tury Renaissance has been, generally speaking, the weakest Criticism of Renaissance Architecture. 71 Fig. 26.- Palace Poll, and Fountain of Trevi. Rome. Eighteenth Century. of all, both in composition and detail. The exceptions to this rule are mainly recent, and dating from the revival of architectural taste visible in the later nineteenth century. The general course of evolution in Italian architecture which we have just sketched corresponds, it should be ob- served, to a similar evolution which can be verified for the Gothic, Roman and Greek styles. All began with simplic- ity, vigor, and power — all tended to become more elaborate, ornamental, and picturesque — all ended in complexity, rel- ative weakness, over-elaboration, and straining for effect. It should also be observed that the history of Italian painting and Italian sculpture illustrates a parallel and sim- ilar development, a parallel and similar decline. CHAPTER X. HISTORIC SKETCH OF FIFTEENTH CENTURY RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE. Brunellesco of Florence is universally quoted as the first great architect of the Renaissance (1377— 1446). His greatest achievement was the dome of the Florence Cathe- dral.* The building itself-was begun a century and a half earlier. The details specifying the dawning style of the hew period are here confined to the lantern, or small crowning member, which he did not live to finish, and this dome is consequently rather significant for his engineering and constructive ability and his general architectural science than for points illustrative of the traits which we have so far discussed. Let it be remembered now, therefore, that these traits are not in themselves the first claim of the early Renaissance architects to distinction. It was their talent in construction which made them great. The ornamental fashion of their time is a matter of interest, and the way in which they used it is a matter of interest, but the whole is greater than its parts, and these must be considered in their relation to the whole. Where the Renaissance details appear it is still by constructive appearance and by their relation to con- structive appearance that the building must be judged. The dome of the Florence Cathedral is especially mem- orable as having been the predecessor of St. Peter's *" Roman and Medieval Art," p. 210 and Fig. 125. 72 Historic Sketch of Fifteenth Century Architecture. ■ 73 dome at Rome, and Michael Angelo himself attributed his ability to plan the construction of the latter to the lesson and methods of the Florentine dome, which was slightly- larger than St. Peter's, although not raised so high above the ground. It is significant for the difficulty of Brunel- lesco's task that no architect had been found for a century and a half who was willing to attempt it. In two churches of Florence, San Lorenzo and San Spirito, we are able more clearly to specify the Renais- sance decorative ele- ment. As far as the illustrations carry us (Figs. 27, 28) this element will simply lie in the ' ' Corinthian ' ' columns and capitals, the sections of classic architrave and frieze Fig. 27.— Church of San Lorenzo, Florence. By Brunellesco, 1425. used as an impost above them, in the profiles and orna- mental treatment of the lines of arches, in the wall pilas- ters and Ionic architrave of the aisles of San Lorenzo and in the classic columns, entablatures, and small door pedi- ment seen at the farther end of this church. These are all imitations of Roman classic forms. It will illustrate the constant departure of the Renais- sance from its supposed models to observe here that such an impost imitating a section of architrave and frieze, as 74 Renaissance and Modern Art. appears in these churches, is not once found in Roman art; but that it is here imitated from the projecting section of architrave and frieze visible on Roman triumphal arches, where it is always attached on the rear side to a wall sur- FiG, 28. — Church of San Spirito, Florence. After the design of Brunellesco. face. * In the same way it may be noticed that the classic column always supports a straight lintel; never an arch, as here. This use of the column and arch continues that of the Italian church basilicas which had never been entirely abandoned. We may also find in these church interiors, suggestive contrasts with interiors of the contemporary northern Gothic or preceding Italian Gothic. * As, for instance, Fig. 33, " Roman and Medieval Art.' Historic Sketch of Fifteenth Century Architecture. 75 The Italian Gothic had already broken with the lofty naves of the North in favor of what may be called calmer and more rational proportions. This tendency now asserts itself still more distinctly. A church interior of consider- ably later date (Fig. 29) may be used with these to illus- trate some of the correspondences and contrasts of Re- naissance churches with earlier ones.* The correspond- ences lie in general arrangements and general plans; the distinctions lie in proportion and ornamental details. It appears from these views that the general plan of older churches was retained as regards nave and aisles, clerestory, and choir. They will also show that Renaissance churches frequently, though not constantly, returned to the basilica use of columns as dis- tinct from piers, t and also that they fre- quently vaulted such churches when using columnar supports, which the medieval church basilicas never did. Flat timber ceil- ings were also used. This is the case with the naves of the Florentine churches, San Lorenzo, and San Spirito, while the aisles are vaulted. Fig. 29. — Church of the Annunciation. Genoa. Late Sixteenth Century. *For these Gothic interiors see *' Roman and Medieval Art." fFor this distinction, see " Roman and Medieval Art," p. 145. 76 Renaissance and Modern Art. An immediate contrast by the reader, of San Lorenzo with St. Peter's interior (Fig. 42) will probably be the best means of understanding how Renaissance style is de- fined by ornamental details, rather than by similarities of construction. In this latter church, we find a vaulted ceil- ing and heavy pier supports as distinct from the timber ceiling and the arch and column. But the pilasters and columns, capitals, entablatures, cornices, and ornamental details are classic in both cases, and in these it is that the Renaissance distinctive quality appears. It is generally admitted that the churches of the early Renaissance are, comparatively speaking, less interesting monuments than its palaces, mansions, and villas. As contrasted with the mysterious, romantic, and picturesque cathedrals of the Middle Age, which were still being built at this time in northern Europe, they cannot claim an equal interest; although their sense of proportion and of system is a most interesting illustration of the modern spirit of fifteenth century Italy. Aside from Florence, the most usually quoted early churches of the period, in the matter of interiors, are some in Venice; while the Certosa of Pavia (church of the Carthusian Monastery) has the most cele- brated fa9ade. This dates from 1473. In the matter of dates we shall do well to notice those of San Lorenzo (1425) and San Spirito (after 1446) as fixing the time of early beginnings of the style in general. Before speaking of the palaces of this period we will still confine ourselves to the name of Brunellesco, as repre- sented by a door of the cloister of the Church of Santa Croce in Florence (Fig. 30). In this door we become more definitely aware of the ornamental features of the Renaissance. We have here the entire Renaissance system as far as one view may illus- Historic Sketch of Fifteenth Century Architecture. 77 trate it — the antique border of scroll work framing the door, the antique columns and entablature with its divisions of architrave, frieze, and cornice, the latter decorated with egg-and-dart mouldings, and the surmounting curvilinear Roman variant of the gable-shaped pediment. All of these details were borrowed by Brunellesco from some ruin of Rome, in which city he is known to have zealously sketched and studied the ruins. The relief of the saint and cher- ubs, the cupids hold- ing the crest, and the medallion portraits be- side it, are of course Renaissance additions, but the entire compo- sition considered as a door is also quite un- familiar to us as a copy of anything Roman. No similar Roman doorway can be quoted. Our nearest parallel in Roman art would be the framing of a niche for a statue, and it is most likely that the entablature, with the columns and the arc above them, were borrowed from separate buildings (neither of them from a door), and recombined according to a suggestion obtained from a niche. This case will illustrate the whole system on which the Renaissance architects worked, and the very freedom and independence of these adaptations are their greatest charm. Fig. 30 —Doorway of the Cloister of Santa Croce Florence By Brunellesco 78 Renaissance and Modern Art. The distinction which I have already emphasized in general between Roman architecture and Renaissance copies, is thus illustrated by a special example. An infinite number of such comparisons might be instituted. We shall now turn for a moment to a window decoration of somewhat later date in Venice, in order to consider its typical relation to the doorway. The same elements of antique detail are in question, al- though we cannot specify any antique window similarly treated. A niche framing, or even the front of an entire Roman temple, may be considered as the original suggestion. At all events, we have in these two pediment forms (curvilinear and tri- angle) the motives which ultimately became a mania in the later Renaissance, and whose endless repetitions and vari- ations ultimately became so tedious (Figs. 45-53, inclusive). What I wish to point out now for the earlier Renaissance (at least down to 1520), is its reticence in the use of these pediments. Confined to interiors and courts, they are sparingly used even there. On the fajades and exteriors Fig. 31. -Window Pediment of the Doge's Palace. Venice. By Pietro Lombardo. Historic Sketch of Fifteenth Century Architecture. 79 of buildings they are unknown at this time. Their first appearance and widest use at this time are for the frame- work of decorative tablets, tomb-reliefs, shrines, and the like. For such uses, the curvilinear pediment was the ruling one. The later introduction of these pediments into exte- rior architecture was gradual and tentative. The same point, though in a less emphatic degree, holds of the ' ' en- gaged ' ' columns and entablatures, which appear in exteriors at an earlier date. It is, however, in tombs, tablets, shrines, and the like, that they are most constantly and universally found for the fifteenth cen- tury. My best illustration (because clearest and largest) for the later decorative system of the Renaissance in ex- teriors of buildings is at this time the detail from the framing of a bas-relief by Mino da Fiesole in the Cathe- dral of Fiesole, near Florence (Fig. 22). The reader would do well to carefully note the correspondences and distinctions here, in comparison with types just quoted — the same classic cornice, frieze, architrave, capital, and column. The decorative details as here enlarged should Fig. 32. — Early Renaissance Capital. From a church in Venice. 8o Renaissance and Modern Art. also be carefully studied — the egg-and-dart moulding, Bead moulding, leaf-and-dart moulding, and anthemions.* On the other Jiand, the original and beautiful design of the capital would find no exact counterpart in ancient art, nor should we be able to point to any ancient anthemions of exactly similar design. A similar remark applies to our beautiful detail of a capital from Venice herewith (Fig. 32). It is in these capi- tals, decorative friezes and relief ornaments of early Renaissance art that we find the most original and most beautiful examples of antique influence. None of these decorative motives are slavish or mechanical copies, as our own nineteenth century designs are apt to be; yet they have all the virtues of the best antique designs ; the same elastic and vital feeling, the same sense of balance and proportion. The more our modern ornament is studied, the more its dependence on these early Renaissance decorations, andi also its general inferiority to them, is apparent. I have in the illustra- tions from armor, fowling-pieces, furniture, tombs, house interiors, metal work, etc. (Figs, i-ii, inclusive), given some indications of the all-powerful influence of this orna- ment on later history. As an indication of the early date at which these motives began to make their way to the North, and as another * Compare " Greek Architecture and Sculpture," Chautauqua Series. Fig. 33. — Ornament from the Tomb of Gaston de Foix. Milan. 1512. Historic Sketch of Fifteenth Century Architecture. 8i Fig. 34. — French Renaissance Wood- carving. Cliateauof Gaillon. illustration of their beauty, we call attention here to the tomb of the children of the French king, Charles VIII. , at Tours. This king was one of those whose campaigns in Italy have been mentioned as an instance of the attractions which Italian civilization was beginning to have for the North (Fig. 3). The inventive and original qualities of the early Renais- sance, as distinct from its de- pendence on antique orig- inals, are also nowhere so easily illustrated as in its ornament in wood carving, stone carving, terra cotta modelling, metal work, ivory carving, textile fabrics, lace, velvets, etc. The vigor and variety of these designs exhibit a rapid decline after 1530. After this time they are to be found in superior, or at least equal, excellence (for the given period) in France or Ger- many, for the remainder of the sixteenth century (Fig. 34). The detail from the tomb of the French general, Gaston 82 Renaissance and Modern Art. de Foix, who was killed at the battle of Ravenna in 1512, is illustrated as an easily dated work, typical for hundreds and thousands of distinct yet similar designs (Fig. 33). We have also other earlier illustrations typical for the best Italian work and influence, although some are taken from the art of other countries (Figs. 10, 14, 19). Keeping to our point, that tombs, relief panels, decora- tive details, and interiors offer the first numerous class of distinctly Renaissance designs subsequently typical for ex- terior architecture, we may turn to the early Renaissance palaces and find our point corroborated here by the fact that the interior court is generally the part of the building where we can distinctly point to the antique influence. On the whole, the palace of the Dukes of Urbino, the birthplace of Raphael, has the most famous interior court of the fifteenth century ( Fig- 35 ) • The archi- tect was a distin- guished, though not largely quoted, man, Luciano da Laurana. The photograph is typical for the general interior arrangement of contemporary Italian mansions and palaces. Fig. 35.— Court of the Ducal Palace at Urbino.- showing the Open ar- Fifteenth Century. . r i i cade of the lower story supported by classic columns. On the second story we distinguish the typical classic Roman wall pilaster, but as yet used in low relief and in modest fashion. No window pediments are seen. The earliest fajade which exhibits the classic wall pilas- Historic Sketch of Fifteenth Century Architecture. 83 ter is the Florentine Palace Rucellai (1446-1451), a won- derfully simple and imposing composition (Fig. 36). The architect, Leon Bat- tista Alberti, was the most famous of his time, which was that of the generation after Brunellesco. His name is also a much quoted one for Italian liter- ature and for classical studies, aside from his architectural capacity. In this building we notice, aside from the harmonious distri- bution of the pilasters and entablatures, the extreme flatness of their relief, as con- trasted with later Re- naissance style, and the absence of window pediments (same contrast), also the fine effect of the distinction given to each block of stone by its projected setting. Others of the most famous fifteenth century Florentine palaces do not show even the modest amount of exterior ornament which appears here. The most famous of all, and of all modern palaces, is the Palace Pitti (Fig. 37) dating from Brunellesco, though not finished by him. The massive power and simplicity of this building are beyond all praise. The method of leaving to the outer face of each block of stone a part or all of its natural rough- FiG. 36. — Palace Rucellai. Florence. By Leon Battista Alberti. Fifteenth Century. 84 Renaissance and Modern Art. ness is a means to one of the finest effects i'n architecture, and was much employed by the greatest of American archi- tects, H. H. Richardson, lately deceased. This method was known to the Italians as Rustica or rustic work. The built-in window pediments of the lower stoiy date from the following century, as does the pilastered deco- ration of the rear of the - building. In the front of the Pitti Palace we see what effects are ob- FiG. 37.— Pitti Palace by Brunellesco. Florence. Fifteenth Century. tainable from simple rough masonry; from its contrast with the plain door and window openings, with the sequence of arched openings and shadows, and from the structural em- phasis given by the divisions of the stories as marked by the exterior galleries. To these effects must be added that of the larger wall surfaces and rougher masonry of the lower story. These contribute to an appearance of extra strength Historic Sketch of Fifteenth Century Architecture. 85 in the lower story, befitting its relation of support to the upper ones. In the celebrated Florentine Strozzi Palace, by Benedetto da Majano, we have the same elements of power, the simply and firmly emphasized lines of the stories and the heavier masonry of the lower story. The massive cornice of the building, by Cronaca, is especially famous, and is the one exterior feature in which an antique model is apparent. The Riccardi Palace of Florence is of similar date and style. These buildings are more refined develop- ments from the older medieval buildings of Italy. * Since they are somewhat massive for modern taste in their fortress-like strength, it must be remembered that they actually were fortresses as well as palaces and correspond in appearance to their use and character. It must be added that average modern taste is not sufficiently alive to the element of reserve and power conveyed by large masses of plain masonry. Taste has been corrupted by the overloaded but mechanical ornament of nineteenth century Renaissance. Fig. 38.— strozzi Palace by Benedetto da Majano. Cornice by Cronaca. Fifteentli Century. *" Roman and Medieval Art," Figs. 145, 146. CHAPTER XL HISTORIC SKETCH OF SIXTEENTH CENTURY RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE. At the opening of the sixteenth century the simpHcity and reserve of the early Renaissance were still general but gradually gave way to more pronounced exterior deco- rations, to a wider use and greater projection of the surface ornament,, and a more broken treatment ot lines and surfaces. The name of Bramante, the friend and possibly rel- ative of Raphael, is at this time the leading one. We shall do well now to notice once more a Chapel at Rome, illustrated in an earlier chapter, and designed by this fa- mous architect (Fig. 17). In Bramante' s Can- ~ celleria Palace at Fig. 39. — Arcade and Court of the Palace ^ • 1 1 i Massimi. Rome. By Bal- Kome, a Still noted dassare Peruzzi. 1. 'u' n 1 1 buildmg, we find the same low reliet of the classic pilasters as seen on the Palace Historic Sketch of Sixteenth Century Architecture. 87 Rucellai, the same constructional emphasis on the lines of the stories illustrated by earlier Florentine palaces, the same artistic use of the blocks of masonry as in themselves noble and beautiful parts of the building (Fig. 40). In his court of, the Church of Santa Maria della Pace at Fig. 40. — Cancellaria Palace, Rome. By Bramante. Early Sixteenth Century. Rome, we see once more the dignified, simple, and noble composition of the best period of the Renaissance (Fig. 41). By contrast with the Palace at Urbino (Fig. 35), where columns are used in construction, we have in the lower arcade the pier and arch construction of the Roman time, faced by flat pilasters. In the second story piers al- ternate with columns to support the straight lintel, showing another free departure from the Roman system which never used a pier with the lintel. 88 Renaissance and Modern Art. What the Church of St. Peter (begun 1506) would have been if Bramante had finished or even partially com- pleted it, we can only imagine. In its present shape it still dates from him as the first architect who worked on its plans, but has nothing either in plan or details to show for Bramante at present (Figs. 42, 43). The Renaissance was soon . destined to take on colder and more formal aspects, even in the hands of such great artists as Raphael and Michael Angelo. The former became the architect of St. Peter's after the death of Bramante, Fig. 41.— Court of the Church of Santa Maria della Pace. Rome. By Bramante. Early Sixteenth Century. although nothing of the later building came to completion in his lifetime, except the piers of the dome. Raphael also built several palaces in Rome and Florence. By the year Historic Sketch of Sixteenth Century Architecture. 89 1546, when Michael Angelo assumed charge of the con- struction, the cold and mechanical period of the Renais- sance had fairly set in. To Michael Angelo, as already mentioned, is due the Fig. 42.— St. Peter's Church. Rome. Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. construction of the famous dome, which was finished accord- ing to his plans after his death. But continued changes in plan, all with the general purpose of increase in size, con- tinued to be made and the most famous building of the go Renaissance and Modern Art. Renaissance dates in its present fa9ade and in the details of interior decoration from the seventeenth century only. As regards prodigal luxury in details, enormous dimen- sions of area, and gigantic size of its members, St. Peter's deserves all the fame it has won. The besetting sin of the period in which this church was finished was over-decora- FiG, 43. — St. Peter's Church. Rome. tion — ^the idea that expensive materials and lavish display are alone sufficient to satisfy the demands of high art. In this sense we are obliged to make' certain reservations regarding St. Peter's, and all buildings of the time of its completion, without wishing to deny its importance as the largest church of modern history; without wishing to forget the wonderful engineering science displayed in the construe- Historic Sketch of Sixteenth Century Architecture. 91 tion of its dome and its imposing first place among the monumental jewels of Rome. On the other hand, concession of the merit of St. Peter's is not one to be made merely to bigness of dimensions for its own sake. In exteriors, mere size is certainly the least important of all things, if for no other reason, because we can least control it; but large and ample interior apart- ments will always claim first place in effect and power — and the Italians of this age were noble designers in this regard. The galleries, corridors, and loggias (arcades) of the Vati- can Palace are one in- stance out of many, and the vestibule of St. Peter's offers a fine, illustration in the same direction. Our illus- trations for the Sistine Chapel, for the Vatican loggias, and for the Doge's Palace at Ven- ice should be consulted on this head, aside from the interior view of St. Peter's (Figs. 58, 88, 93). The mention of St. Peter's Church has carried us beyond the period of the early sixteenth century, of which I am now generally speaking. Meantime, in the first quarter of the sixteenth century, countless buildings of fine proportions and beautiful detail were in construction all over Italy. Among these I have Pig. 44. — Court of the Palace Massimi. By Baldassare Peruzzi. Early Sixteenth Century. Rome. 92 Renaissance and Modern Art. selected the Palace Massimi in Rome as a typical building for the zenith of the Renaissance (Figs. 39, 44). We have in Fig. 39 an illustration of the Tuscan Doric Order as revived from the Roman ruins.* It is still in general modern use as a tradition from this time. The Ionic is occasionally found on Renaissance buildings (Figs. 23, 46), but is far less frequent than the Corinthian (FigSi. 26-32 inclusive, and many others). The Roman prefer- ence for this latter Order accented its use by the Italian Renaissance revival. In our own days the general domi- nance of the Corinthian Order continues as a result. In the Palace Mas- simi it is still obviously the construction which attracts and interests us. In other build- ings the preference for antique forms begins to develop without reference to the effects of the building itself The door and window pediments, now transferred to the exterior fa9ades, of- fered a ready means to inferior architects to satisfy the demand for ! antique designs with- out taxing their own invention. It would be impossible to deny that there are countless fine and *" Roman and Medieval Art," Fig. 12. <• ^ k, ,j_^:,^ Fig. 45. -Palace Bartolini. Florence. By Baccio d'Agnolo. Historic Sketch of Sixteenth Century Architecture. 93 imposing buildings on which these gables appear; equally impossible to deny that they have found their final grave on the brownstone fronts of New York City (Fig. 13). The Florentine Palace Bartolini, shown in Fig. 45, long passed as the earliest example of the door and window pediments on an exterior fajade, but the Palace Pandol- fini in Florence shows Raphael as predecessor (1516) in this Fig. 46. — Second Story, Court of the Farnese Palace. Building by Antonio di San Gallo and Michael Angelo. regard, and they also appear in a drawing by Bramante, who died in 15 14. The alternation of curvilinear and angular pediments on the Palace Bartolini is again alter- nated by changed arrangement on various stories. The year 1520 is dangerously near the first decline of the Renaissance, and we cannot but find the appearance of the exterior pediments at this time significant. The first 94 Renaissance and Modern Art. effect of a door or window is that of its entire shadow as against the adjacent surface. The broken hnes and surfaces created by these projecting but still inefficient and useless canopies tend to destroy a finer series of contrasts than they themselves create, and the breaks of wall surface which they involve detract from effects of structural lines. The sacrifice of the main lines and surfaces to elaboration of details rapidly asserted itself after 1530. We find an in- stance in the second story of the court of the Farnese Palace, at Rome, where the removal of the pediments would con- tribute to effects of proportion and contrast (Fig. 46). In this view we also see the high projection of the ' ' engaged ' ' columns, as contrasted with the flat pilasters of the Rucellai and CanceUaria Palaces (Figs. 36, 40). In their ultimate use of the classic Roman wall column, the Italians strove to regain what they had sacrificed in the matter of surface effects, and of structural lines in the hori- zontal, by emphasis on the perpendiculars. This was ob- tained by applying the simulated columns in the propor- tion of the entire building (Fig. 26), but at the expense of any treatment emphasizing the stories, or other organic conditions of the building. This disregard of organism is the almost necessary resort of any modern architect designing in Renaissance style and wishing to give imposing lines to his building. To the classic enthusiasms of the old Renaissance, which forced the use of these columns on every important structure, we can make almost any concessions, but there is no doubt that they have laid a very serious burden on the shoulders of later architects who have less interest in Virgil and Pliny, and the same reverence for Vitruvius.* *Vitruvius is the Roman author on architecture, whose work became the stand- ard of appeal of all Italian architects soon after 1500. Historic Sketch of Sixteenth Century Architecture. 95 The last great architect of the Renaissance was Palladio, 1518-1580. He was a native of Vicenza, and most of his important work was in north Italy, especially in Vicenza and in Venice. Two interesting views of his designs in and. near Vicenza are subjoined; one of these is his most famous villa (Fig. 16). The great merit of Palladio was his dis- position of interior apartments and his ar- rangements of interior plans. In his use of the ' ' Orders ' ' on ex- teriors he was distin- guished by refinement, moderation, a sense of proportion and regard for organic appearance and effect. In his day the use of these ' 'Or- ders ' ' in exteriors was a matter-of-course formula for every architect, as a result of that literary enthusiasm for Roman antiquity whose peculiar causes I have endeavored to explain (pp. 54-60). In these enthusiasms we understand the architects as sharers within the domain of their own peculiar art, so that Palladio, for instance, was a close student of the ancient Roman ruins; but it is important to know that the larger basis and groundwork of the architectural fashion was that general point of view of the entire Italian culture and edu- cation, in which the literary sentiment of the men of letters. Fig, 47. — Palace Marcantonio Tiene. By Palladio. Vicenza. g6 Renaissance and Modern Art. the historic interest of the student of history, the debt of the man of science to ancient learning, and the patriotic in- terest of the average Italian in the former glories of his country were the essential explanation. We must not forget to mention finally the name of Vi- gnola (1507-1573) whose treatise on the Orders has not even yet entirely lost its influence on modern architecture. As a planner and composer of buildings he was not Palladio's equal, but he long ranked as the leading theorist on the subject of Roman, i. e. Renaissance, details. The Italian theory that Roman art was an inspired canon for the imita- tion of all later history reached its climax in his treatise. CHAPTER XII. DECADENCE OF RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE, SEVEN- TEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES. In THE latter part of the sixteenth century Italian archi- tecture turned from the study and copy of the Roman buildings to the study and copy of its own earlier copies. The period of continu- ation and tradition set in, as against the period of original adaptation or of original creation mistaken for adaptation or disguised as adap- tation. In this period the method and the form- ula, that is to say the classic detail, became the main thing. The building was forgotten in its ornament. The whole became less im- portant than its parts. The beautiful variety and real inventiveness of the early modern Italian art gradually disappeared, while the shell of its exterior and superficial appearance continued to subsist. Fig, 48. — French Renaissance Doorway. ViUeneuve-les-Avignon. 98 Renaissance and Modern Art. In illustrating the later course of this movement we shall find it interesting to choose a single motive and follow the course of its evolution. We will select the curvilinear pediment, which we first noticed at length over the door of Brunellesco (Fig. 30). The examples of subsequent evolution are selected from the French Renaissance but will be typical for Italian coun- terparts and originals. In the French doorway (Fig. 48) we notice, as compared with Brunellesco' s door, the higher pro- jection and relief (de- signed to produce stronger shadows) both of the main design and of the ornamental carv- ings in detail; and the broken horizontals. This break in the hori- zontals is connected with the assumption ot a double plane for the ornament, in which the central portion is thrown forward from the sides; the motive being to increase variety of surfaces, outlines, lights, and shadows. A momentous step farther in the same direction is visible in our next French doorway (Fig. 49). Not only are the projections enormously exaggerated, but the entire pedi- FiG. 49- — French Renaissance Doorway. Villeneuve-les-Avignon. Decadence of Renaissance Architecture. 99 ment is broken into exterior wings with a recessed center. This broken pediment line, also found in the triangular form of the same period, is to be seen in ruins of the Roman decadence,* but it appears in Italian Renaissance art at a later date than does the unbroken form. In our next doorway (Fig. 50), the central portion of the arc has disappeared entirely. The form can only be comprehended by ref- erence to the preced- ing type. Turn now to an en- tire cathedral fagade of the late Spanish Re- naissance and we have a type of the "baroque" Renais- sance style as origi- nally native to Italy of the seventeenth century (Fig. 51). In this illustration the entire central front of the building is a built up travesty of our last motive. What had once been the framing of a door or window, and originally the ornament of a Roman niche for a statue, has become the entire front of a building. Meantime the original forms in their original place can be seen on windows and niches for statuary, of the same building. The sway of this style in all parts of Europe is shown by ♦view from eastern Syria, " Roman andMedievai Art," p. 42. kT 1 *;^ ! BBBH99p 1 1 Fig, 50. — French Doorway. Avignon. Villeneuve-les- Fic. 51.— Cathedral of Murcia. Late Spanish Renaissance. Decadence of Renaissance Architecture. lOI the English example from St. Mary's College at Oxford (Fig. 52), in which the twisted or spiral column ap- pears, as an additional feature. Such columns must be understood as having been originally in bronze and made for the shrine of a church, as in the great shrine of St. Peter's at Rome. In fact, the whole history of the later Renaissance may be understood as a transfer of designs for altars, shrines, and tablets to the exterior details, and, finally, to the entire composition of a build- ing. What was more endurable in the way of broken surfaces and arbitrary lines in smaller and less pre- tentious objects, or in more tractable or duc- tile materials, like wood, plaster, or metal, became less endurable when transferred to entire buildings and to large masonry forms. In our critical atti- tude toward the late Renaissance our point of view must be largely determined by the dimension and use of the given form, and by its relation to the entire building. Although a doorway like that of St. Mary's College at Oxford must be admitted to be a corrupt and extravagant design, we cannot deny its picturesque quality and picturesque relation to the whole building. From the standpoint Fig. 52. — St. Mary's College. Oxford. Seven- teenth Century English Renaissance. I02 Renaissance and Modern Art. of history it even becomes a most interesting evolution. In face, of an entire building like the Spanish Cathedral of Murcia, where a similar design appears in the entire front, which is worried and fretted from top to bottom with meaningless breaks and projections, our attitude of criticism becomes more severe, although the historic interest still preponder- ates (Fig. 51). In the French door- ways which have been quoted we must con- cede much picturesque beauty; given an otherwise mainly plain and unpretentious house surface, as would appear from the glimpses of the ex- teriors obtained in the views. As regards the form is the same, it is Fig. 53.— St. Etienne du Mont. Paris. Seventeenth Century. element of dimension, where the clear that the fafade of St. Etienne du Mont at Paris (Fig. 53) has sacrificed all thoughts of a serious relation between appearance and construction by the size of its pediments. Were the same shapes limited in size to the older use as canopy for door or window, the building would be the gainer. It would be erroneous to suppose that the later Renais- sance was entirely given over to perversions and over-elab- orations of its earlier designs. Much was done that was at Decadence of Renaissance Architecture. 103 least imposing and monumental, and much that was com- paratively simple, although in all these cases the mechan- ical quality of the detail Carvings in capitals and surface or- naments is to be observed. In other cases a somewhat cold and bare appearance, owing to the absence of orna- ment in detail, is often apparent. St. Paul's Cathedral in London (Sir Christopher Wren) Fig. 54. — St. Paul's Cathedral. London. Seventeenth Century. may be instanced as a case fairly described, by the general hints of the above paragraph. An instance of this cold but still monumental style may also be found in the Cathe- dral of Versailles, selected for a view because it offers an available photograph illustrative of this class of later Re- naissance art (Fig. 25), The Poll Palace at Rome, with the fapade fronting the Fountain of Trevi, is a fine illustra- I04 Renaissance and Modern Art. tion of the monumental qualities frequently found in late Renaissance style (Fig. 26). On the other hand it would be difficult to find in church interiors any making pretensions to importance which are not disfigured by the arbitrary and broken lines and details of the shrines, tombs, and altars. In its later days the Renaissance was at its best in locali- ties where a simple taste and simple life forbade the effort at extravagant display or were, by virtue of the personal dignity and republican virtues of the population, su- perior to it. Such a locality was Holland, and we may find hints on this point in the views from Leyden (Figs- 55. 56). One of these views reproduces a seven- teenth century house of some fame on ac- count of its historic associations with the life of the Puritan leader, John Robinson. This house, built in 1683, stands on the site of the earlier one which he occu- pied. Its appearance will recall many of the Colonial houses of our own country and will remind us under what guise Fig. 55.— House in Leyden. Seventeenth Century Dutch Renaissance. Decadence of Renaissance Architecture. 105 the Italian stylfe of the Renaissance was familiar to our own immediate forefathers. The Dutch Renaissance exercised decisive influence both on England and on America, and explains the superior simplicity of the so-called style of Queen Anne (English eighteenth century Renaissance) and of our own so-called "Colonial style" (early American Renais- sance). The way and manner in which the Netherland influence affected both England and America has been best explained by a book already quoted^ Douglas Campbell' s "The Puritan in Hol- land, England, and America. ' ' To return finally for a moment to the six- teenth century period of superior art, let us remember here, also, that at a given date the contemporary building of France or Germany may be superior to a given one in Italy; because as the style moved from south to north and northwest, it largely traveled from point to point by gradual geographical contact as well as by sudden transportation by means of an imported Italian architect, or through a native architect who had studied in Italy. Hence, as the history of the Renaissance all over Europe Fig. 56.— Town Hall of Leyden. Dutch Renais- sance. Late Sixteenth Century. io6 Renaissance and Modern Art. is one of an early period of more spontaneous and vital energy as succeeded by another of more mechanical and colder art, and as the movement started from an Italian center, it follows that the North may reflect at a later time an earlier stage of the Italian inspiration. Throw a stone into the middle of a pool of water, and when the last ripples are reaching its circumference the center has become quiescent. This is an illustration of the course of historic influence. It is doubtful if Italy can offer a parallel for the given time to the sixteenth century castle facades of German Heidelberg, which it had inspired. Some of my most sig- nificant illustrations, for the vigor and life of early Renais- sance Italian art are borrowed from France (Figs. lo, ii, 14, 18, 21, 34). France and Spain were, by blood and by sympathies of history and of Roman traditions, most nearly allied to Italy, and most susceptible of a native and original continuance of the Italian movement reviving the memory of Rome. But > of these two countries, France was geographically nearer to Italy, and alone geographically in contact with it. Moreover, the French population had a lively, vivacious, and susceptible taste which most quickly responded to the Italian influence. The castles and country-seats of the French Renaissance are, taken in bulk, beyond any dispute the most interesting monuments of the style outside ol Italy. An account of the more recent history of modern archi- tecture is reserved for a later chapter. CHAPTER XIII. RELATION OF PAINTING TO OTHER ARTS OF THE RENAISSANCE. According to a philosophic view of our subject, the art of sculpture should for some reasons take precedence either of architecture or of painting. The interest in physical nature and the study of its forms and appearances from the standpoint of nature (as distinct from the useof these forms to teach the lessons of religion and to represent the stories and events of the Bible narrative), were essential features of the Renaissance. A corresponding fact was the interest in the works of ancient sculpture, which also distinguished the period. Sculpture was the earliest art to show that scientific study of design in the cause of nature, which still rules the modern time. The second pair of bronze doors by Ghiberti, of the Baptistery in Florence, begun about 1425, will convey more clearly to the modern eye than any other monument of art the epoch-making and really modern character of the fifteenth century in Italy. Our reasons for treating first of architecture, are first, that the exterior antique coloring and enthusiasms which have given the whole period its name are most visibly shown in this art; second, that the historic continuity of the movement between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries is most easily illustrated by this art; third, that the break with the Middle Ages is most abrupt in architecture and most easily illustrated by the overthrow of the Gothic style m favor of Renaissance. ro8 Renaissance and Modern Art. Some reasons may now be offered for giving painting the second place in our treatment. Painting in the fifteenth- and sixteenth centuries was first and foremost wall decoration ; that is, architectural decora- tion, in its location, in its character, and in its purpose. No adequate idea of the architecture of the time can be formed without considering the adornment given by Fig. 57. — Ceiling of a Room in the Chateau of Oyron, with Mythologic Paintings. French Renaissance. Compare Fig. 11. this sister art, and the magnificence of the interior apart- ments as thus decorated. A purely superficial and outside view of Renaissance ar- chitecture, both in the literal and figurative sense, is obtained when we confine ourselves to those traits of the " Orders " which concern exteriors, or when we confine ourselves to interior details as distinct from the great surfaces devoted to the wall-paintings. The most important part of a build- Relation of Painting to other Arts. 109 ing is the interior. The proper treatment of an interior in color offers an even more difficult problem than that ot exterior architecture. As the painting of the Italian Renaissance was domi- nantly architectural, we shall, therefore, do well to join our account of the subject to that of architecture. In the matter of the importance and general bearing of our subject, we shall notice next, that the continuity of history, as between the Middle Age and the Renaissance, is best illustrated by painting, whereas the break with the Middle Age is best shown by architecture. However differ- ent these periods were, both were Christian. The Italian wall-paint- ings of the Gothic fourteenth century were the direct prede- cessors of those of the fifteenth century. The same series of types and subjects was con- tinued. On the other hand, it is admitted that the Renaissance celebrated its greatest and purest triumph in the art of painting. The perfec- tion of its productions this art is still and unattackable. If in architecture we especially strive to show how the early Renaissance influenced later times — in painting we are able especially m unattacked Fig, 58. — Loggie or Corridor of the Vatican. Built by Bramante and decorated by Rapliael. no Renaissance and Modern Art. to show how far, in some respects, it surpassed them. As regards sculpture, we shall concede, however, that the study of solid and concrete form must always logically pre- cede successful representation on a flat surface; we shall concede that these studies in solid form actually did pre- cede in point of time and preliminary importance, and we shall subsequently be able to show that whereas the greatest triumph of the sixteenth century was in painting, the great- est triumph of the fifteenth century was in sculpture. CHAPTER XIV. FIFTEENTH CENTURY RENAISSANCE PAINTING. For a skeleton view of the subject, we shall lay down, the following preliminary outlines : In the eighteenth century great Italian painting is con- spicuous by its absence. The names of the Tiepoli (sin- gular, Tiepolo) in Venice, or of Canaletto and of Guardi, famed for their views of Venetian architecture, will hold a very minor place in the perspective which places the six- teenth century in the foreground. In the seventeenth century the painters of Spain and the Netherlands were at least the equals and often the superiors of their Italian brethren of the same date, a fact which has its analogies in the history of architecture. At this time the Italian painting was still excellent in color, in design, and in science; but it had come to have a more academic and formal, less spirited and less genuine, quality in the treatment and conception of subjects. Its color cannot compare with that of the Venetians of the sixteenth cen- tury. Its composition did not rival that of Raphael. Its intellectual quality did not remotely approach the genius of Michael Angelo or Da Vinci. Above all its scale and di- mension of productions had fallen. Scarcely any great architectural compositions were produced in the seventeenth century; which was almost entirely confined to panel paint- ing and canvas as distinct from frescoes. The impor- tance of Guido' s ' ' Aurora ' ' makes it one of the rare ex- ceptions to this statement. Renaissance and Modern Art. In turning to the sixteenth century painting we note its most important monumental works as the decoration of the Sistine Chapel of the Vatican, by Michael Angelo; the wall- paintings of the Vatican by Raphael, and the decoration of the Doge's Palace in Venice by a whole series of the great Venetian artists. The forerunner and first great painter of this period was Da Vinci, whose ' ' Last Supper ' ' in Milan was finished about 1498. As leading up to this period we begin with the fifteenth century. To a comprehension at once of the -limitations of this time and of its remarkable advance over that which pre- ceded, we must remember what this preceding time had done and what its characteristics were. In my ' ' Roman and Medieval Art" I have given some illustrations of the art of Giotto, its leading master, and some account of the art revolution accomplished in the fourteenth century and best represented by his work. This work was the overthrow of that stiff and formal Style of design which Byzantine art had practiced for nearly a thousand years preceding;* but Italian painting was still in its infancy during the fourteenth century and was still controlled by the medieval point of view, in which nature for its own sake played no part. Italian Christian art was still satisfied during the four- teenth century with the most primitive and summary indi- cations of natural surroundings and backgrounds. Por- traiture was not attempted, neither was perspective or the realistic rendering of details. Its color scheme was, how- ever, bright and decorative, its conception of the subject matter serious and original. In contrast with these traits the realistic point of view was the ruling one for the fifteenth century. No figure but * Compare the Byzantine mosaics — " Roman and Medieval Art." Fig. 59. — Detail from the Raising of Eutychus. By Masaccio. Brancacci Chapel, Florence. About 1425. 114 Renaissance and Modern Art. was drawn and colored from an actual model ; no background without a landscape (Fra Angelico is the sole exception and only in some cases) ; no landscape that did not in effort strive to show the facts of nature; no face that was not a por- trait; no expression that did not strive to reveal character. More than this, the actual Italian life of the time was represented in the disguise of scripture subjects. The drunkenness of Noah takes place in an Italian vineyard (Benozzo Gozzoli in Pisa). The building of the Tower of Babel is done by Italian masons in an Italian landscape (Benozzo Gozzoli in Pisa). The birth of the Savior is a domestic scene in Florence (Ghirlandajo in Santa Maria Novella). We should hasten to add that the incongruities of these representations soon cease to amuse, or even to draw the attention of, a student as anachronisms. On the contrary, it is the actual life of Italy which he delights to find, as the time itself delighted to represent it. There is a double point of view from which we learn to understand that neither impiety nor indiiference to the at- tributed subject is in question in these pictures. The literature of the Bible, as illustrated by art, was so far part and parcel of the daily lives of the people that it was most natural for them to see it represented through the medium of their own actual surroundings. The subjects were traditional, and although they had been represented in earlier times with less matter-of-fact detail, they never had been presented so as to represent the life of Palestine. On the other hand, the literature of the Bible was valued as a species of epitome of life and history at large, in which all periods of civilization and all varieties of costume were equally congenial to the heart and spirit of the matter. The Madonna was not only the Virgin Mary, but a type Fifteenth Century Renaissance Painting. 115 and ideal of the purity of motherhood. The drunkenness of Noah was the standard temperance sermon. In the do- mestic life of the Holy Family was found a type and ideal of the domestic life of humanity at large. What we should then mainly gather from those realistic features of fifteenth century art which strike us as incon- gruous, is that a dawning, or rather a reawakened, sense ol the beauty of actual nature and interest in visible things for their own sake led the artist to create their counterparts and the people to delight in looking at them. The tra- ditional subjects of Christian art were not less interesting, but rather more so on this account. The first development of fifteenth century art was Floren- tine, and the artists of Florence became the masters and teachers of all Italy. It is, therefore, by no means es- pecially in Florence that their work is to be studied. On the lower walls of the Sistine Chapel at Rome is a most important series of frescoes by a number of Florentine painters. In the Campo Santo at Pisa* there is another series, the work of the Florentine Benozzo Gozzoli. Be- sides these we may name as especially important the wall- paintings of Ghirlandajo (Geerlandaio) in the Church ol Santa Maria Novella in Florence. The Florentine Masaccio (Masatcheo) was the first great innovator of his time, and his name stands in fifteenth cen- tury painting as does that of Giotto in the fourteenth. Not only was he the first in time, but he was also distinctly the gi-eatest of his entire period, which lasted down to the "Last Supper" of Da Vinci. This position is awarded him not only on grounds of execution and technical improve- ment of design, but also for the great dignity and power of his thoughtful paintings. * " Roman and Medieval Art," Fig. 143. ii6 Renaissance and Modern Art. In the Brancacci (Brancatchy) Chapel of the Church ot Santa Carmine (Carminy) at Florence are found the great wall-.paintings of this master, who died so young that we other- wise can quote no really important picture by his hand. They were executed between 1423 and 1428. From the various paintings of this chapel I have selected a detail from a small portion of ' ' The Raising of Euty- chus," in which the strong realism and dif- ferentiation of the por- traits and of their facial expressions are well il- lustrated. These may be compared with the faces in Giotto' s ' 'Dep- osition, ' ' for a contrast with the style preced- ing.* Supposed to be from a design of Ma- saccio, as executed by his follower Filippino Lippi, is the picture of ' ' St Peter in Prison, Visited by St. Paul, ' ' another of the series in this chapel. * Fig. 146, " Roman and Medieval Art." Fig. 60.— St. Paul Visiting St. Peter in Prison. Design by Masaccio. Execution by Filippino Lippi. Fifteenth Century Renaissance Painting. 117 According to the natural conditions of the large wall spaces to be decorated (see for example the lower side walls of the Sistine Chapel, Fig. 88, or the walls of the Campo Santo at Pisa, Fig. 143, " Roman and Medieval Art"), the most usual shape of the wall-painting was that of a large oblong panel, and this was filled with a multitude of figures of life-size dimensions. The range and choice of subjects covered the whole field of Bible history. There Fig. 61 .■ "Christ giving the Keys to Peter." Fresco by Perugino. Sistine Chapel, Rome. (Compare Fig. 87.) are no similar pictures to be seen outside of Italy, and here they can only be known on the plastered walls of the origi- nal buildings. Owing to the habit of the artists of introducing large groups of accessory figures and spectators, who are not active participants in the scene represented, and who mainly fill the foreground of the painting, these works fre- quently lack variety and interest of action. On the other ii8 Renaissance and Modern Art. hand, they always offer interesting studies of contemporary. Italian costume and individuality. As entire compositions they are very important as illustrating, by contrast, the great advance made after the time of the ' ' Last Supper. ' ' It is in the draping, pose, action, and physiognomy ot the individual figures, and in the realistic accessories and background details that we notice their own epoch-making importance in contrast with earlier times. Comparison with contemporary paintings of northern Europe, among which the Flemish and German would offer most accessible illustration, is one good way to appreciate their value. But however remarkable these pictures become in the history of design, when compared with earlier Italian or northern contemporary work, we shall fail of hitting the mark if we consider them purely or mainly from the standpoint of the artist in design. The main point to be considered is that they represented a public art, existing for the people at large, . serving for their education, edification, and instruction. We must bear constantly in mind their individual large dimensions and the fact that all chapels, churches, public halls, and civic build- ings were habitually decorated with them. They existed for every one, were accessible to every one and largely took the place in the education of the time, now occupied by printed books. These were just coming into use in the later part of the fifteenth century, but had not yet usurped the place hitherto filled by the pictures. It is, moreover, to be constantly kept in view that the subjects themselves were traditional and familiar to the thought of the time. Thus they were popular in the best sense. When we consider, finally, the nature of the sub- jects treated, as regards elevation of thought and wide significance, even apart from their sacred character, the Fifteenth Century Renaissance Painting. 119 position of Italian painting in the history ot culture begins to dawn upon us. There is, then, this threefold point of view for fifteenth century Italian paintings. First, considering the arts of drawing and painting in their relation to visible nature and in their ability to represent it, as important departments of modern culture, we observe that fifteenth century Italy first acquired and developed this knowledge and that our own knowledge is a traditional inheritance from this period. Second, considering the general interest of the early Re- naissance for modern history, it is a great point that we arg able so closely to revive the memories of this time through the medium of pictures which so faithfully portray the facts of its own life, although generally Biblical in subject. Third, we learn to appreciate the importance of Italian art as a part of the intellectual and educational apparatus of the nation at large, its large patronage for public purposes, and the significance of its subjects as revealing the interests and modes of thought of the common people. As matter-of-fact history concerning the development ot this earliest Renaissance style, we emphasize its wonder- fully sudden first appearance in the art of Masaccio; con- sidering that the fourteenth century period, headed by Giotto, did not make any advances beyond the limits he himself had reached and that the dates of Masaccio' s pictures in the Brancacci Chapel are the very earliest dates for anything in painting distinct from the style of Giotto. Although the name of Masolino is generally known as that of Masaccio' s teacher, and although his participation in the execution of certain frescoes in this chapel has been asserted by Vasari,* we should, admitting this participa- tion, which is doubted by the great critic, Jacob Burck- * Author of the " Lives of the Artists," written in the sixteenth century. Renaissance and Modem Art. hardt, still have the same fact to emphasize regarding the sudden developtnent of the new style, for the paintings by Masolino near Milan are later than those of the Florentine Chapel. As matter-of-fact history, we again emphasize the absence of any important ad- vance beyond the style of Masaccio until the very close of the fif- teenth century. Many of its later artists con- tinued its traditions into the sixteenth cen- tury, in which they overlap and post-date the epoch-making works of that time. In the fifteenth cen- tury, as related to the fourteenth, we can only quote one similar case of an overlap of style, that of the Florentine artist, Fra Angelico of Fiesole, who in many ways reminds us of the Giotto period. For piety and simple purity of conception this artist monk holds a place disj;incdy his own (Fig. 63). We have so far riiade no mention of the altar pieces — the Madonna pictures, pictures of saints, and Biblical painting on panel. These were painted for shrines, chapels, and churches, as devotional pictures. They consequently ex- hibit a more traditional quality and resemble one another as types more closely than the wall frescoes, in which con- FiG. 62. — Detail from the Fresco of " Peter and Paul Curing the Sick and Lame." Probably by Masaccio. Brancacci Chapel, Florence. Fifteenth Century Renaissance Painting. 121 temporary secular life was so largely used to convey Bibli- cal subjects. The idea of fifteenth century art derived from these latter pictures would, for this reason, be a narrow one — and yet they are the only pictures which foreign museums or galleries can display, because they are the only ones which are transferable or portable. We should remember, then, that such paintings represent a minor field of the whole art of the time in spite of their number, interest, and frequent beauty. Their destination for an altar or shrine is to be con- stantly kept in view, and should not be overlooked because the picture has been trans- ferred to a gallery of paintings. This desti- nation involved serious devotional appearance and was characterized by traditional repeti- tions of certain set arrangements and motives. As studied in their details these oil paintings will, however, give interesting evi- ' ^ dence of the realistic tendencies of the age, especially when compared with earlier works. A point of much importance in the estimate of these panel pictures is that painting in oil colors, then newly in- troduced from Flanders, where the Van Eycks had first Fig. 63. — Detail from the Framing of a Madonna. ' By Fra Angelico. Uffizi Gallery, Florence. Renaissance and Modern Art. successfully practiced it, had not yet begun to treat the lights and shadows, or to represent the figures, with that soft modelling which Da Vinci was the first to practice and teach. In fresco (painting on walls) distinct outlines, without shading, were the desideratum, because the balance of out- lines and figures had to be considered for architectural results. The oil paintings of this period show us in reality the meth- ods usual in fresco and have consequently a certain hardness Fig. 64. — Meeting of Mary and Elizabeth. By Giiirlandajo. Louvre. Fifteenth Century Renaissance Painting. 123 and formalism of outlines which rather obscure their really- faithful studies of the human figure and of natural objects. To this same appearance of formalism was also contrib- utory the very anxiety and painstaking efforts of art to represent that which was actual and real in nature. As far as the names of the painters are concerned, and aside from those already mentioned, we feel disposed to lay stress on those who were related as teachers and masters to the great artists of the next generation. Michael Angelo, for instance, had been an apprentice in the stydio of Ghirlandajo (frescoes in Maria Novella, Flor- ence) although his most direct predecessor as regards the study of the nude and fore-shortening of the figure was Luca Si- gnorelli (frescoes in Orvieto). Raphael's master is generally said to have been Perugino, but re- cent researches of the great Italian critic, Giovanni Morelli, have quite clearly proven that Timoteo della Vite was . Raphael' s first teacher and that his connection with Peru- gino was of later date than is usually sup- posed. Leonardo da Vinci's teacher in painting was Verocchio (Verokyo), who was still more distinguished as a sculptor. Fig. 65.-^Detail from the Series of Paintings jdi^^^^^^H ^1^^^ \ Fig. 115.— Cattle. Paul Potter. The Hague. author.* The sum of this explanation is that Holland led the world in science, industry, and commerce for the given time and that her art is one reflex of this larger fact. The character of this art is peculiarly original, in fact absolutely phenomenal, when precedent and tradition are considered. In the early days of the Protestants there was a general prejudice against church paintings and religious art decoration which we no longer share but which was * Already quoted. Douglas Campbell, "The Puritan in Holland, England, and America." See also Taine, " Art in the Netherlands." Seventeenth Century Dutch Painting. 189 long ascendant. Hence Protestantism led to the abjuring of religious art but elsewhere had found no substitute for it. Painting practically disappeared from Germany as a con- sequence of this religious prejudice after the death of Holbein and Lucas Cranach. In England it had no flower till the eighteenth century. In Holland only did the Protestant artist seek in the life about him the subject matter which tradition could no longer supply. The life of the house and farm, of Fig. 116. — The Anatomy Lesson. Rembrandt. The Hague. kitchen and parlor, of the village, the city, and the town, of the sailor and the soldier, of the doctor, the tradesman, and the tavern, of the animal and the flower, of the corpo- ration, the guild, and the patrol — this was what the Dutch I go Renaissance and Modern Art. artist carried to his canvas. In his pictures, conscience, honesty, and truth to nature are the ever conspicuous traits. Among Dutch paintings the "Corporation pictures" claim our first notice. These give the associated portraits Fig. 117.— Banquet of the Officers of the Archers' Corps of St. Adrian. Franz Hals. Haarlem. of the leaders of the various guilds, officers of the military companies, heads of the hospitals, charitable asylums and the like, and often the portrait figures are full length and united in some activity peculiar to the association. Rembrandt' s ' ' Anatomy Lesson "at The Hague belongs to a class of pictures representing the associations of the doctors, to which this motive of an anatomical lecture and demonstration was common. One entire room in the Amsterdam Gallery is filled with similar pictures, all illus- Seventeenth Century Dutch Painting. 191 trating the transcendent genius of Rembrandt, who has caused them to be forgotten. To a Hke class of paintings belong Rembrandt' s ' ' Cloth Merchants" at Amsterdam, and the famous series by Franz Hals at Haarlem. Rembrandt' s ' ' Night Watch ' ' at Amsterdam, is one of hundreds of similar pictures of the patrols and military bands. It represents Captain Franz Banning Cocq's company of arquebusiers emerging from their guild house. These instances have value as show- ing a parallel to the conditions of Italian art, and a similar re- lation of popularity and public interest. In a domestic art for the home and the pri- vate dwelling Holland was also an innovator. Earlier paintings- had existed for public build- ings, churches, and palaces. Domestic art in the modern sense had been previously unknown. In Ger- many woodcuts had taken its place. In Italy the need of it had not been felt while churches and public buildings were open to the people. The trivial, anecdotal, and commonplace subjects of the Dutch painters thus become an interesting turning point in Wh^m H^^^o^B Fig. 118.— Portrait. Rembrandt. Amsterdam. Fig. 119.— The Doctor's Visit. Jan Steen. The Hague. Seventeenth Century Dutch Painting. 193 the history of civilization. It is rarely, however, that we do not find a point to the story or a permanent interest attaching to the scenes fi-om daily life. In fact these pictures are better than an open book for the study of old Dutch civilization. A large proportion of these paint- ings are of small dimensions as befitting their trivial and domestic subjects. In these small pictures the methods of execution are refined and painstaking to the point of Fig. 120.— Dutch Landscape. Ruisdael. Amsterdam. nicety. In larger pictures, as for instance those of Hals and Rembrandt, the method changes and becomes broad and masterly. In color and design the old Dutch artists 194 Renaissance and Modern Art. can still give points to most modern painters. Their greatest works are still unrivaled. Here again as in the earlier case of Italian art, we do not concede that native genius is lacking to our own time. We Fig. 121.— Tavern Scene. David Teniers the Younger. The Hague. only point to the fact that public national interest and support create an art and essentially determine its char- acter. No one could deny that for the given area and number of people, the production of pictures in seven- teenth century Holland was more active, their number greater, their relation to the actual lives of everyday people closer and more genuine, than in any country of our own time. Whoever has conceded this has also con- ceded that an average superiority of old Dutch art to our own was a natural consequence. Seventeenth Century Dutch Painting. 195 On the other hand the range of Dutch subjects belonged to that class which is most popular to-day, the domestic and the anecdotal, the landscape and the scene from real life. It is interesting to see that as early as the seventeenth century the essential features of the nineteenth century painting were thus anticipated and prefigured. Many pictures analogous in subjects to those affected by the Dutch were painted by the Flemings of the same period. It is in the matter of religious art that the two schools especially fell asunder. David Teniers the Younger, whose tavern scenes are world-famous, is the most obvious illustration of the close relations often ex- isting between Dutch and Flemish art. CHAPTER XXIII. RENAISSANCE SCULPTURE. Relations to Modern History. It may be regretted that a division of topics according to different arts seems to detract from that general view of one given century as a whole and of a series of sequent cen- turies, each massed in contrast with the others, which it should be our main effort to create. On the other hand, there is a certain cumulative result in such a treatment, which with each new art demonstrates the repetition of the same essential facts for a given time. Each art, whether sculpture, painting, or architecture, exhibited in fifteenth century Italy the same simplicity, the same reserve, the same faithful striving after proportion and scientific accuracy. Each art in the early sixteenth century showed the same transcendent mastery of means as applied to ends, the same culmination of power and mass, the same triumphant self-assertion of a new-born modern civilization. Each art in the seventeenth century exhibited a similar striving for effect, a similar exaggeration of the picturesque quality, a similar disposition to exalt the means above the end and the parts above the whole. If our parallel breaks for this century when extended to Dutch painting, it holds throughout the whole of Europe otherwise, and will even hold for Dutch painting if we stretch the limit into the eighteenth century when this art lost every element of its earlier vitality and power. In the eighteenth century England took the place in art, but 196 Renaissance Sculpture. 197 not in the same high degree, which had in the sixteenth century belonged to Italy, and which had in the seventeenth century belonged to Holland, Spain, and Flanders. In all these arts we take the same general point of view regarding these gradual changes, that art as a whole filled a larger place in daily use and thought before printing sub- stituted a new means of expression, before modern national states obliterated the rivalries and ambitions of civic com- munities, before the enlargement of the general field of science tended to specialize the individual, to dwarf the symmetry of character and the wide personal experience which are the best education for the artist in design. In the large dimensions of our great modern countries it may be possible for a musical composfer or a great author to keep in touch with an entire nation. Bret Harte, Dickens, or Whittier, or the composers of those street ballads of our day which we affect to despise and which will go down to history as some of our greatest and purest efforts of art ; Beethoven, Mozart, and Mendelssohn — such men iriay still claim a hold over an entire nation or even an entire civiliza- tion, for the power of music is not fettered by the bond of language. But our numbers are too large and our dis- tances too great for a painting, statue, or building to master the admiration of a whole nation. The book or the musical composition is susceptible of multiplication and diffusion; not so the work of art which is seen. At first hand, it can only be known in one example. It may be added that our culture is too complex and the eyes of most of us too dull. The artist is, and always will be, the spokesman of his audience. His inspiration and success will correspond to the enthusiasm and the interest of that audience. It is only a World's Fair which is ^Iso a Columbian celebration that can revive the conditions and igS Renaissance and Modern Art. results which we know in the early Renaissance for the arts of design as regards work done for the admiration, enjoy- ment, and appreciation of an enormous multitude of people. Once more, then, it is our duty to say that the history of Renaissance art has a double meaning for our time. First and foremost it means and represents modern civiliza- tion at large. In this sense it is representative for things and facts which cannot be seen but which it may, neverthe- less, imply — the science, industry, comforts, and manners which have spread from Italy for all modern history. In this sense Renaissance art has been perpetual. The science of our builder will go back to it, however the external form may change, and even this external form, as we have seen, has been perpetuated in architecture. A Rembrandt, a Reynolds, or a Rousseau may abjure every outward trait of Italian art and still owe every stroke of his brush to its inspiration. So likewise the modern sculptor cannot sever his connection with the time which revived the study of anatomy and the science of form. On the other hand, when the arts of design are considered in and for themselves we must still in each art confess the general superiority of the early Renaissance to ourselves. In certain cases it must be admitted that our modern American sculptors push it hard. With adequate patron- age it is difficult to say how far they might not go in rivalry or in superiority; whereas in painting it is difficult to see how later time can equal the Renaissance, unless the same subject matter could be revived; for an art must ultimately be judged by its subject matter, and no subject matter can be imagined equal to that which the Bible sub- jects once offered for painting. All, however, that can be asked of any art or of any century is that it be true to itself and to its opportunities. CHAPTER XXIV. EARLY RENAISSANCE SCULPTURE. Critical Review. As WE are dealing in comparisons and with a view to understanding both ourselves and the past, let it be said here what is the great- est virtue of the early Italian sculpture. The first notion of the novice in criticism is that art is judged by a certain amount of technical perfection and of positive science. It is difficult or impos- sible to imagine from this point of view why one artist possessing the requisite positive science' might not al- ways equal another -possessing the same amount of science, and Fig. 122.— swathed infant in Enameled Terra ,.„ , , , Gotta. By Andrea della Robbia. From the dirfacult to see why the Architectural Decorations of the Loggia , , , dei Innocenti. Florence. Fifteenth Cent. same talent and the same effort might not always reach the same point of science. To the first difficulty we answer, that technical science in 199 Renaissance and Modern Art. art up to a point of comparative perfection is assumed to start with, by the historic critic- The modern is supposed to possess it before he could reach the distinction of making a pubHcly exhibited work. That is the affair of the schools and the exhibitions. The old artist must have possessed it to have won a place in the estimation of centuries. The historic critic does not worry himself over the slips in draw- ing which a modern can point out in the ' ' Last Judg- ment." He is satisfied with knowing that no modern has drawn, could draw, or can draw, a similar number of variously fore-shortened figures without making more mistakes. We do not take the trouble to cor- rect the grammar of Shakespeare. What is then in question in our admi- ration for Ghiberti or Luca della Robbia if it be not the technical science ? The answer is that all classic art, whether in music, literature, or design, is conditioned . 123.— Equestrian statue of Gattamelata. By hv a «5Pntimpnt- nf npr Donatello. Padua. Fifteenth Century. "^ ^ sentimeni OI per- sonal unconsciousness or simplicity and of absorption in the subject matter. All these arts exist to awaken or create ideas. The form exists for the sake of a meaning. If then the ' 'Annunciation ' ' of Fig. Early Renaissance Sculpture. 20 1 a Robbia relief, the "Christ and Peter Walking on the Water, ' ' on the first Ghiberti doors, or the equestrian por- trait of ' ' Gattamelata ' ' by Donatello has that stamp of unconsciousness and of simplicity, or of great power, which art carries with it when \ the meaning fills and transcends the form, we pronounce these works classic because the artist has made his technical science the means to an end and has achieved it by sinking his own per- sonality in his subject (Figs. 123, 125, 129). Great art is generally simple, the greatest art invariably so. It is the unconsciousness and ease of good breeding that we demand from a work of art — and just as good breeding is the non-obtrusion and the unconsciousness of self so it is in art. Its standard is the conquest of self in behalf of the subject matter. Then comes the question, "What is that subject matter ? ' ' and according to its value so ranks the work of art. Our standards are the same and our point of view the same in the matter of early Italian painting, but it is much more difficult to illustrate a painting, whereas we can fairly reproduce the sculpture in a photograph, especially if the Lb ^S 1 K "^^m v,.'-^^ «^i^^;,.f Fig, 124.— Christ Healing the Sick. Architectural Medallion in Enameled Terra Cotta. By Andrea and Luca della Robbia. Florence. Fifteenth Century. 202 Renaissance and Modern Art. composition be simple. As far as pictures are concerned as related to the actual text of my book, I cannot anywhere make my meaning so clear or force the reader to admira- tion and respect simply by illustration, as I can with the statuary art of the Italian fifteenth century. Its charm of unconsciousness is too palpable to be ignored, too evident to be overlooked, and too beautiful to escape appreciation. Let us choose our examples first where the point is clearest ; the ' ' Madonna with Angels, ' ' by Luca della Robbia (Fig. 126), the "Annunciation," by Andrea della Fig. 125.— The Annunciation. Relief in Enameled Terra Cotta. della Robbia. Prato. Fifteenth Century. By Andrea Robbia (Fig. 125), "Christ Healing the Sick," by Luca and Andrea della Robbia (Fig. 124), the "Swathed In- Early Renaissance Sculpture. 203 fant," by Andrea della Robbia (Fig. 122), the "Madonna," probably by Mine da Fiesole (Fig. 139). Now this trait of unconsciousness and simplicity does not lie solely in the genius of the individual artist, it lies also in Fig. 126.— Lunette in Enameled Terra Cotta. By Luca della Robbia, position over a Florentine Doorway. Madonna and Child with Angels. Fifteenth Century. Still in the genius of a period. The whole Greek sculpture is saturated with it until we reach the decadence of Greek sculpture, and by the absence of that quality that decadence is fixed and determined. This trait is the essential deter- minant in our estimate of Dutch painting. Its absence fixes the place of the Italian art of the seventeenth century. Compare the " Annunciajtion " by Sassoferrato (Fig. 107), with the ' ' Annunciation ' ' by Andrea della Robbia. Com- pare the Madonnas of Guido, or of Carlo Dolci with those of the Robbias and of Mino da Fiesole. 204 Renaissance and Modern Art. We will return now to the presumed case of the novice, who supposes that scientific and technical perfection fixes the place of a work of art, and declare that this perfection has little to do with it. For wherever the mission exists which needs to find an utterance in art, there will the tools be found to make this utterance, and the conscience which will learn the use of those tools up to the point required. It is difficult to believe that hundreds on hundreds of paintings, all in fact painted in the greatest time of Italian art, bear this quality to view of unconsciousness, of in- genuous sincerity, of absorption in the subject matter for its own sake, but so it is. It long outlasted the time of Michael Angelo's "Last Judgment" in Venetian paintings and otherwise mainly disappeared from Italian art after 1530. In fifteenth century Italian sculpture it is the conspicuous and obvious charm. CHAPTER XXV. EARLY RENAISSANCE SCULPTURE. Historic Sketch. The earliest dawn of modem feeling for nature and of interest in ancient sculpture as an assistance to its study is found with Nicolo of Pisa and in his pulpit made for the Baptistery in Pisa about the year 1260. His son Giovanni car- ried this feeling and this interest into the fourteenth century and headed a school of artists whose works are found in many parts of Italy.* Among these one of the most im- portant is the pair of bronze doors made for the Florence Baptistery by Andrea Pisano with panel compositions from the life ofjohn the Baptist. The designs of Giotto for reliefs on the Florence Cam- panile (bell-tower of the Cathedral), are also works of great *" Roman and Medieval Art," Figs. 126, 127, 12S, 131. Fig. 127.— The Baptistery of Florence. TheDoors on the left by Andrea Pisano; those on the right are the second pair by Ghiberti. 206 Renaissance and Modern Art. power and interest.* In the main, however, fresco paint- ing had absorbed the activity of fourteenth century Itahan art. The best comparison for the average Itahan sculpture in rehef during the fourteenth century with that now to be considered, is offered by an illustration quoted in foot- note for the works of Giovanni Pisano and scholars at Orvieto. For statues the "Madonna" by Giovanni Pisano at Prato, quoted in foot-note, offers a similar typical con- trast which will hold good for other works. In our detailed account of fifteenth century Italian sculp- ture we begin with the opening of the century and the first pair of bronze doors made by Lorenzo Ghiberti for the Baptistery in Flor- ence ( 1 403-1 424). The pictorial beauty and more realistic de- tails of the second pair of doors by the same artist, have tended to obscure the importance of these earlier ones. They are often over- looked by travelers and by illustrators. No cast of them can be seen in this country; but the power of the compositions is at least equal, if not superior, to those subsequently made. The compositions are simpler, more circumscribed and I 128.— Christ and the Money Changers. Bronze Relief Panel. From the first pair of Doors by Ghiberti. *" Roman and Medieval Art," Figs. 129, 130— the execution of the latter is by Luca della Robbia. Early Renaissance Sculpture. 207 more concentrated. For the designs of ' ' Christ and the Money Changers ' ' and ' ' Christ and Peter Walking on the Water, ' ' our illustrations will speak, and speak eloquently. It TJvould be difficult to mention more powerful compositions in the whole range of Chris- tian art (Figs. 128, 129). The commission for the second and more famous pair of bronze doors was undertaken in 1425 and completed in 1452, so that fifty years' labor was alto- gether devoted to these two works of art. Should the question arise as to a compari- son between our mod- ern artists and Ghiberti, it would be unfair to judge the former until some modern city or national government is willing to allot an equal amount of time and proportion- ate payment for the creation of similar works of art. The willingness to wait twenty-seven years for the completion of ' one commission and to pay large yearly stipends for that . length of time both to Ghiberti and to his numerous assist- ants tells the whole story of the perfection of early Renais- sance art. The general appearance of the panels and surrounding borders of the second pair of bronze doors is best ex- plained by the illustrations. In these panels are repre- FlG. 129, — " Christ and Peter Walking on the Water." Bronze Relief Panel from the • first pair of Ghiberti's Doors. 308 Renaissance and Modern Art. sented important events of Old Testament history — the Creation, story of Cain and Abel, story of Noah, story of Abraham, etc. For the great beauty of the composi- tions in these panels, for instance in the story of Jatob and Esau or the story of Joseph, we can scarcely find parallels outside the much later works of Raphael. For the pose and designs of single figures (story of Abraham, story of Noah), we are not less at a loss for parallels even when the sixteenth century is admitted to the com- parison (Figs. 132, 133, 134, 135). The marvel begins to fully reveal itself only when we consider the dates and look for parallels in the art of Ghiberti's own time. The art of sculpture logically precedes that of painting, for the form must be con- ceived as a solid before it can be transferred in outline to a flat surface. No doubt the whole fifteenth century sculp- ture is superior to the contemporary paint- FiG. 130.— Design for a Bronze Door Panel by ing, but again the mar- Brunellesco. The Sacrifice of Isaac. Florence. 1 • ..1 ._ /-^ 1 • 1 vel IS that Ghiberti should, as the first among moderns, have reached a point of perfection in his figure compositions which the nineteenth century has not rivaled. We have seen that the frescoes of Masaccio in the Bran- cacci Chapel date between 1423 and 1428, but in the com- Early Renaissance Sculpture. 209 positions for the first Ghiberti doors we go back to 1403. The more we know of preceding fourteenth century art, the more the wonder grows in spite of various connecting links which here and there can be established. We know, however, of a competition of designs as having been held for the selection of the artist of the first bronze doors in ques- tion, and that three artists besides Ghiberti entered this contest. The . competitive de- sign of Brunellesco, whom we shall remem- ber as the first great architect of the Renais- sance (p. 72), is still preserved in Florence beside the prize design of Ghiberti; both sub- jects from the Sacrifice of Isaac. The story goes that the judges were unable to decide until Brunellesco himself gave judgment against himself and retired from the competition (Figs. 130, 131). Later criticism has universally conceded the superior dignity and beauty of the panel by Ghiberti. Still we see that he was by no means absolutely isolated in the perfec- tion of his art at the beginning of the fifteenth century. Remembering Brunellesco as the first great reviver of ancient forms in architecture, it is interesting to notice in Ghiberti' s designs (story of Joseph, story of Jacob and Esau) the classic details of the buildings and to relate the Fig. 131. — Design for a Bronze Door Panel by Ghiberti. The Sacrifice of Isaac. Florence. Fig. 132.— Second pair of Bronze Doors by Ghiberti. Florence Baptistery. Early Renaissance Sculpture. spirit which copied them to that which had such perception for nature and for beauty and such science in re-creating them. The double character of the Renaissance, enthusi- asm for antiquity and enthusiasm for visible nature, thus appears in this one work. The influence of ancient art is also seen in the pose and draping of the figures. Those Fig. 133. — The Story of Jacob and Esau. Detail from the second pair of Bronze Doors by Ghiberti. especially of the allegorical figures of the borders, as being of somewhat larger size than the figures of the panel com- positions, offer clear illustration of this point (Figs. 133, 134. 135)- Among the medallion heads of these borders are portraits of leading Florentine artists, Ghiberti' s own among them. 212 Renaissance and Modern Art. The outer framework of the door is a wonderful illustration of realistic science, while the details as placed in combination show an antique influence in arrangement. Casts of these details are still frequently used in schools of art as models for the modern student (Fig. 136). It is habitual for critical writers to allude to the departure from relief style which Ghiberti allowed himself in these bronze doors. They undoubtedly show an amount of pictorial detail which goes beyond the theoretic limits Fig. 134, — Sacrifice of Isaac. Abraham and the Ang:els. Hagar and Ishmael in the Desert. Detail from the second pair of Bronze Doors by Ghiberti. proper for a solid material like bronze and for sculptured relief as practiced by the Greeks. It is hardly worth while, however, even to mention such a point. The significance of the work is pictorial. It illustrates the realism of the Early Renaissance Sculpture. 213 Renaissance and the precedence of Ghiberti in that realism. Its main influence was undoubtedly pictorial, and we should consider it the great landmark of the Renaissance art of Fig, vI35,— The Story of Joseph and his Brethren. Detail from the second pair of Bronze Doors by Ghiberti. design in general rather than confine our point of view to sculpture and the canons of Greek relief There is still something to be said of the Ghiberti doors. We notice in their panels a combination of episodes in one field. This is seen in the story of Joseph, the story of Jacob and Esau, the story of Abraham, the story of Noah. This combination occurs without indications of local di- vision, although the localities are conceived in all these cases, except the story of Joseph and story of Jacob, as various and distinct. In these last cases the episodes are also distinct in time, though not in place. 214 Renaissance and Modern Art. We have here a method which also constantly occurs in Italian fresco and which is an inheritance from the earliest Christian art — an illustration of its ideal standpoint land of its independence of illusion even when realism had become a controlling interest. Such arrangement was obviously conducive to balanced composition in large panels, whether of frescoed walls or otherwise. It ad- mitted brief and simple characterization of each special story and gave the work of art a comprehensive effect. We find this method continuing in the sixteenth century art. Raphael's "Transfiguration" includes the double story of the possessed boy and of the Trans- figuration itself, events locally separate but spiritually related, since the disciples could not cast out the devil in the absence of the Savior. Michael An- gelo represented the ' ' Temptation and Ex- pulsion from Eden ' ' on one panel of the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Countless parallel cases could be instanced. For example, in the Sistine Madonna, by Raphael, we have actually represented the drearti or vision of the pope who is kneeling in the picture. Fig. 136. — Decorative Details from the outer Framework of the second pair of Bronze Doors by Ghiberti. Early Renaissance Sculpture. 215 Fig. 137. — Equestrian Statue of CoUeoni. Verocchio. Venice. Fifteenth Century. Before leaving the bronze doors of Ghiberti we must allude to the curious fate which has given not only precedence in time, but an actually unique importance in the matter of parallel works to this single one. It did not hap- pen that any similar commission was under- taken in any other Ital- ian city within the limits of the great By period. Other bronze doors, for instance of the Pisa Cathedral, belong to a time when overcrowded compositions and ex- cess of small details had quite overpowered the sentiment for sim- plicity of effect. The doors of Ghiberti not only stand first, but they stand alone in their perfection for the given class of works. We must place as next in time and im- portance to these works the colossal equestrian portrait statues executed by Donatello and Verocchio, both Floren- FiG. 138'. — Bust of Nicolo da Uzzano. atello. Fifteenth Century. By Don- 2l6 Renaissance and Modern Art. tines, and later contemporaries of Ghiberti and Brunellesco. Donatello's statue of the Venetian mercenary captain, Gat- tamelataj is in Padua (1453). Verocchio's statue of the Venetian captain, Colleoni, is in Venice (1476). These two equestrian figures are not only the first but also undoubtedly the greatest of modern history and are so generally considered; that of Verocchio is the inimitable masterpiece of all equestrian statues. For Donatello's own masculine and sturdy character as well as for the noble quality of his art, the bust illustrated by Fig. 138 will also serve as an example. Donatello ranks in time and general sig- nificance as the most important sculptor pre- ceding Michael An- gelo, but the position claimed by the Floren- tine, Luca della Robbia and his nephew, An- drea, would seem to make them more fairly the subjects for repre- sentative illustratiori of Italian art at large during the same period. Luca della Robbia was a successful artist both in bronze and marble. In the latter material are his well-known reliefs for the balustrade of the organ-loft of the Florence Cathedral which are now in Florence as museum exhibits. But it was in the glazed or Fig. 139. and Child in Vienna. Marble Shrine Relief of the Madonna Florentine Work. Fif- teenth Century. School of Mine da Fiesole. Early Renaissance Sculpture. 217 enameled terra cotta reliefs in color, which he was the first to execute, that he won especial renown. This art was practiced by several and successive mem- bers of his family and flourished till about 1525. It then died out and has never been rediscovered or revived. The peculiarly unpretentious and simple style of these works is beyond all praise. They were used for decoration of ex- terior brick architecture, as medallions between arches, as lunettes in the arched spaces over doorways, etc., and also for altar-pieces, tombs, and votive tablets. Con- sidering the inadequate effect of photographs from paint- ings, there is no access to a knowledge of early Italian art like that conveyed by photographs of these reliefs (Figs. 122, 124, 125, 126). In marble reliefs, mainly of Madonnas, a peculiarly lovely phase of early Florentine art is also illustrated. Mino da Fiesole, Desiderio da Settignano, and Benedetto da Majano were the representative artists for this class of work. CHAPTER XXVI. RENAISSANCE SCULPTURE. Philosophy of its Decline. We have still a thought to offer regarding the sculpture of the early Renaissance, one which suggests itself through the illustrations of Donatello's "St. George" and of the "Davids" by Dona- tello and Verocchio (Figs. 141, 142), all of which are works held in high estimation by students of this period. This thought concerns the distinction between the statues of this period as works of art considered for themselves, as illus- trations of its science of design and great advance over ages pre- ceding, and the same statues considered in their historic relation to the whole art of the Fig. 140.- -St. George. Fifteenth By Donatello. Century. Florence. period and in their relation to the later position of sculpture among the arts of the Renaissance. It is apparent that the subjects of Christian art do not 218 Renaissance Sculpture. 219 offer a large field for statues. As concerns close relation to Christian art it will be readily felt that the reliefs of the fifteenth century are most interesting and most distinctly related to their ostensible subject matter. In Donatello's "David" or "St. George" we have a class of subjects which soon exhausts itself and one where the appear- ance of the statue is but dimly related to our sympathies with the ostensible subject. The number of such works is not large in the whole amount of the art of the Renais- sance. Isolated statues of the Apostles or the Savior are not so in- teresting a« a painting of the ' ' Last Supper ' ' or the cartoons of Ra- phael from the lives of the Apostles. The pictorial reliefs of Ghiberti from the story of Joseph are more interesting in their relation to subject matter than statues of David. Christian art has always found its most sympathetic field in painting or pictorial sculpture, that is in relief Sculpture offers the readiest illustration of Renaissance science. It preceded painting in the matter of high perfec- tion. (On the other hand let us not forget that many of the Fig. 141.- -David, by Verocchio. Fifteenth Century. Florence. Renaissatice afid Modern Art. great sculptors of the fifteenth century were also painters. This holds of Verocchio and Pollajuolo (Fig. 6g), for instance. ) The sculptors' studies were the basis of all the progress that painting made at this time and of the per- fection which it reached a generation later, because they] conditioned the scientific study of form ; but in the later Renaissance we detect a greater and greater ascendancy of the art of painting and the subjection of statuary to pic- torial influence. Statuary more and more became the work of isolated patronage and was ulti- mately rather the reflex of pictorial tendencies than an art for its own sake. This at least was its fate in the seven- teenth and eighteenth centuries, when it sank to a condition of medi- ocrity and weakness far below the Ipvel of the contemporary pictures. I should be inclined, therefore, to say that the paintings of the fifteenth century offer most mat- ter for the historian; the statues rather appeal to the special tastes of the art critic and the student of design. They are certainly far less numerous, and it would be hard to find many parallels for the dis- tinction of those which are illustrated, whereas in pictures Fig. 142. — David, by Donatello. Florence. Fifteenth Centu'ry. Renaissance Sculpture. 221 or in reliefs what one can offer in illustration is an infin- itesimal suggestion of the actual production. All this may serve as introduction to the topic of Michael Angelo's sculpture and the sudden decline not only in quality but also in productivity which followed his pro- digious creations. The tomb monuments of the churches supplied the main field of later activity for this art. In the seventeenth century there was a revival in the amount of production related to the general extravagance and luxury of Catholic church decoration at this time, but the heart and soul had then gone from the art. It was mostly empty display and theatrical posturing. CHAPTER XXVII. RENAISSANCE SCULPTURE. Michael Angela. As A sculptor Michael Angelo stood on the shoulders of Donatello and Verocchio and added to their supreme science the passion, frenzy, and explosive power of his own volcanic nature. His peculiar quality is best appreciated from his later works, the Mo- ses of San Pietro in Vinculi at Rome and the Tombs of the Medici in Florence. The Moses is the most important figure and feature of the tomb of Pope Julius II., who was the artist's great- est patron and warmest appreciator. The whole character of Michael Angelo is re- vealed by his concep- FiG, 143. — Detail of the David by Michael tion of MoseS as Angelo. Florence. , . Witnessing the worship of the golden calf; as about to spring from his seat and Renaissance Sculpture. 223 dash to fragments the tablets of the law which had been revealed to him. There is a closer relation to the history of his own time and his own life in this statue than we might suspect. In political life Michael Angelo had been a warm partisan Fig. 144. — Moses, by Michael Angelo. Rome. and the military commander for the Commonwealth of Florence in its final struggle and downfall (p. 36). He belonged then to the party of the old Republic and hated the party of foreign despotism and success. Com- mercial and money-making interests played no small part 224 Renaissance and Modern Art. in this revolution. The Medici who were credited with having overthrown the hberties of Florence, belonged to the richest and most prominent banking family of that state. Spain and the Hapsburg dynasty of Austria were working in their interest. What Michael Angelo saw as an Italian patriot was Fig. 145.— Detail of the Tomb of Lorenzo Medici. By Michael Angelo. the fast coming decadence of his country and a social revo- lution which had brought the meaner and more grasping tendencies of life to the front. His " Moses" was the pro- test against a worship of the golden calf which he saw in his own time and which had embittered his own life. Renaissance Sculpture. 225 In the same way his Tombs of the Medici are well known to have been in his own view and that of his time, the tombs of the Florentine Republic. Made in the service and for the glory of a family which he hated, he disguised in these works th'e sorrow of the patriot and the regrets of the lost cause. The tombs are those of the last two legitimate members of the Medici family, Giuliano and Lorenzo. Their seated figures are placed in niches, beneath which are the sar- cophagi supporting respectively figures of ' ' Dawn ' ' and "Twilight," "Day and Night." "Dawn" and "Twi- light" are allegories of the twilight of the ex- piring moments of life on earth and of the dawn of the spirit life. "Day" and "Night" are conceived as the antitheses of life and death. These tombs are in a chapel of the Florentine Church of San Lorenzo, whose erection by Brunellesco has been mentioned (p. 73), and were fin- ished about 1534. Ofearlier date, about fig. 146.— Tomb of Lorenzo Medici. Florence. ,1 , Allegorical Figures of Twilight and Dawn. 1513, are the two s s s "Captives" now in the Louvre. An entire series of these figures was to have surrounded the tomb of Julius II., emblematic of the arts and sciences held captive by Julius II. and dying with him. After the death of the pope the 226 Renaissance and Modern Art. diminished plan of his tomb made it impossible to connect these finished figures with it, and they found their way to France. Here again the prophetic misanthropy of Michael Angelo has its own inner meaning. We have seen how the court of Leo X. was one of mainly borrowed glories (p. 140), and how the invasions of Milan and Naples at the close of the fifteenth century had already in- dicated the approach- ing downfall of Italy. The pontificate of Julius II. was devoted to the expulsion of the foreign invaders of Italy. His death was the signal for new invasions whose results after 1520 we have described (pp. 35-41). There is no doubt that the political foresight of the artist had its part in this allegory of the Captives. Certainly their prophecy was fulfilled. Contortions and twistings of the human figure are the sign manual of the artist's mood in most of these various works, a reflex of his own irritability and unhappiness. No doubt his anatomic studies and desire to produce new and startling effects are also accountable for this manner. At all events he is the first artist in whom we detect the disappearance of early Renaissance unconscious- FlG. 147. — Allegorical Figure of the Day, from the Tomb of Giuhano Medici by Michael Angelo. Renaissance Sculpture. 227 ness and simplicity. (See also notes on the ' ' Last Judg- ment," p. 155.) The grandeur of his thought and con- ception makes it impossible to reckon this mannerism against him, but it infected the imitators and weaker followers of his greatness. The inflated style of the decadence found its type in Michael Angelo. In his very protest against the coming epoch he was fated to influence its forms. In the two greatest early works of this sculptor we find a more dignified and serener art. These are his colossal David in Florence and the Dead Savior in the lap of the Virgin* in St. Peter' s at Rome. His earliest youthful work, the mask of a Faun, is still preserved in Flor- ence. Here also hre his statues of Bacchus and Adonis. The list of his important works also includes the Cupid at South Kensington in Lon- don, a Madonna in Bruges, and the Christ of the Church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva in Rome. The story of Michael Angelo' s life as told by Vasari, who personally knew him, is an almost essential thing to the compre- * This typical subject is called by the Italians a " PietS." Fig. 148.- -Captive, by Michael Angelo. Louvre. 228 Renaissance and Modern Art. hension of his art. Deep piety and warm kindness of heart were cloaked by surly manners and concealed by solitude. I have already mentioned Grimm' s ' ' Life of Michael Angelo" as giving not only the artist's life, but also the political history of Italy as connected with it. It also contains a summary of the whole Italian art history of the time. CHAPTER XXVIII. RENAISSANCE SCULPTURE. Later Styles and Decadence. No SKETCH of Italian art could pass, without mention, the name of Benvenuto Cellini, the goldsmith and sculptor, whose greatest surviving work is the Perseus in Flor- ence. Cellini was born in 1500, a quarter of a century after Michael Angelo. His statue dates from' the middle of the sixteenth century, but the traditions and style of the great period still survive in this work. The art of sculpture in Italy at this time had otherwise gener- ally sunk into relative affec- tation and mannerism. In France we can quote serious and beautiful work from the hands of Goujon, Pilon, and others. A certain elongation of the figure and somewhat dainty elegance of conception which are visible in their works reflect the Italian style of the same day ( Fig. 1 50) . We also notice the twisting of the figure as a trait con- stantly repeated in later art and borrowed originally from Michael Angelo. To an illustration of some of Goujon' s Fig, 149. — Perseus, by Benvenuto Cellini. Florence. 230 Renaissance and Modern Art. beautiful relief designs for a fountain in Paris, we must add a renewed reference to some preceding pictures of French Renaissance tomb sculpture and architectural statuary, all of which will assist the reader to understand the Italian quality, and origin of French and other modern sculpture (Figs. 3, ID, i8). It is difficult in a rapid summary to avoid oversights of fine survivals of the better and earlier Italian Renaissance style in later north European Renaissance art, but we must not entirely forget the fine Renaissance wood carvings of Belgium (Fig. 153). The tomb of Queen Elizabeth in Westminster Abbey would also show how far the Italian style had traveled and how uni- versal it had become. In the early sixteenth century Germany boasted the important names of Adam Krafft, whose most famous works are the reliefs known as the Seven Stations of the Cross, at Nuremberg, and Peter Vischer, whose magnificent bronze tomb of St. Sebaldus is in the church of the same name, also at Nuremberg. Out- side of Nuremberg the most important works of German Renaissance sculpture are at Innspruck, where the tomb Fig. 150. — Figures from the Reliefs of the " Foun- tain of the Innocents." Paris. By Jean Goujon. Middle of Sixteenth Century. Fig. 151.— Mary of Burgundy (wife of Emperor Maximilian). From the series of Bronze Statues Delon«ng to Maximilian's Monumental Tomb at Innspruck. By Gilg. Early Sixteenth Century. 232 Renaissance and Modern Art. of the Emperor Maximilian fills an entire church with the bronze figures of his ancestors and of the legendary heroes of medieval history. Many German sculptors were em- ployed on this colossal monument whose execution was in process during the whole sixteenth century. One of the statues illustrated was probably a work by Peter Vischer. For the later sculpture of Renaissance Europe down to the middle of the eigh- teenth century, I have selected five examples, not suggesting that anything but the broad- est facts are indicated by them. One of the latest of these, being the most obviously ex- aggerated and over- strained conception, may be first considered (Fig. 157). It is a general rule of art criticism — first distinctly formulated and explained by the German critic Lessing, in his ' ' Essay on Lao- cobn" — that a work of art should not ex- haust its subject or so treat it that the ex- treme and ultimate pitch of emotion is made visible to the eye. Moments of extreme tension are not lasting in their Fig. 152. — King Arthur. Bronze ; by Peter Vischer. From the Maximilian Monument at Innspruck. Early Sixteenth Century. Renaissance Sculpture. 233 nature, and when perpetuated in solid form they finally- become tedious ; for the double reason that they present a contradiction between the momentary duration in nature and the permanence in art, and* for the reason that in ex- FiG. 153, — Wood-carved Confessionals at Antwerp. Late Sixteenth Century. Church of St. Paul. hausting the subject they leave nothing to the imagination. In the myth of Prometheus, for instance, we are told the story of a perpetual torture, but there is no existing Greek statue of this subject, nor would any resembling our illus- tration have been possible for Greek views of art. The given statue violates every rule of good taste, according to our present training in criticism. It is vulgar, theatrical, tawdry, and weak; but this is the style of sculpture which ruled Europe down to the middle of the eighteenth century, as an inheritance from the seventeenth century — and this 234 Renaissance and Modern Art. again had been led toward the downward road through the influence of the later sixteenth century. From Michael Angelo on we . become aware of an ever- increasing straining of attitudes, an ever-increasing choice of theatrical motives and sentimental subjects. The great master of this style was the seventeenth century Italian, Bernini, a man of great genius and great science, but a thorough man of his time; that is to say, absolutely desti- tute of the sentiment of the statuesque. Let us also choose our next illustration from the eighteenth century, and consider its lessons (Fig. 156). It is a fundamental rule of art that its tools are means to an end. Whatever exalts the instrument belittles the aim. Hence works of art which are made for the sake of conquering those difficulties which affect the use of tools have no real cause of being. In our given illus- tration from a work in Naples, the subject was chosen because it gave the sculptor an oppor- tunity of making a net in marble — an exceedingly difficult thing to do, but not worth doing. Probably this group offers the most remark- able example in statuary of the conquest of a technical Fig.' 154. — jEneas and Borghese Villa, Rome. Anchises, by Bernini. Seventeenth Century. Fig. 155.— Pulpit of the Brussels Cathedral. Wood-carving by Verbruggen, about 1700. The Expulsion from Paradise. 236 Renaissance and Modern Art. difficulty, yet we feel that the entire subject has been manufactured in order to create this difficulty. As re- gards the ostensible subject matter, an allegory repre- senting the ' ' Escape from Error, ' ' it does not touch either our interests, our sym- pathies, or our con- victions. Its only possible claim to in- terest is the dexterity displayed in the tise of a chisel, and in artistic value it is comparable to the Chinese carvings of ivory balls, con- tained one within the other. This work, then, may once more illus- trate a general defect of taste in statuary in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the tendency to exalt the mechanics of art while serious thought and conception were deficient. In our illustration from the Cathedral of Brussels we have an indication of the prodigality and luxury of sculpture decoration in the important Catholic churches of the seven- teenth century (Fig. 155). It was a time when the multi- plication of statues and carvings had no end ; in many cases, as here in the case of the pulpit, extorting our admiration in spite of our better judgment; or, as also here, with re- deeming traits when we consider the material used — for we Fig. 156. — The Escajae from Error, by Queirolo. Naples. Eighteenth Century. Fig. 157.— Prometheus, by Adam. Louvre. Eighteenth Century. 238 Renaissance and Modern Art. cannot ask of wood carving the severity and simplicity which are demanded by the intractabihty, weight, and hardness of stone. We could not say that the Fall of Man has been seriously conceived in this pulpit, or that clouds and drapery hangings are a proper matter even for wood carving, and still the ingenuity and thought with which the subject has been wrought out stand for a great deal. Conceding much merit and interest to this work, we shall also conclude from it, and from its surroundings that the pompous display of material wealth in art was a ruling trait of the time. The affected style and at- titudes of the statues on the adjacent col- umns of the church are characteristic for the whole Renaissance sculpture of the seven- teenth century. "Finally we have an illustration (Fig. 154) to represent the ex- istence of the artist, viz., Bernini, who of all men of his cen- tury combined the greatest genius and talent with the most pronounced display of the traits we have enumerated, over- wrought or compli- cated subjects, the substitution of mechanical dexterity for thought, and the exaltation of costly material at the ex- 1 . ; ^:?^/:^:. W0i '■■0^ n^<^ «-^ M& ^I^^^^^H^^^SflPdE \^Uf^:jlM ■-^-it' BH^B^K mM^ffl f\ i ■■^ ^^m Fig. 158. — Statue of Louis XV., by Nicolas Coustou. Louvre. Renaissance Sculpture. 239 pense of subject matter. Bernini was also a decorator and architect of distinction, the designer of the colonnade sur- rounding the large oval place in front of St. Peter' s, of its interior colossal bronze shrine, and of many churches. The whole later Renaissance was at its best in portrait sculpture, especially of busts. Both French and Italian sculptors were eminent in this specialty. Puget was the greatest French sculptor of this era, the age of Louis XIV. , who himself employed Bernini in Paris while Puget was also active in Italy and at Rome. As an illustration of the portrait sculpture of the late Re- naissance and of the eighteenth century, I have chosen a statue of the French king, Louis XV. , whose pose exhibits the theatrical quality characteristic of the time. CHAPTER XXIX. THE GREEK REVIVAL OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. According to our account so far, throughout this whole • book, either of architecture, painting, or sculpture, it will appear that the earlier eighteenth century represents the foot of a hill whose gradual descent began about 1530. We shall not, however, be entirely just to our subject without remarking that to the simile of decline, which has been used above, we must add one which indicates an ever widening expansion of Italian culture and of the original force and attainments of early modern Italian civilization; an expansion which would justify and explain a gradual loss of original quality and strength as far as exterior and borrowed forms of art are concerned. Such a simile may be found in those expanding circles of waves or ripples which we notice when a stone has been thrown into a pool of water. Corresponding to the suggestions of this simile, we find the civilization of Russia or of Scandinavia beginning to show more modern tendencies in the eigh- teenth century and that England and Prussia became the most powerful and active factors in its political history, as compared with an earlier political inferiority to the Netherlands, Spain, and France, which in their turn had been the superiors of seventeenth century Italy, although originally borrowers from her greatness. It is undoubtedly from this point of view that we must explain the great perfection of English painting in the eighteenth century; the time of Wilson in landscape, of Gainsborough and Fig. 159.— Portrait of Col. Epes Sargent, by John Singleton Copley. Photo- graphed for this work at the Columbian Exposition, by permission of Mrs. George H. Clements. 242 Renaissance and Modern Art. Reynolds, Lawrence and Romney in portraits, of Hogarth in caricature, of George Morland in farm scenes and the like, as compared with earlier English obscurity in the matter of great painters (p. 181). So again it is at the close of the eighteenth century that we find the dawning genius of early American painters, like Copley and Gil- bert Stuart, again in dependence* on an inspiration and style of earlier English origin'. The revival of art in England belongs, however, to a time, that of the later eighteenth century, when northern Europe in general was- beginning to assert its independence of Italian Renaissance influences in a way which I must now describe. The -sketch of the later course of the history of art, after the middle of the eighteenth century, moves properly from the history of Renaissance sculpture as just concluded in my last chapter, because it was in sculpture that the art de- cadence of the early eighteenth century was most clearly visible, and because it was in the study of ancient Greek sculpture as contrasted with this decadence that modern art began its new career. Sculpture had been the art in which decadence was most apparent because the picturesque and sentimental tastes of the later Renaissance were least adapted to its proper conditions of dignity and repose. Architecture was re- strained by its dimensions and serious practical problems from sinning invariably as it did frequently, but we have given examples of its mistakes of profusion of ornament, and of lack of sense for construction (Fig. 51 and pp. 97- 102). We have also found that the seventeenth century pro- duced its greatest school of painting in a country (Hol- land) whose religion, location, and history were most remote to that of Renaissance Italy. Still, Renaissance The Greek Revival of the Eighteenth Century. 243 painting was the art which held to its best for the longest time and which never entirely sacrificed its greatness. Its ascendency and relative perfection as compared with later Renaissance architecture and sculpture are marked, and we should not be far from the heart of the matter in saying that the defects of these arts for the given time were largely due to a pictorial influence and tendency not befitting their necessary dignity. If we should go still deeper in attempting to explain the gradual decline of art, it would be by saying that the intellectual inspiration of the Renaissance had exhausted its subject matter. Italy had risen from the study of Roman history and Latin literature to greatness, but in the middle of the eighteenth century Europe had subsisted on the fruits of Italian thought and energy for at least two hundred years. A new force and a new center of activity, new thoughts and new interests were needed. In the history of governments we see how the system of early modern history had grown decrepit and weak, how the despotic monarchies of the eighteenth century had lost their former hold on popular favor and support. Just as the French Revolution at the close of the eighteenth century was an explosion of protest against a fossil stage of government, so the intellectual thought of Europe had its revival just preceding, which in fact resulted in this political explosion. The turning point in the history of Renaissance and modern art is the revolution in taste caused by the revived study of Greek literature after 1750. We have seen that the Greek men of letters, driven into Italy by the Turkish conquest of the Byzantine Empire in the fifteenth century, spread and cultivated the study of Greek in Italy. But these studies were crippled by the social and political dis- 244 Renaissance and Modern Art. asters which came to notice in our account of Michael Angelo (p. 223) and of the decline of the historic Renais- sance (p. 37). The older social aristocracies of Italy which had culti- vated these studies were now ruined and dispersed. The Catholic Church Reformation, which accompanied the Protestant reform, took alarm at the pagan and infidel tendencies which the intellectual worship of paganism was supposed to have caused, and it was in the Greek circles of Italy that these tendencies had been manifest. To the changed attitude of the Roman Church was added a still more important cause — ^the natural tastes and predispositions of the mass of Italians in favor of Latin, and the ease with which they could learn it, through its connection with their own tongfue. To these various causes we may attribute the decline in the estimation of the Greek authors and the general indifference to them which became the rule throughout Europe. In spite of exceptions and some apparent contradictions, Greek studies were mainly ignored in the seventeenth cen- tury and during the first half of the eighteenth century. At this time there was only one university in Germany having a professorship in Greek — the University of Gottingen. The father of the Greek Revival, John Winckelmann, who was in early life too poor to buy many books, had not been able up to the time when he was thirty years old even to borrow a copy of Sophocles. No edition of Plato had been published in Europe at this time since the year J1602. No Greek authors had been published in Germany for one hundred and fifty years. No school books for the study of Greek were available when Winckelmann, as schoolmaster at Seehausen, introduced the study of Greek into his school. He was obliged to write out texts The Greek Revival of the Eighteenth Century. 245 for his scholars — these manuscripts are still in existence. Leading French critics did not hesitate to ridicule the Greeks. One of them (P6rrault) compared Homer to the ballads of the street singers of Paris, Voltaire declared the jEneid to be superior to all the Greek authors taken together. Such were the general results of the attitude of the later Renaissance and of its enthusiasm for Roman antiquity and Latin literature. The neglect of Greek may possibly be less apparent in England, which country was most exterior to the influence of the later Renaissance and its prejudices, but Macaulay has contributed valuable hints on this matter of English neglect of Greek, in his essay on Addison.* All this was changed by the epoch-making life of Winck- elmann, who rose from a position of extreme poverty and obscurity to be the leading antiquarian and art critic of Europe. It was not till the year 1755, when he began his residence at Rome that any indication of this distinction became apparent, and he had already reached the age of thirty-eight. In the following thirteen years he did work which revolutionized the taste and art of Europe. It was a time before the foundation of the later museums of the North and when the antique statues were almost exclusively confined to Rome. Here they were supposed to be works representing Roman history and civilization and explaining Latin literature. Strange as it may seem, Winckelmann's announcement of the existence of a Greek art as perpetuated by Roman copies was a complete revelation to his age, which was quite ignorant of the originals subsequently brought from Greece to northern *The most important authority is the German author Carljusti, " Das Leben Winckelmannes." For the ultimate Renaissance neglect of Greek studies in Italy, see also Jacob Burckhardt's " Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy." 246 Renaissance and Modern Art. Europe like the Parthenon marbles of the British Museum. This announcement was not made suddenly or ostenta- tiously, but by a series of reversals of interpretations of the ancient statues in Rome, which had been given interpreta- tions based on Latin literature and Roman history. To this reversal of the older Italian interpretations of the statues Winckelmann added a new point of view in their criticism. In the early Renaissance it had been the real- istic study of natural form which had interested the Italian. The ancient statues which the Italian es- pecially admired were those few in which the anatomic details were most exaggerated. These were shown by Winckelmann to be works of the Greek decadence. On the other hand, the taste of the eigh- teenth and seventeenth centuries for exagger- ated, ostentatious, and theatrical art had en- tirely overlooked the virtues of repose and simplicity in the works which Winckelmann now proved to be simply Roman copies of lost Greek originals. Still farther he specified the various historic styles within the limits of Greek art and gave their proper rank to the conceptions of the fifth century before Christ, the period of Phidias. Fig. 160. — Ganymede, by Thonvaldsen. Copenhagen. The Greek Revival of the Eighteenth Century. 247 These points were first made known to the world in Winckelmann's History of Art, pubHshed in 1764. The effect of this pubhcation was eleetrical. In proving the Roman statues to be copies of Greek originals a new conception was involved of the general origin of Roman civilization and Latin literature. It was no longer possible to es- teem the Latin authors above the Greeks when these were seen to have been the models fol- lowed by the Romans. Thus the study of ancient sculpture re- acted on the study of ancient literature. The Greek authors sud- denly became fashion- able. The impulse thus given by Winckelmann was aided by Lessing, who published, in] 1766, his "Essay on Fig. 161— Detail from the Perseus, by Canova; T ■• j» •-• 11 Vatican. Rome. Laocoon, critically establishing the superiority of Homer and lowering the position which had been awarded the French critics and dramatists of the eighteenth century. Now came the influence, first on Germany, and then on all Europe, of the German poets Goethe and Schiller and their followers, who stood on the platform established by Winck- elmann and Lessing and owed their own greatness to the inspiration drawn from the Greek literature. The whole of 248 Renaissance and Modern Art. Europe was now permeated by a new antique fever re- sembling the Renaissance and known as the Greek Re- vival, or Philhellenic movement. The influence on modern art was phenomenal. Even in clocks and furniture no style of design was now tolerated but imitation of the Greeks. The Renaissance style of architecture was combated by another which appealed to the constructional principles of the Greek temples as con- trasted with the ornamental and unstructural use of Greek forms borrowed by Italy from the Romans. In practice the two styles were, however, frequently amalga- mated, for not all architects were capable of sharing the literary enthusiasms of the new movement. Still a pronounced simplicity in architectural forms was a feature of the Greek Revival, and the Greek porticoes and colonnades were every- where copied and applied to modern buildings. Many were even made in direct imitation of the shape of the Greek temples, as numerous churches and public buildings still attest. By the last quarter of the eighteenth century the Greek Revival was the most pronounced feature of European history. Even politics showed this influence and the revolutions in both France and America were largely in- FiG. 162.— The Angel of Death. Detail of the Tomb of Clement XIII. in St. Peter's. By Canova. The Greek Revival of the Eighteenth Century. 249 spired by an ideal of republican institutions drawn from the study of Plutarch's "Lives," which was the most popular book of the time. In ladies' dress the style now known as that of the ' ' Directory, ' ' and represented by the short-waisted ladies' dress of the time of the American Revolution, came into vogue as a copy of Greek simplicity. In music the subjects of Gluck's Operas are a reminder of the same enthusiasms. In statuary the same movement was equally visible. The theatrical and sentimental style of sculpture was aban- doned and a new one was founded, based upon an external imitation of Greek art. In this taste the Italian Canova and the Dane Thorwaldsen, long resident at Rome, were the first and most prominent lights, and the imitation of the Greeks in sculpture is only, in recent years beginning to yield to a more original and truly modern style. In this recent movement the sculptors of the United States are among the foremost, and taken in mass have probably achieved the best results of modern sculpture. In painting the classical spirit also showed itself, and its first leading light was the Frenchman David, a con- temporary of the French Revolution and of the times of Bonaparte. In this art, however, the first and most obvi- ous result of the Greek Revival was a return of appreciation for the period of Raphael, whose virtues of repose and simplicity were parallel in painting to the same qualities of the Greek sculpture. In other words, the results in .painting were more apparent in a changed standard of appreciation toward old Italian art than in a new style of modern painting. CHAPTER XXX. ARCHITECTURE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. The period of the Greek Revival, wiiich continued in full vigor through the first quarter of the nineteenth century, was subsequently antagonized and partially displaced by a new movement of historic studies and literary tastes which turned once more to the appreciation of the Middle Age. The prejudice against the art and culture of the Middle Age, which had coined the word "Gothic," was of Italian origin — as we have seen (p. 56). No stronger illustration could be given of the duration and ascendency throughout Europe of the Renaissance than the contempt for the old cathedrals, which lasted till the close of the eighteenth cen- tury. The Greek Revival continued to hold this attitude of in- difference and contempt, but it developed, as we have seen, a new school of German literature. In the great revolt of Germany against the ascendency of Bonaparte, which marked the first fifteen years of the nineteenth century, a feeling of national patriotism, cultivated by this literature and by this revolt, began to rise superior to the jealousies which had so far divided and estranged the petty states and principalities of Germany. Proud of their own great authors, musical composers, and men of science, the Germans turned to the study of their own past, and the greatness of this past was found to lie in the period when all Europe had been Germanized and conquered by Ger- mans — when the feudal system had developed from Ger- Architecture of the Ninetee7ith Century. 251' manic institutions; when Charlemagne had reconsoHdated Europe; when the Saxon, Franconian, and Hohenstaufen emperors had been the leaders of their day; when the League of the Hansa had created the commerce and fostered the industries of northeastern Europe. Thus the German became the first historic student of the long despised period of the Middle Ages. The Greek Revival had given him the consciousness of national exist- ence through its influence on the creation of a national literature. This literature then turned the thoughts of the people to the study of their own history and their own past. The Gothic Revival was thus as a literary and historic study gathering force in Germany through the first quarter of the nineteenth century. Then it burst its national barriers and spread through Europe. France and Eng- land, no less than Germany, turned attention to their own medieval past. This movement is especially represented for England by the romances of Sir Walter Scott, which were the first works of English literature to draw attention to the Middle Ages. All this reacted on the exterior forms of modern art. The cathedrals which the "Spectator" of Addison had held up to ridicule, which the cultivated Evelyn had stigma- tized as "only Gothic,"* which Winckelmann had con- sidered unworthy of notice, and which even Lessing had neglected, were now exalted at the expense of Roman buildings and Greek temples as the models of all modern architectural forms. Meantime both Renaissance and Greek details continued to hold their own in that traditional use which did not readily yield to the new crusade of the historians and men * See Evelyn's "Diary," time of Charles II. of England^ 2.S2 Renaissance and Modern Art. of letters. The field of church architecture, at least, how- ever, was fully conquered by the Gothic. It would be difficult to specify a church built in Europe or America about or after 1850 which did not exhibit the Gothic style. To this style succeeded copies of the Romanesque* and Italian Gothic. The Romanesque, as being earlier than Gothic, and the Italian Gothic, as more re- mote from the first modern students of the Gothic in northern Europe, had at first at- tracted less attention. As the knowledge of medieval architecture became wider and more general, these remoter or earlier styles were also drawn upon as models for copy. Meantime the at- tention of historic students and critics veered from an en- thusiastic admiration Fig. 163. — Houses of Parliament, London. By Barry. Gothic Revival. for the beauty of the old monuments to a critical appreci- ation of their common sense in construction. This appre- ciation again naturally called attention to the new problems of construction in modern architecture and the inadvisa- bility of thrusting a common-sense ancient mode of construction on a modern building with different require- ments and character. * Compare " Roman and Medieval Art." Architecture of the Nineteenth Century. 253 This new point of view was much assisted by the Decora- tive Art movement which gradually developed in England after the Crystal Palace Exposition of 185 1. The leading idea of this movement under its original leaders was to make ornament the emphasis and exponent of construction. This idea had again been evolved principally from the study of the Gothic, but was seen to be equally supported by the principles of the original Greek monuments. Whereas the Greek Revival had insisted on the construc- tional use of Greek forms as against the Renaissance, but had continued to regard the classic details as the exclusive models of imitation, the ultimate outcome of the Gothic revival was the tendency to abjure any use of historic style of any period which did not harmonize with the common- sense uses and purposes of the modern time. But it was difficult and impossible to create a modern style out of nothing, with no antecedents and no traditions. Such an out-and-out original creation was never known to history where evolution has always been the mode of change. In this dilemma between the theories of the professors, who taught that constructive truth was the only standard of taste as applied to form, and the habits of the modern architect, who had never since 1500 done anything but borrow his details from historic styles^-the ' ' Italian Gothic" and ' ' Romanesque, ' ' for the time being, offered an obvious compromise. Both were styles in which the effects of masonry surface had been undisturbed by projecting but- tresses or projecting "engaged columns." As far as masonry construction was concerned, here were styles, so- called, which were adapted to any moderh building. The decorative details were medieval, instead of classic — this was a matter of indifference or of personal taste as long as they were not allowed to determine constructional forms. 254 Renaissance and Afodern Art. In modern "Italian Gothic" and "Romanesque" we have had a compromise between the general dependence of modern architecture on past models, and the reaction against the purely literary and archaeologic imitation of Gothic cathedrals, or the expensive and gen- erally worn-out forms of the traditional Re- naissance, or the ex- pensive and frequently unnecessary colon- nades of the Greeks. Side by side with this movement and slightly later in time came the so-called ' 'Queen Anne" and "Colonial" styles, which were es- pecially applied to country houses and suburban residences, whereas the Italian Gothic and Roman- esque, as exclusively masonry and not timber styles, had been more confined to the cities. In these last revivals we see partly the swinging back of the pendulum toward the Renaissance under which ' ' Colo- nial" and "Queen Anne" must be included, but Re- naissance of a simpler class, less pretentious, and with details of greater beauty than had survived in the purely traditional forms of brownstone fronts and American gov- ernment buildings. Recurrence to our remarks on Dutch Fig. 164. — Courthouse and Jail of Pittsburg. By H. H. Richardson. Romanesque Revival. Architecture of the Nineteenth Century. 255 buildings of the seventeenth century will assist this explana- tion (p. 104). Otherwise, "Queen Anne" and "Colonial" may be explained as an appreciation of fashion for the pictur- esque and common-sense construction of the given periods, and both styles, so-called, as well as Italian Gothic and Romanesque, have been convenient cloaks for architects in- tent on solving modern problems in their own way — without caring to make martyrs of themselves by explaining to their patrons that it makes very little diiference what old name may be given a modern building. In all these vary- ing currents and eddies of the hour, we can still see in our own country the steady movement of a great nation toward the assertion of its own needs and character and the reali- zation of its own opportunities. CHAPTER XXXI. SCULPTURE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. Of all arts of the nineteenth century, sculpture is the one which longest retained and exhibited the influences dating from the later half of the eighteenth century. Only in -quite recent years has it begun to shake off" the imitative quality which the Greek Re- vival had stamped upon it. The reasons for this are obvious. The pre-eminence of the Greeks in sculpture is so unquestioned and the fame of their works so great, that all later art must bow before it. When the influences of literary fashion and historic interest were added to the weight of the technical superi- ority and artistic ^'alue, the inevitable result, for Fig. i65.^Teucer, by Hamo Thomycroft. (See ^ . , . Fig. 169.) Photographed, by permission, for the tmie bemg, waS this work, at the Columbian Exposition. . . . . ,^, . . imitation. This im- itation being the rage in general, the art in which the Greek was most admired experienced the result most 256 Sculpture in the Nineteenth Century. 257 sensibly. Thus, to the period of Thorwaldsen, the im- itation of Greek sculpture appeared to be a necessary consequence of its admitted superiority. The modern copyists overlooked, however, the point that the Greeks had not reached their greatness in sculpture by studying statues. Although they had idealized nature, they had always based their art upon it. One de- fect of the Greek Re- vival statuary was, consequently, a cold and formal quality — resulting from the habit of studying statues as distinct from the study of living, nature. It should be added, too, that little was known in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth cen- turies of the vigor and life of original Greek art. The models followed had been mainly those of the Roman period. It was not till the year 181 6 that the British government agreed to purchase the Elgin Marbles, although they had then been in London for nine years. After the time of Canova the Italian sculpture sank into insignificance. The Greek School was meantime headed for northern Europe by the names of the English John Gibson and the German Dannecker. In both these artists Fig. 166.— Bronze Equestrian Statue of Frederick the Great. By Rauch. Berlin (1851). 258 Renaissance and Modern Art. we notice the deficiency of vigorous modeling peculiar to the imitative Greek School, Canova and Thorwaldsen in- cluded. The lack of differentiation in execution between details and bodily forms was also a weakness — a weakness never found in the antique art which was supposed to be imitated. An over-delicate finish of surface and refine- ment in representing textures have not been confined to the Greek .Revival, and still impair the value of a great deal of more recent sculpture, but this deficiency appears most objectionable when the pretense of idealism is suggested. We must concede, on the other hand, to the modern Greek Revival, nobility of purpose, refinement of thought, and an absence of those glaring offenses to good taste in the way of extravagant and pretentious poses and conceptions which had been the almost universal rule in late Renaissance sculpture. This point will appear if the reader will com- pare its illustrations with those for Thor- waldsen and Canova. On the whole, the German sculptors Ranch and Kiss repre- sent the highest level of success for the first half of the nineteenth century. Both of these artists had risen to independent mastery of form and independent rep- resentation of it. Rauch' s great monument of Frederick the Great in Berlin is the finest of its kind in Europe. The Amazon, by Kiss, fronting the entrance to the Berlin Museum, is one of the most powerful of modern works. Fig. 167. — Andromeda. Design for the Gates of Hell. (Dante's Inferno.} By Rodin. Photo- .sjraphed, by permission, for this work, at the Columbian Exposition. Sculpture in the Nineteenth Century. 259 In more recent years the credit of shaking off the tram- mels of imitative Grecianizing sculpture belongs especially to the artists of France, and in this movement the influence of the early Renaissance, as nearer to our own time than the Greek in its attitude toward nature, had no small share. Among these French artists we may mention Carpeaux, Fig. 168. — Cast of a Lion, by Barye. Trocadero Museum, Paris. FalguiSre, and the isolated and powerful genius of Rodin. For uncompromising realism, sense of character, and pow- erful and bold summary of the essentials of form (as dis- tinct from minute and over-anxious specializing of details) the French sculptor Barye has no superior in modern art. His devotion to the field of animal sculpture may be con- sidered a limitation when the element of thought in art is given its place, but this colossal genius was able to find a field in animals which did not expose him to the prejudices and preoccupations of modern amateurs so long accus- tomed in figure design to the imitation of classic art. The 26o Renaissance and Modern Art. name of Cain stands only second to Barye in the same field. Among the most powerful and original English sculptors of the new school are Hamo Thornycroft and Sir Frederick Leighton. Sir Frederick Leighton' s statue of ' ' The Slug- gard," exhibited at the Columbian Exposition, must have been a revelation to all who have known him simply as a painter. It ranks among the very first works of modern sculpture in the last four centuries. The same must be said of Thornycroft' s ' ' Teucer, ' ' which is one of the treasures of the Art Institute of Chicago, and one of the finest works of foreign sculpture owned in this country. It is not, how- ever, advisable to enlarge the catalogue of works even at the risk of omitting those of men of genius. The main point ,is to state the tendency which the last twenty-five years have everywhere exhibited — the tendency to learn principles of execution from the Greeks, without borrowing their subjects or imitating the exterior appearance of their art. Modern art for moderns, is the watchword at last. To this tendency the younger sculptors of America have been especially influenced by the teachings of the best French masters, and under the inspiration of this tuition have risen to a point of greatness where they have become their worthy rivals. In fact, when we distinguish the tech- nical ability in which the French have been especially eminent, from the thought, conception, and purpose of the art, the palm may even now be awarded to American sculpture. In this distinction we do not wish to imply any technical inferiority in the American School, but rather to refrain from asserting for it a superiority of simple execution and to claim for it by contrast the superiority of a more genuine, original spirit, and of a fresher and purer inspira- tion. We can only say that no opportunity has ever been offered modern sculpture like that assigned it in the statuary Sculpture in the Nineteenth Century. 261 for the buildings and grounds at the Columbian Exposition, and that American artists rose to ■ the occasion and were equal to it. Nor should we overlook in this assertion the foreign birth of some of the gentlemen who bore away great honors, or appear to be ignorant of their share in the great success achieved. We can at least lay claim to the honor that they have made America their second and adopted home, and that their genius found its recognition here. In the earlier years of this century and the earlier days of Ameri- can sculpture, the name of Hiram Powers long held sway as the leading one. To-day we must confess that our interest in him is historical and that he is the weakest of all Greek imitators who have achieved a name. That he was the first of American sculptors to make a name must be con- ceded. His ability did not go farther than that of making a weak imitation of the Medici \'enus, with deviations of pose and attitude sufficient to allow of a new baptism. His "Greek Slave," known in several copies, had a world-wide reputation about the middle of this Fig, 169. — Teucer, by Hamo Thomycroft. Prop- erty of the Art Institute of Chicag:o. Pho- tographed, by permission, for this worlc, at the Columbian Exposition. 262 Renaissance and Modern Art. century — when critics were less exacting than they are to-day. The names of Crawford (bronze doors of the Capitol at Washington) and Palmer, possibly less quoted than Hiram Powers, will stand far higher. In the days following the Civil War the statuette groups of John Rogers had a popularity which they have not yet entirely lost. They do not claim to be more than pictures in clay, but, making all concessions to the humility of size and purpose, we must still refrain from awarding praise to these groups. Deficiency in dignity should not alone condemn a small and unpretentious group or statuette, but these works are a dangerous concession to the taste which looks to the imita- tion of textures and the representation of anecdotes and incidents by plastic art. The statue of Lincoln, by Rogers, seen at the Columbian Exposition, is a serious and important work of the first class. To judge from this statue, his little groups have been one of those concessions of the bread- winner to popular taste, of which modern art is, unhappily, so full. It is useless to criticisean artist in such matters, where only the public is to blame. Toward the close of the third quarter of our century the names of Launt Thompson and J. Q. A. Ward were prob- ably the most important. The dignity, reserve, and sim- plicity of Thompson's work have been universally recog- nized. His portrait statues of Yale, at New Haven, and of Bonaparte, in the Museum of New York, will long hold their own. John Quincy Ward is the great father of recent American sculpture, and his bronze statue of Henry Ward Beecher, in Brooklyn, proves that his talent is still young in these later years. All of Ward's works are careful, exact, and conscientious studies. His Beecher is an in- spiration. We come then to the latest, best, and youngest gener- Fig. 170. — Bronze Group. Charles Dickens and Little Nell, by F. Edwin Elwell. Published by permission of the Artist. 264 Renaissance and Modern Art. ation of American sculptors, headed by Augustus St. Gaudens, Olin Warner, and Daniel C. French, names of such distinction that to praise them is superfluous and to criticise them impossible or impertinent. What younger artists will wrench their laurels from them is uncertain, but Potter, Partridge, and Boyle, Taft, Rubisso, and Mac- Monnies, Dalin, Proctor, and Kemeys, Adams, Kitson, and Donoghue, Tilden, Wesselhoeft, Bartlett, Grafly, and Elwell are among the number of their rivals. Of all modern por- trait statues of authors the ' ' Dickens and Lit- tle Nell" of Mr. Edwin F. Elwell appears to me the most inspired. The thought of con- necting an author with his favorite creation, of calling to life the phan- tom of the brain, of showing at once the author and his work in spiritual sympathy and union is an original and beautiful idea. Mr. Elwell' s colossal Hancock, designed for the battlefield of Gettysburg, is one of the most important equestrian monuments of modern history. Among the portrait statues of American Colonial heroes and statesmen there is surely none to rival the Hamilton of Wm. Ordway Partridge, in Brooklyn. As the ideal of an Fig, 171. — BronzeStatue of Henry Ward Beecher, Brooklyn. By J. Q. A. Ward. Fig. 172. — Bronze Statue of Hamilton, Brooklyn. By William Ordway Partridge. Published by permis.sion of the Artist. 266 Renaissance and Modern Art. orator it appears to me the most successful work in modern art. It is the great fortune of Mr. Partridge to have a practical knowledge of the art of the dramatist and of elocution. The combination in his Hamilton of statuesque reserve with the suggestion of the spirited effort of a great spokesman is a man^elous success. The Shakespeare of Mr. Partridge, in Lincoln Park, Chicago, is a refined and dignified work of masterly detail. In the preparations for the Columbian Exposition the su- FlG. 173. -Landscape Group, by E. C. Potter and Daniel C, French. Columbian Exposition. preme task was assigned to Mr. Daniel C. French — a colos- sal statue of the ' ' Republic. ' ' The failure would have been colossal, the success must be equally rated. With every increase of dimension in statuary its problem becomes more difficult. To say that this problem was solved with beauty, with originality, with simplicity, and with dignity, Sculpture in the Nineteenth Century. 267 is saying what no one can deny. For the given place and given architectural surroundings to which the equally balanced and equally uplifted arms exactly corresponded, this has proved the most suc- cessful colossal work of modern sculpture. Its most obvious rivals would be the "Lib- erty" of New York harbor, the "Bavaria" in Munich, by Schwan- thaler, and the "Her- mann's Denkmal," or monument of Ar- FlG. 174.— statue of the Republic. By Daniel C. French. minius, near Detmold in Germany, and none of these can be called its equal. Mr. French's relief for the tomb of a sculptor, called ' ' The Angel of Death and the Sculptor, ' ' was ex- hibited in the Art Pal- ace at the Columbian Exposition. Since the tomb reliefs of ancient Athens the works are few indeed which could compare with it. For the statuary groups of the Court of Honor, Mr. French and Mr. Potter have Fig. 175.— Sea Horses. Detail from the Fountain „i„_„ J _„„„; „ J „ 4-„:u by MacMonnies. Columbian Exposition. aireaay receiveaa triD- 268 Renaissance and Modern Art. ute of appreciation to which I can only add my own. No similar works of modern history are deserving of equal place, and I can see no reason for suggesting that antiquity sur- FiG. 176.— Mounted Indian, by Proctor. Facing the Transportation Building, Columbian Exposition. » passed them. It should be added that their material, al- though perishable, was contributory to this- success. The weakness of modern sculpture lies in its lack of constant practice with the chisel. The manual labor of cutting the block of marble has been so constantly assigned to subordi- nate workmen that the mastery of chisel technique is more or less wanting to the modern sculptor. It is when his own model can be directly transferred to cast in a material like ' ' staff, ' ' or actually worked up in this material, whose Sculpture in the Nineteenth Century. 269 rough surface is favorable to large effects, that the genius of the modern artist best stands comparison with his rivals of antiquity. In the application of statuary to architectural decoration the use of this material again allowed the artists of the Columbian Exposition to achieve a scale and amount of decoration hitherto unknown, at least since the time of the Romans, and again they were equal to the occasion. No works of the kind in modern art can be compared with those achieved by Mr. Carl Bitter and Mr. Martiny for the Ad- FiG. 177. — Aerial Navigation, by John J. Boyle. Transportation Building:, Columbian Exposition, ministration and Agricultural buildings. The works of Mr. Boyle and Mr. Taft on the Transportation and Horticul- tural buildings are also deserving of great praise. The 270 Renaissance and Modern Art. Indian of Mr. Boyle, in Lincoln Park, Chicago, is his great masterpiece. In our account of the artistic triumphs of the Columbian Exposition we have also to mention the masterly animal sculptures of Mr. Proctor and Mr. Kemeys with which the grounds were filled. The Buffalo Hunt of Mr. Bush-Brown, which was a central piece of the Art Palace, shows him a finished master in the same specialty. Men- tion of the great foun- tain of the Court of Honor, by Frederick MacMonnies, may close our effort to do justice to the almost inex- haustible list of master- pijeces offered by the Columbian Exposition. The sea-horses sur- rounding its ' 'triumph- al barge" have never had their superiors. The most generally quoted masterpiece of Augustus St. Gaudens is the bronze statue of Abraham Lincoln in Lincoln Park, Chicago. Fig. 178.— Bronze Statue of Abraham Lincoln. By Augustus St. Gaudens. Lincoln Park, Chicago. Its uncompromising and honest realism appeals to every eye. On the other hand, the reliefs of this master are of ideal and classic beauty. In fact it is hard to see where parallels can be found for the recent relief work of several American sculptors short of the fifteenth century. Several Sculpture in the Nineteenth Century. 271 of them are unquestionably superior to Thorwaldsen, as being of fresher and more genuine spirit and not deficient in equal beauty of composition. In the application of color to works of sculpture, Mr. Herbert Adams is foremost among American artists, as known to me. Since the time of John Gibson no im- portant work has previously been done in this direction. That of Mr. Adams is tender and beautiful. In face of such work the prejudice against colored sculpture is des- tined to disappear rapidly. CHAPTER XXXII. ENGLISH AND FRENCH PAINTING. Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. The painting of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries did not for Europe at large rise above a rather weak reflex of the contemporary movement in literature and in the sister arts. It threw off the last vestige of. eighteenth century traits, but did not rise above negative virtues in the main. It was praiseworthy rather for what it did not do than for what it did do. Its great progress was that it had learned to reverence the best Italians, rather than the worst — but the very greatness and unapproachable excellence of the newly admired and greatest Old Masters exercised for the time a crippling influence on its efforts. It could not resurrect the Italian art, and it could not assimilate it to modern uses. Modern painting was appreciative but not creative. The most important revival in the art of figure compo- sition was that of the German Cornelius (frescoes in Munich) and of Kaulbach (frescoes in the Berlin Museum), but neither these artists nor any of their contemporary countrymen were able to reach a corresponding success in warmth or harmony of color. The later artists of Munich, headed by Piloty, were the first among Germans to reach relative success in color. These again were followed by the first and only German who has approached the gorgeous and sumptuous color of the old Venetians, the Viennese Hans Makart. English and French Painting. 273 In France the elegant court life of the eighteenth century- had furnished interesting subjects for the brush of Watteau. At its close Greuze had represented a new school of realism, in which one side of the social revolution was reflected, Fig. 179. - Boy Fighting, by Gainsborough. Photographed for this work, by permission of the owner, Mr. Henry T. Chapman, of Broolclyn. while David represented the classical tendencies of the same period. The portraits of G6rard have handed down to us many of the great characters of this time in pictures worthy of them. Gros and G^ricault were later contemporaries of 274 Renaissance and Modern Art. David, in whom a vigorous sense of reality asserts itself, and to these again succeeded Eugene Delacroix, as the artist of passion and of power. Meantime a colder classical French School was apparently in the ascendant, clinging to tradition and fearing to con- cede the greatness of the true men of genius silently work- fh. Fig. iSo.— Landscape, by Diaz. Photographed for this worlc, by permission of the owner, Mr. Henry T. Chapman, of Brooklyn. ing in obscurity. To these, then more obscure French painters of the years 1 825-1 850 and later, posterity has now rendered full justice, and the names of Corot, of Millet, of Decamps, of Michel, and of Rousseau are on every lip. Of the same time, and following the same tendencies, are Dupr6, Troyon, Monticelli, and Diaz. The special bias English and French Painting. 275 and excellence of this great French School, dating from the second quarter of the nineteenth century, and the greatest of recent times, are best explained by turning back to Eng- FiG. 181.— Peasant Woman, by Millet. Photographed for this work, by permission of the owner, Mr. Henry T. Chapman, of Brooklyn. land in the eighteenth century, where we shall find the con- necting link between the older art of the Continent and the greatest modern art of France. 276 Renaissance and Modern Art. We have seen that England had no painters of renown until the eighteenth century, and that her two most quoted painters of preceding time were foreigners (p. 181). To her great artists of the eighteenth century, on the other hand, Continental Europe can offer no contemporary rivals; a fact which we can place in proper perspective of history Fig. 182.— Landscape, by Corot. Photographed for this work, by permission of the owner, Mr. Henry T. Chapman, of Brooklyn. only by understanding the backwardness of English culture before this time, and also the way in which a movement of in- tellect and art passes from one country to another; each fire, as it expires, lighting a new spark for perpetuation elsewhere of the same eternal principles of beauty, of color, and of form. English and French Painting. 277 The worthy perpe'tuators of the older traditions of Euro- pean painting were the English artists, Wilson, Morland, Reynolds, Gainsborough, and their school. Through these men and their successors, of whom Constable and Etty were closest in method to their great predecessors, these traditions were handed over to the French School, headed by Rous- seau, about 1830, at a time when English fashions were ascendant in France and when these English artists were highly valued and appreciated there. Intermediate in time, between the eighteenth century English and the 1830 School of France, stand the English landscape artists. Constable and Turner. It was the pictures and personal influence of Constable which most powerfully and directly influenced the French. It is more especially in landscapes that the continuity of influence between the art of Constable and of Rousseau is seen, and in both painters we find the same disposition to look at things in their effects and masses rather than in their details. To appreciate the greatness of these men of genius, we must remember that some of the most elementary principles are frequently overlooked by those inferior landscapists and their admirers, whose numbers have been large in our century. It is often forgotten that a picture is several or many thousand times smaller than the nature which it includes. To reduce each dimension and object of nature to the proportionate fractional size, and to show it in the same distinctness in which it might possibly, and when separately examined, be seen in nature, is the effort of the inferior landscapist. In this effort such an artist forgets that simultaneous concentration of the eye on a multitude of separate details is not possible in actual vision. Persuasion, belief, and knowledge that these separate 278 Renaissance and Modern Art. details have a distinct existence are present to us, but we see a tree and not the leaves, a lake, but not its individual waves, a human being, but not the various portions of the raiment, that is when one glance takes in the whole. The possibility exists, because time allows it, of uniting on a Fig. 183. — Landscape, by Claude Lorrain. Photographed for this work by permission of the Owner, Mr. Henry T. Chapman, of Brooklyn. canvas surface a series of minimized replicas of the parts which make up a whole in nature. The possibility exists, because the eye can take in the canvas in a few glances or in one, that the eye may take in the parts which make the picture-so as to affect the mind with the belief that it sees the whole as it is seen in nature. But the person who knows how he really sees will never be willing to call a work of art in landscape anything which minimizes and English and French Painting. 279 emphasizes all its details in fractional proportion and reduc- tion. In actuality our eye wanders from instant to instant in order to include a whole. The artist who presents this whole as though the eye were fixed on one point is bound, logically, to present all others in the vague way best described by the appearance of an object we are Tiot looking at, as included in the outer circle of view and as it strikes the outer corner of the eye on the extreme edge of vision. But no artist Fig. 184.— Landscape, by Homer Martin. Photographed for this work at the Columbian Exposition, by permission of the Artist. could attempt this feat; therefore the problem of the land- scape painter is to present in one view the imaginary result of a series of glances and no one of these will have included a microscopic catalogue of details. 28o Renaissance and Modern Art. This effort to describe the philosophy of a Claude, a Con- stable, or a Corot, leaves out the element of color, as being' mainly undebatable on paper or at least undebatable with- out two definite examples of color in mind, one better and one worse. We may again take refuge in this difficulty by describing an inferior art and an inferior taste in color as that which prefers things in pictures more highly colored, or ' ' sweet- ened," than they actually are. For instance, we might Fig. 185.— Maine Coast in Winter. Winslow Homer. Photographed for this work at the Columbian Exposition, by permission of the Artist and Owner. like to see bootblacks with rosy cheeks or clean faces, but we rarely do in nature, although they more frequently so appear in pictures. One greatness of Millet is that he does not over-color or highly color his peasant. A rough skin and a rough dress cannot be represented by clear -or bright colors. English and French Painting. 281 The sin of the commonplace painter is .dressing up in bright hues and tints an imaginary picture of rose-colored things or people. It does not follow that a color not actually seen in nature is not admissible in a painting. The colors of nature never can be and never are reproduced in a painting either in mass or in details. In details it would be absurd to attempt it, for reasons already given. In mass the effort is simply beyond possibility when we are speaking of absolute actualities. What the great painter does with his colors is to throw us into the state of mind or sentiment which the sight of nature produces on us, and here it is that the affinities of temperament, which are largely affected by the same colors in the same way, come in play in our preference for one colorist over another. It is at this point that the question of the ' ' low-toned picture' ' presents itself Although there are marked distinctions on this head among the French artists we have named, the ' ' low tone " is a general trait of their work. The ' ' low-toned picture ' ' appeals to a certain tempera- ment. This temperament is the temperament of Rem- brandt, of Ribot, or of Decamps, or of the American Albert Ryder. This temperament prefers a certain mys- tery of effect, a picture to which one can return without having seen the whole of it the first time it has been looked at. The painting of nature which lasts is the painting in which nature is not revealed too suddenly or too entirely. In other words, the mystery of nature, which in nature may lie in its magnitude, in its unfathomable space or incomputable variety or in our sense that we have seen it differently yesterday and shall again see it differently to- morrow, or the mystery of character or of an event or episode whose causes are unknown, uncomprehended or not thought out — all this may be suggested by the ' ' low- 282 Renaissance and Modern Art. toned picture ' ' of the given subject. Being a piece of canvas taken in by one glance, on which the same lines and colors lie forever, the picture can only suggest the element of the unknown or the infinite by this device. In all these points which I have tried to suggest as virtues of the greatest French artists of the nineteenth century or of the English School of the eighteenth century, we have applications of principles which are found as far back as Da Vinci, and which were never subsequently abandoned by the great painters of history. In such points lies the supreme excellence of the Old Masters, when they are con- sidered as painters rather than as historic illustrations of general historic facts. It is interesting to feel that between periods as distinct as the nineteenth century and the sixteenth, there is still a bond in the methods of the great artists, wide apart as is their mission and historic place. In fact, when we consider the deficiencies of patronage, of immediate appreciation, and of adequate reward which the greatest modern artists have labored under, their success and worth cannot be rated below that of their more fortunate brethren of the past — more fortunate as regards public support, an assured livelihood, and a subject matter which was ready-made and already at hand. In what I have said of the philosophy of vision, I have so far mainly confined myself to landscape because it is a class of subject in which the enormous disparity of size be- tween nature and copy is obvious, and in which the distinc- tion between the infinite variety of nature and the amount of that infinitude which can be suggested by a copy is also obvious. It is easiest to show and feel for landscape that some choice has to be made as to what shall be attempted, easiest to show and feel for landscape that the effect of the English and Fre^ich Painting. 283 whole is what must be attempted, and easiest to show and feel that this can be done only by presenting an object in mass or by presenting objects in masses, because the dimensions of the work of art are so greatly minimized as compared with the nature represented. From this point it is not difficult to move to another. Given the difficulty of relating art to this kind of nature, it is clear that a choice of a point of view in a picture must have much to do with its quality. The panoramic point of view is the one to be avoided; the picturesque, that is, the limited point of view, is the one to be sought. It also follows that atmosphere should be used for contrast, and not for the most important feature of the picture. It is according to these principles, and on account of them, that Claude, Constable, Rousseau and his school, almost in- variably show a foreground composition. Given a fore- ground composition, there again arises the problem of balance of opposition in objects, and of contrast in colors. Finally, the tone of the picture determines its standing. The gaudily colored picture tires and strains the eye, the low-toned picture rests it and also suggests more of the mystery of nature. Admitting the varieties of individual taste, of varieties of mood in the same taste, and the Count- less concessions which have to be made to individual genius and to the surrounding conditions, we may add one more and the most important trait. The one first condition of all great painting is an honest interest in the work or the theme for its own sake, without reference to mercantile considerations. The mercantile element ruins a painting. The instant we detect in it the quality of being made to sell as opposed to the quality which shows that the artist would rather starve than concede one point of his convictions or even of his own individual 284 Renaissance and Modern Art. preference in the choice of a subject, we have touched the first downward round of the ladder which leads to the cor- ruption of art. We will now return to the French School of 1 825-1 850 FP9«'-"^'''?«5^S®^'^7'-'^^^''™T''^;g;2*«^'7